Got friends? Now you can thank Facebook – “Despite a widespread belief that social networks like Facebook and Myspace are isolating people from other humans, a new study found that the social networks are more likely helping to expand social circles…”

A.I. Robots are autonomous and learn by experimentation – “XPERO’s A.I. is stored in Nao, an autonomous, programmable and medium-sized humanoid robot. This video demonstrates and explains very simple the complexity of the science declared A.I…”

Why We Need A New Road Rash – “It’s a series that started on the Sega Genesis, but really didn’t get good until the 3D0 version in 1994. The series reached its height with Road Rash 64 on the Nintendo 64. Unfortunately that’s also where the series ended. Developer Bottlerocket was working on a prototype for a modern Road Rash when the studio closed a few months ago. A new Road Rash isn’t just a cool idea; it’s something we need. And here’s why…”

Jump rope team (turn down the volume…)

High-performance plasmas may make reliable, efficient fusion power a reality – “In the quest to produce nuclear fusion energy, researchers from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility have recently confirmed long-standing theoretical predictions that performance, efficiency and reliability are simultaneously obtained in tokamaks, the leading magnetic confinement fusion device, operating at their performance limits. Experiments designed to test these predictions have successfully demonstrated the interaction of these conditions…”

Mathematicians find the formula for a hit film sequel – “Ever wondered why Spider-Man 2 triumphed and Basic Instinct 2 bombed? Now a group of academics have come up with a mathematical formula to predict the fortunes of a film sequel…”

Tough love ‘is good for children’ – “The think tank Demos says a balance of warmth and discipline improved social skills more than a laissez-faire, authoritarian or disengaged upbringing…”

Corvette vs. Lambo:

Resilient Space Internet Comes Down to Earth Gadgets with Android – “A new Internet protocol designed for interplanetary transmissions is bringing its delay-tolerant magic to Earth…”

Droid Battery Life Requires New Charging Habits – “The Droid invasion landed on Friday and so far the iPhone comparisons haven’t stopped. Customers showed up for midnight launches to be first to get the new Android 2.0 device, and Verizon stores haven’t had any issue burning through their inventory of the new phone. There is at least one other iPhone comparison that bears noticing, though–battery life…”

Watch the Walk and Prevent a Fall – “FALLS are so harmful to the elderly and so costly to society that if falling were a disease, it would be deemed an epidemic…”

The Recession’s Silver Lining – “How the semiconductor industry can use the recession to create the next technology renaissance…”

First film of a ‘giant’ stingray – “It is one of the rarest giants of the ocean, and it has been caught on film for the first time…”

Ants Are Friendly To Some Trees, But Not Others – “Tree-dwelling ants generally live in harmony with their arboreal hosts. But new research suggests that when they run out of space in their trees of choice, the ants can get destructive to neighboring trees…”

If You’re One In A Million…you’re not as special as you think you are – “If you’re one in a million in China, there are 1,300 people just like you…”

The atomic headache – “So it seems that nuclear has become entangled in the debate over America’s energy future with senate republicans calling for nuclear power to play a much larger role in the energy and climate bill. John Rowe, chief executive of Exelon—the biggest operator of nuclear plants in the country – has called for an inclusion of nuclear power in renewable-energy standards, which right now apply only to things like wind, solar, hydro-power, and biomass. This has set off a firestorm of debate on the role of nuclear in the American energy landscape…”

West Coast Green: Leading The Way In Green Tech! – “Having been involved in the environmental, energy saving and energy producing products industry for some 14 years now, oftentimes one gets the feeling that you have pretty much seen it all. So when I was invited to attend one of the world’s largest green conferences, “West Coast Green”, I jumped at the chance to see what was new and how things were being done or developed in the USA…”

Japan eyes solar station in space as new energy source – “It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan’s space agency is dead serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves…” Counterpoint: Space power?

Doomed Dome: The Future That Never Was – “One night in 1979 a group of its creative young city planners went to dinner and Mark Tigan, then the city’s 32-year-old director of community development and planning, decided that not enough attention was being paid to energy conservation. Then, in the way that only a few glasses of wine can facilitate brainstorming, someone said, half tongue-in-cheek, they should put a dome over the city…”

Betting on a Metal-Air Battery Breakthrough – “The company aims to build a Metal-Air Ionic Liquid battery that has up to 11 times the energy density of the top lithium-ion technologies for less than one-third the cost. Cody Friesen, a professor of materials science at Arizona State and founder of Fluidic Energy, says the use of ionic liquids overcomes many of the problems that have held back metal-air batteries in the past. “I’m not claiming we have it yet, but if we do succeed, it really does change the way we think about storage,” says Friesen, who was named one of Technology Review’s top innovators under 35 in 2009…”

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