SHARE THIS WITH YOUR FRIENDS, AS NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE IT AGAIN. Two Suns on 21thJune 2010

21^st June - the Whole World is waiting for.............

Star Aderoid will be the brightest in the sky, starting 10 June. It will look as large as the sun from naked eye. This will culminate on 21^stjune when the star comes within 34.65M miles of the earth. Be sure to watch the sky on june. 21 at 12:30 pm. It will look like the earth has 2 suns.!!
The next time Aderoid may come this close is in 2287

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Chile quake moved Earth's axis, shortened days: scientist

A gap in a road caused by Saturday's earthquake and the ensuing tsunami in Pulluhue, 320 km south of Santiago. The powerful earthquake that shook Chile on Saturday probably shifted the Earth's axis and made days slightly shorter, a NASA scientist said.


WASHINGTON (AFP) - – The powerful earthquake that shook Chile on Saturday probably shifted the Earth's axis and made days slightly shorter, a NASA scientist said.

Richard Gross, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, calculated that the planet's axis would have shifted by eight centimeters (three inches) during the 8.8 magnitude quake, NASA said in a statement.

Earth days are 24 hours long because that's the amount of time it takes the planet to make one full rotation on its axis, so shifting the axis would affect rotation.

If, indeed, the planet's axis did shift by eight centimeters during the Chilean quake, days would have shortened by 1.26 microseconds, Gross calculated.

A microsecond is one-millionth of a second, so no need to adjust watches just yet.

The Chilean quake shifted the Earth's axis by even more than the 9.1-magnitude temblor off Indonesia that set off the deadly tsunami in Asia in 2004, Gross worked out.

That's partly because the faultline responsible for the earthquake in Chile "dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004 Sumatran earthquake" and is more effective at moving Earth's mass vertically and shifting the planet's axis.

The 2004 quake in Asia caused the Earth to move by around seven centimeters and chopped an estimated 6.8 microseconds off the length of a day, NASA said.

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Apple CEO unveils the iPad

By JESSICA MINTZ and RACHEL METZ,AP Technology Writers - Thursday, January 28

SAN FRANCISCO – Apple Inc. will sell the newly unveiled tablet-style iPad starting at $499, a price tag far below the $1,000 that some analysts were expecting.

The iPad, which is larger in size but similar in design to Apple's popular iPhone, was billed by CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday as "so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smart phone."

Jobs, 54, a pancreatic cancer survivor who got a liver transplant during a 5 1/2-month medical leave last year, looked thin as he introduced the highly anticipated gadget, though he seemed to have more energy than he did at Apple's last event in September.
The iPad has a 9.7-inch touch screen, is a half-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds and comes with 16, 32 or 64 gigabytes of flash memory storage. It comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity built in. Jobs said the device has a battery that lasts 10 hours and can sit for a month on standby without needing a charge.

The basic iPad models will cost $499, $599 and $699, depending on the storage size, when it comes out worldwide in March.

Apple will also sell a version with data plans from AT&T Inc. in the U.S.: $14.99 per month for 250 megabytes of data, or $29.99 for unlimited usage. Neither will require a long-term service contract.

Those 3G iPad models will cost more _ $629, $729 and $829, depending on the amount of memory _ and will be out in April. International cellular data details have not yet been announced.

Apple had kept its "latest creation" tightly under wraps until Wednesday's unveiling, though many analysts had correctly speculated that it would be a one-piece tablet computer with a big touch screen, larger than an iPhone but smaller than a laptop.

Raven Zachary, a contributing analyst with mobile researchers The 451 Group, considered the iPad a laptop replacement, especially because Apple is also selling a dock with a built-in keyboard.

But Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said he doesn't believe the iPad added enough for consumers to justify buying yet another gadget, or to call this a new category of devices. In an e-mail, he criticized its lack of social features such as ways to share photos and home video and recommend books.

Sitting on stage in a cozy leather chair, Jobs demonstrated how the iPad is used for surfing the Web with Apple's Safari browser. The CEO typed an e-mail using an on-screen keyboard and flipped through photo albums by flicking his finger across the screen. He also showed off a new electronic book store and a book-reading interface that emulates the look of a paper book, putting the iPad in competition with Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle and other e-book readers.

Like iPods and the iPhone, the iPad can sync with Apple's Macintosh and Microsoft's Windows computers. Jobs said the iPad will also be better for playing games and watching video than either a laptop or a smart phone. Software coming with the iPad includes a calendar, maps, a video player and iPod software for playing music. All seem to have been slightly redesigned to take advantage of the iPad's bigger screen.

Tablet computers have existed for a decade, with little success. Jobs acknowledged Apple will have to work to convince consumers who already have smart phones and laptops that they need this gadget.

"In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks," Jobs said. "We think we've got the goods. We think we've done it."

Applications designed for the iPhone can run on the iPad. Apple is also releasing updated tools for software developers to help them build iPhone and iPad programs.

"We think it's going to be a whole 'nother gold rush for developers as they build applications for the iPad," said Scott Forstall, an iPhone software executive.

A new newspaper reader program from The New York Times and a game from Electronic Arts Inc. were also demonstrated during the event. The audience, which included many journalists and bloggers, clapped and even gave Jobs a standing ovation.

Shares in Apple rose $2.04, or 1 percent, to close Wednesday at $207.98. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company's shares have more than doubled over the past year, partly on anticipation of the tablet computer. Shares in Amazon rose $3.27, or 2.7 percent, to $122.75.

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Scientist: Alien life could already be on Earth

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER,Associated Press Writer - Wednesday, January 27

LONDON – For the past 50 years, scientists have scoured the skies for radio signals from beyond our planet, hoping for some sign of extraterrestrial life. But one physicist says there's no reason alien life couldn't already be lurking among us _ or maybe even in us.

Paul Davies, an award-winning Arizona State University physicist known for his popular science writing said Tuesday that life may have developed on Earth not once but several times.

Davies said the variant life forms _ most likely tiny microbes _ could still be hanging around "right under our noses _ or even in our noses."

"How do we know all life on Earth descended from a single origin?" he told a conference at London's prestigious Royal Society, which serves as Britain's academy of sciences. "We've just scratched the surface of the microbial world."

The idea that alien micro-organisms could be hiding out here on Earth has been discussed for a while, according to Jill Tarter, the director of the U.S. SETI project, which listens for signals from civilizations based around distant stars.
She said several of the scientists involved in the project were interested in pursuing the notion, which Davies earlier laid out in a 2007 article published in Scientific American in which he asked: "Are aliens among us?"

So far, there's no answer. And ever finding one would be fraught with difficulties, as Davies himself acknowledged.

Unusual organisms abound _ including chemical-eating bacteria which hide out deep in the ocean and organisms that thrive in boiling-hot springs _ but that doesn't mean they're different life forms entirely.

"How weird do they have to be suggest a second genesis as opposed to just an obscure branch of the family tree?" he said. Davies suggested that the only way to prove an organism wasn't "life as we know it" was if it were built using exotic elements which no other form of life had.

Such organisms have yet to be found. Davies also noted that less than 1 percent of all the world's bacteria had been comprehensively studied _ leaving plenty of time to find unusual organisms.

"You cannot tell just by looking that a microbe has some radically different inner chemistry," he said.

Davies' call for alien-hunting scientists to look to their own backyards came as one of the pioneers of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence told the conference the job of finding proof of alien life in outer space may be more difficult than previously thought.

Frank Drake, who conducted the first organized search for alien radio signals in 1960, said that the Earth _ which used to pump out a loud mess of radio waves, television signals and other radiation _ has been steadily getting quieter as its communications technology improves.

Drake cited the switch from analogue to digital television _ which uses a far weaker signal _ and the fact that much more communications traffic is now relayed by satellites and fiber optic cables, limiting its leakage into outer space.

"Very soon we will become very undetectable," he said. If similar processes were taking place in other technologically advanced societies, then the search for them "will be much more difficult than we imagined."

But Drake said scientists at SETI were excited by the possibility of using lasers to send super-bright flashes of light into space for a tiny fraction of a second. The flashes could theoretically be seen up by an advanced civilization up to 1,000 light years away, and Tarter said infrared versions of the devices could possibly send beams even further.

But Drake noted that the interstellar equivalent to turning a flashlight on and off only works if a prospective alien civilization wants to get in touch to begin with.

"For this to work ... There has to be altruism in the universe," he said.

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Respect Your Elders – Especially The Ripped Ones

When it comes to the question of how we treat our elders, there are different ideas and attitudes to be found all over the world. Some cultures – like the Japanese, for instance – emphasize the importance of respecting the elderly.

