…”Top-Down” Cosmology, 2nd Woman Ever to Pilot/Command Space Shuttle Assigned, Beagle Belle a Lifesaver, Goofy-Looking Car Goes 3K+ Miles on $5 of Gas, and More!!

Mission Control to Melroy: Good Luck as Commander
Air Force Col. Pamela Ann Melroy will become the second woman to command a space shuttle mission when her crew heads to the international space station next year, NASA announced earlier this week.

Melroy, 44, follows in the footsteps of Eileen Collins, who charted a groundbreaking career as the first woman to pilot and command a space shuttle. It will be the third shuttle mission for Melroy, who served as a pilot on shuttle flights in 2000 and 2002.

Melroy and five crewmembers will fly to the international space station aboard space shuttle Atlantis to deliver a module that eventually will connect to European and Japanese science laboratories, reports The Associated Press. The mission is tentatively slated for late summer 2007.

Hit the Shut-Off Switch, Lose $11 Million
A worker accidentally tripping a shut-off switch at an Ontario plastics plant will cost Nova Chemicals Corp. $11 million in lost profit, the company said on Wednesday, because it won’t be able to fulfill some contracts because of the blunder.

A contractor’s employee installing a structural steel platform at an ethylene plant in Corunna, Ontario, mistakenly activated a process shutdown switch on Monday afternoon, halting production and forcing two weeks of repairs at the facility, Reuters reports.

The Corunna plant is one of Canada’s largest plastics facilities, capable of supplying up to 40 percent of the country’s primary petrochemical market.

Because of the unexpected shutdown, Nova declared force majeure on shipments of propylene and some other products. The company said the outage and lost sales will shave profits by about $8 million in the second quarter and $3 million in the third.

3,145 Miles on $5 Worth of Gas (Can That Be Right?)
A team of engineering students from The University of British Columbia (UBC) has built a vehicle so efficient that it could travel from Vancouver to Halifax on a gallon of gasoline, reports PhysOrg.

The kidney-bean-looking, single-occupancy vehicle won top prize at the recent Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Supermileage Competition, wherein 40 teams from Canada, the U.S. and India competed in designing and building the most fuel-efficient vehicle.

Says Team Captain Kevin Li:

We achieved this level of efficiency by optimizing many aspects of the vehicle design, including: aerodynamics, light-weight construction, a small displacement engine (54 cc), and conservative driving habits.

The UBC design, which required the driver to lie down while navigating it, achieved 3,145 miles per US gallon (0.074 liters/100 km) — costing less than $5 at the pump.

Perhaps a Strongly Worded Letter is Due…
Go to yesterday’s Ask Yahoo! and you’ll find what Yahoo! considers some “unusual” graduate degrees offered by colleges and universities. In fact, as former IMT blogger Mark pointed out to us, you’ll find ‘em making fun of Industrial Hygiene and Packaging Science.

Says Yahoo!:

Several universities offer degrees in something called “Industrial Hygiene.” Although its name reminds us of 6th-grade Health class, the program actually focuses on environmental issues. Clemson and Michigan State University have programs in “packaging science.” Who knew assembling boxes required a graduate degree?

Jerks.

Top 10 Best Places for IT Pros to Work
For the 13th year in a row, Computerworld conducted a survey to identify the “100 Best Places to Work” for IT professionals, based on the following: organizations’ average salary and bonus increases; the percentage of IT employees receiving promotions; IT staff turnover rates; training and development opportunities; and the percentage of women and minorities in IT staff and management positions. Information was also collected on how the organizations reward outstanding performance, how their retention programs are structured and what benefits they offer. Here are the top 10 best places for IT professionals to work:

‘Quantum Mechanics Forbids a Single History’
While many scientists regard knowing how the universe began as one of the most profound mysteries of all, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking thinks the origin doesn’t even exist.

Hawking, of the University of Cambridge, UK, and his colleague Thomas Hertog of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, are about to publish a paper claiming that the Universe had no unique beginning. Instead, they argue, it began in just about every way imaginable (or unimaginable), reports the journal Nature.

