NASA rocket failure blow to Earth-watching network

A new satellite to track the chief culprit in global warming crashed into the ocean near Antarctica after launch Tuesday, dealing a major setback to NASA's already weak network for monitoring Earth and its environment from above.

The $280 million mission was designed to answer one of the biggest question marks of global warming: What happens to the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide spewed by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas? How much of it is sucked up and stored by plants, soil and oceans and how much is left to trap heat on Earth to worsen global warming?

"It's definitely a setback. We were already well behind," said Neal Lane, science adviser during former President Bill Clinton's administration. "The program was weak, and now it's really weak."

For about a decade, scientists have complained of a decline in the study of Earth from space. NASA spent more money looking at other planets than it did at Earth in 2007. That same year, the National Academy of Sciences warned that NASA's study of Earth "is at great risk" with fewer missions than before and aging satellites.

"We have a very weakened Earth-observing system just at a time where we need every bit of data that we could possibly get," said Elisabeth Holland, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

She said NASA has fallen behind Europe in environmental satellites. Japan successfully launched a carbon dioxide tracking satellite just last month.

The NASA satellite, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, was meant to explain Earth's capture of carbon dioxide, which now appears to be slowing and could accelerate global warming, said Holland, who helped write the 2006 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

Minutes after launch Tuesday in California, the satellite fell back to Earth near Antarctica not far from where environment ministers and scientists met Monday to talk about climate change. NASA officials said a protective cover on the satellite did not release and fall away, and the extra weight meant the satellite could not reach orbit.

"This was going to be one of the few bright spots in the Earth-observing system for the last five years," Holland said.

The future was starting to look better for the scientists, who had felt ignored. Last year, NASA talked about being "greener" and gave initial approval to six new Earth-observing missions. This month, the Obama administration put $400 million in the stimulus program for NASA science, and NASA's science chief Ed Weiler said "it was all going to Earth sciences."

"It's very unfortunate that it happened just at this time when we trying to get Earth observations back on track," said Ruth DeFries, a Columbia University professor who was part of the National Academy study team.

Until Japan's launch, scientists have depended on land-based stations to monitor carbon dioxide at low altitudes. The Japanese probe uses a different technique to measure carbon dioxide and does so from a different orbit compared to NASA's satellite.

Tuesday's failure put on hold the launch of another NASA satellite, Glory, which will look at solar radiation and airborne particles that reflect and trap sunlight. That satellite will launch on the same kind of rocket, the Taurus XL.

NASA needs to figure out what went wrong before Glory is launched, Weiler said. It was the first major NASA mission launch failure since September 2001. An earlier version of the Taurus rocket, made by Orbital Sciences near Washington, failed, and an environmental satellite was lost.

But the Taurus rocket has a long history of success and has never had this type of cover problem before, said John Brunschwyler, project manager for Orbital Sciences.

But now NASA is facing a big question: Should it build a duplicate of the dead satellite?

Researchers on the satellite team are pushing NASA to do that, said Graeme Stephens, a Colorado State University professor who worked on the project. The project was nine years in the making, and the mission was supposed to last two years.

A duplicate would be significantly cheaper than $280 million to build and launch because much early work does not have to be repeated, Weiler said. It could be built relatively quickly.

But one of the missions that NASA was considering speeding up with the new stimulus money was a more sophisticated and costly follow-up to the failed satellite.

It makes more sense to go ahead with that project, said Berrien Moore III, who headed the National Academy study and is executive director of Climate Central, a Princeton, New Jersey, climate change think-tank. Weiler said a decision will be made during the next several weeks.

"Our commitment to Earth sciences is clearly unwavered by this," Weiler said.

- REUTERS

Do you have a Facebook? The CIA will know you!

As a willful citizen of the web 2.0 *yawn* continuum, there is a lot of information about myself all over the net. Publications, photos, articles; they’re all there for anyone to see. But one thing that many people (about 2 billion) like myself hold to be true is the ability to control some of that information- namely profiles on networking sites. Who knows how your information is being used?

Myspace, Orkut, Facebook each allow you to (and encourage you strongly to) put much of your personal information up on their site. But what else is the information being used for?

We know Myspace is owned my Rupert Murdoch, Orkut is owned by Google and Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg. We also know that willingly putting up information is like leaving the front door of your house wide open.

But the real question is who really owns Facebook? Where has their VC investment stream come from? And what can they do with personal information?

After over a decade of being immersed in the conspiracy theory culture—and I’m still there wether I like it or not—my core beef remains the same. It’s not something unique to conspiracy research. It’s a universal problem with all true believers: exaggeration for dramatic effect. Subtlety is interesting. Details are brainfood. Overstatements are good for getting people alarmed and worked up, but what happens when people start realizing they were decieved?

