Science Fiction News

NASA Study Solves Ocean Plant Mystery WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 -- A NASA-sponsored study shows that by using a new technique, scientists can determine what limits the growth of ocean algae, or phytoplankton, and how this affects Earth's climate.

Garbage Cans Pack Spy Chips Garbage cans all over England are under surveillance tonight.

Bluetongue Outbreak Has African Roots The deadly livestock virus that has taken the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany by surprise this month did not come from southern Europe, as researchers had suspected. A genetic analysis, announced yesterday, has shown that the Bluetongue virus almost certainly originated in Africa, deepening the mystery of how it reached northern Europe.

Marine Methane Heats Things Up Oil seeping from the seafloor may have contributed to climate change long before the internal combustion engine did. The petroleum deposits are rich in the powerful greenhouse gas methane, which, according to a new study, may have played a major role in two previous episodes of global warming.

Spying With a Fly's Eyes For more than 150 years, photographers have wrestled with the problem of exposure. Attempting to take a picture containing a wide range of light intensity meant sacrificing part of the image--either washing it out or plunging it into deep shadow--and thus losing detail.

Dynamic Duo to Lead European Research Council When the new European Research Council (ERC) sets sail next year, it will have the steady hand of a veteran science manager at its helm. The ERC's Scientific Council announced today that it has chosen biologist Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, current president of the German funding agency the DFG, as the organization's first secretary-general.

Flashing out a Star's Demise Astronomers may for the first time have caught a star in the act of blowing itself to smithereens. The cataclysmic supernova announced itself by producing an unusually long flash of x-rays. The new find should help researchers better understand the violent deaths of the most massive stars in the universe.

End Global Warming By Stopping The Burning Man Festival Sacred flaming temples, gas-guzzling RVs that converge for a week on the dry Black Rock Desert lakebed - The Exxon-Mobil National Convention, you are thinking? Not at all. It's the Burning Man Art Festival in Nevada and it causes global warming. For 21 years this ecological disaster has been using gas-powered generators, up to 37,000 of them ...

Earth's Poles May Have Wandered Earth's geographic poles may seem like immovable fixtures, but new evidence suggests that they weren't always where they are now. The findings support an old but controversial theory known as "true polar wander" that states that the poles moved as part of a planetary balancing act millions of years ago.

Best MST3K Short Ever: Body Care and Grooming Learn how to attract the opposite sex in this classic short from Mystery Science Theater 3000

Greenhouse gas emissions up, despite Kyoto Industrialized nations' emissions of greenhouse gases edged up to the highest level in more than a decade in 2004 despite curbs meant to fight global warming. This upward trend is obvious even though one of the world's largest polluters, Russia, refuses to report emissions and so is not included. This omission means that the truth is likely worse

40,000 Acre Wind Farm Proposed For Iowa Northern Iowa could have one of the nation's largest wind farms by 2008. Iowa Winds LLC wants to build a 200- to 300-megawatt farm covering about 40,000 acres in Franklin County.

Multiculturalism - The White Man's Burden? Critique of England's immigration policy

The criminalization of opposition to global warming Speech codes are rare in the industrialized, Western democracies, but curiously there is a strong taboo against suggest anything in opposition to the view that man-made carbon emissions drive global warming. Intimidation, isolation, ad hominem attacks, and now lawsuits are all used to stifle opposing views.

Why We're Losing Ground Efforts to reform our public education system received a blow recently when a federal court reopened a challenge to the testing procedure the State of New York requires as part of the certification process for new teachers. In question is whether the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test is job related. A disproportionate number of black and Hispanic...

Revolutionizing Football New computer modeling software could make gridiron coaches rethink their decisions and look to science for guidance.

Bullet Fragments Killing Condors The condors feed on carcasses of animals that have been shot, and lead poisons the birds.

Free software communists Richard Stallman must be sleeping well this week. Eight years ago, I accompanied the free software pioneer on a visit to the Bill Gates-funded computer science building on the Stanford campus. To get in we had to pass

Should Cons In The Virtual Gaming World End Up In Real World Courts?? "Earlier this month, a virtual bank CEO in the science-fiction role-playing game "Eve Online" made off with billions in cybercurrency that fellow gamers had entrusted to him with the hope of earning some interest."

Manatee Bones Lead To New Insight On Evolution Mutations in the same gene may be responsible for the evolution of leglessness in animals as distantly related as 1,000-pound manatees in Florida and fish smaller than an index finger living in lakes and streams around the world.

