Sunday, September 30, 2012

FOX News: Iran reportedly plans to ditch Google, Gmail for own services

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Iran reportedly plans to ditch Google, Gmail for own services
Sep 30th 2012, 14:44

Published September 30, 2012

Associated Press

TEHRAN –  An Iranian official says Tehran plans to create its own search engine and e-mail service to replace Google and its Gmail e-mail service, even as it weights lifting a ban on Gmail enacted in response to an anti-Islam film.

Sunday reports by Iranian newspapers including the independent Aftab daily quote Deputy Telecommunications Minister Ali Hakim Javadi as saying he hoped to launch the Fakhr search engine and Fajr e-mail in the near future.

Hakim Javadi said authorities are discussing lifting the ban on Gmail imposed by an Iranian court in response to the posting of the film on YouTube, which is owned by Google.

Google's search engine service is still available.

Tehran has long promised to launch its own "clean" and "national" version of the Internet to curb Western influence.

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FOX News: Students, archeologists uncover dinosaur tracks in Texas

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Students, archeologists uncover dinosaur tracks in Texas
Sep 30th 2012, 14:27

Published September 30, 2012

FoxNews.com

Students and archeologists in Texas got to experience history Friday after the waterline at a lake dropped, revealing dinosaur tracks in what used to be a 'Jurassic Park.'

The tracks, which are along the banks of Grapevine Lake, were discovered in 2006 and have been preserved by the Army Corps of Engineers, who have been covering them up with gunite and dirt, MyFoxDFW reports.

With the help of a grant from a teacher in nearby Southlake, students hope to use molds and digital scans of the tracks to create an environmental center exhibit that others can visit.

Dinosaur tracks were first uncovered at the lake in the early 1980s.

Dallas News | myFOXdfw.com 

Click for more from MyFoxDFW.

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FOX News: 'Bad Piggies' get a shot at greatness

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'Bad Piggies' get a shot at greatness
Sep 30th 2012, 12:00

After spending years releasing new games in the "Angry Birds" series, Rovio is now putting its focus on the Birds' foes with the just-released "Bad Piggies."

And no, this isn't just a "Birds" sequel. It's a whole new kind of puzzler, one that will keep you busy for hours at a time – just as any good Rovio-produced game would. You can grab the game for just $1 on the iPhone or $3 on the iPad edition.

[SEE ALSO Angry Birds Trilogy]

In the game, the Piggies find themselves on a tropical island, enjoying the sunshine and seeking out new land with the help of a map. However, a wind gust comes out of nowhere and scatters the map into pieces, forcing the pigs to attempt to collect all the pieces.

Here's where things get interesting. You don't launch the Piggies with the help of a slingshot. Instead, you put together a makeshift vehicle using a limited amount of parts, then send them on their way through a number of complicated levels. 

Sometimes you're able to use the momentum of a steep slope to your advantage; other times, you need to use gadgets like a fan and a bottle of fizzy soda. The goal of each level is to get each pig to the map piece – even if the vehicle falls apart along the way. Each stage gives you the opportunity to earn three stars – the better you do, the more stars you earn.

What makes "Bad Piggies" so interesting is that there's more than one way to finish a level. You don't have to use all the parts provided, nor simply build a vehicle the conventional way. In fact, some levels even award you for not using specific parts. So if you can get to the goal without using a fan or a TNT box, you're rewarded for it. This provides an excellent opportunity to be creative and figure out how to get through each level.

[SEE ALSO Pigs Go To Mars In Red Planet]

Some of the later levels in the game (for instance, the larger sandbox stages) are difficult, and will require several tries just to figure out how you'll get going. But this is one of those games that relies on the "try, try again" rule and yet doesn't wear out its welcome as a result. In fact, you'll welcome the creativity. You can also check the GameCenter-supported online leaderboards to see how you fare against others.

Visually, "Bad Piggies" has the same flair as the "Angry Birds" games, with colorful backgrounds and cute little animations — watching the pigs hop around all smiles at the end of each stage is a delight. It also provides helpful camera options, as you can zoom out and see where you need to go at any time. The sound mostly consists of light, pleasant music and pig snorts, but you can always play your own iTunes library if you prefer.

Though it plays much, much differently than "Angry Birds," "Bad Piggies" is a terrific addition to your digital game library. It's about time they got their big break.

RATING: 3.5 / 4

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FOX News: Is 'Looper'-like time travel possible? Scientists say maybe

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Is 'Looper'-like time travel possible? Scientists say maybe
Sep 30th 2012, 12:00

Time travel is a staple of science fiction, with the latest rendition showing up in the film "Looper." And it turns out jumps through time are possible, according to the laws of physics, though traveling into the future looks to be much more feasible than traveling into the past.

"Looper" stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Joe, an assassin who kills targets sent back in time by the mob. Things get complicated when Joe is assigned to kill his future self, played by Bruce Willis. The movie, produced by TriStar Pictures, opens today (Sept. 28).

In this imagining, time travel has been put to nefarious uses by people operating outside the law. But could such a thing ever happen in real life? [Gallery: Time Travel in "Looper"]

"It's actually consistent with the laws of physics to change the rate at which clocks run," said Edward Farhi, director of the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT. "There's no question that you can skip into the future."

However, Farhi told LiveScience, "most physicists think you can go forward, but coming back is much more problematic."

