A few weeks ago Google announced the beta launch of its new social network Google + which is expected to give a tough time to Facebook and Twitter.

Just after a few days of Google + beta launch, Google has announced the availability of Google + app for the Windows Phone 7.

The Google + app is not much different from the Facebook app, just some considerable differences have been seen which includes editing of a post after it has been posted, unlike Facebook. The Google + app allows user to easily upload pictures directly from the app which is not possible with the Facebook app. It has also enhanced its chat function.

Google + has the edge over Facebook over its privacy features which enables users to share stuff they want to selected circles (groups) they want.

The Google + app for iOs was also introduced a few days ago and the app for Android was introduced the same day when social networking launch was made.

The squidworm has ten tentacles along its body and its head stick out of it. The body part also comprises six pairs of curved nuchal organs allow the squidworm to taste and smell underwater. It controls the course and position by moving two body-length rows of thin, paddle-shaped protrusions. It also has the feature to swim upright with the fantastic headgear.

Scientist from Scripps Institute of Oceanography in California and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts have named Squidworm as Teuthidodrilus samae, a new genus and species of deep pelagic communities.

Teuthidodrilus samae did not appeared to be a predator but it feeds on passing plankton and marine snow which is a mix of sinking microscopic plants and animals, faecal material and cast-off mucus. Karen Osborn the marine biologists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California had earlier discovered unknown animals in the Celebes Sea at a depth of 2.8 kilometers (1.7 miles) using a remotely-operated submersible. Karen Osborn expectation was something unattainable because the animal was different from other species discovered earlier.

Karen Osborn estimated that when exploring in deep sea water column more than half the animals are not yet identified and this discovery will be new to science. Till now under ocean exploration are unable to be reached since the tools used for collecting samples are either scrapped or severely mutilated or disfigured which leads to higher complication in recognizing the specimen when brought to the surfaces.

Studies have suggested that Gamma-rays bursts can leave behind black holes like cosmic gravestones and the remaining may end up as spinning neutron stars. The other studies have also suggested that certain class of brightest and the most powerful Gamma-rays burst only because of black holes. Gamma-rays burst occur when certain massive stars have reached end of their lives and gives fuel for nuclear fusion in their cores without the pressure from the nuclear fusion pushing outward the gravity wins.

Brad Cenko a post-doctoral fellow from the University of California-Berkerly, said that the energy released from these events have too huge power by collapse and to form a neutron star which is known as a Magnetars. Magnetars are nothing but a type of neutron stars, where as a neutron are nothing but an object having protons and electrons in a merged form and that are spinning very quickly with extremely powerful magnetic fields.

Neutron stars if they weigh over a certain limit then gravity would have collapsed the object further into a black hole thus neutron stars are restricted in how massive they can be. Whereas black holes have no upper mass limit so it will incorporate any number of mass needed to power a Gamma-ray burst.

Scientist studied a sampling of Gamma-ray bursts observed by NASA’s Swift Gamma-ray satellite and they have found that 11 Gamma-rays bursts bore similar signatures in the same pattern of the light they emitted and also observed a magnetar was present in it.

But some scientists say magnetars would not be huge enough to produce energy required for a Gamma-ray burst.

The recent discovery of a Bigfoot turned out to be, as many experts feared, yet another hoax.  The two men behind this incredible hoax claimed in August 2008 to have found the corpse of a Bigfoot, an apelike creature beleieved to exist in North America.  When the news initially broke out it created media hype and great expectations, as if did indeed turned out to be genuine, it would have been hailed as one of the startling discoveries of the century.  The photo shows the fake corpse of Bigfoot, which in fact was rubber costume!  (Picture from www.searchingforbigfoot.com). The two men initially refused to show the body following the embarassment of genetic tests from the alleged corpse turned out to be a combination of human and opossum DNA!. Names of these two men, Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer, together with controversial Bigfoot hunter Tom Biscardiwith who spoke on their behalf to fabrictae and intriguing story, woujld now be etched in mysterious Bigfoot history as hoaxers who created a media frenzy and following in a modern era.

Despite the bizarre ending to the Bigfoot story, it is unlikely that it will diminsh the interest of its followers who may still believe that Bigfoot does indeed exist.  The study of Bigfoot broadly falls under the classification of Cryptozoology, which entails search for a mysterious animal that exists by way of myths and legends , where there is lack of empircial evidence and taxonomical records. As such there is no end to this mystery..

Arun

I am not sure about the current status of this product but have no doubt that this could one day become feasible when the technology is ripe and go on to revolutionaize the future of PC/Latop technology. It may seem that such creations are part of sci-fi movies where computerised screen is projected virtually and all actions are performed by interacting with the virtual input screen. But what you see in below photos show what Japense brains were upto in shaping the technology to make such dreams come real. The photos should not be seen as showcasing a working product but as an illustration of the concept (I have no way of verifying the authenticity of these photos!). See photos and you will know what I am talking about.

