Wired posted this video on YouTube. It is an animated promotional video from defense contractor BAE Systems that shows off the company's ideas for creating "Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology." The tiny robots resemble bugs like spiders or dragonflies and they can be used to swarm the enemy. In the video the bugs don't kill the terrorists but they do sneak up on the terrorists and relay information back video to soldiers waiting nearby so they can call in a military strike on the the building the terrorists are hiding in. Wired says the the Army paid BAE Systems $38 million to "head up a consortium of researchers into the next-gen mini-drones."
This puffer fish in a river delta in Tanzania, Africa manages to avoid being made into a snack by a river otter. The puffer fish inflates itself into a beach ball sized version of itself. The otter eventually gives up and swims off - a good thing for the otter because the puffer fish has a poisonous gall bladder.
PETA is offering a $1 million prize to the first contest participant able to create in vitro chicken meat and sell it to the public by June 30, 2012. The contestant must do both of the following:
Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike.
Manufacture the approved product in large enough quantities to be sold commercially, and successfully sell it at a competitive price in at least 10 states.
Judging of taste and texture will be performed by a panel of 10 PETA judges, who will sample the in vitro chicken prepared using a fried "chicken" recipe from VegCooking.com. The in vitro chicken must get a score of at least 80 when evaluated in order to win the prize.
Slate reports that the idea has created quite a stir even in PETA's own office.
If this idea repels you as a carnivore, imagine how it feels to a vegetarian. PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk tells the New York Times that the prize offer caused "a near civil war in our office" and that "we will have members leave us over this." Newkirk observes, "In any social cause community, there are people who strive for purity."
This contest may or may not lead to tasty lab-grown chicken meat but it is getting many journalists to think and write about the issue. Articles have appeared in U.S. News, The Star, The Atlantic, L.A. Times, Time and even Pork magazine.
Every octopus romance resembles a Shakespearean tragedy. A new study has found that octopuses have a complex love life that includes courtship, hand holding, jealousy and even murder.
The study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, who journeyed off the coast of Indonesia found that wild octopuses are far from the shy, unromantic loners their captive brethren appear to be.
The scientists watched the Abdopus aculeatus octopus, which are the size of an orange, for several weeks and published their findings recently in the journal Marine Biology.
They witnessed picky, macho males carefully select a mate, then guard their newly domesticated digs so jealously they would occasionally use their 8-to-10-inch tentacles to strangle a romantic rival.
The researchers also observed smaller "sneaker" male octopuses put on feminine airs, such as swimming girlishly near the bottom and keeping their male brown stripes hidden in order to win unsuspecting conquests.
Al Gore Gives Updated Climate Change Slidehow at TED
Here is Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (which premiered here on TED.com). In the slideshow Al Gore presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting. In the presentation Gore briefs the audience on the latest climate change data that shows a worsening problem. The data shows that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting. Al Gore also compares the climates of Earth and Venus and explains the Greenhouse effect.
Pygmy seahorses look very much like the gorgonian coral they live their entire lives on. These tiny seahorses are only 2 centimeters long. Here's a video clip from National Geographic that shares a little more information about these small but fascinating creatures. The seahorses in the video clip are a reddish color but the Wikipedia entry says there is also a yellow species of pygmy seahorse.
The Wall Street Journal's Matthew Rose reports in the video below that bamboo has become a huge problem in Hillsboro, Virginia. A type of bamboo called running bamboo can be as problematic as kudzu. It grows extremely quickly and spread rapidly.
Earth Hour 2008 is expanding from 2007 when Sydney went black for one hour to promote the idea of easing the pressure on the Earth's energy resources. You can also visit the website for Earth Hour 2008 here and the here.
Reuters reports in the video below that archaeologists have discovered bones, fossils and stone tools from the earliest known humans, or hominids, in Europe.
Archaeologists have discovered evidence that humans were active in Europe about 1 million years ago but they had never found any human remains - until now.
