DvgStar

A tale of China's two great cities - The rivalry between Beijing, the national capital, and Shanghai, the financial capital, has been going on for decades. The dynamic is a powerful undercurrent in Chinese politics and culture.

12 Celebrity Homes For Sale

Millionaires Collecting Unemployment?

Good night's rest key to losing weight, U.S. diet study shows

Top 10 Jobs for People Who Hate People

True Stories Behind Car Company Logos

Scams Even You Could Fall For—And How to Avoid Them

Mental problems twice as likely for cannabis users: report

Odds of life on newfound Earth-size planet '100 per cent,' astronomer says

10 Ways to Save Money on Your Utility Bill

Things you think add value to your home - but really don't

Optical Illusions

New York street signs get downsized

Wall Street flash crash sparked by computer trade: report

How To Buy a Home at a $100,000 Discount

5 Things You Don't Know About 'The Social Network' movie

6 money mistakes couples make

Pentagon burns book and makes it a best-seller

Why the Rich Don't Feel Rich

America's Smartest Cities

Sept. headlines-3

2010-09-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

A different kind of eyeglasses

You Don't Have to Pay for Cable TV

Cutting the cable cord may sound 'cool,' but 'very few' are likely to snip, survey says

A Different Kind of Eyeglasses

Nine Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions (Besides the Segway Guy)

Taking An In-Depth Look at 3-D Glasses

Stonehenge skeleton came from Mediterranean

Swanky new Vegas hotel’s ‘death ray’ proves inconvenient for some guests

Your Worst Financial Mistakes And Why You Made Them

7 Ways Your Resume Dates You

Top 5 Tricks of Identity Thieves

Where to Buy a Retirement Home for Under $600 a Month

Months after $1M lottery win, US man wins $2M

25 Amazing Food Cures

The Best Deals Are in the Strangest Places

Where to Buy a Retirement Home for Under $600 a Month

The Super-Saver's Guide to Grocery Shopping at Dollar Stores

When You Can Save Money by Spending More

Secrets Starbucks Doesn't Want You to Know

America's Billionaires In The Making

Asking questions that could save you money

Five Quick Ways to Bankrupt Yourself

City life fosters disease resistance, study suggests

Ultraprecise clock helps cut relativity down to size

To kill a bedbug: pick your weapon

North Korean leader's son enjoys pampered life in Macau

Advice for the 'Poor Rich'

Digging Out of Student Debt

Military-Grade Malware Spurs Theories on New Cyberwar Threat

Bedbug Outbreak: Grim Summit on How to Fight Infestation

8 Tips For Starting Your Own Business

Foods that fight cancer

5 tricks for long lasting jeans

8 myths about being single

Turn back the clock on your life: 7 ways to keep yourself young

Celeb beauty disasters (and how to avoid making them yourself)

New Cars for 2011

Forbes 400: The Richest People in America

Top 5 ways people are irrational about money - Too often we lose money trying to make or save money. Learning some of the most common mistakes will help preserve your hard earned cash

5 expert secrets to looking younger than you are for women

Wind could have parted Red Sea for Moses: report

5 self-made female billionaires

Foods that prevent cancer

The Body Language of Liars

6 biggest lies about food busted

What Not to Say When Pulled Over by a Cop

Degrees That Hiring Managers Want

Shortage of single ladies drives men to commit

Discovery paves way for new high-powered organic batteries

Who Lives to 100? Centenarian Facts

7 Tricks to a Speedier Metabolism

Fall's best buys - Timing is everything when it comes to landing deals. Here's what to watch for on sale this season.

Sneak in Veggies! 7 Ways to Trick Anyone (Yourself Included) into Eating Greens

Amazing New Designs For The Dollar Bill

How to Get Lucky - Scientific proof that you make your own breaks.

Simple system to make money in oil

Snooki Charges $20,000 to Walk a Red Carpet

Savvy Situation: MTV star turns fame into fortune

Director admits Joaquin Phoenix documentary a hoax

Writer Says Letterman Knew Phoenix Was Faking

Football fumbles festival

5 Expensive (and Unexpected) Things That Can Happen to Your Home

Eat to Lose Weight and Build Muscle: How the NFL Does It

Where to Buy a Home for Less Than $800 a Month

How One College Student Beat Tuition Costs

Apple TV vs. Google TV: How do they differ?

Reality TV's Best-Kept Secrets - The hardest challenge in reality TV isn't eating cockroaches or dodging catapulted watermelons — it's keeping the final results under wraps.

Best Android Phones for Fall 2010

Top 5 smartphones, not the iPhone - Don't care for an iPhone? Here are the top choices on the market

Dancing Kid the Latest Viral Hit

Stephen Hawking speaks out on space exploration, time travel

Best Android Phones for Fall 2010

The Truth About 12 Health Myths - You’ve Always Heard That…

Fastest Net Service in U.S. Coming to Chattanooga

Mascot 'eats' cheerleader

10 Cars Mechanics Hate (In other words, the best cars to buy)

Phantom touchdown

7 Sleep-Stealing Foods to Stay Away From

Hollywood's highest-paid actors

World's most expensive book

10 Most Anticipated Movies of Fall/Winter 2010

What Smartphones Really Cost

Apple Not Far From Tree: Paul McCartney's Son To Release Debut EP

5 reasons he didn’t call you

8 Things You Didn’t Know About Dreams

Sept. headlines-2

2010-09-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

3-D optical illusion to slow traffic at slow zone < Watch video of illusion

8 Things Employers Aren't Allowed to Ask You

25 things chefs never tell you

Miss Universe Contestant Claims "Sabotage" Led to Her Loss

Man reportedly catches "goldfish" as big as a dog

Salary secrets your employer doesn't want you to know

Best questions to ask in your job interview

5 Myths That Are Crippling Your Job Search

How much is the cast of 'Dancing with the Stars' making?

A Strong Password Isn’t the Strongest Security

Taste Test: Store Brands vs. Name Brand

4 Upgrades That Waste Your Money

The Most Expensive New Homes 2010

8 foods that will keep you from getting sick

25 Best Nutrition Secrets

5 Things Your Car Dealer Won't Tell You

6 outrageously overpriced products

Supermarket Standoff: Frozen Pizza

Smoking baby

Your Own Wi-Fi Hot Spot, and Cheap

Indonesia's smoking toddler kicks habit

Avoid these five latest scams - Creative criminals are finding new ways to get your cash and information. Don't fall for these latest scams experts are warning about.

