FT Chronicle

A giant asteroid smashing into Earth is the only possible explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs-a global scientific team said on Thursday, hoping to settle a row that has divided experts for decades.

A panel of 41 scientists from across the world reviewed 20 years’ worth of research to try to confirm the cause of the so-called Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which created a “hellish environment” around 65 million years ago and wiped out more than half of all species on the planet.

Scientific opinion was split over whether the extinction was caused by an asteroid or by volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps in what is now India, where there were a series of super volcanic eruptions that lasted around 1.5 million years.

The new study, conducted by scientists from Europe, the United States, Mexico, Canada and Japan and published in the journal Science, found that a 15-kilometre (9 miles) wide asteroid slamming into Earth at Chicxulub in what is now Mexico was the culprit.

“We now have great confidence that an asteroid was the cause of the KT extinction. This triggered large-scale fires, earthquakes measuring more than 10 on the Richter scale, and continental landslides, which created tsunamis,” said Joanna Morgan of Imperial College London, a co-author of the review.

The asteroid is thought to have hit Earth with a force a billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.

Newly introduced, and at the exact same price as Olympus’  E-600 Four Thirds digital SLR with 14-42mm kit lens, is the manufacturer’s latest Micro Four Thirds system hybrid in the E-PL1 Digital Pen.

Like that DSLR “proper” it also comes in kit form with a zoom of the exact same focal range, equivalent to 28-84mm in 35mm film terms. The E-PL1 is however the baby of its particular family that includes its predecessors in the E-P1 and E-P2, the former reportedly due to be phased out by the middle of this year. The close price match with the E-600 is of interest as what you’re getting in the E-PL1 is, as with its forebears, basically a foreshortened E-series DSLR with the mirror mechanism removed to bring lens and sensor closer together.

Opera has announced the full release of version 10.50 of its desktop browser for Windows – a rather speedy transition from the beta, which was only released a few weeks back. It’s a rather substantial upgrade from Opera 10.1, featuring a dramatic UI refresh and an overhaul of Opera’s Presto rendering engine.

The UI now shares a lot of similarities with Chrome. Tabs are in the title bar, there’s smaller buttons, a condensed address and status bar, and an “Opera Menu” which does the same things that the old menu bar used to. It also now has private browsing functionality, which has been dubbed “porn mode” in other browsers.

This wild new motorcycle, invented by 19-year-old Ben J. Poss Gulak, is among the latest inventions to capture attention.

Debuting at the National Motorcycle Show in Toronto, the “Uno” uses gyro technology for balance and acceleration.

It is a battery charged machine that accelerates by leaning forward and slowing down by leaning backwards. It weighs approximately 129 pounds (58 kg.) and has a top speed of 25 mph (40 klms).

One of the most exciting products from CES 2010 last month was Notion Ink’s Adam tablet, the Android-based slate using the latest-gen NVIDIA Tegra chipset and Pixel Qi’s innovative low-power display.

The company had brought along a prototype they could exclusively show, and now they’ve sent over renders of what’s likely to be the final Adam design complete with some mockups of a SlashGear digital magazine.

The Notion Ink Tablet will feature the Pixel Qi transflective display, and it will have a 10.1 inch screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600, and it measures 6.3 inches by 9.8 inches by 0.6 inches thick and weighs in at 1.7lbs.

It has HDMI-out and 3 USB ports, and can output video at 1080p resolution. There’s a 3-megapixel autofocusing camera and Notion Ink reckons it’ll squeeze 16 hours of juice out of its battery. In direct sunlight, with the backlight off, it should shoot up to 160 hours. There’s Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, a pile of sensors and accelerometers, GPS and an SD Card slot.

UK company Pendle Products has introduced a new Laptop Stand, said to be the first of many product releases. This stand lets users raise their laptop up whilst using a full size external mouse and keyboard and is said to be ideal for use alongside an external monitor, thereby increasing your workspace when you are at your desk.

