Body Language Decoded [source]
Review: Darwin's Camera by Phillip Prodger
[source]
Forgotten evolutionist lives in Darwin's shadow [source]
Fossil Feathers Revealing Extinct Moa's True Colors [source]
Chicken feathers could make cheap hydrogen store [source]
Epson begins mass-producing 'world's smallest' LCD for 3LCD data projectors
[source]
BeamBox outs MiLi Evolution Mini Power Projector for iPhone, iPod touch
[source]
Intel launching cheaper SSDs with up to 320GB capacity in two weeks? [source]
Touch in Windows 7: Just for show? [source]
What PC makers are paying for Windows 7
[source]
Glow in the Dark Science [source]
First functional quantum processor created, lasted slightly longer than your last Xbox 360
''This first qubit shifter was able to maintain state for 1,000 times longer than any previous qubit ever produced -- but since its predecessors could only manage a nanosecond's worth of cognition we're still only talking a microsecond here.'' [source]
Future of the Web: Location, Location, Location [source]
Living Safely with Robots, Beyond Asimov's Laws
''In 1981, a 37-year-old factory worker named Kenji Urada entered a restricted safety zone at a Kawasaki manufacturing plant to perform some maintenance on a robot. In his haste, he failed to completely turn it off. The robot’s powerful hydraulic arm pushed the engineer into some adjacent machinery, thus making Urada the first recorded victim to die at the hands of a robot.'' [source]
'Look Mom No Electricity': Transmitting Information with Chemistry [source]
title [source]
Most inspirational woman scientist revealed [source]
Group Effort: Solo Musicians Band Together on Collaboration Web Sites [source]
Cern bombards Large Hadron Collider grid with stress tests [source]
Introducing the Google Chrome OS [source]
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Thursday, July 09, 2009
More mixed news
Mixed space news
Mars rover may be stuck, but still doing science [source]
Ulysses to end its 18-year space mission
''Ulysses is the first spacecraft to survey the environment in space above and below the poles of the sun in the four dimensions of space and time.'' [source]
Spiral Arms Did Not Cause Climate Change on Earth
''The evidence that Earth's climate was different in the past is overwhelming, but there is little agreement on what caused these changes. ...'' [source]
Astronomer's new guide to the galaxy: Largest map of cold dust revealed [source]
Phantom menace to dark matter theory
''A SUBTLE anomaly in the orbit of the planets in our solar system could prove a controversial idea that goes beyond Einstein.'' [source]
Mixed news
This document will self-erase in five minutes
''The colour change is not permanent, however. In the absence of UV light, the MUA gradually reverts to its original shape, allowing the nanoparticles to disperse and the images to disappear.'' [source]
Memristor
''Chua set about exploring what this device would do. It was something that no combination of resistors, capacitors and inductors would do. Because moving charges make currents, and changing magnetic fluxes breed voltages, the new device would generate a voltage from a current rather like a resistor, but in a complex, dynamic way. In fact, Chua calculated, it would behave like a resistor that could "remember" what current had flowed through it before ...'' [source]
Urine power
''Using a nickel-based electrode, the scientists can create large amounts of cheap hydrogen from urine that could be burned or used in fuel cells. '' [source]
Computer learns sign language by watching TV
[source]
Rice Concrete Cuts Greenhouse Emissions
''Rice husks form small cases around edible kernels of rice and are rich in silicon dioxide (SiO2), an essential ingredient in concrete. Scientists have recognized the potential value of rice husks as a building material for decades, but past attempts to burn it produced an ash too contaminated with carbon to be useful as a cement substitute.'' [source]
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Monday, July 06, 2009
Do you rember Y2K ?
A friend of mine had a Y2K survivor t-shirt the other day and I remembered a nike commercial about the damages that the millennium bug could have caused... video
Funny to think it is almost 10 years ago :D
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Mixed space news
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Saturn's moon does have salty water ... possibly seas!
''Researchers in Europe detected salt particles in the volcanic vapor-and-ice jets that shoot hundreds of kilometers into space, the strongest evidence to date of a liquid ocean under the moon's icy crust.'' [source]
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Wind COULD be the answer
Plant wind-farms all over the planet, and voila':
''... the researchers found that wind energy could not only supply all of the world's energy requirements, but it could provide over forty times the world's current electrical consumption and over five times the global use of total energy needs.'' [source]
Perhaps a bit complicated to implement, isn't it :(
Thrilling news... mhua mhua mhuaaa!
''Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy Headed to the Big Screen'' [source]
I'm totally crazy about Asimov's books... the Sci-Fi ones, the popular sciences ones and the mistery ones too... (like these)
This news is at the same time exciting and scary... especially when I think about what monstrosity THEY had the guts to call "I robot": bleah! :(
I cross all my fingers hoping this trilogy will be done properly.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Summer holiday :)
I've just come back from Italy, where I spent 1 great week of sun and trips and baths :)
My family and my took went by car from Esbjerg (Denmark) to Lübek airport (info): circa 3 hours.
From there we flew to Pisa (airport) in 2 hours, and from there we took a train to Donoratico (toscana, Italy).
We stayed at the agritourism Greppo all'Olivo, that provides rooms and bikes and from where it is quite easy to go to the beach as well as visit various locations, such as Populonia.
