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Meet GJ 1214b, the most Earth-like planet ever found outside our solar system.

It’s not exactly Earth’s twin: It’s about six times bigger, a whole lot hotter and made mostly of water. But compared to the giant gas balls that account for nearly every other extrasolar planet ever found, it’s pretty darn close. And through a fortunate happenstance of cosmic geometry, astronomers will be able to study GJ 1214b in great detail.

“If you want to describe in one sentence what this planet is, it’s a big, hot ocean,” said Harvard University astronomer David Charbonneau. “We can even study its atmosphere. This planet will occupy us for years. That’s part of what’s so exciting about it.”

Described by Charbonneau and 17 other astronomers in a paper published Wednesday in Nature, GJ 1214b is the latest of roughly 400 planets detected by earthly telescopes. Of these, 28 are considered “super-Earths” — planets with a mass roughly comparable to our own.

The super-Earths themselves are too distant to be seen. Instead, astronomers infer their presence from subtle distortions in starlight, caused when photons travel through the super-Earths’ gravitational fields. Depending on the degree of distortion, astronomers can even calculate a planet’s mass.
That’s how Corot-7b, a rocky planet with roughly twice the heft of Earth, was spotted in February. Ditto Gliese 581c, identified two months later, and orbiting its star at a distance consistent with human notions of habitability.

Unfortunately, not much more will ever be known about those planets. Corot-7b is 500 light-years away, too distant for our telescopes to discern more detail. And from our viewing angle, Gliese 581c never quite crosses directly in front of its sun, causing photons to warp in ways that would reveal its atmospheric character.
GJ 1214b does pass in front of its sun. Separated from Earth by a distance of just 42 light years, it’s close enough to be studied. Scientists will finally get to look at another Earth-like world.

“Only rarely does a long-sought scientific frontier loom so prominently just beyond the horizon, that the next generation of instruments seems sure to reach it,” wrote Geoffrey Marcey, a University of California, Berkeley astronomer, in a commentary accompanying the findings. “They provide the most-watertight evidence so far for a planet that is something like our own Earth, outside our solar system.”

Based on its radius and mass — about 2.7 and 6.6 times that of Earth’s — Charbonneau and the other astronomers have calculated GJ 1214b’s density. It appears to be composed of extraordinarily deep oceans, surrounding a rocky core.

The planet’s atmosphere and precise composition remain a mystery, but it’s likely composed of many of the same elements found elsewhere at sites of planetary formation, in swirling disks of dust and gas that have yet to accrete: hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, magnesium, oxygen, carbon.

That list of ingredients raises at least the possibility of life. With an estimated temperature of 370 degrees Fahrenheit, GJ 1214b is an unlikely incubator (Earth’s toughest extremophile, a microbe that lives in deep-sea volcanic vents, maxes out at 284 degrees) but it’s not impossible.

“I don’t want to imply that there’s any indication of life as we know it. It might have life, but it would have to be a strange kind of life,” said Charbonneau.

The telescopes sure to be trained on GJ 1214b in the near future will try to answer that question. But even if it proves barren, other planets await. The telescopes that spotted GJ 1214b were custom designed to find Earth-like planets around nearby stars, and had only operated for a few months before striking water.

“We only look at a handful of stars before finding this planet, said Charbonneau. “Either we got lucky, or the planets are very common.”

A system that turns brain waves into FM radio signals and decodes them as sound is the first totally wireless brain-computer interface. For now, 26-year-old Erik Ramsey, left almost entirely paralyzed by a horrific car accident 10 years ago, can only express vowel sounds with the system. That’s less than can be accomplished with wired brain-computer interfaces. But it’s still a promising step.

“All the groups working on BCIs are working toward wireless solutions. They are very superior,” said Frank Guenther a Boston University cognitive scientist who helped developed Ramsey’s system.

In the last decade, brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, have made the jump from speculation to preliminary medical reality. Since Wired reported on quadriplegic BCI pioneer Matthew Nagle four years ago (”He’s playing Pong with his thoughts alone“), the interfaces have been used to steer wheelchairs, send text messages and even to Tweet. They’re so advanced that some researchers now worry about BCI ethics — what happens when healthy people get them? And they’re concerned about the threat posed by hackers.
But as amazing as these early BCIs are, they’re far from street-ready. Systems based on translating electrical signals captured by electrodes on patients’ scalps are notoriously slow, capable of producing about one word a minute. If researchers put electrodes directly into patients’ brains, the results are better — but that raises the possibility of dangerous infection. And from a purely practical point of view, wires just get in the way.

The implant system tested by Ramsey, as described in a paper published Wednesday in Public Library of Science ONE, was originally developed by Philip Kennedy, founder of Neural Signals, a company that specializes in BCIs. Several electrodes are implanted in Ramsey’s cerebral cortex. Beneath the skin of his skull is an amplifier that gathers the electrodes’ signals, and an FM transmitter that sends them to a nearby computer.

Using a neurological model constructed by Guenther, Ramsey’s brain activity is mapped to corresponding mouth and jaw movements. Another program decodes the signals, and synthesizes them in the sound of a tinny, but human-like voice.

“The system produces the sound output in about 50 milliseconds. That’s the time it takes for sound output to come from a motor cortex command in a normal individual,” said Guenther.
The three wires in Ramsey’s brain are only sufficient for making vowel sounds, said Guenther. But the researchers plan to add more electrodes, perhaps as many as 32. That would be more difficult to control, but would also allow Ramsey’s thoughts to better mimic natural tongue and jaw movements, ultimately letting him form consonants as well.

For now, the computer that translates Ramsey’s mental broadcasts is still in a laboratory. “But our goal is to have him transmit directly to a laptop,” said Guenther.

(CNN) -- Facebook users will soon lose the ability to join a network of friends who live in the same area but will gain the widely desired ability to control who sees every piece of information they post.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, in an open letter to users that appeared on the site Wednesday morning, said the social networking site has outgrown the usefulness of regional networks.

