Scientists aren't exactly in agreement... but in any case, they're getting all warm and cuddly by calling her 'Ida'...

She's unique: a 95% complete fossilised early primate.  And showing a rare level of detail - including the outline of where fur covered her body - and amazingly, even stomach contents indicating a last meal of berries and leaves. 

The name, 'Ida' was bestowed upon her by Jørn Hurum - a paleontologist at Oslo's Natural History Museum and leader of the international team who have studied the fossil for two years in secrecy.  Ida is the name of Hurum's 6 year old daughter who is roughly at the same stage of development as the ancient primate was when she died 47 million years ago.

Ida's proper name, is 'Darwinius Masillae': obviously partly a tribute to the great scientist Charles Darwin.  The second part of her name refers to the Messel Pit, an out-of-use quarry southeast of Frankfurt am Main, Germany where Ida was discovered.

So... what's all this about Ida being 'The Link'? Which link?

Tired of your old search engine and looking for something different?  It may not be Wolfram Alpha...

Released earlier this week, www.wolframalpha.com takes firm aim at being a new kind of search engine - although perhaps not a 'google-killer'.

The product is the latest offering from Wolfram Research, the company founded and named after the math and computing genius, Stephen Wolfram - best known for the software 'Mathematica'. 

Wolfram Alpha isn't a search engine as such.  Self described as a 'computational knowledge engine', it doesn't respond to a user's search text by displaying a list of relevant web page.  Rather, Wolfram Alpha relies upon it's own database of facts and figures - quantitative data which is 'computable.'

So, how does it all work out?

Typing the words "Apple, IBM" into Wolfram Alpha is interpreted by the software as a request for information on the two companies - resulting in a comparison between both organisations - just the facts. The same text input to Google returns a page of web links - at the time of publication of this new article the top result was a page on Apple Inc.'s website regarding their partnership with IBM.

Wolfram Alpha aspires to 'collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything.'  So, Alpha sounds brilliant if you're working with stats, equations, formulas and other types of raw data - but if you need to order a pizza, or find an opinion on the latest film showing at your local cinema then Google looks still firmly rooted as being the search engine of choice.

So far, the blob has been unavailable for comment...

However, it does have a name: 'Himiko' a reference to a mysterious Japanese queen.

The newly discovered blob was named by Masami Ouchi of the Carnegie Institution for Science, lead researcher of an international team of astronomers. 

The most distant and ancient large object ever spotted - Himiko's existence poses a mystery for astronomers and cosmologists.

Combining psychology, neuroscience, economics (and tasty snacks)...

Neuroeconomics strives to better understand the neurobiological basis of choice.

Investigative techniques used in neuroeconomics not only revolve around observing human behaviour - but also utilise brain imaging and other measurement technologies to measure the brain during the process of economic decision making.

Neuromarketing - measures how the brain reacts to consumer choices. 

Mindsign Neuromarketing, is a California company which makes the bold claim that it's use of MRI images allow marketers to "... capture, analyze, and correlate by demographic group, a product's effect on the entire human brain, and therewith the mind."

US$6 cooker made from a cardboard box wins the FT Climate Challenge prize...

"It's the simplest idea I could find," says Jon Bohmer, the man behind the 'Kyoto Box'.

London's Financial Times newspaper and Hewlett Packard sponsored the US$75,000 Climate Challenge prize - which was organised by Forum for the Future, a UK sustainable development charity.

The Kyoto Box is named after the 1992 Earth Summit Kyoto Protocol which strives to limit and stabilise the concentration of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere in order to combat long-term dangers to global climate.

A simple design...

it's made of two interlined cardboard boxes, foil lining the interior, paint and straw for further insulation and heat capture and all topped off with an acrylic cover that lets the sun's rays in then traps the heat.

For some of the poorest people in the world, the invention promises to reduce the reliance on wood and charcoal for cooking food and boiling water.

Bohmer, the inventor of the Kyoto Box plans to use the prize money to roll-out mass trials of the product in 10 countries, including South Africa, India and Indonesia.

Bohmer envisions the box being given away for free to those who need it.  And if the Kyoto Box is eligible for carbon credits, then it may result in a net profit for the individuals operating it, enabling them to replace the solar cooker with another within 4-5 years.

Social networking and micro-blogging: not just for giggles and gossip anymore...

Student anger in Moldova boiled over this week following a national election in which victory was declared by the currently ruling Communist Party led by President Vladimir Voronin.

Amidst widespread allegations of vote-fixing, the social networking and micro-blogging service Twitter (alongside Facebook and SMS text messaging) was used to organise protests of an estimated 15,000 students in Chisinau, the capital earlier this week.  Students trashed the Moldovan parliament and other government buildings prior to police moving in to restore order.

