Google will be having a permanent sidebar

The vice president of Google Search Product & user experience- Marissa Meyer has recently announced that Google will be permanently adding a sidebar to its search pages. She thinks that the users of Google are unhappy with the same design of Google's search interface. So, they are now testing a few changes in the Google's Search interface by adding a Sidebar on its left side and is going to soon visible to a small portion of users.



The sidebar will be consisting of some options to access content like Orkut, Google images, books, news, maps etc. There will be another option which will remember the Search History Keyword for fast search.

This will be a great change in the history of internet as the Google Search Interface is changing which was untouched for many years and millions of users are quite habituated with its daily search interface.

Einstein's Telescope: Searching for Dark Matter and the Future of the Universe

“Such stunning cosmic coincidences reveal so much about nature.”

~ Leonidas Moustakas, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other like a bull's-eye pattern. The double-ring pattern is caused by the complex bending of light from two distant galaxies strung directly behind a foreground massive galaxy, like three beads on a string. The foreground galaxy is 3 billion light-years away, the inner ring and outer ring are comprised of multiple images of two galaxies at a distance of 6 and approximately 11 billion light-years.

The discovery was made by an international team of astronomers led by Raphael Gavazzi and Tommaso Treu of the University of Californi, Santa Barbara. Treu says the odds of seeing such a special alignment are so small that they “hit the jackpot” with this discovery. “When I first saw it I said ‘wow, this is insane!’ I could not believe it!”

But this sight is more than just an incredible novelty. It’s also a very rare phenomenon that can offer insights into dark matter, dark energy, the nature of distant galaxies, and the curvature of the Universe itself. The discovery is part of the ongoing Sloan Lens Advanced Camera for Surveys (SLACS) program.

The phenomenon, called gravitational lensing, occurs when a massive galaxy in the foreground bends the light rays from a distant galaxy behind it, in much the same way as a magnifying glass would. When both galaxies are perfectly lined up, the light forms a circle, called an “Einstein ring”, around the foreground galaxy. If another more distant galaxy lies precisely on the same sightline, a second, larger ring will appear.

“Such stunning cosmic coincidences reveal so much about nature. Dark matter is not hidden to lensing,” added Leonidas Moustakas of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasaden, California, USA. “The elegance of this lens is trumped only by the secrets of nature that it reveals.”

The dark matter distribution in the foreground galaxies that is warping space to create the Einstein's telescope, the gravitational lens, can be accurately mapped. In addition, the geometry of the two Einstein rings allowed the team to measure the mass of the middle galaxy precisely to be a value of 1 billion solar masses. The team reports that this is the first measurement of the mass of a dwarf galaxy at cosmological distance.

A sample of several dozen double rings such as this one would offer a purely independent measure of the curvature of space by gravity. This would help in determining what the majority of the Universe is made of, and the properties of dark energy.

Original observations made in 1970 revealed that gravitational motions of gas clouds in the Andromeda galaxy were occurring at speeds far greater than the entire observed mass of that galaxy could account for. Similar problems detected in the 1930's involving motions of entire galaxies had long been disregarded. Later observations confirmed that so-called "ordinary matter" is insufficient to account for observed gravitational effects in the cosmos. Thus the universe must contain huge amounts of "dark matter," that we cannot observe and the composition of which we do not know.

In 1998 reports of observations of distant supernovae revealed that the expansion of the universe was not slowing, as would be expected from long-term effects of gravity, but was instead accelerating. Something was overcoming the gravitational power of all of the matter in the universe. The acceleration, moreover, has not been present from the Big Bang on. For billions of years the speed of expansion slowed. Then, about 5 billion years ago, acceleration began. Obviously energy--a lot of it--- was required to explain these phenomena. This is "dark energy." We cannot detect it and currently know almost nothing about it.

Today scientists believe that 5% of the universe consists of "ordinary" [observable] matter, 23% of "dark" matter and 72% of "dark energy."

Einstein's Telescope: Searching for Dark Matter and the Future of the Universe

“Such stunning cosmic coincidences reveal so much about nature.”

~ Leonidas Moustakas, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other like a bull's-eye pattern. The double-ring pattern is caused by the complex bending of light from two distant galaxies strung directly behind a foreground massive galaxy, like three beads on a string. The foreground galaxy is 3 billion light-years away, the inner ring and outer ring are comprised of multiple images of two galaxies at a distance of 6 and approximately 11 billion light-years.

The discovery was made by an international team of astronomers led by Raphael Gavazzi and Tommaso Treu of the University of Californi, Santa Barbara. Treu says the odds of seeing such a special alignment are so small that they “hit the jackpot” with this discovery. “When I first saw it I said ‘wow, this is insane!’ I could not believe it!”