The roots of time travel stem from Einstein's theory of relativity, which revealed how the passage of time is relative, depending on how fast you are traveling. The faster you go, the more time seems to slow down, so that a person traveling on a very fast starship, for example, would experience a journey in two weeks that seemed to take 20 years to people left behind on Earth.

In this way, a person who wanted to travel to a period in the future need only board a fast enough vehicle to kill some time.

"That was a huge thing when Einstein realized the flow of time was not a constant thing," Farhi said.

However, this kind of manipulation only affects the rate at which time moves forward. No matter your speed, time will still progress toward the future, leaving scientists struggling to predict how one might travel to the past.

Some outlandish solutions to Einstein's equations do suggest that traveling backward in time might be possible, but to do so could require about half the mass of the universe in energy, and would likely destroy the universe in the process.

And even if science presented a method for backward time travel, there are troubling paradoxes involved.

"If you could go back in time, you could prevent your parents from getting together and making you," Farhi said. "I think some people might say it ends there." [Video - Looper Time-Travel]

Still, since physics doesn't forbid time travel in either direction, the door remains open for future solutions.

"I don't know of a definitive theorem that says it absolutely cannot happen, other than it leads to logical paradoxes and it can also cause the entire universe to collapse," Farhi said.

Follow Clara Moskowitz on Twitter @ClaraMoskowitz or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Saturday, September 29, 2012

FOX News: Who's watching? 3D TV viewership so small it can't be measured

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Who's watching? 3D TV viewership so small it can't be measured
Sep 29th 2012, 12:00

LOS ANGELES –  Phil Orlins knows everything about producing TV in three dimensions. The ESPN producer has captured the undulating greens of Augusta National and the flying motor bikes of the X-Games for ESPN's 3-D channel. But he can only guess how well his shows resonate with viewers. That's because 3-D audiences are so small they can't be measured by Nielsen's rating system.

"The feedback on The Masters was fast and furious. You could go on Twitter at any moment, and there'd be comments coming in every minute about 3-D coverage," said Orlins while giving a tour of a production truck at this summer's X-Games. "But then you go to some other events where it's pretty quiet."

Orlins' problem is that fewer than 115,000 American homes are tuned into 3-D channels at any one time. That's less than a hundredth of the 20.2 million-strong audience that saw television's highest-rated show "NCIS" this week. 3-D viewership is so tiny that The Nielsen Co.'s methods are unable to capture any meaningful data about viewers' programming preferences.

ESPN 3D is one of nine 3-D channels that launched in the years following the late 2009 release of James Cameron's "Avatar." The 3-D blockbuster won three Oscars and ranks as the highest-grossing film of all time, garnering $2.8 billion at the global box office.

"Avatar" was supposed to change everything. Enthusiastic television executives expected the movie to spur 3-D's transition to American living rooms, boosting sales of new TVs and giving people a reason to pay more for 3-D channels.

That never happened.

'There's very little direct consumer demand. They don't see a value with it.'

- Tom Morrod, a TV technology analyst with IHS in London

Only 2 percent of TVs in the U.S. are able to show 3-D programming, according to the most recent data from research firm IHS Screen Digest. That's about 6.9 million sets out of 331 million. After this year's Christmas buying rush, IHS expects the number of 3-D-capable televisions installed in homes to jump to 19.3 million, mostly because 3-D viewing technology is being built into most new large-screen TVs. But even with the jump, 3-D TVs will amount to less than 6 percent of all sets.

"We've learned with every passing day that we were ahead of the curve further than we thought we were," said Bryan Burns, the business leader for ESPN 3D. "We hit the on-ramp earlier than we realized at the time."

Why 3-D television hasn't become a national craze is a mystery to some in the industry, considering the wide acceptance of 3-D movies at theaters. But 3-D content is expensive to produce, and as a result there's not a lot of it. Some of the content isn't very good. Some people find the special glasses required for 3-D TV uncomfortable. And many wonder whether it's worth the extra cost.

"It was kind of fascinating to me, but it's not all there," said Tim Carter, a graphic designer in Sarasota, Fla., who bought a large, high-end 3-D TV with other high-end features last year for about $1,800.

Today, the average 42-inch 3-D television costs about $900, according to IHS. They contain a high-tech chip and software that translates 3-D video feeds into the right- and left-eye images that create the 3-D effect for people wearing the right glasses. In some cases, special glasses can cost an extra $50 or so.

Watching home movies on disc requires a 3-D Blu-ray player that can cost another $120 and each disc set purchase runs around $27, according to IHS. (3-D movies are usually bundled with other discs.)

While operators like DirecTV and Comcast Corp. don't charge specifically for channels like ESPN 3D, they are generally bundled in packages that require other spending. At DirecTV that means a $200 high-definition digital video recorder and $10 per month for HD service. For Comcast, that means a minimum $65-per-month digital starter package with HD service costing another $10 a month.

All that for the privilege of watching 3-D at home in your pajamas.

Due to the cost, Carter said he's mainly sampled free 3-D movie trailers provided on-demand by his cable TV company. A trailer for the latest "Transformers" movie didn't make him more enthused. "One of the robots pops out at you, and it felt forced." "It's not consistent," he said, noting that 3-D effects aren't noticeable much of the time. He said he's not knocking the technology, he's just disappointed with the way it's being used.

Nowadays, 3-D is just one feature on TVs with bigger screens. It is usually grouped with other upgrades that include motion-smoothing technology and light-emitting diodes that are smaller, more energy efficient and display color contrast better than traditional liquid crystal display sets. It's difficult to isolate how much 3-D adds to the price tag of an individual set because of this bundling, but according to IHS the average 42-inch set with 3-D is about $200 more than a similar-sized one without. Some 3-D TVs, however, can be found for cheaper than others of the same size.

