Friday 30 September 2011

Phobos-Grunt mission: break way in the distant universe

Russia is back in the distant universe. An important step in this direction will be made later this year. It is the automatic launching interplanetary station Phobos-Grunt is transferring to the Martian soil to Earth satellites.
The launch should be made to the Baikonur Cosmodrome with Zenit carrier rocket in November. For 11 months the cosmic device needs to get to orbit the Red Planet. Few months on spacing will conduct exploration of Mars and look for a place to land on its satellite Phobos. Then the device for lowering the surface land at Phobos, to take soil samples to be transferred to Earth. With the help of these scientists hope to learn more about the processes that take place the solar system.
All equipment at the station will be completely new, it is crammed scientific devices, Russian, foreign and joint production. Among them is the Russian-French device to explore the layout of methane in the Martian atmospheric. INHO Chinese satellite, to be launched along with Phobos, will be separated from the interplanetary station orbiting the Red Planet and will deal with its magnetic field research. So the mission is very complex, underlines the deputy head Vitaly Davidov Roskosmos.


At one time we launch Phobos delay to ensure that the mission will be performed. The decision was correct. We were able to increase the reliability of this mission because we performed additional work. Now we do not have any reasons that would lead to changes planned for beginning preparations at the Baikonur devices. Made a special group, it follows all the works on Phobos-Grunt, head of Roskosmos each week listening to information on the status of the head group of works on the project. We calculate that the mission will be implemented fully and that the Chinese unit that will be thrown together with Phobos, to fulfill its mission. Work is an important and risky. If you add up all probability, breathtaking.
Continue mission Phobos-Grunt will be Mars-Net project, which will be implemented approximately 2017th year. In addition to the expedition to the red planet , possibly, make the nearest neighbor of the Earth - the Moon, says astronaut, Deputy Energy general RKK Engineers Vladimir Solovjov.
It should form a base in orbit. The missiles would switch her major blocks. Then assembly and testing. Further to the base Dolec crew and boat tests made in orbit. Next the crew fly to the moon, the asteroid. Even before the flight to distant planets or the moon, to do some automatic satellite links around the Moon, by which one can make navigation and delivery of information.


Last, another Soviet mission to Mars exploration launched in 1987. year - Vega project, though it was not completed due to loss of connection to the cosmic machine. And now, after almost 25 years, the new, the Russian mission to place on the progress of Russia in the distant universe. The Phobos-Grunt project professionals wishing to practice the basic technology for later expeditions to the Red Planet.

Thursday 29 September 2011

You think, while others see it on screen - mind reading machine!

Scientists have created an amazing process through which they can see other people's mental images. This discovery will in the future to observe people's thoughts as they arise and develop.

Scientists at the University of California managed to decode the brain activity by measuring blood flow through the visual cortex, and then use that information to construct images of what people see. Technology can now detect only parts of movies that were released to users of this equipment before using the scanner.

However, researchers are convinced that they are on good track to soon discover the way that the display can show the mental images that no one ever saw except the one from whose head "out".

The purpose of this discovery should be the realization of communication with people who have survived a stroke and fell into a coma. However, it is still many hot years, some say decades before such a machine is able to read minds or intentions of persons.



Achievement to which has so far been achieved by the computer programmed to recognize certain visual of information and their relationship to the blood stream in the visual cortex.

Participants in the experiment were watching film trailers, and the computer is "taught" what happens in the brain while people watching the film. After that is inserted in computer database of 18 million seconds of random video YutTub. This material is used to make computer I tried to arrange the picture from the information being received from the brain experimental people.

To ensure that researchers computer not "recognize" that the trailers have been developed, experimented watched trailers that had not been shown. At the end of the experiment the computer was able to create a blurred but recognizable version of what actually took place on the screen.

Wednesday 28 September 2011

Table Collider

Russian scientists have made a working model of table Collider, the truth, not andronog, but the laser. In the future, this compact power supplies to dispersed particles infected with greater acceleration than the Great Androni at CERN. A perspective of its practical application, "the older brother of the Swiss" can surely envy.
The idea was born of table Collider at the Institute of Physics, "Lebedev" Russian Academy of Sciences (FIAN). For its implementation, together with the experimentalists MDU was established in laboratories, where he built a miniature model of accelerators. It is a compact laser that generates very short but very strong pulse of energy. Levels electromagnetic fields, which occur while they can not be achieved even when an explosion of new super star in the Universe.
The main advantage is its compact accelerators told "Voice of Russia" doctor of physical-mathematical sciences professor Andrei Saveljev-Trofimov.
It turns out that in the plasma with a laser can create an acceleration field three, four, five times beyond the field, which can be achieved at the Great Andron Collider. This means a radical reduction in size. These are no longer kilometers, the acceleration of electrons takes place at one centimeter or less. A laser system that can provide a relatively small and occupies an area 20-30 square meters.


Table Collider in contrast to his "older brother of the Swiss" that can be widely applied in various fields, continues Saveljev-Trofimov.
Accelerators of this type can be used in the Great Andron for initial acceleration of particles. Applied tasks are primarily associated with the treatment of various cancers by using proton beams. It is realistic to increase the speed of laser proton beams to energies of hundreds of mega-electron, and that kind of energy is required for cancer therapy.
In addition, it is possible to use proton beams in nuclear research process - the creation and sharing core isotopes. Another field is astrophysics, among others, in modeling astrophysical processes: an explosion of new super star or a meteorite hitting the planet.
According to scientists, he and his colleagues access the research impact of cosmic radiation on spacecraft electronics, which depends on the ability to work spaceship.
Foreign experts believe that the invention of table Collider in Russia laid the foundation for a new direction in physics research. Scientists, in the words of Andrew Saveljeva-Trofimova, planned establishment of a new center of high energy physics, which will be a key element of a very powerful compact laser. The plan is to build on during the year in the territory of the Institute of Physics, "Lebedev" RAN.

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Facebook "Subscribe" option

Popular social site Facebook unveiled a new feature which will help the seven and a half year old site to remain competitive since the new site set these standards.

Facebook new features carry a simple name "Subscribe Button" and allows users to receive only Ipad that users have previously reported, such as the popular services for micro-blogs, Twitter

With this new model, users can perform and to adjust to who will be inform on Ipad about their status. They can choose from three options offered to the public, just friends, or specially designated list of recipients.

Monday 26 September 2011

Fluent glass will ensure fire safety

Scientists from the Siberian city of Tomsk suggest that fires off glass. Together with the MVS has already been carried out tests of this new effective means to fight the fire.
Product innovation based on liquid glass is ready for practical implementation, says Institute Professor of Physics of high technology Tomskog Polytechnic University Vasily Lots.
New extinguishing the aqueous solution of liquid glass - in other words - stationery glue, or as she's known, silicate glue. When the solution to be put into the focus of the first fire evaporates water, there is a certain fall of temperature in this zone. Then the liquid glass, losing water, turn the foil covering the surface of a burning building and in case of further warming it starts to the penny. As a result it creates a layer of lightweight inorganic foam, which does not burn. When extinguishing high temperature compared with water requires much less new funds for fire fighting.
The first field tests have confirmed the efficacy of new agents. During training two brigades were extinguished by four buildings affected by fire: a wooden house, car tires, trays with flammable liquid and branches of fir. The first team used a solution based on liquid glass, the other is traditionally extinguished the fire - with water and foam. Experimentalists have come to terms with all the tasks minute faster. In the case of large areas during fire fighting to multiply decreased. Silicate glass can be eliminated fires with levels of complexity, with the new composition of environmentally neutral and not to harm nature, says Professor Lots.


Fluent glass is added to the different washing powder - it does not harm the man. It is an ecologically clean material. When extinguishing the trees will be cast solution - that nothing bothers me. Obtained easy inorganic foam can be removed if re-dissolved in water, where it gets glue. Or it can be used in the construction industry as a material for thermal insulation.

New product tomskih experts also can be used for fire prevention treatment facilities - for example, walls of wooden buildings, which are located in the vicinity of the source. In addition, the solution will assist in extinguishing fires in oil and gas wells. Mixture will also be able to fill in a small fire extinguishers, which can fit in a backpack.

Sunday 25 September 2011

Deciphered all the chromosomes of the human genome

Researchers of the Institute for Molecular Genetics, Max Planck of Berlin decode the two groups of chromosomes in the human genome for the first time. Discovery could provide valuable information about the treatment of disease.


Mapping of human genes has progressed considerably since the publication of the first map of human genome a decade ago, but Margaret Hoe and her fellow researchers at the Institute for Molecular Genetics, Max Planck scales are broken genome at the molecular level, and so far no one has accomplished.

Until now, the human genome has been treated as one unit, which explains Hoe, a fundamental error.

"The first gene we read the beginning of our decade, and it was actually a product that took us out on the wrong side," she explains in an interview with Deutsche Welle. "Every person has two genomes that contain two genetic code-one that belongs to his mother and others who belong to the Father."

These two genomes were different and only by gaining information on both "haplotypes", ie variations of gene sequences on individual chromosomes, The entire genome can be analyzed.

The team's findings were published in the September issue of the journal Genome Research.



See double

Current techniques to map the genome were not able to read the genome separately. Only by combining different technologies into a new method, Hoe and her colleagues were able to achieve for the first time.

"With this breakthrough, we can see much closer to the gene," said Hoe. "By decoding the two groups of chromosomes from the way human genome separately, we have reached the level of individual molecules for therapy and individual therapy. Now we can determine the exact genetic map of a person, and that we can take away the healing. "

Hoe and colleagues studied the genome of 51-year-old Germans. However, she points out that discovery is linked to the nation.

"Our study covers the genetic profile of Europeans whites, which includes a multitude of nations besides the Germans, such as primers for the French, even the inhabitants of North America with European roots," said Hoe.


Promising progress

Discovery of praise and other researchers. "Genetic mapping of the past few years, evolving quickly, published a large number of genomes, American, Korean, European ...," says Simon Majers, a lecturer in bioinformatics at the University of Oxford, who was a member of the research.

