Tuesday 31 May 2011

Global warming - up to four levels of doom!

International Energy Agency on global warming. The growth temperature for more than two degrees will have immense consequences.

Climate Change is to blame, say experts, to 500 tons of fish mortality in the Philippines last weekend. And while local residents struggling with dead "floating" fish, the International Energy Agency (IEA) arrives alarming warning - a record of carbon dioxide recorded last year, can only increase the number of disasters. With this emission, it becomes simply impossible, they say, the maintenance of global warming under control.

Maximum temperature increase of two degrees, which took place in a climate at least somewhat tolerant framework, but now, scientists believe, is a "utopia. " Global warming greater than "threshold" level two, said the agency's chief economist Faith Bird, introduces many parts of the world in "red" zone of danger due to climate change.

The author reports on the economic consequences of climate change, Professor Lord Stern, the London School of Economics, the British "Guardian" provides that it is already certain that by 2100. The mean temperature to increase by more than four degrees Celsius.

Such a warming will disrupt the lives of millions of people around the globe, leading to mass migration and conflict. This is a risk that any normal person should be committed to reducing - warns Stern.

To be a disaster was averted, the Agency has calculated that the world had to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in this decade to more than 32 Gigatonnes. If emissions of these gases increase by the same amount as the 2010th , the limit will be exceeded nine years ahead of schedule, which means that virtually be impossible to maintain heat at a sustainable level.

While environmentalists call for alarm, they also perceive that politicians, especially in developed economies, do not care much. Instead of worrying about reducing emissions, reaching the world for the last reserves of fossil fuels - the ice that is melting under the Arctic.

In the meantime, a number of indicators suggest that global warming is far from over. About 80 percent of power plants to be used by the 2020th already been built, or are some just build. Most of them are fossil fuel power plants, which means that it will continue to emit large amounts of carbon dioxide at least until mid-century.

This trend is now going into the hands of the "brake" the construction of nuclear power after the disasters caused by tsunami in Japan Fukushima. Many countries, led by Germany, to stop nuclear programs. Consequences - the negotiations on new global agreement on climate change under UN auspices broke into a dead end.

Monday 30 May 2011

Mirror that measures the heart rate

On fifth award for the best invention that allocates scientific magazine "Popular Science", first place, took the project Zer Po Ming, a student from Massachusetts who invented the mirror that can measure vital signs.

2009th a young Zer Pou Ming, a student of electrical and medical-engineering from the University of Massachusetts, has fallen on mind to setup a web camera on his laptop computer and convert it into a device for measuring heart rate.

The device, which is then made ​​was not quite right in his work, but from the idea to create software that will help doctors and patients with heart problems, he created the project that won first prize - a mirror that measures vital signs.

Last year he came up with the idea to make a double layer mirror behind which is the camera that is connected to your laptop, and that when you stand in front of him measure your heart when rate, you see the reflection. When he see someone standing in front of him, the mirror measures heart rate that sends blood to the blood vessels.

Blood absorbs light, so that more blood flows through blood vessels, the smaller the reflection of light by the mirror reads. Web camera that is placed in the mirror and read tiny fluctuations in reflected light, a computer program that converts data in heart rate, as explained Ming Zer Po.

This feature is not new, but until now researchers tracked the heart and other organs via high resolution cameras, and the idea of young scientists was that this invention is adapted to all cameras ordinary laptops and cameras, smart phones, to make him accessible to all users, not just those with "deep pockets.

The whole project has helped him with the same university roommate, Dan Mekdaf, which was designed for data processing in real time, which helps ordinary camera to generate data and be evident as the number of heart beats on a laptop. These two boys are still wonderfully improved mirror, they want to put on the market later this year, and its price is still not known.

In addition to this "medical condition" will be able to measure heart rate, will be able to read the work of other bodies, such as breathing and oxygen levels.

- This mirror will be able to show you your inner health. When people are reflected in it will be able to think that it is their identity inside, and it shows not only their outward appearance - said Zer Po Ming about his invention.

Sunday 29 May 2011

American scientists produced the first synthetic living cell

Scientist Craig Venter has created the first artificial life form and is convinced that this discovery could lead to new industrial revolution. Venter-led team that is trying to create organisms that will have a different role than that they allocated nature.

- We announced the creation of the first cell that you complete control of a synthetic chromosome. First we created a genetic code in the computer, add four bottles of chemicals and building each of the over one million base pairs of chromosome specific sequence. Finally we get a large molecule and inserted it into an experimental cell. The cell has recognized this molecule, which it turned into a whole new class. If we manage to cause the cell to produce what we want, they might set us free from the use of oil or help us to improve the damage caused to the environment by suction of carbon dioxide - explains Dr. Venter.

But critics argue that the potential benefits of synthetic organisms is very exaggerated.

Dr Helen Wallace of the organization to monitor the development of genetic technology gen watch warned of the danger of synthetic bacteria.

- The release of new organisms in nature can cause more harm than good - said Dr. Wallace, adding that their release in polluted environments, so they can be cleaned by actually creating a new kind of pollution. No one knows how these organisms behave in the new environment, she said.

Professor Julian Savulesku from Oxford University believes that the potential of this science will be used only in the distant future, but that he is very real and important. "

He does not deny that there are risks, and therefore insists on the introduction of new safety standards for radical research and protection of military and terrorist abuse and argues that this step towards the creation of new, unknown species nature could spark a revolution in biology, but also be misused if it gets into the wrong hands.

Critics remind us that no progress in science itself is not bad, if its application is carefully monitored.

Friday 27 May 2011

Solar plane flew Europe

The experimental solar-powered plane that flew from Switzerland, landed in Brussels after a flight that lasted 13 hours. The new, harder test for solar planes are to come next year.

Prototype, whose wing covers 12,000 photo-voltage cells that feed the four electric strength of ten horsepower, flew at an altitude of 3,600 meters at a speed of 70 kilometers per hour.

The aircraft was designed by Swiss pilot Bertrand Picard and physician, and was piloted by Andre Borsberg. Its wingspan is 64 meters, which is close to a large model plane A340 Erbas. Weighs only 1.6 tons, the weight of an average car. It is made of carbon fiber. The cockpit has a computer with special software that minimizes energy consumption.

"With this flight we would encourage politicians around the world to support advanced energy solutions,"said Picard immediately after landing the aircraft. On that occasion, called for a change in thinking and encourage young people to adopt new technologies and stop the spending of fossil fuels. "Folly is that humanity spends billions of tons of oil every hour,"said Picard.

Soon flight around the Earth

The aircraft has already entered the history of aeronautics in July 2010. when he performed a long flight of 24 hours without a break using only solar energy and batteries. A further aim of this project worth 75 million euros is the creation of a new prototype that will be even bigger and have better performance. When asked whether they considered increasing the speed of the aircraft, Picard said that for now is not the goal.
The new prototype should 2013th fly over the Atlantic, and the final goal of the flyover of the entire globe in five stages that are expected 2013th and 2014th year. Powered on solar energy has already received support from the European Commission.

Wednesday 25 May 2011

New method showed the existence of dark matter

The first results of a large astronomical research, during which he viewed more than 200,000 galaxies using the latest technology, confirmed the existence of mysterious dark energy, scientists estimate.
Dark energy makes up about 73 percent of the universe and its existence could explain why the universe is expanding rapidly.

During the research, an international team of researchers used two separate methods of observation to allow independent verification of previously obtained results on dark energy, the BBC reported.

Both studies were published in the newspaper Montly Nutis "of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Astronomers are in one of them measured the pattern of distribution of galaxies in the universe, called "baryonic ajustine oscillations, and the second the rate at which the sets of galaxies formed over time.
Both techniques confirmed the existence of dark energy and accelerated expansion of the universe.
The concept of dark energy was first mentioned in late 1990's, during the investigation of light of distant supernovae, that is. stellar explosions.

To explain how and why the rapid expansion of the universe, astronomers have been forced to change or Einstein's theory of gravity or to accept that the universe is filled with a new form of energy.

"The effect of dark energy is like when you throw the ball in the air, and it is faster and faster climbs into the sky, " said study co-author Dr Chris Blake, the Australian Svinburn University of Melbourne.

"The results indicate that dark energy cosmological constant, as Einstein said. That gravity is the basis of that, then we would not have witnessed the constant influence of dark energy over time, " he said.

The survey, called ViglZ, conducted since 2006. until this year. The scientists used data collected by NASA's Space Telescope Galeks and Anglo-Australian Telescope in Sajding Springs, 451 miles northwest of Sydney.

Mapped the distribution of galaxies in the largest part of the universe, the return of eight billion years back in time, which is half the age of the universe.

"This is significant progress. These guys are serious, scientists, and we have long awaited the results, " he told BBC News Bob Nicholl, a British cosmologist and professor of astrophysics at the University of Postmautu.
"This is yet another confirmation of the existence of dark energy that gives us information that we can not round up our theory and that shows us the way forward, " he added.

Dark energy makes up about 73 percent, and dark matter, which does not emit or reflect light, about 23 percent of the universe. Ordinary matter - gas, stars, planets and galaxies - are, however, only four percent of the universe.

Monday 23 May 2011

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Amazon tribe does not know the concept of time

Amazon tribe Amondava in their own language has no linguistic structures that are related to time and space. Members of these groups simply do not know the abstract concept of time, according to a study Language and Cognition, reports the BBC.

Amondava understand that events happen in time, but in their language there is no special word for this concept, the researchers who intend to study languages ​​and other Amazonian tribes to see if they exhibit the same specificity.

Members of the tribe were Amondava first came into contact with the outside world 1986th year. Researchers at Britain's University of Portsmouth and the Brazilian Federal University of Rondônia began recently to analyze the concept of time in their own language.

