From Grunting To Gabbing: Why Humans Can Talk

Most of us do it every day without even thinking about it, yet talking is a uniquely human ability. Not only do humans have evolved brains that process and produce language and syntax, but we also can make a range of sounds and tones that we use to form hundreds of thousands of words.

To make these sounds — and talk — humans use the same basic apparatus that chimps have: lungs, throat, voice box, tongue and lips. But we're the ones singing opera and talking on the phone. That is because over thousands of years, humans have evolved a longer throat and smaller mouth better suited for shaping sound.

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Air Force Launches Secretive Space Plane

The Air Force launched a secretive space plane into orbit Thursday night from Cape Canaveral, Florida. And they’re not sure when it’s returning to Earth.

Perched atop an Atlas V rocket, the Air Force’s unmanned and reusable X-37B made its first flight after a decade in development shrouded in mystery; most of the mission goals remain unknown to the public.

The Air Force has fended off statements calling the X-37B a space weapon, or a space-based drone to be used for spying or delivering weapons from orbit. In a conference call with reporters, deputy undersecretary for the Air Force for space programs Gary Payton acknowledged much of the current mission is classified. But perhaps the most intriguing answer came when he was asked by a reporter wanting to cover the landing as to when the X-37B would be making its way back to the planet.

“In all honesty, we don’t know when it’s coming back for sure,” Payton said.

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NASA and GM Take a Giant Leap Forward in Robotics

High School Inventors Design for the Future: 2010

This past weekend, high school students from all over the country gathered at California's NASA Ames Research Center to meet their brilliant peers, present their groundbreaking research -- and chat with interested venture capitalists on the side.

The potential investors hovering in the background are one indication that the Conrad Spirit of Innovation Awards Summit, founded in honor of former astronaut Pete Conrad, isn't your average science fair. Instead of just trophies, winners are presented with grant money they can use to turn their projects into commercial reality (top winners in each category receive $5,000; all finalists receive $1,000 in matching grants).

This year's competition included entries in four different categories: Aerospace, Renewable Energy, Green Building, and Space Nutrition. Here are the grand prize winners.

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Agency hopes to get a flying car airborne by 2015

DARPA didn't reveal much at first about its "Transformer TX" program aimed at developing a flying car for the military. But now the full proposal has been published, and shows that the Pentagon agency hopes to get a prototype airborne by 2015, The Register reports.

The mad scientists want a vertical-takeoff vehicle that handles like an off-road-capable SUV on the ground, and can cruise like a light single-engine aircraft at altitudes of up to 10,000 feet.

Size limits for the design come to about two nose-to-tail Hummers, The Register calculates. That's roomy enough for four fully-equipped troops, or one stretcher and one medic.

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Chinese Government to Build 215-MPH Bullet Trains in California

The US has looked to China for help building railroads ever since Chinese laborers laid down the tracks for the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s. Now, California hopes a partnership with the Middle Kingdom can do for 21st Century high-speed rail what that far less pleasant 19th Century "partnership" did for the Transcontinental Railroad. America's most populous state and the world's most populous country have already signed preliminary agreements on the Chinese government building bullet trains on the West Coast, with Governor Schwarzenegger hoping to visit China later this year to further develop the project.

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Let's keep comment as free as possible

I believe that "unregulated political comment online helps the democratic process" – Lord knows something should be done. Only 13% of the public trust politicians to tell the truth. Seven people in 10 believe the present system of governing Britain needs improvement. The democratic process in this country needs help.

Unregulated political comment online – and everywhere else for that matter – helps the democratic process.

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Obama: Health care bill is a 'first step'

As difficult as it was, passing the health care bill is only "a critical first step" in overhauling the system so that it "works for all Americans," President Obama told NBC's Today show.

"It is not going to be the only thing," Obama told Matt Lauer. "We are still going to have adjustments that have to be made to further reduce costs."

Continued

Large Hadron Collider – Live!

The waiting is over. The world's largest, most powerful particle accelerator goes into action this morning. The hunt for new particles, forces and dimensions starts here.

Good morning and welcome to the Guardian's live coverage of the Large Hadron Collider's second launch

Go to live blogging

How robots think: an introduction

A future full of helpful robots, quietly going about their business and assisting humans in thousands of small ways, is one of technology's most long-deferred promises. Only recently have robots started to achieve the kind of sophistication and ubiquity that computing's pioneers originally envisioned. The military has hundreds of UAVs blanketing the skies above Iraq and Afghanistan, and Roombas are vacuuming living rooms across the country. At the bleeding edge, there's the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005. This grueling, 140-mile, no-humans-allowed race through the desert showcased full-sized, completely autonomous robot cars that could navigate across rugged desert terrain, avoiding rocks and cliffs and cacti in a race for a $2 million cash prize. The follow-on 2007 Urban Challenge went even further, with the robotic competitors required to drive alongside humans on crowded roads, recognizing and avoiding other cars and following the rules of the road. Suddenly, the robotic future doesn't look so far off.

Much more to read

8 Of The World's Most Popular High-Speed Trains

The Obama Administration recently allocated money for high-speed train projects across the nation. Here at HuffPost Green, we think high speed rail is totally awesome, and we hope to see many great rail projects across the country. The definition of high-speed rail varies across the world, with the US Federal Railroad Administration defining it as a train that exceeds speeds of 110 mph, while other countries set the standard much higher. Many places in the world are way ahead of us on rail projects, but they certainly give us something to aspire to. Take a look at some of the world's most popular high-speed trains, and let us know which you like best!