Critics assert that Twitter is simply publishing by the self-obsessed

While some not insignificant portion of Twitter content content is undoubtedly trivial and banal it cannot be denied that the social network has the potential to have a powerful political effect - as events in Moldova have demonstrated.

In the past social networking has been used to break news and inform users during the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Barack Obama's US presidential campaign, and implemented by the Los Angeles Fire Department as a source of public information during the 2007 California wildfires.

Just enough room for you and your date...

Today, Segway Inc, in cooperation with the mammoth financially troubled US car-maker, General Motors, revealed their new prototype PUMA vehicle (Personal Urban Mobility & Accesibility).

The PUMA promises to expand on the capabilities of Segway's earlier product, the Personal Transporter (PT) which was released to the market in 2002. 

The original PT's maximum speed was around 20 km/h - and on a single charge it could cover a distance of 25-40 km, depending upon terrain, prior to requiring a nap near an electrical socket for 8-10 hours to recharge.  The PUMA prototype exceeds this by boasting speeds up to 56 km/h and a maximum distance of 55 km prior to recharging.

GM and Segway have not yet announced plans to bring the vehicle to market.  However, potentially, the PUMA could be a genuinely viable - and green - alternative for city transportation.  The fuel costs are certainly much cheaper than running a car, as when it's lithium battery is fully charged the vehicle can travel it's maximum 56 km distance at a cost of US$ 0.60

The announcement cast a ray of hope over GM, the gloomy auto giant.  A little over a week prior, President Obama had admonished the auto-maker to "...restructure, to modernise, and to make themselves more competititve".  Obama as well, had exerted pressure to oust Rick Wagoner as GM's chairman and chief executive.

European Space Agency's GOCE satellite 'flies' on the edge of the atmosphere...

Skimming the edge of the Earth's atmosphere at a height of 250km up, the ESA's Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) has the look of science fiction about it.

Designed to take micro-measurements of Earth's gravity, data from GOCE will be used to construct a high-resolution map of our planet.  One of the benefits is a more intimate understanding of how gravity pulls on water, and hence the behaviour of hot and cold currents.  Scientists believe that studying information gathered by GOCE will greatly improve computer models of climate, helping to predict future climate change.

30,000 - 40,000 lose homes overnight

The earthquake struck at 0330 local time, with it's epicentre close to the medieval city of L'Aquila.  Residents rushed into the streets as a university dormitory, churches and a bell tower collapsed in the town.  Other towns and cities in the mountainous region have reported damage and casualties as well.

The Italian peninsula lies on two fault lines in the earth's crust where the Eurasian and African tectonic plates meet.  One part of the plate runs east to west south of Rome - and the other north to south alongside the Apennine mountains.  L'Aquila is located in a valley within the central Appenines.

While seismologists are able to gather data which can be used to make predictions on the possibility of an earthquake in a region - so far the ability to predict or forecast when and exactly where a quake may take place has not been possible.

At the time of this post, 179 people have been reported killed by the quake and 1,500 injured.

Earlier estimates of 90 years until an ice-free arctic ocean during summer may be optimistic...

New research indicates that once the extent of arctic ice at the end of summer is below 4.6 million square kilometres that a rapid decline in ice coverage during succeeding summers occurs. 

In 2007 the summer arctic ice measured 4.3 million km2 - during 2008, it was 4.7 million km2. 

According to new research by Muyin Wang of the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean based at the University of Washington, and James Overland of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory the trend could result in potentially only 1 million square kilometres of summer ice cover during the summer in as little as 11 to 30 years.

Wang and Overland based their research on studying 23 models which were capable of predicting the extent of arctic ice.  When the scientists discarded simulations which did not match the actual measurements of ice during recent years, six models remained.  Statistically averaged together, the six models indicate a nearly ice-free arctic in 30 years - with some of the more pessimistic indicating that his could occur in as little over a decade.

While an ice-free arctic during summertime may be a boon to shipping and to those who are looking to exploit oil and mineral resources in the region, the consequences to the local and global environment will be catastrophic.

Recently discovered rock blades are around 500,000 years old

While rough stone implements have been dated to over 2.6 million years old, blades made from rock were thought to have been much more modern. 

Until recent years, rock blades had not been dated any farther back in the past than approximately 40,000 years.  Based on this time-frame, it was widely believed that the skill to make long sharp edges in stone was a characteristic emerging with Homo sapiens - relatively modern humans.

This theory has slowly been 'eroding' away.  In 2008 stone blades were discovered in the Middle East which dated to nearly 300,000 years and were produced by Homo neanderthalensis.

