34,000-Year-Old Organisms Found Buried Alive!
Salt, is that you?
It’s a tale that has all the trappings of a cult 1960s sci-fi movie: Scientists bring back ancient salt crystals, dug up from deep below Death Valley for climate research. The sparkling crystals are carefully packed away until, years later, a young, unknown researcher takes a second look at the 34,000-year-old crystals and discovers, trapped inside, something strange. Something … alive…
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e-Readers Encourage the Brain to be ‘Lazy’
Devices that display text in a clear, legible format encourages the brain to be ‘lazy’
Readers using electronic books are less likely to absorb what they have read because the information is presented in such simple form.
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When Will the Food Bubble Burst?
What will happen to food in the future?
Our early 21st century civilization is in trouble. We need not go beyond the world food economy to see this. Over the last few decades we have created a food production bubble—one based on environmental trends that cannot be sustained, including overpumping aquifers, overplowing land, and overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.
Music Sales in U.S. Fell 2.4% in 2010; Digital Music Accounts for 46% of Purchases
A top-selling digital song of 2010 was “California Gurls” by Katy Perry (4.4 million).
U.S. music sales fell 2.4% in 2010 to 1.5 billion units, as CD sales plummeted nearly 20% while digital track sales were up just 1%, according to a report from Nielsen and Billboard. Digital track sales were 1.17 billion in 2010, up from 1.16 in 2009. While CD sales fell precipitously last year, digital album sales rose 13% to 863 million. The report notes that digital music accounted for 46% of all U.S. music purchases in 2010, up from 40% in 2009 and 32% in 2008, and digital track sales broke the 1 billion sales mark for the third straight year.
Stress of Household Chores Can be Bad for Your Health
Household chores can be bad for your heart.
New research shows worrying about household chores such as cleaning, getting the car serviced and paying the bills may be even worse for your heart.
Genetically Modified Chickens Developed Than Cannot Transmit Bird Flu
Scientists develop GM chickens that do not spread bird flu.
British scientists have developed genetically modified (GM) chickens that cannot transmit bird flu infections — a step that in future could reduce the risk of avian flu spreading and causing deadly epidemics in humans.
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LUMI Eye Mask Brightens Your Morning by Simulating Sunrise
LUMI Eye Mask
Do you find it hard to wakeup suddenly to that damn morning alarm clock everyday before the sunrise? Well, an eye mask that will wake you up gently by simulating sunrise half an hour before the alarm beeps is on the anvil.
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UK Abolishes Mandatory Retirement at 65
British employees will not be forced to retire at 65.
British employers will no longer be allowed to force people to retire at 65 years old, unless they can justify the dismissal, the government said Thursday in a bid to lessen pension payouts as Britons live for longer.The move was welcomed by nonprofit organizations campaigning against age discrimination. Others, however, complained that the move will make it expensive for employers to continue to provide benefits such as health or life insurance to employees over 65.
Drunk Scientists Pour Wine on Superconductors and Make an Incredible Discovery
Red Wine was the best for making superconductors better at their job.
Superconductors behave like most metals; they conduct electricity. They do so, however, with a twist. All metal has some resistance to the flow of electricity. But when the temperature drops, superconductors get less and less resistant (and therefore more conductive). When they reach very low temperatures, their resistance drops to zero.
Yoshihiko Takano and other researchers at the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan were in the process of creating a certain kind of superconductor by putting a compound in hot water and soaking it for hours. They also soaked the compound in a mixture of water and ethanol. It appears the process was going well, because the scientists decided to have a little party. The party included sake, whisky, various wines, shochu, and beer. At a certain point, the researchers decided to try soaking the compound in the many, many liquors they had on hand and seeing how they compared to the more conventional soaking liquids…
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Genetically Modified Crops That Glow Green When Stressed
Genetically altered Arabdopsis Thaliana plant, with green fluorescent protein (GFP) inserted near the on/off
switches for anoxia and drought genes. Cells expressing those genes glow green under a blue light (as shown).
A group of University of Tennessee plant scientists has genetically modified tobacco plants so that the plants will give off a phosphorescent green “glow” when plant immune systems are under stress – as might be caused by plant pathogens, drought, insects, etc. (The stress-indicating fluorescent proteins can be detected by scientific instruments only, as pictured above.) To implement this on a commercial basis, it is hypothesized, farmers would scatter the day-glow plants amidst a far greater number of normal plants, each GM plant serving as an attack sentinel for the surrounding a crop zone…
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First Baby Boomers Turn 65 in 2011, But Are They Ready for Retirement?
The first baby boomers will turn 65 in 2011, but is this generation truly ready to leave the workforce?
“Baby boomer” is the name given to the generation born in a “baby boom” following World War II, between 1946 and 1964. There are about 78 million in all, which is 26 percent of the population. Those turning 65 this year will be eligible for Medicare, and full retirement in 2012.
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