"We do not say that it is the people 'no time' or 'out of time '. Amondava, like all other peoples, talk about events and some parts of the event,"said Chris Sinha, a professor of psychology of language at the University of Portsmouth.

"What we found is the time as a term independent of the events that took place, they have no concept of time as something in which events happen, " he explained.

Amondava have no word for "time", but for the time periods such as "moon" and "years".
They do not count years of age, but use different words for every phase of life and status within the community. Scientists suspect that the absence of the concept of time due the absence of "technologies of time" - the system calendar and clock, which again is connected with the fact that, as with many other tribes, their scoring system is limited. 

Sunday 22 May 2011

Material thinner than paper and stronger than steel

Scientists have developed super material that is thinner than paper, but also ten times stronger than steel.
Inventors grafenick paper, compounds based on graphite, argue that not only lighter, stronger, stiffer and more flexible than steel, but also environmentally friendly.

Scientists claim that a revolution in the automotive industry and aircraft manufacturing.

Specifically, grafenick paper is six times lighter than steel, has six times less dense, is ten times stronger and thirteen times flexible. Since it is graphene, a material has the electrical, mechanical and thermal properties. It is made up of a number of single hexagonal sheets of carbon that is chemically reformed from graphite.

Perhaps best of all to the production of paper grafenick is complex and expensive, and it could have wide use in the manufacture of automobiles and airplanes, where the producers have long turned to the use of carbon fiber to reduce weight and reduce fuel consumption, writes the British media .

Saturday 21 May 2011

Monkeys are racist to

Racial, ethnic and religious prejudices have their roots in the distant past, according to a survey of scientists who have studied the apes.

Several experiments showed that the animals are much more cautious when it comes to intruders, and to have a bad prejudices about them. The survey was conducted on the uninhabited island of Cayo Santiago Puerto Rican in which live many different kinds of monkeys.

Neha Mahajan, a student at Yale University, led a team of psychologists who have studied the behavior of monkeys because these animals are very similar people, live in groups and build strong social ties.

Psychologists has long been known that the bias point of automatism, and that they are not even aware. Tests on monkeys have shown that biases such as "we " and "they" have their roots from ancient times.
 
Researchers followed a time in which the monkeys looked at the photos by their group and the monkeys that did not belong to that group. After several experiments, we found that the monkeys looked more photos of unknown but familiar faces.

To ensure that monkeys are not only curious, the researchers combined the photographs of monkeys who have recently left the group and those who have joined her.

During this experiment, the monkeys again looked more photos intruders, ie. those monkeys who left the group, although they were more familiar with the newcomers.
 
Monkeys are obvious differences made on the basis of whether the monkeys in the photos of their group members or not. Mahayana and her colleagues devised an experiment to discover whether animals have a negative attitude toward the intruders, and the newcomers. Then the group members with photos and intruders combine photos of attractive items such as fruit, and unattractive, such as spiders, writes Daily Mail.
 
When the photo of the group members combined with a photograph of fruit, or intruders with a photograph photographs spider monkeys are quickly lost interest. But when a photograph of members of the group paired with spider monkeys have long observed.

The researchers assume that the monkeys confused combination of right and wrong. This showed that the monkeys do not make a difference between group members and intruders, but also to link the members of your group with good things, and intruders with bad.
 
The magazine "Scientific American" (Scientific American) writes that the results of this study demonstrate the evolutionary basis of prejudice.

Friday 20 May 2011

Europe sinking under Africa

European continent in recent years underscores the African tectonic plate and two continents are closer and closer, it was said at the conference European Geosciences Union.

Northern end of the African tectonic plate is several million years ago, underlined by Europe, but the process stopped. Now, experts believe this could happen is that Europe begins to sink, that there is a scientifically fascinating and very rare subduction zones (where one plate sinks under the other).
 
According to reports by scientists, rock mass in the North African tectonic plates, beneath the Mediterranean Sea, almost sank beneath the Eurasian plate, which is Europe. But the weight is too light, and scientists believe that Africa will not sink.

"Africa will not sink, but the two continents are still approaching, what will happen then? It is likely to witness the beginning of subduction under Europe Africa, " said Rajnus Vortel, a professor at the University of Utrecht, the BBC reported.

Just as scientists at the University of Utrecht, concluded that the approach of Europe and Africa, a few centimeters each year, partly thwarted by the collision of tectonic plates in Turkey. Also, the reason for that is the African continent, because of the ease, ceased to sink.
 
It is precisely because some parts of the African plates, which have been separated and broken off, they began to rise. Parts of the Eurasian plate, headed south, towards the area of Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearic islands.
 
Based on research, analysis and observation of the recent earthquake, scientists believe that the end result could be the start of subduction of the opposite direction.
 
If the theory that Europe begins to sink and that subduction began to be proven, researchers could better assess the risks of earthquakes and tsunamis in Europe.
The conference highlighted the fact that Europe is very little money invested in the construction of a system for warning of tsunami.
 