In early 2009 still older rock blades were unearthed in the Baringo Basin of Kenya belonging to an era 543,000 years in the past.  Our direct ancestor, Homo sapiens, is believed to have emerged between 200,000 and 270,000 years ago - meaning that the sharp-edged tools were made by an earlier ancestor.

The stone blades were discovered in Kenya's Baringo Basin by paleonathropologists Cara Roure Johnson and Sally McBrearty, both of the University of Connecticut, Storrs.

"This is the oldest known occurrence of blades," Johnson reported at the 2009 annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society.

According to Cuban authorities, Sanchez's speech against censorship is 'an anti-cultural event of shameful opportunism'

Yoani Sanchez is based in Cuba and writes a blog, Generación Y, which is critical of the Cuban government.

Sanchez has been publicly chastised by Cuban authorities for making remarks which are considered 'offensive'.

The incident occurred at the Havana Biennial Arts Festival.  Cuban performance artist Tania Bruguera had made a microphone available and issued instructions that audience members could take turns saying whatever they desired - for one minute.  Sanchez used the opportunity to read a manifesto in which she criticised heavy-handed government control in Cuba and suggested that the internet was an opportunity for Cubans to both publish and have access to content which was uncensored.

Earlier in 2009 Time Magazine named Sanchez's blog as one of the '25 Best Blogs in the World' and in 2008 the publication named the blogger as one of the '100 most influential people in the world.' 

Sanchez's blog has also won Spain's 'Premio ortega y Gasset de Periodismo' award, top prize at 'The BOBS' and named in Foreign Policy magazine as one of the '10 Most Influential Intellectuals of Latin America.'

Attacks on Tibetan computers seem to be coming from China...

Two recent reports link China to recent malicious activity on computers operated by news media, embassies and other government organisations - as well as within the offices of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader in exile.

According to the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), the IP addresses from which the attacks originated are not only within China - but as well, are located within a region in which police and intelligence units are based who are directly involved in suppressing Tibetan independence movements.

One of the reports was produced at the UK University of Cambridge Computer Lab and was entitled 'The snooping dragon: social-malware surveillance of the Tibetan movement.'  The authors, Shishir Nagaraja and Ross Anderson claim that the California based mail-server of the Offices of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (OHHDL) were compromised by replacing .doc and .pdf attachments within genuine emails with versions of themselves that installed rootkits on the machines of monks who opened the docs.  

The second report was produced as a co-operative effort between two Canadian organisations, the SecDev Group an Ottawa based secuirty consultancy and the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies.  Entitled, 'Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network', the report reveals an extensive network 'of over 1,295 infected hosts in 103 countries.'

More ancient than that stuff in your fridge...

Researchers believe they have extended the age of domesticated maize; as far back as 8,700 years ago. 

Maize - also known as corn - has been recently shown by molecular biologists to have evolved from a wild grass from the Balsas Valley in southern Mexico. 

Researchers focused on the Xihuatoxtla Shelter in an area of the Balsas Valley that is home to a large, wild grass called Balsas teosinte that molecular biologists recently identified as the ancestor of maize. The shelter contained early maize and squash remains as well as ancient stone tools used to grind and mill the plants.

"We found the remains of maize and squash in many contexts from the earliest occupation levels," added Dolores Piperno, of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. "This indicates these two crops were being routinely consumed nearly 9,000 years ago."

Benedict XVI says condoms ' increase the problem of AIDS...'

Upon landing in Africa on his first visit to the continent as Pope, before leaving the plane Benedict XVI told reporters that AIDS was a “tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”.

The Vatican machinery immediately went into motion, claiming that the Pope had meant that use of a condom 'increases' the problem of AIDS rather than 'aggravates' it.

Benedict XVI's statement maintains a hardline anti-condom position, despite more liberal perspectives within the Roman Catholic Church.  Cardinal Carlo Martini notably has taken a more reformist stance, such as in 2006 when he publically stated that use of condoms may represent a 'lesser evil' and an 'obligation' when used by married couples where one of the partners has AIDS.  

Many health organisations as well as a variety of spokespersons from national governments have condemned the Pope's statement.  Roselyne Bachelot, the French Health Minister, claimed that there was no evidence to indicate that the availability of condoms resulted in greater sexual promiscuity, branding the concept 'a monstrous scientific untruth'.

iPhone software 3.0 gets 'cut, copy and paste'... (finally!)...

Apple Corportion announced earlier today that the new version (3.0) of the iPhone operating system - available to consumers this summer - will finally have 'cut, copy and paste'.