"There's very little direct consumer demand," said Tom Morrod, a TV technology analyst with IHS in London. Some consumers buy TVs which happen to have 3-D, but they don't bother to get the glasses needed to watch them, he said.

"They don't see a value with it. Consumers associate value right now with screen size and very few other features."

Sluggish demand for 3-D on TV has caused programmers to hit pause on rolling out new shows and channels.

In June, DirecTV turned its 24-hour channel, n3D, into a part-time network that only shows special event programming like the Olympics, in part to avoid the heavy use of reruns caused by a lack of new material. Last year, AT&T dropped ESPN 3D from its lineup, saying the $10 per month cost to subscribers wasn't justified given low demand.

So far, ESPN 3D is the most aggressive network in terms of shooting original 3-D productions. It has about 140 per year. It also has the widest distribution, according to research firm SNL Kagan, no doubt because popular sports network ESPN includes it in negotiations with distributors. Though few own the hardware to watch the channel, ESPN 3D now pipes into 60 million U.S. homes.

Without extra subscriber fees, it could be difficult to make a big business out of 3-D production, especially because it's more expensive than 2-D. Every 3-D camera set-up requires two cameras. They have to be mounted on a special computerized rig that aligns them. And someone in a back room has to adjust a knob that determines how cross-eyed the lenses are. That can require twice the manpower for the same camera position, boosting costs when revenues aren't going up very much.

Advertising, the other pillar of the TV channel business, is also hampered because of the lack of audience data.

That has resulted in an odd arrangement. Companies that run advertisements on ESPN 3D, like movie studios, actually have their ads played a second time in 2-D on ESPN and other channels so they can meet their goal of reaching a measurable number of people, Burns said. That uses up 2-D commercial airtime that might have been sold to other customers.

While he wouldn't say if it's profitable, Burns said ESPN 3D is still a revenue-generating business that is "doing well," because of how the network accounts for revenue from distributors and advertisers.

3-D TV is not a complete bust. Burns and others expect that as more TVs are sold with the capability, the more viewership will grow, just like it did for high-definition sets and programs a few years ago.

"It took five years before reporting systems caught up and we knew who actually had the service," Burns said of the launch of HD. "It's not unfamiliar territory to us. We've been down this road before."

For TV signal providers, carrying 3-D channels before they really become mainstream wins them points with their savviest technophile customers, the kind who jumped on the HD bandwagon early --a decade ago.

In many ways, though, the comparison to HD isn't a good one.

Watching 3-D is a problem for about 6 percent of Americans with certain eye problems, according to Dr. Dominick Maino, a professor with the Illinois College of Optometry. They simply can't see in 3-D or suffer dizziness or nausea when watching.

And it won't get the same push that HD got by the hundreds of TV stations that switched to high-definition broadcasts in the last few years. Nor will it benefit from the nation's switch from analog to digital TV broadcasts in 2009.

Another awkward point: some people just don't like 3-D. In a phone survey last November of 1,300 Americans who had seen 3-D TV, Leichtman Research Group found that 38 percent rated it poorly at 3 or below on a scale of 10. That's twice as many as rated it excellently, at 8 or higher.

That's a knock against 3-D that HD didn't have.

"It's one of those examples where seeing isn't believing, thus far," said Bruce Leichtman, president of Leichtman Research. "That's certainly not a great place to start."

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FOX News: Ancient burial shroud made of nettles

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Ancient burial shroud made of nettles
Sep 29th 2012, 12:00

Ancient scraps of fabric found in a grave in Denmark are not made of cultivated flax as once believed, but instead are woven from imported wild nettles, suggesting the grave's inhabitant may have traveled far for burial.

This discovery, announced Friday, Sept. 28 in the journal Scientific Reports, casts a new light on the textile trade in Bronze Age Europe, said study researcher Ulla Mannering, an archaeologist at the University of Copenhagen.

"Since the Stone Age, they had very well-developed agriculture and technology for producing linen textiles," Mannering told LiveScience. "So it's really unusual that a society which has established agriculture would also take in material from things that are not of the normal standardized agricultural production" — in other words, wild plants.

A luxurious shroud

The soft and shiny fabric dates back to between 940 B.C. and 750 B.C., making it about 2,800 years old. It was discovered in Voldtofte, Denmark, at a rich Bronze Age burial ground called Lusehøj. The Bronze Age ran from about 3200 B.C. to 600 B.C. in Europe.

The fabric was wrapped around a bundle of cremated remains in a bronze urn. It was a luxurious piece of material, Mannering said. [10 Weird Ways We Deal With the Dead]

"Maybe he died in Austria and was wrapped in this Austrian urn and textile and brought back to Denmark and then put in a big burial mound ...'

- Ulla Mannering, an archaeologist at the University of Copenhagen

"The fibers we get from the European nettle are very, very fine and soft and shiny, and we often say this is a sort of prehistoric silk textile," Mannering said. (Silk, made from insect cocoons, is known for its shimmery texture.)

Previous analysis pegged the Danish fabric as woven from flax, a plant widely cultivated in the region. But along with nanophysicist Bodil Holst of the University of Bergen in Norway, Mannering and her colleagues used advanced methods to reanalyze the scraps of cloth. By studying the fiber orientation as well as the presence of certain crystals found in plants, the researchers were able to learn that the fabric is not flax at all, but nettle, a group of plants known for the needlelike stingers that line their stems and leaves.

