Laptop Stolen, May Have Cured Cancer

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How many times do we have to tell you to back up your data people? Let this serve as an object lesson–two leading cancer researchers at Oklahoma University had their computer stolen recently.

It may have contained the cure for prostate cancer–or, at the very least, some vital clues in the fight against it. Sook Shin and her husband Ralf Jankecht had years of data on the thing. And no, they didn’t back up. Sin told the press, “I’m so devastated, and I feel so guilty.”

The couple is offering $1,000 for the safe return of their 13 inch Macbook, which was stolen from their Jetta parked outside of an Oklahoma-area Panera Bread, after a thief broke the window and stole a computer bag containing the computer.

“Please return the computer with the data saved,” added Jankecht. “This would tremendously help us and you would do something for society.”

Google Science Fair 2011 boasts big names, big prizes (video)

Dust off the baking soda and bust out the vinegar, because Google’s throwing a science fair. That’s right, the internet giant is taking the time-honored tradition of hastily constructed teenage science experiments online. Entrants must be between 13 and 18 years old and submit their projects (in English) via Google Sites by April 4th. Once the projects are in, a panel of real-life teachers will select 60 semi-finalists. From there, the pool will be narrowed down to a group of 15, who will attend an in-the-flesh fair at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA, this July. The big event’s judges include CERN‘s Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Google’s Vint Cerf, and Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis. Grand prize winners in three age groups will receive a $50,000 scholarship, a trip to the Galapagos islands, and some stuff from LEGO and Scientific American. On second thought, maybe the baking soda volcano isn’t such a great idea. (Rube Goldberg-inspired promo video after the jump.)

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Google Science Fair 2011 boasts big names, big prizes (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 04:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tagging Penguins Leads To Shorter Life, Fewer Chicks

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Scientists have long used a simple technique to follow the lives of specific penguins: placing a band around their flipper, thus making them easy to spot. But it turns out those simple bands actual harm the birds, reducing their lifespan and even diminishing the number of offspring they produce.

A study took place over ten years, and looked at a group of 100 King penguins — half of which had a flipper band, half of which had been outfitted with an implanted transponder. After a decade, 18 of the transponder penguins were still alive, while just 10 of the banded penguins survived. The penguins with the bands also arrived to breeding grounds much later and took longer to find food, thus leading to a reduced number of chicks.

The reason for the issues is most likely that the bands cause drag, reducing the penguins swimming abilities. They also make the birds more visible to predators.

“I would say no [it is not ethical],” French researcher Claire Saraux told the BBC. “The exception would be using them only on land, and that probably won’t be a problem so long as you take them off the birds before they go to sea – and that could still be useful, because I can tell you that when you go into a colony of 50,000 penguins to find yours, it’s not easy.”

Japanese doctor turns hot toddy into superconductor catalyst

It’s rare that hot booze does anything more than get you drunk, and possibly make you sick, but according to Dr. Yoshihiko Takano, the drink you’re sucking on could facilitate the levitation of a train. After a party for a colleague, the Japanese scientist found that FeTe0.8S0.2 (composed of iron, tellurium, and tellurium sulfide), when soaked in warm booze overnight, shows signs of increased superconductivity — another in a long line of liquor-enhanced discoveries that could have far reaching effects on everything from consumer electronics to public transportation. Dr. Takano decided to test the material (known to become a superconductor after soaking in water) in the leftover alcohol from the party: beer, red wine, white wine, sake, shochu, and whiskey. As it turns out, red wine has the highest superconducting volume fraction at 62.4 percent — nearly four times higher than the ethanol-water control samples. Dr. Takano and his colleagues speculate that the ease with which wine and beer oxidize could be play a key role in the increase in superconductivity. We speculate that even a superconductor gets a little hopped up after soaking in a bottle of wine.

Japanese doctor turns hot toddy into superconductor catalyst originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NC State’s coiled nanowire discovery could lead to stretchable electronic devices

Cotton may very well be the fabric of our lives, but it’d sure feel a lot better draped across our skin if we could incorporate stretchable electronic devices into it. That’s the goal of NC State’s own Dr. Yong Zhu, who has worked with a team of gurus to create “the first coils of silicon nanowire on a substrate that can be stretched to more than double their original length.” Essentially, this type of breakthrough brings us one (major) step closer to “incorporating stretchable electronic devices into clothing, implantable health-monitoring devices, and a host of other applications.” Compared to prior studies on buckling, this particular approach one-ups those focusing on freestanding nanowires, with the new coils’ mechanical properties enabling them to be “stretched an additional 104 percent beyond their original length.” That’s a lot of technobabble, for sure, but what you need to realize is just how amazing your life will be as soon as The Zhu Crew figures out how to improve the reliability of the electrical performance when the coils are stretched to the limit. Flexible PMPs woven into your ski jacket? Bendable LCDs sewn right into your car’s headrests? The future… it’s here.