“Out of this profusion of beginnings, the vast majority withered away without leaving any real imprint on the Universe we know today.” Hawking and Hertog claim that only a tiny fraction of them blended to make the current cosmos, which is “the only possible conclusion if we are to take quantum physics seriously.”

The researchers have coined their theory “top-down” cosmology, because instead of looking for some fundamental set of initial physical laws under which our Universe unfolded, starts “at the top,” with what we see today, and works backward to see what the initial set of possibilities might have been.

The theory comes in response to a problem raised by “string theory,” one of the best hopes for a theory of everything.

Perhaps we need Deep Thought, no? That is, if “42” doesn’t work for everyone.

Zap Away That Migraine!
A magnetic pulse technique originally developed to treat psychological disorders such as depression has been modified to zap away migraines before they can fully form, LiveScience reports.

In a recent study, researchers tested a device called a transcranial magnetic stimulator, or TMS, on a small group of 43 migraine sufferers.

The TMS generates a strong, one-millisecond magnetic pulse that interrupts the symptoms leading up to a migraine, called the “aura” phase. Many migraine sufferers report zigzagging lines or bright flashes of light in their vision during this phase, as well as spreading blind spots and tingling sensations in their arms and legs.

In the study, 74 percent of the people who used the TMS device reported feeling only mild or no headaches afterwards. The relief was often felt immediately. Ability to function at work after two-hours also improved, and no side effects were reported.

Beagle Belle a VIP: ‘Very Important Pooch’
A 17-pound beagle named Belle was in Washington, D.C., on Monday to receive an award for biting onto owner Kevin Weaver’s cell phone to call 911 after the diabetic man had a seizure and collapsed.

She was the first canine recipient to win the VITA Wireless Samaritan Award, given to someone who used a cell phone to save a life, prevent a crime or help in an emergency, reports The Associated Press.

“There is no doubt in my mind that I’d be dead if I didn’t have Belle,” said Weaver, 34, whose blood sugar had dropped dangerously low.

Belle had been trained to summon help in just those circumstances. Using their keen sense of smell, animals like Belle can detect abnormalities in a person’s blood-sugar levels. The dog periodically licks Weaver’s nose to take her own reading of his blood-sugar level. If something seems off to her, she will paw and whine at him.

Speaking of VIPs…

Robots on Patrol at World Cup 2006, Kinda Bored
The Berlin company Robowatch has developed two models of surveillance robots, and 11 units between the two patrol parking lots beneath Berlin’s Olympic Stadium and throughout a nearby football-sized field covered by tents holding the media, sponsors and VIPs at the World Cup in Germany.

Thus far, the robots have hardly had a chance to show off what they can do, reports AP.
The outdoor robot OFRO uses thermal cameras at night to spot intruders from their body heat. Similar to those used by the U.S. military as scouts in Iraq, the OFRO is capable of far more — with sensors equipped to detect radiation, toxins, viruses and chemical warfare agents. The robots get navigation help from GPS satellites and send pictures back to a central room in the stadium called the skybox. Via remote control, they can be sent to check out anything suspicious.

A second robot, MOSRO, uses mostly video cameras to catch intruders in the parking lots. It also has infrared and ultrasonic sensors.

The robots aren’t replacing any humans. Rather, they are simply augmenting the patrols.

“This is the first time robots like this have ever been used at a major sporting event,” Robowatch spokesman Benjamin Stengl said. “They haven’t caught anybody. They haven’t actually had much to do.”

The robots are bored? This is a good thing, no? This means the 2006 World Cup has been fairly safe.

Finally, and while we’re talking about the World Cup…

Betcha Wish ‘Ya Had One of These TVs
Well, as of yesterday, the United States is out of the 2006 World Cup. And while the remaining teams continue on to the next round in Germany, many of the fans are left without tickets to the matches. Here is Frankfurt’s solution for these fans: