Awww….such a cute….dog?

It was one year ago when I fell very ill during spring break. I just couldn’t bring myself to study so I started this blog instead. I hope that everyone enjoys the news and information from my blog. I am excited about what the second year may bring. I wish I could make a living from the site I would be able to do so much more than post news, but, hey…who knows what the future holds?

Thanks again everyone for reading! Knowledge is power!

-Chris Williamson
Blogger-in-Chief

ScienceDaily (Mar. 22, 2008) — The camera you own has one main lens and produces a flat, two-dimensional photograph, whether you hold it in your hand or view it on your computer screen. On the other hand, a camera with two lenses (or two cameras placed apart from each other) can take more interesting 3-D photos.

But what if your digital camera saw the world through thousands of tiny lenses, each a miniature camera unto itself” You’d get a 2-D photo, but you’d also get something potentially more valuable: an electronic “depth map” containing the distance from the camera to every object in the picture, a kind of super 3-D. more>>>

Science and technology graduates at the University of Sussex have created a virtual campus which looks like the university’s real site.

The virtual campus can be visited by people who are signed up to the web-based virtual world, Second Life.

Each user creates a virtual version of themselves, or an avatar, which can then fly around the campus.

Researchers are looking at ways to use the campus as a platform for teaching, such as providing online resources. more>>>

A university is holding an open day in the virtual world of Second Life.

BA Media students at Liverpool Hope University have set up a virtual campus on the imaginary world website as part of a six-month project.

Virtual students will be on campus on Thursday to interact with prospective students from across the globe.

Second Life is a virtual world operated via a downloadable internet programme that enables its users, or “residents”, to interact with each other.

There are more than 20 million residents registered. more>>>

By Katherine McAlpine, U.S. Large Hadron Collider Communications

posted: 21 March 2008 ET

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation

On the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 22, the cold, wet wind was enough to shock me awake as I arrived at the surface assembly building above the cavern of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment , a subatomic particle detector that is a key component in the subterranean Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that straddles the French and Swiss Borders.

One of the largest international scientific collaborations to date, the LHC is an underground ring, 27 kilometers around, located at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN ) in Geneva, Switzerland. more>>>

By Charles Q. Choi
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 2008 March 20
2:03 pm ET

An ocean seasoned with the chemical ingredients of life may lie hidden beneath the icy surface of Saturn’s moon Titan.

The evidence? The entire surface of Titan appears to be sliding around, scientists say, like cheese over tomato sauce on a slice of pizza.

Scientists had long suspected that an underground ocean might exist on Titan, much as Jupiter’s moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa do. more>>>

By Dave Mosher
updated 1:47 p.m. CT, Thurs., March. 20, 2008

For the first time, satellite imagery reveals thick Martian salt deposits scattered across the planet’s southern surface, which one planetary scientist claims could be sites of ancient life.

The mats of sodium chloride — the same taste-enhancing mineral found on your kitchen table — serve as more evidence of Mars’ watery past, and researchers think the briney pools that made them could have been hospitable to life.

“If you’re trying to find life on Mars, the more and different places that exist, the better the chances are that one of them is going to have the right conditions,” said Phil Christensen, a planetary geologist at Arizona State University. “It takes a lot of water to form salt, so this is another place to look.” more>>>

Fritjof Capra is best known as the author of The Tao of Physics. Over the last 20 years, his work has evolved to include ecology and activism. He is the founding director of the Centre for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He spoke with Swati Chopra:

How did you come upon the metaphor of the dance of Shiva for quantum particles, used so vividly in The Tao of Physics?

I had a profound experience sitting at a beach in California, where the boundaries faded away and I belonged to this larger whole, a cosmos which was dynamic, alive, and in motion in a patterned order of a dance. I was a particle physicist and knew what was going on around me in terms of patterns and molecules, and i had also read of the dance of Shiva. I put the two together. But it didn’t really come intellectually. It was an experience. more>>>

By Aron Heller
updated 5:06 p.m. CT, Thurs., March. 20, 2008

JERUSALEM – A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard.

Avraham Trahtman, a mathematician who also toiled as a laborer after moving to Israel from Russia, succeeded where dozens failed, solving the elusive “Road Coloring Problem.”

The conjecture essentially assumed it’s possible to create a “universal map” that can direct people to arrive at a certain destination, at the same time, regardless of starting point. Experts say the proposition could have real-life applications in mapping and computer science. more>>>

By Jay Lindsay

BOSTON, May 6, 2004 – The male humpback whale is believed to sing its mysterious songs mainly for the same reason generations of teenage boys have started bad garage bands: to get girls.

Researchers had thought the ocean crooners serenaded their women only during their winter mating season in the tropics. Now, scientists know the humpbacks also break out in song during springtime in New England, the time and place they’re supposed to be focused on eating. more>>>

Blacksburg, Va. — The ubiquity of mineral nanoparticles in natural waters, the atmosphere, and in soils and their intriguing properties provide Earth scientists with another dimension in which to understand our planet.

So states a team of scientists from seven universities in a review article in the March 21, 2008, issue of Science, �Nanominerals, Mineral Nanoparticles, and Earth Chemistry.�

The way minerals influence earth is more complex than previously thought. Physical, chemical, and biological processes on Earth are either influenced or driven by the physical and chemical properties of minerals, of which 4,500 species have been described. Minerals have an enormous range of physical and chemical properties due to a wide range of composition and structure, including particle size. more>>>

by Erik Sass, Wednesday, Mar 19, 2008 7:00 AM ET
HOLLYWOOD, CALIF. — IMAGINE A remote control headset that scans your brainwaves to figure out what you want to see. “Pure science fiction,” you say. Actually it’ll be on sale by Christmas 2008. No, really. The headset was just one of a series of future-is-now revelations from Dale Herigstad, the chief creative officer at Los Angeles-based Schematic at the OMMA Global Hollywood conference Tuesday.

In a way, it was a fitting (coincidental) memorial for science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, who died in his Sri Lanka home at the age of 90 just a few hours before.

Herigstad recalled that “10 years ago, it looked like we were never going to be able to reach” the sort of gestural interface he helped design for Tom Cruise in Minority Report–but now, “it doesn’t seem that far away.” The popularity of Nintendo Wii and iPhones based on gestural technology demonstrates that the basic technology is scalable and easily adopted. Herigstad added that technology companies are developing systems that rely on gestures alone, with no need for handheld devices or swooping histrionics. more>>>

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