Nor is the nettle local, Mannering said. Different soil regions contain different variations of elements. The variation of one of these elements, strontium, found in the fabric, was not local to Denmark, suggesting the plants the textile was made from grew elsewhere.

There are a few regions that match the strontium profile, the researchers found, but the most likely candidate is southwest Austria. The bronze burial urn holding the remains is from Austria, Mannering said, and it makes sense that the fabric might be too.

A well-traveled man?

Despite these imported grave goods, the remains appear to be those of a Danish man, Mannering said. The personal objects in the grave, such as two razors, suggest he was a Scandinavian, albeit perhaps a well-traveled one, she said.

"Maybe he died in Austria and was wrapped in this Austrian urn and Austrian textile and was brought back to Denmark in this condition and then put in a big burial mound," Mannering said. "The personal objects that were placed inside the urn together with this textile and the bones indicate that he is a male of Scandinavian origin, but it doesn't mean that he couldn't have died abroad."

Bronze Age Europeans lived an agricultural life and traded many goods with one another, especially the bronze that gave the era its name, Mannering said. The nettle fabric may have been an ancient luxury good for Bronze Age elite, she said.

"It shows that they also knew how to get fibers from wild plants, and they wanted these fibers probably because of their very different and unique appearance," she said.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappasor LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook& Google+.

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Friday, September 28, 2012

FOX News: Kodak to end consumer inkjet printer sales

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Kodak to end consumer inkjet printer sales
Sep 28th 2012, 17:54

Kodak said Friday that it plans to stop selling consumer inkjet printers and will eliminate 200 more jobs than previously projected as it requested more time to submit its framework for emerging from bankruptcy protection.

The Rochester, New York-based company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, wants the court to extend the exclusivity period for the filing of its plan until Feb. 28. After the exclusivity period expires, creditors may file competing plans.

In the months since its filing, Eastman Kodak Co. has worked to reshape itself, selling off businesses, eliminating jobs and slashing other costs, with the goal of emerging from court protection in 2013.

Kodak said earlier this year that it would stop making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames. Earlier this year, it sold Kodak Gallery, its online photo service business, to Shutterfly Inc. for $23.8 million.

In August, Kodak said that it was looking to sell its personalized imaging and document imaging businesses in order to focus on its printing and business services. Kodak's document imaging division makes scanners and offers related software and services. The personalized imaging business includes photo paper and still camera film products. It also offers souvenir photo products at theme parks and other venues.

The company also has been trying to sell off its collection of patents, but earlier this month it indefinitely postponed an auction of its imaging patent portfolios. The company said in court filings at the time that it was looking at other possibilities, including keeping the patents and creating a company to make money by licensing the technology.

On Friday, the company said it now plans to focus its consumer inkjet business on the sale of ink for its existing printers and start winding down sales of printers next year.

The move is in line with the company's goal of refocusing itself on commercial and packaging printing, along with other services, and is expected to significantly boost cash flow in the U.S. starting in the first half of 2013, Kodak said.

The company, whose workforce peaked at nearly 150,000 workers in 1988, has already cut 2,700 jobs this year. It originally planned to cut at least another 1,000 jobs, but boosted that figure to 1,200 on Friday.

Kodak said the 23 percent reduction in its employee ranks save the company more than $340 million per year and reduce its workforce to about 13,100 employees.

Kodak was founded in 1880, and it introduced the iconic Brownie camera in 1900, making hobby photography affordable for many people. Its Kodachrome film, introduced in 1935, became the first commercially successful amateur color film.

But the company has struggled in recent years, hurt by the shift toward digital photography and competition from Japanese companies such as Canon.

A hearing on the motion and other matters is scheduled for Oct. 17.

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FOX News: T.rex-size crocodiles ruled the ancient seas

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T.rex-size crocodiles ruled the ancient seas
Sep 28th 2012, 16:24

An over 22-foot-long crocodile that ripped prey to death and another huge croc that sucked prey to its doom were at the top of the European marine food chain 150 million years ago, a new study finds.

The enormous prehistoric crocodiles, Plesiosuchus and Dakosaurus, were such ravenous carnivores that their methods have been compared to today's killer whales and a famous, iconic, meat-loving dinosaur.

"The skulls of these two sea croc species have some similarities to T. rex," lead author Mark Young of the University of Edinburgh told Discovery News. "The largest known skull of Plesiosuchus manselii was approximately four feet, three inches long, putting it in the size range of adult T. rex skulls."

NEWS: Largest Known Croc Likely Ate Early Humans

For the study, published in PLoS ONE, Young and his colleagues analyzed fossils for the two crocodiles, which were unearthed in sites from England to Germany. In their U.K. home, the crocs once dwelled in the shallow seas that covered England. At the same time, Archaeopteryx was flying over Europe and giant dinosaurs, such as Diplodocus and Allosaurus, were stomping around North America.

'It was bigger than living salt water crocodiles and great white sharks.'

- Mark Young of the University of Edinburgh

The researchers determined that Plesiosuchus was the largest known species of metriorhynchid, meaning sea crocodile.

"It was bigger than living salt water crocodiles and great white sharks," Young said.

Its teeth functioned like those of today's killer whales, based on shape and wear. This ripper crocodile probably bit into both large and small prey, which it would grab, kill and gulp.

