Curiosity rover finds - About 2% of the soil on Mars' surface is water -

Curiosity rover finds - About 2% of the soil on Mars' surface is water - 



Curiosity, the Mars rover, reached out its robotic arm to hold a Canadian-made device over a dark grey rock sitting in a crater.

The tiny device, a cube just seven centimetres across, bombarded the rock with alpha particles and X-rays and then picked up the backscatter helping reveal a rock unlike any ever seen on Mars.

Jake_M, as the scientists have dubbed the Martian rock, resembles a type of volcanic rock found on ocean islands and continental rift zones on Earth.

It also raises the tantalizing possibility that there may be water beneath the Martian surface, say scientists, who describe the rock Thursday in a report published the journal Science.

“It was a good pick,” Ralf Gellert, at the University of Guelph, said of the Martian rock that was the first one analyzed using the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS).

Gellert leads the international team responsible for the powerful spectrometer, Canada’s $18-million contribution to the Martian rover that touched down on Mars just over a year ago.

Curiosity, which also carries an on-board geology lab, a rock-zapping laser and 17 cameras, is designed to get a better read on Martian geology and find out if the planet was ever habitable.

Curiosity has yet to find signs of life, which Gellert described as “the jackpot.”

But it has turned up plenty of evidence of water, which is essential to life on Earth and indicates life may have once had a foothold on Mars.

Curiosity found water in one of the first scoops of Martian soil it picked up, according to another of the five reports published Thursday. They focus on Curiosity’s first three months of exploration in the Gale crater.

“About two per cent of the soil on the surface of Mars is made up of water,” said Laurie Leshin of New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, whose team has a suite of instruments in Curiosity’s belly that assesses chemicals and elements.

Her team fed a scoop of dust and dirt from a sandy patch in the crater known as Rocknest into instruments that heated the Martian soil to a temperature of 835 C.

Baking the sample at such high heat revealed Martian soil contains not only water but chlorine — which can be toxic — and oxygen. Other experiments revealed the soil contains plenty of hydrogen.

Read more - 

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/09/26/mars-water-find-by-nasas-curiosity-rover-as-moisture-discovered-in-planets-soil/

The iPhone Is a Bigger Business Than Coca Cola and McDonald's Combined -

The iPhone Is a Bigger Business Than Coca Cola and McDonald's Combined - 



Eric Chemi, head of research for Bloomberg BusinessWeek, pulls an amazing stat. iPhone sales in the last year exceed all revenue to Microsoft, Amazon, Comcast, or Google. The iPhone alone outsells Coca-Cola and McDonald's, perhaps the world's two most famous brands, combined.

Put differently, but no less dramatically, a product that did not exist in May 2007 is now a bigger business than 474 companies in the S&P 500.


So there you have it. Apple is "dead money" in the words of one investor, and I don't know enough about the future to tell you he's wrong. But let's pause for a moment during the funeral procession to observe that the iPhone could be the most successful branded product in the history of the world, and that's something amazing to behold, no matter what direction the company's stock is headed this afternoon.

Read more - 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/the-iphone-is-a-bigger-business-than-coca-cola-and-mcdonalds-combined/280023/

Engineers build first carbon nanotube computer -

Engineers build first carbon nanotube computer - 



Move over silicon. There’s a new player in town in the semi-conductor category. Meet the carbon nanotube. Its use in electronics means faster and more efficient devices. And now, engineers at Stanford University have successfully built the first computer to ever use carbon nanotube technology.

As electronic devices are getting smaller, the current standard of semi-conductor, silicon, is beginning to have problems. Transistors with silicon are now being fit into smaller spaces, which causes a device to waste power and generate more heat. An example of this would be how warm a laptop gets after a few hours of usage. Using carbon nanotubes would be a simple solution to resolve that problem.

Unfortunately, carbon nanotubes have limitations that have prevented their usage, at least in consumer electronics. These long thin microscopic lines of carbon atoms have a tendency not to grow in perfectly straight lines, something required for use in electronics. And sometimes, they don’t act the way they’re supposed to. Instead of being semi-conductors that can be turned on and off, they are sometimes always on, constantly conducting electricity.

