Star blast likely most distant object ever seen

This article talks about how scientists have detected the most distant explosion ever near the edge of the observable universe. The stellar blast was first spotted by a NASA satellite in April 2009, but researchers announced Wednesday that they have since gathered data placing it more than 13 billion light years away. This means that the explosion happened when the universe was still very young. Andrew Levan, one of the scientists behind the discovery, said this blast from the past blew open a window onto the universe's early years, showing that massive stars were already dying within the first few hundred million years of the birth of the universe. Scientists have said that the intensity of the explosion creates, in a few seconds, the same amount of energy expended by the sun in it's whole 10 billion year life span.

I think that it is quite amazing that scientists have discovered an explosion that is approximately 13 billion light years away. I mean 13 billion light years is a hard number to wrap your head around. It means that the light produced from the explosion took 13 billion years to reach the earth and it's traveling insanely fast. According to Wikipedia, which is always right, light travels at approximately 186,282 miles per second. This means that light could travel around the world about 7.5 times in one second. Also, in the article it talks about how the energy from the explosion in just a few seconds equaled all of the energy that has every been created by th sun and all of the energy that it will ever create in it's 10 billion year life span. All I have to say is, that there was one hell of an explosion 13 billion years ago!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/05/26/science-grb-swift-distant.html

Blind people echolocate with visual part of brain

This article talks about the how some people who are blind sense objects that are around them by using a technic known as echolocation. Echolocation is basically when a blind person makes clicking noises, which travel away from the mouth until they are deflected by objects back towards the person, to detect things that are around them. In a study, scientists have discovered that these blind people that use this technic use the part of their brain that people with vision use to see. Some people who use echolocation are so good at it that they can actually use it to hike, mountain bike, and even play basketball. They discovered that people use the seeing part of the brain, when they echolocate, by doing a test in which they measured the amount of oxygen consumption different parts of the brain have while performing specific tasks. The more oxygen a part of the brain uses the harder it is working. The last thing that the scientists discovered during the study is that when blind people use echolocation they actually don't really rely on their ears at all.

If seen shows about people who use echolocation to get around on a day to day basis and I find it to be quite amazing. I don't understand how it's even possible to sense what is in front of you by feeling echoes made a clicking sound that you made. The actually quite mind blowing. Anyways, it's also quite interesting how people use the seeing part of their brain while they echolocate. In a way it's kind of like they actually are seeing what's in front of them. I find it hard to believe that some blind people who are really good at echolocation could actually use their skill to go mountain biking and to play basketball. for me that's just a little to unbelievable. I mean I can barely play basketball with 20/20 vision.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/05/25/science-echolocation-blind.html

No internet in 1/5 Canadian homes

This article talks about how, many Canadians still don't have internet access in their homes. About a fifth of Canadian households, many among the poorest in the country, still have no internet access in 2010. Around forty six percent of people who are considered to be low class citizens, (people who make $30,000 or less) have no internet access at all, according to Statistics Canada's 2010 Internet Use Survey. Then in the high class level, (people who make $87,000 or more) only three percent of people lack internet access. The survey also discovered that older people are more likely not to have interest in have access to the internet. This can be explained because they have lived the majority of their lives without it and they have no interest in taking time to learn how to use it. One of the last things that the survey brought to light is that families with young kids and teenagers are far more likely to have internet access.

According to the survey one out of every five people in Canada don't have access to the internet. This really surprises me for a few reasons. First of all I live in a society that literally everyone has access to the internet pretty much 24/7 all year round. I guess it does make sense though that some older people just aren't interested in the internet because they have lived their entire lives without it, even though most of the older people that I know, such as my Opa, are on the internet all the time. Also I don't find it very surprising that lots of people who are considered lower class don't have access to the internet, probably due to the fact that it's just to expensive on a monthly basis. Over all though I am quite surprised that one out of every five Canadians don't have access to the internet.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/05/25/technology-internet-use-statistics-canada.html

Canadians' love of texting bigger than ever

This article talks about how texting has become ever more popular in Canada over the years. Canada is the birthplace of the Blackberry and mobile e-mail, and we're among the most obsessed users of Facebook and now texting. Texting is considered to be somewhat of an old-school form of electrical communication; it was first introduced in Canada in 2002 and it is now bigger than ever. According to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, 56.4 billion texts were sent in Canada in 2010, up 60 per cent from the 35.3 billion sent the previous year. Although Canada has so many different new ways of communicating people still seem to like texting more than anything else. "I think text messaging has a certain appeal just because it is so instant and so quick and all you have to know is a person's phone number," said association spokesman Marc Choma. Overall the article basically talks about how texting is one of the largest forms of communication in Canada and how it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

