Storing data for the next 1000 years
Have you ever thought how vulnerable your data may be through the simple fact that you may be storing your entire digital life on a single hard drive? On single drive can hold tens of thousands of pictures, thousands of music files, videos, letters and countless other documents. One malfunctioning drive can wipe out your virtual life in a blink of an eye. A scary thought. On a greater scale, at least portions of the digital information describing our generation may be put at risk by current storage technologies. There are only a few decades of life in tape and disk storage these days, but a team of researchers claims to have come up with a power-efficient, scalable way to reliably store data with regular hard drives for an estimated (theoretical) 1400 years.
Read complete @ tgdaily.com
Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions
It will soon be 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book ever written. In it, Darwin outlined an idea that many still find shocking – that all life on Earth, including human life, evolved through natural selection.
Darwin presented compelling evidence for evolution in On the Origin and, since his time, the case has become overwhelming. Countless fossil discoveries allow us to trace the evolution of today's organisms from earlier forms. DNA sequencing has confirmed beyond any doubt that all living creatures share a common origin. Innumerable examples of evolution in action can be seen all around us, from the pollution-matching pepper moth to fast-changing viruses such as HIV and H5N1 bird flu. Evolution is as firmly established a scientific fact as the roundness of the Earth.
Read Complete @ NewScientist.com
The Ultimate Test of Atom and Neutron Neutrality
Researchers from Stanford University have proposed a new way to test the neutrality of an atom and even a neutron, a method they say will be far more sensitive than current methods, able to probe the charge of an atom or neutron down to an unbelievably small fraction of the electron charge, e.
This experiment will help answer important questions about charge quantization. Why does the charge appear in units of the electron charge? Why do some particles have no charge? Do the electrons and protons in an atom really cancel out to zero charge?
Read complete @ physorg.com
UCS Satellite Database- Countries and their Satellites
The UCS Satellite Database is a listing of operational satellites currently in orbit around Earth. The UCS Satellite Database is the only free, comprehensive compilation of active satellites in an easy to manipulate, commonly-used database format.
Find it here
Music Builds Bridges in the Brain
Taking music lessons can strengthen connections between the two hemispheres of the brain in children, but only if they practice diligently, according to a study reported here 14 April at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. The findings add to a long-running debate about the effects of musical training on the brain.
In 1995, a study led by neurologist and neuroscientist Gottfried Schlaug found that professional musicians who started playing before the age of 7 have an unusually thick corpus callosum, the bundle of axons that serves as an information superhighway between the left and right sides of the brain. Schlaug and colleagues saw this as evidence that musical training can bolster neural connections, but skeptics pointed to the possibility that the musicians had bigger corpora callosa to begin with. Perhaps their neural wiring had enhanced their musical pursuits instead of the other way around.
Read complete @ sciencenow.sciencemag.org
CyberCarpet
A stroll around the ancient city of Pompeii will be made possible this week thanks to an omni-directional treadmill developed by European researchers.
The treadmill is a "motion platform" which gives the impression of "natural walking" in any direction. The platform, called CyberCarpet, is made up of several belts which form an endless plane along two axes.
Scientists have combined the platform with a tracking system and virtual reality software recreating Pompeii.Read more @ news.bbc.co.uk
‘Breathing’ columns
These tubes that recoil to the ceiling when someone approaches and return to their original position when the person leaves are examples of teleonomic environments, a topic of research pursued by UB architecture faculty member Omar Khan.
Read complete @ www.buffalo.edu
Robots, our new friends electric?
Fictional robots always have a personality: Marvin was paranoid, C-3PO was fussy and HAL 9000 was murderous. But reality is disappointingly different. Sophisticated enough to assemble cars and assist during complex surgery, modern robots are dumb automatons, incapable of striking up relationships with their human operators.
But that could soon change. Engineers argue that, as robots begin to form a bigger part of society, the new machines will need a way to interact with humans. In short, they will need artificial personalities.
This week, engineers, psychologists and computer scientists from across Europe will begin a major project that aims to develop the first robot personalities.
"What we're looking at here is long-term interactions between people and robots in real situations," said Peter McOwan of Queen Mary, University of London, coordinator of the £6.6m, EU-funded Lirec project. "The big question is: what sort of properties does a synthetic companion need to have so that you feel you want to engage in a relationship with it over an extended period of time?"
Read complete @ www.guardian.co.uk
Mind Control Makes A Perfect Soldier
The human mind has always been an object of study, and seeing how the average person uses only 10 percent of their brain, we cannot control our own consciousness. But, what if there are those who can control all the minds in the world and manipulate every individual? If this sounds like an excerpt from a sci-fi film, there are records of researches and experiments with the human mind. There are more and more mind control methods today and they are mostly used fro military purposes.
Read complete @ www.javno.com
Fiction, not science - the long road to HAL
One of the most popular storylines in science fiction is the one about the computer that eventually outsmarts its creator. The machine's maker either comes to a sticky end at the hands of his invention or puts it to work in a plot to dominate the world.
Professor Nik Kasabov, head of the Knowledge Engineering Discovery Research Institute (KEDRI) at AUT University, has no fears of falling victim to a silicon-based killing machine - not for another 40 or 50 years, at any rate.
Read complete @ www.nzherald.co.nzGraphene gazing gives glimpse of foundations of universe
The researchers from The School of Physics and Astronomy, led by Professor Andre Geim, have found that the world’s thinnest material absorbs a well-defined fraction of visible light, which allows the direct determination of the fine structure constant.
Working with Portuguese theorists from The University of Minho in Portugal, Geim and colleagues report their findings online in the latest edition of Science Express. The paper will be published in the journal Science in the coming weeks.
The universe and life on this planet are intimately controlled by several exact numbers; so-called fundamental or universal constants such as the speed of light and the electric charge of an electron.
Read complete @ physorg.com
Japan Gears Up to Become a Full-On Robot Nation
If you've noticed an unusually large number of utilitarian humanoids hailing from Japan in the last few years, then you probably won't be surprised to hear about the country's official robot initiative. Right now, Japan is in the midst of executing a grand plan to make robots an integrated part of everyday life. To compensate for the shortage of young workers willing to do menial tasks, the Japan Robot Association, the government, and several technology institutions drafted a formal plan to create a society in which robots live side by side with humans by the year 2010. Since 2010 is just a couple years away, I called up a roboticist at the forefront of this movement to find out how it's going.
Read complete @ io9.com
Why Web 2.0 is an easier investment than biotech
Just five years ago, the high-tech industry was in the dumps and fickle Silicon Valley hearts were turning to biotechnology and so-called convergence companies that would combine computing know-how with life sciences.
At the time, it seemed like the best place to move the investment chips: The ideas behind social media were just starting to coagulate. The telecommunications build-out of the 1990s had long since ended. And big tech-boom buyers like Yahoo (which my CNET News.com colleague Charlie Cooper to this day curses for forever saddling us with billionaire basketball maven Mark Cuban) had shut the money spigot.
Read Complete @ News.com
The Pentagon's battle bugs
Biological weapons delivered by cyborg insects. It sounds like a nightmare scenario straight out of the wilder realms of science fiction, but it could be a reality if a current Pentagon project comes to fruition.
Right now, researchers are already growing insects with electronics inside them. They're creating cyborg moths and flying beetles that can be remotely controlled. One day, the US military may field squadrons of winged insect/machine hybrids with on-board audio, video or chemical sensors. These cyborg insects could conduct surveillance and reconnaissance missions on distant battlefields, in far-off caves, or maybe even in cities closer to home, and transmit detailed data back to their handlers at US military bases.
Read complete @ Asia Times