Perhaps even more unusual was the sucker croc, Dakosaurus. The skull and jaw characteristics of this nearly 15-foot-long ancient crocodile suggest that it was a suction feeder, making it the first known suction-feeding crocodilian.

NEWS: Crocodile Turns Bright Orange

This way of eating "involves being able to rapidly open the mouth wide, and generating negative pressure," Young said. "This sucks a prey item into the mouth."

"We think that Plesiosuchus specialized in eating other marine reptiles, and Dakosaurus was a generalist," co-author Lorna Steel of the Natural History Museum in London said, "probably eating fish and whatever else it could get hold of, perhaps including the small metriorhynchid Geosaurus." The latter looked like a barracuda.

It's suspected that modern killer whales can also suck in victims. Young explained that juvenile killer whales in captivity are known to generate negative pressures with their mouths.

Both prehistoric crocodiles, therefore, fed very similar to modern killer whales. These animals are not related, since killer whales are mammals. The researchers instead believe that the similarities exemplify what's known as convergent evolution.

"Convergence is the evolution of a similar body plan, feeding mechanism (or other characteristic or behavior) in two different and not closely related groups, in this case crocodiles and mammals," Young said.

NEWS: Ocean-Going Crocs Are Mean, Green Surfing Machines

"The continual evolution of these morphologies in distantly related groups could be telling us something about the limits and optimal method of underwater feeding in vertebrates," he added. "For example, the shearing, tooth-to-tooth occlusion of Dakosaurus is today found in false killer whales. But over the past 10 million years, numerous species of fossil sperm whales also evolved this feeding mechanism."

As for how the two different, yet equally formidable, crocodiles got along, there is no evidence that either species attacked the other. The scientists believe the Dinosaur-Era English seas had niche partitioning, whereby various predators fed on different animals, so the hunters never had to compete with one another for food. Today's ocean ecosystems are organized in much the same way, with animals such as whales, sharks and dolphins living in the same overall area.

Young and his colleagues would next like to delve deeper into understanding the feeding mechanics of the two crocs and other marine predators.

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FOX News: Internet finds world's grumpiest cat, named Tardar Sauce

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Internet finds world's grumpiest cat, named Tardar Sauce
Sep 28th 2012, 16:01

Some people are just born angry. And so too, it seems, are some cats.

Well, not quite.

A cat named Tardar Sauce, or "Tard" for short, has become Internet-famous for its astoundingly grumpy face.

According to Knowyourmeme.com, Tardar Sauce, now known as Grumpy Cat, rose to Internet fame after his photo was uploaded to social networking sites Facebook and Reddit.

Within the first 48 hours, the cat was upvoted more than 25,300 times on Reddit, and the pictures were viewed more than a million times on Imgur. 

So is Tard really such a grump? The answer, according to her owner Tabatha Bundesen of Morristown, Ariz., is no. That's just her face.

'Tardar is not as coordinated as a normal cat, so she is likely a little angry about that.'

- Owner Tabatha Bundesen

"Tardar has what looks kind of like an under bite. She looked unique, as did her brother, at birth, with a flat face, bubble eyes, and a short tail," says Tabatha, when asked what gives Tardar her signature scowl, although she admits that genetics may not be the only reason for Tardar's permanent frown.

"Tardar is not as coordinated as a normal cat, so she is likely a little angry about that. I think she likes to be held and petted some times, but being the pet of a 10 year old could make anyone grumpy."

Aside from Tabatha, Tardar lives with her mother Callie, brother Pokey, three new born siblings, a dog brother called Shaggy, a dog sister called Honey, a dog grandmother called Raven, and her 10-year-old co-owner Chyrstal Bundesen.

Tabatha says that when Chyrstal met Tardar, it was love at first site.

"Chyrstal, my daughter attached to her instantly. I usually give our kittens away, but she put a hefty price tag on this little one. Any one who responded to my ad for the cats were rudely informed by Chyrstal that Tardar was not a free kitty."

Tardar Sauce's favorite foods are mice and tuna.

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FOX News: Unraveling the secrets of black holes

FOX News
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Unraveling the secrets of black holes
Sep 28th 2012, 14:15

A peek at swirling matter around a giant black hole verifies that it is the source of a monstrous blast of energy thousands of light-years long, researchers say.

Bursts of energy known as relativistic jets spew out matter at close to the speed of light. These jets can travel across an entire galaxy, suggesting they can affect the evolution of the galaxy.

"For a long time, astronomers have theorized that black holes and the matter swirling around them were responsible for the jets we see in some galaxies, but we've never had a telescope with the resolving power to verify this,"said study lead author Sheperd Doeleman, an astronomer at MIT's Haystack Observatory in Westford, Mass.

Now, "by making a virtual Earth-sized telescope that links radio dishes from Hawaii to California, we were able to achieve the necessary magnification power," Doeleman told SPACE.com. [Photos: Black Holes of the Universe]

'We've never had a telescope with the resolving power to verify this.'

- Sheperd Doeleman, an astronomer at MIT's Haystack Observatory

The researchers used their new array, known as the Event Horizon Telescope, to look at "the base of the famous jet in the galaxy called M87," about 54 million light-years from Earth, Doeleman said.

The center of virtually every galaxy is home to a supermassive black hole millions to billions of times the mass of the sun. Scientists have long suspected that relativistic jets came from the accretion disks of gas and dust pulled toward these black holes by the black holes' immense gravity, whirling like water flowing around a bathtub drain.