Is Facebook a CIA front, devoted to identifying, tracking and crushing dissent in the college generation? Actually, no. Facebook is a website, devoted to “social networking.” However, there’s also a lot more going on behind the curtain. As always, it’s the grey areas that interest me the most. So with this article, I want to ask refined and specific questions to get accurate and detailed answers. Because it’s not an exaggeration to say that there are very real ties between Facebook and CIA—and there’s a whole covert landscape of semi-legal databases, companies selling private information, and the new horizon of computer-driven “Data Mining”.

In short, this is a great angle to sneak a peek one of the most hidden, and profitable, sectors of the US economy. What we’ll see is a lot less simple than a good conspiracy theory, but I also think it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than the “Facebook = CIA” mantra that passes for “investigation” on the internets.

Let’s start right there. The quote above is from Facebook’s Terms and Conditions—specifically, their privacy policy. With a declaration like that, you have to give these folks credit for being pretty damn blunt about the nature of the game. Facebook is a long-term investment in my generation, just like MySpace. The payoff these days is millions and millions in advertising revenue—but what about the payoff one decade from now, when their databases have multi-gigabyte files about you? Your interests, habits, porn preferences, mindless surveys, purchases, friends, bulletins, and little sparkly animated .gif files? How much do you think that information will be worth—to advertisers, to corporations, to the military, to intelligence services?

Anyone who has concerns about their “privacy” being violated by Facebook is completely, unconditionally justified in their concern. After all, Facebook was born out of data theft—founder Mark Zuckerberg stole tens of thousands of digital files on his fellow Harvard students, directly from the University’s “secure” servers. Maybe that’s alarming to you, but I find it endearingly psychotic. Anyone who can found a multi-billion dollar business with stolen property is worth paying attention to.

- brainsturbator.com

Eclipse of the moon this Monday, 9 Feb 2009

Malaysians will get the chance to observe a penumbral eclipse of the moon for four hours on Monday, 9 February 2009 starting from 8.39pm, said the National Space Agency (Angkasa).

In a statement, the agency said that the phenomenon would be easily visible as 89.9% of the moon’s disc would be in the shadow of the earth’s penumbra.

In general, lunar eclipse occurs when Moon passes Earth’s shadow during full Moon as shown in Diagram 1. On the 9 February, eclipse will be easily visible to the naked eye as 89.9% of the Moon’s disk is immersed in the penumbra.

The eclipse will begin at 8:39 p.m. when the Moon starts passing the penumbral shadow of the Earth (P1). The maximum phase occurs at 10:38 p.m. And the Moon will totally leave penumbral shadow (P4) at 00:38 a.m. in the following day.

However, most observers will not be able to visually detect the eclipse at the beginning and the ending of the eclipse until about 2/3 of the Moon’s disk is immersed in the penumbral shadow. This would put the period of eclipse visibility from approximately 10:00 p.m. to 11:20 p.m.

Residents in Alaska, Hawaii, Australia and East Asia will have the opportunity to observe Penumbral Lunar Eclipse. Residents in Western Canada and the Northern USA have the best views with moonset occurring sometime after maximum eclipse.

Phases of Penumbral Lunar Eclipse :
P1 - Moon start passing “Penumbra” - 08:39 pm
Maksimum - Moon partially blocked by “Penumbra" - 10:38 pm
P4 - Moon start leaving “Penumbra” - 12:38 am

In conjuction with Penumbral Lunar Eclipse, National Space Agency (ANGKASA) will organize a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse Observation Program at the National Planetarium Kuala Lumpur on 9 February 2009 from 8:30 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.

Meanwhile for those who are not be to attend the observation program, please watch the live web cast Penumbral Lunar Eclipse 8:30 p.m. to 12:00a.m. on 9 February 2009 at http://www.angkasa.gov.my

Cybercrimes on the rise

National ­ cybersecurity specialist CyberSecurity Malaysia says the nation needs a dedicated “cybercourt” in view of the huge increase in cybercrimes in the ­country last year.

Lt Col (retired) Husin Jazri, CyberSecurity chief executive ­officer, told In.Tech the number of cybercrimes reported to them had more than doubled in 2008. The situation is expected to get worse.

“Last year we handled a total of 2,123 incidents which is higher than a 100% increase compared to 2007 when we handled 1,038 incidents,” he said.

Almost half of the reported ­incidents involved fraud and the remainder were about intrusions and malicious code.

Husin was commenting on a recent call by Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor for a ­dedicated cybercourt — a court that handles only cases involving ­cybercrimes.

In a Bernama report on Jan 6, Datuk Shaziman said Malaysia needs a cybercourt in view of the increasing number of such cases.

“If in future we cannot cope anymore, we may need to have a cybercourt,” he was quoted in the report.

Husin said that as the country’s cyberpopulation increases, the number of online transactions or other activities will increase in tandem, which will likely mean more incidents of cybercrime.