But this sight is more than just an incredible novelty. It’s also a very rare phenomenon that can offer insights into dark matter, dark energy, the nature of distant galaxies, and the curvature of the Universe itself. The discovery is part of the ongoing Sloan Lens Advanced Camera for Surveys (SLACS) program.

The phenomenon, called gravitational lensing, occurs when a massive galaxy in the foreground bends the light rays from a distant galaxy behind it, in much the same way as a magnifying glass would. When both galaxies are perfectly lined up, the light forms a circle, called an “Einstein ring”, around the foreground galaxy. If another more distant galaxy lies precisely on the same sightline, a second, larger ring will appear.

“Such stunning cosmic coincidences reveal so much about nature. Dark matter is not hidden to lensing,” added Leonidas Moustakas of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasaden, California, USA. “The elegance of this lens is trumped only by the secrets of nature that it reveals.”

The dark matter distribution in the foreground galaxies that is warping space to create the Einstein's telescope, the gravitational lens, can be accurately mapped. In addition, the geometry of the two Einstein rings allowed the team to measure the mass of the middle galaxy precisely to be a value of 1 billion solar masses. The team reports that this is the first measurement of the mass of a dwarf galaxy at cosmological distance.

A sample of several dozen double rings such as this one would offer a purely independent measure of the curvature of space by gravity. This would help in determining what the majority of the Universe is made of, and the properties of dark energy.

Original observations made in 1970 revealed that gravitational motions of gas clouds in the Andromeda galaxy were occurring at speeds far greater than the entire observed mass of that galaxy could account for. Similar problems detected in the 1930's involving motions of entire galaxies had long been disregarded. Later observations confirmed that so-called "ordinary matter" is insufficient to account for observed gravitational effects in the cosmos. Thus the universe must contain huge amounts of "dark matter," that we cannot observe and the composition of which we do not know.

In 1998 reports of observations of distant supernovae revealed that the expansion of the universe was not slowing, as would be expected from long-term effects of gravity, but was instead accelerating. Something was overcoming the gravitational power of all of the matter in the universe. The acceleration, moreover, has not been present from the Big Bang on. For billions of years the speed of expansion slowed. Then, about 5 billion years ago, acceleration began. Obviously energy--a lot of it--- was required to explain these phenomena. This is "dark energy." We cannot detect it and currently know almost nothing about it.

Today scientists believe that 5% of the universe consists of "ordinary" [observable] matter, 23% of "dark" matter and 72% of "dark energy."

Sex In The Caribbean: Environmental Change Drives Evolutionary Change, Eventually

Hungry, sexual organisms replaced well-fed, clonal organisms in the Caribbean Sea as the Isthmus of Panama arose, separating the Caribbean from the Pacific, report researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The fossil record shows that if a species could shift from clonal to sexual reproduction it survived. Otherwise it was destined for extinction, millions of years later.

Image:Tiny bryozoans in sediments dredged
up from the bottom of the Caribbean Sea
reveal that environmental change drove evolution.

Closure of the Isthmus of Panama involved a protracted sequence of volcanic and tectonic events. During the final phase, between about 4.5 and 3.5 million years ago, the Caribbean underwent a major change from a pea soup-like environment, fed by nutrient-rich waters surging up along South America, into a crystal-clear, nutrient-poor environment.

"As the Caribbean Sea was cut off from the Pacific Ocean, many new species appeared in the fossil record, and all reproduced sexually," said Aaron O'Dea, who holds a Tupper Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Well-preserved fossils show that cupuladriid bryozoans, colonial animals similar to corals that walk around on the sea floor, reproduced either by cloning or by sex. To clone a new colony requires immediately available energy, so when nutrients are scarce, it's better not to fragment. Nutrients to form eggs and sperm needed for sex can, on the other hand, accumulate slowly over time.

O'Dea, with Jeremy Jackson, emeritus staff scientist at the Smithsonian and director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, measured the relative amount of cloning and sex occurring in species over the last 10 million years in the Caribbean. "The two forms are unmistakable," explained O'Dea. "You can clearly see the first individual that founded a sexual colony, while a clonal colony preserves the fragment from the previous colony from which it cloned."

As predicted, clonal bryozoans rapidly disappeared from the record as the Caribbean was isolated. Species that survived did so by becoming increasingly robust to reduce the chances of fragmentation while those that failed to evolve went extinct. They are still found in the nutrient-rich eastern Pacific.

But not everyone agreed that the extinctions which occurred 1-2 million years later in the Caribbean were caused by the formation of the Isthmus—a pattern also seen in corals and molluscs. Now these authors have the evidence to be sure.

