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Dinosaur Demise Theory Is Soaking Wet

Dinosaur doomsday was wetter than scientists have thought, according to new images of the crater where the space rock that likely killed the dinosaurs landed.

Sixty-five million years ago the asteroid struck the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, and most scientists think this event played a large role in causing the extinction of 70 percent of life on Earth, including non-avian dinosaurs.

Geophysicists now have created the most detailed 3-D seismic images yet of the mostly submerged Chicxulub impact crater. The data reveal that the asteroid landed in deeper water than previously assumed and therefore released about 6.5 times more water vapor into the atmosphere.

The images also show the crater contained sulfur-rich sediments that would have reacted with the water vapor to create sulfate aerosols. These compounds in the atmosphere would have made the impact deadlier by cooling the climate and producing acid rain.

“The greater amount of water vapor and consequent potential increase in sulfate aerosols needs to be taken into account for models of extinction mechanisms,” said Sean Gulick, a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin who led the study.

The findings will be published in the February 2008 issue of the journal Nature Geosciences.

The asteroid impact alone was probably not responsible for the mass extinction, Gulick said. More likely, a combination of environmental changes over different time scales took their toll.

Many large land animals, including the dinosaurs, might have baked to death within hours or days of the impact as ejected material fell from the sky, heating the atmosphere and setting off firestorms. More gradual changes in climate and acidity might have had a larger impact in the oceans.

If there was more acid rain than scientists had previously calculated, that could help explain why many smaller marine creatures were affected, because the rain could have turned the oceans more acidic.

There is some evidence that marine organisms more resistant to a range of pH survived, while more sensitive creatures did not.

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Quantum of Solace, the new Bond film title.

The next James Bond film is to be called Quantum of Solace, producers have confirmed.

The title is taken from one of a collection of short stories published by 007 creator Ian Fleming in 1960.

Producer Michael Wilson said the film would have “twice as much action” as 2006’s Casino Royale, which saw Daniel Craig debut as the iconic secret agent.

The next outing, previously known as Bond 22, is partly being shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.

At a press conference at the facility, reporters were shown a minute of footage from the new film, including Bond swinging on a rope after an explosion at an art gallery in Siena, Italy.

Another scene showed him meeting M – played by Dame Judi Dench – outside in the snow.

Filming on the movie has been taking place at Pinewood since November.

Craig said the cryptic title referenced how Bond’s heart had been broken at the end of Casino Royale.

“Ian Fleming had written about relationships,” he explained.

“When they go wrong, when there’s nothing left, when the spark has gone, when the fire’s gone out, there’s no quantum of solace.

“And at the end of the last movie, Bond has the love of his life taken away from him and he never got that quantum of solace.”

Craig said the new film would follow 007 as he goes out “to find the guy who’s responsible”.

“So he’s looking for revenge, you know, to make himself happy with the world again.

“But the title also alludes to something else in the film,” he added.

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Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required!

Two months ago I walked through how to build a Hackintosh Mac on the cheap using PC parts. Since that post, the OSx86 scene has changed rapidly, and now you can install Leopard on your computer about as easily as installing Leopard on a Mac—no command line hacking required. In addition, the resulting installation is—theoretically, at least—can be upgraded without fear of breaking. As if the simplicity of the installation weren’t already enough, the new installation tools fix any problems I’ve had in the past (for example, I no longer need to keep my install DVD in the drive to boot into OS X), and support the Wi-Fi card on my motherboard out-of-the-box. In short, it’s a winner.

NOTE: I can only vouch for this method on the build I detailed in the original post, but others have had a lot of luck with other boards, as well. If you’re thinking of starting from scratch and want to follow exactly how I did it, check out the Build section of my original guide. If you’ve got your system together, here’s how it works.

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Yikes, the fanciest sushi in NY loaded with mercury.

Today, The New York Times is reporting the finding of very high levels of mercury in tuna sushi in recent lab tests commissioned by the newspaper from a sampling of 20 Manhattan restaurants and food stores. Included in the study was sushi from some of the most prestigious food palaces, including Drew Nieporent’s Nobu Next Door, part of the famed Nobu restaurant chain, as well as the high-end grocer Gourmet Garage.

