ANN ARBOR, Mich.— The right material wrapped around your car’s exhaust system could one day scavenge heat that would otherwise be wasted, turning it into energy to warm the cabin or recharge the battery. (more…)
*Waterways receiving nitrogen from human activities are significant source*
What goes in must come out, a truism that now may be applied to global river networks.
Human-caused nitrogen loading to river networks is a potentially important source of nitrous oxide emission to the atmosphere. Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change and stratospheric ozone destruction. (more…)
*Achim Berg, Microsoft’s vice president of business and marketing for Windows Phones, discusses the momentum, strengths and challenges of the company’s newly launched Windows Phone 7.*
REDMOND, Wash. – Dec. 21, 2010 – There is one phrase that Achim Berg uses repeatedly to describe the new Windows Phone 7.
“It’s a different kind of phone, fast and easy,” says Berg, vice president of business and marketing for Windows Phones. It’s a sentence he relates with enthusiasm daily, whether he’s giving a Windows Phone 7 demonstration to a large crowd, or showing off his phone to someone he’s just met. (more…)
*Beginning Dec. 25, customers can take advantage of a week’s worth of amazing deals*
SEATTLE, Dec 21, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.ca today announced that beginning Dec. 25, customers can take 
advantage of amazing Boxing Week promotions on everything from electronics and books to home and garden products and men’s watches. Beginning on Christmas Day, customers can explore The Deals Store (www.amazon.ca/deals) to find the full list of Boxing Week special promotions. Customers are encouraged to shop early as these offers are only available while supplies last. (more…)
Image credit: Carnegie Institution for Science
Washington, D.C.
— Scientists from all over the world are taking a second, more expansive, look at the car-sized asteroid that exploded over Sudan’s Nubian Desert in 2008. Initial research was focused on classifying the meteorite fragments that were collected two to five months after they were strewn across the desert and tracked by NASA’s Near Earth Object astronomical network.
Now in a series of 20 papers for a special double issue of the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science, published on December 15, researchers have expanded their work to demonstrate the diversity of these fragments, with major implications for the meteorite’s origin. (more…)
*Cyber Monday, Which Remains Only Billion Dollar Day on Record , Likely to Become Heaviest Spending Day of the Year for First Time*
RESTON, VA, December 19, 2010 – comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, today reported holiday season retail e-
commerce spending for the first 47 days of the November – December 2010 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $27.46 billion has been spent online, marking a 12-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week (week ending Dec. 17) reached $5.15 billion in spending, an increase of 14 percent versus the corresponding week last year, with four individual days surpassing $900 million, led by Green Monday (Monday, December 13) with $954 million and Free Shipping Day (Friday, December 17) with $942 million. Free Shipping Day achieved a 61-percent increase versus the corresponding shopping day last year, highlighting the appeal and success of the promotion in which more than 1,500 merchants offered free shipping. (more…)
Wind turbines in Midwestern farm fields may be doing more than churning out electricity. The giant turbine blades that generate renewable energy might also help corn and soybean crops stay cooler and drier, help them fend off fungal infestations and improve their ability to extract growth-enhancing carbon dioxide from the air and soil. (more…)
Web users around the globe will be able to help professional astronomers in their search for Earth-like planets thanks to a new online citizen science project called Planet Hunters that launched Dec. 16. at www.planethunters.org.
Planet Hunters, which is the latest in the Zooniverse citizen science project collection, will ask users to help analyze data taken by NASA’s Kepler mission. The space telescope has been searching for planets beyond our own solar system—called exoplanets—since its launch in March 2009. (more…)
