Sniffer bees: New flying squad in war against terrorTerrorists, beware the ultimate sting: a British company has developed a device to detect explosives at airports with the help of specially trained honey bees.
In remarkable field trials completed this week, scientists have harnessed the insect's powerful sense of smell to track down samples of TNT, Semtex, gunpowder and other explosives hidden in shipments passing through a busy cargo airport.
The project is the result of five years of government-funded research ca... (more)
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Dolphins ‘know each other’s names’DOLPHINS may be closer to humans than previously realised, with new research showing they communicate by whistling out their own “names”.
The evidence suggests dolphins share the human ability to recognise themselves and other members of the same species as individuals with separate identities. The research, on wild bottlenose dolphins, will lead to a reassessment of their intelligence and social complexity, raising moral questions over how they should be treated.
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Korean Scientists Develop Female AndroidStanding 1.6 meters tall and weighing about 50 kilograms, she can understand others, speak, blink with her eyes and makes several facial expressions.
But she is not human, rather an android developed by a team of South Korean scientists. It is only the second time in the world that an android has been developed _ Japan made the first one.
The team, headed by Baeg Moon-hong, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, Thursday took the wrap off the f... (more)
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Everyone Wants to 'Own' Your PCWhen technology serves its owners, it is liberating. When it is designed to serve others, over the owner's objection, it is oppressive. There's a battle raging on your computer right now -- one that pits you against worms and viruses, Trojans, spyware, automatic update features and digital rights management technologies. It's the battle to determine who owns your computer.
You own your computer, of course. You bought it. You paid for it. But how much control do you really have ove... (more)
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Full-up Google choking on web spam?Webmasters have been seething at Google since it introduced its 'Big Daddy' update in January, the biggest revision to the way its search engine operates for years.
Alarm usually accompanies changes to Google's algorithms, as the new rankings can cause websites to be demoted, or disappear entirely. But four months on from the introduction of "Big Daddy," it's clear that the problem is more serious than any previous revision - and it's getting worse.
Webmasters now r... (more)
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Internet Freedom Gains Big MomentumNew York Times Endorses Net Neutrality, Internet Freedom Bills Offered in Congress, SavetheInternet.com Coalition Passes 500,000 Petition Signatures
WASHINGTON — As the SavetheInternet.com Coalition passed 500,000 signatures supporting Internet freedom, a pair of key bills protecting Network Neutrality were introduced in Congress and the New York Times wrote a powerful endorsement of this crucial issue.
The New York Times wrote:
"Net neutrality"... (more)
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'Cloaking device' idea proposedThe cloaking devices that are used to render spacecraft invisible in Star Trek might just work in reality, two mathematicians have claimed.
They have outlined their concept in a research paper published in one of the UK Royal Society's scientific journals.
Nicolae Nicorovici and Graeme Milton propose that placing certain objects close to a material called a superlens could make them appear to vanish.
It would rely on an effect known as "anomalous loca... (more)
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Pentagon unveils urban robo-raceJust months after awarding $2 million for a sport utility vehicle that drove itself over more than 100 miles of open road, the Pentagon on Monday unveiled a bigger, richer challenge for self-driving vehicles that can negotiate city traffic.
Veterans of the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency's earlier "Grand Challenges" said the technologies developed for the next contest will clearly benefit the U.S. military, which has set the goal of automating a third of its ground vehicl... (more)
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Bringing back the extinctIS IT POSSIBLE TO BRING BACK AN EXTINCT HUMAN SUCH AS A NEANDERTHAL MAN THROUGH CLONING?
This is certainly theoretically possible. But in trying to do so there would be technical problems all along the way. There would also be numerous ethical and moral issues that would have to be satisfactorily resolved. If after all of this and the cloning of a Neanderthal. pictured below, were to get a green light, the steps to be followed would be similar to these:
- Obtain a r... (more)
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Internet2 aims to boost capacityBy fall 2007, researchers, academics, and even K-12 users of the ultra high-speed Internet2 network will have the ability to conduct even more eye-popping applications for education and research, thanks to an upgrade in the works that reportedly could boost capacity of the network by as much as 80 times its current bandwidth.
