If An Autonomous Machine Kills Someone, Who Is Responsible?

The supercomputer Hal in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey embodies our worst fears about autonomous machines. Photograph: RGA

From The Guardian:

The Royal Academy of Engineering has published a report exploring the social, legal and ethical implications of ceding control to autonomous systems.

Within a decade, we could be routinely interacting with machines that are truly autonomous – systems that can adapt, learn from their experience and make decisions for themselves. Free from fatigue and emotion, they would perform better than humans in tasks that are dull, dangerous or stressful.

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Satellites Unlock Secret To Northern India's Vanishing Water

The map shows groundwater changes in India during 2002-08, with losses in red and gains in blue, based on GRACE satellite observations. The estimated rate of depletion of groundwater in northwestern India is 4.0 centimeters of water per year, equivalent to a water table decline of 33 centimeters per year. Increases in groundwater in southern India are due to recent above-average rainfall, whereas rain in northwestern India was close to normal during the study period. (Credit: I. Velicogna/UC Irvine)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2009) — Using satellite data, UC Irvine and NASA hydrologists have found that groundwater beneath northern India has been receding by as much as 1 foot per year over the past decade – and they believe human consumption is almost entirely to blame.

More than 109 cubic kilometers (26 cubic miles) of groundwater disappeared from the region's aquifers between 2002 and 2008 – double the capacity of India's largest surface-water reservoir, the Upper Wainganga, and triple that of Lake Mead, the largest manmade reservoir in the U.S.

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The Truth About Record-Setting U.S. Life Expectancy

From Live Science:

Life expectancy in the United States rose to an all-time high, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today. But that's only half the story.

The country is behind about 30 others on this measure.

Though the United States has by far the highest level of health care spending per capita in the world, we have one of the lowest life expectancies among developed nations — lower than Italy, Spain and Cuba and just a smidgeon ahead of Chile, Costa Rica and Slovenia, according to the United Nations. China does almost as well as we do. Japan tops the list at 83 years.

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OurTube

Credit: Technology Review

From Technology Review:

"Open video" could beget the next great wave in Web innovation--if it gets off the ground.

In 2005, Michael Dale and Abram Stern, a pair of grad students in digital media arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz, decided it would be fun to make video remixes of speeches in the U.S. Congress. Their goals were artistic; Stern had notions, for example, of editing a Senate floor speech to remove everything but the pronouns. They would be following, loosely, in a tradition of video commentary that includes remixing speeches from the 2004 Republican National Convention to feature only the many utterances of terrorism or September the 11th by George and Laura Bush, Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani, and others. Aware that congressional proceedings are public--and that C-SPAN airs them freely--the pair went online to hunt for the raw material. But "the footage wasn't there," Dale recalls. While C-SPAN did offer archival material for a fee, he says, "if we wanted to pull together a few different clips of senators saying different things--there was no online repository for download."

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Why Large Carbon-Fibre Planes Are Still Grounded

Image: Still grounded (Image: Boeing)

From New Scientist:

IF YOU want to know why carbon-fibre planes such as the Boeing 787 are still on the tarmac, it's worth rewinding to the 1950s.

That's when the UK's chances of dominating the post-war aviation market were dashed by fatal in-flight failures of the de Havilland Comet, the first airliner to sport a pressurised aluminium fuselage. Metal fatigue induced by repeated pressurisation cycles created cracks that started around the plane's window frames. "Although much was known about metal fatigue, not enough was known about it by anyone, anywhere," lamented Geoffrey de Havilland in his autobiography.

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Toxic Soup: Plastics Could Be Leaching Chemicals Into Ocean

Photo via Pathways of Altruism

From Wired Science:

Although plastic has long been considered indestructible, some scientists say toxic chemicals from decomposing plastics may be leaching into the sea and harming marine ecosystems.

Contrary to the commonly held belief that plastic takes 500 to 1,000 years to decompose, researchers now report that the hard plastic polystyrene begins to break down in the ocean within one year, releasing potentially toxic bisphenol A (BPA) and other chemicals into the water.

