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Science News
May 16, 1960: Researcher Shines a Laser Light
By Randy Alfred
1960 — Physicist Theodore Maiman uses a synthetic-ruby crystal to create the first laser.
Maiman began tinkering with electronic devices in his teens and even earned college money repairing appliances and radios. He was working at the Hughes Research Laboratories of the Hughes Aircraft company in Malibu, California, when he built the first working laser.
The laser is a device that produces monochromatic (all the same wavelength), coherent (all the waves in phase) light. Today they're used in eye surgery, dentistry, range-finding, astronomical measurement, and welding and other manufacturing uses. You'll find them at the heart of scientific instruments, communications networks, weapons, music systems and supermarket scanners. Lasers are everywhere. |
Physics Nobel Honors Work on Ultra-Thin Carbon
By DENNIS OVERBYE
A pair of Russian-born physicists working at the University of Manchester in England have won the Nobel Prize in Physics for investigating the remarkable properties of ultrathin carbon flakes known as graphene, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Tuesday.
The physicists are Andre Geim, 51, and Konstantin Novoselov, 36. They will split the prize of about $1.4 million.
Graphene is a form of carbon in which the atoms are arranged in a flat hexagon lattice like microscopic chicken wire, a single atom thick. It is not only the thinnest material in the world, but also one of the strongest and hardest. |
Phillies, Rangers, Yanks, Giants to win, says NJIT math guru
New Jersey Institute of Technology
With the Major League Baseball Division Series set to begin, associate math professor Bruce Bukiet at NJIT is performing his analysis of the probability of each team advancing to the League Championship Series. "Going into these series, the Philadelphia Phillies have a 64 percent chance of defeating the Cincinnati Reds in their best of five game series," he said.
"The Texas Rangers, New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants have slight advantages to win series over their opponents, the Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves respectively in the first round Division Series contests.
The blog, Baseball PhD, recently named Bukiet its 2010 Predictions Champ based upon Bukiet's predictions of Major League Baseball wins. |
New Magma Layer Found Deep in Earth's Mantle?
National Geographic
A layer of searing hot liquid magma trapped since Earth's formation may lie 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) beneath our feet, new research suggests.
The finding backs up theories that Earth's solid lower mantle once housed a magma "ocean," and that some remnant of that molten material still exists today, like jam between two cake layers.
"Some models consider the [early] Earth to have been completely or largely molten, and people are looking for possible remnants or relics of this molten state," said study co-author Guillaume Fiquet of the Institut de Minéralogie et de Physique des Milieux Condensés at France's Université Pierre et Marie Curie. |
Technology News
1960 — The Xerox 914 Copier, an Instant Hit
eNotes.com
In 1958 Haloid changed its name to Haloid Xerox Inc., reflecting its belief that the company's future lay with xerography, although photography products were still more profitable. That balance quickly changed with the success of the Xerox 914 copier. Introduced in 1960, it was the first automatic Xerox copier, and the first marketable plain-paper copier. The company could not afford a blanket advertising campaign, so it placed ads in magazines and on television programs where it hoped business owners would see them. The company also offered the machines for monthly lease to make xerography affordable for smaller businesses.
Demand for the 650-pound 914 model exceeded Haloid Xerox's most optimistic projections, despite its large size. Fortune later called the copier "the most successful product ever marketed in America." Sales and rental of xerographic products doubled in 1961 and kept growing. In 1961 the company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, changed its name to Xerox Corporation, and photography operations were placed under the newly created Haloid photo division. |
Home Depot to sell Philips LED to replace 60-watt bulb
by Martin LaMonica
Home Depot later this year plans to carry a Philips LED bulb designed as a replacement for the common 60-watt incandescent.
The bulb, now called the 12-watt EnduraLED, will be available by the beginning of December and will cost between $40 and $50, representatives from Philips and Home Depot said today.
Home Depot started selling a line of LED bulbs under the EcoSmart label earlier this year, which includes both spotlights and general-lighting LEDs. The Philips bulb will likely be sold under a different name than 12-watt EnduraLED, Philips representative Silvie Casanova said. |
Damn the W3C, HTML5 Is Already Here
Wired.com
According to the web’s governing body, you shouldn’t be using HTML5, CSS3 or any of the HTML5-related APIs just yet. At least that’s the spin InfoWorld’s Paul Krill took from his sit-down with Philippe Le Hegaret, the interaction domain leader of the W3C.
In the InfoWorld article, Le Hegaret says, "The problem we’re facing right now is there is already a lot of excitement for HTML5, but it’s a little too early to deploy it because we’re running into interoperability issues."
