Digg: Astronomers spot dying star's final blast

Posted by on under death throes, final blast, radiati, billis, dying star, light years, gamma, earth |

Astronomers have confirmed a blast of gamma radiation spotted earlier this year was the death throes of a star billions of light years away from earth.

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Digg: Scientists Reproduce a Building Block of Life For First Time

Posted by on under hereditary material, radiati, essential ingredient, digg, origin of life, nasa, scientists |

NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life.

Tagi: hereditary material, radiati, essential ingredient, digg, origin of life, nasa, scientists

Gizmodo: Tap Tap Radiation For the iPad Looks More Entrancing Than Any iPhone Variation [IPad Apps]

Posted by on under tap tap, ipad, radiati, screen space, iphone, radiation, nbsp, variation |

Based on this preview video, Tap Tap Radiation will be wickedly fun to play on the iPad. It definitely looks different from iPhone variations and uses all that extra screen space fantastically. Oh, and it's of course free. More »

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Engadget: Terahertz radiation and metamaterials combine to form super X-Ray specs

Posted by on under digital imager, nefarious deeds, energy waves, th guy, radiati, ray specs, averitt, model x, x ray, x rays, mad magazine, bost, de luxe, radiation, dna, thz, nbsp, spectrum, clothes, science |

It looks like somebody actually coughed up the extra dollar for the De Luxe model X-Ray specs in the back of Mad Magazine, then reverse-engineered 'em in the name of science. That somebody is Richard Averitt, whose team at Boston University has come up with a way to use metamaterials and terahertz transmissions to see through you. We've seen metamaterials plenty of times before, typically being used for nefarious deeds on the opposite end of the spectrum: invisibility cloaks. Here they form pixels for a digital imager that can be activated by THz radiation. If you're not familiar with THz radiation, it's a (supposedly perfectly safe) form of energy waves that pass through materials -- much like X-Rays but without all the nasty DNA-shattering effects on the way through. There's just one problem: nobody (not even this guy) has made a powerful enough THz emitter just yet, meaning we're all safely naked under our clothes for at least another few years.

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Terahertz radiation and metamaterials combine to form super X-Ray specs originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 May 2010 15:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tagi: digital imager, nefarious deeds, energy waves, th guy, radiati, ray specs, averitt, model x, x ray, x rays, mad magazine, bost, de luxe, radiation, dna, thz, nbsp, spectrum, clothes, science

Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss

Posted by on under dummy models, punjab university, worker bees, dramatic decline, queen bee, radiati, phes, mdash, hive, phe, collapse, hives, counterpart, pollen, eggs, telegraph, productivity |

krou passes along word from Telegraph.co.uk that researchers from Chandigarh's Punjab University claim that they have proven mobile phones could explain Colony Collapse Disorder. "They set up a controlled experiment in Punjab earlier this year comparing the behavior and productivity of bees in two hives — one fitted with two mobile telephones which were powered on for two 15-minute sessions per day for three months. The other had dummy models installed. After three months the researchers recorded a dramatic decline in the size of the hive fitted with the mobile phone, a significant reduction in the number of eggs laid by the queen bee. The bees also stopped producing honey. The queen bee in the 'mobile' hive produced fewer than half of those created by her counterpart in the normal hive. They also found a dramatic decline in the number of worker bees returning to the hive after collecting pollen." We've talked about the honeybee problem before. Today's article quotes a British bee specialist who dismisses talk of cellphone radiation having anything to do with the problem.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tagi: dummy models, punjab university, worker bees, dramatic decline, queen bee, radiati, phes, mdash, hive, phe, collapse, hives, counterpart, pollen, eggs, telegraph, productivity