The Stanford scientists started their project by fixing these issues. The most complicated process was figuring out how to work with misshapen carbon nanotubes. However, the scientists came up with an algorithm that would guarantee that these imperfect nanotubes still worked as expected on a circuit. That still left the problem of the always-on always-conducting nanotubes. After adding the nanotubes to a circuit, the research team then shut off all the carbon nanotubes that worked properly. Then, they added electricity into the circuit. That electricity burned up those nanotubes that were constantly conducting it so that they vaporized, only leaving the good nanotubes.

Read more - 

http://www.dvice.com/2013-9-26/engineers-build-first-carbon-nanotube-computer

Mysterious cache of jewels turns up atop French glacier -

Mysterious cache of jewels turns up atop French glacier - 



It reads like the opening scene of an "Indiana Jones" movie.
A young man climbing a French glacier finds a cache of glittering jewels wrapped in bags stamped "Made in India" -- remnants, perhaps, of cargo from an ill-fated airliner called the Malabar Princess.
The best thing about it? This story is true.
It happened early this month on a glacier overlooking the southeastern French village of Chamonix, Albertville police Chief Sylvain Merly said Thursday.
The climber -- who Merly said asked to remain anonymous -- found the jewels inside a metal box atop the glacier. He turned them over to police in Bourg-Saint-Maurice on September 9.
Merly declined to characterize the stones, which are being described in French media as rubies, sapphires and emeralds. They're worth somewhere between €130,000 (about $175,000) and €246,000 ($331,600), Merly said.
French authorities are trying to trace ownership of the jewels. If proof of ownership can't be established, the unnamed 20-something mountaineer could stand to receive a portion of their value, Merly said.
Last year, alpinists found this diplomatic bag on Mont Blanc, believed to be from a 1966 Air India crash.

The gems may be from the 1950 crash of Air India Flight 245, the "Malabar Princess." The plane smashed into nearby Mont Blanc during a storm, killing all 48 aboard. When it crashed, the plane was preparing to make a stop in Geneva, Switzerland, as it flew between Bombay -- now Mumbai -- and London.
French authorities say it's also possible the gems could have been aboard an Air India Boeing 707, the "Kanchenjunga," that crashed in nearly the same spot 16 years later. A diplomatic bag from that flight was recovered last year.
Adding a bit of intrigue to the story, the 1966 crash is the subject of scattered conspiracy theories suggesting the Air India flight, which carried the father of India's nuclear industry, Homi Bhabha, was shot down by a fighter jet or missile.
Debris from the wrecks routinely emerges from the bottom of the glacier, including metal, wire and even a piece of landing gear discovered in 1986, according to a Mont Blanc tourist site.

Read more - 
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/26/world/europe/france-mountain-jewels/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Dead grandma lives on in GOOGLE Street View... -

Dead grandma lives on in GOOGLE Street View... - 



A Beaverton man recently discovered one of the last pictures taken of his grandmother. Dustin Moore found the keepsake while searching Google Maps street views for his grandma's house in Northeast Portland.  The street view image captured her sitting on the porch reading the newspaper. 
"What surprised me was that Google captured one of the last few pictures of my grandma because she passed away less than a year after the picture was taken. I made the joke with my brother. I was like, ‘Well, grandma’s gone, but she still somehow lives on in Google and is watching over us,'" Moore said.
Moore posted his story on the social media site Reddit and it quickly became popular.  
“All of a sudden there was a bunch of comments like, ‘Oh, I recognize that. Your grandma’s awesome,’” Moore said. “I didn't really expect people to respond in that way – in the same way that I did.”

Grandma Alice was “everybody’s grandma,” he said. 
Google generally updates the site with new photos every six or seven years. Until then Grandma Alice lives on. 