"It's important to distinguish between ecological extinction—when these organisms stopped being important players in the game—and actual extinction, when they disappeared from the geological record," said Jackson. "The idea that extinction may be delayed by millions of years after the cause is worrisome. Today an overwhelming number of species are being reduced in abundance. The forecast from the fossil record is that even if they survive now, the ultimate cause of their extinction may already have passed us by."

35 Years of the World’s Best Microscope Photography

This image of the male sex organ of a flowering plant took first place in Nikon’s annual Small World photomicrography competition this year.

Chosen for both its scientific and artistic qualities from among a record 2,000 entries, this image was captured by Estonian scientist Heiti Paves.

“As part of my work as a research scientist, I have been taking photographs through the microscope for almost 30 years to observe the processes in living cells,” Paves said Thursday in a press release.

Nikon honored 20 images this year including an anglerfish ovary, cotton fibers and fish scales.

Winning the popular vote online out of 137 finalists was the image below of a bundle of fluorescent actin protein filaments captured by Dennis Breitsprecher of the Institute of Biophysical Chemistry at Germany’s Hannover Medical School.

Images: Above: Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) anther (20x) Confocal / Heiti Paves, Tallinn University of Technology, courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Below: Fluorescent actin protein filaments. / Dennis Breitsprecher, Institute of Biophysical Chemistry at Germany’s Hannover Medical School. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.

Previous winners:

2008: Pleurosigma (marine diatoms) (200x), Darkfield and Polarized Light. / Michael Stringer, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, United Kingdom. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 2008 runners up.

2007: Double transgenic mouse embryo, 18.5 days (17x), Brightfield, Darkfield, Fluorescence (GFP and RFP). / Gloria Kwon, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Insititute. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 2007 runners up.

2006: Mouse colon (740x), 2-Photon. / Paul L. Appleton, University of Dundee, UK. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 2006 runners up.

2005: Muscoid fly (house fly) (6.25x), Reflected light. / Charles B. Krebs, Charles Krebs Photography, Issaquah, Washington, USA. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 2005 runners up.

2004: Quantum dot nanocrystals deposited on a silicon substrate (200x), Polarized reflected light. / Seth A. Coe-Sullivan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 2004 runners up.

2003: Filamentous actin and microtubules (structural proteins) in mouse fibroblasts (cells) (1000x), Fluorescence. / Torsten Wittmann, The Scripps Research Institute. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 2003 runners up.

2002: Sagittal section of rat cerebellum (40x), Fluorescence and Confocal. / Thomas J. Deerinck, National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, University of California, San Diego. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 2002 runners up.

2001: Fresh water rotifer feeding among debris (200x), Darkfield. / Harold TaylorKensworth, UK. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 2001 runners up.

2000: Avicennia marina (mangrove) leaf (40x), Fluorescence and Differential Interference Contrast. / Daphne Zbaeren-Colbourn, Bern, Switzerland. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 2000 runners up.

1999: Newt lung cell in mitosis (5 different structures) (240x), Fluorescence. / Alexey Khodjakov, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1999 runners up.

1998: Endothelial cells (100x), Fluorescence, Double Exposure. / Jakob Zbaeren, Inselspital, Bern, Switzerland. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1998 runners up.

1997: Mouse fibroblasts (160x), Fluorescence. / Barbara A. Danowski, Union College. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1997 runners up.

1996: Doxorubin in methanol and dimethylbenzenesulfonic acid (80x), Polarized Light. / Lars BechNaarden, The Netherlands. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1996 runners up.

1995: Larva of Pleuronectidae (20x), Rheinberg Illumination and Polarized Light. / Christian Gautier, JACANA Press Agency, France. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1995 runners up.

1994: Cross-section of very young beech (40x), Brightfield. / Jean Rüegger-Deschenaux, Mikroskopische Gesellschaft, Zurich, Switzerland. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1994 runners up.

1993: Fossil Fusulinids in limestone (8x), Polarized Light. / Ron Sturm, Construction Technology Laboratories, Inc., Illinois, USA. COurtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1993 runners up.

1992: 10-year old preparation of barbital, fenacetine, valium and acetic acid (35x), Polarized Light. / Lars BechDeurne, The Netherlands. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1992 runners up.

1991: Polyurethane elastic fiber bundle (25x), Polarized Light. / Marc Van Hove, Centexbel, Belgium. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1991 runners up.

1990: Crystals evaporated from solution of magnesium sulfate and tartaric acid (50x), Polarized Light. / Richard H. Lee, Argonne National Laboratory. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1990 runners up.