"[A]s Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy," he said in the letter.

Almost half of all Facebook users are members of at least one regional network, according to Zuckerberg. Users can specify that some of their posts on the site only go to specific networks.

Other networks like high schools, colleges and places of employment will not be affected by the change.

In place of the geography networks,Facebook will be creating what it calls a simpler network for privacy controls.

The highlight will be the option of deciding which Facebook friends see updates, photos or other posts at the time they're posted -- "something many of you have asked for," Zuckerberg said.

"In addition, we'll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy-settings page simpler by combining some settings," he said.

The letter said that, in the next couple of weeks, Facebook's roughly 350 million users will be asked to review and update their privacy settings. A message on the site will explain the changes and take users to the page where they can update the settings, Zuckerberg said.

In the several hours after Zuckerberg's letter was posted, more than 18,000 users had posted replies to it. Most of the feedback appeared positive.

"Great idea!!" one user wrote. "Privacy is seriously important on Facebook, I got about 800 friends that come from different groups of people and places. Thanks."

Others took the opportunity to write about a persistent pet issue for some users -- the desire for a "dislike" button to criticize other people's posts. Facebook has made no statements about whether that potentially drama-inducing feature will ever be added.

This post is a reprint of CDnn.com's report on electric cars of 2010 and some business behind them. Check out the post below and share your information!

There are probably fewer than 1,500 plug-in electric vehicles on the road today, most in carefully controlled experimental fleets. But over the next 18 months, the number will grow exponentially as automakers like General Motors, Nissan, Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota roll out models that use electricity for all or part of the car's energy. President Obama has suggested that the U.S. could have as many as 1 million plug-in vehicles on the road by 2015.

Already, utilities, retailers, hamburger joints and others are scrambling to prepare for the swarm of electric and hybrid vehicles, and several are market-testing on-site charging stations. The auto industry is doing its part, not only producing a burst of innovative vehicles, but also attacking some of the nitty-gritty issues, like the size of the plug.

Thankfully, the plug challenge is nearly resolved. While no two cell phones can use the same charger, carmakers have agreed on the basic design of a common five-prong plug for use across the industry. The plug will fit into a car's socket, with the other end fitting into a standard 110-volt or 220-volt outlet. It will become the industry standard by 2011. "There aren't going to be any Beta vs. VHS issues to confuse the introduction of electric cars," says Gery Kissel, a General Motors Corp. engineer who served as chairman of the Society of Automotive Engineers committee, which compiled the EV-charging standards to which all manufacturers have agreed.

Of course, when it comes to car-charging, plugs are only half the battle; the other half is sockets. Recharging a Tesla through a 110-volt socket — the type found throughout most houses — takes about 12 hours, while the 220-volt socket typically used to operate major household appliances such as washers and dryers takes about half that time.

Slowly — some would say too slowly — the U.S. is adapting to the anticipated need for high-voltage charging. Updated building codes in California require new homes to have outlets capable of recharging an electric vehicle at 220 volts, notes Richard Lowenthal, chief executive officer of Coulomb Technologies in Campbell, Calif. His company has developed a network of charging points for electric vehicles in and around cities across the U.S., including San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit and Nashville.

Utilities face a different challenge. While there is ample generating power to feed electricity to EVs, particularly if the owners recharge them at off hours, the real question is distribution, particularly in older cities like Boston. Transformers usually serve five or six houses, so one household would probably be able to have an electric vehicle. But if two wanted to use the same transformer, there could be a problem, says Phil Gott, director of Automotive Science and Technology at IHS Global Insight.

In response, utilities are forming coalitions: a group of four utility companies that provide electric service in New England have formed the Regional Electric Vehicle Initiative to encourage collaboration. Other regions have similar coalitions.
On Monday a new committee called the Electrification Coalition was announced. Its 12 members include a utility, PG&E, but also members of industry, including Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn as well as FedEx chairman Frederick Smith. The coalition's goal is to have electricity account for 75% of light-duty vehicle miles traveled by the year 2040. It also envisions a network of "fast-charging" stations, which would be capable of recharging a car in minutes. If that sounds expensive, it is. The coalition is calling for roughly $120 billion to be spent by the U.S. government over the next eight years on everything from public charging stations to better batteries. To date, the Obama Administration has released $3.4 billion in grants and loans for "smart grid" technology, which improves the efficiency of the electric distribution networks.

Some companies as well as entrepreneurs see an opportunity in the coming need. A McDonald's franchisee recently opened an electric-vehicle charging station in Cary, N.C. "The networked, grid-friendly charging stations are a perfect complement to the many innovative green features of the restaurant," says Ric Richards, president of Richard's Advantage Inc., the owner of the franchise. Also, Starwood Hotels is installing charging stations in some of its Element hotels, including those in Lexington, Mass.; Las Vegas; and Dallas.

While the trend is encouraging, automakers aren't counting on it. Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has noted that the demand for electric-powered commercial vehicles could develop faster than a commuter demand because commercial vehicles can be collected at the end of the day and recharged at a central point.

For the retail car owner, it's likely to be an evolutionary change. Fred Standish, a spokesman for Nissan, which is preparing to launch the all-electric Leaf next year in the U.S., says the Japanese automaker expects the first EV drivers to be people who have garages where they can plug in at night. Owing to the lack of charging stations, he says they will also likely limit their EVs to short trips. "There is going to have to be a lot of education, because this a major change," he says.

This information below is a report from CNN.com reporting on the news of an iPhone being possibly made for Verizon.

Two sources say Apple is building a hybrid "worldmode" phone that Verizon could use

Judging from reader comments in this space, there are a lot of cellphone owners in America locked into Verizon (VZ) contracts who would buy an iPhone in a minute if they didn't have to switch carriers to get it.

Verizon has made it pretty clear that it would cut a deal with Apple (AAPL), were it not for a couple of impediments: 1) the contract that makes AT&T (T) the iPhone's exclusive U.S. carrier, and 2) the fact that Verizon's network (based on CDMA2000 technology) is incompatible with Apple's smartphone (which uses W-CDMA (UMTS)).