Shocking, invisible danger lurking in lakes

Hacked password list offers security insights

Are we living in a designer universe?

2010-09-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

By John Gribbin, 31 Aug 2010
The argument over whether the universe has a creator, and who that might be, is among the oldest in human history. But amid the raging arguments between believers and sceptics, one possibility has been almost ignored – the idea that the universe around us was created by people very much like ourselves, using devices not too dissimilar to those available to scientists today.

As with much else in modern physics, the idea involves particle acceleration, the kind of thing that goes on in the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Before the LHC began operating, a few alarmists worried that it might create a black hole which would destroy the world. That was never on the cards: although it is just possible that the device could generate an artificial black hole, it would be too small to swallow an atom, let alone the Earth.

However, to create a new universe would require a machine only slightly more powerful than the LHC – and there is every chance that our own universe may have been manufactured in this way.

This is possible for two reasons. First, black holes may – as science fiction aficionados will be well aware – act as gateways to other regions of space and time. Second, because of the curious fact that gravity has negative energy, it takes no energy to make a universe. Despite the colossal amount of energy contained in every atom of matter, it is precisely balanced by the negativity of gravity.

Black holes, moreover, are relatively easy to make. For any object, there is a critical radius, called the Schwarzschild radius, at which its mass will form a black hole. The Schwarzschild radius for the Sun is about two miles, 1/200,000th of its current width; for the Earth to become a black hole, it would have to be squeezed into a ball with a radius of one centimetre.

The black holes that could be created in a particle accelerator would be far smaller: tiny masses squeezed into incredibly tiny volumes. But because of gravity’s negative energy, it doesn’t matter how small such holes are: they still have the potential to inflate and expand in their own dimensions (rather than gobbling up our own). Such expansion was precisely what our universe did in the Big Bang, when it suddenly exploded from a tiny clump of matter into a fully-fledged cosmos.

Alan Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first proposed the now widely accepted idea of cosmic inflation – that the starting point of the Big Bang was far smaller, and its expansion far more rapid, than had been assumed. He has investigated the technicalities of “the creation of universes in the laboratory”, and concluded that the laws of physics do, in principle, make it possible.

The big question is whether that has already happened – is our universe a designer universe? By this, I do not mean a God figure, an “intelligent designer” monitoring and shaping all aspects of life. Evolution by natural selection, and all the other processes that produced our planet and the life on it, are sufficient to explain how we got to be the way we are, given the laws of physics that operate in our universe.

However, there is still scope for an intelligent designer of universes as a whole. Modern physics suggests that our universe is one of many, part of a “multiverse” where different regions of space and time may have different properties (the strength of gravity may be stronger in some and weaker in others). If our universe was made by a technologically advanced civilisation in another part of the multiverse, the designer may have been responsible for the Big Bang, but nothing more.

If such designers make universes by manufacturing black holes – the only way to do it that we are aware of – there are three levels at which they might operate. The first is just to manufacture black holes, without influencing the laws of physics in the new universe. Humanity is nearly at this level, which Gregory Benford’s novel Cosm puts in an entertaining context: an American researcher finds herself, after an explosion in a particle accelerator, with a new universe on her hands, the size of a baseball.

The second level, for a slightly more advanced civilisation, would involve nudging the properties of the baby universes in a certain direction. It might be possible to tweak the black holes in such a way that the force of gravity was a little stronger than in the parent universe, without the designers being able to say exactly how much stronger.

The third level, for a very advanced civilisation, would involve the ability to set precise parameters, thereby designing it in detail. An analogy would be with designer babies – instead of tinkering with DNA to get a perfect child, a scientists might tinker with the laws of physics to get a perfect universe. Crucially, though, it would not be possible in any of these cases – even at the most advanced level – for the designers to interfere with the baby universes once they had formed. From the moment of its own Big Bang, each universe would be on its own.

This might sound far-fetched, but the startling thing about this theory is how likely it is to happen – and to have happened already. All that is required is that evolution occurs naturally in the multiverse until, in at least one universe, intelligence reaches roughly our level. From that seed point, intelligent designers create enough universes suitable for evolution, which bud off their own universes, that universes like our own (in other words, suitable for intelligent life) proliferate rapidly, with “unintelligent” universes coming to represent a tiny fraction of the whole multiverse. It therefore becomes overwhelmingly likely that any given universe, our own included, would be designed rather than “natural”.

While the intelligence required to do the job may be (slightly) superior to ours, it is of a kind that is recognisably similar to our own, rather than that of an infinite and incomprehensible God. And the most likely reason for such an intelligence to make universes is the same for doing things like climbing mountains, or studying the nature of subatomic particles – because we can. A civilisation that has the technology to make baby universes would surely find the temptation irresistible. And if the intelligences are anything like our own, there would be an overwhelming temptation at the higher levels of universe design to improve upon the results.

This idea provides the best resolution yet to the puzzle Albert Einstein used to raise, that “the most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible”. The universe is comprehensible to the human mind because it was designed, at least to some extent, by intelligent beings with minds similar to our own.

The great British astronomer Fred Hoyle suggested that the laws of physics were so uniquely conducive to human existence that the universe must be “a put-up job”. I believe he was right: the universe was indeed set up to provide a home for life, even if it evolved through a process of natural selection, with no need for outside interference. It isn’t that man was created in God’s image – rather that our universe was created, more or less, in the image of its designers.

Dr John Gribbin is a visiting fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex and author of ‘In Search of the Multiverse‘ (Penguin)

Source

Sept. headlines

2010-09-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

Five expenses that will consume 50 per cent of your lifetime earnings

How to lower your property taxes

How to Make Your Burger More Like a (Great) Restaurant Burger

10 Great Cities for Raising Families

Richest lawmakers grew wealthier as economy faltered

August headlines-2

2010-08-13T16:33:00.000-07:00

12 ways you’re wasting money on your car

Credit Score Secrets

10 easy ways to build a credit history

5 Myths That Are Crippling Your Job Search

6 neighborhood red flags

5 Home repairs not to ignore

Food expiration dates: What do they really mean?