“It is a natural phenomena. There will inevitably be more criminals taking advantage of the situation to conduct their crimes online.

“Increases in wireless and ­broadband capacity make it easier and faster to use the Internet. Unfortunately these facilities can be also used as a medium for ­cybercrimes,” he said.

The current economic situation, in which the global economy is heading towards a recession, will also contribute to an increase in cybercrimes, he added.

Babes in woods

According to Husin, there is still insufficient cybersecurity awareness or Internet-safety practices among Malaysians using the Web.

“For example, some people are not updating their antivirus ­software and some don’t have a unique password,” he said.

CyberSecurity has a ­cybercomplaints centre, called Cyber999, where the public can e-mail or call to report incidents or complain about cyberissues such as malware infections, intrusions, online harassment, spam, malicious websites, etc.

“After we receive a report, we validate the complaint and refer the complainant to the police or help him or her lodge a complaint with the service provider or website concerned,” he said.

Husin was attending the Organisation of Islamic Conferences-Computer Emergency Response Team (OIC-CERT) Seminar 2009 in the capital recently.

He said the purpose of the ­seminar is to enable research collaboration among Islamic ­countries to deal with cyberthreats.

The idea is to share information, Husin said. “If for instance there are cyberattacks in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, they can notify us in Malaysia so we can be better prepared,” he said.

CyberSecurity comes under the purview of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. It is a one-stop co-ordination centre for national cybersecurity initiatives.

- The Star

Microsoft strikes back piracy, softly

Microsoft Corp is ramping up its antipiracy campaign but this time it is taking a slightly different approach — it wants to be gentle.

The software giant calls its new non-intrusive approach Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) and claims that it’s mainly intended to protect users from becoming victims of pirated software.

“We want to help users who have inadvertently installed an illegitimate copy of Microsoft Office,” said Annabelle Co, Microsoft Malaysia senior product marketing manager.

Microsoft expects to go live with OGA on Jan 27 in 27 countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Spain.

Its previous Windows Genuine Advantage antipiracy initiative caused users’ desktop to turn black if they were using pirated copies of Windows XP.

The OGA notification, on the other hand, will display a dialogue box prompting the user to buy a genuine copy of Office.

Microsoft said users have unknowingly purchased pirated copies of Microsoft Office because they have been fooled by the packaging and price which is similar to the original.

OGA will be rolled out through Window’s automatic update service and users will be given the option to not install it. It will verify the authenticity of Office 2003, 2007 and XP.

However, OGA will not stop the user from continuing to use Office.

“The dialogue box will pop up twice a day for a period of 30 days if the user chooses to ignore it,” Co said.

After the 30-day period is up, there will be a permanent star icon on the toolbar to remind the user that it is an illegitimate copy of Microsoft Office.

Because it doesn’t interfere with the functions of Office, some users will continue to ignore it, Co said.

“Some may even think it’s cool to have a star on their toolbar but I believe they would be embarrassed if they were to do a presentation and the audience spotted it,” Co said.

Microsoft even claims that if a customer had paid a large sum of money for a pirated copy of Office, it will replace it with a complimentary copy of Office Professional regardless of the edition of the illegitimate copy.

Users will have to fill up a form online, which they have to print and mail with the fake CD and receipt to Microsoft’s headquarters in the United States.

Also, the CD must bear the Microsoft hologram. “If you send a CD-R with the words Microsoft Office on it, you won’t qualify for the complimentary copy,” she quipped.

For more information on the OGA initiative, visit www.microsoft.com/malaysia/office/oga

Milky Way — the galaxy — not snack-sized anymore

Take that, Andromeda! For decades, astronomers thought when it came to the major galaxies in Earth's cosmic neighborhood, our Milky Way was a weak sister to the larger Andromeda. Not anymore.

The Milky Way is considerably larger, bulkier and spinning faster than astronomers once thought, Andromeda's equal.

Scientists mapped the Milky Way in a more detailed, three-dimensional way and found that it's 15 percent larger in breadth. More important, it's denser, with 50 percent more mass, which is like weight. The new findings were presented Monday at the American Astronomical Society's convention in Long Beach, Calif.

That difference means a lot, said study author Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. The slight 5-foot-5, 140-pound astrophysicist said it's the cosmic equivalent of him suddenly bulking up to the size of a 6-foot-3, 210-pound NFL linebacker.

"Previously we thought Andromeda was dominant, and that we were the little sister of Andromeda," Reid said. "But now it's more like we're fraternal twins."

That's not necessarily good news. A bigger Milky Way means that it could be crashing violently into the neighboring Andromeda galaxy sooner than predicted — though still billions of years from now.

