Gizmorama - September 10, 2012
Good Morning,When you read an article entitled - 'Sideways' aircraft for supersonic speed? - alliteration aside, it's just begging to be read. It sounds like science fiction, but it might actually be science fact.
Learn about this and other interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.
Until Next Time,
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Email me ****- Cellphone users concerned over app privacy -*WASHINGTON - More than half of U.S. mobile device users have uninstalled or avoided certain apps, worried how the app collects or shares information, a survey found. A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that of the 88 percent of U.S. adults who own cellphones, 43 percent said they download cellphone applications. However, of those app users, 54 percent reported deciding against installing an app once they learned the extent of the personal information they would be sharing when using the app, Pew reported Wednesday. And 30 percent said they had uninstalled an app they had already downloaded and installed when they learned it was collecting types of personal information they didn't want shared. Overall, 57 percent of all app users have either uninstalled an app or declined to install an app in the first place out of concern about having to share personal information, Pew said. The survey of 2,254 adults was conducted between March 15 and April 3, with a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.
*- 'Sideways' aircraft for supersonic speed? -*MIAMI - An aircraft that could pivot 90 degrees in midair after takeoff to reach supersonic speeds has been given $100,000 in NASA funding, its research team says. Ge-Cheng Zha, an aerospace engineer at the University of Miami, with colleagues from Florida State University, has proposed the supersonic, bidirectional flying wing aircraft, essentially two flying wings on top of one another at a 90-degree angle that would take off facing one way for subsonic flight and then rotate another way for supersonic flight. Jet engines on top of the aircraft would rotate to remain facing forward as the plane turned sideways to transition between inflight modes, InnovationNewsDaily reported. Its designers suggest the aircraft could attain supersonic speeds without producing a sonic boom, the Achilles heel that limited where the supersonic Concorde passenger jet could fly over populated land masses. "I am hoping to develop an environmentally friendly and economically viable airplane for supersonic civil transport in the next 20 to 30 years," Zha said. "Imagine flying from New York to Tokyo in 4 hours instead of 15 hours."
*- 'Junk' DNA found to have important purpose -*WASHINGTON - So-called "junk DNA," genetic material in our cells long considered without purpose, plays a vital role in regulating our genes, international researchers say. A study of the 98 percent of the human genome that is not, strictly speaking, genes suggests more than three-quarters of entire allotment of DNA is active at some point in our lives, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. "This concept of 'junk DNA' is really not accurate," said Richard Myers, one of the leaders of the 400-scientist Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Project, nicknamed Encode. "It is an outdated metaphor to explain our genome." The Human Genome Project had revealed human cells contain only about 21,000 genes, far fewer than most biologists had predicted, and those genes comprised just 2 percent of the cell's DNA. Parts of the genome once thought to be "junk" may have an important role in regulating genes, switching them on and off, influencing their output, controlling their timing and coordinating their activity with other genes, the new findings suggest. "There is a modest number of genes and an immense number of elements that choreograph how those genes are used," said Eric D. Green, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, the federal agency that paid for the research. At least 4 million sections of the genome are involved in manipulating the activity of genes, researchers suggest. "The genome is just alive with stuff. We just really didn't realize that before," Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute in England said.
*- 'Galileo thermometers' said not Galileo's -*WASHINGTON - Galileo didn't invent a colorful, iconic thermometer that bears his name, a chemistry professor at a South African university says in a U.S journal. Peter Loyson of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University says so-called "Galilean thermometers" are sealed tubes of liquid in which glass spheres float and sink with changes in ambient temperature. However, Loyson says in an article in the American Chemicals Society's Journal of Chemical Education, although Galileo may have originated the idea in a 1638 book, it is unlikely he ever built one. The Accademia del Cimento -- the "Academy of Experiment" -- an early scientific society founded in Florence in 1657 by Galileo's students, deserves the credit, Loyson says. "Florentine thermometer" is a more appropriate name for these marvels, he said, which in their modern version have become elegant curiosity pieces with multi-colored spheres and gold-plated temperature tags.
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