Climate Change, Ocean Currents: New Species of Fish?

Could climate change, this years El Nino, changing patterns in the ocean's currents, have 'funneled' this prehistoric fish into shallow waters?

From National Geographic News

..a frilled shark swims at Japan's Awashima Marine Park on Sunday, January 21, 2007. Sightings of living frilled sharks are rare, because the fish generally remain thousands of feet beneath the water's surface. Spotted by a fisher on January 21, this 5.3-foot (160-centimeter) shark was transferred to the marine park, where it was placed in a seawater pool... ..the "living fossil" died hours after it was caught.

—Ted Chamberlain

mh

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

Every letter of the English alphabet is used in this Pangram. Read from left to right, top to bottom; follow the dots back up to the sentence to confirm.



This sentence is used to make sure the keys on typewriters and computer keyboards are working.



mh

Mobile phone use 'linked to tumour'

Long-term users of mobile phones are significantly more likely to develop a certain type of brain tumour on the side of the head where they hold their handsets, according to new research.

A large-scale study found that those who had regularly used mobiles for longer than 10 years were almost 40 per cent more likely to develop nervous system tumours called gliomas near to where they hold their phones.

The new research, to be published later this year in the International Journal of Cancer, is the second study to suggest increased risks of specific types of brain tumours in regions close to where mobile phone emissions enter the head.

However, a number of other studies have found no increased health risks associated with mobile phone use.



mh

Researchers have installed a molecular engine into a "car" just a few billionths of a metre long

Image: Takashi Sasaki/Rice University

14 April 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Tom Simonite

"Jim Tour and colleagues at Rice University in Houston, US, built a chassis and wheels for a nano-car from organic molecules...

The nano-car's molecular motor contains a pair of bonded carbon molecules that rotate in one direction if illuminated by a specific wavelength of light."

12:18 22 January 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Tom Simonite

"..researchers at the Free University of Berlin in Germany and the Center for Material Elaboration & Structural Studies in Toulouse, France"...

..using an electron microscope, have produced images of the nanowheels in action...

"..hundreds of these "nanowheels" were sprayed onto a sheet of copper. The researchers then used the tip of a scanning tunnelling electron microscope (STEM) to push individual molecules across a copper surface."

As soon as a Nano-movie of the light powered Nanowheels or a Nanocar become available I will load it here at SCIENCE BLOGS, and at the fast breaking site MICHAEL HOLLOWAY'S FilterBlogs.



mh

Super Bowl Marketing on DIGG

On January 16.2007 an article appeared on DIGG, the democratically edited news site.

This DIGG story placement was a carefully engineered piece; it was designed to create a buzz Diggers think they are joining.

This is a new type of marketing campaign developed by SEOmoz.org called a Viral Video Product Placement. This is how it works...

This is the piece that appeared on DIGG:

I'm Blogging! Pay Attention to Me!

Rand sent me the above comic strip and instructed me to let it inspire me (it seems he enjoys giving me the occasional homework assignment), and the first thing I thought of when I read it was, "Why do people blog?"

The Title of the piece draws you in; people like to read about themselves or connect with a group of people like themselves. The first line promises a cartoon by clicking on the story. Now your at SEOmoz.org and viola the Cartoon:


The site looks like an ordinary new-business blog site, inter-office chatter. The cartoon is funny, so you read the piece about blogging.

It turns out the community of people here are really nice. You find out that Someone knows Someone who's going to propose marriage during the Super Bowl! Clicking the link confirms JP is going to pop the question. Not only that, but there's some Buzz developing around this, a radio spot, an appearance on Good Morning America... ..and a marketing company is involved and "the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital will also benefit from the buzz"

The DIGG story placement was a carefully engineered piece of writing; it was designed to create the buzz they pretend you are now joining.

This is a new type of marketing campaign called a Viral Video Product Placement, according to Storybids.com the strategy plays out like this:

"the bride-to-be will be under the impression that her smart and wonderful boyfriend was able to win them and some friends a Super Bowl party (compliments of a major corporate sponsor)."

"the potential bride and groom-to-be, along with several of their closest friends, will be filmed by their corporate sponsor, enjoying the game and the product that has paid for their good time"

"suddenly the image of the groom-to-be appears on the (TV) screen (at the party). The venue filled with friends and the bride-to-be, as well as the rest of America, will be viewing the much anticipated proposal that has been building a media frenzy over the past several weeks"

"viewers will view the web address of where they can go to see the response video that was taped during and AFTER the television proposal."

To sum up the idea... the corporate and media savy 'average American guy' sets up a free corporate party during the Super Bowl , which is being filmed; then the proposal of marriage comes on the TV in the party venue - which the television audience is watching - them watch, - at the end of the spot a web address comes up. The television audience can't believe it and America rushes to their computers. The web site resolves the brides answer to the question - but not all the machinations of how it came about. The buzz could last days until we all figure out what happened around the water cooler at work.

Well, now you're ready, now you know, now you can be the smart hip one.



By the way - what is 'Super Bowl'?



mh

Before You Click SPAM...

January 15, 2007

Allison Randal at Radar O'Reilly in an article entitled "Spamonomics 101" recieved this useful bit of insight from Ken Simpson of MailChannels an Email Security Solutions Company,

Ken Simpson says:

"Those messages are sent by spammers to poison the spam filters. When someone receives a message full of gibberish and reports it as spam, the spam filters tune themselves to recognize gibberish as spam—which reduces their overall accuracy."

When your cleaning your E-mail In-box, check the content of mail you'd usually not even look at. If it's gibberish as noted above don't SPAM it; DELETE instead.

NASA Movie of Black Hole at the Centre of the Milky Way Galaxy

Sgr A*: Fast Stars Near the Galactic Center



Explanation: Why are these stars moving so fast? Shown above is a time-lapse movie in infrared light detailing how stars in the central light-year of our Galaxy have moved over the past eight years. The yellow mark at the image center represents the location of a peculiar radio source named Sgr A*. If these fast stars are held to the Galactic Center by gravity, then the central object exerting this gravity must be both compact and massive. Analysis of the stellar motions indicates that over one million times the mass of our Sun is somehow confined to a region less than a fifth of a light-year across. Astronomers interpret these observations as strong evidence that the center of our Galaxy is home to a very massive black hole.

Source APOD