Reid and his colleagues used a large system of 10 radio telescope antennas to measure the brightest newborn stars in the galaxy at different times in Earth's orbit around the sun. They made a map of those stars, not just in the locations where they were first seen, but an additional dimension of time — something Reid said hasn't been done before.

With that, Reid was able to determine the speed at which the spiral-shaped Milky Way is spinning around its center. That speed — about 568,000 miles per hour — is faster than the 492,000 mph that scientists had been using for decades. That's about a 15 percent jump in spiral speed. The old number was based on less accurate measurements and this is based on actual observations, Reid said.

Once the speed of the galaxy's spin was determined, complex formulas that end up cubing the speed determined the mass of all the dark matter in the Milky Way. And the dark matter — the stuff we can't see — is by far the heaviest stuff in the universe. So that means the Milky Way is about one-and-a-half times the mass had astronomers previously calculated.

The paper makes sense, but isn't the final word on the size of the Milky Way, said Mark Morris, an astrophysicist at the University of California Los Angeles, who wasn't part of the study.

Being bigger means the gravity between the Milky Way and Andromeda is stronger.

So the long-forecast collision between the neighboring galaxies is likely to happen sooner and less likely to be a glancing blow, Reid said.

But don't worry. That's at least 2 to 3 billion years away, he said.

- AP

Video - Malaysia's Scorpene Submarine - KD Tunku Abdul Rahman & KD Tun Razak

Source : Royal Malaysian Navy (TLDM)

First View of the Dark Side of the Sun

Soon we may get the first ever glimpse of the dark side of the sun.

Well, no, there's no actual dark side of a luminous ball of burning gas, but there is an effective dark side, as in, the side of the sun we can't see at any given time.

Scientists aren't content to get just half of the picture, so they've launched the STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories) mission, a pair of NASA spacecraft that will orbit the sun simultaneously to provide a complete view of all sides of the star at once.

"Then there will be no place to hide and we can see the entire sun for the first time," STEREO project scientist Michael Kaiser of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center told Wired.com.

The perfect spherical view will come on Feb. 6, 2011. Right now the satellites, which were launched in October 2006, are about 90 degrees apart, which allows a picture of about 270 degrees of the sun — the fullest view yet.

"The who goal of all of this is to try to get a better handle to try to predict solar storms, which cause cell phone disturbances, and disruptions to communications and power." Kaiser said. "We'd like to be able to predict these things as far in advance as possible to give us a longer warning time."

Solar storms are magnetic disruptions on the sun that release violent sprays of charged particles into space. These storms can produce magnificent displays of the Northern Lights. But some past storms have also cost airlines and satellite communications industries millions of dollars, and have led to large scale power blackouts (including one across the entire province of Quebec, Canada). Being able to reliably forecast these tempests in advance could make a huge difference in preventing disturbances on Earth.

Predicting solar weather is also important for the future of manned spaceflight. If astronauts are exposed to the intense radiation from solar storms while traveling beyond the protective magnetic field of the Earth, they could suffer serious harm. Even astronauts close to home who venture out for a spacewalk during a storm are put in danger.

"For future missions going to the moon and Mars, that's very important," Kaiser said. "Some of these solar storms can be very intense. If the astronauts were completely exposed to one of these storms the radiation could be high."

The STEREO mission also aims to improve our basic scientific understanding of the dynamics within the sun, which could shed light on the workings of stars in general.

- NASA

Video - Annular Solar Eclipse around Asia (26 Jan 2009)

Video - Annular Solar Eclipse in Jakarta, Indonesia (26 Jan 2009)

Black holes in every galaxy

A Hubble Space telescope census reveals that black holes are common in galaxies, according to a January 13 release on the Internet. Three black holes have been identified in three normal galaxies, and the team responsible suggests that nearly all galaxies may harbour supermassive black holes which once powered quasars which are now no longer active.

They took a census of 27 nearby galaxies with NASA's Hubble Space telescope and the ground-based Canada-France-Hawaii telescope (CFHT) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, which are being used to conduct a spectroscopic and photometric survey of galaxies to find black holes which have consumed the mass of millions of sun-like stars.

The key results are that:

Supermassive black holes are so common that nearly every large galaxy has one.

A black hole's mass is proportional to the mass of the host galaxy, so a galaxy twice as massive as another would have a black hole that is also twice as massive. This discovery suggests that the growth of the black hole is linked to the formation of the galaxy in which it is located.

The number and masses of the black holes found are consistent with what would have been required to power the quasars.

Two of the black holes weigh 50 million and 100 million solar masses, and they lie in the cores of galaxies NGC 3379 (also known as M105) and NGC 3377 respectively. These galaxies are both in the "Leo Spur," a nearby group of galaxies about 32 million light-years away and roughly in the direction of the Virgo cluster. Some 50 million light-years away, also in the Virgo cluster, NGC 4486B has a 500-million-solar-mass black hole. It is a small satellite of the very bright galaxy, M87 in the Virgo cluster. M87 has an active nucleus and is known to have a black hole of about two billion solar masses.