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Mercury Found In All Fish Caught In U.S.-Tested Streams

Two USGS scientists analyze fish for mercury in the St. Marys River in northern Florida.
By Mark Brigham, AP

From USA Today:

Sports fishermen take heed: A government test of fish pulled from nearly 300 streams in the USA found every one of them contaminated with some level of mercury.

The U.S. Geological Survey's research marks its most comprehensive examination of mercury contamination in stream fish. The study found that 27% of the fish had mercury levels high enough to exceed what the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for the average fish eater, those who eat fish twice a week.

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Solar SunFlowers Look Like Reincarnated Cell Tower Trees

SunFlower Solar Panels: This isn't your mother's garden. David Newsome/GOOD Magazine

From Popular Science:

Fifteen of these flower-shaped solar panels were installed last month in an open space between a highway and a retail lot in Austin, Texas. They not only provide a green source of energy, but also bring a fresh look to solar panel design. Unfortunately, I can't help but think of those fake-tree cellphone towers when I see these things.

Designed by Massachusetts art duo Harries/Heder, the SunFlowers are an art exhibit at heart, and stand over 30 feet tall. They collect power from the sun by day, and use that energy to power their blue LEDs at night. Up to 15 kilowatts of surplus power is sent back to the grid as payment for any maintenance fees the SunFlowers incur.

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Anthropogenic Global Warming Started When People Began Farming

From The Economist:

IMAGINE a small group of farmers tending a rice paddy some 5,000 years ago in eastern Asia or sowing seeds in a freshly cleared forest in Europe a couple of thousand years before that. It is here, a small group of scientists would have you believe, that humanity launched climate change. Long before the Industrial Revolution—indeed, long before a worldwide revolution in intensive farming, the results of which kept humanity alive—people caused unnatural exhalations of greenhouse gases that had an impact on the world’s climate.

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Geothermal Power Search Holds Promise, Threat

From Stltoday.com:

On a high ridge in the Mayacamas Mountains, a drill slowly bores into the earth to test a new way to generate electricity.

The test, by a Bay Area company called AltaRock Energy, could give the world another source of renewable energy, a valuable weapon in the fight against global warming. It could also trigger earthquakes in a corner of California that already shakes most every day, a prospect that is jangling the nerves of some nearby homeowners.

AltaRock has chosen this ridge to try a new form of geothermal power, using the heat of the Earth to produce energy. The surrounding hills -- in an area known as The Geysers, about 70 miles north of San Francisco -- hold more than a dozen older geothermal plants that tap underground pockets of steam to turn turbines and generate electricity.

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Personality Traits Associated With Stress And Worry Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

Personality traits associated with chronic worrying can lead to earlier death, at least in part because these people are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, according to research from Purdue University. (Credit: iStockphoto/Mikael Damkier)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2009) — Personality traits associated with chronic worrying can lead to earlier death, at least in part because these people are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, according to research from Purdue University.

"Research shows that higher levels of neuroticism can lead to earlier mortality, and we wanted to know why," said Daniel K. Mroczek, (pronounced Mro-ZAK) a professor of child development and family studies. "We found that having worrying tendencies or being the kind of person who stresses easily is likely to lead to bad behaviors like smoking and, therefore, raise the mortality rate.

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Prehistoric 'Runway' Used by Flying Reptile

A photo and depiction of the pterosaur tracks that suggest an ancient landing strip.
Credit: JM Mazin et al.

From Live Science:

A prehistoric runway for flying pterosaurs has been discovered for the first time.

Scientists uncovered the first known landing tracks of one of these extinct flying reptiles at a site dubbed "Pterosaur Beach," in the fine-grained limestone deposits of an ancient lagoon in southwestern France dating back some 140 million years ago to the Late Jurassic.