The first roadblock — AT&T's contract — is set to expire next year, according to an interview chairman Randall Stephenson gave USA Today more than a year ago.

The second barrier could also disappear were Apple to build a new iPhone that is compatible with both AT&T and Verizon's networks.
Last week, AppleInsider reported on rumors that Apple may be doing just that. Its source was a leaked OTR Global report, based on unnamed sources in Apple's Taiwanese supply chain, that said Apple was making a "worldmode" phone using a new hybrid chip from Qualcomm (QCOM).

On Wednesday, a second source for the rumor emerged, this one with a date attached. According to GigaOm's Colin Gibbs, Northeast Securities has issued a research note, based again on supply chain sources, that says Apple will launch a W-CDMA/CDMA2000-enabled iPhone through Verizon by the summer of 2010.

This assumes that Apple and Verizon can cut a mutually satisfactory deal. But judging from the tone of bitter resignation coming from AT&T executives lately, it sounds like Steve Jobs and Randall Stephenson may have finally come to terms.

Yes, Space Elevators... Check out the blog post below, from CNN.com, filling in the world about the possibilities of Space Elevators!

"Now, 30 years after "2001" author Arthur C. Clarke wrote about an elevator that rises into outer space, serious research is happening all over the world in an effort to make the far-fetched-sounding idea a reality.

The benefits of a fully realized elevator would make carrying people and goods into space cheaper, easier and safer than with rocket launches, proponents say, opening up a host of possibilities.

Restaurants and hotels for space tourists. Wind turbines that provide energy by spinning 24 hours a day. A cheaper, easier and more environmentally friendly way to launch rockets.

Scientists envision all of the above -- possibly within our lifetimes.

"Space elevator-related research is valid, but there are hurdles to overcome," said David Smitherman, a space architect at NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center.

This week in the Mojave Desert, three teams of engineers are competing for $2 million offered up by NASA for anyone who can build a prototype of an elevator able to crawl up a kilometer-high tether while hauling a heavy payload.

"We haven't had any winners yet, but we truly do expect to have at least one winner, probably more [this year]," said Ted Semon, spokesman for The Spaceward Foundation, which has run the competition for the past several years.

Most models for an elevator into space involve attaching a cable from a satellite, space station or other counterweight to a base on Earth's surface.

Scientists say inertia would keep the cable tight enough to allow an elevator to climb it.

The inspiration for researchers to pursue a space elevator started, as many scientific advances have, in the fantastical world of science fiction.

In Clarke's 1979 novel "The Fountains of Paradise," he writes about a scientist battling technological, political and ethical difficulties involved in creating a space elevator.

In the years that followed, Clarke, who died last year, remained an outspoken advocate for researching and funding the elevator.

Others are now carrying the torch.

"Space elevator research is important because it is a way to build a bridge to space instead of ferrying everything by rocket," said Smitherman, who has conducted research and published findings on the effort.

"Look at the cost and efficiency of a bridge versus a ferry on Earth and then look at the cost and inefficiency of the rocket ferries we use today and you will see why so many people are looking for a 'bridge' solution like the space elevator."

Microsoft is among the sponsors an annual space elevator conference, and teams in Japan and Russia are among those working to turn the theory into reality -- even if they all admit they have a long way to go.

Even the most avid proponents of the research admit there are big hurdles that need to be overcome.

The first, scientists say, is that there's currently not a viable material strong enough to make the cables that will support heavy loads of passengers or cargo into orbit. According to NASA research, the space elevator cable would need to be about 22,000 miles long. That's how far away a satellite must be to maintain orbit above a fixed spot on the Earth's equator.

"Right now, if you use the strongest material in the world, the weight of the tether would be so much that it would actually snap," said Semon, a retired software engineer. He said the super-light material would probably need to be about 25 times stronger than what's now commercially available.

In a separate competition, his group offers a prize to any team that can build a tether that's at least twice as strong as what's currently on the market.

Another issue, scientists say, is how to keep the cable, or the elevator itself, from getting clobbered by meteorites or space junk floating around in space. Some suggest a massive cleanup of Earth's near orbit would be required.

And then there's the cost. Estimates are as high as $20 billion for a working system that would stretch into orbit.

Many think it would be private enterprise, not a government, that would spring for the earliest versions of the elevator.

Professor Brendan Quine and his team at York University in Toronto, Canada, think they have the answers to at least some of those problems.

They've built a three-story high prototype of an elevator tower that would rise roughly 13 miles (20 kilometers) -- high enough to escape most of the earth's atmosphere.

"At 20 kilometers, you still have gravity; you're not in orbit," Quine said. "But for a tourist, you can see basically the same things an astronaut sees -- the blackness of space, the horizon of the Earth."

In the stratosphere, the tower also could potentially be used to launch rockets, he said. The most expensive and energy-sucking part of any space launch now is blasting from the ground out of the atmosphere.

Constructed from Kevlar, the free-standing structure would use pneumatically inflated sections pressurized with a lightweight gas, such as hydrogen or helium, to actively stabilize itself and allow for flexibility. A series of platforms or pods, supported by the elevator, would be used to launch payloads into Earth's orbit.

Quine acknowledged that the prototype is just a first step toward realizing the elevator and that several more prototypes are needed to fine-tune details.

He estimated that the cost of the basic tower would be about $2 billion -- the equivalent of a massive skyscraper in places like New York -- and that the technology to build it could be ready in less than 10 years.

He said a more advanced -- and expensive -- elevator tower could be built to go higher into the stratosphere.

But for the purposes of actually ferrying everyday people into space, 20 kilometers makes the most sense, Quine said.

"The tower might be economically viable if you're able to transport 1,000 people a day to the to of it for about $1,000 a ticket," he said. "At the top, you'd probably want amenities -- hotels, restaurants. It could be a very pleasant experience, in contrast to zero gravity, which makes many people sick."

