n2doc

n2doc's Journal

March 2, 2012

Low Levels of Omega-3 Fatty Acids May Cause Memory Problems

ScienceDaily (Feb. 27, 2012) — A diet lacking in omega-3 fatty acids, nutrients commonly found in fish, may cause your brain to age faster and lose some of its memory and thinking abilities, according to a study published in the February 28, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Omega-3 fatty acids include the nutrients called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA).

"People with lower blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids had lower brain volumes that were equivalent to about two years of structural brain aging," said study author Zaldy S. Tan, MD, MPH, of the Easton Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research and the Division of Geriatrics, University of California at Los Angeles.

For the study, 1,575 people with an average age of 67 and free of dementia underwent MRI brain scans. They were also given tests that measured mental function, body mass and the omega-3 fatty acid levels in their red blood cells.

The researchers found that people whose DHA levels were among the bottom 25 percent of the participants had lower brain volume compared to people who had higher DHA levels. Similarly, participants with levels of all omega-3 fatty acids in the bottom 25 percent also scored lower on tests of visual memory and executive function, such as problem solving and multi-tasking and abstract thinking.

more

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120227162549.htm

March 1, 2012

Nasa creates incredible video 'fly-through' of 18-mile crack in Pine Island glacier from 3D laser sc

By ROB WAUGH
Last updated at 7:39 PM on 29th February 2012

In October 2011, airborne Nasa researchers made the first-ever detailed 3D measurements of a major iceberg calving event - a new iceberg 'being born'.
The IceBridge team has now used the measurements - captured with a 3D laser imaging device - to create a 3D model of the crack in Pine Island Glacier, and an incredible video of what it would be like to fly through.

The animation was created by draping aerial photographs from the Digital Mapping System - a still camera with very precise geolocation ability—over data from the Airborne Topographic Mapper - a scanning laser altimeter that measures changes in the surface elevation of the ice.
Both instruments were flown on NASA's DC-8 research airplane, and the data was collected on October 26, 2011.
The crack formed in the ice shelf that extends from one of West Antarctica’s fastest-moving glaciers.

March 1, 2012

What it feels like to be surrounded by 2000 leaping dolphins

The normal pod of dolphins tends to tally at 16-20 — this statistic makes the sighting of this "mega-pod" of 2000 dolphins off the coast of Dana Point, California all the more special. Researchers speculate that the dolphins — who were hitting speeds of 25 miles per hour — were racing a whale-watching vessel for kicks. You shouldn't watch this if Day of the Dolphin gave you the vapors, and here's another fine example of dolphins at play.

http://io9.com/5888599/what-it-feels-like-to-be-surrounded-by-2000-leaping-dolphins

March 1, 2012

Men Who Cheat On Their Wives Are More Likely To Die Of Cardiac Arrest During Sex

Matthew Herper, Forbes Staff

Sexual intercourse, generally speaking, is very safe for the heart. It’s possible it may even be good for you. But some people do die of heart attacks or sudden cardiac arrest during sex. And almost all of those people are older married men cheating on their wives with younger women in unfamiliar surroundings.

I came across this fact while reading Heart 411: The Only Guide to Heart Health You’ll Ever Need, by Marc Gillinov and Steven Nissen, both high-ranking cardiologists at the Cleveland Clinic. They wrote:

Men with coronary heart disease do need to follow the rules. When heart attacks occur during or after sex, they almost always involve older men I extramarital affairs with young women. For those men, it would have been safer to stay at home and burn off excess energy on a treadmill in the basement.

Woah. Skeptical, I wrote Nissen, best known for stirring up controversy over drugs like GlaxoSmithKline‘s Avandia and Merck‘s Vioxx (both now withdrawn), and asked him to back that statement up with some data. Almost instantly, he sent me two scientific papers.

more

http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/men_who_cheat_on_their_wives_are_more_likely_to_die_of_cardiac_arrest_during_sex

March 1, 2012

Warp Drives May Come With a Killer Downside

by JASON MAJOR on FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Planning a little space travel to see some friends on Kepler 22b? Thinking of trying out your newly-installed FTL3000 Alcubierre Warp Drive to get you there in no time? Better not make it a surprise visit — your arrival may end up disintegrating anyone there when you show up.

“Warp” technology and faster-than-light (FTL) space travel has been a staple of science fiction for decades. The distances in space are just so vast and planetary systems — even within a single galaxy — are spaced so far apart, such a concept is needed to make casual human exploration feasible (and fit within the comforts of people’s imagination as well… nobody wants to think about Kirk and Spock bravely going to some alien planet while everyone they’ve ever known dies of old age!)

While many factors involving FTL travel are purely theoretical — and may remain in the realm of imagination for a very long time, if not ever — there are some concepts that play well with currently-accepted physics.

The Alcubierre warp drive is one of those concepts.

Proposed by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994, the drive would propel a ship at superluminal speeds by creating a bubble of negative energy around it, expanding space (and time) behind the ship while compressing space in front of it. In much the same way that a surfer rides a wave, the bubble of space containing the ship and its passengers would be pushed at velocities not limited to the speed of light toward a destination.