"We will continue to monitor seismic activity in order to determine whether it really underscores the Mediterranean North Africa", said Professor Vortel, adding that this will take several hundred years.

Thursday 19 May 2011

Polar bears at the equator

Geologists have recently found evidence that our planet, which in our times more sweat in the recent past reminded the nearly endless icy wilderness. Can you imagine the iceberg on the halfway between the Earth's poles?

Can you imagine the white bears who walk on ice floes halfway between the Earth's poles?
No, this is not a new attraction for curious travelers with deeper pockets who want to afford another unusual tour. Geologists have recently found evidence that our planet, which in our times more sweat in the recent past reminded the nearly endless icy wilderness. When this happened last time?

716.5 million years ago, when no reasonable our bipedal ancestors did not exist, even for the sake of mammals that are mentioned at the beginning of imagery. Recently, researchers found that the University Harvard (U.S.). The latest discovery is based, you will not believe, on the study of ancient rocks that are tropical - thanks to the moving surface - due in the northwestern parts of present-day Canada.

Another confirmation of the scientific assumptions, called "snow snowball Earth", at which the "third rock from the Sun" once upon a time was bound in eternal ice to the equator. The findings are, exactly, made famous in the journal Science.

Earth as a lump of snow

The first time was supported by the aforementioned cruel icing occurred near zero parallel, indicating a rare event known as "Snowball Earth", highlights the geologist Francis Macdonald. And that lasted for at least five million years!

With even one such, which later happened, was divided uu two major ice ages on our planet. It is obvious that the frozen cover in both cases cover the entire area, turning it almost into "ice land".
Survival of eukaryotes (unicellular and multicultural forms of life, other than microorganisms such as bacteria) suggests that the sun came up in certain regions, leaving not frozen water. Almost at the same time there have been the earliest animals.

Despite the omnipresent freeze, reminiscent of Francis Macdonald, the temperature was not uniform (appeared as a small deviation), and are icebergs sailed back and forth providing a sort of refuge for wildlife. Antediluvian remains (fossils) show that there were all the major groups of eukaryotes, except for animals, before the Earth was the first freeze.

If it did, then how organisms survive? Is that prompted the change (evolution) and the subsequent emergence of animals?

On the evolutionary point of view, life on Earth is always bad when confronted with an ice age that represents a serious burden.

On rocks from the Yukon (Canadian area) there are clear signs of ice accumulation and other signs of icing, such as particles or granules of departed rocks, distortions in soft sediments and applied shear remains scraped ice.

Rocks from tropical regions

On the basis of magnetism and structure, scientists are able to determine that these Canadian rocks in the ancient past, before the 716.5 million years ago, located at the level of the sea in the tropics. Ten degrees north or south of the equator.

Climate imitation (modeling) have long forecast that the entire ocean froze if extended to 30 degrees north and south latitude. It was not immediately clear what caused it and why the overall freeze over, but it coincides with the age of rocks formed from cooled magma found in the outermost Corner's northwestern Canada.

One can consider that the freeze ended abruptly or is interrupted by heavy volcanic outbursts.
Millions of years of steady succession of cold and warm period seems to be impaired - suggests lengthy duration of the freezing cold. Looking to tomorrow, there is no reasonable justification why a global freezing (and freezing) does not happen again.

Chaining our planet's eternal ice suggested five years ago Russian astronomers, led by Habibulom Abdusamatov: mid-century the planet's cooling, not warming. For that, blame the reduction of the flow of radiation from our star. The country will begin to cool from 2012 to 2013. year, a freeze will be followed by a decade and a half or two after falling the most tumultuous upheavals (activities) in the Sun (2035-2045).

Tuesday 17 May 2011

Canadian researchers have created a flexible phone from e-paper


Researchers from the Laboratory of Human Media (Human Media Lab) of the Canadian Queens University of Ontario (Queen \ 's University of Ontario ) made ​​the fully functional, flexible smart phone-based e-paper, also known as computer paper. Like their cousins ​​in the thick rigid packaging, papirfon can call and receive calls, play music and read an e-book. However, in contrast, adapts to the shape of the user's pocket or purse, and some actions can be made by it to bend in certain ways.
"This computer seems to leave an impression and works as a speck of interactive paper", says its creator, Roel Vertegal, director of the laboratories mentioned. "deflect it to work as a mobile phone, making him bunny ears to flip sides or writing on it in pencil."

The device has a thin flexible screen diagonal 9.5 cm (3.7 inches) made from e-paper company E-Ink, below which the flexible printed circuit with resistive sensors bending. These sensors allow the phone is programmed to recognize different types of bending, which then result in actions such as viewing menus, dialing, dialing songs or perform some other function. Built Vakomova (Wacom) panel allows the writing on the screen, making it even closer paper.

When not in use the paper phone does not waste electricity. Vertegalov team has made ​​a similar device, called Sneplet (Snaplet), which can be worn as a band on the forearm. Works like a clock when the convex curve (arm), it becomes a personal digital assistant when the plane, and can be used as a phone when he bent concave.