For now, advocates of making the elevator a reality say they'll keep at it. They'll continue reminding themselves that they wouldn't be the first to turn what started as an outlandish idea into good science.

"Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction," Clarke once said. "They may be summed up by the phrases: One, it's completely impossible. Two, it's possible, but it's not worth doing. Three, I said it was a good idea all along."

Below is a post for TIME Magazine that is addressing the issue of Facebook users receiving suggestions from people beyond the grave.

The company decided to publicize the policy because of a backlash caused by a new version of the site's homepage that was rolled out on Oct. 23, which includes automatically generated "suggestions" of people to "reconnect" with. Within days of the launch, Twitter users and bloggers from across the Web complained that some of these suggestions were for friends who had died. "Would that I could," complained a user on Twitter before ending her tweet with the hash tag #MassiveFacebookFail.

"We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it's important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialized," Kelly said in the post. To discourage pranksters, Facebook does require proof before sending a profile down the digital river Styx. Family or friends must fill out a form, providing a link to an obituary or other information confirming a user's death, before the profile is officially memorialized. Once that is completed, the user will cease showing up in Facebook's suggestions, and information like status updates won't show up in Facebook's news feed, the stream of real-time user updates that is the site's centerpiece. If relatives prefer not to have the profile stand as an online memorial, Facebook says it will remove the account altogether. (Read: "How to Manage Your Online Life When You're Dead.")

Better publicizing memorialized profiles is an attempt by Facebook to answer lingering privacy concerns. Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart investigated the company in July and issued a report that asked Facebook to explain certain areas of its privacy policy, including policies regarding the profiles of deceased users. In response, the company promised to issue a new privacy policy that better articulates how user information is treated postmortem and offered the commissioner an outline of its memorializing policy, nearly three months before the blog post explained it to users. Spokeswoman Anne-Marie Hayden says the privacy commissioner was "quite pleased" with Facebook's response to the office's concerns and says the commissioner will review the detailed version of the site's new policy, expected in late October. (See what happens when parents join Facebook.)

Facebook's attempt to clearly state its policy is prudent, as other social-networking sites have struggled with the question of users' deaths. MySpace in particular has had a difficult time with digital rubbernecking - during the site's heyday, a handful of well-trafficked blogs specialized in matching MySpace profiles directly to obituaries and posting the pairings online for all to see. By sealing profiles to family and friends and removing profiles from search results, Facebook assuages users' fears that they'll be fodder for online voyeurs in the event of their untimely demise - hopefully putting the issue to rest.

It is official, Sony has made a 360 degree 3D display and has no clue at the moment what to do with it! The uses off of the top of the VPs head were, "digital photo frame" and some marketing possibilities but how many digital frames do we really need? Nobody needs to see uncle David in his way too small clothing. Bring on the 3D television already Sony, we are waiting...

I remember when I was in 5th grade, reading my Weekly Reader about the cars of the future and how we would all be flying by now. Well as far as flying cars go, I think I will leave that up to the guys and gals at MIT but 3D televisions are expected to be rolling out of Sony's neck of the woods starting in 2010.

Check out the video below for the full look at the 360 degree 3D display and shout back at us with your thoughts and opinions!

Check out this report done by CNN, which is about the new bicycles of the future: The Electric Bike!

(CNN) -- Keith Felch is admittedly a big guy, but more than a few super-fit cyclists in Southern California have been left wondering how that dude just went flying by.

And then his wife, Mary, comes motoring past.

"They stare, like how can a girl go past me," she says, laughing. It takes the other riders a few seconds but then they figure it out.

They have electric motors.

The Felches, who live in Aliso Viejo, California, used to drive everywhere, except when they used their bikes for recreation. That changed when they got their new e-bikes, made by a company called Optibike. Now, they ride to go shopping and to go to breakfast -- but mostly they ride to work.

Keith Felch says the couple has cut 50 percent of their car-use since they started electric biking.
And there are other benefits. Keith Felch dropped 30 pounds and his blood pressure fell 10 points in the first six months he owned the bike, he says. The Felches don't exactly classify themselves as "environmentalists," although Mary said it is important to have a positive effect on the planet.

"I learned that the worst amount of smog that you put out [in an automobile] is in the first mile, so if we can make even some of those shorter trips on our bicycles, it makes a big difference," she says.
Who wants one? Brent Meyers, director of sales for Ultra Motor US, says electric bikes attract different types of buyers. Many are looking to make a green imprint. Some are "active adults" who have ridden bicycles for years who -- as they get older -- are unable to do the same kind of riding they did when they were young.
Other buyers want to ride their bikes to work quickly -- and avoid a sweaty entrance into the office.
Oddly -- or perhaps not -- Ultra Motor US sees its strongest sales when the price of oil skyrockets, says Meyers. Two wheels, a motor and 100 million riders.

Bikes are still somewhat of a novelty in the United States, but in China they're everywhere.
In fact, Chinese electric bikes number more than 100 million -- which is about four times the number of Chinese private cars, according to Electric Bikes Worldwide Reports. The bikes are popular in Europe as well.

Sales figures for the United States are hard to pinpoint. In the United States, about 200,000 electric bicycles were sold last year, said Ed Benjamin of the Light Electric Vehicle Association -- about twice the number sold in 2005. But the industry has hit a bump in the road from the recession, as sales were down about 10 percent in 2009, he said.

E-bikes are mostly made by specialty companies, but the growing sales trend has been noticed by the big boys. Trek, a worldwide leader in bike sales, has been making electric bikes for three years, but only introduced them in the United States in the past year. Other well-known companies like Schwinn and Giant are increasing their presence in the e-bike field.

At Interbike, the biggest bicycle industry convention in the United States, there were more than 20 companies displaying e-bikes this year. Meyers said only a few years ago, it was about five.
Prices range from a few hundred dollars -- the E-Zip Trailz Hybrid costs $398 at Wal-Mart -- to more than $13,000 for OptiBike's top-end model.

