Calcium supplements boost heart-attack risk: Meta-analysis
http://www.theheart.org/article/1108009.do

(not calcium in foods, but in supplements only)

Not much we can do about rising sea levels:

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/1008....2010.426.html

Richest Planetary System Discovered With 7 Planets

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1035/

I like the implication that there will be absolutely no news in philosophy.

"Is the sun emitting a mystery particle?"

Reports of radioactive decay rates varying with the seasons and sun flares.

Can this be right? Seems like it would be a huge story unless there's some simple explanation they aren't mentioning in the article.

MSNBC Story

PairTheBoard

Flies driving Lego cars, may our future insect overlords have mercy on us.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/28/c...-avatar-style/

not an article, but this is really cool:
http://share.seadragon.com/demos/Chr...eneration.html (requires microsoft silverlight )


also, it reminded me of this:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347 , which I know i've seen posted in SMP recently, but not sure where.

... New species found around Mekong River

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wil...ong-River.html
(oxford comma added by yours truly)

yoctometers ftw!

Although I'm a big fan of the femtometer.

A friend at work told me about this, it will be or may already be installed on some vehicles:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1013083307.htm


Portion of the above linked article is below:


Science News Eyetracker Warns Against Momentary Driver Drowsiness

ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2010) — Car drivers must be able to react quickly to hazards on the road at all times. Dashboard-mounted cameras help keep drivers alert. At the VISION trade fair in Stuttgart, researchers are presenting this system from November 9-11, 2010.


Those who do a lot of driving know how tiring long car trips and night driving can be. And a simple fraction of a second can decide the difference between life and death. According to the German Road Safety Council e.V. (DVR), one in four highway traffic fatalities is the result of momentary driver drowsiness. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Ilmenau, Germany, have developed an assistant system that tracks a driver's eye movements and issues a warning before the driver has an opportunity to nod off to sleep.

The special feature of the Eyetracker is that it can be installed in any model of car. There is no need for a complicated calibration of the cameras........

If the camera modules detect that the eye is closed for longer than a user-defined interval, it sounds an alarm. When used as a driver-assistance system, there can be four or even six cameras keeping watch over the driver's eyes. The cameras evaluate up to 200 images per second to identify the line of vision, even when a driver's head moves to the left or right. Yet the Eyetracker is only roughly half the size of a matchbox and practically undetected when mounted behind the sun visor and in the dashboard. The tiny lenses are just three to four millimeters in diameter.

There are a host of applications for the Eyetracker. In medicine, the camera system can assist with eye operations by registering a patient's every eye movement. With this technology, players of computer games can also look around themselves, without requiring a joystick to change their viewing direction. It is also a valuable tool for marketing and advertising researchers with an interest in determining which parts of a poster or advertising spot receive longer attention from their viewers.
__________________________________________________ ___________

Giant gamma-ray emitting bubbles discovered in center of Milky Way

http://www.examiner.com/science-in-p...r-of-milky-way

CERN:Antimatter Atoms Stored for the First Time

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1117141523.htm

Very cool. Nice to see americans can still do science.

over/under on these guys winning Nobel Prize?

NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. PST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/new...0/M10-110.html

anyone knows what this could be about?

Was there a doubt?

NASA'S Kepler Mission Discovers Its First Rocky Planet

NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/...ky_planet.html

The Fermi telescope has detected anitimatter (positrons), which were produced by a gamma ray flash, which in turn was caused by a thunder storm.

Link here.

Came here to post this. Would like to hear others thoughts on if this is anything significant or it is being blown out of proportion?

Largest planet in the solar system could be about to be discovered - and it's up to four times the size of Jupiter

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:52 AM on 14th February 2011

Scientists believe they may have found a new planet in the far reaches of the solar system, up to four times the mass of Jupiter.

Its orbit would be thousands of times further from the Sun than the Earth's - which could explain why it has so far remained undiscovered.

Data which could prove the existence of Tyche, a gas giant in the outer Oort Cloud, is set to be released later this year - although some believe proof has already been garnered by Nasa with its pace telescope, Wise, and is waiting to be pored over.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ar-system.html

Mouse library set to be knockout

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/1106...l/474262a.html

Black Hole Caught Eating a Star, Gamma-Ray Flash Hints:


From National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...space-science/


Protion of article below:

__________________________________________________ ____________

Andrew Fazekas

for National Geographic News

Published June 16, 2011


A huge "belch" of radiation from a supermassive black hole indicates that the cosmic monster recently devoured a star, scientists say.

Earlier this year astronomers spied a burst of high-energy gamma rays emanating from the center of a dwarf galaxy 3.8 billion light-years away. The odd flash, dubbed Sw 1644+57, is one is the brightest and longest gamma ray bursts (GRBs) yet seen.

In visible light and infrared wavelengths, the burst is as bright as a hundred billion suns. (Related: "Ultrabright Gamma-ray Burst 'Blinded' NASA Telescope.")

"We believe this explosive event was caused by a supermassive black hole ten million times the mass of the sun shredding a star that got too close to its gravitational pull," said study leader Joshua Bloom, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley.

"The mass of the star fell into the black hole, but along the way it heated up and produced a burst of energy in the form of a powerful jet of radiation, [which] we were able to detect through space-based observatories."

__________________________________________________ ______________

Giant Storm on Saturn as recorded by Cassini spacecraft

NASA link:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ca...i20110706.html


Storm shown overtaking itself on Saturn:




-Zeno

Potential evidence of the multiverse has apparently been found in the CMB background radiation. Other universes "near" ours may have left a charactersitic pattern in the background radiation.

News article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14372387

Abstract of article:
http://prd.aps.org/accepted/D/83079Q...11a2083788d205