5 High Speed Trains that are Changing the Face of Rail – “From the bullet trains of Japan, to the latest high-speed, low emission networks of Europe, trains have got the airlines in many countries worried. Read on for some of the latest innovations, including a few more utilitarian freight trains too. And for rail fans in the US who bemoan this country’s lack lustre networks, there’s hope here too…”

Is someone in China reading your email? – “Rdepresentatives of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems were summoned before the House International Relations Committee to defend what Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) called a “sickening collaboration” with the Chinese government that was “decapitating the voice of the dissidents.”"

Compromising Reflections: How to read Computer Monitors around a Corner – “This project investigates a novel eavesdropping technique for spying at a distance on data that is displayed on an arbitrary computer screen, including the currently prevalent LCD monitors. Our technique exploits reflections of the screen’s optical emanations in various objects that one commonly finds in close proximity to the screen and uses those reflections to recover the original screen content. Such objects include eyeglasses, tea pots, spoons, plastic bottles, and even the eye of the user…”

Hubble Mystery Light Puzzles Astronomers – “Almost three years ago, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope were perusing a cluster of galaxies about eight billion light-years from Earth when they came upon a flash of light unlike anything they had seen before. “

NASA Detects Mystery Booming Sound In Deep Space, Origin Unknown – ” The universe really threw us a curve. Instead of the faint signal we hoped to find, here was this booming noise six times louder than anyone had predicted…”

EU to ban plasma televisions in battle against climate change – “The moves, which follow last week’s withdrawal of the 100W incandescent lightbulb, are part of a drive to slow the rapid growth of electricity consumption in homes by phasing out wasteful devices and introducing more efficient ones. Giant plasma televisions can consume four times as much energy as traditional TVs that used cathode ray tubes (CRTs)…”

RoboClam Smart Anchor – “Researchers in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Mechanical Engineering are developing the biomimetic RoboClam smart anchor. The RoboClam is a lightweight anchor that can be clamped, unclamped, and moved easily even in reverse (which can be quite difficult for traditional anchors)…”

20 awesome free OS downloads that aren’t Windows 7 – “For the last few days, Windows 7 is just about the only OS anyone has been talking about. I figured it was high time for us to share the love and take a look at some other interesting free, downloadable operating systems…”

Does Apple have anything to fear from the Palm Pre? – “With CES behind us, one of the biggest surprises was the announcement of the Palm Pre, Palm’s latest entry in the smartphone market. Designed in part by Jon Rubenstein, a former Apple executive, the Palm Pre is a multi-touch screen phone with a pull out QWERTY keyboard that some pundits think has the best chance of challenging Apple’s iPhone – but is there any truth to that statement?”

What To Wear At -78 Degrees – “On the show this morning, we interview a woman who lives in Tok, Alaska where the thermometer recently dropped to -78 degrees…”

Inside the Savant Mind: Tips for Thinking from an Extraordinary Thinker – “Daniel Tammet is the author of two books, Born on a Blue Day and Embracing the Wide Sky, which comes out this month. He’s also a linguist and holds the European record for reciting the first 22,514 decimal points of the mathematical constant Pi…”

Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age – “The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years…”

NVIDIA’s Ion Small Form-Factor PC Platform, Live From CES – “From what we’ve seen of Ion’s capabilities and the capabilities of products like the Asus N10Jc Netbook (built on Intel’s 945 chipset with discrete GeForce 9300M graphics), Ion should take the Netbook and Small Form-Factor Desktop game up a notch or three…”

Hyundai takes Detroit car-of-the-year award – “The Hyundai Genesis was named the 2009 North American Car of the Year, while Ford Motor Co’s F-150 was named truck of the year…”

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