However, it probably doesn’t matter what culture you’re from if your elders look like Tsutomu Tosuka:


Tosuka, a 74-year-old Japanese bodybuilder, has been actively working out since he was 40, and the admirable results are pretty obvious. At the recent 21st Japan Masters Bodybuilding Championships in Tokyo, Tosuka defeated many other surprisingly muscular septuagenarians to triumph in the “Over 70” category.

“I love it when people approach me and say, ‘You look so young’ or ‘Wow sir, you sure look great,’” Tosuka explained, adding that looking young and great is “easy – anyone can stay young and healthy. Just exercise from time to time.”

Judging by his appearance, I think what Tosuka means by “from time to time” is probably more like “every single day.” Regardless of his exercise schedule, however, I doubt he has much of a problem winning respect with a body like that!

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Brain Waves Surge Moments Before Death

Oct. 6, 2009 - A study of seven terminally ill patients found identical surges in brain activity moments before death, providing what may be physiological evidence of "out of body" experiences reported by people who survive near-death ordeals.

Doctors at George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates recorded brain activity of people dying from critical illnesses, such as cancer or heart attacks.

Moments before death, the patients experienced a burst in brain wave activity, with the spikes occurring at the same time before death and at comparable intensity and duration.

Writing in the October issue of the Journal of Palliative Medicine, the doctors theorize that the brain surges may be tied to widely reported near-death experiences which typically involve spiritual or religious attributes.

At first, doctors thought the electrical surges picked up by electroencephalographs were caused by other machines or cell phones in the rooms of dying patients, lead author Lakhmir Chawla told Discovery News.

The EECs were being used to monitor patients' level of consciousness as doctors and families wrestle with end-of-life issues.

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Sperm Bank Hoax Was Fun While It Lasted

Any healthy, red-blooded male reader would have told you that the news, late last year, about the Shanghai Sperm Bank seemed almost too good to be true. And indeed, if the report was anything to go by, this was a medical facility with a real difference.

Apart from jabbing a pointy-ended tube into the crook of the elbow, there’s no way of actually coaxing blood out of a patient’s arm (at least if you’re trying to keep them alive).

Semen, of course, is a different story. Humankind has devoted millennia to researching the matter, and the techniques for encouraging the flow of this vital fluid have pretty much been perfected by now.

The photo that accompanied the sperm bank story depicted several attractive, squeaky clean, young females ably assisting patients with one such method. The uniformed gals went about their task with great diligence—which is just what you’d expect, considering how notoriously difficult the average man is to arouse.

By the way, the donors were fully suited up too, masks and all, presumably in the interest of hygiene. The article’s author completed the profile by providing the Shanghai Sperm Bank’s address, as well as helpful donor details: how often (4-5X/month), maximum allowed donations per visit (3), and pay rate (US$30/session).

Well, we hate to be the ones to break the shocking news, but the Shanghai Sperm Bank story has turned out to be a hoax! After receiving inquiries from interested—extremely interested, we’d guess—potential donors, an official at Renji Hospital, the facility’s actual home, scrambled to set the record straight.

“These pictures are completely misleading,” said Li Jin. “We never have female nurses assisting in sperm collection, which is done by the donor himself, alone in a special room.” The hospital claims to follow strict ethical guidelines, and reports that no complaints to the contrary have ever been received.

Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to tell us there’s no Santa Claus.

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Korean Women Spends 10 Million on Driving Tests

Cha Sa-Soon, an elderly South Korean woman, has inadvertently reaffirmed age-old jokes about female drivers by closing on a world record for most failed driver’s tests. The 68 year old pensioner from the Wanju county has failed the theory section 775 times.

Cha first tried out for the written exam in April 2005 and has faired miserably ever since.

Her scores always fell into the 30-50% range where the pass rate required a 60% score.

Since her first attempt, she has been showing up almost every weekday for the same exam for the past few years.

Applicants are charged 6,000 won for every attempt and the Driver’s License Agency in Cha’s district, where she has been setting this fail record, figures that the the sum total of all unsuccessful attempts probably add up to 4,000,000 won ($3,000).

They also state that additional expenses like transport costs probably raise this figure to 10,000,000 won ($6,800).


Ironically, hefty transport costs may have been the reason why Cha has not enrolled in a driving school to help her through her exams. As it happens, most of the driving schools were located in urban settings, far from Cha’s hometown.

Thus, she has opted to rely on guidebooks for the past few years.