1989: Multiple exposure of a knitting machine needle (10x), Brightfield. / Marc Van Hove, Centexbel, Belgium. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1989 runners up.

1988: Gold residue and gold-coated bubbles in glassy matrix (20x), Brightfield. / David Smith, Queensland, Australia. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1988 runners up.

1987: Crystals of influenza virus neuraminidase isolated from terns (14x), Brightfield with Colored Filters. / Julie Macklin and Dr. Graeme Laver, Australian National University. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1987 runners up.

1986: Live water mount of Hydra viridissima capturing Daphnia pulex (10x), Darkfield. / Steven F. Lowry, University of Ulster at Coleraine, North Ireland. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1986 runners up.

1985: Formalin-fixed whole mount of a spiral nematode, multiple exposure (160x), Darkfield. / Jon D. Eisenback, North Carolina State University. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1985 runners up.

1984: Inclusions of goethite and hematite in Brazilian agate (30x), Transmitted light with reflected fiber-optic illumination. / John I. Kolvula, Gemological Institute of America. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1984 runners up.

1983: Suctorian attached to stalk of red algae, encircled by ring of diatoms (125x), Darkfield. / Elieen Roux, Bob Hope International Heart Research Institute. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1983 runners up.

1982: Silverberry scaly hair whole mount (400x), Brightfield. / Jon D. Eisenback, North Carolina State University. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1982 runners up.

1981: Collapsed bubbles from an annealed experimental electronic sealing glass (55x), Reflected Light, Nomarski Differential Interference Contrast. / David Gnizak, Ferro Corp., Independence, Ohio. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1981 runners up.

1980: Larvacean within its feeding structure dyed with red organic carmine which the larvacean syphoned in while filter feeding (20x), Underwater camera with multiple extension tubes. / James M. King, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1980 runners up.

1979: Stalked protozoan attached to a filamentous green algae with bacteria on its surface (160x), Nomarski Differential Interference Contrast. / Paul W. Johnson, University of Rhode Island. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1979 runners up.

1978: Gold, vaporized in a tungsten boat, in a vacuum evaporator (55x), Vertical Illumination - Normarski Differential Interference. / David Gnizak, Independence, Ohio. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1978 runners up.

1977: Crystals of rutile (titanium dioxide) and tridymite (a polymorph of quartz) in a cobalt-rich glass (350x), Combined oblique illumination and reflected light. / James W. Smith, Independence, Ohio. Courtesy of Nikon Small World. The 1977 runners up.

Have Humans Entered a New Stage of Evolution?

Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year.

"By contrast," Hawking says, "there are about 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing of the order of a hundred billion bits of information. Of course, the great majority of this information is garbage, and no use to any form of life. But, even so, the rate at which useful information can be added is millions, if not billions, higher than with DNA."

This means Hawking says that we have entered a new phase of evolution. "At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information."

But what distinguishes us from our cave man ancestors is the knowledge that we have accumulated over the last ten thousand years, and particularly, Hawking points out, over the last three hundred.

"I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race," Hawking said.

In the last ten thousand years the human species has been in what Hawking calls, "an external transmission phase," where the internal record of information, handed down to succeeding generations in DNA, has not changed significantly. "But the external record, in books, and other long lasting forms of storage," Hawking says, "has grown enormously. Some people would use the term, evolution, only for the internally transmitted genetic material, and would object to it being applied to information handed down externally. But I think that is too narrow a view. We are more than just our genes."

The time scale for evolution, in the external transmission period, has collapsed to about 50 years, or less.

Meanwhile, Hawking observes, our human brains "with which we process this information have evolved only on the Darwinian time scale, of hundreds of thousands of years. This is beginning to cause problems. In the 18th century, there was said to be a man who had read every book written. But nowadays, if you read one book a day, it would take you about 15,000 years to read through the books in a national Library. By which time, many more books would have been written."

But we are now entering a new phase, of what Hawking calls "self designed evolution," in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. "At first," he continues "these changes will be confined to the repair of genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. These are controlled by single genes, and so are fairly easy to identify, and correct. Other qualities, such as intelligence, are probably controlled by a large number of genes. It will be much more difficult to find them, and work out the relations between them. Nevertheless, I am sure that during the next century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence, and instincts like aggression."

If the human race manages to redesign itself, to reduce or eliminate the risk of self-destruction, we will probably reach out to the stars and colonize other planets. But this will be done, Hawking believes, with intelligent machines based on mechanical and electronic components, rather than macromolecules, which could eventually replace DNA based life, just as DNA may have replaced an earlier form of life.

Scientists identify bacterium that helps in formation of gold

Australian scientists have found that the bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans catalyses the biomineralisation of gold by transforming toxic gold compounds to their metallic form using active cellular mechanism.