Of course, we’d argue otherwise. |
Warner Bros. brings 'Looney Tunes' classic voices to TomTom
By Rachel King
Ever wonder what it would be like to drive with Bugs Bunny? If your answer was yes, then this is your lucky day as Warner Bros. has teamed up with TomTom and VoiceSkins to bring the voices of Looney Tunes to the popular GPS navigation devices.
Rolling out throughout the autumn season, you’ll soon be able to be directed by the exclamations of Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, Sylvester the Cat and Pepe Le Pew.
One of the comedic quips you might hear include Yosemite Sam belting out, "Sharp left, ya humpbacked muley. Then go straight on. This ve-hicle ain’t big enough for the two of us!" |
Environmental News
January 23, 1960 — Triest Reaches Record Depth of 10,911 metres (35,797 ft)
To the Depths in Trieste Copyright University of Delaware.
The deep-diving research bathyscaphe Trieste was first launched in 1953 near Naples, Italy, by the Swiss scientist who designed her, Auguste Piccard. After several years of operations in the Mediterranean, she was purchased by the U.S. Navy and transported to San Diego, California. On October 2, 1959, Trieste was loaded onto the freighter Santa Maria for transport to the Mariana Islands for a series of deep-submergence operations in the Pacific Ocean, into the Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in the ocean identified by the British ship Challenger II in 1851. The operations were code-named "Project Nekton."
On January 23, 1960 — the day of Trieste's historic dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench — the waves were 5 to 6 feet high in the ocean when Jacques Piccard (Auguste's son), and Navy Lt. Donald Walsh boarded Trieste from a rubber raft. They were housed in the white sphere at the bottom of the vessel. Reportedly, it was so packed with equipment that there was barely room for the men to sit in. |
A little climate change goes a long way in the tropics
In hot places, even minor warming could rev up metabolism in animals that don’t generate their own heat By Susan Milius
While biologists worry primarily about global warming’s effects on life in the Arctic, a seemingly paradoxical result of climate change may be sneaking up on metabolically sensitive creatures in the tropics.
Temperatures in the Arctic have climbed upward faster than in low latitudes. Yet a quirk of physiology could mean that slight upticks in the tropics are delivering a disproportionate jolt to some residents, says Michael Dillon of the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Insects, soil bacteria, frogs, salamanders, lizards, snakes and other animals that warm and cool with their surroundings could be getting a major kick in the metabolism from even slight rises in temperature. |
Massive count a drop in the bucket
Decade-long Census of Marine Life leaves plenty to discover By Susan Milius
A 10-year international project called the Census of Marine Life has come to an end with what has to be one of the strangest census reports ever.
At the project’s finale in London October 4, a summary of the collaboration by 2,700 scientists from more than 600 institutions around the world highlighted their own undercounts and the vast realms they missed. That, however, was the point. |
Photos: Canadian Rain Forest Edges Oil Pipeline Path
Crucial Waters –Rachel Kaufman
Canada's pristine western coastline could be endangered by a plan to build a new oil pipeline from Alberta to the coast in order to export oil overseas, say environmental activists and native people who rely on these waters.
Oil company Enbridge plans to link the oil sands of Athabasca, in central Alberta, to the port town of Kitimat in British Columbia, with a new pipeline that would carry 525,000 barrels of oil to the coast per day.
There's just one problem: the pipeline would pass through watersheds important to Canada's commercial fishing industry and brush past Coastal First Nations lands and the Great Bear Rainforest, a protected coastal area filled with red cedars, spruce, and the elusive all-white "spirit bear." |
Medical News
1960 — Wilson Greatbatch Introduces the First Implantable Pacemaker
Wikipedia
Wilson Greatbatch (born September 6, 1919) is an engineer and inventor who advanced the development of early implantable cardiac pacemakers. He is a graduate of Cornell University and the University at Buffalo. Greatbatch is often miscredited as the inventor of the pacemaker as a whole.
The earliest known creation of an implantable pacemaker was by Oke Senning and Rune Elmquist of Sweden in 1958. Improvements were made upon the two men's earlier work by creating the Chardack-Greatbatch pacemaker in 1960. It used Mallory mercuric oxide-zinc cells (mercury battery) for its energy source, driving a two transistor, transformer coupled blocking oscillator circuit, all encapsulated in epoxy resin, then coupled to electrodes placed into the myocardium of the patient's heart. The main difference between this pacemaker and the Swedish one is the battery technology used. This patented innovation led to the Medtronic company of Minneapolis commencing manufacture and further development of cardiac pacemakers. |
Damaged cell powerhouses linked to Parkinson's
Broken mitochondria may drive the disease, and could provide new therapeutic targets. Heidi Ledford
A painstaking analysis of more than 400 brain tissue samples has bolstered the link between Parkinson's disease and the loss of cellular powerhouses called mitochondria.
