MACH 20

On By A.P.In Space and TimeLeave a comment

DARPA’s goal is to create an aircraft capable of reaching any target in the world in less than an hour.

The triangular wedge of zoom known as HTV-2 is capable of reaching Mach 20 – approximately 13,000 miles per hour – according to DARPA. At such speeds in Earth’s atmosphere, friction subjects the vehicle to temperatures of more than 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

As DARPA said on the HTV-2 site, at that speed “air doesn’t travel around you – you rip it apart.”

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/11/new-york-to-la-in-less-than-12-minutes/?&hpt=hp_c2

Adddicted To Tanning

On By A.P.In AddictionLeave a comment

 Tanning beds might be just as addictive to certain people as drugs and alcohol.

A new study, conducted by University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center researcher Bryon Adinoff, showed that an addictive “reward-and-reinforcement” reaction is stimulated in the brains of people who consider themselves frequent tanners.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/11/tanning-beds-addictive-drugs-booze-alcohol_n_924481.html

Thanks to Mrs. L for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

Feeling Bitter Can Ruin Your Health

On By A.P.In HealthLeave a comment

 

Feeling bitter interferes with the body’s hormonal and immune systems. Studies have shown that bitter, angry people have higher blood pressure and heart rate and are more likely to die of heart disease and other illnesses.

Physiologically, when we feel negatively towards someone, our bodies instinctively prepare to fight that person, which leads to changes such as an increase in blood pressure.

Feeling this way in the short term might not be dangerous — it might even be helpful to fight off an enemy — but the problem with bitterness is that it goes on and on. When our bodies are constantly primed to fight someone, the increase in blood pressure and in chemicals such as C-reactive protein eventually take a toll on the heart and other parts of the body.

Some data suggest that negative mental states cause heart problems with equal magnitude as smoking.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/17/bitter.resentful.ep/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

New Computer Chip Mimics the Human Brain

On By A.P.In Science, Technology, The Brain, The SingularityLeave a comment

“Imagine traffic lights that can integrate sights, sounds and smells and flag unsafe intersections before disaster happens,” said Dharmendra Modha, the project leader for IBM Research. “Or imagine cognitive co-processors that turn servers, laptops, tablets and phones into machines that can interact better with their environments.”

IBM on Thursday announced it has created a chip designed to imitate the human brain’s ability to understand its surroundings, act on things that happen around it and make sense of complex data.

Instead of requiring the type of programming that computers have needed for the past half-century, the experimental chip will let a new generation of computers, called “cognitive computers,” learn through their experiences and form their own theories about what those experiences mean.

The chips revealed Thursday are a step in a project called SyNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics). The two chip prototypes are a step toward letting computers “reason” instead of reacting solely based on data that has been pre-programmed, IBM says.

read more here:  http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/08/18/ibm.brain.chip/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391320,00.asp

 

Chinese Couple Sells Their Children for Online Gaming

On By A.P.In Crime, gamesLeave a comment

Chinese couple Li Lin and Li Juan has been apprehended by authorities after, yes, selling their three children to pay for online games.

The couple, who reportedly met at an internet cafe in 2007, bonded over their love for online gaming, and a year later had their first child, a baby boy. In 2009 they “welcomed” their second child, a baby girl, shortly thereafter deciding to sell her to support their online gaming habit. They did so, and earned RMB 3,000 — a little under $500 — later selling their firstborn child for ten times that, at RMB 30,000 (about $4600). They later had another baby boy, and sold him at the same price.

Upon their arrest, the couple claimed that they were unaware that it was illegal to sell their children for throwaway gaming funds. When asked if they’d miss their children, they responded, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/221445/chinese-couple-sells-their-kids-for-online-gaming-money/

Kenneth Ray Manis

On By A.P.In FuneralsLeave a comment

Kenneth Ray Manis’s wife demanded that his body be dug back up after she discovered he had been buried with the wrong set of false teeth.
 
She said “My husband is lying in his grave with this other man’s teeth and I just couldn’t let it be that way.  I knew my husband wouldn’t want it that way.”
 
She said: ‘I don’t know about the other gentleman, he doesn’t want the teeth back, but I know my husband is going to be resting a lot easier and so is our family.’
 

New Urine Test for Prostate Cancer

On By A.P.In Health, Prostate CancerLeave a comment

Prostate cancer screening may become significantly better with the use of a urine test, according to a new study just published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Prostate cancer screening is currently based on a blood test to detect PSA — prostate-specific antigen. But that test often produces false positives and leads to unnecessary biopsies. More than a million men in the U.S. undergo a prostate biopsy each year, and fewer than half of the patients actually have prostate cancer.

The new test appears to be better at detecting prostate cancer and determining which cancers will be aggressive.

Billy Joe Madden

On By A.P.In CrimeLeave a comment

The Louisiana State Police said troopers arrested a Hattiesburg man after he let his 8-year-old son drive on Interstate 12 near Holden. State police said they received a call shortly after 6:30 a.m. Saturday about a green Chevrolet pickup truck driving erratically on the interstate in Livingston Parish. The caller told police that a child appeared to be the driver of the pickup. Troopers located and stopped the vehicle, and they said a boy was driving the truck while his father, Billy Joe Madden, 28, slept in the passenger seat. 

Police said that Madden’s 4-year-old daughter was riding in the backseat. 

After interviewing Madden, troopers said they found out that he was intoxicated, and he fell asleep while his son drove from Hattiesburg to Dallas.

Read more: http://www.wdsu.com/news/28716507/detail.html#ixzz1Te1GIWmL

Dieting Makes Some Brain Cells Eat Themselves

On By A.P.In Food, Health, Science, The BrainLeave a comment

A report in the August issue of the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism might help to explain why it’s so frustratingly difficult to stick to a diet. When we don’t eat, hunger-inducing neurons in the brain start eating bits of themselves. That act of self-cannibalism turns up a hunger signal to prompt eating.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110802125546.htm

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/191628/20110803/brain-cells-to-blame-for-failed-diets.htm

TrES-2b: Astronomers Discover Darkest Known Planet in the Universe

On By A.P.In Space and TimeLeave a comment

Astronomers using data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft have discovered a Jupiter-sized gas giant believed to be the darkest planet in the galaxy.

The planet — named TrES-2b — is located 750 light years away in the direction of the constellation Draco, and according to lead author David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, it is indeed a remarkable find.

“TrES-2b is considerably less reflective than black acrylic paint, so it’s truly an alien world,” Kipping said in a statement.

Unlike planets in our solar system, TrES-2b lacks reflective clouds due to its extreme heat, a condition which researchers believe explains the planet’s extraordinary darkness. The clouds that surround Jupiter, for example, reflect over a third of the sunlight in their path.

A few more details from the press release:

TrES-2b orbits its star at a distance of only three million miles. The star’s intense light heats TrES-2b to a temperature of more than 1,800° Fahrenheit – much too hot for ammonia clouds. Instead, its exotic atmosphere contains light-absorbing chemicals like vaporized sodium and potassium, or gaseous titanium oxide. Yet none of these chemicals fully explain the extreme blackness of TrES-2b.

According to Space.com, the discovery “reinforces the idea that our solar system may not be as typical as we once thought, with an extraordinary variety of worlds potentially filling our galaxy.”

And while the planet is indeed really, really dark, it’s not a complete blackout.

“It’s not clear what is responsible for making this planet so extraordinarily dark,” co-author David Spiegel added. “However, it’s not completely pitch black. It’s so hot that it emits a faint red glow, much like a burning ember or the coils on an electric stove.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/12/tres-2b-darkest-exoplanet_n_925562.html