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POPSSandtrapped Rover Makes a Big Discovery "Spirit had to get stuck to make its next discovery," says Arvidson. As the rover tried to break free, its wheels began to churn up the soil, uncovering sulfates underneath. "Sulfates are minerals just beneath the surface that shout to us that they were formed in steam vents, since steam has sulfur in it. Steam is associated with hydrothermal activity – evidence of water-charged explosive volcanism. Such areas could have once supported life." "And most amazingly, the boundary between the sulfate-rich soil and the soil with just the generic concentration of sulfates runs right down the middle of the stranded rover. Spirit is lodged on the edge of a crater -- sitting astride the boundary!"
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POPSCuriosity, the new Mars Rover The small, car-sized rover will ramble about on the rocky surface, gizmos at full tilt, not only brushing dust off rocks but also vaporizing them with a laser beam, gathering samples to analyze on the spot, taking high resolution photographs, and more.
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POPSWater on Mars A fresh, 6-meter-wide, 1.33-meter-deep crater on Mars photographed on Oct. 18, 2008, and again on Jan. 14, 2009, by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera. The bright material is ice, which fades from Oct. to Jan. because of sublimation and obscuration by settling dust
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POPSWater on the moon These images show a very young lunar crater on the side of the moon that faces away from Earth, as viewed by NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. On the left is an image showing brightness at shorter infrared wavelengths. On the right, the distribution of water-rich minerals (light blue) is shown around a small crater. Both water- and hydroxyl-rich materials were found to be associated with material ejected from the crater.
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POPSOmega Centauri Colorful Stars Galore Inside Globular Star Cluster Omega Centauri NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this panoramic view of a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of a giant star cluster. The image reveals a small region inside the massive globular cluster Omega Centauri, which boasts nearly 10 million stars.
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POPSSpace Station Room With a View The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) is about to get a new "eye-pod." The Tranquility node headed for the space station early in 2010 will feature a viewing dome unlike any other window ever flown in space. The dome, called the Cupola, is literally studded with windows for observing Earth, space, and the marvelous expanse of the ISS itself.
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POPSEarly medical library IN: 'Oeconomus Prudens et Legalis' by Franciscus Philippus Florinus, 1722. Interior view of early 18th century medical library showing the arrangement of text by author, also indicated are those authors considered important. A large table with several open books on it fills the foreground; a man is returning a book to a shelf.
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POPSthe Majestic Sombrero Galaxy Hubble Space Telescope has trained its razor-sharp eye on one of the universe's most stately and photogenic galaxies, the Sombrero galaxy, Messier 104 (M104). The galaxy's hallmark is a brilliant white, bulbous core encircled by the thick dust lanes comprising the spiral structure of the galaxy. As seen from Earth, the galaxy is tilted nearly edge-on. We view it from just six degrees north of its equatorial plane. This brilliant galaxy was named the Sombrero because of its resemblance to the broad rim and high-topped Mexican hat. At a relatively bright magnitude of +8, M104 is just beyond the limit of naked-eye visibility and is easily seen through small telescopes. The Sombrero lies at the southern edge of the rich Virgo cluster of galaxies and is one of the most massive objects in that group, equivalent to 800 billion suns. The galaxy is 50,000 light-years across and is located 28 million light-years from Earth.
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POPSJust Behave Is Google Rewiring Our Brains? One of the fascinating outcomes was not just which parts of the brain “fired” when searching, but the difference in the level of mental activity between practiced searchers (called the Internet savvy) and newbies (called the Internet naïve).
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POPSGreen Comet Approaches Earth Comet Lulin, named after the observatory in Taiwan where the discovery-photo was taken, is now approaching Earth. "It is a green beauty that could become visible to the naked eye any day now,"
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POPSKansas City Library Kansas City Library has one seriously cool façade. Local residents were asked to nominate influential books that represent kansas city, humungous versions of the winning nominations were then used as the exterior of the library car-park.
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POPSDe essentie van Web2.0 De essentie van Web2.0 is het faciliteren van online samenwerking (collaboration) tussen verschillende gebruikers en het creëren, bewerken en delen van content. YouTube, Flickr, Facebook en Wikipedia zijn hiervan de bekendste voorbeelden. Maar Web2.0 is breder dan alleen deze sociale platforms. Shopping 2.0, Intranet 2.0, Banking 2.0, Health2.0, … In allerlei vormen via een breed scala aan kanalen wordt het delen van content ondersteund door online technologie. Dat hiermee in een basale behoefte wordt voorzien, blijkt wel uit het massale gebruik ervan (zie figuur).
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POPSFlag of Earth The flag was designed by James Cadle. Prior to the US landing on the moon, there was hope a flag for humanity, rather than the American flag, would be erected on the moon. Some hoped the UN flag would fly, but that never happened. At the Flag of Earth website there are templates for printing them out or purchasing ready-to-fly sown ones.
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POPSThe $900,000 Librarian Christie's auction in New York. It was here that a rare photograph by celebrated contemporary artist Cindy Sherman sold for over $900,000--three times Christie's asking price. In "Untitled Film Still #13," Sherman poses as a librarian, gazing beyond the shelves of books that surround her.