If backed up by additional studies, the results, published today in Science Translational Medicine, could warrant clinical trials of existing drugs (currently used to treat other diseases) that activate a key pathway able to repair and replace broken mitochondria. |
FDA Unveils Plan To Modernize And Speed Up Regulatory Science
Medical News Today
On Wednesday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unveiled its plan to modernize and speed up the agency's work by advancing "regulatory science" to ensure that new products, drugs and medical devices are effective and don't harm people, and that food is safe to eat.
The federal agency proposes to do this by developing new tools, standards and approaches, including working more closely with partners and establishing "centers of excellence" for research at universities, private companies and other government agencies. |
Most Men Unaware of Breast Cancer Risk in Males: Survey
HealthDay News
Nearly 80% of men at higher risk for breast cancer aren't aware that males can develop the disease, a new study finds, and none of the men surveyed said their doctors had talked to them about breast cancer.
In the study, published in the October issue of the American Journal of Nursing, the researchers surveyed 28 men who were at higher risk for male breast cancer because they had at least one blood relative with the disease on their mother's side. Seventy-nine percent of the men didn't know that men could develop breast cancer, and 43% said having the disease might cause them to question their masculinity, the survey found. |
Space News
April 01, 1960 — TIROS — Television Infrared Observation Satellite Program
Mission: The Television Infrared Observation Satellite Program (TIROS)
Launch Date: April 01, 1960 NASA
The TIROS Program (Television Infrared Observation Satellite) was NASA's first experimental step to determine if satellites could be useful in the study of the Earth. At that time, the effectiveness of satellite observations was still unproven. Since satellites were a new technology, the TIROS Program also tested various design issues for spacecraft: instruments, data and operational parameters. The goal was to improve satellite applications for Earth-bound decisions, such as "should we evacuate the coast because of the hurricane?".
The TIROS Program's first priority was the development of a meteorological satellite information system. Weather forecasting was deemed the most promising application of space-based observations.
TIROS proved extremely successful, providing the first accurate weather forecasts based on data gathered from space. TIROS began continuous coverage of the Earth's weather in 1962, and was used by meteorologists worldwide. The program's success with many instrument types and orbital configurations lead to the development of more sophisticated meteorological observation satellites. |
Kuiper Belt may be born of collisions
Diversity of objects and frequency of pairs not easily accounted for by standard models of planet formation. Rick Lovett
The cold and shadowy fringe of the solar system known as the Kuiper belt is generating increasing debate among scientists as data accumulates on the growing population of objects discovered there. Now, two new studies of Kuiper belt objects presented 5 October at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Pasadena, California, may reveal a crucial hole a prevailing model of the solar system's early history. |
EU's Galileo satnav system over budget, late: report
by Staff Writers
Berlin (AFP) Oct 7, 2010
Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system, meant to rival the US-built Global Positioning System (GPS), is over budget, running late and will be unprofitable for years, a press report said on Thursday.
Extra costs of 1.5-1.7 billion euros (2.1-2.4 billion dollars) are expected and the project will not be ready until 2017-18, Germany's Financial Times Deutschland daily cited a European Commission report as saying.
Originally the system was meant to be up and running, rivalling the dominance of the Pentagon's GPS in satnav systems in cars, for example, 10 years earlier, the FTD said.
Last year, the European Court of Auditors criticised the project as ill-prepared and badly managed, and in January the Commission said it would be in operation in 2014. |
Could a Human Mars Mission Be Funded Commercially?
NASA
What will it take to actually get humans to Mars? The best answer is probably money. The right amount of cold, hard cash will certainly solve a lot of problems and eliminate hurdles in sending a human mission to the Red Planet. But cash-strapped federal space agencies aren’t currently in the position to be able to direct a mission to another world – at least in the near term – and seemingly, a trip Mars is always 20-30 years off into the future. But how about a commercially funded effort? |
Odd News
February 29, 1960 — Chicago Playboy Club Opens
Chicago Bar Project
February 29, 1960 was a historic day for Chicago and the world. Playboy magazine owner Hugh Hefner decided that Leap Year would be an appropriate time for him to open up the world's first Playboy Club on Walton Street in the Gold Coast. The club, having hired from the local talent pool, provided the first appearance of the Playboy Bunnies. These Bunnies, with their satin corsets, bunny ears and fluffy white tails served those fortunate enough to be "Keyholders" in the style of the old gaslight clubs. As VIPs of the club, Keyholders could enter the club at anytime and indulge in an atmosphere filled with music, alcohol and nubile women. The flagship Chicago location was so successful in its inaugural year that, it not only become the busiest club in the world, but it was also the first of 40 locations – each being referred to by Newsweek as a "Disneyland for adults." |