Are There Echoes From The Pre-Big Bang Universe? A Search For Low Variance Circles In The CMB SkyAstronomers Find First Evidence Of Other UniversesElegant New Theory Explains Origin Of Asteroid BeltPhysicists are of short memory (it helps them in reinventing of theories again and again, not to say about asking of money for further research). Before some time the dodecahedron universe model was quite popular and it leads into similar structures in CMBR distribution, too. IMO these concentric "circles" are rather nodes of emergent foam, i.e. vertices of docecahedron, thus being another evidence of E8 heterotic structure of Universe. Mr. Garret should extend his E8 theory to the cosmologic scale... But because these artifacts aren't formed with continuous circles, the opponents of Prof. Penrose have their truth, too. These circles just cannot be seen on the sky reliably. [Read the full article]

You don't need to remember 100 passwords if you have 1 rule set for generating them. One way to generate unique passwords is to choose a base password and then apply a rule that mashes in some form of the service name with it.I, for one, prefer not to have to go through any mental gymnastics when trying to figure out what password I used for a site. Instead, I rest easy knowing that my garbage password is vulnerable, and the rest relatively safe.Stanford has a nice little app that makes a hash of the combination of a personal password and the domain name of the site in question.  The link is http://crypto.stanford.edu/PwdHash/blekkodatacentersGawkerGooglehackerspasswordssecuritywebsitesYou don't need to remember 100 passwords if you have 1 rule set for generating them. [Read the full article]

Bone fixer: A liquid that solidifies into a bone-like material is injected into a model bone defect through a syringe.Credit: Thomas WebsterToday, a broken hip usually means surgery and extensive rehab. But what if all you needed was an injection and a shorter recovery period? That's the vision that inspires Thomas Webster, an associate professor of engineering at Brown University.Webster has developed a nanomaterial that quickly solidifies at body temperature into a bone-like substance. This week, Brown announced a deal with medical device maker Audax Medical of Littleton, Massachusetts, to further develop the material and launch trials in animals.The material contains the same nucleic acids as DNA, Webster says. Each molecule has two covalent bonds and links with other molecules to form a tube. [Read the full article]

Bacteria begone: The bare substrate on the top is completely colonized by S. aureus bacteria after one hour submerged in blood plasma. The substrate on the bottom has layers of antibacterial coatings and is free of bacteria after the same exposure.Credit: JACS/ACSInfections resulting from joint-replacement surgeries are costly and potentially deadly. Now researchers at MIT are developing coatings for medical implants that can be loaded with multiple drugs, including antibiotics that are released over time. The process involves layering antibiotic films, which are released over the short term, onto a permanently antibacterial polymer designed to prevent infection over the long term.About one percent of knee and hip replacement surgeries result in infection; the number rises to three to five percent for second surgeries. [Read the full article]