Read more - 

http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/09/26/Grandma-Dies-But-Lives-On-In-Google-Street-View-Image

Freeway bridge drops 2 feet - 'Instead of a bump, it's a dip' -

Freeway bridge drops 2 feet - 'Instead of a bump, it's a dip' - 



Call it the "cheese dip."
A 400-foot section of the Leo Frigo Bridge -- named after a late Wisconsin cheese scion -- suddenly sagged Wednesday, forcing police to close off the span that carries Interstate 43 over the Fox River some 120 feet below.
"There's a part that's sagging," a motorist told an incredulous 911 operator, according to recordings posted by CNN affiliate WLUK.
"A part that's sagging?" the operator asked.
"Instead of a bump, it's a dip," the driver said.
How safe is that bridge you're driving over?
It appears that one of the piers holding up the bridge sank about 2 feet into the ground, Gov. Scott Walker told reporters Wednesday.
The bridge, which carries 40,000 cars a day, will be closed indefinitely, state officials said.
"We understand the disruption this is going to cause to traffic," Wisconsin Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb told reporters Wednesday.
The bridge was built in 1980 and last inspected in August 2012, declared sound and renovated shortly thereafter, said Kim Rudat, regional communications manager for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

Read more - 
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/26/us/wisconsin-bridge-sagging/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Prozac use up -- in dogs... -

Prozac use up -- in dogs... - 



Not all pets are calm, and as a result some pet owners are giving their pets Prozac or Xanax. But is it the right thing to do?

Dogs are known for being full of life -- barking, running and playing. But when you have a pet that is overactive, uncontrollable or exhibiting anxiety should you turn to doggie drugs?

Pet expert and trainer Andrea Arden says she has seen a dramatic increase in the last 10 years of owners getting prescriptions for Prozac and Xanax from their vets to calm their pets down. She believes the reason for anxious pets is a change in the owner's lifestyle. Arden does not believe that drugs are the solution. She says owners need to spend more time with pets so they don't exhibit behavior problems. In fact, Arden says you have to be careful because Prozac and Xanax could actually harm your pet.

So before you resort to drugs, Arden suggests getting your dog trained and giving it some puppy love.

New York News

Read more: -

http://www.myfoxny.com/story/23532524/pets-and-prozac

$5.25 Million For Senate Hair Care And 21 Other Ways Politicians Are Living The High Life At Your Expense -

$5.25 Million For Senate Hair Care And 21 Other Ways Politicians Are Living The High Life At Your Expense - 



