Google Maps Driving Directions Add Street View Option
In the last year, some users of the Google Maps utility have been treated to numerous upgrades, including prediction-based traffic overlays and the Street View component. Google has now expanded the power of the software package to incorporate the Street View system into its long-standing engine for organizing driving directions. No longer will the blue line be the only way to navigate the streets of the US. Users in “44 regions across the country” can now view images stored within Street View to “have visual context for intersections and action points along their route, enabling them to be aware of landmarks and other factors such as tolls, speed limits, size of the road, and the availability of parking at their destination.”
This is the first really useful development I’ve seen of Google’s map features.

Cray and Intel Sign Pact to Build Petascale Computers
The two manufacturers said they hope to develop a range of technologies and high-performance computers over the next several years.
Wow!  Just yesterday, it seems, we were talking about reaching teraflop scale.

Race Is on to Advance Software for Chips
Three rival teams of computer researchers are working on new types of software needed to better use computer chips that can process many tasks at the same time.

Electronics makers to create home networking standard
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) – Several electronics manufacturers said Tuesday they are working to create a worldwide standard for how their devices will talk with each other in people’s homes.

Are world records linked to fastest swimsuit?
Italy’s Institute of Medicine and Science will study the relationship between the suits and the recent onslaught of world records.

Australian scientists develop apple that doesn’t go brown
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian scientists have come up with an apple that does not go brown when cut.

‘Emotional Inflation’ Leads To Stock Market Meltdown
ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2008) — Investors get carried away with excitement and wishful ‘phantasies’ as the stock market soars, suppressing negative emotions which would otherwise warn them of the high risk of what they are doing, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London). Economic models fail to factor in the emotions and unconscious mental life that drive human behaviour in conditions where the future is uncertain says the study, which argues that banks and financial institutions should be as wary of ‘emotional inflation’ as they are fiscal inflation.

Body Image Program Reduces Onset Of Obesity And Eating Disorders
ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2008) — Oregon Research Institute scientist Eric Stice, Ph.D. and his colleagues have found that their obesity prevention program reduced the risk for onset of eating disorders by 61 percent and obesity by 55 percent in young women. These effects continued for as long as 3 years after the program ended. In their research on eating disorders, Oregon Research Institute (ORI) scientists help young women reduce the influence of the “thin ideal,” which is described as associating success and happiness with being thin.

Drinking dulls the brain’s response to threats
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Drinking alcohol dulls the brain’s ability to detect threats, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday in a study that helps explain why people who are drunk cannot tell when the guy at the end of the bar is angling for a fight.

Medicare Costs Soar for Cancer Care
Expenditures will continue to rise as the population ages, experts say.
Or, they could find cheaper ways of fighting cancer.  Which is what they ARE doing—cheaper and more targeted ways to kill just the cancer.

Cervical Cancer Screens Effective But More Can Be Done
Women who don’t have timely tests 5 times more likely to be diagnosed with advanced disease

New genes for osteoporosis may help guide treatment
LONDON (Reuters) – Researchers looking for genes that raise the risk of osteoporosis found seven different sequences associated with the bone-thinning disease, and one team found two that might predict the risk for 20 percent of people.

DNA confirms IDs of czar’s children
MOSCOW – DNA tests carried out by a U.S. laboratory prove that bone fragments exhumed last year belong to two children of Czar Nicholas II, putting to rest questions about what happened to Russia’s last royal family, a regional governor said Wednesday.

Absinthe’s mind-altering mystery solved
An analysis of century-old bottles of absinthe — the kind once quaffed by the likes of van Gogh and Picasso to enhance their creativity — may end the controversy over what ingredient caused the green liqueur’s supposed mind-altering effects.

Israeli Satellite Reaches Orbit in Land Launch Debut
PARIS — Israel’s Amos-3 telecommunications satellite was placed successfully into geostationary orbit on Monday aboard the inaugural flight of the Russian-Ukrainian Land Launch system, setting the stage for what satellite-fleet operators hope will be a lively competition between Land Launch — affiliated with Sea Launch Co. of Long Beach, Calif. — and Russian Soyuz rockets launched from Europe’s equatorial spaceport.

Hubble mission: Big on safety, pressed for time
The astronauts who will make the next space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope say safety upgrades at NASA will make their flight safer but their job harder.

Long-lived storm rages on Saturn
A monster storm spawning bolts of lightning 10,000 times more powerful than any seen on Earth is raging on the ringed planet Saturn.

Huge Black Hole Catapulted Through Space
A colossal black hole has been spotted exiting its home galaxy, kicked out after a huge cosmic merger took place.

Young galaxies are a star-packed puzzle
Several newfound galaxies seen as they existed when the universe was young are packed with improbable numbers of stars. Astronomers don’t know what’s going on.