These new results suggest that smaller galaxies probably have lower-mass black holes, below Hubble's detection limit. The survey shows the black hole's mass is proportional to the host galaxy's mass. Now cosmologists will need to work on explaining why the black holes are so common, and why they seem to be proportional to the masses of the home galaxies.

The Hubble telescope's high resolution allowed the team to measure the velocities of stars orbiting the black hole. A sharp rise in velocity means that a great deal of matter is locked away in the galaxy's core, creating a powerful gravitational field that accelerates nearby stars.

The February 1997 servicing mission to the Hubble telescope will involve installing the Space telescope Imaging Spectrograph. This spectrograph will greatly increase the efficiency of projects, such as this black hole census, that require spectra of several nearby positions in a single object.

And in yet another galaxy . . .

The nucleus of the spiral galaxy NGC 1068 has always been obscured from direct observation by gas and dust. But radio images now suggest that it conceals a black hole of 10 to 20 million solar masses, and that the gas around it is swirling into the hole so rapidly that the nucleus is radiating at close to the theoretical limit, according to a report in Nature in early January, by Mitchell C. Begelman and Joss Bland-Hawthorn. Black holes, it seems, are all the go .

Album - Foto Gerhana Matahari Separa di Malaysia / Annular Solar Eclipse in Malaysia (26 Jan 2009)

Foto ini dirakam di Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia.
(This photo was taken in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia)

Video - Annular Solar Eclipse in Indonesia (26 Jan 2009)

This video was taken in Jakarta, Indonesia.



Source : Rabba

Malaysian can see solar eclipse (26 Jan 2009)

Malaysians can witness a solar eclipse today from 4.30pm to 7pm.

The National Planetarium will have a special programme from 4pm to give the public a chance to see the eclipse as it happens, the National Space Agency said in a statement.

Although only a part of the eclipse can be seen in Malaysia, enthusiasts will be able to see the moon obscuring 52% to 82% of the sun depending on their location.

A solar eclipse happens when the moon passes directly in front of the sun. Due to the relative distances, the sun would appear as a very bright ring behind the moon, resulting in an annular eclipse.

“The eclipse will begin at about 4.30pm in Malaysia when the moon first touches the sun’s disk,” the agency said.

The celestial spectacle will be more visible when the moon slowly covers the sun to form a crescent shape until maximum obscuration occurs at about 5.50pm.

“At its final contact around 6.55pm, the moon’s shadow slowly disappears just before sunset,” the agency said.

Geocosmic Centre of Yijing Meta-Science Research Malaysia academic consultant Dr Chuah Chong Cheng said solar and lunar eclipses during Chinese New Year were a rare phenomenon.

The next such occurence would be in 2026, he added.

“The same thing happened last year when a solar eclipse occurred on the first day of Chinese New Year on Feb 7 and the penumbral lunar one on Chap Goh Meh.”

Dr Chuah said for those who are superstitious, the solar and lunar eclipses could mean “double jeopardy”.

University Sains Malaysia’s Astronomy Atmospheric Science Unit lecturer Assoc Prof Chong Hon Yew advised people not to look directly at the sun but to use a solar filter when observing the eclipse or see its reflection in a pail of water so as not to damage their eyes.

- The Star

Solar eclipse on Chinese New Year

The first day of Chinese New Year will see the first solar eclipse of the year, so precautions are recommended amidst all the merry-making.

The first eclipse of the sun for 2009 occurs tomorrow, the first day of Chinese New Year, and it is a time to be cautious.

This annular eclipse will happen between 4.30pm and 7pm in Malaysia. A dark red shadow will creep across the sun and this can be observed from many countries on this side of the world, including Australia, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Taiwan, as well as our country.

This eerie reddish light is viewed as unfavourable astrologically.

Solar eclipses occur when the moon passes between the Earth and sun. This is an uncommon event because the moon usually remains either above or below Earth’s orbital plane.

In astrological studies, any eclipse signals a time to be wary and this is especially true if the sun is involved because all living beings are dependent on the sun for light. There are also subtle eclipses of the moon but its impact on the universe is much less.

Why is a solar eclipse inauspicious? During the eclipse, the power of negative energy increases 1,000 times as compared to other times. When the environment becomes conducive for negative energy to amass, the chances of it affecting people increases.

Since ancient times, the sun has been viewed as an auspicious star and a life force. It is also known as the remover of all obstacles and the giver of health.

It rules the digestive system, heart and blood circulation and influences an individual’s strength, energy, self confidence, leadership and many other qualities.

The impact of the negative energies when the sun is obscured causes a lack of courage, fatigue and low self-esteem.