The product concept looks really cool but I can foresee few issues those who developed the concept could have faced when they attempted to implement a working prototype. The foremost that comes to my mind is the power requirements. Has technology advanced and aligned enough to come up with minuscule batteries that would power up the projections and cpu processing. I doubt so. Also how error prone would be the virtual keyboard and how it could interpret finger movements, depressions and mouse movements etc from random hand movements. These are things to ponder about. Suprisingly I was unable to find of the fate of this concept on net.

For now enjoy the photos and be dazzled by what could be your future in case you have not seen these images before ….

Arun

Editor hardwareinreview.com

Astronomers from Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have detected for the first time the molecules methanimine and hydrogen cyanide – two ingredients that build life-forming amino acids – in a galaxy some 250 million light years away.

“Just add water!” said Robert Minchin, an Arecibo astronomer on the project, who explained that methanimine and hydrogen cyanide are two of the basic ingredients of life, because when combined with water they form glycine, the simplest amino acid, a building block of life on Earth.

The astronomy team, led by Arecibo astronomer Christopher Salter, announced this discovery today (Jan. 11) in a poster presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin. The Arecibo Observatory is managed by Cornell University for National Science Foundation.

The Arecibo astronomers focused on the distant galaxy Arp 220, an ultra-luminous starburst galaxy, because it forms new stars at a very high rate. They used the 305-meter, or 1,000-foot diameter, Arecibo radio telescope, the world’s largest and most sensitive, to observe the galaxy at different frequencies. In fact, for the first time in April 2007, they used the 800 megahertz wide-band mode of the main spectrometer to make these detections.

Just add water?

These molecules were found by searching for radio emission at specific frequencies. Each chemical substance has its own unique radio frequency and astronomers can in that way identify the different substances, much like people can be identified with their unique fingerprints.

“We weren’t targeting any particular molecule, so we didn’t know what we were going to find – we just started searching, and what we found was incredibly exciting,” said Tapasi Ghosh, an Arecibo astronomer.

“The fact that we can observe these substances at such a vast distance means that there are huge amounts of them in Arp 220,” said Emmanuel Momjian, a former Arecibo astronomer, now at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Socorro, N.M. “It is indeed very intriguing to find that the ingredients of life appear in large quantities where new stars and planets are born.”

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In addition to Minchin, Salter, Momjian and Ghosh, the other astronomers included: Barbara Catinella, a former Arecibo astronomer now at the Max Plank Institute for Astrophysics in Germany; Mayra Lebron, a former Arecibo astronomer now at the University of Puerto Rico; and Mikael Lerner, an Arecibo astronomer.

Maybe it’s not just the cheese puffs.

Reporting in the online journal BMC Genetics, researchers from the Monell Center have for the first time attempted to count the number of genes that contribute to obesity and body weight.

The findings suggest that over 6,000 genes – about 25 percent of the genome – help determine an individual’s body weight.

“Reports describing the discovery of a new ‘obesity gene’ have become common in the scientific literature and also the popular press,” notes Monell behavioral geneticist Michael G. Tordoff, PhD, an author on the study.

“Our results suggest that each newly discovered gene is just one of the many thousands that influence body weight, so a quick fix to the obesity problem is unlikely.”

To obtain an estimate of how many genes contribute to body weight, the Monell researchers surveyed the Jackson Laboratory Mouse Genome Database for information on body weights of knockout mouse strains.

Knockout mice have had a specific gene inactivated, or “knocked out.” By studying how the knockout mice differ from normal mice, researchers obtain information about that gene’s function and how it might contribute to disease. Mice can provide valuable information on human disease because they share many genes with humans.

The knockout approach is so useful that the inventors of the technology were awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine. Knockout mice are now standard tools in all mouse models of behavior and disease.

In 60% of strains, knocking out a gene produces mice that are nonviable; that is, the mouse cannot survive without the knocked out gene.

The Monell survey revealed that body weight was altered in over a third of the viable knockout stains; 31 percent weighed less than controls (indicating that the missing genes contribute to heavier body weight), while another 3 percent weighed more (contributing to lighter weight).

Extrapolating from the total number of genes in the mouse genome, this implies that over 6,000 genes could potentially contribute to the body weight of a mouse.

Tordoff comments, “It is interesting that there are 10 times more genes that increase body weight than decrease it, which might help explain why it is easier to gain weight than lose it.”

Because body weight plays a role in many diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease, the implications of the findings extend beyond studies of obesity and body weight. Gene knockouts reported to affect these diseases and others could potentially be due to a general effect to lower body weight.

This cat might need some genes “knocked out.”

The findings also hold clinical relevance, according to lead author Danielle R. Reed, PhD, a Monell geneticist. “Clinicians and other professionals concerned with the development of personalized medicine need to expand their ideas of genetics to recognize that many genes act together to determine disease susceptibility.”

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Maureen P. Lawler also contributed to the study.