Prices increase as battery technology and components get better. Steve Roseman of The Electric Bike Network in San Francisco, California, said most buyers he sees don't balk at the price, which can be as much as a good road or mountain bike. They are mostly concerned with how far they can go on a battery charge and how fast.

What's an 'e-bike'?

By law, electric bikes must have no more than 1 horsepower and go no faster than 20 mph (on motor power alone). Basically they are much like traditional bicycles with small motors that power the bike or assist a rider with pedaling. Many have gears like a regular bike.

"It's just adding the throttle aspect, other than that it handles like a regular bicycle," Keith Felch said. He says he uses the throttle all the time, choosing one of two modes -- eco [half power] or fast [full power].
He says he once tried a regular bike for his 4 ½-mile ride to one of his music studios where he teaches jazz improvisation. But the hills nearly got him. He calls his electric bike a "hill eraser."

It also makes the ride to his farthest studio -- 22 miles away -- seem much closer. He says he gets about 35 miles on his primary battery and has an additional one for long rides.

Shifting views

But as they tout the virtues of electric bikes, advocates also realize that there will have to be a shift in the way Americans view them before they become as popular as they are in Europe or China.
"There are two possible sides to the equation," Roseman said. "One would be a change in the way people view transportation. There are still a lot of SUVs out there. ... People still have a hard time thinking about riding a bicycle unless they are 10 years old, it seems. So there needs to be a little shift in mentality."
"But having said that, I think there is a growing awareness about health and transportation and environmental issues so it could be that we are just reaching a juncture where things will change [for e-bikes]."
Meyers says people also have a preconceived notion about electric bikes.

Some view them as expensive or poor quality or uncomfortable. And Meyers admits, e-bikes are not for everybody.

As Roseman says, people who live in Spandex will probably always prefer a really good road bike and hard-core city cyclists may will stick to their fixed-gear bikes. Meyers says Ultra, which sells its bike for $2,700, isn't for those kinds of people.

"That's not our customer," he says. "Our customer is someone who wants some form of electric transportation, green transportation, that can get them from Point A to Point B comfortably."
The Felches say taking a test drive will change a skeptic's attitude.

"If you ride one, it will blow your mind," Keith Felch says. "When you get on one it's like being in a flying dream you've had. It's like everything you've dreamed your bicycle should do in your wildest dreams -- it's doing it."

(CNN) -- Two U.S. spacecraft are set to crash on the moon Friday. On purpose. And we're all invited to watch.

NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite is scheduled to drop its Centaur upper-stage rocket on the lunar surface at 7:31 a.m. ET.

NASA hopes the impact will kick up enough dust to help the LCROSS probe find the presence of water in the moon's soil. Four minutes later, the LCROSS will follow through the debris plume, collecting and relaying data back to Earth before crashing into the Cabeus crater near the moon's south pole.

The LCROSS is carrying spectrometers, near-infrared cameras, a visible camera and a visible radiometer. These instruments will help NASA scientists analyze the plume of dust -- more than 250 metric tons' worth -- for water vapor.  See how moon will be 'bombed' »

The orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will watch, and photograph, the collisions. And hundreds of telescopes on Earth also will be focused on the two plumes.

"We expect the debris plumes to be visible through midsized backyard telescopes -- 10 inches and larger," said Brian Day at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California. Day is an amateur astronomer who is leading education and public outreach for the LCROSS mission.

"The initial explosions will probably be hidden behind crater walls, but the plumes will rise high enough above the crater's rim to be seen from Earth," he said. The Cabeus crater lies in permanent shadow, making observations inside the crater difficult.

The impacts will not be visible to the naked eye or through binoculars. If you don't have a telescope, or you live in areas where daylight will obscure the viewing, NASA TV will broadcast the crashes live. Coverage begins at 6:15 a.m. ET Friday.

The two main components of the LCROSS mission are the shepherding spacecraft and the Centaur upper stage rocket. The spacecraft will guide the rocket to its crash site.

Data from previous space missions have revealed trace amounts of water in lunar soil. The LCROSS mission seeks a definitive answer to the question of how much water is present. NASA has said it believes water on the moon could be a valuable resource in the agency's quest to explore the solar system.

The thought of how surgery will look in the future is something millions of people are always discussing. The amount of hours spent on surgery certainly can take a toll on a doctors schedule. If the population increases, how will doctors be able to keep up with more surgeries? Here is a post from CNN.com discussing the possibilities of surguries in the future:

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Over the past 20 years, robotics have revolutionized surgery, and new innovations are continuing to push the boundaries of medicine.

The "da Vinci" system revolutionized keyhole surgery.

 Mike Rustic, senior lecturer at the mechanical engineering department at Imperial College, London, says machines such as the "da Vinci" system have had a huge impact on surgery.

The "da Vinci" first appeared in 1991 and lets surgeons carry out keyhole surgery remotely, allowing them to control robot arms from a console that also provides a three-dimensional image of the proceedings.

While the "da Vinci" system is the most widespread robotic surgery tool, Rustic says the "Sensei Robotic Catheter System" is also starting to be used for electrophysiology procedures on the heart.  Take a look at the past, present and future of surgery »

A new exhibition at London's Royal College of Surgeons called "Sci-Fi Surgery: Medical Robots" has displays ranging from the "da Vinci" system to prototype microbots designed to be swallowed and self-assembled in the human body.

Rustic says there is much ongoing research into micro machines -- miniaturized robots that could be placed in a patient's body to gather information or carry out medical procedures.

Vital Signs
Each month CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta brings viewers health stories from around the world.

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But he says that although pill cameras -- cameras that are swallowed by a patient to provide images of their digestive system -- are already in common use, micro machines remain some way off.

"Micro machines are basically one of the holy grails, but it will take a while before we see something," he told CNN.

"The difficulty is that even if you can make little motors you need to power them up and you have to be able to communicate with them and direct them."

Rustic says one innovation on the horizon is a device being developed by Imperial College that would allow a surgeon to remotely control an endoscope while a patient is inside a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine, which would give real-time image feedback during gastric procedures and prostate biopsies.