Avoid These 5 Used Cars (Plus 5 to Buy)

10 States With Ridiculously Low Unemployment -- And Why

Is it cheaper to own a cat or a dog?

6 dating rules to ditch

The Truth About Car Colors

6 Companies Thriving in the Recession

Fighter jet for sale

Fighter Jet For Sale

Ask the Experts: How to spend $1 million

8 Things You Can Get Rid of Without Guilt

Millions of American Taxpayers Make Money Off Federal Taxes

How to Make Monopoly Fun

6 Signs That You've Made It To Middle Class

Penguins Chasing A Butterfly - Penguins at a zoo in Philadelphia saw a butterfly in their home and gave it a good chase.

Toshiba to launch first glasses-free 3D TV

Toys of the Ultra Rich: What They Cost

Meet the world's tallest teenager

Child Stars Turning 30! - See which former child stars are celebrating their 30th birthday in 2010.

Rarely seen images of deep sea creatures - Scientists using cutting-edge technology to explore waters off Indonesia were wowed by colorful and diverse images of marine life on the ocean floor

Are E-Books Worth the Money?

Top 6 most indebted countries (and why)

10 Money Moves That Will Always Pay Off

A very important code on your plane ticket

The Most Isolated Man on the Planet - He's the last man standing of a disappeared tribe in Brazil

Inside the 'Glass Pavilion' - View pictures of a glass mansion

Trader nailed with $172 million bill in back taxes, asks 'What's the IRS?'

America's Best Pancakes

Tips: 5 Digital Camera Mistakes to Avoid

Douglas, ex clashing over 'Wall Street' cash in NY

"Piranha 3D"

'Piranha 3D' and the Movies So Bad They're Good

Eerie UFO sightings reported over B.C. lake

Mysterious 'Bearded' Antelope Photographed

Inside Paris Hilton's Mini-Mansion

12 ways you’re wasting money on your car

How to hunt for a job from work and not get caught

Motorist's Dream: Gas at 6 Cents a Gallon

Guardians of the nation's attic - The National Archives keeps watch over 10 billion historical records. And its treasure hunting team keeps watch over collector shows and EBay for the scraps of valuable history that have been stolen.

Second Hand Smoke More Harmful Than People Think

Meet The YouTube Stars Making $100,000 Plus Per Year

Oceanfront Florida lot just sold for $164,000 - "I might not believe it if I hadn’t been there to see it myself."

Earn $30 or More an Hour with These Two-Year Degrees

Are mythical creatures sharing our planet?

Trip to Mars would turn astronauts into weaklings

15 Things You Shouldn't Be Paying For

Common anesthetic is anti-depressant 'wonder drug': study

Top 6 most indebted countries (and why)

Cameron Diaz ranked most dangerous Web celeb: study

America's Most Stressful Cities 2010

What aliens would really be like

13 Things An Identity Thief Won't Tell You - 13 Things An Identity Thief Won't Tell You

7 millionaire myths

5 Shocking Sexual Fetishes

Breadwinners beware? Men dependent on women's income more likely to cheat: study

How to Hide from Friends You Don't Like

Do You Know What This Symbol Means? - Do you recognize the symbol here? It lights up in your instrument panel and looks like a U-shaped pictograph with treads and an exclamation point in the middle.

symbol

How to fix your computer

Cheapest days to shop online

46 smart uses for salt

Scientists find smells we find sexy

8-year-old painting prodigy is new art world star - He's Britain's most talked-about young artist. His paintings fetch hefty sums and there's a long waiting list for his eagerly anticipated new works.

For Android newbies: 10 questions, answered

How to Retire Comfortably for Under $1,500 a Month

12 New Rules for Your Money

The Myth of Good Debt

Why do dimes and quarters have ridges on the their edges?

Australia corals to light up cancer cure fight

20 High Yield Dividend Stocks With Bullish Options Sentiment

Billionaire universities - Even in tough economic times the wealthiest Harvard grads are prospering

Study uncovers every possible Rubik's Cube solution

August headlines

2010-08-02T15:01:00.001-07:00

Curious about the Saudi pavilion? Get in line - After a slow start, the Shanghai world's fair is drawing much bigger crowds than expected. Lines can stretch two miles and waits can last nine hours.

Argentine lake may offer clues to life on Mars

20 Worst-Paying College Degrees in 2010 - If you want to avoid the worst-paying college degrees, think twice before choosing a college major that involves children

Fallen Idols: What have befallen to some of the voted-off American Idol finalists

Granny used live grenade as paperweight

Wines for a healthy heart - Reds from cooler climes, rainy years contain the most reservatrol - a substance that could reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer

Fructose can trigger cancer cells to grow faster, study finds

11 Technologies in Danger of Going Extinct

Spray your way to a greener lawn

Head-Turning, hot-looking Cars Under 25K - Five new cars that specialize in getting attention, but won’t break the bank.

Wealth report: How much money do you need to feel 'rich?'

5 Generic Products That Are Just As Good

Mysterious bull's-eye on Mars revealed

What's for dinner

Secrets to Maximizing Social Security

Apple iPhone 4 vs. Samsung Captivate vs. Evo 4G - We pit Apple’s iPhone 4 against Samsung’s Captivate and HTC’s Evo 4G to see which smartphone delivers the best bang for $200.

America's Best Fried Chicken

4 ways to make cash online

The most amazing catch we'll see all season - Watch video

America's Most Romantic Cities

Free tool allows instant analysis of trends, Google economist says - People can now put their finger on the pulse of the economy almost immediately, using a data-analysis tool developed by Google.

Device May Help Spot Hidden Graves Without Digging - A new technology that's said to detect decomposing bodies in the ground could help police find murder victims in concealed graves, even under concrete, its developers say.

Condos that cost less than cars

Battle of the browsers - Which browser is right for you?

Lady Gaga gags on sex

Elon Musk, PayPal Pioneer, Is Paper-Rich, Cash-Poor

From Tiananmen Square to Possible Buffett Successor

Solving the 800-year mystery of Pisa's Leaning Tower

1962 glass could be Corning's next bonanza seller - An ultra-strong glass that has been looking for a purpose since its invention in 1962 is poised to become a multibillion-dollar bonanza for Corning Inc.