According to The New York Times, “Tuna samples from the Manhattan restaurants Nobu Next Door, Sushi Seki, Sushi of Gari and Blue Ribbon Sushi and the food store Gourmet Garage all had mercury above one part per million, the “action level” at which the F.D.A. can take food off the market. (The F.D.A. has rarely, if ever, taken any tuna off the market.) The highest mercury concentration, 1.4 parts per million, was found in tuna from Blue Ribbon Sushi. The lowest, 0.10, was bought at Fairway.”

Other critical findings:

Higher-priced blue fin tuna sushi, such as that often served at the most prestigious restaurants, had the higher levels of mercury.

A scientist involved in the study recommended limiting the consumption of tuna sushi suspected of high mercury contamination to no more than once every three weeks.

In a separate study last fall, New Yorkers’ mercury blood level was found to be three times higher than the national average, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, especially among Asian-born New Yorkers and the more affluent. It is thought that both groups eat more fish than many other groups in the city.

“Many experts believe the government’s warnings on mercury in seafood do not go far enough,” according to the NYT.

The disturbing bottom line of the article by noted nutrition expert Marian Burros is that the mercury levels found in NYC restaurants are likely be present in eateries in other parts of the country. And for a population told for years to eat fish for better health, that’s a dangerous disappointment indeed.

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Dissent Grows as Scientists Oppose NASA’s New Moon Mission

NASA’s plan for manned space exploration focuses on establishing a base on the moon, as a vital stepping stone for a visit to Mars. The initiative has been trumpeted by the Bush administration, which wants the first mission to launch by 2020. But trouble is brewing as a growing group of former mission managers, planetary scientists and astronauts argues against any manned moon mission at all. One alternative, they say: Send astronauts to an asteroid as a better preparation for a Martian landing.

The dissenters plan to gather in mid-February at a meeting of the Planetary Society at Stanford University. “We want to get a positive recommendation to the new administration,” says Planetary Society executive director Louis D. Friedman. He supports an eventual mission to Mars, but argues that the current moon scheme was selected with inadequate debate after a speech by President Bush in January 2004. “If you said ‘humans’ and ‘Mars’ [to NASA officials] in the same sentence, you would receive a figurative slap on the face, and then four months later [the moon-to-Mars plan] was the main point on a viewgraph at the highest levels.”

In addition to examining alternatives for manned missions, the February meeting will discuss a greater emphasis on Earth science and other potential NASA space exploration priorities, Friedman says.

A recent article in Aviation Week reporting on the views of the meeting organizers drew a sharp reply from NASA administrator Michael Griffin. On Monday, Griffin issued a letter defending the agency’s Constellation lunar base program. “The conference organizers have assigned sole responsibility for our new civil space exploration strategy to President Bush, ignoring the hugely bipartisan—actually nonpartisan—support it has received in Congress,” Griffin wrote. “No such far-reaching proposal should be adopted without debate. That debate was had, in 2003, ’04 and ’05, and it was fulsome. From it came a unifying plan for civil space, and the best legislative guidance NASA has ever had.”

When asked in an interview with Popular Mechanics last year whether he thought the next administration might make manned missions a lower priority, Griffin insisted that he couldn’t “imagine any U.S. president or any U.S. Congress deciding to take the United States out of the business of human space flight.”

The lunar program, which was largely meant to reinvigorate NASA and renew public enthusiasm for space exploration, has suffered from a spate of bad press. Last week, the Associated Press reported that NASA’s Ares I rocket, the replacement for the space shuttle, could literally shake the lunar hardware it carries to pieces during launch. Some presidential candidates have weighed in, criticizing NASA’s current plan.

NASA does have vocal supporters, however. Robert Walker, a former congressman and a member of the Presidential Commission on the Implementation of the United States Space Exploration Policy, points out that a Chinese moon program has already begun, with the launch of a probe in 2007. Both India and Japan have also announced their intentions to launch manned lunar missions, to great fanfare.

“Having a U.S. presence on the moon at least gives us the chance to keep an eye on the standard of conduct,” Walker says. “And that’s pretty damned important.” In military terms, the moon can be seen as the ultimate high ground. A nation could set up hard-to-defeat microwave or laser weapons platforms aimed at in-orbit satellites or, in the best sci-fi tradition, to launch large rocks at the Earth with “mass drivers.” (These were the weapon of choice for Robert Heinlein’s revolutionary protagonists in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.)