However, Cha is undeterred by her failure and believes that practice makes perfect.

“I believe you can achieve your goal if you persistently pursue it,” she says. “So don’t give up your dream, like me. Be strong and do your best.”

Her ultimate dream is to purchase a truck so as to build a business based on a door-to-door sales endeavor. The current mode of transport for her goods is a handcart.

If and when Cha succeeds, she will then venture into the practical aspect of getting a license – driving an actual vehicle!

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Private Firms Preparing for Moon Flights

Sept. 21, 2009 - Lured by millions of dollars in prize money, teams of private firms aren't waiting for NASA to figure out if, when and how to get back to the moon. They're preparing to go themselves.

The first $1 million prize for demonstrating a lunar landing system is due to be awarded at the end of October. The front-runner is Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace, which this month made back-to-back flights of a vehicle named Scorpius.

Two other contenders plan to enter the NASA-backed competition before this year's cutoff on Oct. 31.

Contestants for the top prize are judged by how long their vehicles fly and how accurately they land on pads 60 meters apart, one of which is built on rock-strewn, pitted terrain intended to resemble the lunar surface.

Armadillo won an initial $350,000 prize for a demonstration flight last year, leaving $1.65 million for the competition's main leg and runners-up.

The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, with prizes totaling $2 million, is just the opening salvo to a second, richer competition to actually land on the moon.

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Paralyzed Rats Regain Their Footing

Sept. 21, 2009 - Paralyzed rats whose spinal cords had been severed from their brains were made to run again using a technique that scientists say can work for people, according to a study released Sunday.

Consistent electrical stimulation and drugs enabled the rats to walk on their hind legs on a treadmill - bearing the full weight of the body - within a week of being paralyzed.

With the addition of physical therapy, the rodents were able after several weeks to walk and run without stumbling for up to 30 minutes, reported the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Remarkably, the animals could adjust their movements in response to stimuli despite the lack of signals to and from the brain: when the treadmill was reversed, for example, the rats walked backwards.

"This means that the spinal network is almost capable of cognitive processing," explained Gregoire Courtine, a professor at Zurich University.

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Locust Wings Designed for Marathons

A new study may inspire aeronautical engineers to be more flexible with their designs. That's because the bends and twists in locusts' flexible, flapping wings power the insects' extraordinary long-distance flights, a Sept. 18 Science paper reveals.

Even though researchers have been studying how insects and other creatures fly for a long time, "we still don't completely understand the aerodynamics and architectures of wings," comments Tom Daniel of the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the new study. The new work, Daniel says, uncovers the flight signatures of flapping, flexible wings.

The research focuses on the flight of the pestilent locust, an insect renowned for its efficient flying style. If dragonflies are like fighter jets, then locusts are like continent-spanning 747s, says Adrian Thomas of the University of Oxford, coauthor of the new study. What locusts lack in agility, they make up for in distance: the four-winged insects are built to fly hundreds of miles at a time.

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Glove Lets You Write in Thin Air

A fingerless bike glove equipped with electrical sensors lets you write on thin air, according to new research.

The modified glove could not only allow for discreet, one-handed text messaging but also create an early warning system for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's.

"Handwriting consists of memory, knowledge, cognition and dexterity, and all these processes are simultaneously at work," said Michael Linderman, a neuroscientist and a co-author of the article published in the journal Public Library of Science One (PLoS).

"This process is very sensitive to the general state of the nervous system," and could help to identify potential neurodegenerative diseases earlier than existing techniques.

The researchers started with a fingerless bike glove and 17 electrically sensitive patches.

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Sharks Swarmed on Ancient Sea Monster

Sept. 17, 2009 - Remains of a shark-bitten, 85-million-year-old plesiosaur reveal that around seven sharks likely consumed the enormous dinosaur-era marine reptile in a feeding frenzy, leaving some of their shark teeth stuck in the plesiosaur's bones, according to a new study.

The findings, which will be presented at next week's 69th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, are the first direct evidence of the diet and feeding behavior of Cretalamna appendiculata, a now-extinct early relative of today's great white sharks.

The study, which has also been accepted for publication in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, further represents what lead author Kenshu Shimada describes as "arguably the most spectacular case of shark feeding on a vertebrate carcass reported to date."