Technology is the result of collaboration between Queens University and the University of Arizona, was officially presented 10th May at the conference on interaction between people and computers (Computer-Human Interaction, CHI 2011) in Vancouver.

Vertegal says this is the future and that five to ten years, providing a similar look and feeling like their devices. (M.V.)

Fermentable world of particles

Discovery nucleus hundred years ago changed the world: in the spring of the 1911th Ernest Rutherford on how informed the Royal Society

In many extraordinary discoveries in the history of mankind, from which resulted in the modern scientific-technological civilization, there are few that can be clearly identified as fatal. In modern times in such a course include - formulation of classical mechanics in the 17th and 18, mastering the electromagnetic phenomena in the 19th and penetration in the final structure of matter in the 20th century.

Opening the door submicroscopic world, the farthest from our sensory experience, the discovery of atomic nucleus was the first and crucial step towards this final breakthrough. In the spring of the 1911th Ernest Rutherford informed the Royal Society that it is interpreting the results of Geiger and Marsden, who under his direction for several years experimenting with the passage of alpha particles through thin gold foil, concluded that virtually the entire mass of the atoms, together with a positive electrical charge must be concentrated in a very small area , around a hundred thousand times smaller than the already hopelessly small atoms.

As after every great discovery, and after the discovery of atomic nucleus - the nucleus - the next 100 years was followed by two intertwined series of connected events consequently, the first semantics, then the

practical level. There was a so-called nuclear era of mankind.

Parallel universe

At the cognitive level discovery of the core is directly led to the formation of images of planetary structure of atoms, then a series of successive knowledge about the laws that govern micro, the modern image of the relativistic and quantum essence of nature. It finally led to the understanding of most chemical and biological processes at the atomic and molecular level.

Interpreting the properties of atomic nuclei themselves, and the phenomena that occur in them, we learned that, besides gravity and electromagnetism, there are two forces that govern nature-later called strong and weak interaction. Probably the most fantastic discovery that was within our world there anti-world, the whole parallel universe, but complementary and incompatible with our own.

Understanding of nuclear processes has led to deciphering the origin of chemical elements - we realized that the whole matter had to go through a complex combination of nuclear processes in nature which can take place only in the interiors of stars, and these atoms from which everything is composed. It is also responded to the question of the powerful and long-lasting energy source of stars, including our sun.

Expanding knowledge of the constituents of atoms gradually turned out to participate in the structure of matter surprisingly small number of different elementary particles, and that the fantastic variety of nature enables their abilities to build their complex-related systems - nucleus, atoms, molecules and the macroscopic and megascopic body. In nature, as we now understand, and does nothing else - it is nothing but a constant fermentable world of elementary particles.

On the applied field methods have been developed for handling core, thus achieving the dream of alchemists, converting a chemical element into another. Thus was produced a number of elements that do not exist in nature. Completely unexpected as the application of exotic phenomena and nuclear techniques in medicine. They range from the therapeutic application of nuclear radiation beams to refined diagnostic methods such as PET scanners and magnetic resonance techniques for noninvasive imaging of structure and function inside the human body.

Knowledge of the nuclei of atoms are used for the development of methods for the release of the largest energy that exists in nature - those which have an atomic nucleus. This energy can be controlled and uncontrolled release. Controlled release of energy nuclei are called nuclear energy, despite a variety of children's diseases, in one or other of a number of safe technology whose development is in full swing, inevitably seen as a final solution constantly increasing demands of mankind.

Savic's legacy

Threat posed by the uncontrolled release of energy through various types of nuclear weapons is, starting from the moment of its use against civilians in World War II, changed forever the political landscape of the world. Since then, the ability to use your most powerful weapons against the civilian population is used as an instrument of intimidation and blackmail in

implementing policies that compromise the interests of those who possess these weapons monopoly. Nuclear knowledge and skills have become the main instrument in all sharpen struggle for survival in the human species.

The world will never be the same as before the nuclear era. Now that the nuclear era in his mature years, consider the soon as the state of nuclear knowledge and skills with us. In the time before World War II, when they were committed to significant discoveries about the characteristics of micro, including that of the nuclei of atoms, here the scientific and technical disciplines remained unknown. After the war, in accordance with the doctrine of "big science", with enormous financial and human efforts, under the leadership of Paul Savic, construction and development of the Vinca Institute (which, incidentally, today bears his name) has successfully caught up with then-state nuclear knowledge and skills in the world, a good part and other disciplines.

Over the years, from the city is scattered almost all of our present-day science. However, since the research in nuclear science conference, a number of papers per unit of time and money invested little in these times when using simplified numerical criteria highly valorized only studies that can be easily and with small investments publishes a number of papers, the nuclear science in our country gradually died out.

There are only accidental and insignificant venerable remains of once competent and coherent scientific and technical group that was able not only to monitor world events in the area, but that they largely participate equally. Having lost the competence stay left at the mercy of those who possess it. Proverbial irresponsibility to the legacy of ancestors and the absence of an overriding sense of the importance of continuity in the most complicated areas of the upgrade, here are once again showed a drastic way.

