|
Latest Articles: Science/Tech
New Aerogel-Based Plaster Provides Better Insulation: Space Technology for Old Buildings
Post Date: 2012-08-23 03:43:46 by Tatarewicz
2 Comments
ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2012) — Old buildings are beautiful -- and hard to insulate. Empa and the Swiss render manufacturer Fixit AG together developed a new Aerogel-based plaster that provides twice the insulation of currently used insulating renders. The product should come onto the market next year. There are one and a half million old buildings in Switzerland. We have to live with these buildings -- indeed we want to live with them. Yet at the same time the country's energy consumption is increasing. According to the Federal Office of Energy, 4.5 million tonnes of light fuel oil and 3 million cubic metres of natural gas are imported every year, 43 percent of which goes up the ...
Robot Workers Taking Over Global Industry
Post Date: 2012-08-22 05:09:48 by Tatarewicz
1 Comments
Politicians ramble about how America needs to return to our manufacturing roots in order to reboot our sunken economy. But, what if it's too late? What if a super-group of the world's most highly-trained, strongest, tireless, and resilient workers has upstaged not only America's manufacturers, but the world's? If you know anything about modern day robots, you probably know that this is a real concern. As a new and ever-improving wave of skilled robots enter the global workforce, factories across the globe will be forever changed. Off the coast of China in Crachten, the Netherlands, there's a famous factory known as Philips Electronics. They maintain hundreds of ...
Researchers identify semen protein that acts on female brain
Post Date: 2012-08-22 04:06:07 by Tatarewicz
1 Comments
Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan have identified a hormone in semen that nudges a woman's body to ovulate. It's a finding that could potentially open up new testing and treatment of infertility in both women and men, and might explain some "oops" babies. In a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Saskatoonbased researchers and their colleagues in Chile went sleuthing in llamas and cows for the identity of a seminal fluid protein they'd previously found that sends a signal to a female's brain. That signal prompts the female brain to release hormones that stimulate ovulation. Veterinary biomedical ...
Brain's Code for Pronouncing Vowels Uncovered
Post Date: 2012-08-22 02:22:59 by Tatarewicz
2 Comments
ScienceDaily (Aug. 21, 2012) — Scientists at UCLA and the Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology, have unraveled how our brain cells encode the pronunciation of individual vowels in speech. Published in the Aug. 21 edition of Nature Communications, the discovery could lead to new technology that verbalizes the unspoken words of people paralyzed by injury or disease. "We know that brain cells fire in a predictable way before we move our bodies," explained Dr. Itzhak Fried, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "We hypothesized that neurons would also react differently when we pronounce specific sounds. If so, we may one ...
Microscopic molecule determines human intelligence
Post Date: 2012-08-22 00:07:48 by Tatarewicz
1 Comments
University of Colorado scientists have identified a minute particle inside a protein that is responsible for human intelligence. Researchers suggest that this microscopic molecule makes the human to become the most intelligent creature on earth, stressing that DUF1220 can explain why human brains are bigger and more complex than any other animals. Compared with other species, human brain’s ratio to body size is significantly larger and has a much greater cerebral cortex, the area that has a higher concentration of neurons and controls higher thought processes. “The size and cognitive capacity of the human brain sets us apart, we want to know how did that happen?” said ...
Sun cycle - C2C upcoming program
Post Date: 2012-08-21 06:11:25 by Tatarewicz
1 Comments
Wednesday, August 22, 2012: In the first half, Prof. Ramon E. Lopez will discuss how over the next two years, as the sun reaches a peak in its 10-year activity cycle, there could be a heightened risk that a whopping solar storm could knock out the power grids, satellites, and communications. In the second half, scholar, award-winning poet, Jungian psychoanalyst, and cantadora (keeper of the old stories in the Latina tradition), Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes will discuss the recent rash of shootings and why they could be manifestations of evil on both psychological and spiritual levels. Hosted by George Noory.
Big Bang Theory Challenged by Big Chill
Post Date: 2012-08-21 04:44:36 by Tatarewicz
0 Comments
ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2012) — The start of the Universe should be modeled not as a Big Bang but more like water freezing into ice, according to a team of theoretical physicists at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University. They have suggested that by investigating the cracks and crevices common to all crystals -- including ice -- our understanding of the nature of the Universe could be revolutionized. Lead researcher on the project, James Quach said current theorizing is the latest in a long quest by humans to understand the origins and nature of the Universe. "Ancient Greek philosophers wondered what matter was made of: was it made of a continuous substance or was it ...
