Mathematicians Solve 'Trillion Triangle' Problem

The 3-4-5 triangle has area 6.
(Credit: Image courtesy of American Institute of Mathematics)

From Science Daily:

Mathematicians from North America, Europe, Australia, and South America have resolved the first one trillion cases of an ancient mathematics problem. The advance was made possible by a clever technique for multiplying large numbers. The numbers involved are so enormous that if their digits were written out by hand they would stretch to the moon and back. The biggest challenge was that these numbers could not even fit into the main memory of the available computers, so the researchers had to make extensive use of the computers' hard drives.

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Powerful Ideas: River Turbines Could Electrify New York City

An NJIT architecture professor with an architecture student has designed a network of modular floating docks to harness clean energy for New York City. The proposal was featured this week in Metropolis magazine. Credit: Sarah Parsons

From Live Science:

A network of floating docks could harness clean energy for New York City and provide new space for parks, researchers now propose.

Each dock could generate power off the city's river currents. Three vertical turbines fastened out of sight to the underside of each station would harness the 4 mph currents, with each module generating up to 24 kilowatts of constant energy from the Hudson and East Rivers.

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Baidu CEO Touts Growth Of China's Search Engine

Photo: Baidu CEO Robin Li advised Stanford students to make sure they understand the Chinese market if they want to do business there. (Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET)

From CNET:

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Baidu CEO Robin Li, on a rare visit to Silicon Valley Wednesday, explained the rise of his company's search engine in China before a group of students more interested in entrepreneurial tips than censorship.

Li ended a trip to the U.S. Wednesday at Stanford University, speaking to a crowd of several hundred students about the lessons he learned shepherding Baidu through the first dot-com bust and growing it into the Google of China. Baidu has 76 percent of the Chinese search market, he said, which consists of 338 million Internet users: larger than the entire population of the U.S.

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Smoking Bans May Reduce Heart Attacks By More Than A Third

Smoking bans were introduced in pubs and other public places in England and Wales in 2007. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

From The Guardian:

The number of heart attacks has fallen steeply in countries where bans on smoking in public places have been introduced, according to two independent reviews.

The ban on smoking in public places could reduce heart attacks by more than a third in some parts of the world, say researchers.

Two independent health reviews have found that heart attack rates dropped steeply in areas where bans have been introduced, with one reporting 36% fewer cases three years after smoke-free legislation came in.

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Pictured: Giant Squid Accidentally Caught In Gulf of Mexico

Researchers pose with the 19.5-foot creature after netting it in July

From The Daily Mail:

This group of American scientists were studying the diet of sperm whales.

But even so they were taken off guard when this astonishing haul appeared in their net.

Researchers from America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) were shocked discover they had inadvertently caught a rare giant squid as they were trawling through the Gulf of Mexico.

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Seismic Bangs 'Block' Whale Calls

From The BBC:

Scientists have turned up new evidence showing that ocean noise can affect the communication of whales.

Studying blue whales off the eastern Canadian coast, they found the animals changed their vocalisations in response to an underwater seismic survey.

The survey was conducted using gear considered to have a low impact.

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Swine Flu Vaccine--Too Little, Too Late

Matt Collins

From Scientific American:

Long-standing liability issues leave us unprepared for a pandemic.

As health care workers in the U.S. gear up for the flu season, they facea paradox: on the one hand, they will have too little vaccine against the novel influenza A (H1N1) strain to protect the entire population; on the other, some people will resist the shots that are offered to them. Sadly, both problems can be traced, at least in part, to the last time “swine flu” loomed. The 1976 national vaccination campaign against a pandemic that never materialized left the public with lingering doubts about whether the inoculations harmed some recipients and spawned lawsuits that cost the federal government nearly $100 million.

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Fresh From Skunkworks, Hints of Microsoft's Own Secret Tablet

Microsoft's Courier

From Popular Science:

While drool over Apple's tablet is starting to accumulate in unsightly lakes and ponds across the web, little old Microsoft has been hard at work on Courier--an as-yet conceptual tablet of its own that our friends at Gizmodo unearthed last night. It's a totally different approach from what most are expecting from Apple, and in this concept video, it certainly looks pretty hot.

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Google's Sidewiki Lets People Post Comments About Web Pages

From PC World:

Google has launched a new feature in its Toolbar product that opens up a browser sidebar in Firefox and Internet Explorer to let people post and read comments about Web pages they visit.

Called Sidewiki, the product can be used to express opinions about a Web page's content, suggest links to other online resources or provide additional background information.

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7 Billion And Counting

From New Scientist:

Overpopulation is often singled out as the planet's root problem. If only it were that simple.

