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Public release date: 10-Apr-2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT: How strong is a hurricane? Just listen Acoustic sensors could lead to cheaper early-warning system CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Knowing how powerful a hurricane is, before it hits land, can help to save lives or to avoid the enormous costs of an unnecessary evacuation. Some MIT researchers think there may be a better, cheaper way of getting that crucial information. By placing hydrophones (underwater microphones) deep below the surface in the path of an oncoming hurricane --- |
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Unusual Earthquakes Measured Off Oregon Space & Earth science / Earth Sciences (AP) -- Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off central Oregon, something that often happens before a volcanic eruption - except there are no volcanoes in the area. |
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Laser triggers electrical activity in thunderstorm for the first time Physics / Physics A team of European scientists has deliberately triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time, according to a new paper in the latest issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access ... |
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Public release date: 15-Apr-2008 Duke University Medical Center A potential sugar fix for tumors DURHAM, N.C. -- Researchers at the Duke School of Medicine apparently have solved the riddle of why cancer cells like sugar so much, and it may be a mechanism that could lead to better cancer treatments. |
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Researchers stumped by drug addiction paradox General Science / Other From chocolate and caffeine to nicotine and cocaine, many of our most addictive foods and drugs come from plant toxins. Considering that plants originally developed these toxins to deter herbivorous predators, ... |
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Dog crosses desert, mountains and somehow gets back home Published: Sunday, April 20, 2008 Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ELY, Nev. - A dog that ran off during a road-trip rest stop apparently made her way nearly 135 kilometres across Nevada's high desert and two mountain ranges to return home a week later. |
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An Experiment to Save the World Has this man created nuclear fusion? Horizon investigates...Q&As Programme transcript In March 2002, the scientific world was rocked by some astonishing news: a distinguished US government scientist claimed he had made nuclear fusion out of sound waves in his laboratory. Rusi Taleyarkhan's breakthrough was such important news because nuclear fusion is one of the most difficult scientific processes, and also one of the most coveted. It could solve all of our energy problems for ever. In principle, sufficient fuel exists on earth to provide clean, pollution-free energy for billions of people for millions of years. To make it happen, individual atoms must be slammed into each other with enough energy to make them fuse together, something that requires temperatures found only in the core of stars like our Sun – over 10 million Kelvin. The idea that these temperatures had been reached in a small scale laboratory using only soundwaves took many scientists by surprise. To them, fusion projects were huge multibillion-pound, intergovernmental schemes with the far off goal of producing energy in several decades time. Taleyarkhan's fusion breakthrough was based on a little-understood process called sonoluminescence. It's a process that magically transforms sound waves into flashes of light, focusing the sound energy into a tiny flickering hot spot inside a bubble. It's been called the star in a jar. The star in a jar effortlessly reaches temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees, hotter than the surface of the sun |
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Nanobacteria – Are They Alive? Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine April 23, 2008 A team of doctors has provided the best evidence yet for the existence of a new form of life. SOME claim they are a new life form responsible for a wide range of diseases, including the calcification of the arteries that afflicts us all as we age. Others say they are simply too small to be living creatures. Now a team of doctors has entered the fray surrounding the existence or otherwise of nanobacteria. After four years' work, the team, based at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, has come up with some of the best evidence yet that they do exist. Cautiously titled "Evidence of nanobacterial-like structures in human calcified arteries and cardiac valves", the paper by John Lieske and his team describes how they isolated minuscule cell-like structures from diseased human arteries. These particles self-replicated in culture, and could be identified with an antibody and a DNA stain. |
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Ramorum Blight and Dieback, also known as 'sudden oak death', is a serious disease caused by Phytophthora ramorum, a fungal-like pathogen, that has killed a large number of oak trees in California and Oregon since it was first detected in 1995. In North America, the disease is currently established only in California and Oregon, mainly in forested areas or in small remnants of forests in developed areas. The first report of this disease in Canada was a single case of rhododendrons found in a B.C. nursery in June 2003. Additional detections occurred in 2004 and 2005 at a few nurseries and garden centres. Swift regulatory action by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has successfully eradicated these occurrences, with the exception of one nursery that remains under regulatory control. Strict regulatory control measures are in place to ensure the disease does not become established in Canada. Symptoms on leaves appear as dark brown to black lesions with “fuzzy” margins, usually on leaf edges or tips. |
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| Well I'll never claim to be any guru...or know all the answers... ...but all I do know is that I learn by listening...and reading...and occasionally...experimenting...and only a fool turns a blind eye to speculation being comfortable in their *formed* conclusions. Despite all the doubt...and complete distaste for Bruces' posts/theories/experiments...I appreciate them...as well as his patience...and persistance. So thanks Bruce...and I understand...not all...by any means...but enough* |