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Blu-ray players grab 93 percent of market after Warner went

According to the latest NPD group report, during the month of December Blu-ray players held 60 percent of the HD media player market — despite the fact that HD DVD players were considerably cheaper. While that might’ve helped Warner in its decision to go Blu, the move has definitely had a dramatic effect on player sales since. According to the same study the week after the announcement, Blu-ray players were able to grab 93 percent of the market, which puts the year to date (short, we know) share for Blu-ray players at 70 percent. Granted, it’s hard to put too much stock in just a week or two of data, but if this and the recent media sales numbers (85 percent) becomes a trend, maybe this won’t be such a slow death for HD DVD after all.

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Money Celebrities Pictures Gallery

There’s a new craze going in United Kingdom – people take pictures of themselves partially covered with folded banknotes (mostly with queen Elizabeth) in the foreground. The result is merged faces of people and queen Elizabeth on the banknotes. The mix looks surprisingly natural for some.

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5 Myths on Leasing a Car

Leasing often gets a bad rap, and no wonder: Its confusing argot sounds like fodder for a course in high finance, and dealers have been known to slip bad deals past confused car buyers who simply wanted low monthly payments.

About 20% of new-car transactions are leases, but I’m convinced that more people should be leasing. As interest rates rose, carmakers shifted incentives from rebates and low-interest financing to leases. If you know what you’re looking for and negotiate smart — and get over the five myths below — leasing can be a good deal.

1. Buying is cheaper than leasing. If you keep a car well past the day the loan is paid off (or you paid cash to begin with), you save money by buying. But if you trade in your car before the loan is paid off, the value of the trade-in is unlikely to cover the remaining balance on the loan.

For example, if you leased a new Chevrolet Malibu LTZ for three years, your monthly payments would be $489. When you turned in the car at the end of the lease, you’d pay a “turn-in” fee of $395 and then walk away. If, however, you bought the Malibu with a five-year loan at 7.9%, your monthly payments would be $546, and after five years you’d own the car free and clear.

But say you want another car after three years. To match the residual value written into a three-year lease, you’d probably have to sell the Malibu on your own rather than trade it in. Then you’d have to pay off the loan. Buying would leave you about $1,600 poorer.

2. It’s nearly impossible to negotiate a good buy. However, leases are negotiable. But first you need a tour of the jargon:

Capitalized cost.The vehicle price is called the capitalized cost. You should haggle over this just as hard as you would haggle over the price if you were buying.

Money factor. Another crucial term is the money factor. The lower this number, the better (multiply it by 2,400 to get an estimate of the interest rate). Dealers are sometimes reluctant to reveal the money factor, so be persistent.

Residual value. Finally, the residual value is the value of the car or truck at the end of the lease.

An inflated residual value lowers your monthly payments, but it can also hand-cuff you.

A more realistic residual value will make it easier to sell the lease, trade your vehicle mid lease or buy the vehicle at the end of the lease, says Tarry Shebesta, president of Automobile Consumer Services, a leasing service in Cincinnati.

Ask the dealer to show you deals from several banks, focusing on the money factor and the residual value. You can also go to LeaseCompare.com to comparison shop and apply for a lease. Or check out LeaseWise. For $335, the service will shop five dealers in your area.

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10 Best Stephen Hawking Quotes

I have recently been reading up a bit on the life and work of British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. In my reading, I have run across a number of his famous quotes that are both funny and insightful. He is widely considered to be among the most intelligent people living today. Here is what he has to say…

10. “Einstein was wrong when he said “God does not play dice”. Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can’t be seen.”

9. “I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.”

8. “My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”

7. “I find that American & Scandinavian accents work better with women.” In response to a question about the American accent of his synthesiser.

6. “Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales. In the end, however, I did put in one equation, Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc2. I hope that this will not scare off half of my potential readers.”

5. “My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.”

4. “To show this diagram properly, I would really need a four dimensional screen. However, because of government cuts, we could manage to provide only a two dimensional screen.”

3. “Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”

2. “The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.”

1. “Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.”