According to Frank Reith, leader of the research and working at the University of Adelaide, “A number of years ago we discovered that the metal-resistant bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans occurred on gold grains from two sites in Australia.

“The sites are 3500 km apart, in southern New South Wales and northern Queensland, so when we found the same organism on grains from both sites we thought we were onto something,” he said.

“It made us wonder why these organisms live in this particular environment. The results of this study point to their involvement in the active detoxification of Au complexes leading to formation of gold biominerals,” he added.

The experiments showed that C. metallidurans rapidly accumulates toxic gold complexes from a solution prepared in the lab.

This process promotes gold toxicity, which pushes the bacterium to induce oxidative stress and metal resistance clusters as well as an as yet uncharacterized Au-specific gene cluster in order to defend its cellular integrity.

This leads to active biochemically-mediated reduction of gold complexes to nano-particulate, metallic gold, which may contribute to the growth of gold nuggets.

By determining what elements there are, scientists can see where the gold is located in relation to the cells.

For this study, scientists combined synchrotron techniques at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the Advanced Photon Source (APS) and molecular microbial techniques to understand the biomineralisation in bacteria.

It is the first time that these techniques have been used in the same study, so Frank Reith brought together a multinational team of experts in both areas for the success of the experiment.

This is the first direct evidence that bacteria are actively involved in the cycling of rare and precious metals, such as gold.

These results open the doors to the production of biosensors.

“The discovery of an Au-specific operon means that we can now start to develop gold-specific biosensors, which will help mineral explorers to find new gold deposits,” said Reith.

Scientists identify bacterium that helps in formation of gold

Australian scientists have found that the bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans catalyses the biomineralisation of gold by transforming toxic gold compounds to their metallic form using active cellular mechanism.

According to Frank Reith, leader of the research and working at the University of Adelaide, “A number of years ago we discovered that the metal-resistant bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans occurred on gold grains from two sites in Australia.

“The sites are 3500 km apart, in southern New South Wales and northern Queensland, so when we found the same organism on grains from both sites we thought we were onto something,” he said.

“It made us wonder why these organisms live in this particular environment. The results of this study point to their involvement in the active detoxification of Au complexes leading to formation of gold biominerals,” he added.

The experiments showed that C. metallidurans rapidly accumulates toxic gold complexes from a solution prepared in the lab.

This process promotes gold toxicity, which pushes the bacterium to induce oxidative stress and metal resistance clusters as well as an as yet uncharacterized Au-specific gene cluster in order to defend its cellular integrity.

This leads to active biochemically-mediated reduction of gold complexes to nano-particulate, metallic gold, which may contribute to the growth of gold nuggets.

By determining what elements there are, scientists can see where the gold is located in relation to the cells.

For this study, scientists combined synchrotron techniques at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the Advanced Photon Source (APS) and molecular microbial techniques to understand the biomineralisation in bacteria.

It is the first time that these techniques have been used in the same study, so Frank Reith brought together a multinational team of experts in both areas for the success of the experiment.

This is the first direct evidence that bacteria are actively involved in the cycling of rare and precious metals, such as gold.

These results open the doors to the production of biosensors.

“The discovery of an Au-specific operon means that we can now start to develop gold-specific biosensors, which will help mineral explorers to find new gold deposits,” said Reith.

What's Left in the Cosmic Fuel Tank? Hundred Thousand Million Billion Trillion Quadrillion Quintillion Sextillion Septillion J/K

Everyone knows that everything ends, with the possible exception of Madonna's career, but only scientists can take omniversal extinction and put it into equation. Some scientists have summed up everything that ever was, is, or will be, and put a number on how much can be done before "Heat Death" stops being an awesome name for a band and starts an eternal reality.

The idea is based on entropy, an incredibly important term which - just for kicks - has at least three different definitions. You can simply understand entropy as a measure of irreversible changes: you can move a vase back and forth between coffee table and shelf forever, but you can't undo dropping it. Entropy measures this kind of change in which energy wasted, the number of possible configurations, or the simple number of un-undoable anythings increases. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that this value is always increasing - and in combination with the fact there's a finite amount of energy, it indicates that everything will eventually run down and stop. Or we'll have to feed the entire universe through a singularity (as in the Big Crunch) and start all over again - either way, the old universe is screwed.

Now Dr Charles Lineweaver and PhD student Charles Egan of the Australian National University have calculated how much entropy there is to "use up" - and it's a mere 10^104 Joules per Kelvin. Sure, a hundred thousand million billion trillion quadrillion quintillion sextillion septillion J/K might sound like an awful lot of whatever-that-is, but it's the ultimate finite supply. Forget oil - once you're out of entropy the game is well and truly over.

