Sun-like Star Devours Planet WASP-12b

May 20 2010 | comment(s)

WASP-12b is the hottest known planet in the Milky Way galaxy, and it may also be the shortest-lived. The planet is being eaten by its parent star, according to observations made by a new instrument on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS). The planet may only have another 10 million years left before it is completely devoured. The discovery has been documented in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

WASP-12 is a yellow dwarf star located approximately 600 light-years away in the winter constellation Auriga. The exoplanet was discovered by the United Kingdom's Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) in 2008. The automated survey looks for the periodic dimming of stars from planets passing in front of them, an effect called transiting.

Is Synthia Life From Scratch? No, But A Cell Controlled By A Synthetic Genome May Save Our Energy Future

May 20 2010 | comment(s)

Scientists have developed the first cell controlled by a synthetic genome which may allow them to probe the basic machinery of life and engineer bacteria specially designed to solve environmental or energy problems.

The research team, led by Craig Venter, has already chemically synthesized a bacterial genome, and transplanted the genome of one bacterium to another. Now, the scientists have put both methods together, to create what they call a "synthetic cell," although only its genome is synthetic.

Einstein Got It Wrong About Brownian Motion, Physicists Claim

May 20 2010 | comment(s)

Albert Einstein said scientists would never be able to observe the instantaneous velocity of tiny particles as they randomly shake and shimmy, so called Brownian motion, but physicist at the University of Texas say they have done so.

In 1907, Einstein likely did not foresee a time when dust-sized particles of glass could be trapped and suspended in air by dual laser beam "optical tweezers." Nor would he have known that ultrasonic vibrations from a plate-like transducer would shake those glass beads into the air to be tweezed and measured as they moved in suspension.

The Nation Makes A Fundraising Plea, So We Can Too

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

The Nation magazine is in a pickle. It spends $1 million more than it makes and Chris Hayes, The Nation's Washington editor, was asked to send out an email to readers to bridge the gap. So he did. And the folks at Politico.com were kind enough to post it for the world, with a link to the fundraising site.

Organic Labels Not For The Birds

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

Birds wouldn't be happy in a Trader Joe's, it seems. Stuffed with aisles full of organically grown, gluten-free, range fed deliciousness, birds would see through expensive marketing and know that, nutritionally, organic food is no better, it is just a different process.

And scientist birds would be confused why no one in the food industry knows what the word 'organic' means.

What Is The Meaning Of "organic" (and Inorganic) Food? by professor Lee Silver

I Heart Scientists (By Way Of Introduction)

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

It's been several months since Michael White invited me to blog here at Scientific Blogging. I think the immediate occasion for his invitation was a conversation we had about Douglas Hofstadter's 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop. I don't remember the details of what I said in that conversation, but I guess something in it made Mike think that I had something to offer here. That conversation was one of many we've enjoyed over the past year on topics at least potentially relevant to the bloggers and readers on this site: science fiction, science books written for a general public, the academy, the relationship between science and the humanities.

SAND Names Mike Pilcher As Chief Operating Officer

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

Scum Causes Outrage In U.K.

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

Scum Causes Outrage In U.K.

A recent case in a British Magistrates Court has caused outrage in more ways than one.

Two 16-year-old boys from Darwen had performed an act of wanton vandalism and desecration in a church. They had written racist and sexually abusive words in prayer books and damaged a priceless John the Baptist cross.

In court, the magistrate - Austin Molloy - was outraged by what these lads had done. During sentencing Mr Molloy told the boys: “Normal people would consider you absolute scum."

The French Competition Authority Follows Up Allegations Of Anti-competitive Practices By Sanofi-Aventis To Exclude Fair Generic Competition For Plavix(R) (clopidogrel)

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

AMT Provides Business Update For The First Quarter 2010

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

VeriSilicon Announces Support For WebM On ZSP Digital Signal Processor Cores And SoC Platforms

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

Brightcove Announces Support For WebM Video Format For Adobe Flash HTML5

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

Cool Meets Cool: Everest Poker And David Guetta

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

Valeo Acquires 100% Of Its Electrical Systems Entity In India

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

Look at what the Bogdanov's have done to themselves!

May 19 2010 | comment(s)

If you thought their publications were freaky get a load of how they look after a ton of plastic surgery. You may remember them from the Bogdanov affair many years ago. They published papers in scientific journals that are very widely regarded as being bunk. Some have even reached to call them outright fraudulent.