June 15, 2010
But controller-free games can help depression and replace Phys-Ed teachers.
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June 14, 2010
Entangled photons can dramatically reduce the feature sizes possible with lithography. At least, that's what physicists had hoped.
Lithography, the ability to print patterns onto certain materials using light, is one of the enabling technologies of our age. The size of the features that can be defined this way are tiny, limited only by the wavelength of light used to make them, the so-called diffraction limit.
...A heated AFM tip can draw nanometers-wide conductive lines on graphene oxide.
Using a heated atomic force microscope tip, researchers have drawn nanoscale conductive patterns on insulating graphene oxide. This simple trick to control graphene oxide's conductivity could pave the way for etching electronic circuits into the carbon material, an important advance toward high-speed, low-power, and potentially cheaper computer processors.
...Satellite navigation technology is focusing on reducing fuel consumption.
The last few years have seen some satellite navigation systems go from advising motorists of the fastest routes to recommending more fuel-efficient trips. Now Bosch, in Germany, has developed a route-planning system that could squeeze even more fuel savings from a journey by taking into account the car's weight, aerodynamics,...
Software uses images from millions of tourists to suggest ways for visitors to spend their time.
Tourists pondering how to spend their time in a large city could one day get help from a tool developed by researchers at Yahoo. It draws on the database of millions of photos uploaded to the site Flickr to generate detailed itineraries of what sites to visit, and in what order.
...Usage during a recent disaster highlights features that make the service so compelling.
The evidence continues to pile up that Twitter is a news service, not a social network. Of course, Twitter only works as a news service because its news is routed according to social connections--and that's the secret to the service's ability to endlessly issue, digest and re-synthesize news into actionable 140...
PitBulls.org is a community and information site centered around the American Pit Bull Terrier, usually referred to as Pit Bulls.Pit Bulls get a lot of coverage in the media, usually negative, because there is rampant fear of the breed. They are also often the target of Breed...
June 13, 2010
The equivalence principle is one of the corner stones of general relativity. Now physicists have used quantum mechanics to show how it fails.
The equivalence principle is one of the more fascinating ideas in modern science. It asserts that gravitational mass and inertial mass are identical. Einstein put it like this: the gravitational force we experience on Earth is identical to the force we would experience were we sitting in a spaceship accelerating at 1g. Newton might have said...
- Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital are building new livers by using old, unhealthy ones that would normally be discarded. The scientists use a gentle detergent to wash away old cells and debris. The remaining scaffold, which retains its blood-vessel architecture, can then be seeded with healthy liver cells and transplanted into a living animal.
... Unhealthy organs provide a framework for growing replacement ones.
Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have taken the first steps toward building functional, transplantable livers. In a study in rats, published online today by Nature Medicine, the researchers took donor livers, gently stripped them of their cells while leaving other material intact, and then used the remaining structure as a...
Researchers at the Venter Institute explain their groundbreaking techniques.
Last month, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that they had made the first synthetic cell by piecing together a genome made from bottled chemicals and transplanting it into a recipient cell. The landmark accomplishment represents a new level of control over the substance of life at the molecular level and...
The company will share parts and production lines between hybrids and conventional vehicles.
Ford is taking a markedly different approach to making hybrids and plug-in hybrids than competitors such as General Motors--and the company hopes this difference will provide it an edge in a potentially volatile market for such vehicles.
...- A NASA-led research team has successfully demonstrated for the first time elements of a prototype tsunami prediction system that quickly and accurately assesses large earthquakes and estimates the size of resulting tsunamis.
- NASA-funded scientists estimate from recent research that the volume of water molecules locked inside minerals in the moon's interior could exceed the amount of water in the Great Lakes here on Earth.
- Lawrence D. Thomas has been appointed manager of NASA's Constellation Program, which manages the effort to take humans beyond low-Earth orbit and develop the next generation launch vehicle and spacecraft.
- NASA is seeking private and corporate sponsors for the Centennial Challenges.
- Lawrence D. Thomas has been appointed manager of NASA's Constellation Program, which manages the effort to take humans beyond low-Earth orbit and develop the next generation launch vehicle and spacecraft.