The Monell Chemical Senses Center is a nonprofit basic research institute based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For 40 years, Monell has been the nation’s leading research center focused on understanding the senses of smell, taste and chemical irritation: how they function and affect lives from before birth through old age. Using a multidisciplinary approach, scientists collaborate in the areas of: sensation and perception, neuroscience and molecular biology, environmental and occupational health, nutrition and appetite, health and well being, and chemical ecology and communication. Monell: Making Sense of Taste and Smell for 40 Years. For more information, visit www.monell.org.

Looks pretty cool, eh?

Cosmologists have run a series of huge computer simulations of the Universe that could ultimately help solve the mystery of dark energy.

Results of the simulations, carried out by Durham University’s world-leading Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC), tell researchers how to measure dark energy – a repulsive force that counteracts gravity.

The findings, published today (Friday, January 11) in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, will also provide vital input into the design of a proposed satellite mission called SPACE – the SPectroscopic All-sky Cosmic Explorer – that could unveil the nature of dark energy.

The discovery of dark energy in 1998 was completely unexpected and understanding its nature is one of the biggest problems in physics.

Scientists believe dark energy, which makes up 70 per cent of the Universe, is driving its accelerating expansion. If this expansion continues to accelerate experts say it could eventually lead to a Big Freeze as the Universe is pulled apart and becomes a vast cold expanse of dying stars and black holes.

The Durham research was funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the European Commission

The simulations, which took 11 days to run on Durham’s unique Cosmology Machine (COSMA) computer, looked at tiny ripples in the distribution of matter in the Universe made by sound waves a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang.

The ripples are delicate and some have been destroyed over the subsequent 13 billion years of the Universe, but the simulations showed they survived in certain conditions.

By changing the nature of dark energy in the simulations, the researchers discovered that the ripples appeared to change in length and could act as a “standard ruler” in the measurement of dark energy.

ICC Director Professor Carlos Frenk said: “The ripples are a ‘gold standard’. By comparing the size of the measured ripples to the gold standard we can work out how the Universe has expanded and from this figure out the properties of the dark energy.

“Astronomers are stuck with the one universe we live in. However, the simulations allow us to experiment with what might have happened if there had been more or less dark energy in the universe.”

Shows the changes in the universe’s rate of expansion

In the next five to 10 years a number of experiments are planned to explore dark energy. The Durham simulation has demonstrated the feasibility of the SPACE satellite mission proposed to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Cosmic Vision programme.

The project has been put forward by an international consortium of researchers including the Durham team.

SPACE, which is led by Bologna University, in Italy, is through to the next round of assessment by the ESA and if successful is planned to launch in 2017.

Co-principal investigator Professor Andrea Cimatti, of Bologna University, said: “Thanks to the ICC simulations it is possible to predict what SPACE would observe and to plan how to develop the mission parameters in order to obtain a three-dimensional map of the Universe and to compare it with the predictions of the simulations.

“Thanks to this comparison it will be possible to unveil the nature of dark energy and to understand how the structures in the Universe built up and evolved with cosmic time.”

Hopefully they didn’t use gummies for the study.

The roundworm C. elegans, a staple of laboratory research, may be key in unlocking one of the central biological mysteries: why we sleep. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report in this week’s advanced online edition of Nature that the round worm has a sleep-like state, joining most of the animal kingdom in displaying this physiology. This research has implications for explaining the evolution and purpose of sleep and sleep-like states in animals.

In addition, genetic work associated with the study provides new prospects for the use of C. elegans to identify sleep-regulatory genes and drug targets for sleep disorders.

First author David M. Raizen, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurology, in collaboration with other researchers at the Penn Center for Sleep, showed that there is a period of behavioral quiescence during the worm’s development called lethargus that has sleep-like properties. “Just as humans are less responsive during sleep, so is the worm during lethargus,” explains Raizen. “And, just as humans fall asleep faster and sleep deeper following sleep deprivation, so does the worm.”

By demonstrating that worms sleep, Raizen and colleagues have not only demonstrated the ubiquity of sleep in nature, but also propose a compelling hypothesis for the purpose for sleep.

Because the time of lethargus coincides with a time in the round worms’ life cycle when synaptic changes occur in the nervous system, they propose that sleep is a state required for nervous system plasticity. In other words, in order for the nervous system to grow and change, there must be down time of active behavior. Other researchers at Penn have shown that, in mammals, synaptic changes occur during sleep and that deprivation of sleep results in a disruption of these synaptic changes.

In addition, the research team used C. elegans as a model system to identify a gene that regulates sleep. This gene, which encodes a protein kinase and is regulated by a small molecule called cyclic GMP, has been previously studied but not suspected to play a role in sleep regulation. The findings suggest a potential role for this gene in regulating human sleep and may provide an avenue for developing new drugs for sleep disorders.

“It opens up an entire new line of inquiry into the functions of sleep,” notes Penn Center for Sleep Director and co-author Allan I. Pack, MB, Chb, PhD.