The new array combined data from three observatories in Hawaii, California and Arizona to look at the relativistic jet in M87, which has a central black hole about 7 billion times as massive as the sun and about as wide as the solar system.

The size of the region the relativistic jet originated from matches the estimated size of the innermost stable circular orbit of M87's accretion disk. This area is about five times the size of the solar system, or 750 times the distance from Earth to the sun.

"It is remarkable to me to think that we have the ability to measure the size of the region where matter orbits a black hole just before it disappears from our universe forever," Doeleman said.

Scientists were unsure whether relativistic jets need a spinning black hole to form, and if so, whether they were more likely to arise when accretion disks spin in the same direction as their black holes. The researchers found "the size of the jet launch point was so small that the best explanation is that the black hole has to be spinning and the orbiting matter has to be moving in the same direction as the black hole is spinning — think of the planets orbiting in the same direction as the sun is spinning," Doeleman said.

"Our result is just the tip of the iceberg," Doeleman added. "We've used just three stations in a global Earth-sized virtual telescope to peer deep inside a relativistic jet. We are about to add critical new stations to this Event Horizon Telescope, which will bring us closer to imaging a black hole boundary than we have ever been before."

The scientists detailed their findings online Sept. 27 in the journal Science.

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FOX News: Ouch! New technology makes dental trips even worse

FOX News
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Ouch! New technology makes dental trips even worse
Sep 28th 2012, 13:00

Going to the dentist can be a nerve-wracking event. For some, the experience has gotten a whole lot more painful, by way of questionable technology deemed unnecessary by the American Dental Association -- and downright fraudulent by some unhappy patients.

Ouch!

So called "laser fluorescence" detectors like Kavo's popular Diagnodent and Air Technique's Spectra purport to assist in the early detection of surface cavities (called dental caries or occlusals). But experts say the new devices are easily abused, and can lead to unnecessary dental surgery.

"They're not necessary," ADA spokesman Matthew Messina told FoxNews.com. "We can do excellent dental work with traditional X-ray, visual, and hand exams alone."

A study released in April by the American Dental Association concurs, finding "a large number of false-positive results with these devices, which limits their use as a principal diagnostic tool." Traditional visual exams and X-rays remain the preferred diagnostic method since they are more than enough to root out cavities, the study found.

That hasn't stopped the gadgetry from becoming a staple in many dental offices around the nation, however. According to the ADA, laser fluorescence use jumped from 10 percent in 2003 to to 16 percent in 2006, the most recent data available. Assuming growth stayed constant, it's possible the gizmos may be used by more than one in four dentists.

Michelle Smith of Las Vegas claimed the number of cavities diagnosed in her son jumped from zero to four between six-month check-ups, but only after his dentist acquired a Diagnodent. She got a second opinion, in which the dentist detected and treated only one verified cavity.

'These devices don't give me anything I can't do without hand, eye, or X-ray.'

- ADA spokesman and Ohio dentist Matthew Messina

Ben Taylor of Atlanta told FoxNews.com that his traditional dental exams all came back negative recently. But his dentist insisted on drilling and filling three alleged cavities as detected by the Diagnodent. Taylor got a second opinion and was found to be cavity-free.

Since few dental patients actually seek a second opinion, however, it's unclear how much prevalent potentially unnecessary drilling has become in the decade since the birth of laser fluorescence detection.

Kavo Dental, the maker of the Diagnodent, declined to comment when contacted by FoxNews.com.

Spectra-maker Air Technique acknowledged that the devices are susceptible to misuse, but the company was quick to distance itself from the ADA report. "I think there's a fair amount of accuracy, so I'm not sure what the ADA is basing their claims on," assistant marketing manager Jennifer Healey said.

Not only that, but they've built a better mousetrap, said John Newman, a product specialist with the company. "Our product is less susceptible [to misreads] since it doesn't need to be calibrated and is much easier for dentists to operate," he told FoxNews.com.

As Newman sees it, fluorescent detectors like the Spectra are a genuine attempt to achieve non-invasive dentistry. While acknowledging that mistakes can happen, he said the Spectra was designed as a monitoring tool, in addition to a diagnostic one, and can't be blamed for misuse.

"The fact that some doctors are getting overzealous and opening up teeth when using the device is not our fault," he said.

Fluorescent aids aren't cheap, selling for around $30,000, said the ADA's Dr. Messina. And several dentists find the expensive gear invaluable.

North Carolina dentist Robert Stanley told FoxNews.com that his Diagnodent has rooted out massive "iceberg" cavities below the surface that his eyes, hands, and X-rays would have otherwise missed.

"I've never opened up a tooth and been wrong," he said. "This is really a good product helping a specific group of people."

Ultimately, it's important to remember that teeth can sometimes repair themselves over time with flossing, brushing, and fluoride treatments at home, Dr. Messina said. And since regular dental exams can keep a close eye on any areas of concern, treating teeth based on a positive fluorescence diagnosis alone could be premature — a solution looking for a problem.

"I want to put things in my office that really make us better," Messina concluded. "These devices don't give me anything I can't do without hand, eye, or X-ray."

Even Stanley acknowledged that in the wrong hands, fluorescent aids could unfortunately be used to open up teeth that don't need treatment.

"Find a dentist that you trust to do the right thing," he says, "And know that these devices should never be used as standalone diagnostic tools."