July headlines-4

2010-07-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

A pill to make you smarter? It may happen

Brazilian men swapped at birth work, live together

Avoid the biggest mistake that investors make - Simple tricks we can learn to prevent us from hurting ourselves

6 new credit scams to watch out for

10 summer slow-cooker recipes

10 Great Cities For Young Adults - Free from ties to kids or a mortgage, young adults can settle virtually anywhere they choose. So which place is best for you when the world is your oyster?

Twenty-Four More Reasons Not To Trust Your Browser's "Padlock"

Confessions of a Parking Valet

Fur farm foxes trained to combat rat plague

The asteroid that could end the world

'Moonwalker' vows Walmart shoppers

Taking home gifts from America presents dilemma for Chinese

Scientists Use Stem Cells to Help Rabbits Grow New Joints - For the first time, scientists have been able to grow an entire joint from stem cells, albeit in rabbits not humans. And the joints worked.

Avoid the biggest mistake that investors make - Simple tricks we can learn to prevent us from hurting ourselves

How Facebook can complicate romance

Getting hired can be hard when you're hot - Getting hired can be hard when you're hot

Americans Still Confused About Health Reform

Fake coin

Where have all the spilled Gulf oil gone? - Mighty oil-eating microbes help clean up the Gulf

£1 coins so easy to fake, they face the scrap heap - All of Britain's £1 coins may have to be recalled, scrapped and reissued because of the rising number of fakes.

China worries about losing its character(s) - More and more Chinese are realizing they can't remember exactly how to write a given character.

Gamers breathe new life into Rubik's Cube - A team of Ottawa video game designers has pumped new life into a cultural icon by bringing a Rubik's Cube game to portable devices around the world.

Obama lunch partners do well on stock market

Top 10 Secluded U.S. Beaches

A. Chapman

Russia Welcomes Home Its Spies -- So What Now?

How playing videogames can boost your career

How to survive a workaholic spouse

8 Painless Ways to Save Money

15 Ways to Trim your Grocery Bill

New supersonic passenger jet set for takeoff

B.C. gambler suing over $42K jackpot - A British Columbia man who asked to be banned from a local casino to control his gambling says he was still allowed to return whenever he wanted -- that is, until he finally won a $42,000 jackpot.

Journal raises red flag about caffeine drinks

8 Ways to Fast Track Your Retirement

7 jobs to skip college for

Salahi says she's ready for her close-up

The Salahis

Q&A: Paul McCartney on playing White House

7 Secrets to a Happy Retirement

10 worst first-time homebuyer mistakes

Regal ruins: Palatial mansion near Philly crumbles

July headlines-3

2010-07-20T17:43:00.000-07:00

Nearly "invisible" tree house

Ask a Grillmaster: How Do You Keep Food from Sticking to the Grill?

Michelangelo Artfully Hid a Brain Stem in God's Throat

Almost invisible mirrored tree house built in Sweden

Chinese philanthropist donates it all - Eccentric developer from humble roots shocks nation by leaving offspring nothing

Six surprisingly comfortable cave homes

Watch Baby eating a watermelon

Cameron Diaz: 'Who Would Want To Be With The Same Person For 80 Years' - Cameron Diaz isn't convinced that a person could find, fall in love, and stay with one person their entire life

Creating music aids brain growth

Brain Teasers

India unveils prototype of $35 tablet computer

Brain Teasers - Content Spotlight - Optical Illusions >

Are You Dating a (Financial) Deadbeat?

Fisherman makes world record catch

10 Common Errors “Spell Check” Won’t Catch

Before You Hit 'Post', Consider This...

Bahamas' 'blue holes' hold wonders and weird science

You Don't Have to Pay for Cable TV

Gold strategy turned $10,000 into $2 million

How to Get Free Unlimited Cell Calls

The master art copyists of Dafen - "I can do van Gogh and Monet," Zhong admits, "but I'm not good at other people."

Mel Gibson story fuels online wars among celebrity gossip sites

Beach Umbrellas Fail to Block 34 Percent of UV Rays

Study Suggests Painters Face Increased Risk of Bladder Cancer

American Woman With Double Uterus Expecting Two Babies Who Are Not Twins

Ban-happy town targets medicinal marijuana - Pitt Meadows mayor says B.C. community tired of grow-op houses burning down and threatening homes

July headlines-2

2010-07-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

The elaborate hoax behind crop circles

Eating fish weekly may lower risk of age-related eye disease

How to win online contests

Ottawa barbershop won't cut woman's hair - An Ottawa woman says her rights were violated when a barbershop in the Glebe neighbourhood refused to cut her hair.

Brainstorming can be counter-productive

Droid X Adds to the Challenge of Choosing a Smart-Phone - A look at the main strengths -- and drawbacks -- of three popular smart phones

Living in a tiny tiny house - Watch video

Lessons Learned from Lady Gaga

Like 'Inception,' Scientists See Inside Dreamers' Minds

Insight Into Why Low Calorie Diet Can Extend Lifespan -- Even If Adopted Later in Life

Jewel Goes Undercover At L.A. Karaoke Bar - Watch video for the prep, the performance, and the aftermath of the light-hearted prank

Baskin-Robbins Retires French Vanilla

U.S. Health Reform Starts to Take Hold

A UFO Mystery Over China

Woman Shows Off Car Nearly Half A Century Old - A 91-year-old woman is still driving around in her car that's nearly a half a century old.

'Ugly Beast' Found in Texas: Another Chupacabra?

900-year-old Song dynasty drains save Chinese city from deadly floods

4 tips to protect you from ATM thieves

Celebrity charities: Good for image, but what about good works?

How to unmask a liar

Warren Buffett recounts the best advice he's ever received

4 lessons from billionaire college entrepreneurs

A scientist says there's no gravity

6 Fast Foods That Won't Make You Fat

Eight reasons why you shouldn't use coupons

Invest like a millionaire

10 Brands That May Disappear in 2011 - 24/7 Wall St. has created a new list of brands that may disappear

Gio van Bronckhorst: Goal of the tournament?