Insight: Experts hope to shield cars from computer viruses
Post Date: 2012-08-20 04:51:55 by Tatarewicz
0 Comments
BOSTON, Aug. 20, 2012 (Reuters) — A team of top hackers working for Intel Corp's security division toil away in a West Coast garage searching for electronic bugs that could make automobiles vulnerable to lethal computer viruses. Intel's McAfee unit, which is best known for software that fights PC viruses, is one of a handful of firms that are looking to protect the dozens of tiny computers and electronic communications systems that are built into every modern car. It's scary business. Security experts say that automakers have so far failed to adequately protect these systems, leaving them vulnerable to hacks by attackers looking to steal cars, eavesdrop on ...
Brain's Mysterious Switchboard Operator Revealed
Post Date: 2012-08-18 04:45:04 by Tatarewicz
0 Comments
ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2012) — A mysterious region deep in the human brain could be where we sort through the onslaught of stimuli from the outside world and focus on the information most important to our behavior and survival, Princeton University researchers have found. The researchers report in the journal Science that an area of our brain called the pulvinar regulates communication between clusters of brain cells as our brain focuses on the people and objects that need our attention. Like a switchboard operator, the pulvinar makes sure that separate areas of the visual cortex -- which processes visual information -- are communicating about the same external information, explained ...
Novozymes of Denmark makes fungus to produce bio-chemicals from renewable materials
Post Date: 2012-08-17 02:54:15 by Tatarewicz
0 Comments
COPENHAGEN, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Industrial enzyme manufacturer Novozymes of Denmark said here Thursday that it has developed a fungus that can be used to produce from renewable sources bio-chemicals useful in the plastics and other industries. The micro-organism will enable production of so-called bio-based malic acid, which will make possible production of plastic and other oil-derived products from renewable materials instead of mineral oil, the company said in a press statement. The company's Executive Vice President Thomas Videbaek described the technology as "our first biochemical building block," adding that "bio-chemicals produced from renewable raw materials ...
3D printing potential
Post Date: 2012-08-15 05:47:54 by Tatarewicz
6 Comments
Some things are too phenomenal to tell you about... I have to show you. 3D Printer Isn't that cool? It's a 3D printer. And while this one is demonstrating how easy it is to replicate a Renaissance sculpture, they can be used to create almost any object imaginable... Jay Leno uses one to print hard-to-find parts for the dozens of classic cars in his collection.Jay Leno 3D Printer One was used to print out over 31,000 individual facial features for the upcoming animated 3D film ParaNorman. A Japanese company is even using 3D printers to make lifelike models of your unborn child. No more grainy ultrasound pictures on the fridge. Like I said, they can be used to make anything. ...
New Process Doubles Production of Alternative Fuel While Slashing Costs
Post Date: 2012-08-15 03:25:37 by Tatarewicz
0 Comments
ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2012) — A new discovery should make the alternative fuel butanol more attractive to the biofuel industry. University of Illinois scientist Hao Feng has found a way around the bottleneck that has frustrated producers in the past and could significantly reduce the cost of the energy involved in making it as well. "The first challenge in butanol production is that at a certain concentration the fuel being created becomes toxic to the organism used to make it (Clostridium pasteurianum and other strains), and that toxicity limits the amount of fuel that can be made in one batch. The second issue is the high energy cost of removing butanol from the ...
Long-lost Egyptian Pyramids Found on Google Earth?
Post Date: 2012-08-14 09:30:06 by Original_Intent
4 Comments
A self-described "satellite archaeology researcher" has garnered widespread media attention with claims that she has found two possible pyramid complexes in Egypt using Google Earth. But experts say her pyramids are nothing more than eroded hills infused with a heavy dose of wishful thinking. Are these Egyptian desert features … Angela Micol, a North Carolina-based woman who blogs at Google Earth Anomalies, says she discovered the two clusters of mysterious, angular mounds in the Egyptian desert while surveying satellite images of the terrain using Google Earth, the virtual map program. In its coverage, Gizmodo asserts that the desert structures look as if they have ...