If you want to live the high life, you don’t have to become a rap star, a professional athlete or a Wall Street banker.  All it really takes is winning an election.  Right now, more than half of all the members of Congress are millionaires, and most of them leave “public service” far wealthier than when they entered it.  Since most of them have so much money, you would think that they would be willing to do a little “belt-tightening” for the sake of the American people.  After all, things are supposedly “extremely tight” in Washington D.C. right now.  In fact, just the other day Nancy Pelosi insisted that there were “no more cuts to make” to the federal budget.  But even as they claim that things are so tough right now, our politicians continue to live the high life at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.  The statistics that I am about to share with you are very disturbing.  Please share them with everyone that you know.  The American people deserve the truth.
According to the Weekly Standard, an absolutely insane amount of money is being spent on the “hair care needs” of U.S. Senators…
Senate Hair Care Services has cost taxpayers about $5.25 million over 15 years. They foot the bill of more than $40,000 for the shoeshine attendant last fiscal year. Six barbers took in more than $40,000 each, including nearly $80,000 for the head barber.
Keep in mind that there are only 100 U.S. Senators, and many of them don’t have much hair left at this point.
But hair care is just the tip of the iceberg.  The following are 21 other ways that our politicians are living the high life at your expense…
#1 According to Roll Call’s annual survey of Congressional wealth, the super wealthy in Congress just continue to get much wealthier even though they are supposedly dedicating their lives to “public service”…
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) is the richest Member of Congress for the second year in a row, reporting a vast fortune that in 2011 had a minimum net worth surpassing $300 million for the first time.
McCaul is followed by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who reported a minimum net worth of $198.65 million, and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who reported a minimum net worth of $140.55 million. The two lawmakers swapped places since last year’s list.
The lawmakers who round out the top five, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), also flipped positions from 2010 to 2011, with Warner’s reported minimum worth rising about $9 million to $85.81 million and Rockefeller’s minimum worth rising slightly to $83.08 million.
#2 Amazingly, the 50th most wealthy member of Congress has a net worth of 6.14 million dollars.
#3 At this point, more than half of those “serving the American people” in Congress are millionaires.
#4 In one recent year, an average of $4,005,900 of U.S. taxpayer money was spent on “personal” and “office” expenses per U.S. Senator.
#5 Once they leave Washington, former members of Congress continue to collect huge checks for the rest of their lives…
In 2011, 280 former lawmakers who retired under a former government pension system received average annual pensions of $70,620, according to a Congressional Research Service report. They averaged around 20 years of service. At the same time, another 215 retirees (elected in 1984 or later with an average of 15 years of service) received average annual checks of roughly $40,000 a year.
#6 Speaker of the House John Boehner would bring home a yearly pension of close to $85,000 if he left Congress when his current term ends in 2014.
#7 At this point, quite a few former lawmakers are collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually.  That list includes such notable names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.
#8 The U.S. government is spending approximately 3.6 million dollarsa year to support the lavish lifestyles of former presidents such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
#9 Nearly 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.
#10 During one recent year, the average federal employee in the Washington D.C. area received total compensation worth more than $126,000.
#11 During one recent year, compensation for federal employees came to a grand total of approximately 447 billion dollars.
#12 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.
#13 When Joe Biden and his staff took a trip to London, the hotel bill cost U.S. taxpayers $459,388.65.
#14 Joe Biden and his staff also stopped in Paris for one night.  The hotel bill for that one night came to $585,000.50.
#15 When Biden and his staff visited Moscow for two days in 2011, the total hotel bill came to $665,445.00.
#16 During 2012, the salaries of Barack Obama’s three climate change advisers combined came to a grand total of more than $370,000.
#17 Overall, 139 different White House staffers were making at least $100,000 during 2012, and there were 20 staffers that made the maximum of $172,200.
#18 It is estimated that the trip that the Obamas took to Africa cost U.S. taxpayers about 100 million dollars.
#19 The Obamas only have one dog named “Bo”, but the White House “dog handler” reportedly makes $102,000 per year and sometimes he is even flown to where the Obamas are vacationing so that he can take care of the dog.
#20 There is always at least one projectionist at the White House 24 hours a day just in case there is someone that wants to watch a movie.  Apparently turning on a DVD player is too much to ask.
#21 In one recent year, more than 1.4 billion dollars was spent on the Obamas.  Meanwhile, British taxpayers only spent about 58 million dollars on the entire royal family.
So who pays for all of this extravagance?
The American people do of course.
Unfortunately, what most of our politicians fail to understand is that most families are struggling tremendously right now.
This week, Yahoo featured the story of a 77-year-old former executive that is now flipping burgers and serving drinks to make ends meet.  He says that he now earns in a week what he once earned in a single hour, but he is thankful to have a job in this economic environment…
It seems like another life. At the height of his corporate career, Tom Palome was pulling in a salary in the low six-figures and flying first class on business trips to Europe.
Today, the 77-year-old former vice president of marketing for Oral-B juggles two part-time jobs: one as a $10-an-hour food demonstrator at Sam’s Club, the other flipping burgers and serving drinks at a golf club grill for slightly more than minimum wage.
While Palome worked hard his entire career, paid off his mortgage and put his kids through college, like most Americans he didn’t save enough for retirement. Even many affluent baby boomers who are approaching the end of their careers haven’t come close to saving the 10 to 20 times their annual working income that investment experts say they’ll need to maintain their standard of living in old age.
So many Americans are barely making it from month to month at this point.  Most people work very, very hard for their money, and it is very discouraging to see our politicians waste our hard-earned tax dollars so frivolously.
Fortunately, there are signs that the American people are starting to get fed up with all of this.  According to a stunning new Gallup survey, more Americans than ever before (60 percent) believe that the federal government has too much power.
So what do you think?
Do you think that the government is too big and too wasteful?

