“Planning for a summer delivery for your child? You might want to choose an ophthalmologist along with an obstetrician…Babies born in June and July had a 24% greater chance of becoming severely myopic than those born in December and January the group with the least number of severely myopic individuals…“It is probably a long-term effect of early-life exposure to natural light that increases the chances of a child becoming short-sighted…A more thorough laboratory analysis of myopia in young chickens suggested that the body has a mechanism that causes the eyeball to lengthen (short-sighted eyes are longer than normal) when it is exposed to prolonged illumination. This mechanism is associated with melatonin, a pigment secreted by the pineal gland, though scientists are not sure exactly how it operates. This is the same gland that sets our body’s internal clock or permits it to participate in “Circadian rhythms.”…” Full Slice

“An international team of researchers has detected low-energy solar neutrinos–subatomic particles produced in the core of the sun–and measured in real-time the rate the particles hit our planet.

The researchers also obtained fresh evidence that neutrinos oscillate (transform from one state to another) before arriving at Earth, adding weight to present theories about the nature of neutrinos and the inner workings of the sun and other stars…” Full Slice

“…The team of scientists mapped over 1,500 square miles, exploring the deep sea creatures living in the depths of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. They used the latest technology to learn more about what is living in this remote and relatively unexplored deep-sea environment using remotely operated vehicles equipped with digital cameras.

With a suite of eight deep sea cameras they were able to capture images of life on the peaks and valleys of very rugged terrain. Colourful sponges and corals encrust rocky cliffs, whereas areas of soft sediment are populated by starfish, brittle-stars, sea cucumbers and burrowing worms. Fishes, crabs and shrimps forage over the ridge exploiting whatever they can find. Trawls, traps and corers have brought back thousands of specimens for study back in the laboratory…” Full Slice

“…“There is no indication of an MOC slowdown. And the large fluctuations explain why previously it was diagnosed that a slowdown had already happened. By chance, measurements were taken at a time when the MOC happened to be quite weak.”

With the instrument array it is feasible to monitor the annual average MOC to a resolution of about 1.5 Sverdrups, or about 8 percent of the mean value. This would be sufficient to detect any large, abrupt changes in the circulation, critical to planning for future climate change.”

“…the provider of lithium-ion batteries for the two Mars rovers, the Phoenix Mars Lander (launched 4 August 2007) and the future Mars Science Laboratory mission (2009), has received two federal awards totaling $200,000 for developing lithium-ion batteries for use in hybrid electric vehicles.

The first Phase I award from the Department of Energy’s Small Business Innovation Research program is to support the development of a novel lithium-ion battery with advanced silicon nanoparticle-based anodes. The resulting batteries are to demonstrate improved energy density, long cycle life, high rate capability and low-temperature performance…” Full Slice

“…What I saw was Clearview, the typeface that is poised to replace Highway Gothic, the standard that has been used on signs across the country for more than a half-century. Looking at a sign in Clearview after reading one in Highway Gothic is like putting on a new pair of reading glasses: there’s a sudden lightness, a noticeable crispness to the letters.

The Federal Highway Administration granted Clearview interim approval in 2004, meaning that individual states are free to begin using it in all their road signs. More than 20 states have already adopted the typeface…” Full Slice

“…Urban Challenge teams are attempting to develop vehicles that can maneuver a 60-mile course of simulated military supply missions in less than six hours — with no human intervention allowed past the starting line. The vehicles will have to obey California traffic laws, merge into moving traffic, navigate traffic circles, negotiate intersections, and avoid a variety of obstacles…“The drive-by-wire system allows the computers to control the throttle, brake, steering, and shifting and to drive the vehicle…This system was custom developed by the team and is unique in that it is completely hidden from view, enabling Odin to retain full passenger capabilities.”…” Full Slice - all they are missing of an Intelligent Transport System setup at this point is Mr. Botts` dots with embedded smarts & wireless networking capability

“CSIRO fluids researcher…says the physics of bubble creation in carbonated drinks like beer is complex. “As you pour beer into a glass, you see bubbles appearing on what are called nucleation sites, where the glass isn’t quite smooth…“The bubbles expand to a certain size then rise up in streams to the surface, where they bump into each other and form a raft of foam that floats on the top.”…” Full Slice

Days ago (”a couple,” broadly speaking) I mentioned that I’d try to hypelessly interpret a recent report.

Our Heroes surgically implanted multiple electrodes in monkey brains and muscles in carefully chosen areas. They recorded from the electrodes while a monkey operated a lever, moving it and gripping it more or less tightly (there was a juice reward when the monkey positioned the cursor correctly and squeezed just right). Using a simple linear model, they predicted muscle activity (and thus lever activity) based on brain activity. When they removed the lever, the model was able to make the cursor behave correctly from just the monkey’s thoughts, in real time. After replacing the screen with an actual manipulator arm, the monkeys were able to mind-control it as well.

There’s been plenty of news about bionic arms recently (which you can ogle for yourself) - this report is simply an incremental step on the road to non-invasive, direct brain control (that is, without brain surgery, or wiring the arm into pectoral muscles for the control signal) of prosthetics, or even waldoes or other teleoperational gear.

“When it comes to producing earth-friendly solar energy, pink may be the new green…Scientists here have developed new dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) that get their pink color from a mixture of red dye and white metal oxide powder in materials that capture light.

Currently, the best of these new pink materials convert light to electricity with only half the efficiency of commercially-available silicon-based solar cells — but they do so at only one quarter of the cost…This is the first time that researchers have made a DSSC from anything other than a simple oxide…” Full Slice

“Recent increases in the rates of biological invasion and spread of infectious diseases have been linked to the continued expansion of the worldwide airline transportation network…Throughout recent history, the geographical isolation between plants and animals has been gradually eroded by the deliberate or accidental transport of organisms caused by human travel, tourism or trade. Today, the rate at which species are moving between different biogeographic regions is unprecedented…” Full Slice

“A rare, timely conjunction of ground-based instrumentation and a dozen satellites has helped scientists better understand how electrons in space can turn into ‘killers’…‘Killer’ electrons are highly energetic, negatively charged particles found in near-Earth space. They can critically, and even permanently, damage satellites in orbit, including telecommunication satellites, and pose a hazard to astronauts.

Several theories have been formulated in the past to explain the origin of killer electrons…” Full Slice

“Physicists…have induced thousands of atoms trapped by laser beams to swap “spins” with partners simultaneously. The repeated exchanges, like a quantum version of swinging your partner in a square dance but lasting a total of just 10 milliseconds, might someday carry out logic operations in quantum computers, which theoretically could quickly solve certain problems that today’s best supercomputers could not solve in years…” Full Slice

My aggregator showed me a blurb about inserting chips into brains, and it reminded me that the brain is “just another organ” (in everything it does, including doing the mind). So then I went over to PLOS, and found an open source peer reviewed article about brain-machine interfaces.

I don’t have time to go over any of this with the ol’ comb tonight, but I’ll try to upload a hype-free review in the next couple of days.

“…the payoff is scientific as well as technological. Scientists had already discovered that the electronic properties of semiconductor material can change dramatically when its tiniest metallic components are tightly packed between organic molecules, a phenomenon called nano-confinement. “But now we find that mechanical properties can also change dramatically. On a basic science level, that’s why this is exciting,”…” Full Slice