Corn & Fuel: C2C recap
Post Date: 2012-08-13 05:17:06 by Tatarewicz
1 Comments
In the latter half, ecological biologist and advocate for alcohol-based fuel, David Blume, shared updates about the corn shortage, ethanol, and drought conditions. Even though drought has hurt this year's corn crops in the US, previous years have been bountiful and some 2+ billion bushels of corn are stored in silos, he said. Thus, the call to reduce the amount of corn to make ethanol, in order to use the corn to feed people, is unnecessary and being pushed by the "Big Ag/Oil" agenda, as well as people deluded by the media, he argued. "For years the oil companies have been saying 'it's food versus fuel; we're competing with starving African babies for the ...
Sun may soon have four poles, say researchers
Post Date: 2012-08-13 00:42:14 by farmfriend
1 Comments
Sun may soon have four poles, say researchersM By SEIJI TANAKA/ Staff Writer The sun may be entering a period of reduced activity that could result in lower temperatures on Earth, according to Japanese researchers. Officials of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Riken research foundation said on April 19 that the activity of sunspots appeared to resemble a 70-year period in the 17th century in which London’s Thames froze over and cherry blossoms bloomed later than usual in Kyoto. In that era, known as the Maunder Minimum, temperatures are estimated to have been about 2.5 degrees lower than in the second half of the 20th century. The Japanese study found that ...
Enhanced oil recovery better than hydrofracking
Post Date: 2012-08-12 07:01:08 by Tatarewicz
0 Comments
Keith Schaefer launched his Oil & Gas Investments Bulletin a couple years ago, and he has quickly ramped up to the kind of teaser prominence that I’m sure a hundred other startup newsletter dudes would love — whether it’s because of the mailing lists he has access to or the hypetastic nature of his teasers or the success of his picks, I don’t know. But every time he sends out a new pitch, I get a lot of questions. What Schaefer’s pitching now is a tiny company whose technology can bring incremental improvement to the water flooding of old oil wells, thereby extending the life of those wells and producing more oil with very little extra cost. As he puts it: ...
"Battery-powered" light rail car produced in China
Post Date: 2012-08-11 02:02:48 by Tatarewicz
0 Comments
Central China produces super-capacity light rail train CHANGSHA, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The world's first super-capacity light rail train was completed Friday by China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corporation Limited (CSR) Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co., Ltd. in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan province. The new type of electric locomotive can be fully charged within 30 seconds during its station stops, as it has a box-type super capacitor on the roof and charge spots at the foot of every compartment, Xu Zongxiang, general manager of the company, said. The train, which can hold a maximum of 320 passengers, does not need a traditional pantograph installed on the roof to get ...
Lost Egyptian Pyramids Found?
Post Date: 2012-08-11 01:35:11 by farmfriend
3 Comments
Lost Egyptian Pyramids Found? Analysis by Rossella Lorenzi Two possible pyramid complexes might have been found in Egypt, according to a Google Earth satellite imagery survey. Located about 90 miles apart, the sites contain unusual grouping of mounds with intriguing features and orientations, said satellite archaeology researcher Angela Micol of Maiden, N.C. One site in Upper Egypt, just 12 miles from the city of Abu Sidhum along the Nile, features four mounds each with a larger, triangular-shaped plateau. The two larger mounds at this site are approximately 250 feet in width, with two smaller mounds approximately 100 feet in width. ~snip~ Click for Full Text!
Domestic Spying: Mini-Drone Can Watch Neighbors From Above
Post Date: 2012-08-10 19:40:34 by Buzzard
0 Comments
Your neighbors’ fences are no longer tall enough. While President Obama takes flack for the US’s use of unmanned drone attacks abroad, there is a smaller, smartphone-controlled drone hovering above urban rooftops and suburban backyards: The Parrot AR Drone 2.0. The Parrot AR Drone 2.0, listed on Amazon just below $300, is the best way to live out one’s fantasy of being a spy. The miniature drone is controlled through your iPhone or iPad and features multiple sensors, including a hi-definition front-facing 720-pixel camera and a vertical camera looking straight down from the bottom of the miniature quadricopter (four propellers). The 2.0 model – the first version was ...
