said, adding: “Clearly a one-week wonder, but what a week!” Actually, it was more like what a day. Look-ups of malarkey represented the largest spike of a single word on the website by percentage, at 3,000 per cent, in a single 24-hour period this year. The company won’t release the number of page views per word but said the site gets about 1.2 billion overall each year. Socialism and capi…
ff in 10 minutes by parents. The average child will know 150 of the words in the Language Development Survey but scores of 75 to 225 are normal. Alarm bells should start ringing if a toddler uses just 50 of the words or less, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual conference heard. Scientist listed 25 words that every toddler should use by the age of two The 25 words lis…
…echnique may in future help comatose and locked-in patients communicate. Several approaches have in recent years suggested that scientists are closing in on methods to tap into our very thoughts. In a 2011 study, participants with electrodes in direct brain contact were able to move a cursor on a screen by simply thinking of vowel sounds. A technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging to…
ed to the public by national meteorological agencies right across Europe. “Verification and testing of the satellite’s systems will take two months. We expect to publish the first image on 6 August,” said Alain Ratier, the director-general of Eumetsat, the intergovernmental organization based in Darmstadt, Germany, that is charged with operating Europe’s weather platforms….
…rmation request, the information sheds new light on how government analysts are instructed to patrol the internet searching for domestic and external threats. The words are included in the DHS’s 2011 “Analyst’s Desktop Binder” used by workers at their National Operations Center which instructs workers to identify “media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities”. De…
…ng with the agency to scan social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The group also says that the government has used scans of social media before to analyze specific events – such as the 2010 BP oil spill – but this general “watching” of social media using fake profiles is new. “The initiatives were designed to gather information from <<online forums, blogs, public websit…
…3. John Paul Stapp In 1954, US Air Force medical researcher John Paul Stapp earned the title “the Fastest Man Alive” when he rode a rocket-powered sled to a then-world record land speed of 632 mph (1.017 km/h), going from a standstill to a speed faster than a 45-caliber bullet in five seconds. He then screeched to a dead stop in 1.4 seconds, sustaining a force equivalent to 46.2 times…
9,000 years ago According to the Ethnologue database, more than 100 language families exist. The Indo-European family is one of the largest families – more than 400 languages spoken in at least 60 countries – and its origins are unclear. The Steppes, or Kurgan, theorists hold that the proto-language originated in the Steppes of Russia, north of the Caspian Sea, about 5,000 years ago….
…The new version of search will use what’s called “semantic search”, which attempts to understand the meaning of searches, rather than simply hunting for words. Google still accounts for roughly 66% of the search market worldwide. But the new, beefed-up version of search could keep the giant ahead of competitors such as Microsoft’s Bing, and enable the search engine to compete with Fac…
tudy the rocks inside Gale Crater, one of the deepest holes on Mars, for signs that the planet may once have supported microbial life. The $2.5 billion mission is due to touch down at 05:31 GMT Monday 6 August; 22:31 PDT, Sunday 5 August. It will be a totally automated landing. Engineers here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, can only watch and wait. The vast distance…
st’s acrylic and a mount for the tags of neoprene strips held in place by a silicone-based adhesive. Laboratory trials showed this combination would keep the tracker locked down for a minimum of 50-plus days. In contrast, hard epoxy preparations would come off after only a couple of weeks. Dr. Kate Mansfield and colleagues are now compiling a report on what they have learnt about neonate dis…
“Bicholim Conflict” was voted a “good article” – a Wikipedia badge of honor – and sat happily on the online encyclopedia for more than half a decade. But editors have lately discovered a small issue with the site’s meticulously written 4,500 word article detailing the 17th century Bicholim Conflict. It was entirely made up. After five years of featuring the piece, which tells th…
signal to noise ratio.” The first science target for ChemCam will be bedrock exposed on the ground next to Curiosity by the rocket-powered crane used to lower the vehicle to the crater floor on 6 August (GMT). Exhaust from this descent stage scattered surface grit and pebbles to reveal a harder, compact material underneath. The crane made four scour marks in the ground – two either si…
Solar Impulse, a solar-powered plane, has landed in Rabat, Morocco, after flying from Spain, completing the second leg of its pioneering journey. Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse in Rabat, 19 hours after taking off from Madrid. The plane – the size of a jumbo jet – was powered by 12,000 solar cells turning four electrical motors. The 2,500 km-trip (1,550 miles), begun i…
…“We should make tracks.” Another major engineering milestone passed this week has been the unpacking of Curiosity’s robotic arm. It was flexed to exercise its joints. The arm holds a 30 kg tool turret on its end that includes a drill to take powered samples from rocks. …
…7(7): e1002182. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002182 Contact: Dr. Beatriz Martinez-Delgado and Dr. Javier Benitez Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) Human Genetics Melchor Fernandez Almagro 3 Madrid 28029 SPAIN bmartinez@cnio.es jbenitez@cnio.es Disclaimer This press release refers to an upcoming article in PLoS Genetics. The release is provided by journal staff, or by the article aut…
ything could happen. I feel the mayor should do something about that. The children should be our first priority, no matter what else is going on in the city.” Zak, a former Cleveland police officer of 30 years, believes the community is feeling the effects of the city’s cuts in the police force. “The first thing a city should do is protect its citizens,” he said. Although police cannot be on the s…
May 8 2013 | Posted in
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…y everywhere with temperatures of just 8C and a brisk northerly wind. Thank God it isn’t a bank holiday.” The duke and duchess spent more than an hour at BBC Scotland, which is celebrating 60 years of television broadcasting. …
May 11 2012 | Posted in
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…e National Weather Service said. Residents from Connecticut to Rhode Island were also slammed with up to six inches of snow, while areas of Massachusetts had a whopping eight inches. Carrying gusts of 60 mph, the storm brought down tree limbs and electrical wires damaged by Sandy. Utilities across the two states in New York and New Jersey reported that nearly 60,000 customers who lost power in the…
…on Monday. The Frankenstorm is the mash-up of Hurricane Sandy from the South and an unnamed nor’easter gaining strength as it moves from the West Hurricane Sandy is responsible for an estimated 67 deaths so far in the Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, the wintery storm from the West is helping to pull the hurricane to land when it might have other…
Scientists in the Arctic are warning that this summer’s record-breaking melt is part of an accelerating trend with profound implications. Norwegian researchers report that the sea ice is becoming significantly thinner and more vulnerable. Last month, the annual thaw of the region’s floating ice reached the lowest level since satellite monitoring began, more than 30 years ago. It is th…
E 2012 LIST OF BANISHED WORDS 1. Amazing – overused 2. Baby Bump – overused 3. Shared Sacrifice – abused for escaping a burden 4. Occupy – overused 5. Blowback – overused 6. Man Cave – overused 7. The New Normal – misused for justifying “bad trends” 8. Pet Parent – misused as”’there is no equate” 9. Win The Future – useless as a contrary…
…which gives you a page to read, followed by a few questions The average speed for adults is 300 words a minute, which means an average reader could rattle through War and Peace – which has about 560,000 words in its English translation – in about 11,866 minutes. How we read has changed over the years, with experts in particular noting how the internet is changing how we read materials….
…unit may have formed and what it’s composed of. We’ll aim the ChemCam [at Goulburn Scour], as well as taking even higher resolution images.” Curiosity has not moved since landing on 6 August (GMT). That is about to change. The rover is going to roll forward briefly to test its locomotion system in the next few days. A reverse manoeuvre is planned, also. Researchers want eventual…
…proposed during a live broadcast Shocked and full of excitement, Jenna Lee Thomas accepted, saying “I love you” and planting a long, passionate kiss on his lips. The couple will be married in August 2012. They met earlier this year during an event at Jenna Lee Thomas’ church in Augusta. Eric Wright told the station that he will be moving to the area next year, where he will be an emergency room…