Read more - 

Texas Residents Concerned As Migrating Spiders Float Through Skies... -

Texas Residents Concerned As Migrating Spiders Float Through Skies... - 



Thousands of North Texans are asking, “What are those long, silky strings floating in the air?”  Turns out they’re the webs of spiders in their annual migration to better hunting grounds, and surprising a lot of people.

“I thought it was weird; I’d never seen it before,” said Myrna Olivas, who first noticed it driving in her car; then later as she dropped her son off at school.  “It just landed on my head and it left again,” she said adding, “It’s just a big stripe of spider web.  I couldn’t recognize it until I got it closer to me.”

The natural phenomenon was first noticed early Wednesday morning.

They’re called “ballooning” or “floating” webs made by young, migrating spiders.  “There’s some that produce a ball like a balloon, and there’s some they call tent spiders because they create almost like a triangle,” according to Texas A&M Agrilife horticulturist Patrick Dickinson.

They were strung across North Texas in trees or on lamp posts, even on a surveillance camera atop Dallas City Hall.  Car dealers washed them off their prize offerings.

Not everyone thought them merely a weird nuisance, according to Dickinson.  “Some people did not know what it was and were scared to go outside of their homes.  Other people thought when they saw them in the trees like you’re seeing here that there was something wrong with their trees.”

Read more - 

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/09/25/spider-migration-sailing-through-north-texas-skies/

Israeli Soldiers Throw Sound Grenades at EU Diplomats Bringing Aid to Displaced Palestinian Families -

Israeli Soldiers Throw Sound Grenades at EU Diplomats Bringing Aid to Displaced Palestinian Families - 



A Palestinian village home to 120 people had its houses, kindergarten and shepherding stables demolished this week by Israeli authorities. This came after the Supreme Court ruled its inhabitants – some of whom have lived on the land for generations – didn’t have proper building permits.

The Palestinian Bedouin village of Khirbet Al-Makhul, located in the occupied territories, is the third such village to be demolished by Israel since August. After it was destroyed on Monday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) attempted to deliver emergency aid to the displaced residents on Tuesday and Wednesday, but were stopped by Israeli soldiers.

When a collection of diplomats from France, Britain, Spain, Ireland, Australia and the European Union’s political office arrived on Friday, they were met with force and sound grenades.

Per Reuters:

A Reuters reporter saw soldiers throw sound grenades at a group of diplomats, aid workers and locals in the occupied West Bank, and yank a French diplomat out of the truck before driving away with its contents.

“They dragged me out of the truck and forced me to the ground with no regard for my diplomatic immunity,” French diplomat Marion Castaing said. “This is how international law is being respected here.”

“It’s shocking and outrageous. We will report these actions to our governments,” said one EU diplomat, who declined to be named because he did not have authorisation to talk to the media.

“(Our presence here) is a clear matter of international humanitarian law. By the Geneva Convention, an occupying power needs to see to the needs of people under occupation. These people aren’t being protected,” he said.


Unfortunately, the incident is making headlines not because of the village’s destruction, but because Israeli authorities manhandled a collection of European diplomats. However, the real story here is that Israel – even as it begins the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians – continue to appropriate West Bank lands for settlements and ‘military’ purposes.

Additionally, this type of force is routinely used on Palestinians to either drive them from their own homes or to disrupt nonviolent protests held in their own villages against settlement expansions and land confiscations.

These actions by the IDF, not seen widely or understood by the American public, are being highlighted today after unnecessary and inappropriate force was used against a group of diplomats.

Force is used against Palestinians on a daily basis.

Read more - 

http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2013/09/20/israeli-soldiers-throw-sound-grenades-at-eu-diplomats-bringing-aid-to-displaced-palestinian-families/

All Intel vPro CPUs (which include new mobile Core i5 and Core i7 chips) have an undocumented 3G chip inside -

All Intel vPro CPUs (which include new mobile Core i5 and Core i7 chips) have an undocumented 3G chip inside - 



We wonder if anyone expected this, but we suppose Intel had to drop a bomb at some point. And what better way to secure your spot on the enterprise 2-in-1 laptop, tablet and mobile workstation market, than by giving all of those PCs 3G support? 