The footprints suggest the pterosaur — a "pterodactyloid" with a wingspan roughly three feet wide (one meter) — flapped to stall its flight during landing, and then planted both its two-inch-long feet (five cm) simultaneously at a high angle.

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Space Shuttle Discovery Cleared For Lift-Off

Space Shuttle Discovery

From AFP:

WASHINGTON — The space shuttle Discovery will blast off next Tuesday on a mission to the International Space Station, NASA said, clearing the launch after days of debate over safety issues.

Lift-off was set for 0536 GMT from the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral in Florida, NASA said, after two days of meetings between mission officials.

"It was a very effective review. I think we're ready to go fly," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, told a briefing.

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Full Steam Ahead As British Supercar Prepares To Smash Land-Speed Record

The 25ft-long car will race across the desert in California to try and break a land speed record.

From The Daily Mail:

Enthusiasts behind a British-built steam supercar will attempt to break a century-old world land speed record for steam-powered vehicles tomorrow afternoon.

The 25ft-long car - dubbed the 'fastest kettle in the world' - aims to go faster than 127mph - the speed reached by American Fred Marriott in a Stanley steam car in 1906 at the Daytona Beach Road Course.
The team will begin their attempt at 6am tomorrow morning in California, or 2pm UK time.

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Wi-Fi via White Spaces

Photo: White spaces: Accessing the Internet over unused portions of TV spectrum could provide good long-range connectivity in rural areas, and help fill in gaps in city networks. Microsoft researchers tested a new protocol, called White Fi, using the device shown here. Credit: Microsoft Research

From Technology Review:

A network design that uses old TV spectrum could produce better long-range wireless connectivity.

Long-range, low-cost wireless Internet could soon be delivered using radio spectrum once reserved for use by TV stations. The blueprints for a computer network that uses "white spaces," which are empty fragments of the spectrum scattered between used frequencies, will be presented today at ACM SIGCOMM 2009, a communications conference held in Barcelona, Spain.

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NASA Successfully Tests Nuclear Reactor to Power Future Moon Bases

Gone Fission : See it bigger. John MacNeil

From Popular Science:

For a while now, NASA has been planning to use a nuclear fission reactor to power future bases on the Moon and Mars. They have now finally begun testing a Stirling engine-based system, subjecting it to simulated extraterrestrial conditions to examine how it would fare as a lunar power generator.

The fission reactor uses a sodium-potassium liquid metal mixture to transfer heat to a Stirling engine, which then uses gas pressure for electricity conversion. Testing has been successful so far, as researchers have been able to generate a constant 2.3 kilowatts of power from the engine, using a non-nuclear heat source. With the full nuclear reactor running, their goal is to produce 40 kilowatts of power.

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Tight Budget Quashes US Space Ambitions: Panel

Orion Exploration Vehicle

From Breitbart/AFP:

US ambitions for manned space exploration have hit a major hurdle in the wake of severe budget constraints, according to preliminary findings of a panel appointed by President Barack Obama.

Reaching Mars was deemed too risky while returning to the Moon by 2020 was ruled out barring an additional three billion dollars per year to replace the retiring space shuttle fleet and build bigger rockets, according to the group led by Norm Augustine, a former CEO of US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

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New DNA Test Uses Nanotechnology To Find Early Signs Of Cancer

In this illustration by Yi Zhang, quantum dots are depicted as gold spheres that attract DNA strands linked to cancer risks. When the quantum dots are exposed to certain types of light, they transfer the energy to fluorescent molecules, shown as pink globes, that emit a glow. This enables researchers to detect and count the DNA strands linked to cancer. (Credit: Image courtesy of Johns Hopkins University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2009) — Using tiny crystals called quantum dots, Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a highly sensitive test to look for DNA attachments that often are early warning signs of cancer. This test, which detects both the presence and the quantity of certain DNA changes, could alert people who are at risk of developing the disease and could tell doctors how well a particular cancer treatment is working.