With what’s said to be a unique laser cut design, the stand boasts super thin legs meaning that you can free up the space underneath for accessories such as external hard drives while slim rubber feet protect your desk surface. Plastic stops hold the laptop in place and the stand has holes cut into the sides for cables.

The Pendle range of laptop stands come in a choice of sizes, regular and large, and colours, black or white and can be used with or without an external monitor.

The Pendle regular laptop stand is suitable for 13-inch and 15-inch MacBooks, while the large is best suited for the 17-inch MacBook Pro.

According to the makers, the stands have been designed to be as solid and stable as possible. Wide legs promises great strength and stiffness and create a space for storing accessories such as external drives and mice. Large holes cut into the sides enable you to pass cables through to help keep your desk tidy.

Rubber feet prevent scratching of your desk, while plastic spheres prevent slippage when your MacBook is in use.

Manufactured in the UK from quality materials using precise laser cutting processes, the regular Pendle stand costs £42, the large is £48.

Australian engineers from Invetech, a company with headquarters in Melbourne, and Organovo, a firm based in San Diego, California, developed a 3D bio-printer that can prove to be very useful in creating organs for those who need them.

At this time, one of their most useful inventions can grow blood vessels. It is expected that in 5 years the arteries printed by the device could be used by surgeons when they perform open heart surgeries. The companies believe that more sophisticated organs could be developed by 2020.

To be able to print organs researchers need to place specific cells into a preferred 3D shape. There are two print heads in the bio-printer. One pin heads is where human cells are placed, while the other is used for placing a hydrogel, scaffold or support matrix.

from infoniac.com

Google has reached deep into its wallet and handed over a massive grant to the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia and a number of other sites. The $2,000,000 donation will be used to make Wikipedia easier to use, says the charity.

“Wikipedia is one of the greatest triumphs of the internet” said Google co-founder Sergey Brin. “This vast repository of community-generated content is an invaluable resource to anyone who is online”. The two organizations have partnered a few times before, but this is the first direct cash transfer between them.

Wikipedia normally depends on tens of thousands of tiny donations from its users to keep it going – holding a yearly funding drive that recently brought in $8m. Google has previously donated to other projects, including Mozilla’s Firefox browser.

Mexico’s NAICA MINE- One of the world’s most spectacular geographical discoveries was the cave of giant crystals with its selenite crystals of a size never seen before. Most of them measure six meters in length, with some of them reaching eleven meters.

In the year 2000 at 300 m below, the Crystals’ cave was discovered. This cave is a true wonder of the underground world. It is one of the most spectacular geological and mineralogical discoveries ever made. It contains selenite mega crystals, some 11m in length and one meter thick. These are much larger than any crystals of this type ever found. The walls and particularly the floor of the cave are sprinkled with blocky single crystals that in some cases cluster to form a parallel aggregate.

Giant elongate selenite mega crystals, the biggest ever found on the planet, grow from some of these groups of blocky crystals or directly from the floor, and some criss-cross the cave from side to side. Most of the crystals are 6 meters long but several reach 11 m creating a natural scenario of unparalleled beauty, beyond imagination, an unreal dream world discovered by chance.

The temperature at this depth varies from 45°C to 50°C, while the percentage of humidity ranges from 90 to 100%, meaning that human beings cannot survive there for longer than two hours.

Exploring teams, film teams and scientists continue to risk their lives at these hellish temperatures, in order to document this gorgeous underground fantasy-land for future generations.

for more info: click here

Apple is offering one lucky shopper $10,000 dollars in the form of an iTunes gift card if they happen to be the buyer of the 10 billionth song from the iTunes store.

In what the company is calling “One huge milestone for music” the Cupertino based company is hoping the chance to win a vast chunk of cash to buy music, videos, and apps will be enough to lure thousands of customers into the iTunes store.

All you have to do is buy a song, and if it’s the 10 billionth download, you could win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card!