But he adds that currently, robotic surgery devices are often prohibitively expensive and tend to be used for a narrow range of procedures. He told CNN that he would like to see an economical robot that can be reconfigured to perform a wide range of procedures in a standardized way, so that training can be simplified.

"There is currently a gap. We are trying to produce complex machines to replace surgical tools, which are hand tools. It's like when industry moved from a chisel and hammer to machine tools."

Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti is a professor at the University of Illinois department of surgery. He told CNN that as more manufacturers join the medical robotics marketplace, innovation will speed up and prices will come down.

He sees the future as bringing extreme miniaturization of tools, as well as developments in augmented reality, where visual displays show computer-generated images and information overlaid onto images of the real world.

Giulianotti cannot foresee a time when robots replace surgeons, but he has no doubts over the importance of robotics. "Robot surgery is the future of medicine," he said.

A light-year or light year (symbol: ly) is a unit of length, equal to just under 10¹³ kilometers. As defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a light-year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one Julian Year. A light year to the naked eye is looking a year in the past, which looking to the stars is looking to the past. A recent post by cnn.com has reported an image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope being titled as the "Butterfly Nebula". The picture below is of the image captured as well as cnn.com initial post of the amazing sight.

CNN) -- Forget Hollywood special effects or Impressionist paintings -- some of the most stunning images are created by the mysterious and often violent forces in the universe.

Witness the handful of new snapshots taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, which was equipped with a new imaging camera during a space shuttle servicing mission in May.

It's back in business and there's lots to ooh and aah over.

"Let there be no doubt, this is truly Hubble's new beginning," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator, during a news conference Wednesday.

Take the image on the left of planetary nebula NGC 6302, also known as the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula.

Its "wings" are made of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit and there is a dying star at its center.

"The gas is tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour -- fast enough to travel from Earth to the moon in 24 minutes," NASA's Web site says.

The "butterfly" is more than 2 light-years across.

NASA took advantage of the special filters on Hubble's camera to isolate the light of different elements, said Bob O'Connell, chair of the science oversight committee for Wide Field Camera 3.

The red in the image is nitrogen gas, for example, and the blue is oxygen. See some of the previous amazing images taken by Hubble

Colors are also prominent in the image of globular star cluster Omega Centauri, which contains almost 10 million stars, but the color contrast here is real. The gold dots are stars like our sun, but the blue ones are extremely hot, while the red ones are cool, O'Connell said.

"Just by looking at the color of the stars in the picture, you can sort them by temperature and evolutionary state because the temperature differences here are caused by differences in the internal structure of these stars and in the kinds of fuels they're burning deep inside of them," O'Connell said.

Another image shows Stephan's Quintet, a group of five galaxies -- some of which are 290 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. Over time, those galaxies will eventually merge into a single big galaxy, O'Connell said.

Finally, images of a stellar nursery as seen in visible and infrared light reveal the secrets inside the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away.

"This is a cloud of dense material which is being bombarded by intense radiation from surrounding stars," O'Connell said.

"But dissolve to infrared and the cloud disappears. ... An energetic infant star is being formed inside this cloud."

Hubble is expected to continue its mission for at least five more years.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/09/10/hubble.images/index.html

Here is an interesting post to check out on this very speacial day coming from Yahoo:

Have special plans this 09/09/09?

Everyone from brides and grooms to movie studio execs are celebrating the upcoming calendrical anomaly in their own way.

In Florida, at least one county clerk's office is offering a one-day wedding special for $99.99. The rarity of this Sept. 9 hasn't been lost on the creators of the iPod, who have moved their traditional Tuesday release day to Wednesday to take advantage of the special date. Focus Features is releasing their new film "9," an animated tale about the apocalypse, on the 9th.

Not only does the date look good in marketing promotions, but it also represents the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we'll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), or a millennium (mark your calendars for January 1, 3001), depending on how you want to count it.

Though technically there's nothing special about the symmetrical date, some concerned with the history and meaning of numbers ascribe powerful significance to 09/09/09.

For cultures in which the number nine is lucky, Sept. 9 is anticipated - while others might see the date as an ominous warning.

Math magic

Modern numerologists - who operate outside the realm of real science - believe that mystical significance or vibrations can be assigned to each numeral one through nine, and different combinations of the digits produce tangible results in life depending on their application.

As the final numeral, the number nine holds special rank. It is associated with forgiveness, compassion and success on the positive side as well as arrogance and self-righteousness on the negative, according to numerologists.

Though usually discredited as bogus, numerologists do have a famous predecessor to look to. Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician and father of the famous theorem, is also credited with popularizing numerology in ancient times.

"Pythagoras most of all seems to have honored and advanced the study concerned with numbers, having taken it away from the use of merchants and likening all things to numbers," wrote Aristoxenus, an ancient Greek historian, in the 4th century B.C.

As part of his obsession with numbers both mathematically and divine, and like many mathematicians before and since, Pythagoras noted that nine in particular had many unique properties.

Any grade-schooler could tell you, for example, that the sum of the two-digits resulting from nine multiplied by any other single-digit number will equal nine. So 9x3=27, and 2+7=9.

Multiply nine by any two, three or four-digit number and the sums of those will also break down to nine. For example: 9x62 = 558; 5+5+8=18; 1+8=9.

Sept. 9 also happens to be the 252nd day of the year (2 + 5 +2)...

Loving 9

Both China and Japan have strong feelings about the number nine. Those feelings just happen to be on opposite ends of the spectrum.

The Chinese pulled out all the stops to celebrate their lucky number eight during last year's Summer Olympics, ringing the games in at 8 p.m. on 08/08/08. What many might not realize is that nine comes in second on their list of auspicious digits and is associated with long life, due to how similar its pronunciation is to the local word for long-lasting (eight sounds like wealth).