If you do not want that in the coming renaissance of nuclear power to be just helpless observers, we must, with great efforts and large investments, start virtually from scratch.

Monday 16 May 2011

Lake without banks

The salt water of the Arctic Ocean, was discovered in the area with fresh water, which can negatively affect the climate in western Europe. It is a Boforovo sea, part of the Arctic Ocean, which laps the shores of Alaska and Canada. Scientists working on problems of climate change and marine ecosystems, they found a circular current. The area of fresh water is located over the saltwater thesis, with almost no interference occurs. This freshwater lake with no shores, the quantity of fresh water, double the Lake Victoria. A huge amount of fresh water, apparently formed due to melting glaciers of the Canadian Arctic archipelago and the Arctic ice cap. The existence of the lake, no matter how strange, hides in itself a great danger to the climate in Western Europe, 5,000 kilometers away. Moving fresh water in the northern Atlantic, it could change the circulation of air and lower temperatures in this region. Hot mass is usually due to the west of Europe, but after moving fresh water, there may occur by cooling. It is paradoxically associated with global warming, caused by melting Arctic iceMost experts, but now does not deny the fact that there has been warming, but rejected a theory linking climate to human activities. This means that we are now powerless to prevent the consequences of such a mature and fresh water in the Arctic.

Saturday 14 May 2011

Plastic repair itself

U.S. researchers have constructed a new type of plastic material, which can repair itself by exposing the ordinary light. This amazing material can extend the life and durability of dozens of products based on polymers - from ordinary household products - plastic bags and cans, rubber tires, to expensive medical equipment. Rubbery plastic, can be found in thousands of products, but is highly sensitive to the effects of scratching, cutting or drilling. In order to improve these products, so far it was necessary to warm the damaged part and putting patches. The team from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, managed by Christopher Veder, has developed a self-repairing rubber-like material containing metal. The metal absorbs ultraviolet rays turns them into localized heat, which damaged part of the repair. The so-called smart materials, with built-in ability to damage caused self-repairing normal wear, might prove to be useful in transport, construction, packaging industry and other sectors. The synthetic polymers include synthetic rubber, neoprene, nylon, PVC, polystyrene, polyethylene and silicone.

Friday 13 May 2011

Forgetting in a flash


German scientists (Institute of the Max Planck in Göttingen) was first calculated that for approximately one second per excited nerve cell vanish for ever bit of information (messages) from human brain! Is assumed to be far removed obstacles to the fundamental understanding of the 'nerve recording in cerebral cortex brain to hand. Our ancestors knew how to quickly forget (and slow remember)?

Scientists from the Institute for the dynamics of self-organization and the Max Planck at the University of Göttingen (Germany), which was recently measured, they were surprised by speed of sensory stimuli from the deletion of the cerebral cortex. Flow of electrochemical messages (signals) in the brain is tremendously confusing (chaotic).

Despite this, the first time calculate during which disappears data (information) is stored in a kind of patterns of neural networks. Roughly one bit per excited nerve cell in seconds, to express technological terms, it is surprisingly fast. His remark at the end of last year revealed in the respected journal of physical Review during leters.

Two millennia, in fact, he was considered to nerve passes through the intangible and invisible spirit animal and transmits information regarding the status and activities of all parts of our body. It was not until the mid-19th century physicists and physiologists have found that in parallel to perform in the form of electrical pulses, and at the end of the century that they appear as the potential (so-called action potential) in cells called neurons.

Whirl of nerves

Nervous system as a whole is made up of nerve and specific cells that surround them and protect, each functional unit with others in the human brain makes a huge network. The grounds are similar to other cells - are shrouded semi-permeable membrane (membrane), and the body is a nucleus surrounded by cytoplasm.

Nerves, however, have special extensions: dendrites and axons. First receive a message, the other is transmitted neighbors in the form of electrical signals. Connections between neurons is achieved through so-called. synapses, small extensions at the ends of dendrites and axons, in which the transmission of impulses realized as an electrochemical process. The speed is different for different neurons - from 0.6 to 120 meters per second.

The brain remembers (encoded) in the form of electrical changes (pulse) that can be displayed on the graph line with sudden changes (spikes). Each is normally endowed with about one hundred billion nerve connected to the same time and receive and transmit (receiver and transmitter), and in particular conditions only passes its signal. Giant whirl, then, is overwhelmed and many arrive transmiting messages at all times.

Every bit of information processed is creating its own pattern of connections, which indicates that the neuron and when included in the mailing. In other words, the pattern is some kind of record of events (protocol) that tracks changes in the flow of information between nerve cells.

Nerve recording

How reliable is this image? Slight variations in the "neural chat" may give rise to different forms, like the interference matter by an individual in one's conversation. The final lesson is, therefore, completely reversed. In science such a situation is called chaos or chaos, for this reason it is not possible in the longer term to predict how the phenomena take place (schedule), as opposed not chaotic (aka stable) events in the brain where the errors are much rarer.

