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Lunar Eclipse December 2010 | Lunar Eclipse December | Lunar Eclipse 2010 , This December the Lunar Eclipse December 2010 the Lunar Eclipse December 2010 take place on December 20 -21-2010 and the end of the total eclipse will be visible rising at sunset for japan and northeastern Asia so the Lunar Eclipse December 2010 the first was partial Lunar Eclipse December 2010

A total lunar eclipse will take place on December 20/21, 2010. It will be visible after midnight Eastern Standard Time on December 21 in North and South America. The beginning of the total eclipse will be visible from northern Europe just before sunrise. The end of the total eclipse will be visible rising at sunset for Japan and northeastern Asia, it also appears very visible to the Philippines just after sunset (as in Partial lunar eclipse). It will be the first total lunar eclipse in nearly 3 years, the last being on February 20, 2008.

It is the second of two lunar eclipses in 2010. The first was a partial lunar eclipse on June 26, 2010. It is also called the Christmas lunar eclipse. It will be the first total lunar eclipse to occur on the day of the Winter Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere; Summer in the Southern) since 1638.

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Florida scientists capture X-rays from lightning | Florida capture X-rays from lightning , Today the big news is that Florida scientists capture X-rays from lightning wowwww what a news is this in which Florida scientists capture X-rays from lightning.

Researchers for the first time have captured X-ray images of lightning, a feat that they hope will help them better predict how lightning moves.

A team from the Florida Institute of Technology and University of Florida launched small rockets into thunderclouds during the summer. Using a special camera, the researchers recorded X-rays coming from the resulting light flashes before they hit the ground.

The scientists presented their work Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Scientists have known that lightning emits X-rays, but they don’t fully understand it. – AP

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Protein reversed memory loss in AlzheimerProtein reversed memory loss in Alzheimer’s mice’s mice, Boosting levels of a memory-related protein reversed memory loss in mice with Alzheimer’s disease, a finding that could lead to new approaches to treating people, US researchers said on Monday.

They said raising levels of CREB-binding protein (CBP) — a protein needed to create long-term memories — improved memory in mice bred to develop Alzheimer’s, a fatal brain-wasting disease that affects memory, thinking, behavior and the ability to handle daily activities.

“We can reverse the learning and memory deficits by increasing the level of this protein called CBP,” said Salvatore Oddo of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, whose study appears in the in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

He said boosting CBP in mice restores activity of a protein called CREB and increases levels of yet another protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF, proteins needed to develop long-term memory.

“In a mouse that develops symptoms like Alzheimer’s disease, these proteins are not activated,” Oddo said in a telephone interview. “They may account for the memory impairment in these mice.”

Oddo’s team used a harmless virus to deliver the protein, and then tested learning in memory in the mice using a classic water maze test, in which mice must learn to find an exit platform hidden in a basin of milky liquid.

Alzheimer’s mice that had been given the protein performed as well as healthy mice.

“They showed no memory problems whatsoever. They learned the task they were supposed to learn, and when we probed for memory, they remembered what they learned the day before,” Oddo said.

Alzheimer’s mice given a placebo struggled to learn and remember the task.

Most drugs being developed for Alzheimer’s disease focus on halting or removing an excess buildup of a protein called amyloid beta, which destroys synapses, the sites where brain cells share information.

Enhancing CBP would not alter amyloid beta, but it might make memory formation more efficient.

“Pharmaceutical companies could theoretically work toward finding a new drug that may facilitate the expression of this CBP protein,” he said.

The work is early and the findings would have to be replicated in other labs and eventually in people, but new treatment approaches are important given that no current drugs have been shown to delay progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s affects 26 million people worldwide and costs $604 billion to treat. – Reuters

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Square: A New Way To Pay, Normally when you shop around the Web or at physical locations around your city, you don’t think twice before flashing your credit/debit card and swiping it to get cleared. Plastic money, as it has been popularised, has almost become the ubiquitous way of payments world over. Now this is all set to change. One of the ways this is being explored, researched and talked about is Near Field Communications. Nokia C7 and the latest Android phone, Nexus S come with NFC chips – all they need is developers to write apps and get going with it. While NFC takes some time to take off, we have had someone working on a new way to pay. And that is none other than the co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey.
This new service called ‘Square’ has been adopted by a few start-ups in San Francisco area and Dorsey aims to target all the 30 million small business owners in the US alone. Users need to download the free app and apply for the plastic reader separately, which is free of cost. The service will only work with iOS 9 (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) or Android devices.

Once the device has been plugged-in into the headphone socket of your phone, to make payment you need to swipe your customers card through the ‘Square’ plug-in. The square reads the card information using its in-built microphone. Customer authenticates the payment using his fingerprints on the touchscreen and chooses to receive a receipt via a text or e-mail. The payments are done – next shop!

But how does ‘Square’ make money in this whole convenience game? It charges a flat rate of 2.75 pc per transaction from vendors. However, this rate varies with different card companies. Vendors would be compelled to change to this new system since it is a cheaper option than the traditional swipe machines. Plus there are setup fees and monthly fees that are a liability – Square does not need to be ‘installed’ as such and can be carried anywhere.

The idea of making such a device came to Dorsey when his friend and Twitter co-founder Jim McKelvey called to tell him that he could not collect payment from a customer because he was out of cash! In the US, almost all of the spending folks shop without much cash in hand and there was no way Jim could have collected his payment using the customers card. It struck with Dorsey that Jim having a mini-computer like iPhone and not being able to collect payments sounded almost ridiculous. That was it, and he decided to work on the idea.

The only possible downside to this service is Web failure. In case, a merchant terminal malfunctions or the phone line goes dead, there are people who can fix it for you. But with Square, all of the system runs on the Web and Square might not be responsible for a ‘Web failure’ with you. However, the founder is working on fixing this issue.

Dorsey plans to make this service a ‘US-exclusive’ only for now, but international expansion plans are on being considered.

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