SCAPP Computing - Scientific Applications

Science and Technology

Housefly Gets Glasses Made With Lasers National Geographic

Altruism 'in-built' in humans Infants as young as 18 months show altruistic behaviour, suggesting humans have a natural tendency to be helpful. Altruism may have evolved six million years ago in the common ancestor of chimps and humans, the study suggests

Kids Build Soybean-Fueled Car A car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon would be enough to pique any driver's interest. So who do we have to thank for it. Ford? GM? Toyota? No — five kids from the auto shop program at school. The star at last week's Philadelphia Auto Show wasn't a sports car or an economy car, it was a sports-economy car

Unintelligent Design A monstrous discovery suggests that viruses, long regarded as lowly evolutionary latecomers, may have been the precursors of all life on Earth (v good read - ed)

Knock Code Technology will open your door without keys

Dark matter comes out of the cold Astronomers have for the first time put some real numbers on the physical characteristics of dark matter

Stardust capsule returns to Earth A capsule containing comet particles and interstellar dust has landed on Earth after a seven-year space mission

'Four mothers' for Europe's Jews Almost half of Europe's Jews are descended from just four women, according to a new study of mitochondrial DNA - passed from mother to daughter

Desktop fusion is back on the table Blast a liquid with waves of ultrasound and tiny bubbles of gas are created, which release a burst of heat and light when they implode. The core of the bubble reaches 15,000 °C, hot enough to wrench molecules apart

Environment

Algae — like a breath mint for smokestacks Fed a generous helping of emissions from power plant exhaust stacks, this algae grow quickly and the cleansed exhaust bubbles skyward with 40% less CO2. The algae is harvested daily and a combustible vegetable oil is squeezed out: biodiesel for automobiles

Startup hopes to tap electricity from trees

Cheaper veggie diesel may change the way we drive Any vegetable oil can become fuel, but not until its fatty acids are converted to chemical compounds known as esters. Currently the acids used to convert the fatty acids are prohibitively expensive. Using common, inexpensive sugars to form a recyclable solid acid does the job on the cheap

Beer cures cancer A compound found only in hops and the main product they are used in - beer - has rapidly gained interest as a micronutrient that might help prevent many types of cancer

Scientists make 'bionic' muscles Scientists have developed artificial, super-strength muscles which are powered by alcohol and hydrogen

Rolling Stones in giant Rio gig More than one million rock fans in Brazil have enjoyed a Rolling Stones concert on Rio's Copacabana Beach. Rod Stewart's in 1994 drew 3.5 million

Virtual club to rock pop culture The gamer who bought a virtual space station says he wants to turn it into a nightclub to change the face of entertainment. Gamer buys virtual space station A virtual space resort being built in the online role-playing game, Project Entropia, has been snapped up for $100,000

Gospel sheds new light on Judas Lost for almost 1 700 years, a manuscript entitled Gospel of Judas is putting a new spin on the case of the biblical "bad guy", maintaining that Jesus actually asked disciple Judas to betray him. Not so secret gospels

Pope views on modern love With Eros reduced to pure "sex", he writes, physical love has become a commodity to be bought and sold. Man himself has become a commodity

Jou ma se tongue Irish people used to take grim pleasure in claiming that they were the niggers of the UK, and John Lennon, confused feminist that he was, sang that "woman is the nigger of the world". Now it seems that some Afrikaners are taking the same delight in presenting themselves as the newly oppressed of South Africa

Skeletons Discovered: First African Slaves in New World The remains, in a colonial era graveyard in one of the oldest European cities in Mexico, date between the late-16th century and the mid-17th century, not long after Columbus first set foot in the Americas

China map lays claim to Americas The map, which shows North and South America apparently states that it is a 1763 copy of another made in 1418 and lends weight to a theory a Chinese admiral discovered America before Christopher Columbus