Even more: as a result of small errors remembered will be gradually lost.

The behavior of individual nerve little or nothing can act on a comprehensive picture of events. The latest findings from Göttingen revealed that the events in the cerebral cortex, the main center of mergers and switching, largely haphazard. Researchers in their calculations for the first time used a credible performances (models) neurons, which was essential. It was shown that the nerves involved when the stimulus (potential) exceeded the critical value. And that was the only way to accurately capture when the nerve cells become active.

Previous studies have not taken into consideration when and under what conditions demonstrated the culmination of nerve excitation (divert spike). Gottingen scientists have finally established a basis on which they calculated the rate of forgetting rate, which they say is surprisingly large. Approximately one bit per second information disappears forever involved in a neural cell. It turns out to vanish for the same time such a large segment of the brain for what is received through the senses! How quickly arrived so quickly evaporated.

Is assumed to be far removed obstacles to the fundamental understanding of the 'nervous writing "in the cerebral cortex which, by all accounts, primarily adapted to the processing of short observations from the outside world.

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Deletion of life

Bit is the smallest unit of information in computer science, and represents the amount necessary to distinguish two mutually exclusive states, often presented as "units" (1) and "zero" (0), yes or no, true or false, or not there is voltage, etc. .

It is also used as the name of the digits in the binary numeral system (base 2 system). The word was first used 1948th The work of Claude Shannon (who said that the word comes from John Takiji) and was created in early conclusion of the English word "binary" and the end of the word "figure" or "units" in English (or binary digit binary unit).

How much data is deleted during the average human life (70 years) in each nerve each cell and all together, and there are - as assumed - about a hundred billion in the brain, as the trees in the Amazon rainforest?

Wednesday 11 May 2011

A huge asteroid will pass Earth at the end of the year

A giant asteroid weighs 55 million tons will pass by the Earth later this year, provides NASA experts.
According to forecasts of scientists in November, the asteroid will pass between the planet and moon, and will be visible with small telescopes.

"This opportunity to see an asteroid up close was a real rarity,"said Robin Skagel, Vice-Chair of the British society for popular astronomy, reports the Daily Telegraph.

If an asteroid of this size and weight hit the Earth would have the impact as much as 65,000 nuclear bombs, and would leave behind a crater six miles wide and over 600 meters deep.

Asteroid named YU55 will go on past Earth at a distance of 320,480 kilometers. This is the first large facility that will pass so close to our planet.

NASA has been officially designated as potentially dangerous YU55 facility, but emphasized that, given its current direction, there is no reason for alarm.

YU55 asteroid orbits the Sun every 14 years. The former is passed by Earth in April 2010. years at a distance of 1.5 million years.

Tuesday 10 May 2011

Lasers replace spark plugs on cars

Spark plugs in cars could soon taken lasers. A team of Japanese and Romanian scientists plan to a conference on lasers and electronic devices, introduce a special laser that can start internal combustion engines. This technology, the cars made much more economical, and greatly reduce air pollution, which occurs each time the engine ignition. Scientists on this project have already started negotiations with manufacturers auto spark plugs. Otherwise, the idea of replacing their dated long, because soon spent, and the metal of which they are made over time corrodes.

A team of scientists from Romania and Japan demonstrated a system that focuses on two or three laser beam engine in the cylinders at various depths and thus promote combustion. A few small lasers located in the cylinders, with no problem can withstand the high temperatures in the engine, a laser lasts as long as the car.

Monday 9 May 2011

Russian fleet gets "flying saucers"

Russian experts of the Institute of Physics, "Lebedev" in Samarra said the sensational news that made ​​the so-called plasma coating for supersonic aircraft, which allows them to multiply to increase the speed of flight.

They are, furthermore, failed to clarify the mode of action of "shock waves in the middle of unbalanced" which is formed around aircraft wings. Physicists are convinced that, thanks to the management of such waves, manage to achieve unthinkable maneuver new aircraft, according to the site Radiomajak.
According to scientists Rinat Gauls, "managing these waves with the magnetic field is possible, control the plane, but it is necessary to form a plasma stream to the right place is necessary properties.

Russian scientists working out this is not the first aircraft, like "flying saucers". A year and a half in Ulyanovsk adopted five-year program to build aerostatic aircraft in which there is a location that is, except helium, full of warm and cold air (Atla).
Such a scheme makes it possible to effectively control the buoyancy force acting on the spacecraft, allowing its vertical takeoff and landing. This aircraft is due to their similar in shape to drive named "flying saucer".

Diameter of the aircraft will reach 250 meters, height about 100 meters and will cost about 2.7 billion rubles (96.9 million).

Atla is, according to scientists, virtually a new generation of airship.

Sunday 8 May 2011

Spare parts for the human body

Professor of theoretical physics, City University of New York Michio Kaku said that the year 2030. expects several important scientific discoveries, including contact lenses with Internet access.

