Winter Olympic medals made from recycled e-waste
When Olympic champions are crowned at this year's winter games in Vancouver, these elite athletes will be taking home more than just gold, silver or bronze medals—they will be playing a role in Canada's efforts to reduce electronic waste. That's because each medal was made with a tiny bit of the more than 140,000 tons of e-waste that otherwise would have been sent to Canadian landfills.
The more than 1,000 medals to be awarded at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, which kick off today, amount to 2.05 kilograms of gold, 1,950 kilograms of silver (Olympic gold medals are about 92.5 per cent silver, plated with six grams of gold) and 903 kilograms of copper. A little more than 1.5 percent of each gold medal was made with metals harvested from cathode ray tube glass, computer parts, circuit boards and other trashed tech. Each copper medal contains just over one percent e-waste, while the silver medals contain only small traces of recycled electronics. |
Stonehenge "Hedge" Found, Shielded Secret Rituals?
James Owen
for National Geographic News
Published February 11, 2010
Stonehenge may have been surrounded by a "Stonehedge" that blocked onlookers from seeing secret rituals, according to a new study.
Evidence for two encircling hedges—possibly thorn bushes—planted some 3,600 years ago was uncovered during a survey of the site by English Heritage, the government agency responsible for maintaining the monument in southern England.
The idea that Stonehedge was a shield against prying eyes isn’t yet firmly rooted, but it's archaeologists' leading theory. For instance the newfound banks are too low and unsubstantial to have had a defensive role.
"The best [theory] we can come up with is some sort of hedge bank," said English Heritage archaeologist David Field, whose team discovered the two landscape features in April 2009. |
Motorola plans split for early 2011
By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- Electronic News, 2/12/2010
The division of Motorola Inc is expected to be finalized early next year, although with a change in plans.
Some two years after the Schaumburg, Ill-based company announced it would spin out its handset unit by late 2009, hiring Sanjay Jha in August 2008 as Motorola co-CEO to run the slumping business, and after the company more recently faced rumors of the possible sale of its STB (set-top-box)-making home business, Motorola announced Thursday that it would separate into two independent, publicly traded companies.
One company to be headed by Jha will include Motorola’s mobile devices and home businesses. The other company will include Motorola’s enterprise mobility solutions and networks businesses, and will be headed by Greg Brown, Motorola’s other co-CEO who took Motorola’s reins after long-time CEO Ed Zander left in January 2008. |
Valentine's Science: Why Gauging Sexiness Is Sophisticated
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
Published February 12, 2010
This Valentine's Day, those meaningful looks cast at an attractive stranger may be signs of some of the most sophisticated thoughts a person can have.
That's the conclusion of recent brain scan studies, which are starting to reveal that deciding who we find attractive—even on a purely superficial level—is a much more complex process than an instinctual reaction.
For years neuroscientist Stephanie Ortigue of Syracuse University and Francesco Bianchi-Demicheli of Geneva University Psychiatric Center have been examining the brain's role in sexual experiences.
Most recently, the pair found that people making quick judgments about others' sexiness are using regions of the brain associated with higher functions, such as understanding the intentions of others and self-awareness. |
Apple builds cost cushion into iPad
By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- Electronic News, 2/11/2010
If Apple Inc’s marketing of its recently announced iPad is successful, the consumer electronics giant could make a hefty profit on the tablet devices.
Indeed, according to a virtual teardown by iSuppli Corp, even if Apple chooses to slash prices on the iPad for the holiday season, as rumors have begun to suggest, the company could still see healthy profit on several of its iPad models.
In its report, iSuppli noted that the mid-range, 3G-wireless version of Apple’s upcoming iPad is expected to carry a combined BOM (bill of materials) and manufacturing cost of $287.15, making it the most profitable member of the iPad product line on a percentage basis.
The mid-priced version of the iPad equipped with 32 Gbytes of NAND flash memory and 3G wireless capability will contain $275.95 worth of components and other materials, iSuppli estimated. This version of the device will cost $11.20 to manufacture. |
The Story Behind the Legendary Magnum Archive Sale
Last week, one of the most important photojournalism archives in history, the Magnum Photo Agency’s press prints collection, was sold to Michael Dell of Dell computers. Specifically, to Dell’s private investment firm, MSD Capital LP.
The collection will be housed by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin.
"Right place, right time, right people." That’s how Eli Reed, Magnum photographer and photojournalism professor at the school, summed up the deal. "It was a long time coming; it didn’t just happen quickly," he said.
Impressively keeping with Magnum’s cooperative policies, the deal ensures the photographers still retain total ownership of their works. Only the prints used by Magnum through 2003 for publication were sold, not the rights to the images themselves. |
Top 10 Tragic Love Stories in Geek Fiction
There are many great love stories in science fiction and fantasy. From Robin Hood and Maid Marian to Han Solo and Princess Leia, we all love the stories that end with some variation of "and they lived happily ever after."
But what about the great love stories that don’t end happily? Because loss is just as universal a part of the human experience as love is, the combination of the two in one story is often that much more poignant. Here, then, are the top 10 best tragic love stories from geek fiction:
[...]