Since 2005, Blake Snow has written for half of the top 20 U.S. media. He's had more than a dozen cavities filled, one root canal, and is grateful for all the honest dentists that have treated him. He is currently writing a book on finding offline balance in an online world.

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FOX News: Tim Cook 'extremely sorry' about Apple Maps app

FOX News
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Tim Cook 'extremely sorry' about Apple Maps app
Sep 28th 2012, 13:23

Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company is "extremely sorry" for the frustration that its maps application has caused and it's doing everything it can to make it better.

Cook said in a letter posted online Friday that Apple "fell short" in its commitment to make the best possible products for its customers.

'Try alternatives ... like Bing, MapQuest and Waze.'

- Apple CEO Tim Cook

He recommends that people try alternatives by downloading competing map apps from the App Store while Apple works on its own maps products. Here's the text of Cook's letter:

At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.

We launched Maps initially with the first version of iOS. As time progressed, we wanted to provide our customers with even better Maps including features such as turn-by-turn directions, voice integration, Flyover and vector-based maps. In order to do this, we had to create a new version of Maps from the ground up.

There are already more than 100 million iOS devices using the new Apple Maps, with more and more joining us every day. In just over a week, iOS users with the new Maps have already searched for nearly half a billion locations. The more our customers use our Maps the better it will get and we greatly appreciate all of the feedback we have received from you.

While we're improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app.

Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working non-stop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard.

The Cupertino, Calif., company had released an update to its iPhone and iPad operating system last week that replaced Google Maps with Apple's own maps application. But users complained that the new maps have fewer details, lack public transit directions and misplace landmarks, among other problems.

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FOX News: How to see Uranus in a telescope this weekend

FOX News
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How to see Uranus in a telescope this weekend
Sep 28th 2012, 12:15

The planet Uranus reaches opposition on Saturday (Sept. 29). This means that Uranus is directly opposite the sun in the sky.

Uranus rises will rise as the sun sets, and set as the sun rises. It will be highest in the sky at local midnight, roughly 1 a.m. if you are on Daylight Saving Time.

Uranus was discovered accidentally by William Herschel on the night of March 13, 1781. All the other planets had been known since prehistoric times, so this was a major discovery in its time, and made Herschel famous.

The reason Uranus had remained undiscovered for so long is that, although it is quite large, the third largest planet after Jupiter and Saturn, it is very far away from the sun, so is very dimly lit. If you know exactly where to look, it is just possible to see Uranus with the naked eye, but most of us need binoculars and a good chart to spot it among the thousands of stars of similar brightness.

When Herschel first observed it, he was unsure what he had seen: a nebula, a comet, or a planet. After a night or two, he saw that it had moved, so it couldn't be a nebula. It didn't change size or shape, so he knew it wasn't a comet.

Once the object's orbit was determined, Herschel knew he had found the sun's seventh planet: 31,763 miles (51,118 km.) in diameter, four times larger than the Earth. It orbits at 19 times the distance from Earth to the sun, twice as far from the sun as Saturn. [Amazing Photos of Uranus]

How to see Uranus

In binoculars, Uranus is indistinguishable from a star. Look for it currently in the constellation Pisces. [Uranus: Inside and Out (Infographic)]

Opposition night is not the best night to look for it, because the full moon will be nearby flooding the sky with light. Look for it instead tonight, or in a week's time when the moon has moved on.

Don't try to use Pisces to find it, because this is a dim constellation. Instead, start with the Great Square of Pegasus, a conspicuous large square of stars. This will be in the southern sky (of the Northern Hemisphere) about two thirds of the way from the horizon to directly overhead at local midnight, or in the eastern sky earlier in the evening.

Use the two stars on the left side of the Great Square, Alpheratz and Algenib, and project a line joining them down towards the horizon. At almost exactly the same distance below the bottom star you will see (in binoculars) what looks like a double star. These will be the two brightest "stars" in this part of the sky.

The star on the left (in the Northern Hemisphere) is 44 Piscium. The "star" on the right is not a star at all, but the planet Uranus. Pay close attention to the distance between these two objects, and check it again in a night or two. Uranus will have moved away to the right, the distance between star and planet increasing.

In binoculars, Uranus will look just like a star. In a small telescope with about 200x magnification, you will see a tiny blue-green disk. Uranus has 27 known moons, but these are all too tiny to be seen in a small telescope.

Strange Uranus facts

One of the most interesting things about Uranus is the tilt of its axis of rotation. Most planets rotate around a pole which points roughly at right angles to the plane of their orbit.

Uranus' pole is tipped over so that its axis is almost in the same plane as its orbit. As a result, the sun shines almost continuously on the northern half the planet for part of its year, and continuously on the southern half for another part of its year. The result is the most extreme seasonal variation found on any planet in the solar system.

When Herschel discovered Uranus, he needed to find a name for it. This was as big a deal in the 18th century as naming a stadium is today. Knowing who his chief patron was, he decided to name it after his king, George III: Georgium Sidus (George's Star). Now George III was not very popular outside England, so there was a lot of resistance to this name. Finally Johann Bode suggested that it be named Uranus after the Greek God of the sky, Ouranos, and this was agreed to by all astronomers.

Unfortunately, this name causes pronunciation difficulties for most speakers of the English language. If it's pronounced "ew-RAY-nus" it provokes laughter from sixth-graders. The alternate pronunciation, "EWR-a-nus" is not much better. Perhaps we should go back to the original Greek pronunciation, "OOR-a-nus."