On a prototype of such a device to Professor Babak Parviz University with Washington, which is for the London daily The Times explained that the device will be able to recognize faces or automatically translated from foreign languages.

It is expected that up to 2030. sold at the show "spare parts" for humans.

But now scientific advances make it possible to make cartilage, bone, skin, ears, nose, blood vessels, heart valves, bladder and trachea. By then, the man may acquire and telepathy.

Paralyzed but now implanted in the brain microsheme, with which they learn the power of their thoughts to write emails, play video games and surf the Internet.

Engineers at Honda corporation on this principle, create bots.

"There is likely to be scientists to 2070th able to revive the extinct animals," said Professor Kaku, forecasting what will be the scientific achievement of the show by 2100. year,

By now deciphered the genome of Neanderthal man, and in scientific circles for the prospects of a revival of the human ancestor.

"I think it would be possible when we receive the tools for genetic manipulation. Such instruments would theoretically occur sooner or later. The question is whether it is necessary to work," said Robert Lanza of corporations "Advanced technology sel.

To 2070th is expected and the emergence of technologies that will allow you to slow down the aging process, and by 2100. can be achieved imagination of scientists about the "matter that can be programmed, or a different format.

At the beginning of the 22nd century appears spaceship that could travel to the stars, scientists believe.

By then, the human civilization take victory over cancer, and is expected to "merge man and robots."

"By 2100. Will in our daily lives get reasonable robots, but we will not be separated from them, but before we ourselves become robots and partly be associated with robots," predicts scientist Rodney Brooks Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Until then come to the penetration of the space tourism, as a matter of creating a cosmic elevator.

Saturday 7 May 2011

Female brain is more active than male

Canadian scientists have found that the female brain is more active than men, which, on the other hand a better rest, transmitted  "Le Figaro". The ability of men to not think of anything was, as the newspaper said, the real fact that during the resting activity of neurons in the brain is much higher in women than in men.

Asked whether this means that the female brain can never rest, a Canadian scientist Adrian Menderk with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Montreal says that the male brain is simply a better rest of the brain of women.

"Each brain is, in fact, constantly active, the only question to what extent, but the fact is that the male brain is better than rest of the brain of women, " she said.

Angels, who specializes in schizophrenia, the discovery came by accident while studying this disease to patients in the awake and sleepy state.

"We have not yet able to say to what extent such differences affect the social factors and hormones, " she said.

"In current circumstances, women are constantly preoccupied with different jobs and have to keep under control a lot more things than men, so that something like this is not surprising, " says angels.

Friday 6 May 2011

3D Walls

Modern wallcoverings in three dimensions, which are made ​​of natural materials are often used in interior decoration.

Not only do they have a strong aesthetic effect, but much more practical and cost of wall paper that has been used to decorate the walls.

Modern environmental and wall coverings made ​​from recycled material and are 100% biodegradable. They are manufactured from raw materials obtained processing sugar cane.

Wall coverings in three dimensions are entitled to refreshment modern home. Their design contributions phone bearing the appearance of the home, and can be placed in any room, even in the bathroom.

Thursday 5 May 2011

Floating city

It looks like a scene from a science-fiction film, but the floating city is potentially a solution for places that natural disasters and extreme weather conditions devastated. The imposing structure would be 366 meters tall and stretched to the 279 acres, and at that point could be 40,000 people. Inside the floating city, there would be all that exists in normal capital-from the hotel, across stores and to casinos and schools. This metropolis is also equipped with gardens, a special super-fast elevators and moving walks for pedestrians.


The project was inspired by the disastrous consequences of Hurricane Katrina from 2005. which hit New Orleans. The damage was so great that the city is still in the process of rebuilding. Now a group of designers, whose base is in Boston, made ​​a new proposal for a floating city that will be located on the Mississippi River levee. The project named "New Orleans Arcology Habitat" is an acronym NOAH.
 

Structurally he can submit a strong storm shock without any consequences for residents. Kevin Schopfer, chief designer of the project, explains that the team had three main starting points in creating an amazing city.


The first challenge is to overcome the psychological and physical vulnerability caused by natural disasters. The need to ensure stable and secure environment is paramount for long-term recovery and prosperity of New Orleans. Another challenge was that New Orleans has too much water. The city is built on the sea and below sea level, making the water level is still high, even at risk of flooding and stormy. Third, the city is built in wet conditions, soil contains layers of mud, silt and clay. Such conditions bring a broad range of difficulties. Our solution to overcome these challenges is to take advantage of the first presentation of controversial issues of urban floating platforms - Schopfer said.


Although the initial idea to be built in New Orleans, the designers believe that similar projects could be practiced in any other urban area on the coast.
In addition to apartment blocks, this city would also have schools, commercial buildings, hotels, casinos, parking. This project is an incredible resource that improves the current expectations of New Orleans. This is the gate of a new era of development of urban areas - said Schopfer.