People are advised not to carry out activities as usual during the eclipse period as they may behave irrationally. Do not view the eclipse directly, and it is better not to travel during the period and stay indoors.

I understand this can be difficult with it being Chinese New Year but revellers should try to take precautions at least during the three-and-a-half hours of the eclipse.

People who were born during an eclipse should take even more care when such cosmic events occur because they will experience the effects of the eclipse more deeply than others.

Pregnant women and senior citizens should be extra careful and should not consume food or drinks during the eclipse period. And newborns should not be exposed to the rays.

Everyday activities that should be avoided during the time of the eclipse are sleeping, conjugal relations, swimming, holding meetings and weddings and all religious or special events.

To ward off the negative rays of the sun, people can use kusha or dharba grass (holy grass used in Hindu rituals). To mitigate the ill effects of the eclipse, the grass should be used as a cushion or placed on the bed and pillow, used in food and beverages, put in vehicles and by the main doorway of the house. (Dharba’s scientific name is Desmostachya bipinnata; in Australia, its common name is halfa grass and in the US, it is known as big cordgrass or salt reed-grass).

After the eclipse, people should wash and clean their houses to remove all “harmful energies” that would have set in and offer prayers.

Although the Jan 26 lunar eclipse is only partial and not like the total eclipse that occurred on Aug 1 2008, people should be careful. The next total eclipse will take place on July 22 and will be visible in India, Nepal, China, Hawaii, and the Pacific Ocean.

This solar eclipse will be the longest total solar eclipse that will occur in the 21st century and will last for up to 6 minutes and 39 seconds.

Scientists find new creatures of Australian deep

Scientists said Sunday they had uncovered new marine animals in their search of previously unexplored Australian waters, along with a bizarre carnivorous sea squirt and ocean-dwelling spiders.

A joint US-Australian team spent a month in deep waters off the coast of the southern island of Tasmania to "search for life deeper than any previous voyage in Australian waters," lead researcher Ron Thresher said.

What they found were not only species new to science -- including previously undescribed soft corals -- but fresh indications of global warming's threat to the country's unique marine life.

"Our sampling documented the deepest known Australian fauna, including a bizarre carnivorous sea squirt, sea spiders and giant sponges, and previously unknown marine communities dominated by gooseneck barnacles and millions of round, purple-spotted sea anemones," Thresher said.

Using a submersible car-sized robot named Jason, the team explored a rift in the earth's crust known as the Tasman Fracture Zone, a sheer two kilometre (1.24 mile) drop to 4,000 metres (13,200 feet) below the ocean's surface.

- AFP

Video - Panasonic Toughbook CF-M34 10" Touchscreen Laptop

Information about Coconut Water

The English name coconut, first mentioned in English print in 1555, comes from Spanish and Portugese word coco, which means "monkey face." Spanish and Portugese explorers found a resemblance to a monkey's face in the three round indented markings or "eyes" found at the base of the coconut. On the Nicobar Islands of the Indian Ocean, whole coconuts were used as currency for the purchace of goods until the early part of the twentieth century.

Coconuts are the fruit of the coconut palm, botanically known as cocos nucifera, with nucifera meaning "nut-bearing." The fruit-bearing palms are native to Malaysia, Polynesia and southern Asia, and are now also prolific in South America, India, the Pacific Islands, Hawaii and Florida. The light, fibrous husk allowed it to easily drift on the oceans to other areas to propagate. In Sanskrit, the coconut palm is known as kalpa vriksha, meaning "tree which gives all that is necessary for living," since nearly all parts of the tree can be used in some manner or another. The coconut itself has many food uses, including milk, meat, sugar and oil as well as functioning as its own dish and cup. The husk was also burned for fuel by natives, but today a seed fibre called coir is taken from the husk and used to make brushes, mats, fishnets, and rope. A very potent fermented toddy or drink is also made from the coconut palm's sap. Coconut oil, a saturated fat made from dried coconut meat, is used for commercial frying and in candies and margarines, as well as in non-edible products such as soaps and cosmetics.

Although it takes up to a year for coconuts to mature, the trees bloom up to thirteen times a year, so fruit is constantly forming yielding a continuous harvest year-round. An average harvest from one tree runs about 60 coconuts, with some trees yielding three times that amount. The coconut's name is a bit of a misnomer, since it is botanically classified as a drupe and not a nut. It is the largest seed known.

If you've ever opened a fresh coconut, you will have seen the thin, opaque almost clear coconut juice or water which has a slight almond flavor. Contrary to popular belief, this is not the coconut milk. However, the water is consumed as a drink fresh from the coconut by many, and it can also be used in recipes.