Chimpanzees Can Transmit Cultural Behavior To Multiple 'Generations' Transferring knowledge through a chain of generations is a behavior not exclusive to humans, according to new findings by researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University and the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

Spacecraft Set to Smack the Moon This Weekend A European lunar orbiter is on track to hit the Moon over the weekend. Predicted effects range from a quick flash to a possible fireball if the spacecraft ricochets across the lunar surface. Experts are not sure how big a telescope would be required, but it is possible the event will be visible only seasoned observers.

What If...? An alternative history of the world What if the dinosaurs had survived? Or Hitler won in 1945? Or the aeroplane had been invented 1,000 years earlier? Would there even be life on earth if the moon had failed to form? Science fiction writer Stephen Baxter canvasses the possibilities.

A New Spin on Computing "Researchers have found a material that could allow the use of spintronics to make more-powerful computers." But beware spin on spintronics. There will be lots of hype, and start ups seeking money, before we see any products. (Sorry about the "Science" category, but there really isn't one for stories on really new technology.)

VIDEO: Machine Keeps HEART PUMPING Long After Owner Dies It's 'Previous' owner Dies - but a New Heart Machine using Donated Blood will keep the Heart Pumping, until it finds a new Body.....Has already been used with Success!

Live long? Die young? Answer isn't just in genes The scientific view of what determines a life span or how a person ages has swung back and forth. First, a couple of decades ago, the emphasis was on environment, eating right, exercising, getting good medical care.Then the view switched to genes, the idea that you either inherit the right combination of genes that will let you eat fatty steaks...

Ferrocene (Another happy accident) Ferrocene is another one of those weird molecules we just stumbled on. Upon reacting the anion of cyclopentadiene with an iron (II) salt, an "unusually stable" compound resulted. In inorganic chemistry, that often means stuff like stable to water or air, since much of this stuff falls apart gleefully.

Hilariously Bad Science Fiction Novel In 2006, a man known by the pen name "Raoul Marcheur" finished the second part of his three-part science fiction novel "Ack Rempi." A user on Google Pages has obtained a copy and has uploaded the hilariously bad novel to the Internet. The story's confusing and hackneyed plot and ridiculous grammar mistakes make it a very amusing read.

Study: Summer is Getting Longer The lines between seasons are blurring and summer is getting longer in North America, a new study indicates.

Revolutionizing Football New computer modeling software could make gridiron coaches rethink their decisions and look to science for guidance.

Mars Orbiter Successfully Makes Big Burn Ground controllers today successfully performed a major maneuver of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MOR)—an “end game� tactic that puts the orbiting probe a step closer to studying the red planet with its entire suite of science sensors.

Random-access method of accounting and control Reynold - or Rey - Johnson was born on July 7th, 1906 and died on September 15th, 1998, ninety two years later. He built a submarine in a horse trough in his family home and became a maths and science teacher in Michigan. He registered in excess of 50 patents before he moved to San Jose and helped found Silicon Valley.

Take out isn't an option at 220 miles up Places don't often deliver to locations 220 miles away, especially when that distance is straight up. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) must rely on packaged food brought during resupply missions. Fresh food is hard to come by in space.

Pirelli Teams Aston Martin and Panoz Look to Return to Winning Ways in Can. For the second time this season, Pirelli- shod cars finished 1-2-3 in GT2 at the Le Mans Series (LMS) race at Donington Park this past weekend. What is even more remarkable is that three different makes – Panoz, Porsche and Ferrari – were on the podium with all drivers wearing the familiar black and yellow Pirelli cap.

Students to restore 1972 Corvette Stingray Mid Michigan Community College's automotive program will start restoring a 1972 Corvette Stingray this fall. A new part of the automotive curriculum, the car restoration project will give students a chance to hone the skills they need to enter the job market.

Win an Aston Martin experience day Car online is delighted to have teamed up with Jaeger-leCoultre and Aston Martin to offer four readers the chance to win a superb driving experience.

Doubt cast over brain 'God spot' A University of Montreal team found Christian mystical experiences are mediated by several brain regions. Researchers asked 15 nuns to recount mystical experiences while studying them on MRI scanners, the journal, Neuroscience Letters reported.There has been much debate about how the brain reacts during connections with God among religious....

Hunting deer, eating lead Why not just use depleted uranium? Stupid deer hunters don't get that when they shoot a deer, they end up eating bits of the lead bullet. Is that why people from Wisconsin talk so funny?

News Archive:
Science Fiction News August 2006
Science Fiction News June 2006
Science Fiction News May 2006