Lindsay Lohan's revealing courtroom notes

UK treasure hunter finds 52,000 Roman coins

Organic Eggs: More Expensive, but No Healthier

How to make soccer less boring

No-freeze drying signals a revolution - UBC startup develops a faster, better and potentially lucrative way to preserve food and medicine

Australian jobs hit record as stocks, currency soar

Australia is overflowing with jobs

A Lottery Winning Streak - A woman has won multi-million-$ lotteries 4 times

Google Rekindles Browser War - Fast-Growing Chrome Takes No. 3 Spot, and Some Say It Could Threaten Firefox

10 home repairs that will save you money

Is Microsoft heading the way of the dinosaur?

Being stingy may be bad for your health

'Hitler's Pope' saved thousands of Jewish lives: Historian

Teens more productive when school starts later

Alcohol, drugs hinder sex: study

The rich sound of a vinyl revival

Cows moo-ve over: Camel milk coming to Europe - Dubai dairy farms say their product is high in vitamin C and insulin

Wearing a bike helmet might not make you any safer

Retirement topics

2010-07-06T17:12:00.000-07:00

The Millionaire's Retirement Plan

Retirement jobs you can do from the beach

The World's Most Affordable Retirement Haven

50 years old and broke: Now what?

July headlines

2010-07-03T00:22:00.000-07:00

Tour a $50 million Hamptons house of fun - The Hamptons is an east coast celebrity summer retreat and everyone from Jerry Seinfeld to Martha Stewart call it home. This week we found the ultimate 50 million dollar Hamptons haven. Trust me when I say this place has it all! Video.

Tim Hortons cups turned into biofuel

Allowance Mistakes to Avoid

Major international events say no to vuvuzela

Internet products ready to challenge cable TV

The secret history of female spies: less femme fatale, more single mom - The glamorous Anna Chapman fits perfectly into the ‘quip first and shoot later’ type beloved by fiction

In praise of the wandering mind - Idleness, leisure, and relaxation are often keys to eureka moments

A techno-neanderthal finally joined Facebook

New prawn breed developed - After ten years of painstaking research into the popular Black Tiger prawn, CSIRO's Food Futures Flagship and Australian prawn farmers have developed a new prawn that is producing record farm yields which are leading to increased supplies of top quality, sustainably produced seafood

10 ways to save money on gasoline

Three rules to follow when playing a new IPO stock listing

It’s football to you, soccer to me - The origin of the word "soccer"

As world first, Finland makes broadband service basic right

The most and least fuel-efficient cars

New French gel could replace drilling on decayed teeth

June headlines-4

2010-06-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

What happens when Google thinks for you?

A Key Mechanism Links Virgin Olive Oil To Protection Against Breast Cancer

Russian mathematician rejects $1 million prize

How Your Restlessness Makes Brokers Rich

Some Chinese firms seeking 'ornamental' white employees

New saliva test 'can detect various cancers'

Is Facebook Really Worth $23 Billion?

Billionaire holding up her 'half of the sky' - Property company founder Zhang Xin is one of several wealthy Chinese women to build their own fortune from nothing

21 Things You Should Never Buy New

Dinner for under $10

Twi-Dads: Hooked on Twilight but don’t tell their friends - They may be the film franchise’s most unlikely fan base, but they say the rewards are worth it for the father-daughter bonding

Body signals of Soccer penalty kickers reveal intentions

2010-06-27T21:13:00.000-07:00

Research revealed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Medical NewsToday, 27 Jun 2010

In the split second before foot meets ball, a soccer player's body betrays whether a penalty kick will go left or right, according to recent research in cognitive science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The findings could explain how some top goalkeepers are able to head off a penalty kick, diving in the correct direction in advance of the kick. It could also point the way to changes in how players kick, and goalies react. Read more here or below

The research, performed by Rensselaer doctoral student Gabriel J. Diaz, employed motion capture technology and computer analysis to identify five early indicators of the direction a ball would ultimately be kicked. Diaz said his research stemmed from an observation of real-world penalty kicks, in which players aim for the left or right side of the goal while hiding their choice from the goalkeeper.

"When a goalkeeper is in a penalty situation, they can't wait until the ball is in the air before choosing whether to jump left or right - a well-placed penalty kick will get past them," Diaz said. "As a consequence, you see goalkeepers jumping before the foot hits the ball. My question is: Are they making a choice better than chance (50/50), and if so, what kind of information might they be using to make their choice?"

Diaz tested 27 potential indicators of kick direction - 12 drawn from sports literature and 15 derived from a computer analysis of the kicks - and identified five as reliable indicators of the direction the ball will go.

In the second part of his work, Diaz also showed that four of the five early indicators he identified are used by people who are able to predict the direction of the kick before the foot strikes the ball.

Diaz used motion capture technology - cameras, sensors, and software - in Rensselaer Associate Professor Brett Fajen's Perception and Action (PandA) motion capture lab to record the movements of three college-level penalty kickers. The technology is similar to that used to create realistic movement in computer-generated graphics.

More than 40 sensors placed on 19 major joints of the body (and the ball) recorded the movements of the kickers as they stood behind the ball, took two steps, and kicked either to the left or of the right side of a goal. Diaz recorded 126 kicks, half to the left and half to the right.

Then he tested the data he collected against the suite of 27 potential indicators.

Twelve of the indicators - such as the angles of the kicking foot, kicking upper-leg, and kicking shank - were movements of a specific, or "local," area of the body highlighted by coaches and sports psychologists. Among them he found that two - the angle at which the non-kicking foot is planted on the ground, and the angle of the hips as the kicking foot swings forward -are reliable indicators of kick direction.

The 15 indicators identified in a computer analysis of the kicks were so-called "distributed movements" - patterns of coordinated movement throughout the body. Three of the "distributed" movements proved to be reliable early indicators, none of which appears to have drawn previous attention in sports literature.

Emerging evidence in the study of motor control has pointed to a significant role for distributed movements, Diaz said. He described distributed movement as a combination of movements developed over many repeated attempts to perform a task, in this case kicking in a particular direction.

"When, for example, you shift the angle of your planted foot, perhaps in an attempt to hide the direction of the kick, you're changing your base of support. In order to maintain stability, maybe you have to do something else like move your arm. And it just happens naturally," Diaz said. "If this happens over and over again, over time your motor system may learn to move the arm at the same time as the foot. In this way the movement becomes one single distributed movement, rather than several sequential movements. A synergy is developed."