Leading thinkers on population can't agree on what the answers – or even the questions – are. In this special feature, New Scientist brings you the best of expert opinion.

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Arctic Ice To Last Decades Longer Than Thought?

A polar bear navigates ice floes in Baffin Bay in the Canadian Arctic on July 10, 2008. This year's cooler summer means that the Arctic probably won't experience ice-free summers until 2030 or 2040, September 2009 research shows—but experts warn the cooling could be just a one-year reprieve. Photograph by Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press/AP Photo

From The National Geographic:

This year's cooler-than-expected summer means the Arctic probably won't experience ice-free summers until 2030 or 2040, scientists say.

Some models had previously predicted that the Arctic could be ice free in summer by as soon as 2013, due to rising temperatures from global warming.

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Explaining Why Pruning Encourages Plants To Thrive

New research helps explain why pruning encourages plants to thrive.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Matthew Scherf)

From Science Daily:

Scientists have shown that the main shoot dominates a plant’s growth principally because it was there first, rather than due to its position at the top of the plant.

Collaborating teams from the University of York in the UK and the University of Calgary in Canada combined their expertise in molecular genetics and computational modelling to make a significant discovery that helps explain why pruning encourages plants to thrive.

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Why It's So Hard To Make Nuclear Weapons

The first nuclear bomb explosion at the Trinity Test Site New Mexico, July 16, 1945, taken from 6 miles away. As Los Alamos director J. Robert Oppenheimer watched the demonstration, he recalled a line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, "Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of worlds." Credit: Library of Congress

From Live Science:

It took only a matter of hours last week for the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency to shoot down a news report that its experts had drafted a secret document warning that Iran has the expertise to build a nuclear bomb.

"With respect to a recent media report, the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] reiterates that it has no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapon program in Iran," the European-based agency said in statement.

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You Really Can Die Of A Broken Heart

Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: People mourning the loss of a loved one are six times more likely to suffer cardiac arrest, potential proof that you can die of a broken heart, say Australian researchers.

According to an Australian Heart Foundation study of the physical changes suffered immediately after a profound loss, grieving people are at significantly higher risk of heart problems.

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Researchers Unravel Brain's Wiring To Understand Memory

From McClatchy News:

WASHINGTON — Using a powerful microscope, Karel Svoboda, a brain scientist at the Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Va., peers through a plastic window in the top of a mouse's head to watch its brain's neurons sprout new connections — a vivid display of a living brain in action.

Ryan LaLumiere, a neurologist at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, trains cocaine-addicted rats to suppress their craving — a technique he says may help human addicts.

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Report: NASA To Confirm Presence Of Water On The Moon

From 3News:

According to reports, NASA is set to reveal evidence of water has been discovered on the moon.

Space news website SpaceRef.com says the topic of a press conference to be held on Thursday is a paper appearing in the next issue of Science magazine, which contains results from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.

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Intel Plans Even Tinier Circuits In 2011

From Gadget Lab:

SAN FRANCISCO — Moore’s Law coming to an end? Not if you ask Intel, which announced Tuesday that it plans to offer chips based on a 22 nanometer process technology in the second half of 2011.

The 22nm chip packs in more than 2.9 billion transistors into an area the size of a fingernail. That’s double the density of the 32nm chips that are currently the cutting edge; most of Intel’s CPUs today are still based on a 45nm process.

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Left-Handers Are More Likely To Enjoy School And Be Teachers' Pets

A new study suggests left-handed children have a warmer relationship with teachers

From The Daily Mail:

Left-handed children are more likely to enjoy school and get on with their teachers than those who write with their right hand, a study revealed today.

Researchers found a larger percentage of 'lefties' look forward to getting up for school and heading off to their lessons every morning.

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New Images Show That Rings Around Saturn Are Not Flat

Shadows of Saturn during the Equinox Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

The rings around Saturn were once thought to be almost completely flat but new images show that ruffles on their surface rise as high as the Alps.

NASA scientists managed to capture the images revealing the undulations and dust clouds due to unusual lighting effects created during the planet’s equinox last month.

They believe that the breakthrough could allow researchers to better understand how old Saturn’s distinctive rings are and how they are evolving.

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Toward A Universal Flu Vaccine

Image Credit: Technology Review

From Technology Review:

A company is preparing human trials of a DNA-based, universal influenza vaccine.

The first doses of H1N1 flu (swine flu) vaccine are due to be shipped to hospitals around the country in the next few weeks--seven months after the virus strain was first identified. These vaccine doses will use either inactivated or weakened live viruses to prompt immunity--an approach that can fail if any of the live viruses is strong enough to replicate, or if the inactivated viruses have been killed beyond all immune recognition.

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