February 21,
2002 -
Cut to life
- From The Economist print
edition, A pair of new books reminds us just what an imperfect and
impassioned science modern surgery can be, TWO men. Both of them
surgeons. One is an Indian practicing in the pristine theatres of
Boston, Massachusetts, the other a descendant of European Jews who
brushes away flies as he operates on makeshift tables in Eritrea,
Myanmar and Brazil. Students of the art of healing, both have turned to
writing to try and make sense of the world. But what they have to say
about surgery, about suffering and about life could hardly be more
different...
February 06, 2002 -
Space 'hotels' to slingshot between Earth and Mars -
CNN.com, WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana (Reuters) -- Futuristic space
"hotels" that would employ planetary gravity to rocket between Earth
and Mars are on the drawing board at Purdue University, researchers at
the school said. Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, the second person to walk on the
moon and a leading booster of space tourism, is heading a team of
Purdue engineers designing spacious "cycler" spacecraft to make the
six- to eight-month interplanetary trips continuously...
February 02, 2002 -
Spiral galaxy spins the wrong way - Hazel Muir, New
Scientist, A galaxy in the constellation Centaurus is puzzling
astronomers by spinning in the wrong direction. NGC 4622 has bright
twisting arms containing newborn stars and lies 111 million light
years away. "It's an extremely beautiful, photogenic galaxy about the
size of the Milky Way," says Ron Buta of the University in Alabama in
Tuscaloosa. In almost all spiral galaxies, the spiral arms trail
behind as the galaxy rotates. But now Buta and his colleagues have
found that the outer spiral arms in NGC 4622 are pointing in the
rotation direction, rather than trailing behind. "This is extremely
uncommon and a very interesting situation," says Buta. The pattern
turned up in just one other galaxy a few years ago, but was much less
pronounced...
February 4, 2002 -
Intel
aims for improved memory chip - By Don Clark, THE WALL
STREET JOURNAL, Company follows radical path blazed by inventor
Ovshinsky... Intel Corp. is moving in a bold new direction in memory
chips, following the trail blazed by a maverick 79-year-old inventor
named Stanford Ovshinsky...
February 26, 2002
-
Big Moonshine - NASA
News, Not all full Moons are alike. This week's will be the brightest
of 2002 -- but will anyone notice? A pale ray of light shines through
the bedroom window. In the distance, something howls. Eyes open. The
clock ticks, it's 2 a.m.. You're wide awake -- roused by a bright full
Moon. Don't be surprised if this soon happens to you. The Moon will
become full on Feb. 27th. It happens every 29.5 days, yet this full
Moon is special: It's the biggest and brightest of the year...
February 20, 2002 -
On 7th Day, Science Fair Rested - By Mark K. Anderson, Wired News, BOSTON -- It's considered one of the premier scientific conferences
in the world, and, considering the wealth of research being done by
its members, one wonders how six days could possibly have contained
the whole program...
February
02, 2002 -
Teleporting larger objects becomes real possibility -
Anil Ananthaswamy, New Scientist, The dream of teleporting
atoms and molecules - and maybe even larger objects - has
become a real possibility for the first time. The advance is
thanks to physicists who have suggested a method that in
theory could be used to "entangle" absolutely any kind of
particle...
February 6, 2002 -
They Want Their ID Chips Now - By Julia Scheeres, Wired
News,Meet the Jacobs family: Jeffrey, Leslie and their son, Derek.
They're a fairly typical American family, middle class and ambitious.
The father is a dentist, the mother is an account executive at an
interior design magazine and the 14-year-old son plays jazz and
tinkers with computers in his spare time. But one thing may soon make
the Jacobses stand out: They could become the first family in the
world to be implanted with microchips that contain their personal
information. The chip in question, the VeriChip, is similar to the
biochips that have been used to identify pets and livestock for
years...
February 8, 2002 -
The First Starlight - NASA NEWS, By peering through a
giant cosmic lens, scientists have found some of the first-born stars
in our Universe. Imagine being able to see our Universe 14 billion
years ago when it was just a baby. If we had a time machine, we could
go back and watch how its infant features emerged after the Big
Bang...
February 7, 2002 -
MS puts coders on bug alert - By Robert Lemos, Special to
ZDNet News, Microsoft's security-assurance group has become the
software giant's taskmaster for the next month. Under a new push to
secure software code and convince customers that security is a top
priority, Microsoft is putting its Windows developers, testers and
program managers through a crash course in secure programming. Over
the next month, the software giant's security-assurance group expects
the training to pay off as more than 70 developer teams audit the
various software components that make up Windows XP and the upcoming
Windows .Net server operating systems...
February 01, 2002
-
Annihilating Anthrax - NASA, Industry-sponsored research
aimed at growing plants in space has led to a device that attacks
and destroys airborne pathogens -- like Anthrax. 2002: Unseen and
odorless, a cloud of Anthrax spores wafts through an office. People
inside are talking, laughing ... breathing. They have no idea something
is in the air. One yawn, one gasp, one happy guffaw could be deadly.
That's how bioterrorism works. But this office has a defense: Bolted
to the ceiling is a curious flat box. It's made of metal, about the
size of a table-top, and it's humming softly -- the sound of fans
drawing airborne spores toward it and away from the people. The breeze
is gentle but insistent. Eight cubic feet of air per minute flow into
the box...