A distributed movement is complex, but, as Diaz's second experiment indicates, some people may be using it - however unconsciously - to inform their judgment as to which direction the ball will go.

In his second experiment, Diaz played an animation of the motion capture data to a group of 31 subjects, and asked the subjects to pick which direction they thought the ball would go. In the animation, each body joint is represented by a dot, and movement of the body is easily recognizable as such. The animation runs from the standing-start until the foot reaches the ball, at which point the screen goes black and subjects pressed a button to the left or right of the screen, indicating which direction they thought the ball had gone.

Among his 31 subjects, all of whom were novices to the activity, 15 were not able to score above chance (50/50), even when given one-half second after the scene to ponder the outcome. Sixteen, however, did perform better than chance.

Diaz then looked for relationships between successful judgments on ball direction and each of the "local" and "distributed" movements he had tracked. His analysis revealed strong correlations between the two "local" and two of the three "distributed movements" that were reliable indicators of kick direction.

"The question is, knowing these potential sources of reliable information, what do people actually use?" Diaz said. "I found four reliable sources that were well correlated with subjects' judgments."

Another finding, he said, is that the 16 successful subjects waited longer than the 15 unsuccessful subjects to make their choices (if the half-second elapsed without a response from the subject, no result was entered).

"There is a clear relationship between response timing and performance," Diaz said.

Diaz said his findings have set the stage for further exploration. He would like to create a training regime to guide subjects' attention toward more reliable indicators of kick direction. He also wants to know if professional goalkeepers would perform better than novices on the task.

Similar studies using video data of penalty kicks among professional Dutch goalkeepers showed that not all professional players are better than novice subjects, he said.

"Only a subset are better than average. I want to know - what is it that these successful experts are doing better than novices?"
Article Date: 27 Jun 2010 - 0:00 PDT, Medical News Today
Source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Copyright: Medical News Today

June healines-3

2010-06-23T17:49:00.000-07:00

Living, Breathing, Human Lung-On-A-Chip Developed By Researchers

The World's Most Expensive Cities 2010

Star Wars fans vs Star Trek fans

China admits real history of Korean War

X-rated web domain arouses anger of pornography critics

FIFA acknowledges problems with Jabulani ball

Debbie Gibson, Tiffany to battle in Syfy movie

Five common investing mistakes to avoid

Hollywood faces new piracy threat

"Unicorn Meat"

Canned Unicorn Meat $9.99

5 Big Blemishes for the Apple iPhone4

3 Signs of a Sucker Rally

Why Stock Splits Are Nothing Special

Funds versus ETFs

Sold!

America's Most Expensive Mansion Sells

Absence of sunspots make scientists wonder if they're seeing a calm before a storm of energy

Dallas: Fastest growing city in the United States

Coffee May Protect Against Head And Neck Cancers

Stolen tiger, camels make public appearance

Longest match record smashed at Wimbledon

June headlines-2

2010-06-09T19:15:00.000-07:00

Dating site for beautiful people spawns sexy sperm bank - BeautifulPeople.com, the notorious dating site with a ban on ugly, is launching a fertility introduction service for people who "want to maximize their chances of having good-looking children."

From worthless coffee grounds to useful biodiesel - The coffee grounds used to produce your morning jolt of java could end up generating another type of fuel – biodiesel to run a car, truck or train.

Vuvuzelas drowning out game’s humanity

$75M mansion near Orlando selling 'as is' - Listed as a "monument to unparalleled success," the largest home for sale in the United States comes with plenty of space but no carpet, tiles or interior walls. It's up to the future buyer to finish it.

King of Pop's estate has rebounded since death - The money is rolling in. The bills are being paid. And all those people who said Michael Jackson might earn more in death than in life are being proved right.

The weirdest job interview questions and how to handle them

The Worst Burgers in America 2010

7th-Graders Discover Mysterious Cave on Mars

Re-drawing on cinematic history - New generation of artists give movie posters a second take

Million-dollar bargain homes - In hard-hit luxury markets, huge discounts are making mega-mansions more accessible

Love Ballad Leaves Women More Open To A Date - If you're having trouble getting a date, French researchers suggest ...

Film about female pope 'a hoax' - Roman Catholic Church denies existence of Pope Joan, but many records say she was real

Ethan Hawke Talks Missing Out On 'Titanic,' Sequel To 'Before Sunset'

A mattress at $33,000? - Made with horsehair, silk and gold, new bedding pushes prices sky-high

Esquire names Brooklyn Decker the Sexiest Woman Alive

Vuvuzela Makers Struggle to Keep Pace With World Cup

MMVA co-host Miley Cyrus can't be tamed

Google's search for superiority - Google’s bread-and-butter revenue source is its search engine, and the competition is heating up. The Internet giant is not relaxing its grip but devoting resources to secure its dominance

Eat up -- we may soon witness the decline and fall of a food empire

The Flilipino stance on World Cup: if it doesn’t involve a basketball hoop, forget it

Little Dog, Large Estate - A chihuahua is at the center of a fight over Posner heiress' will.

Israelis Develop Boiled Potato Batteries - an electric battery using a boiled potato as its base could provide a cheap source of energy, particularly in developing countries.

Woman Builds Home From Aiplane

Should you pre-rinse your dishes before loading the dishwasher?

Sea turtle becomes a YouTube star

Bobby Fischer's body to be exhumed - The remains of Bobby Fischer, the former international chess champion who died in 2008, are to be exhumed to determine whether he is the father of a nine-year-old girl in the Philippines.

World Cup: How Altitude Could Cause Players to Overshoot

The Best Android Phone: 8 Contenders - We rate the best Androids available today and our top eight picks should be a quick and easy shopping guide for those looking for a great device.

FDA staff question female sex-drive pill - A pink pill designed to offer women a counterpart to Viagra failed to boost female sex drive in two studies, U.S. drug reviewers said in documents released on Wednesday

Business gold for artificial ice-rink makers - Olympic volunteer organized a skate for Georgian president that opened door to new market for him

Outrageous Celebrity Appearance Fees

4 Big Businesses Built With Small Cash

Best places to shop for everything

Ingenious Flipper Bridge Melds Left-Side Drivers With Right-Side Drivers - Hong Kong drives on the left side of the road, mainland China on the right. So how do you prevent crashes when driving between them?

