Undead musicians for copyright extension, gender and grammar, Greg Benford’s solar sail concept, top-earning authors list, the evolution of altruism…

• 1 – Undead musicians demand copyright term extension
  “…there was an ad in the FT listing 4,000 musicians who supported retrospective term extension. If you read the list, you’ll see that at least some of these artists are apparently dead…”
  (tags: humour UK petition musicians dead protest extension term copyright property intellectual IP)
• 2 – You Like Spaceships, Computer Animation, Pounding Techno?
  Then the new Virgin Galactic ad will be the ultimate in pr0n for you.
  (tags: spacecraft animation advert tourism space Galactic Virgin)
• 3 – Gender Difference in Grammar
  “Men and women may process words differently because of different levels of the hormone estrogen, which is much higher in females and affects brain processing, according to Ullman.”
  (tags: processes brain development childhood difference gender neuroscience linguistics language)
• 4 – A Microwave-Beamed Sail for Deep Space
  “What got the Benfords headlines not so long ago was the speeds they were proposing. Five years or less to Pluto? That’s almost a halving of New Horizons’ travel time, and it makes for some intriguing conjecture indeed.”
  (tags: mission probe concept boost microwave sail solar Benford Greg technology science exploration space)
• 5 – Top-Earning Authors – Forbes.com
  “Tried and true, blue-chip authors ruled the shelves this year thanks to a spate of fall and winter releases from stalwarts like Stephen King, James Patterson and Bob Woodward.” A few surprises in there, though.
  (tags: income list ranking sales earnings top authors writers books publishing)
• 6 – 20 Lines That Could Have Dramatically Changed The Lord of the Rings
  Sam: “All right, Frodo, you’re getting way too attached to that ring, and we both know it. From now on, we stick that thing in a backpack and carry it in shifts.” David Louis Edelman gets his humour on.
  (tags: list humour literature movie genre fantasy Rings Lord LOTR)
• 7 – FlyWheel As Space Batteries
  “In space, flywheels could serve double duty, replacing both the batteries that would otherwise have to be carried and the “reaction wheels” that are often used to adjust attitude by taking up or giving back angular momentum.”
  (tags: engineering flywheels wheels reaction storage energy battery technology station space)
• 8 – Internet criminals signing up students as ’sleepers’
  “In some cases gangs offer to finance undergraduates’ studies and plant them as sleepers within target businesses, according to a report on cybercrime…” I remain to be convinced, but I guess this could be happening.
  (tags: industry sleepers students finance cybercrime organisations gangs criminal hacking crime internet)
• 9 – Why altruism paid off for our ancestors
  “Humans may have evolved altruistic traits as a result of a cultural “tax” we paid to each other early in our evolution, a new study suggests.”
  (tags: reciprocation networking society development culture altruism sociology evolution human)
• 10 – Rotary engine maker looks for clean-tech traction
  “The engine is an offshoot of the rotary design, which replaces the reciprocating motion of the piston with a single rotor that moves around an oval chamber.”
  (tags: vehicle technology efficiency fuel clean powerplant engineering engine rotary)
• 11 – Infoquake Mixes Business And SF
  “SF author David Louis Edelman said that his first novel, Infoquake, could be described as Dune meets The Wall Street Journal.” JJA interviews DLE.
  (tags: interview author writer business sf scifi fiction science Infoquake Edelman Louis David)