By sending data using different colors of light, operators of the ultra high-speed Internet2 network are hoping to boost the research and education network's... (more)
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Polygraph Results Often in Question: CIA, FBI Defend Test's Use in ProbesThe CIA, the FBI and other federal agencies are using polygraph machines more than ever to screen applicants and hunt for lawbreakers, even as scientists have become more certain that the equipment is ineffective in accurately detecting when people are lying.
Instead, many experts say, the real utility of the polygraph machine, or "lie detector," is that many of the tens of thousands of people who are subjected to it each year believe that it works -- and thus will frequently admi... (more)
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Two-tiered Internet: Panel paves way for feesA Republican-controlled House committee yesterday rejected a measure by U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Malden) that would have barred telecommunication companies from socking Web sites with extra fees based on bandwidth usage.
Markey’s so-called “Internet neutrality” amendment was defeated on a 34-22 vote by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
With defeat of the amendment, Markey warned yesterday that America is moving closer to... (more)
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Elderly To Be Experimented On With Squalene & MercuryBL Fisher Note:
The vaccine adjuvant, MF59, that NIH proposes to add to flu vaccine given to the frail elderly, is not licensed in the U.S. as safe for human use. MF59 contains squalene, which can cause autoimmunity. Some ill Gulf War veterans, who were given anthrax vaccine and other experimental vaccines, have tested positive for squalene antibodies even though the U.S. Department of Defense denies putting the adjuvant MF59 in anthrax and other vaccines given to soldiers.
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Free Electricity from Nano GeneratorsToday's portable electronics (except for self-winding watches and crank radios) depend on batteries for power. Now researchers have demonstrated that easy-to-make, inexpensive nanowires can harvest mechanical energy, possibly leading to such advances as medical implants that run on electricity generated from pulsing blood vessels and cell phones powered by nanowires in the soles of shoes.
"When you walk, you generate 67 watts. Your finger movement is 0.1 watt. Your breathing is on... (more)
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Microsoft piracy pop-up is persistentMICROSOFT HAS BEEN quietly piloting its Software Genuine Advantage programme in Norway and in Sweden since November.
This week, the scheme has been be extended to the United States, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.
Details of the scheme have been available for some while on this page here, where we found the text of the message you can expect to see on your screen should you be considered a pirate:
"It appears that you could be a v... (more)
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Mystery disturbance traced to sound wave: 'That spot is in the general vicinity of Warning Area 291, a huge swath of ocean used for military training exercises'A group of local scientists has uncovered some clues to the source of a mysterious disturbance that rattled San Diego County on the morning of April 4, shaking windows, doors and bookcases from the coast to the mountains.
The scientists, based at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, say the disturbance was caused by a sound wave that started over the ocean and petered out over the Imperial County desert. Using data from more than two dozen seismometers, they traced its... (more)
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A Democratic InternetRight now, you’re reading TomPaine.com because you want to, and because you can. Those two principles have been the reason the Internet as we know it has been so successful for almost 20 years. The Internet as we know it provides infinite choice to those who use it, and easy access to customers and consumers for those who have a service to provide. No printing presses are needed, no buying of paper, no distribution. Those major expenses, which for years had to be borne by publications, hav... (more)
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Blackstar: the US space conspiracy that never was?Those among you who like their skies filled with black helicopters, or indeed secret space launch vehicles, might have already caught a quite remarkable March report in Aviation Week & Space Technology which claims that the US has successfully developed and tested a "two-stage-to-orbit system that could place a small military spaceplane in orbit" (see AWST pic).
The spook system, deliciously dubbed "Blackstar", allegedly comprises a carrier vehicle (codename "SR-3" according to AW... (more)
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AT&T refusing to deny that it let the NSA spy on its customers' emails and phone calls, now implies it got a court orderWell, this is interesting. AT&T is now claiming, in responses to customers concerned about a recent lawsuit claiming AT&T permitted the government to spy on every single email and phone call you ever made, that AT&T was obeying a court order if and when it helped the government spy on its customers.
Note that the AT&T rep refuses to deny the charge, that they let the US government spy on its own customers (and I'm told lots of OTHER traffic goes through AT&T's servers).
... (more)
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