Hilariously enough, Intel has created one of the most sought after technologies without letting anyone know about it. Basically, all Intel vPro CPUs (which include new mobile Core i5 and Core i7 chips) have an undocumented 3G chip inside. That chip is visible to the 3G network, even when the PC is not powered on. 

Freelancer Jim Stone has just discovered the secret (or so he says), and according to him, the 3G is part of a second physical processor embedded within the main one. Said second CPU has its own embedded operating system and can be woken up at any time because the “phantom” power of the system is always there to draw upon. 

In other words, the secret 3G chip can act as a backdoor, complete with wake-on-LAN and wake-on-mobile. Which is to say, the computer can be turned on remotely through this undocumented 3G radio. 

Intel actually embedded the 3G radio chip in order to enable its Anti Theft 3.0 technology. And since that technology is found on every Core i3/i5/i7 CPU after Sandy Bridge, that means a lot of CPUs, not just new vPro, might have a secret 3G connection nobody knew about until now. 

Read more - 

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Secret-3G-Radio-in-Every-Intel-vPro-CPU-Could-Steal-Your-Ideas-at-Any-Time-385194.shtml

New birthing fad sees newborns left with placenta attached for up to 10 days... -

New birthing fad sees newborns left with placenta attached for up to 10 days... - 



When Adele Allen's family and friends arrived for a first cuddle with her newborn son, they could be forgiven for feeling a little squeamish. Although baby Ulysses was a healthy little boy, he had a rather unusual companion at night - his umbilical cord and placenta.
Ulysses was six days old before he was finally parted from the, by then, rotten support system which had kept him alive for nine months in the womb.
His mother and father are part of a growing band of parents who believe that lotus birthing, the practice of leaving the placenta attached to the baby until it falls off naturally, has physical and emotional benefits for newborns.

However, obstetricians this week expressed grave concerns about this new trend of leaving the umbilical cord on babies tummies for between three to ten days, which they warn could lead to serious infection and even death in newborns.

'We are aware that a number of women are choosing umbilical non-severance, known as lotus birth, and this is something we would discourage,' says consultant obstetrician Pat O'Brien, spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. 
'If you wanted to pick an environment that encourages bacteria to grow you probably could not do better than to leave the placenta attached after birth.
'Soon after the baby is born there is no longer any circulation in the placenta, so it’s dead tissue and full of blood, making it the perfect culture medium for bacteria.

'The placenta belongs to the baby and they often spend a lot of time touching the cord in the womb, so it's a very familiar, comforting thing for them'
'Babies who go through the normal process of having the cord cut soon after the birth can sometimes develop infections in the little stump and, if not treated, these can lead to septicaemia which gets into the bloodstream, making the baby very ill. If the baby is not treated with antibiotics, usually in hospital, it can sometimes even be fatal.
'If the placenta remains attached, that risk of infection is greater.'
Even more troubling is the fact that many who opt to have lotus births also have 'unassisted home births' with no midwife or doctor present.
This was the case with Adele, 29 a one-time yoga instructor and now a full-time mum who lives in Brighton, and her husband, Matt, 30, a yoga instructor and health coach.
'Rather than increase it, we believe non-severance actually reduces the risk of infection because there are no open wounds, unlike when the cord is cut and clamped,' says Adele.
Umbilical cord non-severance, popular with early western European settlers in America, was revived in the 1980s by yoga practitioners exploring natural birth and has since been more widely practised in Australia and some parts of America. The yogis gave it its lotus birth moniker, creating a link between the preciousness of the placenta and the high esteem in which the lotus is held in the Hindu and Buddhist faiths.
During a normal birth, the umbilical cord is clamped within minutes of the baby being delivered, though mothers can request that it is not severed until the placenta has come away from the womb - up to 25 minutes after the birth.
While doctors are adamant that there are no medical advantages to lotus birthing, Adele, like its other advocates, insists otherwise.


Read more: - 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2432412/The-craziest-birthing-fad-lotus-birthing-newborns-left-placenta-attached-10-days.html