Of course this all about as relevant as ADD-afflicted mayflies calculating the thermonuclear lifespan of the sun, but it's fascinating in implication. The philosophical effects of their being a hard physical limit on how much can actually be done in any one universe are mind-blowing, as well as somehow making Dancing With The Stars an even worse affront to existence than it already was.

Your life is limited, fuel is finite, and even the ability to act itself is now a non-renewable resource. So make yourself worthwhile!

Powerful Ideas: Military Develops 'Cybug' Spies

Miniature robots could be good spies, but researchers now are experimenting with insect cyborgs or "cybugs" that could work even better.

Scientists can already control the flight of real moths using implanted devices.

The military and spy world no doubt would love tiny, live camera-wielding versions of Predator drones that could fly undetected into places where no human could ever go to snoop on the enemy. Developing such robots has proven a challenge so far, with one major hurdle being inventing an energy source for the droids that is both low weight and high power. Still, evidence that such machines are possible is ample in nature in the form of insects, which convert biological energy into flight.

It makes sense to pattern robots after insects — after all, they must be doing something right, seeing as they are the most successful animals on the planet, comprising roughly 75 percent of all animal species known to humanity. Indeed, scientists have patterned robots after insects and other animals for decades — to mimic cockroach wall-crawling, for instance, or the grasshopper's leap.

Mechanical metamorphosis

Instead of attempting to create sophisticated robots that imitate the complexity in the insect form that required millions of years of evolution to achieve, scientists now essentially want to hijack bugs for use as robots.

Originally researchers sought to control insects by gluing machinery onto their backs, but such links were not always reliable. To overcome this hurdle, the Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) program is sponsoring research into surgically implanting microchips straight into insects as they grow, intertwining their nerves and muscles with circuitry that can then steer the critters. As expensive as these devices might be to manufacture and embed in the bugs, they could still prove cheaper than building miniature robots from scratch.

As these cyborgs heal from their surgery while they naturally metamorphose from one developmental stage to the next — for instance, from caterpillar to butterfly — the result would yield a more reliable connection between the devices and the insects, the thinking goes. The fact that insects are immobile during some of these stages — for instance, when they are metamorphosing in cocoons — means they can be manipulated far more easily than if they were actively wriggling, meaning that devices could be implanted with assembly-line routine, significantly lowering costs.

The HI-MEMS program at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has to date invested $12 million into research since it began in 2006. It currently supports these cybug projects:
Roaches at Texas A&M.

Horned beetles at University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley.

Moths at an MIT-led team, and another moth project at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research.

Success with moths

So far researchers have successfully embedded MEMS into developing insects, and living adult insects have emerged with the embedded systems intact, a DARPA spokesperson told LiveScience. Researchers have also demonstrated that such devices can indeed control the flight of moths, albeit when they are tethered.

To power the devices, instead of relying on batteries, the hope is to convert the heat and mechanical energy the insect generates as it moves into electricity. The insects themselves could be optimized to generate electricity.

When the researchers can properly control the insects using the embedded devices, the cybugs might then enter the field, equipped with cameras, microphones and other sensors to help them spy on targets or sniff out explosives. Although insects do not always live very long in the wild, the cyborgs' lives could be prolonged by attaching devices that feed them.

The scientists are now working toward controlled, untethered flight, with the final goal being delivering the insect within 15 feet (5 m) of a specific target located 300 feet (100 meters) away, using electronic remote control by radio or GPS or both, standing still on arrival. Although flying insects such as moths and dragonflies are of great interest, hopping and swimming insects could also be useful, too, DARPA noted. It's conceivable that eventually a swarm of cybugs could converge on targets by land, sea and air.

Greening the Internet: How much CO2 does this article produce?

Twenty milligrams; that's the average amount of carbon emissions generated from the time it took you to read the first two words of this article.

Now, depending on how quickly you read, around 80, perhaps even 100 milligrams of C02 have been released. And in the several minutes it will take you to get to the end of this story, the number of milligrams of greenhouse gas emitted could be several thousand, if not more.

This may not seem like a lot: "But in aggregate, if you consider all the people visiting a web site and then all the seconds that each of them spends on it, it turns out to be a large number," says Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross, an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University who studies the environmental impact of computing.

Wissner-Gross estimates every second someone spends browsing a simple web site generates roughly 20 milligrams of C02. Whether downloading a song, sending an email or streaming a video, almost every single activity that takes place in the virtual environment has an impact on the real one.

As millions more go online each year some researchers say the need to create a green Internet ecosystem is not only imperative but also urgent.