Here is some information about Coconut Water:

"It's a natural isotonic beverage, with the same level of electrolytic balance as we have in our blood. It's the fluid of life, so to speak." In fact, during the Pacific War of 1941-45, both sides in the conflict regularly used coconut water - siphoned directly from the nut - to give emergency plasma trasfusions to wounded soldiers.

Most coconut water is still consumed fresh in tropical coastal areas - once exposed to air, the liquid rapidly loses most of its organoleptic and nutritional characteristics, and begins to ferment.



Coconut Water is More Nutritious than whole milk - Less fat and NO cholesterol!


Coconut Water is More Healthy than Orange Juice - Much lower calories


Coconut Water is Better than processed baby milk- It contains lauric acid, which is present in human mother's milk


Coconut water is naturally sterile -- Water permeates though the filtering husk!


Coconut water is a universal donor-- Its identical to human blook plasma


Coconut Water is a Natural Isotonic Beverage - The same level we have in our blood.


Coconut water has saved lives in 3rd world countries thru Coconut IV.
"Coconut water is the very stuff of Nature, biologically Pure, full of Natural Sugars, Salts, and Vitamins to ward off fatigue... and is the next wave of energy drinks BUT natural!", according to Mortin Satin, Chielf of the United Nation's Food & Agriculture Organization.

Coconut water contains more potassium (at about 294 mg) than most sports drinks (117 mg) and most energy drinks.

Coconut water has less sodium (25mg) where sports drinks have around 41mg and energy drinks have about 200 mg!

Coconut water has 5mg of Natural Sugars where sports and energy drinks range from 10-25mg of Altered Sugars.

Coconut water is very high in Chloride at 118mg, compared to sports drinks at about 39mg.

Data is based on a 100ml drink.

Macbook from Apple

The biggest news that emerged from Apple’s September announcement wasn’t Steve Job’s health, but rather the company’s brand new line of redesigned Macbook notebook computers.

Mac fans everywhere have been waiting for an update of the popular Apple notebook for years and at long last, their wait is over.

Big changes

The biggest change you will find in the new Macbook is that the version has an aluminum chassis, similar to that of the higher-end Macbook Pro.

The Macbook is a solid block of aluminium carved from inside out to form the shape of the notebook with the components neatly tucked inside — an aesthetically pleasing design indeed.

The new Macbook is a solidly built ­notebook that not only looks great but it feels thinner and lighter than its predecessor.

While it is slightly slimmer, I can’t say that it was easy to carry around as it did feel heavy in my backpack as I lugged it around from place to place.

Other improvements include a large ­multi-touch trackpad that removes the single button and integrates the click button below the trackpad. Essentially this means you can click anywhere on the trackpad to engage the button.

Aside from it being big, another more subtle change in the trackpad is its new touch-based gestures that we first saw on the Macbook Air in January.

What this essentially allows users to do is navigate with their finger gestures. While the two-finger sliding motion for scrolling down pages is commonplace, there are other more cool gestures that nicely integrate with the Mac OSX.

For instance, placing four fingers on the trackpad and sliding it up and down will give you the ability to engage Exposé or hide all running applications. You can also switch between running applications using the App Switcher by flicking four fingers to left or right.

The new trackpad is fairly accurate in detecting where you point your finger and it is a joy to use with such a large surface area to move around.

In fact, I found the trackpad so usable that rarely I found a need to use a mouse save for performing delicate tasks like correcting an image on Photoshop.

Simply striking

A strikingly attractive glossy 13in LCD screen (1,280 x 800pixel resolution) covered by a single sheet of glass, dominates the Macbook’s interior.

Both pictures and text look brilliantly clear, colourful and sharp on the screen and it was a plesure to read webpages. Even in the dark, the screen is very visible thanks to its LED backlighting to keep it bright while ­consuming less power.

While I had no trouble using the Macbook indoors, using it outdoors proved to be quite difficult with all sorts of things reflecting back on the screen, making it difficult to view what I was reading or typing. Suffice to say, it is advisable to do your work indoors with the Macbook.

Another notable change to the interior portion of the Macbook are the keys, which now bear more resemblance to the Macbook Air with jet black keys that light up in the dark. While typing this review I found the keys were well-spaced and comfortable to type on.

The inclusion of shortcut keys on the top row of keys make it easy to access various features such as widgets, Expose and media playback functions.

All the Macbook’s connectivity ports — two USB ports, Ethernet port as well as a headphone and microphone jack occupy the left side of the Macbook.

Some of the things you may notice missing from the usual line of ports is a Firewire port and VGA-out port.

Firewire users may need to stick to their older Macbooks if they are still keen on using their cables.

Another new addition is the use of a Mini Display port to link your Macbook to project images on a bigger monitor. The drawback to this is that the various extension cables for VGA and DVI-out are sold separately.

The Macbook has an above-average battery performance. I were able to get three hours of power, which is pretty decent for a notebook this size.