Shimada is an associate professor at Chicago's DePaul University and research associate in paleontology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History. He and colleagues Takanobu Tsuihiji, Tamaki Sato and Yoshikazu Hasegawa analyzed the shark-decimated plesiosaur, Futabasaurus suzukii, which was unearthed in central Japan and then housed at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo.

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Late Ice Age remains found in cave

An archaeologist has revealed that skeletal remains from late Ice Age animals, including hyenas, deer and woolly rhinos, have been found in a cave.

The UK's first complete 'sagaie' - a spearpoint made of reindeer antler from the late Ice Age dating back 15,000 years - was also discovered during the two-week excavation at Kent's Cavern in Torquay, Devon.

The dig is part of a study into when and why Neanderthals became extinct. It was co-directed by Dr Paul Pettitt, senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Sheffield, and Dr Mark White from the department of archaeology at the University of Durham.

Some of the items from the privately-funded dig at the site, which is also an award-winning tourist attraction, are sent for radiocarbon dating to accurately check their age.

The hyena's teeth and bones could be older than 25,000 years, Dr Pettitt said.

The team hopes to find out when homeo sapiens arrived in the UK and whether it is connected to the death of Neanderthal man, along with more information on later Ice Age life in the cave.

Dr Pettitt and Dr White got Government permission for the dig because Kent's Cavern is a scheduled ancient monument and the oldest recognisable human dwelling in Britain.

Copyright © Press Association 2009

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Intersex Fish Numbers Swell in U.S. Rivers

Sept. 15, 2009 -- Male fish with female body parts have been showing up in our nation's rivers for a while now, but a new study found a surprising number of mixed-up fish.

From the Mississippi to the Rio Grande, from the Appalachia to the Colorado, researchers found large numbers of river fish with egg cells in their testes, particularly in two species: smallmouth and largemouth bass.

At some sites, more than 70 percent of males from these species were intersex, a condition that has been linked to lowered sperm production, trouble reproducing and other negative health consequences.

Scientists don't yet know what's causing the problem or whether intersex conditions are becoming more common in these bass. For now, the study is simply the first one to take a broad geographic look at how common intersex fish are in the United States.

"The occurrence was more widespread than we anticipated," said Jo Ellen Hinck, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Columbia, Mo. "When you have the majority of fish at a site showing up intersex, that's worrisome. We think that's enough reason to try to find out what's the cause of this and if it has implications for ecosystem health."

Hinck's study began in 1995 as an attempt to monitor fish health in response to "legacy" chemicals -- such as DDT, PCB's, pesticides and mercury. These contaminants get into rivers, where they linger long after they've been banned.

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Ripe Fruit May Inspire Mosquito Repellents

Fruit flies actually have a love-hate relationship with the smell of fruit. And a new insight into the chemistry of that attraction and repulsion could lead to novel repellents for other insects, researchers say.


Carbon dioxide is a known turn-off to fruit flies when it emanates from stressed peers. "Drosophila sniff CO2 and avoid it like crazy," says neurobiologist Anand Ray of the University of California, Riverside. But ripe fruit puffs out the gas and still attracts plenty of flies. In this case, compounds released by the fruit block the flies' CO2 receptors, Ray and Riverside colleague Stephanie Turner report online August 26 in Nature.

Mosquitos, in contrast, outright love CO2. They hunt down blood meals by following plumes of the exhaled gas. But as in fruit flies, a fruit compound can jam CO2 receptors in the notorious mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus, the researchers say. This species spreads West Nile fever and the parasites that cause the huge limb swellings of the tropical disease filariasis. Ray proposes that compounds that could keep the mosquito detectors from sensing those plumes might render people hard to find. With a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he's starting to test the strategy.

In fruit flies, the aversion to CO2 turned up when researchers shook the insects or zapped them with a little electric shock. The stressed flies released an odor with CO2 as a key component, and unharmed flies fled from that odor.

"There was this paradox," Ray says. The same fruit flies that avoid stressed flies and even unripe CO2-exhaling fruit, crowd around ripe fruit as well as other strong CO2 sources such as beer.

To study the contradiction, Ray and Turner turned to the sensory detectors on the insects' antennae. "Each antenna is shaped like a strawberry, with hundreds of tiny hairs on it," Ray says. Inserting minute electrodes into pores on some of the hairs let the researchers check for activity in a neuron bearing the the specialized receptor known to detect CO2. The researchers monitored that activity while releasing both fruit odors and CO2. Two of the fruit odors strongly reduced the neuron's reaction to CO2.