The light from an exploding star trillions of miles was recently observed by astronomers. The huge star that exploded was estimated to be 150 times as massive as the Sun.
A gargantuan explosion ripped apart a star perhaps 150 times more massive than our sun in a relatively nearby galaxy in the most powerful and brightest supernova ever observed, astronomers said on Monday.
And there is one such star in our own Milky Way galaxy that appears to be on the brink of dying in just such a supernova.
The exploding star's dramatic death may have come in a rare type of supernova reserved for "freakishly massive" stars that astronomers had speculated about but never previously witnessed.
The supernova, designated as SN 2006gy, occurred 240 million light years away in a galaxy called NGC 1260, and was studied using observations from NASA's orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory as well as earthbound optical telescopes.
It was the brightest supernova ever observed by Chanda. This video shows how Chandra observes an exploding star.
This AP video tells the amazing story of a dolphin named Moko who rescued two straned whales. A group of scientists failed to rescue two pygmy sperm whales stranded on the sand bar of a New Zealand beach. Moko, a dolphin known locally, dolphin quickly came to the rescue and communicated with the whales and guided them safely to deeper waters. The dolphin then returned to the coastline to play with children swimming. There is also an article about Moko's whale rescue here.
Arthur C. Clarke has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90. Clarke was best known for his work 2001: A Space Odyssey which was written as both a book and a screenplay simultaneously. Clarke also authored hundreds of other books and short stories during his lifetime. The UK Fantastic Fiction site has a lengthy list here. Arthur C. Clarke is also known for his three laws of prediction.
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
You can view a photo gallery of Arthur C. Clarke here on Yahoo News.
One of the many things we should not forget about Arthur C. Clarke is his opinion of how important the space program is:
Arthur C. Clarke: The inspirational value of the space program is probably of far greater importance to education than any input of dollars... A whole generation is growing up which has been attracted to the hard disciplines of science and engineering by the romance of space.
New Scientistreports that gadget developers at Ambient Corporation have invented a neckband called the Audeo that allows the wearer to send voiceless phone calls controlled by neurological signals. The wearer can control nerve signals that go to the device and are then transfered by the neckband in the form of a computerized voice. Currently only about 150 words and phrases can be used on the device but New Scientist says Ambient's goal is to make it so complete sentences using any words or phrases can be delivered in silence.
With careful training a person can send nerve signals to their vocal cords without making a sound. These signals are picked up by the neckband and relayed wirelessly to a computer that converts them into words spoken by a computerised voice.
A video (right) shows the system being used to place the first public voiceless phone call on stage at a recent conference held by microchip manufacturer Texas Instruments. Michael Callahan, co-founder of Ambient Corporation, which developed the neckband, demonstrates the device, called the Audeo.
Users needn't worry about that the system voicing their inner thoughts though. Callahan says producing signals for the Audeo to decipher requires "a level above thinking". Users must think specifically about voicing words for them to be picked up by the equipment.
The graph above shows the number of tornadoes for this year compared to recent years and to the ten-year average. The red line shows the number of tornadoes this year. As you can see the number we have had so far this year is way above recent years and the 10-year average. The U.S. gets about 800 tornadoes a year on average according to a LiveScience article. This year there have already been over 400.
This month is normally the time of year when we just start to experience the most severe weather and tornadoes. The peak for the Southern states is usually March, April and May. Northern states get more tornadoes in the Summer months. We still have a long ways to go in this year's tornado season but it is off to an unusual start. Large outbreaks like the Super Tuesday Outbreak have helped to spike this year's figure.
The graph above is from the SPC's website. You can view a much larger version of it here.
Lava from Mount Kilauea in Hawaii is flowing into the Pacific ocean. Reuters reports that lava from the Kilauea volcano began flowing into the Pacific ocean on March 6th. It is one of the most active volcanoes in the world continued to erupt. Reuters says Kilauea has erupted 34 times since 1952. The USGS has a special page about Mount Kilauea here. Below is a video from Reuters showing the recent lava flow and an embedded map from Google showing Mount Kilauea's location.