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Hunting: So Easy A Cave Man Could Do It

Anthropologists work to excavate Qesem Cave, where early human hunters carved up their prey. The cave was discovered in Israel about nine years ago. Credit: Qesem Cave Project

From Live Science:

Early humans who lived in caves more than 250,000 years ago were just as good at bringing home the bacon as their later human descendents of the Paleolithic era, though their dining habits were a little less refined, a new study suggests.

The remains of early human dinners were found in Qesem Cave in Israel, which was discovered during road construction in hilly limestone terrain, 7 miles (11 km) east of Tel Aviv about nine years ago. ("Qesem" means "surprise.")

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How To Turn Seawater Into Jet Fuel

Turning water into jet fuel (Image: Stocktrek Images/Getty)

From New Scientist:

Faced with global warming and potential oil shortages, the US navy is experimenting with making jet fuel from seawater.

Navy chemists have processed seawater into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons that with further refining could be made into kerosene-based jet fuel. But they will have to find a clean energy source to power the reactions if the end product is to be carbon neutral.

The process involves extracting carbon dioxide dissolved in the water and combining it with hydrogen – obtained by splitting water molecules using electricity – to make a hydrocarbon fuel.

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My Comment: It seems that they must put a lot of energy into the process to convert the sea water into usable energy. Not useful from a practical point of view .... so far.

Good Vibrations Generate Electricity

PARTS LIST: Relying on the piezoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which certain crystals and other materials generate electricity when twisted or flexed, this new device harvests energy from tiny vibrations. Credit: ISNS

From Live Science:

A new device that can harvest useful energy from extremely tiny vibrations may allow new ways to power remote electronic devices with batteries that need replacing less often, or are actually self-charging. The "vibration-to-electricity" device could capture up to 10 times more energy than is possible with the conventional device.

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Egypt Warns Pharaohs' Tombs Could Disappear

A view of King Tutenkhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, close to Luxor in 2007. The ornate pharaonic tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings are doomed to disappear within 150 to 500 years if they remain open to tourists, the head of antiquities has warned. (AFP/File/Cris Bouroncle)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

LUXOR, Egypt (AFP) – The ornate pharaonic tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings are doomed to disappear within 150 to 500 years if they remain open to tourists, the head of antiquities has warned.

Zahi Hawass said humidity and fungus are eating into the walls of the royal tombs in the huge necropolis on the west bank of the Nile across from Luxor, which is swamped daily by several thousand tourists.

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DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show

From The New York Times:

Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases.

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

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The Most Exciting Cars of 2010

STAN HONDA / AFP / Getty

From Time Magazine:

The popularity of the Jeep Grand Cherokee was instrumental in launching the SUV boom of the 1990s. America's love affair with big, gas-guzzling hulks is pretty much over, but Chrysler believes there's a new chapter for this rugged classic. Jeep's engineers have shortened the vehicle, given it a more aerodynamic shape and equipped it with a more luxurious interior, featuring more expensive materials and higher-grade controls. It also comes with a more efficient V-6 engine while trying to remain faithful to Jeep's can-do heritage. The introduction of the Jeep Grand Cherokee is now scheduled for the second quarter of 2010.

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Strep Throat May Have Killed Mozart

FILE - This is an undated portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. What killed Mozart so suddenly in 1791? A report in Tuesday's Annals of Internal Medicine, a medical journal published in Philadelphia, suggests it might have been something far more common: a strep infection. (AP Photo)

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The death of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the age of 35 may have been caused by complications stemming from strep throat, according to a Dutch study published on Monday. Since the composer's death in 1791, there have been various theories about the cause of his untimely end, from intentional poisoning, to rheumatic fever, to trichinosis, a parasitic disease caused by eating raw or undercooked pork.

On his death certificate it was officially recorded that the cause of death was hitziges Frieselfieber, or "heated miliary fever," referring to a rash that looks like millet seeds.