Those two inhibitor molecules, 1-hexanol and 2,3-butanedione, were quite a surprise, Ray says. "They do not look anything like CO2."

Yet he and Turner note that earlier studies show that as bananas ripen, concentrations of 1-hexanol increase by 777 percent and 2,3-butanedione by 4,900 percent.

To see whether the inhibitors indeed act on the receptor, "we took the awesome power of fly genetics," Ray says, and put the receptor protein in a neuron that normally has nothing to do with CO2 detection. Isolated in this alien neuron, the receptor still jammed when the inhibitors wafted by.

Mosquito neurons responded to one of the inhibitors, 1-hexanol. The 2,3-butanedione didn't produce much of a reaction but a closely related compound, 1-butanal, did, Ray and Turner found.

The new paper looks like a significant contribution toward developing new controls for disease-spreading insects, says neuroethologist Pablo Guerenstein of the Argentine National Research Council in Diamante and Entre Rios National University in Oro Verde, Argentina. Now, Guerenstein says, he wants to know more about the results' biological significance, such as whether the inhibitors affect the way insects perceive CO2 in the natural blend of odors from a fruit. Also, he points out that the inhibitory 1-hexanol appears in some vertebrate odors, and he would like to know about its role there.

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Robofish Takes To Water

Aug. 28, 2009 -- A school of small, robotic fish has been developed by MIT scientists. Made with a only handful of parts and a blend of polymers, the fish wiggle their way through water like trout and tuna.

These new robofish could be equipped with sensors to monitor oil spills or other environmental contaminants.


"The interesting aspect of this research is that we are the first group to tailor different polymers in different parts of the body with different dampening and stiffness properties," said Kamal Youcef-Toumi, a scientist at MIT who, along with Pablo Vildivia Y Alvarado, is developing the robofish.

"We are also looking at using the natural motion and behavior of the fish and replicating those motions," said Youcef-Toumi.

The 18 new robofish have advanced significantly since the original Robotuna was created at MIT in 1994. Robotuna had more than 2,000 parts, including six motors, encased in its four-foot body.

These new models have less than 10 parts, including one motor, and are between five and eight inches long.

Youcef-Youmi and Vildivia Y Alvarado began developing the five-inch robofish four years ago, modeling their movements on freshwater fish like trout and bass. These small fish swim mostly by moving the tail, while the rest of the body remains motionless.

The most recent robofish are eight inches long and modeled to swim like salt water tuna. Instead of wiggling just the tail, tuna swim by moving their body as well, undulating back and forth to swim faster than trout or bass.

Whatever the length or swimming method, all the robofish are encased in a special blend of molded polymers. The body of the fish is one single piece of material, but each section of the body has a different stiffness, allowing the motion of one actuator to move through the robofish's entire body, propelling it forward.

One actuator allows for limited movement, basically forward and side to side. To move up and down and more complex movements will require two additional actuators be installed.

The unibody construction also protects the electrical and mechanical parts inside the robot; some robofish have been swimming for more than four years.

The robofish might mimic real fish, but they can't compete in terms of speed. The maximum speed of the robofish is less than one body length per second. Some fish can swim up to 10 body lengths per second.

Movement requires energy, and the robofish currently get their power from an attached power cable. Batteries could be installed to power robofish remotely in streams and bays, where they could be equipped with sensors to detect pollution or cameras to study animals that would be disturbed by the noise caused by propellers.

Fish aren't the only underwater creatures the MIT robotics team is studying. During the next few weeks, MIT scientists plan to test robotic salamanders and robotic manta rays.

Whatever type of robot is being created, "the underwater environment is the most difficult environment for robotics," said Huosheng Hu, a professor of computer science and electronic engineering at the University of Essex. Hu has built his own realistic robotic fish which was on display at the London Aquarium.

Hu likes the new unibody robofish, but doesn't think that the new robofish have any particular new advantage in terms of three dimensional swimming, or at least won't until the additional actuators are installed.

Despite the current limitations of robofish, human engineers will continue to chase natural fish in terms of speed, maneuverability and endurance.

"We still have a long way to go to achieving the same performance as real fish," said Hu.

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Bacteria Desalinate Water, Generate Power

Aug. 25, 2009 -- Bacteria can be used to turn dirty salt water into electricity and drinkable water, according to new research from scientists at Penn State University and Tsinghua University.