Sea creatures flee oil spill, gather near shore - Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange — and troubling — phenomena.

Lack of oxygen allowed frozen child to recover: scientists

Where America's Money Is Moving - Low taxes, warm sunshine and deep discounts on real estate. No wonder IRS data shows the wealthiest among us are headed south.

Robert Pattinson Thought He'd Be Dead By 30

White House gatecrasher gets reality TV show

Miley Cyrus "no underwear" photo is fake, blogger says

'Cleopatra' Film 'Being Developed For' Angelina Jolie

Bill Gates-backed nuclear start-up raises $35 mln - TerraPower, a nuclear energy start-up backed by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, has raised $35 million in a new round of funding to aid the development of a reactor fueled by nuclear waste.

Chinese weapons make Europe arms fair debut

Cheats big cost for casinos - Cutting-edge technology makes theft easier

Clothes women love but men think are ugly

Soccer the main topic of conversation when men get together

Electric taxis wage quiet campaign for attention and market share in China

Go-Go's singer reveals a double life - As Belinda Carlisle's success grew, so did her cocaine addiction

Smarter passwords and PINs

Brown rice better at preventing diabetes: study

There's more water on the moon than anyone thought

4 things that are more expensive than you think

Americans get most radiation from medical scans

U.S. finds mineral riches worth $1 trillion in Afghanistan: Report

Good or Bad, Baby Names Have Long-lasting Effects

Mystery Explained: How Frozen Humans Are Brought Back

Scientists use Calvin Klein cologne to lure jaguars

Vodka's Tasty Secret Revealed in Special Chemistry

New Theory for Life's First Energy Source

Out There: People Who Live Without TV

Reality TV Proves Meaner Than Fiction

Chili Peppers Might Fight Fat

7 Diet Tricks That Really Work

Water Source Discovered for Desert Oasis near Death Valley

Children's Testimony May Be Influenced By Co-Witnesses

Texas Billionaire's Heirs Will Inherit $B Fortune Tax-Free

The music business is dead, long live the music business - Miserable sales signal end of CDs

The world's worst economies

Portland’s street food scene is blossoming

Sky-high housing prices help realize sci-fi scene of Blade Runner

Swiss uncover fungus that speeds up rice growth 5x

Rick Astley on why his career crashed

Women bigger flirts than men: Survey

Now they're known as Generation Z, or Next, or Net, or iGen - Whatever they're called, they're very tech savvy

20 Things You Should Never Buy Used

Why Brazil stands out - While other BRIC countries have run into road bumps, Latin America’s largest economy is becoming a key driver of emerging-market power

Google moves into real time with Caffeine - New indexing system to help search engine keep up with real-time information, compete with social networking sites

A new, improved outlook for biofuels

Windfarm turbines deadly for birds, bats

Swiss solar cell inventor wins technology prize - Swiss scientist Michael Graetzel wins $960,000 technology prize for cheap solar cells

kristen stewart

From Twilight to real life - Makeup artist to the Twilight stars offers tips we can all use

Philippines superstar Charice basking in the spotlight

World's oldest leather shoe steps out after 5,500 years - Likely also the stinkiest?

Dropbox: Files Without Borders - Tapping the cloud, Dropbox makes it simple to access documents from anywhere.

Bk'lyn mom wins $64M on Mega Millions ... and will spread the love among her 4 kids and cousin

Microsoft Office -- Now Free!

Mass. study: Wood power worse polluter than coal

Sarah Palin breast implant allegations sweep the Web after Belmont Stakes photos examined

The science behind a penalty kick - Scientists say players taking penalty kicks at the World Cup should ignore the goalkeeper and just focus on where they are going to put the ball.

New peanut 'could free millions from the fear of a allergic reaction'

Fame rings hollow for the other Justin Biebers - Other Biebers — mistaken for tween-adored singer Justin Bieber — report receiving as many as 20 hyperventilating phone calls in one day

Farmer's cannon fights off developers in China - Homemade firearm used by embattled landowner to ward off company trying to take his land

June headlines

2010-06-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

Christina Aguilera

Do blondes sell more records? - Is it true blondes have more hits? The charts don’t lie, even if their hair colour might.

Taking the young and restless out to dinner - Do small children and white tablecloths mix at high-end restaurants?

Paying With Plastic? 'Swipe Charge' Could Cost You

Secret Revealed: How Crocodiles Cross Oceans - How did the world's largest living reptile, the saltwater crocodile, reach so many South Pacific islands separated by huge stretches of water despite being a poor swimmer?

Retro style

Many Gulf federal judges have oil links

‘Retro wives’ bring back classic style - Backlash of modernity results in nostalgia for post-war era

Innovative Research Reawakens Human Memories Through Intelligent Textiles

Inverse ETFs can be a smart choice for hands-on investors - More forgiving than leveraged ETFs and easier to use, they can act as a hedge to protect your core stock market holdings

Chef to diners: Clean your plate or be banned! - Australian eatery owner also levies extra charges on wasteful patrons

University professor uses math, statistics to predict winner of World Cup 2010

Bieber-blocking software maker gets death threats

Why get married?

The Health Benefits of Drinking Beer and Playing Beer Pong


Mars

Life may have existed on Mars: Study

Pacific islands 'growing not shrinking' due to climate change

$30-million jackpot lost with voided ticket - Imagine the anguish: someone let a $30-million lottery win get away.

How eBay Can Kill Visa with PayPal

How to conquer your e-mail inbox

Amazing numbers man - Man performs astounding feats with his mind at breathtaking speed

French-speaking Canadians hid fluency in English: agency

Restaurant review: Ken's Chinese Restaurant menu seasoned with award winners

Critics say 2004 Athens Olympics helped Greece fall into debt crisis; IOC denies it

Win a soccer game by more than five points and you lose, Ottawa league says

Women's hemlines hold weather secrets

Taiwan's AsusTek unveils tablet computer to compete against Apple's iPad

Happiness may come with age, says study

A Chinese school worries boys becoming sissies; experimental spray solves premature ej

How the Bear Market Fools Investors with Bear Rallies

Make your own lunch, save a mortgage payment - It's one of the most obvious but overlooked ways we hemorrhage money: lunch hour

Degrees That Get You Hired - Find out which 6 degrees rank highest in terms of employment

A guide to complaints that get results

Capitalize On False Breakouts In The Danger Zone - No matter if you're an investor, day trader or swing trader, you are exposed to the whipsaw of the danger zone - and it may be hurting you if you act impulsively

Danger: Falling ETFs - The May 6 'Flash Crash' Revealed Serious Flaws in Exchange-Traded Funds; Five New Rules for Investors Who Crave Both Safety and Simplicity

Wake up and smell the coffee – it’s all about the dividends - Companies with higher yields provide, on average, far better total returns to investors

Lottery winner escapes father's murder plot?