Historically, ancient Chinese emperors associated themselves closely with the number nine, which appeared prominently in architecture and royal dress, often in the form of nine fearsome dragons. The imperial dynasties were so convinced of the power of the number nine that the palace complex at Beijing's Forbidden City is rumored to have been built with 9,999 rooms.

Japanese emperors would have never worn a robe with nine dragons, however.

In Japanese, the word for nine is a homophone for the word for suffering, so the number is considered highly unlucky - second only to four, which sounds like death.

Many Japanese will go so far as to avoid room numbers including nine at hotels or hospitals, if the building planners haven't already eliminated them altogether.

The Apple store is noted for being one of the most impressive and high tech stores that most shopping malls have to offer. The ability to demo some of the latest in technology from Apple is what drives the customers to the store. Each of the devices you can demo are hooked up to a monitor system, which up until yesterday many thought was full proof enough. New Jersey's Apple store had a bad night last night where the video below will fill you in on!

I guess the only way to catch the ones who committed the crime is to watch out for someone coming in to buy 23 Macbook Pro power cords!

The ocean is a big place and with 70% of the world covered in water only 5% of the water has been explored. In order for new discoveries to be made more of the water needs to be explored and studied. In order for the deepest parts of the ocean, which near Guam is roughly 7 miles deep, to be studied we need instruments to be able to go to that depth and send us back information. Check out the latest inventions from the geniuses over at MIT to see what they have created:

(CNN) -- Schools of robotic fish could one day map the ocean floor, detect pollution or inspect and survey submerged boats or oil and gas pipelines, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say.

MIT researcher Pablo Valdivia Alvarado works in his lab on a robotic fish he co-created.
 1 of 2  MIT engineers are showing off the latest generation of so-called robofish 15 years after they built the first one. The latest incarnation is sleeker, more streamlined and capable of mimicking the movements of a real fish.

And it's capable of exploring underwater terrain submersibles can't, said Pablo Valdivia Alvarado, a mechanical engineer at the school.

"Some of our sponsors were thinking of using them for inspection and surveillance," Alvarado said. "Since these prototypes are very cheap, the idea was to build hundreds -- 200, 500 -- and then just release them in a bay or at a port, and they would be roaming around taking measurements."

MIT researchers built their first robotic fish, "Robotuna," in 1994. But Robotuna has gone the way of the dinosaur. Alvarado said the new generation -- modeled after bass and trout -- cost only a few hundred dollars and have only 10 parts instead of the thousands used in Robotuna.

At five to 18 inches, the new fish is much smaller than Robotuna and built from a single, soft polymer. And unlike Robotuna, the fish is able to be released in the oceans.

"Most of the brains, the electronics, are embedded inside," said Alvarado, who designed the robofish with fellow MIT engineer Kamal Youcef-Toumi. "We have built prototypes with the battery inside, but for my experiments, for simplicity. We have a lot of prototypes that are simply tethered. We have a cable that runs out from the body and connects to a power supply."

The new generation has withstood harsh conditions in the lab, including two years of testing inside tanks filled with tap water, which is corrosive to standard robots, according to Alvarado, who says the Robotuna inspired him to take the technology to the next level.

The oil exploration company Schlumberger helped fund the research, but Alvarado says the U.S. Navy has also expressed interest in the robofish.

MIT's mechanical engineers are now turning their attention to new challenges: A robotic manta ray and a terrestrial robot in the form of a salamander.

Click this link to see a video of the robotic fish.

Give us a shout back and let us know what you think! Happy Fishing!

If you think the job market is tough then check out the story below for some Energetic news!

His mission: to work 50 different jobs in all 50 states.

Daniel Seddiqui, 27, said the resume wasn't happening. The recent college grad had flunked no less than 40 job interviews for work in his field of economics.

Rather than give up, he dove in, and to date has already earned his keep in 45 of the 50 United States, working, for example, as a marketing specialist in one state.

Tuesday night, he did it again, working for the first time ever as a first-base coach for the Brockton Rox baseball team, which called him after hearing about his 50-state goal.

"I just left my driveway with no money. I was negative $65,000 from school loans and I bought my car right before I left. And, just made it all work. I had no other options," Seddiqui said.

The public seems to love his gumption. His schtick has proven to be a real resume-booster. He's been a sugar-maker, worked on an Indianapolis race track pit crew and done a stint as a meteorologist.

How did he do as a first-base coach?

"We put a lot of pressure on the first-base coach to get us some runs and he hasn't gotten any," Rox pitching coach John Kelly said.

Seddiqui, however, said he's on top in the game of life.

"I've probably made from $50,000 to $60,000 this year. And I have saved all of it. Three-thousand dollars in one week when I was in Minnesota medical device manufacturing. And the lowest is probably $100, but I was working with Amish people building furniture," he said.

What has he proved?

"That you can land a job and it's all about persistence and networking and that's what I've been doing," Seddiqui said.

He said one of the ways he's able to keep expenses down is to stay with host families. This week the host family is Brockton Rox owner and former Brockton Mayor Jack Units.

He said almost every employer has offered him full-time work but he wants to keep moving to complete his 50 state, 50 jobs goal. Next week, he'll be in New Hampshire working for the Democratic party and after that he'll haul some nets up in Maine as a lobsterman.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/money/20287627/detail.html

Thinking about why people use Twitter can be a question that has thousands of answers! Some people might say they use it to promote business while others might say just to keep in touch with someone across the country. Well, below is a list of reasons gathered from numerous social media sites, and some of my own input, that this blogger asked the public, “Why should you be on Twitter?”

Keep Track of Breaking News - One of my favorite things about Twitter is it keeps me up to date with all the news that’s important to me. I’m not just talking about world news that you can find on CNN or anywhere else. I mean industry news that often flies under the radar. By following the right people, I always have the latest niche news I can’t find anywhere else.

Be Several Places at Once - Let’s face it–you can’t be everywhere at once. You can’t always afford to fly out to that conference across the country or that awesome concert in L.A., but you can keep up with it through Twitter. People often Tweet live updates from various events, meaning you can be in several places at once.

