A total solar eclipse is one of the most beautiful things to see in all of nature. Unfortunately, it's also rare, and you have to be in the right place at the right time to see one so it's quite difficult to get to actually see one. The world seems to be conspiring to make sure that the eclipse on August 1 would be one of the most difficult to see, but don't worry, there are alternatives. Story in the full article.

A recent study has confirmed that there are hundreds of other planets which carry conditions similar to Earth in the outskirts of the Solar System and even across the Milky Way Galaxy.

The scientists hope to know more about this in the continued search for life and possible future colonies. Know more after the jump!

Hybrid cars aren't the only thing that's going green. By 2009, Australia's Solar Sailor is planning to set up solar-powered ferry boats to sail across San Francisco Bay, carrying tourists and passengers alike.

If all goes well, the boat will be ferrying passengers in two years time. The boat still runs on diesel, but it mostly gets around on wind or solar power.

The full story after the jump!

   

Zero-emission advocates gathered recently at San Francisco's Presidia to introduce to the world a new all-electric motor scooter known as Vectrix. The vehicle can take two commuters on a silent freeway ride (60 mph) with its electric consumption just costing the owner pennies per mile.

As much as that is good news, Vectrix never really took off because most people are reluctant to spend US$ 11,000 on a scooter alone. But those who believe in the environmental cause argue that it's a small price to pay and the future benefits are rewarding. They added that this is the first generation of its kind and the price is expected to go down along the way.

You might have heard about the all-electric cars as well. Mind you, those vehicles also come with a steep price with the Tesla sports car reaching up to US$ 100,000. One such owner of the said car and relatively known SF photographer Marc Geller tried the Vectrix and said, "It's all about the (electric) plug and environmental concerns, petroleum concerns. I think it's totally cool, compared to that noisy piece of crap".

Vectrix weighs around 462 pounds and takes three hours to recharge its batteries on 110-volt house current; charging it on a 220-volt current will take around two hours. British Motor Cars' Managing Director for Marketing Jeff Morrill had this to say, "We want to get to the right consumer demographics. It's for urban commuting, and it targets environmentalists, active (electric power) enthusiasts".

Researchers from UC San Francisco have finally found some solid evidence that points to a potential cause of the widespread Colony Collapse Disorder that is affecting bees in the U.S. And no, it's not mobile phones.

According to the LA Times, a single-celled parasite called Nosema ceranae has been found in affected hives from across the country. This fungus was responsible for widespread loss of bee colonies in Europe and Asia and may be playing a crucial role in the disappearance of bees in the U.S.

The fungus was also found in some hives where bees had survived. Two other fungi and half a dozen viruses have also been found in the dead bees.

Researchers have cautioned though that the results are still "highly preliminary" and are from only a few hives found in Le Grand in Merced County. "We don't want to give anybody the impression that this thing has been solved," said UCSF biochemist Joe DeRisi. Entomologist Diana Cox-Foster of Pennsylvania State University echoed DeRisi's caution, noting that by itself, N. ceranae "is probably not the culprit ... but it may be one of the key players."

Bee researchers haven't ruled out other factors such as pesticide exposure and inadequate food resources following a drought. "There are lots of stresses that these bees are experiencing," said Cox-Foster, noting that a combination of these factors could be responsible.

If the N. ceranae is found to play a role in CCD, there is still some hope for the bees, which are used to pollinate a third of the country's agricultural crops. There is evidence that the antibiotic fumagillin, used mainly against a closely related parasite called Nosema apis which also affects bees, will also work on N. ceranae.

Darth Vader uttered once, "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've created." But when it comes to artificial technology (A.I.), we sometimes can't help but be mesmerized.

Like this one for starters: Stanford University Associate Professor Sebastian Thrun said that we will have robot-driven cars by the year 2030. The professor uttered the rather brave prediction during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science which was held this year in San Francisco.

Thrun's expertise includes Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and he, together with his colleagues, will be joining a competition on November 3 to prove his point. The said competition, which will be hosted by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will serve as a testing ground for first wave of intelligent robot cars.

Today we can drive about 100 miles before human assistance is necessary. By 2030 you'll be able to see them on the highway, with a driving reliability that will exceed humans by orders of magnitude. We believe this technology will affect all of us. It is going to have enormous significance for people who can't drive because of disabilities or because they are ill or impaired.

The associate professor's pet project is named "Junior" which is a converted 2006 Volkswagen Passat. All steering, throttle, and brakes were modified to be fully computer-controllable. An on-board computer has been placed to determine its location and position using radar and GPS.