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FOX News: On the Clover Trail: Intel previews next-generation tablets

FOX News
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On the Clover Trail: Intel previews next-generation tablets
Sep 28th 2012, 11:47

Intel previewed a wave of tablet computers powered by a microprocessor that the company redesigned to make a bigger dent in the rapidly growing mobile market.

An assortment of major computer vendors made the tablets that were shown Thursday in San Francisco. All the devices depend on Intel's new processor and Windows 8, a dramatic overhaul of the widely used operating system made by Microsoft.

The tablets won't go on sale until October 26 when Windows 8 is released. The prices for the various machines will be revealed during the next few weeks.

Intel held the event in an attempt to prove it's adapting to the market upheaval caused by the increasing popularity of smartphones and tablets such as Apple's iPad.

The shift to mobile devices poses a threat to Intel because its previous chip designs weren't well suited for the needs of smartphones and mobile devices. As a result, Intel's sales are now falling as demand for its personal-computer microprocessors tapers off.

Intel's new tablet chip, code named "Clover Trail" while it was in development, is called the Atom Z2760. It boasts a dual-processing feature that makes tablets run faster and with low power consumption so the battery life of a device should last 10 hours while it's showing video or performing other tasks.

The chips that Intel makes for PC devour more power, making them ill-equipped for tablets that are often used for long stretches without a recharge. That's one of the main reasons Apple and other tablet makers have shunned Intel's chips.

Like Intel, PC makers are counting on Windows 8 to give them a slice of a market that so far has been dominated by the iPad. Most of the other tablets that are siphoning sales from the iPad are running on Android, a free operating system made by Google Inc.

Windows 8 presents applications in a mosaic of tiles to allow for touch-screen navigation and highlight real-time information from the Internet. The revamped operating system also can be adjusted to work on traditional laptop and desktop computers with keyboards. That versatility is meant to appeal to office workers and other people who want to use their machines to create content, as well as consume it.

To cater to that market, some tablet makers are designed hybrid machines that include a keyboard that can be untethered from the display screen.

Erik Reid, an executive in Intel's mobile and communications group who orchestrated Thursday's showcase, described Windows 8 as a breakthrough that "offers and incredible and exciting opportunity to drive new innovation in the marketplace."

The flattery came after Bloomberg News reported Intel CEO Paul Otellini's apparent misgivings about the new operating system. In a meeting earlier this week with Intel employees in Taiwan, Otellini said he believes Microsoft is releasing Windows 8 before all the bugs are fixed, according to Bloomberg, which quoted an unnamed person who heard the remarks.

The manufacturers who have built tablets and hybrid machines running on Intel's new chip include Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc., Lenovo Group, Asustek Computer Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

Intel shares gained 44 cents Thursday to close at $23.09.

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FOX News: Missing element from periodic table finally created, scientists say

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Missing element from periodic table finally created, scientists say
Sep 28th 2012, 12:00

Scientists in Japan think they've finally created the elusive element 113, one of the missing items on the periodic table of elements.

Element 113 is an atom with 113 protons in its nucleus — a type of matter that must be created inside a laboratory because it is not found naturally on Earth. Heavier and heavier synthetic elements have been created over the years, with the most massive one being element 118, temporarily named ununoctium.

But element 113 has been stubbornly hard to create. After years of trying, researchers at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science in Japan said today (Sept. 26) they finally did so. On Aug. 12, the unstable element was formed and quickly decayed, leaving the team with data to cite as proof of the accomplishment.

"For over nine years, we have been searching for data conclusively identifying element 113, and now that at last we have it, it feels like a great weight has been lifted from our shoulders," Kosuke Morita, leader of the research group, said in a statement. [Graphic: Nature's Tiniest Particles Explained]

'For our next challenge, we look to the uncharted territory of element 119 and beyond.'

- Kosuke Morita, leader of the research group

If confirmed, the achievement will mark the first time Japan has discovered a new element, and should make Japan the first Asian country with naming rights to a member of the periodic table. Until now, only scientists in the United States, Russia and Germany have had that chance.

"I would like to thank all the researchers and staff involved in this momentous result, who persevered with the belief that one day 113 would be ours," Morita said. "For our next challenge, we look to the uncharted territory of element 119 and beyond."

Scientists are continually trying to create bigger and bigger atoms, both for the joy of discovery and for the knowledge these new elements can offer about how atoms work.

Most things in the universe are made of very simple elements, such as hydrogen (which has one proton), carbon (six) and oxygen (eight). For each proton, atoms generally have roughly the same number of neutrons and electrons. Yet the more protons and neutrons that are packed into an atom's nucleus, the more unstable the atom can become. Scientists wonder if there is a limit to how large atoms can be.

The first synthetic element was created in 1940, and so far 20 different elements have been made. All of these are unstable and last only seconds, at most, before breaking apart into smaller elements.

To synthesize element 113, Morita and his team collided zinc nuclei (with 30 protons each) into a thin layer of bismuth (which contains 83 protons). When 113 was created, it quickly decayed by shedding alpha particles, which consist of two protons and two neutrons each. This process happened six times, turning element 113 into element 111, then 109, 107, 105, 103 and finally, element 101, Mendelevium (also a synthetic element).

Morita's group seemed to create element 113 in experiments conducted in 2004 and 2005, but the complete decay chain was not observed, so the discovery couldn't be confirmed. Now that this specific pattern resulting in Mendelevium has been seen, the scientists say it "provides unambiguous proof that element 113 is the origin of the chain."

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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