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In The Pursuit Of Easy Money

Legal pounds Photo: CORBIS

From The Telegraph:

One in every fifty £1 coins is a fake, but the dark art of counterfeiting has been fascinating forgers for centuries.

On the morning of March 22, 1699 a prisoner in Newgate was brought to the hanging tree at Tyburn, now Marble Arch. He played to the crowd, praying loudly and then placing his own hood over his head before the executioner’s men pulled the ladder out from under him. He dangled, twitching and choking for minutes – the trapdoor gallows would not come into routine use in Britain for another 50 years – until at last he drooped.

Thus died William Chaloner, the most notorious counterfeiter of his day, brought to his death by the Warden of the Royal Mint – a former Cambridge don named Isaac Newton.

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Honey-bee Aggression Study Suggests Nurture Alters Nature

The study looked at bee aggression in European (pictured) and Africanized honey bees. (Credit: Photo by Diana Yates)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 18, 2009) — A new study reveals that changes in gene expression in the brain of the honey bee in response to an immediate threat have much in common with more long-term and even evolutionary differences in honey-bee aggression. The findings lend support to the idea that nurture (an organism's environment) may ultimately influence nature (its genetic inheritance).

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How It Works: Protecting New Orleans With The World's Largest Water Pump

Foiling the Flood Graham Murdoch

From Popular Science:

New Orleans sits smack dab between the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain, and when a hurricane comes rolling in, those bodies of water tend to spill into the streets. This summer, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started construction on a barrier that can block a 16-foot swell blown in from the Gulf and a massive pumping station that will blast floodwaters back to sea.

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Internet 'Immune System' Could Block Viruses

Getting ISPs to cooperate could help in the fight against worms (Image: Thomas Northcut/Getty)

From New Scientist:

IT IS 0530 UTC, 25 January 2003. A computer worm named Slammer has just unleashed one of the most devastating attacks on the internet ever. Within minutes, it infects nearly 90 per cent of vulnerable computers. Major net links break down, ATM machines fail and airlines have to cancel flights.

What was impressive about Slammer was the overwhelming speed of infection. There was no chance to intervene. Six years on, our defences are little better.

Scott Coull of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Boleslaw Szymanski of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, want to change that. They have devised a system to combat highly virulent, malicious worms by embedding defence mechanisms in key parts of the internet - akin to endowing it with an immune system.

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The Science Behind That Fresh Seaside Smell

The smell of fresh sea air is unmistakable Photo: Getty

From The Telegraph:

A tiny molecule lurks behind the evocative smell of the seaside.

Think of the tangy smell of the sea, so evocative of summer holidays, the scream of seagulls and sand between your toes. Where does it come from? Ozone? Fresh sea air? Actually, the truth is slightly less tantalising: it's a gas released by bacteria.

Two years ago Andy Johnston, a professor of biology at the University of East Anglia, identified that the smell of the sea came from a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS). Now, he has managed to crack the entire biochemical pathway by which the scent is produced. DMS turns out to be an important chemical found in many natural processes, such as cloud formation. Birds love the smell and will flock towards tiny concentrations. It's even added to processed foods to give a savoury note: small amounts can impart the flavour of cabbages, tomatoes, butter and cream – even lemons or roast chicken, according to Prof Johnston.

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Can Geoengineering Help Slow Global Warming?

From Time Magazine:

As we pump billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we're doing more than warming the planet and scrambling the climate. We're also conducting what climatologist James Hansen has called a "vast uncontrolled experiment." In effect, we're on our way to engineering a world very different from the one we were handed. Belatedly, we're trying to turn off the carbon spigot, hoping that by incrementally reducing the emissions we've spent a couple of centuries pouring into the air we can stop the climate slide before it's too late.

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Popcorn And Cereals – The New Superfoods?

Popcorn contains high levels of antioxidants, according to a study by US chemical experts.

From The Guardian:

Scientists discover surprisingly high levels of health-boosting antioxidants in 'junk' food.