Remember Intel's prototype 80-core processor? It's now operational, baby. The company demonstrated the power of the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious processor to journalists in San Francisco last week, reports CNET News. Performance appraisal: "At 3.16GHz and with 0.95 volts applied to the processor, it can hit 1 teraflop of performance while consuming 62 watts of power." Surely, that's a lot of PS3s in one small piece of silica real estate.

The chip was designed around 65nm technology, but CNET says that if this moves to production, it should move to smaller technology to make the end product more cost-effective. As it is, this mother-of-all-Intel processors required a special motherboard and cooling system for its demo run. And this mother is apparently not alone: CNET makes reference to a 96-core chip being designed by ClearSpeed to be used as co-processors in supercomputers.

Now, how to make best use of 80 (or, heaven forbid, 96) cores? Well, for starters, most current programmers may choose to have a heart attack first. When asked, Jim McGregor, an analyst, said: "The operating system has the most control over the CPU, and it's got to change. It has to be more intelligent about breaking things up (among the cores)." EIGHTY cores?

Here's an interesting bit of trivia. Windows Vista won't run on this puppy. It doesn't use the x86 instruction set used by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in their commercial processors.

"Un-dish-cover the fish, or dishcover the riddle." Lewis Carroll gave us a hint of what's there to come. We just found out that there's more to a fish than meets the bulging eye.

The Intelligent Aquatic BioMonitoring System has been doing its fair share of water poison detection in many cities of the United States. However, in places such as New York, San Francisco, and Washington, the "bluegills" (a.k.a. sunfish or bream) has made itself known for being nature's sensor against water toxins.

Several bluegills are placed inside the tanks of water from the municipal supply. Then, a program that connects to the sensors in the tank sends an e-mail alert whenever there's a slight change in the breathing, heartbeat, and swimming patterns of the bluegills. These fishes are highly attuned to the chemical disturbances in the water. When they're exposed to toxins, they flex their gills as a toxin expulsion reflex.

In a New York report, the bluegills noticed a diesel spill two hours earlier than any of the agency's other detection devices. In San Francisco, eight bluegills have begun the task of toxin detection a month ago.

The trouble with electronic sensors is that they can only trace the toxins that they are programmed to detect. According to Bill Lawler of Intelligent Automation Corporation, "There's no known manmade sensor that can do the same job as the bluegill."

Like our bomb-sniffing canine friends, the bluegills have their own limitations. They can only detect at least 30 toxic chemicals, cannot reliably detect germs, and obviously can't stop bombing on the water main or computer hacking on the water flow controls. But we'd agree with what the experts say: "There's no computer that's as sophisticated as a living being."

For decades, researchers thought that little could be done once the brain started to decline. Neuroscientist Michael Merzenich of the University of California at San Francisco found out however, the brain remains plastic throughout life. With training, he added, it can be rewired to learn new skills.

Keeping this in mind, the elders are now re-discovering childhood with the aid of computer game company Nintendo. The Ninty DS offers Dr. Ryuta Kawashima's Brain Age and the same is also expected to come for the Wii. This title, which was developed with the help of respected Japanese doctor Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, advertises that it can train your brain in just a few minutes a day. Merzenich on the other hand, came up with a computer-based set of exercises that a user must work on with an hour a day for eight weeks.

As we speak, there is still no concrete evidence if these people can actually delay, much more stop cognitive decay.  People must be thinking there is definitely no harm in trying because 15 months after, Brain Age is still highly popular especially in Japan. To date, 4 million copies of this title have already been sold worldwide.

Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. These are the three R's that were most drilled in our heads during our primary years in school. It's fairly simple to remember, but for some reason, people still have a hard time living it. These, if you'd very well recall, are the keys to a healthier, less polluted environment. We used to think it only applies to tangible objects. But guess what. An Italian Scientist have proposed to make use of the last R, Recycle, to the gas Carbon Dioxide.

Chemist Gabriele Centi of the University of Messina has proposed that instead of disposing of CO₂ by burying it below the earth or sea, we should just recycle it by turning it back into fuel. He claims to use solar energy gathered by a titanium dioxide film to ionize CO₂ in its liquid form. Adding water to it, longer carbon chains can thus be created, similar to photosynthesis in plants. As of now, tests show that the process can create some natural gas and methanol, although the number and type of carbon chains remain to be uncontrollable.

This just goes to show that nothing is impossible. Heck, if this guy can recycle a gas like Carbon Dioxide, then there sure is no reason for us not to be able to practice recycling more common stuff, like soda cans!

Centi presented his new gas phase research at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco on September 13.