TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| Greens air concerns on Fremantle Port dredging The WA Greens say they have serious concerns about the impact the proposed dredging at Fremantle harbour will have on the Swan River's dolphin population. abc.net.au |
US military offers $40,000 challenge • Cash prize for first to locate 10 secret balloons• Scheme attempts to examine power of online networksFor most of us, social networking sites are just for fun - checking what our friends are doing, organising our weekends or playing games when the boss is not looking. But the stakes for users of sites like Facebook and Twitter are set to increase dramatically tomorrow, as the US government launches a competition that offers cunning web users the chance to win thousands of dollars.In a nine-day challenge run by Darpa, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, members of the public are being offered a grand prize of $40,000 if they successfully use the internet and social networks to track down a series of balloons hidden across America.Under the rules of the competition, known as the Darpa Network Challenge, 10 large red balloons will be launched simultaneously at secret location across the United States tomorrow. Players have until December 14 to find out where they were located, and the first person - or group of people - to track them all down will scoop the jackpot, the equivalent of more than £24,000.The rules are relatively loose: the balloons, which each measure eight feet in diameter, will be placed at fixed locations that are easily accessible and visible from nearby roads but will only be visible for one day. More than 300 teams have already signed up to take part and officials expect a number - from offering a reward online to sifting through various social networking sites to scan for sightings of the balloons."The most innovative ideas we probably haven't heard about yet, because there is an incentive to keep them secret," said Peter Lee, director of the agency's transformational convergence technology office.On the surface, the premise seems a little wacky for a government agency that uses its annual budget of more than $3bn to create technology for use by the US military. After all, the organisation, has helped fund technological breakthroughs such as the internet and unmanned aerial vehicles in its different incarnations over the years.But despite the whimsical nature of the task, Darpa officials say they are not running the challenge for fun.According to the event's organisers, the challenge is an attempt to find out more about how large-scale problems can be solved by using the net and social networks to enhance "timely communication, wide-area team building and urgent mobilisation".The idea is that through observing how the various groups attempting the task fare, the organisation will learn a significant amount about the way computer systems and popular websites can be used to harness collective intelligence."We are not interested in the balloons - we already know where those are," said the group's deputy director, Norman Whitaker. "It's the techniques people use to solve the challenge we're focused on."It is not the first time Darpa has taken an offbeat approach to its research for the Pentagon. In recent years, the agency has run a number of other competitions open to the public, including a series of races pitting computer-controlled driverless cars against each other.The latest challenge has already attracted a wide spread of interest from academics and computer scientists, as well as from some more unexpected quarters. Record-breaking balloon artist Larry Moss has said that he will also be attempting to locate the targets. Moss, who is based in Rochester, New York, says that if he wins the top prize, he will spend his winnings making a special tribute balloon in the shape of a giant flying cupcake."It's a logical extension of my plans," he said.InternetResearch and developmentComputingSocial networkingUnited StatesFacebookTwitterMySpaceCrowdsourcingBobbie Johnsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Filipino troops rush to move holdouts from volcano LEGAZPI, Philippines (AP) -- Philippine troops went house to house Thursday threatening to use force to move hundreds of residents from the steaming slopes of a lava-spilling volcano. Some farmers begged to stay to guard their livestock while their families spent Christmas Eve in a shelter.... hosted.ap.org |
Magma building up in Philippines' Mayon volcano LEGAZPI, Philippines (AP) -- Fewer earthquakes have been recorded in the Philippines' lava-spilling Mayon volcano, but magma continues to build up inside and any lull in activity could be followed by a bigger eruption, scientists said Saturday.... hosted.ap.org |
Evolution's greatest hits, and ancient Muslim science What are evolution's 10 greatest inventions? The eye? Opposable thumbs? Our special guest Nick Lane is on hand to give us the lowdown on everything from sex to photosynthesis, why we have hot blood and the emergence of consciousness.Nick is a biochemist at University College London and has written extensively on subjects such as mitochondria and oxygen. His latest book, Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution, is a handy guide to the most important evolutionary breakthroughs.Presenter Alok Jha is joined in the studio by the Observer's science editor, Robin McKie, and the Guardian's science correspondent, Ian Sample.In this week's newsjam of the week's major science stories, there are claims that fish oil may be the elixir of youth; we learn that a common household chemical found in everything from sofas and carpets to pots and pans has been linked to an increased risk of thyroid disease; the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline has said it will publish online the details of thousands of potential drugs that might cure malaria; and most men in Britain are descended from the first farmers to migrate across Europe from the Near East 10,000 years ago.Finally, Pascal Wyse takes us on a tour of an exhibition of ancient artefacts from the Islamic world that have shaped science. 1001 Inventions at the Science Museum in London gives a taste of "the forgotten story of a thousand years of science from the Muslim world".Feel free to post your comments below.Join our Facebook group. Listen back through our archive.Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science.Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed).Alok JhaIan SampleRobin McKiePascal Wyse guardian.co.uk |