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Producer Explains Star Trek’s Teaser, New USS Enterprise

There have been reports that audiences seeing Cloverfield this weekend are going wild for the attached Star Trek teaser trailer, but my screening was dead quiet. And I can’t tell whether the mere four comments /Film received on our post about the bootleg version being on YouTube (still there) are a sign of disinterest, mild disappointment or reservation for the official version. Up until yesterday, I had a bad feeling about J.J. Abrams’s mega-budgeted December vision for Trek. The casting has been all over the place, and the filmmakers’ hardcore need to include Leonard Nimoy and as much canon as possible reminded me of the early warning signs for Superman Returns. But the trailer struck a cord with me.

The steady shot on the U.S.S. Enterprise under construction perfectly evoked how vast, dangerous and mysterious space actually is, and Nimoy’s “final frontier” line didn’t possess the stark confidence I’d expected. Instead, it sounded foreboding and safety belt-worthy. The theme music even had a refreshed alien sophistication. After seeing what J.J. and his team did minutes later with Manhattan and how tiny and disposable humans were in a monster’s wrath, their Star Trek now has my full attention.

Producer Roberto Orci spoke with Trekmovie.com to expand on the filmmakers’ intentions for the moderately esoteric and largely eerie teaser. To the Trekkies who remain adamant that the Enterprise must be built in space in accordance with canon, or “fanon” even, rather than on Earth, Orci breaks out the science and “creative license.” This is sort of impressive…

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Awesome New History Channel Show: Life After People

What would happen to planet earth if the human race were to suddenly disappear forever? Would ecosystems thrive? What remnants of our industrialized world would survive? What would crumble fastest?

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NBC’s Zucker hints at return to iTunes?

After a very public cat-fight resulting in the discontinuation of NBC content on iTunes, the relationship between NBC and Apple seems to be on the mend. Perhaps you recall NBC Universal’s CEO, Jeff Zucker, saying that Steve Jobs and iTunes had “destroyed the music business.” This in retaliation to Apple’s damning press release in which it chided NBC for wanting to more than double the retail price for its per episode downloads, something NBC flatly denied. This morning, the Financial Times is reporting on a kinder and gentler kinship between the media giants. According to the FT, Zucker says, “We’ve said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple.” He then unexpectedly adds, “We’re great fans of Steve Jobs.” No telling what has caused the turnabout. Perhaps the writers strike gave both parties time to reflect on their mounting lost revenue. Or maybe it’s residual goodwill on the heels of Universal inking an iTunes rental deal. Whatever the case, it will be good to see NBC’s content return to iTunes whenever the strike might end.

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Electronic contact lenses offer superhuman eyesight

Engineers have managed to combine a flexible contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. The new contact lens could superimpose computer displays onto a person’s eyesight.

Movie characters from the Terminator to the Bionic Woman use bionic eyes to zoom in on far-off scenes, have useful facts pop into their field of view, or create virtual crosshairs. Off the screen, virtual displays have been proposed for more practical purposes – visual aids to help vision-impaired people, holographic driving control panels and even as a way to surf the Web on the go.

The device to make this happen may be familiar. Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

“Looking through a completed lens, you would see what the display is generating superimposed on the world outside,” said Babak Parviz, a UW assistant professor of electrical engineering. “This is a very small step toward that goal, but I think it’s extremely promising.” The results were presented today at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ international conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems by Harvey Ho, a former graduate student of Parviz’s now working at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif. Other co-authors are Ehsan Saeedi and Samuel Kim in the UW’s electrical engineering department and Tueng Shen in the UW Medical Center’s ophthalmology department.

There are many possible uses for virtual displays. Drivers or pilots could see a vehicle’s speed projected onto the windshield. Video-game companies could use the contact lenses to completely immerse players in a virtual world without restricting their range of motion. And for communications, people on the go could surf the Internet on a midair virtual display screen that only they would be able to see.

“People may find all sorts of applications for it that we have not thought about. Our goal is to demonstrate the basic technology and make sure it works and that it’s safe,” said Parviz, who heads a multi-disciplinary UW group that is developing electronics for contact lenses.

The prototype device contains an electric circuit as well as red light-emitting diodes for a display, though it does not yet light up. The lenses were tested on rabbits for up to 20 minutes and the animals showed no adverse effects.

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Dog gives birth to mutant creature — Looks human!

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