Lather up your weekend with the Perseid meteor shower
Post Date: 2012-08-09 19:35:46 by Buzzard
1 Comments
How do you watch a meteor shower? Step one: Find yourself a clear, dark sky late in the evening. Two, pour a cool, summer beverage. Three, find a lawn chair, sit and drink aforementioned beverage. And finally, look up. Not only do we get fireworks on the Fourth of July, we get nature’s own fireworks in mid August. Check out the Perseid (pronounced PURR-see-id) meteor shower on the night of August 11-12. While the Perseids loiter around our heavens from July 25 through Aug. 20, these shooting stars peak this weekend. You can start looking up late Saturday night and if you are lucky, you’ll observe a handful of meteors dart across the cosmos. Likely, you’ll see more after ...
Attack of the Robot Dinosaurs
Post Date: 2012-08-09 06:40:23 by Tatarewicz
0 Comments
I often extol the virtues of taking things into your own hands. My garden this year has provided squash, beans, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, and more for not only my household... but for relatives, neighbors, and coworkers as well. Those plants were sustained on water I collected from roof run-off. I did all the plumbing for that system. I crafted the entire chickenwire fence around the garden and a lattice system for vine vegetables as well. Many meals I've had this summer came entirely from invested sweat equity. Even the proteins were my own doing – some from self-caught and cleaned fish, frozen wild game from last hunting season, or beef from the family farm in ...
Using Wastewater as Fertilizer
Post Date: 2012-08-09 06:08:25 by Tatarewicz
2 Comments
ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2012) — Sewage sludge, wastewater and liquid manure are valuable sources of fertilizer for food production. Fraunhofer researchers have now developed a chemical-free, eco-friendly process that enables the recovered salts to be converted directly into organic food for crop plants. Phosphorus is a vital element not only for plants but also for all living organisms. In recent times, however, farmers have been faced with a growing shortage of this essential mineral, and the price of phosphate-based fertilizers has been steadily increasing. It is therefore high time to start looking for alternatives. This is not an easy task, because phosphorus cannot be replaced by ...
Touch Your Philodendron and Control Your Computer: Technology Turns Any Plant Into an Interactive Device
Post Date: 2012-08-07 02:22:20 by Tatarewicz
0 Comments
ScienceDaily (Aug. 3, 2012) — A yucca plant might make your office desk look nice, but with a new technology developed at Disney Research, Pittsburgh, that little shrub could possibly control your computer. And the jade plant nearby? Put your hand close to it and your iPod could start playing your favorite tunes. Any houseplant -- real or artificial -- could control a computer or any digital device with this technology, called Botanicus Interactus. Once a single wire is placed anywhere in the plant's soil, the technology can detect if and where a plant is touched, or even if someone gets near the plant. Disney researchers will demonstrate an interactive garden of real and ...
NASA Curiosity Rover Successfully Lands on Mars
Post Date: 2012-08-06 15:16:13 by X-15
0 Comments
August 6, 2012 - NASA's most advanced, 1-ton rover, Curiosity, touched down on Mars on Sunday at 10:32 p.m. PDT, concluding a 36-week flight and kicking off a two-year investigation of the planet's conditions for microbial life. "The wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars," commented NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. Curiosity, the most sophisticated rover ever built, is now on the surface of the Red Planet, where it will seek to answer age-old questions about whether life ever existed on Mars - or if the planet can sustain life in the future." Confirmation of Curiosity's successful landing came in communications relayed ...
Moon Dust, Rocket Engines, and NASA
Post Date: 2012-08-04 10:07:34 by Ada
2 Comments
At 12:31 a.m. central time August 6 NASA will bless us with its latest extravaganza, a multi-billion-dollar, decade-long effort to launch a six-wheel rover dubbed ‘Curiosity’ on the red planet 154 million miles from home. Reading the newspaper one morning, I was amused to learn about the Rube Goldberg "braking" system invented to control landing on Mars. A huge parachute is supposed to slow the craft despite an atmosphere only one percent of the earth’s, followed by freefall, then eight rocket engines ignite and lurch the craft out of the path of the trailing parachute somehow previously jettisoned, followed by a second freefall episode beginning at 66 feet ...
Latest [Newer] 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 [Older]
|