I'm quite surprised at the number of text messages sent in Canada in 2010. 56.4 billion is an extremely large number, that's about an average of 4.7 billion texts sent per month. Personally, I'm a big fan of texting my friends because it's probably the easiest way to communicate with somebody who isn't in the same room as you. I think the number of text messages sent in Canada is going to keep growing because more and more people are getting cell phones every year and texting isn't going to take a back seat to any other form of electronic communication.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/05/17/texting-canada-popularity.html

Fossil of a giant ant found in North America

This article talks about how a fossil of a giant ant has been found for the first time in North America. The same sort of fossils were found previously found in Europe and these giant ants have been said to have lived 50 million years ago. This winged queen ant was found and collected in the Green River Formation in Wyoming and some scientists believe that it is a new species. The giant ant is about the same size and mass of a small bird such as the hummingbird seen in the picture above. Bruce Archibald, a Simon Fraser University researcher, identified the ant and has said, "It's pretty impressive." Archibald, a specialist in fossils of insects, is leading the research project on the ant. Archibald has realized that the fossil closely resembles a giant ant species that lived in Germany during the Early Eocene period. This new North American species has been named Titanomyrma lubei. The fact that the ant fossils have been found in different continents shows that during the period in which these ant lied they must have found a way to travel from Europe to North America and back.

Personally, I find the fact that there used to be giant ants is rather scary. I can just imagine coming face to face with one of those things which would probably result in me running away as fast as I possibly could. It was said in the article that during the time that these ants lived the earth was in a tropical climate, which means it was very warm all around the world. This could explain how the ants traveled between North America and Europe. It could have been hot enough that the ocean could have been dried up enough to leave a pathway between continents. Another way to explain this travel is the fact that these giant ants had wings. For all we know the ants could have been able to fly around for days at a time. Overall though, I think the world is a better place with these giant ants extinct.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/05/06/science-giant-ant-archibald.html

Sony to restart Playstation Network

This article talks about how the Playstation network is being rebooted after being down for nearly a month. The server had been shut down on April 19 due to a security breach. Hackers had breached the security and had gained access to the personal information of over 77 million accounts world wide. This incident had been considered one of the biggest data breaches on record and Sony admits that the hackers likely gained access to names, addresses, and credit card information of the users of the Playstation network. The network has already started to function again in the Americas and it will continue to restart in Europe, Australia, New Zealand an the Middle East. The restart has been set to be completed on May 31.

I believe that the fact that the Playstation network was hacked shows just how inferior it is to Xbox live, which has never had any security breach problems. I'm sure that Sony has lost a lot of money due to this incident not only because the server was down, but because they are giving special 'welcome back' packages to all active users of the Playstation network. In the long run, Playstation has probably lost many current and future customers due to their lack of security in the Playstation network. It is scheduled to be back up around the world by May 31, with added security features such as extra firewalls.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/05/14/playstation-restoration.html

Getting bin Laden

This article talks about how Obama ordered a commando raid that ended up killing terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden. Obama said that the risks were outweighed by the possibilities. He also said that the helicopter raid "was the longest 40 minutes of my life," during an interview with 60 minutes. Obama and his personal aides knew what was happening during the raid, but they could not get clear information on what was actually happening in the compound itself. Obama has said that it was a very difficult decision to order the helicopter raid because they couldn't guarantee that Osama bin Laden was, in fact, in the compound. Obama has also stated that bin Laden must of had some sort of support network inside of Pakistan in order to stay hidden for so long. Bin Laden was hiding in a heavily guarded compound Abbottabad, a city with various Pakistani military bases, for years.

As we all know Osama bin Laden was the mastermind behind the devastating disaster known as 9/11. During this attack around 3,000 American citizens died. Because of this the American government has been tracking down bin Laden ever since. The fact that Osama bin Laden has been confirmed dead is very great news to the people of the United States and the world. Bin Laden was the leader of the Taliban and the fact that he's dead could result in less terrorist activity in the world. I wish I was as bad-ass as the Navy SEAL's that brought down bin Laden once and for all.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/05/08/bin-laden-wives.html