Gizmorama - November 21, 2012

Good Morning,

How awesome would it be if the act of shaking your cellphone would actually recharge it? Make sure to read the last story to learn about this remarkable possibility.

Enjoy all interesting stories from the scientific community right here in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

P.S. EVTV1 is back and better than ever! This video portal was created to weed through the online clutter to bring you the best animal video clips...funniest videos...most popular...PLUS the most unusual. New videos are added daily! It's the future of entertainment available today, all in one place.

Visit and Enjoy: EVTV1.com


***
*-- Government surveillance of Google rising --*
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Search giant Google says governments around the world made nearly 21,000 requests for access to Google data in the first six months of this year. Government surveillance of online activity is increasing at a rapid rate, Google said in its Transparency Report, with the U.S. government leading the way by asking for data details 7,969 times in the first half of 2012. Google regularly receives requests from government agencies and courts around the world to have access to content, and has been publishing its Transparency Report detailing the requests semi-annually since 2009. "This is the sixth time we've released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise," Google said in a blog post. The types of requests received show varying government behaviors around the world, a Google spokeswoman told the BBC. "It reflects laws on the ground," she said. "For example in Turkey there are specific laws about defaming public figures whereas in Germany we get requests to remove neo-Nazi content." The top three reasons given by governments for content removal were defamation, privacy and security, Google said.


*-- Mars orbiter back online after system swap --*
PASADENA, Calif. - NASA says its Mars Odyssey orbiter has resumed duty after switching to a set of redundant equipment not used since before the spacecraft's 2001 launch. The swap was initiated last week in response to months of diagnostic data indicating some portions of the orbiter's instrumentation showed signs of wearing out, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., reported. The orbiter carries a pair of redundant main computers -- an "A-side" and a "B-side" -- to have a backup available if one fails, with each computer having several other redundant subsystems linked to just that computer, JPL said. "The side-swap has gone well," JPL Odyssey Project Manager Gaylon McSmith said. "All the subsystems that we are using for the first time are performing as intended." Odyssey is already the longest-working spacecraft ever sent to Mars, NASA said.


*-- Climate change said threat to world coffee --*
LONDON - Arabica beans, responsible for 70 percent of the world's coffee market, could face extinction due to climate change, researchers at Britain's Kew Gardens say. Rising tides and warming temperatures worldwide could render 99.7 percent of popular current bean-growing regions unsuitable for raising coffee, possibly causing the world's predominant coffee crop to be extinct by 2080, the researchers said. Wild Arabica grows naturally in the mountains of Ethiopia and South Sudan, and while most commercial coffee is reproduced by farming and in greenhouses, the wild strain is vital as a source for coffee plantations to get more "pure" beans naturally resistant to pests and disease. Coffee farmers have already been responding to climate change in the last 50 years, having to move their crops 150 feet higher every 10 years to cope with rising temperatures, inhabitat.com reported. Although there are other strains of coffee beans -- like the stronger Robusta bean -- the majority of coffee available in supermarkets and coffee chains comes from the Arabica bean.


*-- Shaking your cellphone to recharge it? --*
BLACKSBURG, Va. - U.S. researchers say they are working on a new cellphone charging system that turns movement into energy, allowing a phone to be recharged by simply shaking it. Researchers at Virginia Tech are designing an emergency onboard charger that draws energy from a common piezoelectric material that can convert vibrations into energy to power a phone, NewScientist.com reported Tuesday. Vibrating the material -- zinc oxide -- produced an electrical current at about 50 millivolts, they said. The vibrations could come from finger taps on the phone's keyboard or by shaking the phone, they said. While it wouldn't produce a great deal of power -- not nearly enough to continuously operate the phone -- it would be sufficient for an emergency situation, researcher Shashank Priya said. "In an emergency you could just shake your cellphone for a few minutes to get enough power to make this one important call," he says.

***
Missed an Issue? Visit the Gizmorama Archives