"It is part of the whole sustainability picture," Chris Large, head of research and development at UK-based Climate Action Group, told.

"Scientists are saying to us that we have 10 years to take some serious action to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change so taking some sort of initiative is absolutely vital."

A number of studies have highlighted the growing energy demands of computers. A 2007 report from research firm Gartner, for example, estimates the manufacturing, use and disposal of information and communications technology generates about two percent of the world's greenhouse gases -- similar to the level produced by the entire aviation industry.

Anti-virus software firm McAfee reports that the electricity needed just to transmit the trillions of spam emails sent annually equals the amount required to power over two million homes in the United States while producing the same level of greenhouse gas emissions as more than three million cars.

"Most people don't appreciate that the computer on your desk is contributing to global warming and that if its electricity comes from a coal power plant it produces as much C02 as a sports utility vehicle," said Bill St. Arnaud of Canarie, a Canada-based internet development organization.

"Some studies estimate the internet will be producing 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gases in a decade. That is clearly the wrong direction. That is clearly unsustainable," added St. Arnaud.

What do you include when working out IT's carbon footprint?

Calculating the carbon footprint of the entire web however is not as easy as measuring the greenhouse gas emissions of a car.

Data centers -- massive buildings housing hundreds, if not thousands, of power hungry servers storing everything from Facebook photos and YouTube videos to company web sites and personal emails -- are often labeled as the worst offenders when it comes to harming the environment.

In 2002, global data center emissions amounted to 76 million tons of carbon dioxide -- a figure that is likely to more than triple over the next decade, according to a 2008 study by the Climate Group and Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI).

The footprint of network infrastructure, which is responsible for transporting information from data centers to personal computers, mobile phones and other devices, is harder to pinpoint.

However the same study estimates fixed broadband accounts for around four million tons of carbon emissions and could account for nearly 50 million tons of emissions by 2020.

The manufacturing, transport and use of personal computers and laptops also has what some say is the most significant impact, producing roughly 200 million tons of emissions in 2002.

As millions of people buy new laptops and computers every year, this figure could triple by the end of the next decade, according to the Climate Group report. And it is also true that, like driving a car compared to taking public transportation, some online activities produce more greenhouse gases than others.

More electricity is needed to store, transmit and download a video compared to a simple email, for example. A single search using Google releases 0.2 grams of C02 into the atmosphere, according to Google.

"And what that includes is the energy that we at Google use to be able to receive your search, process it and then send it back to you," Erik Teetzel, one of Google's "green" engineers, told.

"If people are counting things outside the activity that we do, then we don't have control over that so we don't factor that into the equation," said Teetzel.

"We can measure exactly the number of queries that we service and come up with a very accurate estimate and answer from measured results of our actual emissions or energy use per query that we serve."

The drive for energy efficiency

Citing competitive reasons, Teetzel declined to divulge Google's annual power bill, yet he said the internet company has been taking steps to make its main six, five megawatt server farms green as well as the other, smaller data centers it has around the world. It is doing this by using more renewable energy, recycled water and efficient software that requires less electricity to run.

"From a business perspective, it makes sense to get the most what you want to call useful work done using the least amount of resources," said Teetzel.

"Our energy efficiency efforts really did stem from us making our business more competitive."

A number of other companies are also working to take the various pieces that comprise the infrastructure of the internet in a more sustainable direction. Wissner-Gross of Harvard has a company called C02Stats that enables businesses to monitor and manage the environmental impact of their web sites and then purchase renewable energy certificates based on their sites' monthly carbon footprint.

Netherlands-based Cleanbits lobbies web sites to go green by either by purchasing carbon offsets or switching to green hosting providers, like AISO.net, a solar-powered data center based in California. And, like Google, Yahoo also incorporates renewable power and other efficiency measures in its data centers.

However as more of the world joins an age characterized by global flows of information and communication, some say the role the internet plays in making the lives of millions not only more efficient but also environmentally friendly should not be discounted.

"I don't think we've done a good deal with articulating the fact that IT is inherently an efficiency tool," said Teetzel. "That is why you and I use the internet now to find out a lot of information that would have previously been found by us getting in a car and driving somewhere."

"It is a little bit unfair to say that you have this huge carbon cost of the IT industry without articulating the fact that in many, many cases it offsets what I would call heavier, more carbon intense activities that we do in our daily lives," he added.

"Moving electrons is far more efficient than moving atoms. It is actually a paradigm change."

Teen with two hearts makes amazing recovery

Girl's heart heals itself 10 years after transplant

Hannah Clark is a 16-year-old with a shy laugh and a love of animals. She likes to go shopping with friends and dreams of a career working with children.