We have a 3 years old daughter and it was the first time we went on holiday without her pram and without our car, but the area around Donoratico is quite family-friendly, so we didn't have any problem :)
Here are some pictures of our adventure.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Mixed news
The Future of Social Media: The Walls Come Crumbling Down
''The vision of a web where users are no longer locked up with their content away from others just because they picked a different social networking service, is a big one.'' [source]
Instant sex change served up by video software
''They recorded video of volunteers performing 30 different facial expressions such as frowning, smiling and looking surprised. For each expression, the positions of key facial features, such as the eyes, nose and corners of the lips, were manually labelled.
...
Those movements can then be transferred onto the face of another "known" person by calculating how the recipient's features need to change to take on each new expression.'' [source]
Hunks get more sex, but there's a price to pay
''The beefier the man – measured by total fat-free mass, or arm and leg muscle mass – the more sexual partners he had, Lassek confirmed. The study also showed that more muscled men tended to lose their virginity at a younger age, compared to skinny men. ... '' BUT ... [source]
Students learn from robot games
''Some may consider it kids' game, but robotics can go a long way in encouraging students to think creatively and learn to build products that are commercially viable, said a local educator at Republic Polytechnic (RP).'' [source]
Chinese Researchers Create First Pig Stem Cells
''Doctors led by Lei Xiao, of the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, took adult cells taken from a pig's ear and bone marrow and reprogrammed them so that they became so-called pluripotent stem cells.'' [source]
Fathers of Invention: What Muslims Gave the Scientific World
''In the Middle Ages, while Christians were busy warring, plundering, and burning heretics at the stake, Muslim scholars were inventing the most advanced devices of the day. '' [source]
Skulls vs. DNA: Zeroing In on American Origins
''Ancient Argentinian skeletons may help resolve a raging anthropological debate: whether or not early Americans came from a single original population.'' [source]
German firms eye huge African solar project
''The 20 or so firms will form on July 13 a consortium that aims to attract an enormous 400 billion euros (560 billion dollars) in investment in the project, known as Desertec, the Suedeutsche Zeitung daily reported.'' [source]
You, your brain and your mind.
What Makes You Uniquely "You"?
''Some of the most profound questions in science are also the least tangible. What does it mean to be sentient? What is the self? When issues become imponderable, many researchers demur, but neuro scientist Gerald Edelman dives right in. ...'' [source, more about Edelman]
Why Are Humans Different From All Other Apes? It’s the Cooking, Stupid
''Apes began to morph into humans, and the species Homo erectus emerged some two million years ago, Mr. Wrangham argues, for one fundamental reason: We learned to tame fire and heat our food. ...'' [source]
Air Force Looks for ‘Core Algorithms’ of Human Thought
''The latest effort comes from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, which is looking to build “mathematical or computational models of human attention, memory, categorization, reasoning, problem solving, learning and motivation, and decision making.” The ultimate goal, according to a recent request for research proposals, is to “elucidate core computational algorithms of the mind and brain.”'' [source]
Warp 5... Sir! :}
How warp drive is supposed to work: here.
And some more technical/practical problems: here.
''Known for the Mexican physicist Michael Alcubierre who originally developed the idea in the 1990's, an Alcubierre warp drive would create a bubble of energy behind the ship and a lack of energy in front of the ship, like a giant cosmic wave a space ship could surf. That particular section of space can travel faster than the speed of light in the surrounding space, and anything on or in that bubble will accelerate with it.''
Monday, June 15, 2009
Mona Lisa (now also naked!)
''Mona Lisa is "undoubtedly" Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, according to Veit Probst, director of the Heidelberg University Library.'' [source]
And there is more:
''Leonardo da Vinci, in a Renaissance version of Mad Magazine, may have painted his famous Mona Lisa in a number of ways, including nude.'' [source, and image]
Friday, June 12, 2009
Mixed news
Thursday, June 04, 2009
BTTF ... it's almost time for Marty to arrive!
Monday, June 01, 2009
Mixed news
Nokia next-gen "Rover" tablet unveiled [source]
Virtual fossils [source]
Melbourne university taps cloud to water farms ''The software is model-based and is programmable via the SPADE (Stream Processing Application Declarative Engine) language. But as with any model-based software, it is only as good as the model, which needs expertise to create properly.'' [source]
Exoplanet phases seen in visible light [source]
Mars probes unravel watery mysteries '''' [source]
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Mixed space news
Mixed news
Mixed IT news
Friday, May 22, 2009
"Missing Link" FOUND?
''May 19, 2009—Meet "Ida," the small "missing link" found in Germany that's created a big media splash and will likely continue to make waves among those who study human origins. '' [source]
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Mixed IT news
Eight things you didn't know about the internet[source]
Universal Design for Web Applications
''Nowadays, billions of people access the Web daily, with the ability to choose from over a dozen browsers running on desktop computers, laptops, and a variety of mobile devices, such as cell phones. The number of possible combinations is growing rapidly, and makes it increasingly difficult for Web designers and developers to craft their sites so as to be universally accessible.
...
In the preface to their book, the authors explain that the purpose of universal Web design is to make Web content "work as efficiently as possible across the range of capabilities exhibited by both people and their chosen browsing technologies." ... '' [source]
Delicate robotic hand [source]
Hydrogen Fuel Made Using Green Energy
''In what may be the ultimate bid for clean energy, a NASA-backed group is designing a wind- and sun-powered fueling system for city buses -- and possibly other machines -- that run on hydrogen.'' [source]