One cool feature we liked is how the Macbook has its own built-in battery indicator located on the left side of the notebook. There’s a small button with some tiny LED lights, indicating how much battery power is left in the notebook.

Although it’s a bit small, it’s still a useful tool to have.

Performance

Looking at the hardware side of things, the new Macbook runs on the standard Intel Core 2 Duo processor, with two stock variations one with a 2GHz chip and another with a 2.4GHz chip. Both variations come standard with 2GB of DDR3 RAM that’s expandable up to 4GB.

The processor holds up pretty well while multitasking with different applications running in the background.

We put the Macbook through the paces, using it for some web surfing, watching YouTube videos and playing a DVD movie on the notebook’s optical drive while typing this review.

In the end, I have to say I was pretty impressed that the Macbook was able to do all this without even slowing down.

Storage doesn’t prove to be an issue on the Macbook either, as you get a minimum of 160GB and a maximum of 250GB (found in the 2.4Ghz model).

The Macbook can alternatively be fitted with a smaller and faster, 128GB solid-state drive — however the trade-off is the significantly higher cost.

If you are looking to do more than just web surfing on the Macbook, you are in luck. Apple has done away with the old Intel integrated graphics chip and have instead equipped all new Macbooks with an nVidia GeForce 9400M chip, which gives the Macbook the added power to perform tasks typically reserved for the desktop such as playing games as well as performing some video/photo-editing.

Conclusion

After spending a few days using the Macbook, I have to say that I came away impressed.

On the surface, the new Macbook is a stunner that is sure to catch the eye of any gadget enthusiast.

I also like the inclusion of the bigger trackpad with touch gestures, which makes things like browsing webpages to simple tasks of navigating around the notebook a breeze.

In terms of performance, it’s hard not to like the Macbook. It’s a solid performer and packs enough punch to handle basic games and video/photo-editing applications.

However, there are a few issues that prevent the Macbook from earning a ­maximum score. For one, the screen is overly glossy to the point that it is just too difficult to use outdoors no thanks to the reflections.

Also, the lack of any VGA or DVI-out port forces users to purchase them separately.

Nevertheless, the new Macbook is worth considering as it manages to strike the right balance between power, looks and portability.

Pros: Excellent new design; multitasking is not a problem; decent battery life; big ­trackpad with touch-gesture support.

Cons: Lacks VGA and DVI-out port; screen is too glossy for outdoor use.

MACBOOK

(Apple)

Portable notebook

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (2.4GHz)

Memory: 2GB DDR3 RAM

Graphics: nVidia GeForce 9400M with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM

Display: 13.3in

Storage: 250GB

Connectivity: WiFi 802.11n, 10/100 Ethernet port,

Optical Drive: 8x slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD-R DL/DVD-RW/CD-RW)

I/O ports: Two USB ports, Mini Display port (extension for VGA and DVI sold ­separately), headphone/microphone combo jack

Other features: Built-in iSight webcam

Operating system: Mac OSX Leopard

Dimensions (w x d x h): 32.5 x 22.7 x 2.41cm

Weight: 2.04kg

Price: RM5,899

Review unit courtesy of Apple Malaysia, (03) 2711-1888

Beware of Wrong Messages, Bulletins, Comments and Testimonials in Friendster

IF YOU ARE RECEIVING WRONG MESSAGES AND BULLETINS...

You probably got a message from one of your friend saying you'd been filmed and consist of a few letters in title (i.e: LOL, OHHH, WOW, etc) and contains a line of comment over a hyperlink that you tried opening but can't get through. Well, by doing that you're not only posting an automatic message to some of your friends but risking your computer for potential virus too....

When you click the link then you find nothing but a prank website. Sometime you'll receive a message from a friend whom stated that she never send any video to her friends and find out what's wrong with that kind of short message and why she felt that someone hijacked her account. Be more careful when you receive any message without clear subject and please not to blame anyone who sent it because the massage is sent without the knowledge of that particular person.

So be aware of these messages and try to ignore or delete them or disable your auto comments from your settings. These people are could be hackers and spammers using manual or automated system to spam everyone who are mimicking Youtube's URL web page using an automated

IF YOU ARE RECEIVING INAPPROPRIATE COMMENTS AND TESTIMONIALS...
Right now spammers are posting automatic comments with the video of a sexy girl, porn images or luring you that you can earn money and if you tried opening it you'll post the exact same comment to some of your random friends...In addition, if you receive a comment and/or message that has a video with a link that takes you to what looks like a Friendster log-in page delete the comment and do not use the log-in link.

Someone has phished the account it came from and is trying to phish yours.
Using the log-in link will give them your log-in info and access to your account to do whatever they want.

To help prevent this. We're asking everyone to repost this bullettin or send this message to all of your friends. With this we can have a much more better Friendster experience.

Friendster Team