Many users who purchased the Apple iPhone were shocked to find that the device didn't have a 'cut copy and paste' feature - preventing users from doing things like copying bits of text from emails for example - and pasting them into another document or application window.  Windows Mobile has always had this capability.

Apple maintained that the function was not built into the iPhone due to an in-house technical prohibition preventing more than one application from running at the same time: the reason being to not have many apps running in memory and slowing down or disturbing the user experience.  Many critics pointed out that apps were clearly running simultaneous with others such as iPhone Mail, which notified users of new messages as they came in.

In addition to 'cut, copy and paste' Apple claims that iPhone OS 3.0 will have around a hundred new features.  However, we can't help but notice that support for the Adobe Flash player is not one of them....

Judge rules 'fair use' of 'When you wish upon a star'...

Music publishing house Bourne Company, lost in court yesterday on their lawsuit claiming that the producers of the 'Family Guy' cartoon tv show infringed on it's copyright.

'When you wish upon a star' was made famous in 1940 in the Disney cartoon movie 'Pinnochio'.  The song was sung by the character Jiminy Cricket - and over the years has become hugely associated with the Disney Corporation.

The 'Family Guy' parody of the song was within an un-broadcast episode from the 2000 season. The episode was entitled 'When you wish upon a Weinstein' and the song, closely following the original, was called 'I need a Jew'.  Fox executives decided not to broadcast the episode believing that it may cause offense.  It was later broadcast on the Cartoon Network in 2003.  

The Bourne Company, owners of 'When you wish upon a star' filed a lawsuit in Oct 2007 claiming that the song was harmed due to the offensive nature of the lyrics within the 'Family Guy' parody.

In her decision, Manhattan Judge Deborah Batts dismissed the copyright infringement lawsuit stating that "The owner of the rights to a well-known work must expect, or at least tolerate, a parodist's deflating ridicule."  Copyright, she ruled, was not infringed.

Undoubtedly, a victory for free speech: although in this case the rights of one corporation have been upheld over the claims of another.

The 'Family Guy' website seems to have celebrated by posting 'When you wish upon a Weinstein' as the first amongst the listed favourite episodes on it's homepage.

Potentially a big help in the fight against malaria...

It may sound quite a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut; but the latest idea to employ lasers to toast mosquitoes may have some merit.

The sound frequency of the mosquitoes beating wings is detected and then a laser blasts the bug to a cinder. 

Some heavy-hitters have been conscripted to work on the concept, including Lowell Wood, an astrophysicist who worked on the hydrogen bomb project in the 1950's.  In the 1980's Wood was the chief architect of Ronald Reagan's ballistic missile defense project - dubbed 'Star Wars.'

As well, Dr. Jordin Kare, a scientist who had previously worked at the (in)famous Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - a US gov weapons research facility -has been involved in the building of the prototype mosquito-laser, from parts bought on eBay.  Kare claims that the computer controlled targeting of mosquitoes will be able to '...toast millions of mosquitoes in a few minutes.'

The mosquito-zapper, if proven effective, will be welcomed by those living in regions of the planet where mosquito borne malaria and other diseases are massive public health problems.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are between 350-500 million cases of malaria each year, resulting in over one million deaths.

The research has been comissioned by Intellectual Ventures, a US based company founded by Nathan Myhrvold, a former Microsoft executive.

Smaller, lighter and can charge in seconds...

A new manufacturing process for existing lithium batteries shows great promise as a candidate as a power source for electric vehicles.

Led by Gerbrand Ceder, the Richard P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, researchers have discovered that lithium batteries could be produced which would be rechargeable in seconds, rather than minutes. 

Read more to find out how it's done...

US federal money now available for human embryonic stem cell research

The Obama administration is set to allow researchers the ability to both create new lines of human embryonic stem cells and conduct research with these cells. 

Reproductive cloning, the process of allowing DNA copied from one individual to be inserted into stem cells, brought to term and born will remain illegal.

Current US policy, in place since 1996, was cemented into place at the start of the 2001 GW Bush presidency.  Despite two US regulatory agencies advocating policies and laws permitting the use of existing stem cell lines for research - or a step further, allowing the production of new stem cell lines, the Bush administration made a decision on Christain moral grounds to only allow federal funds to be used for research on already existing stem cell lines.  

While money from private sources has remained available since 2001, researchers who wish to have access to US federal funds have had to seperate their government funded work from any of their undertakings which are privately funded. In some cases, this has resulted in the duplication of expensive equipment within a lab.

Embryonic stem cells have the ability to divide and transform themselves into other type of cells within the human body. 

Many researchers believe that allowing open creation and research on human embryonic stem cells will lead to medical breakthroughs.  Controversially other groups (many religiously motivated) are opposed to research on stem cells based on moral principles.