Newly Discovered Dinosaurs Ate Like Hyenas and Sharks
The fossils of two meat-eating dinosaurs named Eocarcharia and Kryptops have been discovered in the Sahara Desert. The newly discovered dinosaurs appear in a paper this month in the scientific journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. The fossils were discovered in 2000 on an expedition led by University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno.
Sereno and co-author paleontologist Stephen Brusatte of the University of Bristol say the new fossils provide a glimpse of an earlier stage in the evolution of the bizarre meat-eaters of Gondwana, the southern landmass. "T-rex has become such a fixture of Cretaceous lore, most people don't realize that no tyrannosaur ever set foot on a southern continent," said Sereno. Instead, particularly distinctive meat-eaters arose, some of which bore no resemblance to the "tyrant king," beyond their appetites for fresh meat.
The two dinosaurs have distinctive faces. Kryptops probably ate mostly from already dead carcasses (like hyenas) and Eocarcharia dinops ate live prey (like sharks).
Short-snouted Kryptops palaios, or "old hidden face," was named for the horny covering that appears to have covered nearly all of its face. "A fast, two-legged hyena gnawing and pulling apart a carcass," remarked even Brusatte, "is how we might best imagine Kryptops' dining habits." Kryptops also had short, armored jaws with small teeth. The scientists say these teeth make Krptops better at eating from a carcass than trying to eat live prey.
Eocarcharia dinops - or "fierce-eyed dawn shark" - was named for its blade-shaped teeth and prominent bony eyebrow. Unlike Kryptops, the scientists say its teeth were designed for disabling live prey and severing body parts. Eocarcharia and kin (called carcharodontosaurids) gave rise to the largest predators on southern continents, matching or exceeding Tyrannosaurus in size. Eocarcharia's brow was swollen into a massive band of bone, giving it a menacing glare.
Both of the newly discovered dinosaurs were about 25-feet long. Project Exploration has more information about the new dinosaurs, their contemporary species and Cretaceous habitat, and the expedition on which the fossils were discovered.
This photo shows the Earth and Moon as seen from Mars. The image was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on October 3, 2007.
At the time the image was taken, Earth was 142 million kilometers (88 million miles) from Mars, giving the HiRISE image a scale of 142 kilometers (88 miles) per pixel, an Earth diameter of about 90 pixels and a moon diameter of 24 pixels. The phase angle is 98 degrees, which means that less than half of the disk of the Earth and the disk of the moon have direct illumination. We could image Earth and moon at full disk illumination only when they are on the opposite side of the sun from Mars, but then the range would be much greater and the image would show less detail.
You can see a larger view of the image here. Source: NASA
The Mola Mola Can Gain Over 60 Million Times Its Birthweight
This Mola Mola or Ocean Sunfish is one of the largest and stangest animals found in the sea. The Mola Mola is the world's largest bony fish. As the National Geographic video below describes it - the Mola Mola looks like a "massive swimming head." The Mola Mola can weigh up to 4,000 pounds. It can gain over sixty million times its birthweight. For more on this strange fish check out the listings on Fishbase.org, OceanLight.com and Wikipedia. The Ocean Sunfish website also has lots of facts, photos and news.
Scientists have managed to capture an electron in motion on film for the first time. MSNBC reports that scientists used very short pulses of intense laser light called attosecond pulses and a stroboscope to film the electron.
Previously it was impossible to photograph electrons because of their extreme speediness, so scientists had to rely on more indirect methods. These methods could only measure the effect of an electron's movement, whereas the new technique can capture the entire event.
Extremely short flashes of light are necessary to capture an electron in motion. A technology developed within the last few years can generate short pulses of intense laser light, called attosecond pulses, to get the job done.