Popcorn and breakfast cereals, frequently derided as junk food, may contain "surprisingly large" servings of healthy antioxidants, according to chemical researchers.

Any nutritional value of snack foods was previously thought to rest on their high fibre content – a virtue regularly trumpeted by manufacturers on food packaging.

But a study presented today to the American Chemical Society (ACS) suggests the benefit of grain-based foods lies in the significant presence of antioxidants known as polyphenols.

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How Fast Can Man Run?

Click Image to Enlarge

From The Daily Mail:

As Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt smashes his own world record, are there ANY limits to what the human body can achieve?.

The question is, just how fast can he go? We asked this back in August last year when he smashed his own 100metres world record at the Beijing Olympics.

Then, he did it in 9.69 seconds, but his insouciant, hands-aloft stroll over the finishing line made many suspect that there was more to go.

And on Sunday, a year to the day after setting that extraordinary record in China, Usain Bolt showed that there was - more than a tenth of a second, in fact. Now, if he could only sort out his dodgy start, he might be able to break the record once more.

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New Nanolaser Key To Future Optical Computers And Technologies

Researchers have created the tiniest laser since its invention nearly 50 years ago. Because the new device, called a "spaser," is the first of its kind to emit visible light, it represents a critical component for possible future technologies based on "nanophotonic" circuitry. The color diagram (a) shows the nanolaser's design: a gold core surrounded by a glasslike shell filled with green dye. Scanning electron microscope images (b and c) show that the gold core and the thickness of the silica shell were about 14 nanometers and 15 nanometers, respectively. A simulation of the SPASER (d) shows the device emitting visible light with a wavelength of 525 nanometers. (Credit: Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2009) — Researchers have created the tiniest laser since its invention nearly 50 years ago, paving the way for a host of innovations, including superfast computers that use light instead of electrons to process information, advanced sensors and imaging.

Because the new device, called a "spaser," is the first of its kind to emit visible light, it represents a critical component for possible future technologies based on "nanophotonic" circuitry, said Vladimir Shalaev, the Robert and Anne Burnett Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University.

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Cloaking Technology May Protect From Natural Disasters

Like sound or light waves, tsunamis have a wavelength, crests and troughs that could be cancelled out to effectively cloak, say, an oil rig and protect it from the waves, based on new technology. But practically pulling such complex cloaking off will require a lot more research. Credit: Stockxpert

From Live Science:

Cloaking, that perennial technology of comic books and sci-fi series, may be one step closer to reality.

Researchers have developed a new cloaking method that may someday prevent submarines and fighter jets from being detected by sonar and radar. It might also be used to shield buildings and oil rigs from the devastating effects of earthquakes and tsunamis.

As it is often depicted in sci-fi movies and books, cloaking involves making an object partly or completely invisible to incoming radiation such as light or radio waves.

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Cockroaches Future-Proofed Against Climate Change

Climate change? Not bothered (Image: Natalie Schimpf)

From New Scientist:

Hate cockroaches? Best pour yourself a stiff drink. The widely loathed insects can hold their breath to save water, a new study has found – and the trick could help them to thrive in the face of climate change.

When cockroaches are resting, they periodically stop breathing for as long as 40 minutes, though why they do so has been unclear.

To investigate the mystery, Natalie Schimpf and her colleagues at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, examined whether speckled cockroaches (Nauphoeta cinerea) change their breathing pattern in response to changes in carbon dioxide or oxygen concentration, or humidity.

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The Smallest Laser Ever Made

Tiny laser: This simulation shows the intensity of light around a new type of laser, called a spaser, when operating in a plasmon-producing mode. The concentration of plasmons is most intense at the gold sphere that makes up its core. The inner black circle indicates the position of the sphere, which is coated with a dye-embedded silica shell, marked by the outer black line. Credit: Nature

From Technology Review:

Surface-plasmon lasers could enable a new generation of computers based on nanophotonics.