Rocket science: Mentos, Coke Zero propel vehicle too

Guatemala giant sinkhole - A sinkhole caused caused by tropical storm Agatha at dowtown of Guatemala City. View 14 photos.

Mayas mastered rubber long before Goodyear

Sandra Bullock homewrecker Bombshell McGee says she's no racist, just an anti-Semite

May headlines-3

2010-05-22T17:53:00.001-07:00

Players express disgust with World Cup Adidas ball - Several players are going all out against the new World Cup ball, with more than one comparing it to those bought at a supermarket.

What Good Is an iPad? - Read this and decide for yourself.

4G wireless: It's fast, but outstripped by hype

Researcher looks into 'earworm' - 98 - 99% of people have, at least once, had a song stuck in their head and been powerless to shake it off.

Detroit to bulldoze thousands of homes in fight for survival - Tired of Detroit's status as the symbol of everything wrong with urban America, its new mayor has come up with a radical solution: to bulldoze the city.

Bush’s second Katrina

I'll Be Bach - A computer program is writing great, original works of classical music. Will human composers soon be obsolete?

Vatican reveals Secret Archives

Knockoff iPads blossom in China

Copper surfaces can kill hospital microbes, study finds

The New Touch-Face of Vending Machines

Writer Moves Next Door to Sarah Palin - Joe McGinniss is writing an unauthorized biography of the former VP candidate

What Will Be the Hot Jobs of 2018?

How to Secure Your Facebook Account

Scientist says he’s first human with a computer virus

How much is your Facebook page worth?

Three Top Yielding ETFs

Nissan's new Leaf sells out in US, Japan: Ghosn

5 reasons for Youtube's success

Want your kids to get smarter? Let 'em play in the dirt

Do you need $1 million for a comfy retirement?

America's Best & Worst "Health" Drinks

Acupuncture? Trust me, this won't hurt a bit

Learn From Warren Buffett

Heeding hearing loss

Probiotic yogurt found to reduce children's infections

No evidence organic foods benefit health: study

Vaccine To Help People Quit Smoking Being Tested

Former CIA officer on Iran: Brazil and Turkey are vital checks and balances

Creativity, Schizophrenia Share Similarities in the Brain

Study: Songbirds prefer conventionally grown wheat to organic

Japanese pin hopes on acupuncture as beauty secret - Forget cosmetic surgery. The ancient treatment of acupuncture is gaining new popularity as a beauty secret in Japan about 1,500 years after it first came there from China.

We're evolving, but are we progressing?

Trudy Rubin: A green movement grows in rural China

Surfin' USA goes to the dogs as canine surf season opens

Japan launches Akatsuki probe to Venus - Watch the launch video also

Lady Gaga's many hats

Vancouver company puts true depth in 3-D -- can peer behind objects

2010-05-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

System by Zecotek Photonics requires no glasses, shows different perspectives
By Marke Andrews, Vancouver Sun, May 21, 2010
A knock on the emerging three-dimensional technologies is their reliance on either those cumbersome glasses you need to view the 3-D imagery, or, with an eye-tracking system, the need for the viewer to stay in one spot.

Zecotek Photonics Inc., a small Vancouver company, seeks to end that. The company, which specializes in photonics technologies for medical, scientific and industrial uses, has a new system that requires no glasses and that allows the imagery to be viewed from different perspectives. Whereas conventional systems project two views (and with polarized glasses, the left eye sees one view while the right sees the other), Zecotek's "volumetric" Real-Time 3D Display provides up to 90 views. Not only that, if you move around within the 50-degree viewing area, you can actually look behind the foreground image to see what's lurking behind it.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Vancouver+company+puts+depth/3055750/story.html

At a demonstration of the technology at Zecotek's head office/laboratory on the University of B.C. campus, I was able to look around flowers in a bouquet to see stems, leaves and other flowers behind the foreground objects. Viewing a separate image that showed a worker at a wall, I could step one way and see the length of the wall behind the human figure, as well as the other side of his face.

And all this without wearing those Star Trek-style glasses, which so many other 3-D developers require. The new 3-D glasses are a refinement on what's existed since the 1950s.

"The technology for 3-D right now is 50 years old," says Nadeem Rauf, Zecotek's project manager for the 3-D system, which is in its Beta stage. Rauf is one-third of the Vancouver 3-D team; he and scientists Emine Goulanian and Nikolai Kostrov, both from Russia, have been at work on this since 2005.

Rauf pointed out that 3-D glasses make some viewers feel dizzy, and said 10 per cent of the population suffers from stereo blindness, meaning that they cannot see stereoscopic images when wearing the glasses.

Rauf said applications for the technology are numerous. Movie theatres could put a Zecotek screen in their lobbies so ticket-buyers could view trailers of 3-D movies without glasses. Surgeons could study a tumour from all angles, and doctors could show patients their MRIs and CT scans in three dimensions. Stores could set up a 3-D display in a mall. Air traffic controllers could view planes behind other aircraft in their air space.

The big 3-D focus currently lies with home entertainment, and the Zecotek team believes its system would work fine for movies, television shows and video games. Regarding the latter, two players could stand side-by-side in a shooting game and see different things from the same screen.

All that is needed for the system is a Zecotek screen, similar to a flat-panel TV screen. The larger the screen, the larger the 3-D image.

Zecotek, with just 10 employees at its UBC office, hopes to partner with a manufacturer such as a large consumer electronics company, to get its product to market.

For the past few weeks, the team has demonstrated the technology to possible partners and investors, and has invited company reps attending the SID International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition, to be held May 23-28 in Seattle, to head north for a demonstration.

mandrews@vancouversun.com

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