NC State’s coiled nanowire discovery could lead to stretchable electronic devices originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 22:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Study shows love for music relates to brain chemical, not to My Chemical Romance

It would make sense that people listen to music for the sheer pleasure of it, right? That’s what we thought, but apparently there’s a scientific reason for this. Scientists have discovered that when Earthlings listen to pleasurable music, one particular chemical is loosed in the gord. The study, conducted by Robert Zatorre and Valorie Salimpoor of McGill University in Montreal, concluded that when the participants tuned into instrumental pieces they were familiar with, their brains released dopamine into the striatum — an area of the noggin linked with anticipation and predictions. According to PET scans, the members of the study unleashed the chemical 15 seconds before a climaxical moment in a song, signaling the possibility that humans may actually release it in anticipation and not as a reaction to a wailing solo. Bonus point? Chopped and screwed tracks unleashed forty times more dopamine. Just kidding, but it’s probably true.

Study shows love for music relates to brain chemical, not to My Chemical Romance originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 01:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Launches Science Fair

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Are you the next Einstein? Google is looking for you. The company “believe[s] that science can change the world,” and it’s looking to back that belief with some valuble prizes, attempting to “celebrate and champion young scientific talent as we do athletes and pop idols.”

The search giant has partnered LEGO, National Geographic and Scientific American for a an online science contest. The competition is targeted at students across the world, aed 13 to 18. Projects are due on April 4th. Semi-finalists will be announced in May.

In July, 15 finalists will bring their projects to Google for a live event with science judges, including Dean Kamen, Nobel laureate Kary Mulis, Google exec Vint Cerf, Scientific America editor Mariette di Cristina, and CERN director Mariette di Cristina.

More information, incuding registration, is available on Google’s official blog.

International Year of Chemistry 2011 seeks to educate and commemorate

Chemistry is a subject we don’t usually delve to deeply into here at Engadget, but this year is a special year for the science, marking the International Year of Chemistry. This event, which was made official by the United Nations, seeks to bring worldwide attention to the achievements in the field of chemistry which have contributed the welfare of humankind. Sponsored by 23 nations and various organizations, including the American Chemical Society, it includes the very interesting 365: Chemistry for Life calendar, which marks nearly every day of the year with a significant development in chemistry, such as January 8th, which commemorates Aircraft De-icers, which we are very, very grateful for. Hit up the source links to check out the full calendar.

International Year of Chemistry 2011 seeks to educate and commemorate originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 03:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New DNA Test Can Detect Hair Color

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Earlier this week, a Texas man was released after spending 30 years in prison. Cornelius Dupree was convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon in 1980 and sentenced to 75 years. Now, thanks to DNA evidence, he’s been exonerated. Since 2001, that state has freed more than 41 prisoners through the use of DNA evidence. And now, thanks to new breakthroughs, the science is about to become even more accurate.

Scientists at Erasmus University Medical Center in The Netherlands announced this week that they have developed a new test that can detect hair color in samples gathered through blood, semen, and saliva, adding to a list of characteristics that includes age and hair color.

The new evidence can detect black or red hair with 90 percent accuracy and blond or brown hair with 80 percent accuracy, according to the scientists.

Shocker! Media addicts suffer withdrawal symptoms, just like real addicts

…and we’re all media addicts, aren’t we? A recent study conducted by the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA) certainly seems to indicate that this is indeed the case. The premise was pretty straightforward: students at twelve universities around the world were instructed to abstain from using all media for twenty-four hours. The results were somewhat predictable: across the board, going without television was somewhat easy to do, while abstaining from text messaging and instant messaging brought on withdrawal symptoms: “When I did not have those two luxuries,” wrote one student, “I felt quite alone and secluded from my life. Although I go to a school with thousands of students, the fact that I was not able to communicate with anyone via technology was almost unbearable.” According to Dr. Roman Gerodimos of the University of Portsmouth both psychological and physical symptoms were reported by the young techno-junkies.

Shocker! Media addicts suffer withdrawal symptoms, just like real addicts originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 02:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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