Researchers have demonstrated the smallest laser ever, consisting of a nanoparticle just 44 nanometers across. The device is dubbed a "spaser" because it generates a form of radiation called surface plasmons. The technique allows light to be confined in very small spaces, and some physicists believe that spasers could form the basis of future optical computers just as transistors are the basis of today's electronics.

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IBM Sees Future Of Microchips In DNA

From Breitbart/AFP:

IBM said it was looking to DNA "origami" for a powerful new generation of ultra-tiny microchips.

The US computer giant collaborated with California Institute of Technology researchers to develop a way to design microchips that mimic how chains of DNA molecules fold, allowing for processors far smaller and denser than any seen today.

"This is a way to assemble an electronics device of the future," said Bill Hinsberg, manager of the lithography group at IBM's Almaden Research Center in California, on Monday.

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Sony Plans to Adopt Common Format for E-Books

From The New York Times:

Paper books may be low tech, but no one will tell you how and where you can read them.

For many people, the problem with electronic books is that they come loaded with just those kinds of restrictions. Digital books bought today from Amazon.com, for example, can be read only on Amazon’s Kindle device or its iPhone software.

Some restrictions on the use of e-books are likely to remain a fact of life. But some publishers and consumer electronics makers are aiming to give e-book buyers more flexibility by rallying around a single technology standard for the books. That would also help them counter Amazon, which has taken an early lead in the nascent market.

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Twitter Tweets Are 40% 'Babble'

From The BBC:

A short-term study of Twitter has found that 40% of the messages sent via it are "pointless babble."

Carried out by US market research firm Pear Analytics, the study aimed to produce a snapshot of what people do with the service.

Almost as prevalent as the babble were "conversational" tweets that used it as a surrogate instant messaging system.

The study found that only 8.7% of messages could be said to have "value" as they passed along news of interest.

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Kenya Losing 100 Lions Every Year: Conservation Group

An African Lion yawns next to a lioness in the Maasai Mara, approximately 400 kilometres southwest of Nairobi, in 2006. Kenya's lion population has been dropping by an average 100 lions each year since 2002, the Kenya Wildlife Service announced Monday, warning that the big cats could be extinct in the next two decades. (AFP/File/Tony Karumba)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

NAIROBI (AFP) – Kenya's lion population has been dropping by an average 100 lions each year since 2002, the Kenya Wildlife Service announced Monday, warning that the big cats could be extinct in the next two decades.

Cattle herders who kill the lions in retaliation for attacks on their stock have been blamed for much of the decline, the organisation's spokesman Paul Udoto told AFP.

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Internet Giants Could Slash Energy Costs 40 Percent With Smart Rerouting Algorithm

Xbox Live Lives Here Simon Norfolk via The New York Times

From Popular Science:

A routing algorithm can channel Internet data to locations where electricity prices are cheapest

Moving computing from the desktop to the 24/7 data centers of the "cloud" may be the way forward (just ask Google), but it will come with a hefty energy price. Teams at MIT and Carnegie Mellon University, however, are developing a smart algorithm that could reroute Internet traffic to where energy is cheapest at any given moment, potentially saving millions of dollars in energy usage.

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'Smell Of Death' Research Could Help Recover Bodies In Disasters And Solve Crimes

Researchers say that a chemical profile of decomposition could eventually lead to a portable device for detecting human bodies at crime scenes and disaster areas. (Credit: Adam Dylewski, American Chemical Society)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2009) — In an advance toward the first portable device for detecting human bodies buried in disasters and at crime scenes, scientists today report early results from a project to establish the chemical fingerprint of death. Speaking at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), they said a profile of the chemicals released from decomposing bodies could also lead to a valuable new addition to the forensic toolkit: An electronic device that could determine the time elapsed since death quickly, accurately and onsite.

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Terrifying 'Sleep Paralysis' Needs More Attention

From Live Science:

Sleep paralysis can be a terrifying experience for the near 50 percent of people who have had an episode. It's the middle of the night, your eyes are open, dark shapes are gathering around you, something has grabbed your feet, and you can't move. You can't even scream.