See photos!

Precursors of Life-Enabling Molecules in Orion Nebula

The Herschel Space Observatory has revealed the chemical fingerprints of potential life-enabling organic molecules in the Orion Nebula, a nearby stellar nursery in our Milky Way galaxy. The European Space Agency leads the Herschel mission with important participation from NASA.

This detailed-spectrum, obtained with the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) - one of Herschel's three innovative instruments - demonstrates the gold mine of information that Herschel-HIFI will provide on how organic molecules form in space.

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Internet overtakes print in news consumption among Americans

The Internet has surpassed newspapers as a primary way for Americans to get news, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. That makes the Internet the third most popular news platform overall, with many connected users taking advantage of nontraditional consumption methods such as social media postings, personalized news feeds, and getting their news on-the-go.

National and local TV stations still dominate the news cycle for most Americans, but the Internet now stands third in the list, ahead of national and local newspapers. Additionally, the majority of news consumers say they use two to five websites per day to get their fix—a number we think sounds about right—but a surprisingly high number (21 percent) rely on that one favorite site to get everything they need.

Full piece

Gallery: Robonaut2, NASA's Latest Android Astronaut

Introducing Robonaut2

NASA

 

R2 was developed through a Space Act Agreement by NASA and General Motors. It is faster, more dexterous and more technologically advanced than its predecessors and able to use its hands to do work beyond the scope of previously introduced humanoid robots. 

See slideshow here

Space Station Astronauts Finally Get Room With a View

The astronauts of the International Space Station will finally have a room with a view -- a real view of the splendor just outside their ship.

Two spacewalkers from the visiting space shuttle Endeavour, Robert Behnken and Nicholas Patrick, helped install the final large component on the station overnight. It is a 23-foot-long cylindrical chamber called the Tranquility Node -- but of most interest to astronauts, perhaps, is that on its side will be mounted a six-foot-wide windowed dome called the Cupola.

"It looks really good, nice and smooth coming in there," Behnken said as he watched the Tranquility module, steered by the station's robot arm, move from the shuttle's cargo bay to a docking port at one end of the 300-foot-long orbiting complex.

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Laser fusion test results raise energy hopes

A major hurdle to producing fusion energy using lasers has been swept aside, results in a new report show.

The controlled fusion of atoms - creating conditions like those in our Sun - has long been touted as a possible revolutionary energy source.

However, there have been doubts about the use of powerful lasers for fusion energy because the "plasma" they create could interrupt the fusion.

An article in Science showed the plasma is far less of a problem than expected.

The report is based on the first experiments from the National Ignition Facility (Nif) in the US that used all 192 of its laser beams.

Along the way, the experiments smashed the record for the highest energy from a laser - by a factor of 20.

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Iraq war was illegal, Dutch panel rules

The war in Iraq had "no basis in international law", a Dutch inquiry found today, in the first ever independent legal assessment of the decision to invade.

In a series of damning findings, a seven-member panel in the Netherlands concluded that the war, which was supported by the Dutch government following intelligence from Britain and the US, had not been justified in law.

"The Dutch government lent its political support to a war whose purpose was not consistent with Dutch government policy," the inquiry in the Hague concluded. "The military action had no sound mandate in international law."

Full Story

Superfast Bullet Trains Are Finally Coming to the U.S.

Believe it: Bullet trains are coming. After decades of false starts, planners are finally beginning to make headway on what could become the largest, most complicated infrastructure project ever attempted in the US. The Obama administration got on board with an $8 billion infusion, and more cash is likely en route from Congress. It’s enough for Florida and Texas to dust off some previously abandoned plans and for urban clusters in the Northeast and Midwest to pursue some long-overdue upgrades. The nation’s test bed will almost certainly be California, which already has voter-approved funding and planning under way. But getting up to speed requires more than just seed money. For trains to beat planes and automobiles, the hardware needs to really fly. Officials are pushing to deploy state-of-the-art rail rockets. Next stop: the future.

Full piece has history of bullet trains.

Bounties for War Criminals:

We Should Not 'Move On' from Mass Murder

All those who believe in justice should campaign for their governments to stop messing about and allow the international criminal court to start prosecuting the crime of aggression. We should also press for its adoption into national law. But I believe that the people of this nation, who re-elected a government that had launched an illegal war, have a duty to do more than that. We must show that we have not, as Blair requested, "moved on" from Iraq, that we are not prepared to allow his crime to remain unpunished, or to allow future leaders to believe that they can safely repeat it.

Full piece here

The medical milestones of the noneties

In 2000, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair jointly announced that a working draft of the human genome had been completed, paving the way for genetic tests and new treatments for cancer, diabetes, heart disease and even obesity.

So a decade on, has it lived up to its promise? And what are the other advances and milestones in medicine that have defined the past ten years?

Sir Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, says the work on the human genome project is beginning to realise some "fantastically important" results.

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Moon hole might be suitable for colony

CNN) -- Building a home near a moon crater or a lunar sea may sound nice, but moon colonists might have a much better chance of survival if they just lived in a hole.

That's the message sent by an international team of scientists who say they've discovered a protected lunar "lava tube" -- a deep, giant hole -- that might be well suited for a moon colony or a lunar base.

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