"It takes about 150 attoseconds for an electron to circle the nucleus of an atom. An attosecond is 10-18 seconds long, or, expressed in another way: an attosecond is related to a second as a second is related to the age of the universe," said Johan Mauritsson of Lund University in Sweden.
Using another laser, scientists can guide the motion of the electron to capture a collision between an electron and an atom on film.
Here's the video. The electron's movements shown in the film correspond to a single wavelength of light so the speed has been slowed down greatly so the human eye can observe the motion. The video can also be found here on the Attosecond Physics and
High-Order Harmonic Generation website. See also this post on the Curious Cat blog.
Researchers collecting specimens off Antarctica have found strange creatures. Creatures like giant sea spiders, tunicates and organisms looking like slender glass were all found. Researchers also described a strange looking fish with "funny dangling bits" around their mouth. They saw thousands of creatures and as many as a quarter them were previously undiscovered. You can see some of them in the video clip below. An article in the Telegraph also has photos of the tunicates and a giant scale worm. Last year a psychedelic octopus was discovered in the in frigid waters off Antarctica.
Unfortunately, global warming may allow sharks and crabs to come and eat many of these defenseless ocean lifeforms.
"Sharks are going to arrive in Antarctica as long as the warming trend continues, a bit more slowly than crabs - crabs are going to get there first," said Professor Cheryl Wilga of the University of Rhode Island (URI), US. "But once they do get there they are capable of eating the organisms that live there."
Professor Wilga said the arrival of sharks and shell-crushing bony fishes would lead to dramatic changes in the number and proportions of species found there.
Shrimp, ribbon worms and brittle stars are likely to be the most vulnerable to population declines.
Dr Sven Thatje of the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, UK, said animals living in shallow water in Antarctica were unique on Earth today because they evolved in a very cold environment over tens of millions of years.
A team of researchers from the UK's University College London (UCL) and New York's Stony Brook University have discovered the 70 million-year-old fossil of a massive dinosaur-eating frog in Madagascar. The scientists have named the frog Beelzebufo, meaning "the frog from hell."
The frog weighed 4kg and had a body length of up to 40cm. It also had a squat body, huge head and wide mouth. Professor Susan Evans, UCL Anatomy & Developmental Biology, said the frog would have been the size of a squashed beach-ball.
Evans said, "This frog, a relative of today's Horned toads, would have been the size of a slightly squashed beach-ball, with short legs and a big mouth. If it shared the aggressive temperament and 'sit-and-wait' ambush tactics of living Horned toads, it would have been a formidable predator on small animals. Its diet would most likely have consisted of insects and small vertebrates like lizards, but it's not impossible that Beelzebufo might even have munched on hatchling or juvenile dinosaurs."
The find is also interesting because it sheds new light on a debate about how the earth's land masses used to be arranged. The frog find gives credence to a theory that Madagascar was once linked to India and South America.
Professor Evans said, "Our discovery of a frog strikingly different from today's Madagascan frogs, and akin to the Horned toads previously considered endemic to South America, lends weight to the controversial paleobiogeographical model suggesting that Madagascar, the Indian subcontinent and South America were linked well into the Late Cretaceous. It also suggests that the initial spread of such beasts began earlier than that proposed by recent estimates."
PETA is 
The light from an exploding star trillions of miles was 
Arthur C. Clarke has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90. Clarke was best known for his work 2001: A Space Odyssey which was written as both a book and a screenplay simultaneously. Clarke also authored hundreds of other books and short stories during his lifetime. The UK Fantastic Fiction site has a lengthy list 
Scientists have managed to capture an electron in motion on film for the first time. MSNBC 
A team of researchers from the UK's University College London (UCL) and New York's Stony Brook University have discovered the 70 million-year-old fossil of a massive dinosaur-eating frog in Madagascar. The scientists have named the frog Beelzebufo, meaning "the frog from hell."
