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Silica on Mars

Members of NASA's Spirit rover team announce the discovery of a patch of soil on Mars that consists of about 90 percent silica. This is seen as strong evidence for liquid water in the area of Gusev crater at some earlier time.

Formation of Hurricanes

A study on the effect of global warming on hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean is published in Geophysical Research Letters. Its authors believe an increase in wind shear created by a warmer climate may hinder the formation of hurricanes, similar to the El Niño effect.

The Role of Histamine in Sleep and Waking

The Role of Histamine in Sleep and Waking

http://www.neuron.org/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS0896627304002478&highlight=Siegel

Radio National Breakfast

Was it James Dean who was the world's first cool dude?
Was it the leather jacket or the brooding countenance of his character in "Rebel Without a Cause" that made him stand out from the rest?
Even before that 1950's film about troubled youth, young people and older people who should know better, have been trying to be hip and cool.
It's not just attitude, though plenty of it can help.
And it's not just fashion or the number of body adornments or piercings.
Once upon a time, 'hip' was reserved for the icons of popular culture like singers, musicians and actors.
Now everyone wants to be cool and hip and it's become a commodity with fashion labels, hairstyles, and music genres defining what's cool, uncool and stuff that's so uncool that its cool.
But what exactly is the essence of cool? Why is it so pervasive? And what does it say about us?
To discuss this I'm joined from Washington by Thomas Frank, the editor of "The Baffler" a journal of cultural criticism and the author of "The Conquest of Cool" and "One Market Under God".
and from Toronto is Mark Kingwell, professor of Philosophy from the University of Toronto, who is the author of "Better Living: In Pursuit of Happiness from Plato to Prozac".

Richard Badham

Richard Badham
Professor of Management (Human Resources & Organisational Behaviour)
Richard Badham currently a Professor of Entrepreneurialism and Technology Management at the MGSM, and the David Goldmann Visiting Professor in Business Innovation at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK). His current research interests are in the areas of managing change, organizational politics and leadership, innovation and organizational redesign, and irony and organizational culture. He has currently working on a book on Managing Change: A Critical Introduction to Change Management (Macmillan, UK) and a book and series of articles on In Defense of Irony: Change, Commitment and Culture in Late Modern Organizations.

Molecules of Life

Molecules of Life Page
www.nyu.edu/pages/mathmol/library/life
NOVA | Secret of Photo 51 | Picturing the Molecules of Life | PBS
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/picturing.html

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol305/issue5690/index.shtml
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/305/5690/1558b

No need for a vital force?

One of the essential roles of science is demystification, replacing, where possible, vague and unverifiable concepts, like vital force by precise, rational and demonstrable explanations or theories. One of the extraordinary contributions of the chemical sciences to mankind's knowledge has been the demystification of the behavior and nature of living matter. As we shall see, living matter can be understood in terms of the same chemical principles as inorganic matter. Living matter is composed of atoms, in fact a rather restricted range of atoms, and these atoms are bound together to form molecules. Life is undoubtedly complex and diverse, but its molecules, its matter, do not require any new or different fundamental theories. There is no need for a vital force to understand the molecules of life.

HDL is good? Think again.

In patients with coronary-artery-clogging plaques, as much as half of the HDL high density lipoprotein which carries the "good" cholesterol, is chemically altered, blocking its normal ability to combat the buildup of cholesterol deposits.
From 228th national American Chemical Society meeting.
http://www.chemistry.org

Power of blogs

It’s well-known that many corporations fear blogs simply because of the power that they hold. Blogs (real ones, not those marketing ones) help to expose the cracks in a company. The problem is that all companies wish to be perceived as perfect, yet consumers seem to have a major lack of trust for companies. How can they blame us?
Scoble has written I would say his greatest piece ever in Are you afraid to blog? What makes this entry so wonderful is that you can tell he is speaking the truth and this is coming from someone who works for one of the most hated companies in the world (okay, that might have been a bit harsh).
What his entry explores is how word-of-mouth spreads at a ridiculous speed in the blogosphere and is so fast that companies can not keep up unless they maintain a blog themselves. With a blog, a company is able to announce their mistake and provide an explanation the same day as the mistake is found within the blogosphere. Traditionally, you would have to wait for a press release a couple of days later at the earliest.
The blogosphere has empowered the consumer to the point where every market is going to be a buyer’s market from now on. If you are looking for the best LCD currently on the market you do a search on Gizmodo or Engadget and maybe later you will hit up some of the traditional sites. Why is this? In my case I trust the writers of Gizmodo and Engadget more than I do Wired for example. It’s easier to build a relationship with a blog because of their open communication.
Blogs are not a technology to fear, but one that should be embraced. Sure they change the rules of marketing quite a bit, but when have those rules ever been written in stone? Coudal has a Jewelboxing blog that I find highly entertaining and has led me to make a purchase on more than one occassion. In the late 90’s if your company was without a website you found out how quickly you were left behind. I think the same will hold true for blogs in the near future.