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POPSNaked-Eye Gamma-ray Burst Aimed Directly at Earth Astronomers announced today that a remarkable gamma-ray burst visible to the human eye earlier this year came from an explosive stellar jet aimed almost directly at Earth. See the animation at: http://mfile.akamai.com/18566/wmv/etouchsyst2.download.akamai.com/18355/wm.nasa-global/swift/twoComponentJetStream.asx
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POPSDavid Byrne's Bike Racks David Byrne of the Talking Heads designing bike racks in Manhattan in order to promote bike riding. The bike racks are finished and in place. Each reflect its location. For example, head to Wall Street and you'll find one shaped like a dollar sign. Here is a link to his Web page that shows the racks and where they are located. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brCk1-AVvRk&eurl=http://www.gadling.com/2008/08/26/david-byrne-of-the-talking-heads-gives-cycling-in-nyc-a-boost-wi/
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POPSAmsterdam krijgt er zes verdiepingen bij door: Enith Vlooswijk over: economie, mobiliteit, ruimtelijke ordening op: 11 augustus 2008 # Toekomstplan voorziet in ondergronds net van wegen en parkeerplaatsen # Het gangenstelsel ligt direct onder de Amsterdamse grachten
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POPSHome! Everything That Happens Will Happen Today The new album by David Byrne and Brian Eno http://www.everythingthathappens.com
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POPSInformationist competencies Informationist competencies as adapted from Giuse model with suggested additions noted in italics J Med Libr Assoc. 2008 July; 96(3): 194–206. doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.96.3.005.
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POPShet Conversatieprisma het Conversatieprisma van Brian Solis: http://www.briansolis.com/2008/08/introducing-conversation-prism.html
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POPSWater on Mars A color-enhanced image of the delta in Jezero Crater, which once held a lake. Researchers led by CRISM team member and Brown graduate student Bethany Ehlmann report that ancient rivers ferried clay-like minerals (shown in green) into the lake, forming the delta. Clays tend to trap and preserve organic matter, making the delta a good place to look for signs of ancient life.
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POPSVoyager 2 Finds Lopsided Solar System Still transmitting, the three-decade-old craft encounters turbulence in solar wind. Hurtling through space 31 years after its launch, the Voyager 2 spacecraft has sent back the most detailed view yet of the shock wave that marks the thinning of the solar wind, the charged particles streaming from the sun. That would mean they have exited the solar system and entered the interstellar medium. NASA engineers estimate that both probes' plutonium power packs have the potential to keep them broadcasting data until 2025. If we're lucky, Jokippi says, they'll let us know what they find.
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POPS FEATURE NASA to Attempt Historic Solar Sail Deployment "Hold your hands out to the sun. What do you feel? Heat, of course. But there's pressure as well – though you've never noticed it, because it's so tiny. Over the area of your hands, it only comes to about a millionth of an ounce. But out in space, even a pressure as small as that can be important – for it's acting all the time, hour after hour, day after day. Unlike rocket fuel, it's free and unlimited. If we want to, we can use it; we can build sails to catch the radiation blowing from the sun."1 These words were spoken not by a NASA scientist but by a fictional character – John Merton – in Arthur C. Clarke's short story The Wind from the Sun. If all goes well, Merton's prophetic words are about to become fact.
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POPSKosmische ramp deeltjeversneller CERN weerlegd Theoretisch fysici weerleggen in grondig rapport zwartste scenario’s van somberste doemdenkers . Dit najaar gaat in Genève een nieuwe deeltjesversneller in gebruik. Doemdenkers vrezen dat hij een ‘zwart gat’ zal produceren. Maar daarvoor blijkt geen grond.
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POPSAutomated Music Personality The two-wheeled, dancing A.M.P. (Automated Music Personality or Ampbot) from Sega-Hasbro stands 2.4-feet tall and features a MP3 or iPod cradle on its back, stereo speakers, and the ability to follow and interact with its owner.
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POPSSolstice Moon Illusion On Wednesday night, June 18th, step outside at sunset and look around. You'll see a giant form rising in the east. At first glance it looks like the full Moon. It has craters and seas and the face of a man, but this "moon" is strangely inflated. It's huge! There's no better time to see it. The full Moon of June 18th is a "solstice moon", coming only two days before the beginning of northern summer. This is significant because the sun and full Moon are like kids on a see-saw; when one is high, the other is low. This week's high solstice sun gives us a low, horizon-hugging Moon and a strong Moon Illusion.
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POPS Bionic hand wins top tech prize Psychologically, it has been the greatest thing. Physically, it's hard to get things moving again. Ray Edwards zie ook het interview met hem: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7445543.stm
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POPSHuman vs Humanoid By 2050, develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world champion team in soccer.
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POPSHuizen haalt naaktschilderijen weg Een paar mannen met een islamitische achtergrond en baliemedewerkers hadden geklaagd. De gemeente Huizen heeft naaktschilderijen van kunstenares Ellen Vroegh verplaatst.
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POPSGiant kangaroo gives clues on climate CANBERRA (Reuters) - Scientists in Australia hope a giant cardboard image of a kangaroo, photographed from space on Tuesday, will help them better understand how the earth reflects sunlight and give them new clues about global warming. Similar images are due to be photographed from space at sites in the United States, France, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Israel, Wales and Singapore as part of the experiment, involving science centres and the American space agency NASA.