February 27 2007

• The New Horizons
  New Horizons
  New Horizons is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission currently en route to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, Hydra and S/2011 P 1. Its estimated arrival date at the Pluto-Charon system is July 14th, 2015...
  
   spacecraft makes a flyby of the planet Jupiter
  Jupiter
  Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
  
   on its way to Pluto
  Pluto
  Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...
  
  . BBC News

• A hail storm
  Hail
  Hail is a form of solid precipitation. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is referred to as a hail stone. Hail stones on Earth consist mostly of water ice and measure between and in diameter, with the larger stones coming from severe thunderstorms...
  
   damages the external tank
  Space Shuttle external tank
  A Space Shuttle External Tank is the component of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle that contains the liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer. During lift-off and ascent it supplies the fuel and oxidizer under pressure to the three Space Shuttle Main Engines in the orbiter...
  
   of STS-117
  STS-117
  - Crew Notes :The initial crew manifest before the Columbia accident was:Astronaut Mark Polansky was originally slated to pilot this mission, but was moved to STS-116, which he commanded...
  
   while sitting on the launch pad
  Launch pad
  A launch pad is the area and facilities where rockets or spacecraft lift off. A spaceport can contain one or many launch pads. A typical launch pad consists of the service and umbilical structures. The service structure provides an access platform to inspect the launch vehicle prior to launch....
  
  , and will delay the launch by at least multiple weeks. (SpaceRef.com)

February 25 2007

• The Rosetta
  Rosetta (spacecraft)
  Rosetta is a robotic spacecraft of the European Space Agency on a mission to study the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Rosetta consists of two main elements: the Rosetta space probe and the Philae lander. The spacecraft was launched on 2 March 2004 on an Ariane 5 rocket and will reach the comet by...
  
   spacecraft
  Spacecraft
  A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
  
   successfully swings by the planet
  Planet
  A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
  
   Mars
  Mars
  Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
  
   on its way to the comet
  Comet
  A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...
  
   67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
  67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
  Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko, officially designated 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, is a comet with a current orbital period of 6.6 years. It is the destination of the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft mission, launched on March 2, 2004....
  
  . (BBCNews)

February 23 2007

• In a poster session at the Cosyne 07 academic conference, researchers at IBM
  IBM
  International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
  
  's Almaden Research Center
  Almaden Research Center
  The IBM Almaden Research Center is in San Jose, California, and is one of IBM's nine worldwide research labs. Its scientists perform basic and applied research in computer science, services, storage systems, physical sciences, and materials science and technology. The center opened in 1986, and...
  
   and the University of Nevada
  University of Nevada, Reno
  The University of Nevada, Reno , is a teaching and research university established in 1874 and located in Reno, Nevada, USA...
  
   present a neural
  Neuron
  A neuron is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signaling. Chemical signaling occurs via synapses, specialized connections with other cells. Neurons connect to each other to form networks. Neurons are the core components of the nervous...
  
  -level computer simulation
  Computer simulation
  A computer simulation, a computer model, or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system...
  
   of half a mouse
  Mouse
  A mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common. This rodent is eaten by large birds such as hawks and eagles...
  
   brain
  Brain
  The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
  
   at one tenth its normal speed; the massively parallel simulation, covering the equivalent of one second's brain activity, is run on an IBM Blue Gene/L
  Blue Gene
  Blue Gene is a computer architecture project to produce several supercomputers, designed to reach operating speeds in the PFLOPS range, and currently reaching sustained speeds of nearly 500 TFLOPS . It is a cooperative project among IBM Blue Gene is a computer architecture project to produce...
  
   supercomputer
  Supercomputer
  A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
  
   with 4096 processor
  Central processing unit
  The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
  
  s, each one having 256 MB
  Megabyte
  The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
  
   of memory (for a total memory size of 1 TB
  Terabyte
  The terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 1012 in the International System of Units , and therefore 1 terabyte is , or 1 trillion bytes, or 1000 gigabytes. 1 terabyte in binary prefixes is 0.9095 tebibytes, or 931.32 gibibytes...
  
  ). The presentation's title is "Towards real-time, mouse-scale cortical
  Cerebral cortex
  The cerebral cortex is a sheet of neural tissue that is outermost to the cerebrum of the mammalian brain. It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It is constituted of up to six horizontal layers, each of which has a different...
  
   simulations". (BBC News) (NordicHardware.com)

February 11 2007

• Researchers identify genetic
  Genetics
  Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
  
   clues to type 2 diabetes. (Boston Globe)

February 7 2007

• ICANN
  ICANN
  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
  
   reports that its root nameserver
  Root nameserver
  A root name server is a name server for the Domain Name System's root zone. It directly answers requests for records in the root zone and answers other requests returning a list of the designated authoritative name servers for the appropriate top-level domain...
  
   is under a massive denial-of-service attack
  Denial-of-service attack
  A denial-of-service attack or distributed denial-of-service attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users...
  
   from an unknown source. At the same time, servers managed by US Defense Department and UltraDNS are also being targeted. (BBCNews)

February 2 2007

• An IPCC
  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a scientific intergovernmental body which provides comprehensive assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and...
  
   meeting at Paris
  Paris
  Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
  
  , France
  France
  The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
  
  , ends with a report that finds a probability of 90 % or higher that human
  Human
  Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
  
   actions are creating a warming trend in the world's climate, causing global warming
  Global warming
  Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
  
  . (Reuters)