Yanoconodon, a transitional fossil

post from Pharyngula on 16 March 2007 05:45:30 PM. © Pharyngula

The latest Nature reveals a new primitive mammal fossil collected in the Mesozoic strata of the Yan mountains of China. It's small and unprepossessing, but it has at least two noteworthy novelties, and first among them is that it represents another step in the transition from the reptilian to the mammalian jaw and ear.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/pharyngula/~3/102262020/yanoconodon_a
_transitional_fos.php

Digg this

March 15, 1957 Return of the Snowbird

post from CR4 - Recent Forum Threads and Blog Entries on 16 March 2007 05:45:00 PM. © CR4 - Recent Forum Threads and Blog Entries

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the return of "Whitey the Snowbird", a helium-filled airship that made the longest and farthest non-refueled, co...

Read The Full Article:
http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/1495/March-15-1957-Return-of-the-Snowbird?fro
m_rss=1

Digg this

Colossal Squid Reaches its New Home

post from Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) on 16 March 2007 05:45:00 PM. © Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

You might remember that last week, I wrote about the colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, that had been captured in Antarctica's Ross Sea in early February. This squid, which is three times the length of the average bus (see graphic, right; courtesy of BBC News), was frozen and transported to the national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, New Zealand.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/grrlscientist/~3/102261772/colossal_s
quid_reaches_its_new.php

Digg this

Magnetic Switching Data Storage

post from Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog on 16 March 2007 05:30:00 PM. © Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog

New Magnetic Switching Method Could Dramatically Speed Up Data StorageScientists of the Research Centre Jülich, Germany, have found a fundamentally new magnetic switching method which achieves the fastest speed ever reported by applying an external magnetic field. The results that are presented in a current article in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters could [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://engineering.curiouscatblog.net/2007/03/16/magnetic-switching-data-storage/

Digg this

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Once More a Ghost

post from Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) on 16 March 2007 05:10:30 PM. © Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

As many of you undoubtedly know, a short video of what might be an ivory-billed woodpecker was captured in 2004 in an Arkansas swamp. However, further analysis casts more doubt as to the identity of the bird in the footage: the videoed bird appears to flap its wings at 8.6 times per second -- the rate a pileated woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus, would. Additionally, Martin Collinson from Aberdeen University, UK, has re-analysed the footage and says the bird in the pictures appears to have black trailing wing edges rather than the unique white features associated with the ivory-billed woodpecker, Campephilus principalis (pictured, right).

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/grrlscientist/~3/102252597/ivorybille
d_woodpecker_once_mo.php

Digg this

In Space, Trash Can't Go To The Curb

post from CR4 - Recent Forum Threads and Blog Entries on 16 March 2007 05:04:40 PM. © CR4 - Recent Forum Threads and Blog Entries

From Science News - Playfuls.com - Play your life! - Online Gaming/Tech Portal: Taking out the trash is no simple chore on the I...

Read The Full Article:
http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/1494/In-Space-Trash-Can-t-Go-To-The-Curb?from
_rss=1

Digg this

VideoConference Equipment

post from CR4 - Recent Forum Threads and Blog Entries on 16 March 2007 04:41:46 PM. © CR4 - Recent Forum Threads and Blog Entries

My company has an old videoconference system made by PictureTel a company that is no longer in existance. This system runs off a pc that uses Windows...

Read The Full Article:
http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/6194/VideoConference-Equipment?from_rss=1

Digg this

Simple Programming in Binary: Binary Combinatory
Logic

post from Good Math, Bad Math on 16 March 2007 04:39:33 PM. © Good Math, Bad Math

For reasons that I'll explain in another post, I don't have a lot of time for writing a long pathological programming post, so I'm going to hit you with something short, sweet, and beautiful: binary combinatory logic.

I've written in the past about lambda calculus, and it's equivalent variable-free form, the SKI combinator calculus. I've ever written about other combinator calculus based languages, like Unlambda and Iota.

Binary combinatory logic, aka BCL, is a language based on SKI calculus - except that it encodes the entire thing into binary. Two characters, plus two rewrite rules, and that's it - a completecombinator calculus based programming language.

SKI combinator calculus is a simple variable-free calculus with three constructs: S, K, and I; and I isn't really primitive, but can be defined in terms of S and K.

S=λx y z.x z (y z)
K=λx.(λy.x)
I=λx.x=SKK

So, in BCL, S is written "01"; K is written "00". And there are two rewrite rules, which basically define "1" without a zero prefix as a a paren-like grouping construct:

"1100xy", where "x" and "y" are valid BCL terms (that is, complete syntactic units), gets rewritten to be "x". If you follow that through, that means that it reduces to ((Kx)y).
"11101xzy" gets rewritten to "11xz1yz". Again, following it through, and that reduces out to "(((Sx)y)z)".

So, following on unlambda's method of handling IO, "hello world" in BCL is:

010001101000010000010110000000000101101111000010110111110011111111011110000010011010

And here's the really neat thing. Write an interpreter for BCL in BCL. Take the bit string that results, and convert it to a bitmap. That's what's over the right here. So, for example, the first line is "1111100000111001"; keep going, and you'll find the entire BCL interpreter.

Read the comments on this post...

Read The Full Article:
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/03/simple_programming_in_binary_b.php

Digg this

Astronaut's tools

post from CR4 - Recent Forum Threads and Blog Entries on 16 March 2007 04:27:11 PM. © CR4 - Recent Forum Threads and Blog Entries

From Boing Boing: The current issue of Air & Space magazine surveys the essential tools carried by astronauts on spacewalks to b...

Read The Full Article:
http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/1493/Astronaut-s-tools?from_rss=1

Digg this

Hot Ice, Hotter Than Boiling Water

Ice created in nanoseconds by Sandia?s Z machine. ‘Sandia?s huge Z machine, which generates temperatures hotter than the sun, has turned water to ice in nanoseconds. However, don?t expect anything commercial just yet: the ice is hotter than the boiling point of water.“The three phases of water as we know them ? cold ice, room [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/QuickPicks/~3/102255638/hot_ice_hotter_than_boilin
g_water.html

Digg this