Learn New Tips from Others - In addition to sharing tips, you can also learn new ones from others. So many of the people I’m following provide useful information based on their unique experiences. There really is a wealth of knowledge out there if you know who to follow.

Brainstorming - While on Twitter you can collaborate with others and share ideas. By connecting with others it may help you get the job done quicker and even take it to the next level and make it better than you thought.

Tweet the Wacky - Have you ever been somewhere or seen something just abnormal and have nobody to share it with at the moment? Twitter allows you to immediately expose your experience to the world and with a picture too.

“If you have Facebook, the only reason to use twitter is for promotion or to get promotions from celebrities/companies and to stay in touch with people who don’t have Facebook.”
Brandon C. Friendswood, Texas

“Tweetdeck combines Twitter and Facebook, twitter quick easy, fast, no interference from apps, surveys, quizzes, etc. You can just say what you want as well as post links or photos.”
Sandy A. League City, Texas

“Twitter uses for networking, building relationships, by getting to know them better as people, sharing information, and shouting out.”
James Robert L. Pasadena, Texas

What do you think is the reason why people are using Twitter? Give us a holler back and let us know what you think!

Yesterday marked the anniversary of lanidng on the moon, but below is a story that many poeple might not know about the fateful Apollo 11 return to Earth. Check out the story below:

(CNN) -- On July 23, 1969, as Apollo 11 hurtled back towards Earth, there was a problem -- a problem only a kid could solve.

It sounds like something out of a movie, but that's what it came down to as Apollo 11 sped back towards Earth after landing on the moon in 1969.

It was around 10:00 at night on July 23, and 10-year-old Greg Force was at home with his mom and three brothers. His father, Charles Force, was at work. Charles Force was the director of the NASA tracking station in Guam, where the family was living.

The Guam tracking station was to play a critical role in the return of Apollo 11 to Earth. A powerful antenna there connected NASA communications with Apollo 11, and the antenna was the only way for NASA to make its last communications with the astronauts before splashdown. But at the last minute on that night, a bearing in the antenna failed, rendering it nearly useless.

To properly replace the bearing would have required dismantling the entire antenna, and there was simply no time. So Charles Force thought of a creative solution: If he could get more grease around the failed bearing, it would probably be fine. The only problem was, nobody at the station had an arm small enough to actually reach in through the two-and-a-half inch opening and pack grease around the bearing.

And that's when Greg was called in to save the day. Charles Force sent someone out to his home to pick up Greg. Once at the tracking station, Greg reached into the tiny hole and packed grease around the failed bearing. It worked, and the station was able to successfully complete its communications role in the mission. Apollo 11 splashed down safely the next day.

At the time, Greg didn't think what he was doing was a big deal, and 40 years later, he's still modest about his role in the mission.

"That's all I did, was put my hand in and put grease on it," he says. If he hadn't been there, NASA would not have been able to make its last communications with the mission before splashdown, but Greg says "it wasn't life or death, [from] my understanding."

That attention came from the media and even the astronauts themselves. Greg's small but important part in Apollo 11 was a story told by news outlets around the world. He even got a nice thank-you note from Neil Armstrong, whom he met when Armstrong went on a tour of NASA stations with the other astronauts to thank the staff after the mission. "To Greg," reads the note, which Armstrong wrote on a newspaper clipping of Greg's story, "with thanks for your help on Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong."

Perhaps not surprisingly, like many other kids who grew up during the Apollo era, Greg dreamed of becoming an astronaut. He says he remembers visiting his dad's office to listen to astronauts communicating with NASA officials on the ground.

"We could sit and listen to the actual communication with the astronauts as it was happening, and it was hard to understand, but I loved to do that," he says. "On Guam we didn't have good television coverage, so I think I listened to the [moon] landing on the radio. To me it was a huge thing."

Greg pursued his dreams of space exploration all the way through college, where he majored in physics. Unfortunately, he was unable to pass the vision test for the space program because of his colorblindness, but even that couldn't squelch his interest. Greg went on to get his pilot's license, and even though his career now as a gymnastics school owner isn't exactly space-related, he says that "ever since then, I've followed the space program."

And as a lover of space exploration, Greg hopes to see more missions to the moon.

"I think it would be an important step as far as going further, like to Mars," he says. "I would love to see us go back to the moon."

But for now, on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, he can remember the small but crucial role he played in bringing Apollo 11 home safely.

"It kind of caught me by surprise," he says, "but I'm real proud to have been even a little tiny part of it."

If you have any stories or comments about the world of space, give us a shout back!

Have you always wanted to be a rocket man? Well New Mexico is on its way to help you achieve your dream, for the price of $200,000. Here is the blog post from CNN reporting on the groundbreaking event:

“The era when travelers will be able to catch a flight from New Mexico to outer space moved a step closer this week with the official start of construction of Spaceport America.

At a groundbreaking ceremony Friday, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson talked about the world's first facility for space tourists.

"New Mexicans have stepped up to the plate by making this investment," Richardson said. "This groundbreaking ceremony is an important step toward our goal of being at the forefront of a vibrant, new commercial space industry."

The almost $200 million project is funded by the state. Once completed, British business magnate Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic will begin taking tourists to space from the facility. Flights are expected to start in 2010.

Branson has said that he has a list of 45,000 people from 120 countries who have registered to take the space trips. It will cost $200,000 a ride, according to the Spaceport America Web site.

The spaceship will be connected to a specially designed carrier aircraft that will take it to about 50,000 feet, according to Virgin Galactic. The aircraft will release the spaceship, which will then use rockets to propel itself into space.

Virgin Galactic has envisioned one flight a week, with six tourists aboard.The tourists will train for at least three days before going.”

The flying vacation is what this blogger is going to be calling this glamorous ride of a lifetime. Is going to space worth the $200,000 or do you consider this bargain? Give us a shout back and tell us what you think!

Have you ever thought about what life would be like with flying cars? These MIT students are trying to make that dream become a reality. Check out the video below!