The Doctor (as John Smith) & Joan Redfern — In one of the most heartbreaking episodes of David Tennant’s run on Doctor Who, titled "Human Nature," the Doctor is forced to forget himself and become fully human in order to hide from aliens seeking to steal his Time Lord powers. After adopting the guise of a teacher named John Smith in England a year before the start of WWI, he falls in love with the school nurse, Joan Redfern. But the aliens ultimately catch up with him, and (in the next episode) to save her and everyone else, the Doctor is forced to restore his true nature and memories, and leave behind the love he had found. [Thanks to GeekDad Editor Ken Denmead for writing most of this entry, as he is far more knowledgeable about all things Doctor Who than I.] |
Scientists Synthesize Unique Family of Anti-Cancer Compounds
ScienceDaily (Feb. 13, 2010) — Yale University scientists have streamlined the process for synthesizing a family of compounds with the potential to kill cancer and other diseased cells, and have found that they represent a unique category of anti-cancer agents. Their discovery appears in this week's online edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The team studied a family of compounds known as the kinamycins, which are naturally produced by bacteria during metabolism and are known for their potent toxicity. For years scientists have guessed that a core structure common to the different compounds within the group was responsible for this toxicity. Until now, chemists could not study the core structure because there was no simple way to create it in the laboratory. |
The World's Smallest Spontaneous Atomic Valentine
According to the physicists observing the atoms through the Lab’s JEOL 2100F microscope, Zhiwei Wang and David Pearmain, they watched with love, but really had absolutely nothing to do with the heart formation of the atoms.
Sadly, the bright, beautiful palladium Valentine will not be given to a special lady. Being only 8 nanometers in size, it can’t be seen by the human eye, and cannot even be relied upon to stay in the smallest ring setting. But we can all admire the wonderful high-angle, very high-power shot of the world's smallest and, arguably, prettiest naturally-formed Valentine. |
Justice Dept. defends warrantless cell phone tracking
The FBI and other police agencies don't need to obtain a search warrant to learn the locations of Americans' cell phones, the U.S. Department of Justice told a federal appeals court in Philadelphia on Friday.
A Justice Department attorney told the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that there is no constitutional problem with obtaining records from cellular providers that can reveal the approximate locations of handheld and mobile devices. (See CNET's previous article.)
There "is no constitutional bar" to acquiring "routine business records held by a communications service provider," said Mark Eckenwiler, a senior attorney in the criminal division of the Justice Department. He added, "The government is not required to use a warrant when it uses a tracking device." |
The Ultimate Interstellar Valentine Mix Tape
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that toward the end of the summer of 1977, NASA launched two Voyager spacecraft that each included a golden record containing, among other things, the sound of a kiss, a mother's first words to her newborn child, music from all over the world, and greetings in 59 different languages. The records on board were meant to survive for a billion years, in the hope that some day, against enormous odds, they might cross paths with an alien civilization. The record was a special project of Carl Sagan with the help of Ann Druyan, creative director of the project. For Druyan, though, the summer of 1977 and the Voyager project carry a deeply personal meaning because it was during the Voyager project that she and Sagan fell in love. Then Druyan had an idea for the record: They could measure the electrical impulses of a human brain and nervous system, turn it into sound, and put it on the record so that maybe, 1,000 million years from now, some alien civilization might be able to turn that data back into thoughts." |
Spacewalkers Hook Up Plumbing For New Space Station Room
Two spacewalking astronauts ventured outside the International Space Station late Saturday for a high-flying plumbing job on the orbiting laboratory's newest room.
Endeavour shuttle astronauts Robert Behnken and Nicholas Patrick hooked up four long hoses to the space station's new Tranquility module in order to supply the room with vital liquid ammonia coolant. The spacewalk, the second in three days for the two astronauts, will allow their crewmates to power up the new space room.
The spacewalkers had to be extra careful of any ammonia leaks while tackling the space plumbing job. |
NASA extends shuttle mission by a day
(CNN) -- NASA is extending the mission of the space shuttle Endeavour by a day so astronauts can do more work on the International Space Station, mission managers announced Sunday.
The shuttle is now scheduled to return to Earth on February 21, after a 14-day mission, the space agency said.
The announcement came as two astronauts completed a spacewalk lasting nearly six hours, NASA said in a statement. |
Valentines in Ancient Rome Were All About Pain
Clara Moskowitz
LiveScience Staff Writer
livescience.com – Sat Feb 13, 9:13 am ET
While valentine notes today tend to stress caring and warmth, love letters from ancient Rome often highlighted the wrenching, painful side of romance, historians say.
Valentine's Day itself didn't yet exist in ancient Rome, but men still wrote love poems about their sweethearts - often married women, and sometimes men. But where modern declarations of love often involve flattery and gratitude, the ancient Romans wrote more about pain.
Unlike what you see in contemporary stores where we have valentines that are all clouds and dreamy and romantic, the Romans had a very different kind of take on love," said Barbara Gold, a professor of classics at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. "It's not something that is a good feeling usually; it's something that torments you."
She described ancient love poems from about the first century B.C. to around A.D. first century that call love a plague, accuse love of making the writer see double and causing his tongue to swell up.
"You would never go out today and find a valentine that says 'You're like a plague, you set my bone marrow on fire,'" Gold told LiveScience. |