Of course, when the ship reaches its destination it has to stop. And that’s when all hell breaks loose.

more

http://www.universetoday.com/93882/warp-drives-may-come-with-a-killer-downside/

March 1, 2012

FBI anti-terrorism expert: TSA is useless

By Cory Doctorow at 11:07 am Wednesday, Feb 29
Steve Moore, who identifies himself as a former FBI Special Agent and head of the Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Force Al Qaeda squad, says that the TSA is useless. He says that they don't catch terrorists. He says they won't catch terrorists. He says that they can't catch terrorists. Oh, he also claims 35 years' piloting experience and a father was United's head of security and anti-hijacking SWAT training and experience.

Frankly, the professional experience I have had with TSA has frightened me. Once, when approaching screening for a flight on official FBI business, I showed my badge as I had done for decades in order to bypass screening. (You can be envious, but remember, I was one less person in line.) I was asked for my form which showed that I was armed. I was unarmed on this flight because my ultimate destination was a foreign country. I was told, "Then you have to be screened." This logic startled me, so I asked, "If I tell you I have a high-powered weapon, you will let me bypass screening, but if I tell you I'm unarmed, then I have to be screened?" The answer? "Yes. Exactly." Another time, I was bypassing screening (again on official FBI business) with my .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a TSA officer noticed the clip of my pocket knife. "You can't bring a knife on board," he said. I looked at him incredulously and asked, "The semi-automatic pistol is okay, but you don't trust me with a knife?" His response was equal parts predictable and frightening, "But knives are not allowed on the planes."...

The report goes on to state that the virtual strip search screening machines are a failure in that they cannot detect the type of explosives used by the “underwear bomber” or even a pistol used as a TSA’s own real-world test of the machines. Yet TSA has spent approximately $60 billion since 2002 and now has over 65,000 employees, more than the Department of State, more than the Department of Energy, more than the Department of Labor, more than the Department of Education, more than the Department of Housing and Urban Development---combined. TSA has become, according to the report, “an enormous, inflexible and distracted bureaucracy more concerned with……consolidating power.”

Each time the TSA is publically called to account for their actions, they fight back with fear-based press releases which usually begin with “At a time like this….” Or “Al Qaeda is planning—at this moment …..” The tactic, of course, is to throw the spotlight off the fact that their policies are doing nothing to make America safer “at a time like this.” Sometimes doing the wrong thing is just as bad as doing nothing.

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/29/fbi-anti-terrorism-expert-tsa.html

But we've known this all along...

March 1, 2012

New speech-jamming gun hints at dystopian Big Brother future

By Sebastian Anthony on March 1, 2012 at 6:37 am

Japanese researchers have created a hand-held gun (pictured above) that can jam the words of speakers who are more than 30 meters (100ft) away. The gun has two purposes, according to the researchers: At its most basic, this gun could be used in libraries and other quiet spaces to stop people from speaking — but its second application is a lot more chilling.

The researchers were looking for a way to stop “louder, stronger” voices from saying more than their fair share in conversation. The paper reads: “We have to establish and obey rules for proper turn-taking when speaking. However, some people tend to lengthen their turns or deliberately interrupt other people when it is their turn in order to establish their presence rather than achieve more fruitful discussions. Furthermore, some people tend to jeer at speakers to invalidate their speech.” In other words, this speech-jamming gun was built to enforce “proper” conversations.

The gun works by listening in with a directional microphone, and then, after a short delay of around 0.2 seconds, playing it back with a directional speaker. This triggers an effect that psychologists call Delayed Auditory Feedback (DAF), which has long been known to interrupt your speech (you might’ve experienced the same effect if you’ve ever heard your own voice echoing through Skype or another voice comms program). According to the researchers, DAF doesn’t cause physical discomfort, but the fact that you’re unable to talk is obviously quite stressful.

Suffice it to say, if you’re a firm believer in free speech, you should now be experiencing a deafening cacophony of alarm bells. Let me illustrate a few examples of how this speech-jamming gun could be used.

more
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/120583-new-speech-jamming-gun-hints-at-dystopian-big-brother-future

March 1, 2012

Japanese Giant Builds Computer Memory With Light

A piece of the future internet has surfaced in a lab in Japan: a memory chip that stores bits of light.

Researchers at Japanese telecom giant NTT have built an optical random access memory (o-RAM) chip — a conceptual cousin to the electronic memory in your computer. The goal is not to make a light-speed replacement for DRAM. That’s out of the realm of possibilities for the foreseeable future. Rather, the idea is to make fast, efficient storage buffers for internet routers and the communications switches that connect thousands of servers in data centers.

The NTT researchers built a 4-bit prototype that operates at 40 gigabits per second. If the technology were scaled up, a 1 megabit device would take up a square centimeter and consume less than 100 milliwatts. “Our RAM is just a 4-bit memory. We need to increase the scale of integration,” says NTT researcher Masaya Notomi.

NTT is targeting 10-kilobit to 1-megabit memory chips for future all-optical routers. According to Notomi, the prototype shows that these goals are reasonable in terms of size and power consumption. Getting to that scale will take time. The company expects to reach 10 kilobits by around 2020, and 1 megabit by around 2025.

more

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/03/ntt-optical-memory/

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