The research presents a new spin on microbial fuel cells, which have been used in the past to produce electricity or store it as hydrogen or methane gas.

"The idea of a microbial fuel cell is based on taking organic waste and turning it into a source of energy," said Bruce Logan, a scientist at Penn State and co-author of a paper in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

"In this newest discovery, we figured we would desalinate water by modifying the electricity generated by the bacteria."

The researchers start with a cup full of water from a pond or other natural source. Among the millions of microbes in the sample, some of the bacteria (scientists haven't identified the specific species) will naturally produce electrons and protons inside their cells and transport them outside themselves.

Other bacteria scavenge those free electrons and protons and use them as fuel to create hydrogen, methane or other chemicals, which can serve as energy sources.

Using only two thin pieces of plastic, the researchers have discovered the key to harnessing the power of these microbes. The membrane created by the Penn State scientists can draw away the electrons, ions or gases created by the microbes, towards an anode or a cathode, which are positively and negatively charged electrodes.

Anode, cathode and membranes are all encased within a clear plastic case about the size of a small tissue box. Add a cupful of pond water between the two membranes, and the bacteria start their jobs. The entire process leaves almost pure -- about 90 percent -- water behind.

The exact purity of the water can be changed depending on the needs of the scientists or the desalination industry, if the process is scaled up commercially. These microbial fuel cells can create pure, drinkable water. It may also remove most of the salt from water to make conventional purification methods cheaper by reducing the amount of electricity necessary.

Whatever the resulting salinity, "this is the first time that any one has used a microbial fuel cell for desalination," said Hong Liu, a scientist at Oregon State University also developing microbial fuel cells.

"(Using this approach) you basically need zero power input, and it could even produce energy if you use organic material as the input," said Liu.

For now, microbial fuel cells, whether they desalinate water, generate electricity or create hydrogen, methane or other gases, are limited to small-scale laboratory devices. That will change next month, however, when Logan and his colleagues install a larger microbial fuel cell to turn waste water from a Napa Valley winery into hydrogen gas.

"This project is just a demonstration for now," said Logan. "But ultimately (the winery) could use the power generated by the microbial fuel cell to power cars, forklifts or other vehicles."

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Watermelons 'could be used as fuel'

Researchers in the US believe that watermelons may provide an unlikely source of renewable energy.

A study has revealed that ethanol biofuel can be fermented from the juice of "reject" watermelons that go unsold.

Scientists say the fruit could generate fuel at the rate of 220 litres per hectare, or 2.5 acres.

Dr Wayne Fish, from the US Department of Agriculture, said: "About 20% of each annual watermelon crop is left in the field because of surface blemishes or because they are misshapen.

"We've shown that the juice of these melons is a source of readily fermentable sugars, representing a heretofore untapped feedstock for ethanol biofuel production."

Writing in the online journal Biotechnology for Biofuels, researchers say watermelon juice could also be a useful source of the two health supplement "nutri-chemicals" lycopene and L-citrulline.

Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant while L-citrulline improves blood flow.

Copyright © Press Association 2009

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Canon G11: better, stronger, faster

The Canon G11 sports a 5x optical zoom that's 2 stops faster than the G10.

Canon has announced the latest in the “G” series, the Powershot G11, which sports a larger, 5x zoom len (28-140mm 35mm equivalent) which is 2 stops faster, a 10MP CCD (backing down from 14MP in the G10) with better low light performance thanks to an upgraded anti-noise sytem, and a 2.8 inch viable angle color LCD. Can we call it the bionic cam?


In addition to an upgraded CCD and faster, longer zoom lens, the G11 has all the typical features expected from the G series including RAW support, full manual options, mode dials for exposure compensation and ISO adjustment, and the ability to use an external Speedlight flash or underwater housing.
The Canon G11 sports a new viable angle LCD screen.

The Canon G11 sports a new viable angle LCD screen.

The G9 was a popular backup camera for professionals looking for a shirt pocket option where a full DSLR rig was either impractical or unexpected. The G11 gives them faster exposure options, and while the larger vari angle LCD gives great room, Canon still managed to hang onto the classic viewfinder for those who enjoy shooting “old school.” And with the noise limiting technology and faster lens, Canon shows it can think outside the box when it comes to increasing megapixel capacity, but without allowing noise to creep in at higher ISOs or in low light.

The Powershot G11 will be available this October for an MSRP of about $500.

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