But Hannah Clark is no ordinary teenager and her normal life today could not have been possible without a unique, life-changing heart surgery.

In 1994 when she was eight-months-old, Hannah was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy -- an inflammation of the heart muscle that impairs the heart's ability to work properly.

Hannah's heart was failing and she needed a transplant. But instead of taking her own heart out, doctors added a new donated heart to her own when she was just two-years-old.

The so-called "piggyback" operation allowed the donor heart to do the work while Hannah's heart rested.

But Hannah was not in the clear yet. As with any organ transplant, Hannah's body was likely to reject her new heart and she had to take powerful immune suppression drugs.

Those drugs allowed her body to accept the donor heart but also led to lung cancer and yet another medical battle for Hannah that lasted for years.

Nearly 11 years after receiving the extra heart, there was more bad news: The immuno-suppression drugs were no longer working. Hannah's body was rejecting the donor heart.

In February 2006, her doctors tried something that had never been done before: They took out the donor heart. Doctors theorized that the donor heart had allowed Hannah's heart to rest, recover and grow back stronger.

Now for the first time Hannah's father, Paul Clark, describes the agonizing decision the family had to make at the time: "If she'd never had it done, she wouldn't be here.

"In the very beginning it was a 50/50 chance she wasn't going to make the operation. But in the next one it was even greater because it had never been done before. But we had to take that risk," he told.

The doctors were right. Three years later, Hannah has no need for any drugs and has been given a clean bill of health. The operation was a success.

"It means everything to me," Hannah told after the pioneering operation. "I thought I'd still have problems when I had this operation done. I thought after the heart had been removed I thought I'd have to visit hospitals. But now I'm just free," she said, smiling.

Dr. Magdi Yacoub performed Hannah's original transplant and came out of retirement to perform the second.

"The possibility of recovery of the heart is just like magic." Dr. Yacoub said at a media conference. "[We had] a heart which was not contracting at all at the time. We put the new heart to be pumping next to it and take its work, now [it] is functioning normally."

The findings have been published in the British medical journal, the Lancet.

Hannah's amazing recovery would not have been possible without a donor. Both Hannah's doctors and her family made an appeal for more people to consider organ donation.

"When it happens to someone close to you or yourself, you don't realize until then how important it is to be a donor and not to be selfish like, I need that part. You don't need that part. Give it to somebody else that needs it," said Clark.

"It just proves that if you can, be a donor. This can happen."

Dr. Yacoub now advocates "presumed consent" -- a policy by which anyone can be considered an organ donor unless they specifically request to opt out.

"All you are asking is please make up your own mind. Do you or do you not want to be a donor? My own family, my kids, everybody wants to be a donor. But if you don't, then say so," he said.

"Just please tell us what you want to do. So, presumed consent is a good thing."

Hannah has made a full recovery and looks forward to doing what many teenagers do during the summer holidays: Work at a summer job. Her family jokes that it's difficult to keep her from racing out the door now that she has so much energy.

For Hannah, it took the strength of two to help heal a broken heart, something she could have never done alone.

Jet makes landing with football-sized hole

A Southwest Airlines jet made an emergency landing in Charleston, West Virginia, on Monday after a football-sized hole in its fuselage caused the cabin to depressurize, an airline spokeswoman said.

There were no injuries aboard the Boeing 737, which was traveling at about 34,000 feet when the problem occurred, Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis told.

The sudden drop in cabin pressure caused the jet's oxygen masks to deploy.

Southwest Flight 2294 was en route from Nashville, Tennessee, to Baltimore, Maryland, with 126 passengers and a crew of five aboard, McInnis said.

It landed at 5:10 p.m. after the crew reported a football-sized hole in the middle of the cabin near the top of the aircraft, McInnis said.

What caused the damage to the jet had not been determined, she said. Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident, FAA spokeswoman Holly Baker said.

"There is no responsible way to speculate as to a cause at this point," Southwest said in a statement Monday night.

"We have safety procedures in place, and they were followed in this instance to get all passengers and crew safely on the ground," the airline said. "Reports we have are that our passengers were calm and that our pilots and flight attendants did a great job getting the aircraft on the ground safely."

Southwest dispatched a replacement aircraft to take passengers on to Baltimore. Charleston airport spokesman Brian Belcher said a local pizzeria provided food for the passengers as they waited.

The damaged jet will remain on the ground there until federal inspectors can examine it, he said.

In addition, all 181 of Southwest's 737-300s -- about a third of the airline's fleet -- will be inspected overnight after the emergency landing, McInnis said. Southwest does not expect the inspections to create delays, she said.