A new article by British researchers calls for more attention to be paid in the medical community to sleep paralysis, also known as "night terrors."

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Black Hole Parasites Explain Cosmic Flashes

From New Scientist:

SOME of the brightest flashes in the universe may be the result of black holes burrowing into stars and devouring them from inside.

The flashes are known as gamma-ray bursts because most of their energy is in the form of high-energy radiation, including gamma rays and X-rays. The longer flashes, lasting at least a few seconds, have long been thought to signal the deaths of massive stars that have run out of fuel, causing them to collapse to form black holes, unleashing powerful jets of radiation in the process.

Now an alternative explanation has been given new lease of life: a black hole may instead be an external attacker that dives into the belly of a massive star and consumes it.

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DNA May Help Build Next Generation of Chips

From Gadget Lab:

In the race to keep Moore’s Law alive, researchers are turning to an unlikely ally: DNA molecules that can be positioned on wafers to create smaller, faster and more energy-efficient chips.

Researchers at IBM have made a significant breakthrough in their quest to combine DNA strands with conventional lithographic techniques to create tiny circuit boards. The breakthrough, which allows for the DNA structures to be positioned precisely on substrates, could help shrink computer chips to about a 6-nanometer scale. Intel’s latest chips, by comparison, are on a 32-nanometer scale.

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Isotope Crisis Threatens Medical Care

Domestic source-to-be?At 10 megawatts, the University of Missouri Research Reactor is the largest university research reactor in the country. Within two months, officials there will submit a proposal to the Energy Department to build a facility that would ultimately allow domestic production of a medical isotope that's currently in critically short supply.University of Missouri Research Reactor

From Science News:

Global production of the feedstock for the leading medical-imaging isotope is low and erratic, putting health care in jeopardy.

Within the next two weeks, the vast majority of radioactive-imaging medical tests could be delayed or replaced by less desirable procedures. The reason: temporary shutdowns of Canadian and Dutch reactors that together normally provide some 70 percent of the world’s supplies of the isotope molybdenum-99 and at least 80 percent of North American supplies.

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Early Farming Methods Caused Climate Change, Say Researchers

From The Guardian:

Farmers thousands of years ago cleared land by burning forests and moved to a new area once the yields declined, say scientists.

Farmers who used "slash and burn" methods of clearing forests to grow crops thousands of years ago could have increased carbon dioxide levels enough to change the climate, researchers claimed today.

The US scientists believe that small populations released carbon emissions as they cleared large tracts of land to produce relatively meagre amounts of food.

They were much less efficient than farmers using today's agricultural practices because there were no constraints on land.

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Close Encounters... UFOs Made 600 Visits To The UK In A Single Year, According To MoD 'X-Files'

An alien ship hovers over the planet in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'

From The Daily Mail:

Hundreds of Britons had 'close encounters' with UFOs, according to previously-classified documents
released by the Ministry of Defence today.

The sightings were made between 1981 and 1996 from observers including police officers, fighter pilots and school children. They range from lights in the sky to close contact with aliens with 'lemon-shaped heads', and include detailed analysis on some of the UK's most well-known cases.

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Warming Of Arctic Current Over 30 Years Triggers Release Of Methane Gas

Researchers in Germany have found that more than 250 plumes of bubbles of methane gas are rising from the seabed of the West Spitsbergen continental margin in the Arctic, in a depth range of 150 to 400 metres. (Credit: Image courtesy of National Oceanography Centre, Southampton)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2009) — The warming of an Arctic current over the last 30 years has triggered the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from methane hydrate stored in the sediment beneath the seabed.

Scientists at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton working in collaboration with researchers from the University of Birmingham, Royal Holloway London and IFM-Geomar in Germany have found that more than 250 plumes of bubbles of methane gas are rising from the seabed of the West Spitsbergen continental margin in the Arctic, in a depth range of 150 to 400 metres.

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