"All previous genetic mapping seized a small part of DNA, but of which parent they come it was not clear. Now we can collect two copies of the DNA into two units, and better take a look at changes in the genes. "

Saturday 24 September 2011

New therapies in the treatment of hepatitis C

According to the World Health Organization, Hepatitis C in the world was suffering more than 170 million people. Most of southern Europe, Africa and Asia. The virus causes inflammation of the liver. If it becomes chronic, leading to cirrhosis.


The virus is spread through infected blood, there is no vaccine. Standard treatment is carried out with interferon. The U.S. has now approved a new medicine, which significantly enhances the effect of treatment in half the time.

"Telaprevir" is a new medicine to the treatment of hepatitis C infection brings decisive advantages. Patients are now receiving interferon with ribavirin, interferon booster. The new medicine can not replace the combined therapy, but if she adds, significantly improves. It showed several comparative studies in which he participated and professor Hajner Vedemejer with high medical school in Hanover:

"In patients who had never been treated with, the result was such that the standard therapy healed them, 50 percent, while in therapy with the addition of a new cure, healed was 75 per cent. This is 30 percent or more in four of five patients, is a big improvement. in another analysis, the recovery was even 80 percent of cases. "


The standard treatment is complicated

Hepatitis viruses hepatitis CVirus many as the current, standard treatment is complicated: injections of interferon, which strengthens the immune system, must be received one week. Then the day after taking two tablets of interferon enhancers. The standard combination therapy lasts 48 weeks - almost a year. When additionally taking telaprevir, the therapy is reduced to 24 weeks. Even 30 percent of patients who have benefited from standard therapy, benefited from the new strategy. However, taking the cure may have contraindications.

"The main side effect of telaprevir are skin reactions. Redness of the skin, which can infect more than 50 percent of body surface area. Stvorati can be blisters, often occurs, and diarrhea. That was at about 10 percent of patients. In this case, treatment should be discontinued ".

"Telaprevir" and similar drugs are called protease inhibitors that block viral reproduction. These drugs can lead to numerous interactions with other medications, for example with anti-rheumatic drugs. "It takes experience. Treatment is complicated, not only because of side effects. When the interferon-ribavirin therapy is not being implemented properly, if the medicines are not taken regularly, easily comes to resistance, and this is very dangerous for the patient."

Taking the so-called "protease inhibitor" is strictly regulated: every eight hours - even at night - must take one capsule. The procedure requires the patient's strict discipline. In addition, medicine is not cheap - it costs around 17,000 euros for the six months of treatment.

Apparently it had found a new, good medicine against hepatitis C. However, if treatment costs remain high, then it certainly will not be able to heal all the ill.

Friday 23 September 2011

History of medicine in one place

Sarita University Clinic (Charité) in Berlin is one of the largest in Europe. This research, lenses and teach doctors and scientists of world caliber. For more than 100 years clinics Sarita has a museum ...

High brick building located on the edge of the area in which there is sarita and numerous clinics. Another 1899th was entrusted the pathological museum. Rudolf Virhov was certainly proud and pleased. The famous doctor finally won for the museum where he could present his pathological-anatomical data collection.

"At the end of his lifetime had approximately 23 000 wet and dry preparations. They are shown of the entire human body under the skin, even what they look like a sick heart, liver, kidneys and lungs, "says Tomas Šnalke, director of the Museum of modern medical history. This collection is still in the same building, and part of the permanent setting of the development of Western medicine in the last three centuries. Indeed, a larger part of authority, preserved in jars, not bombs of World War II, no fire on the roof of the 50-ies could not be anything.





"Many of our visitors just want to know what they look like hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs? How healthy to the sick. How to assemble a variety of structures, whether small or large. How does body? What's really dangerous? What I can offer medicine to quell this threat, "explains Šnalke.

Guests usually old glass vitrine, with exhibits of the heart with a pacemaker, calcified abdominal arteries, kidneys and pelvis, malignant tumors and fetal with deformation, watching the mixture of curiosity and uneasiness.

"In the first half of the 19th century, this deformation were great mystery for science. Therefore, deformities were intensively studied. Believed to be the diseased organs could conclude that something about the healthy organism, "came Šnalke.

Walk through the long history of 300 years

At the opening of the museum 1899th Rudolf Virhov presented a whole series of deformity, as a product of nature, which still must be scientifically investigated. Although as a doctor and scientist dealt exclusively bodies of the dead, his goal always was the health of the living. He wanted, he says Tomas Šnalke to tissues in very small, even a single cell, detected signs of the disease to target treatment and then started treatment.

"Treatment is a course was associated with the current time. 150 years before the man could not think as it is today. They were still trapped in their time. And in retrospect, that sometimes you might act a little strange. Or a man thinks, for God's sake! Fortunately, today we have progressed, "says Šnalke.





Permanent Exhibition of the Museum of Medical History offers more than ample opportunity for reflection. However, not only meets the museum that displays time, collections, and the legacy of a learned gentleman Virhe, but leads the visitor to walk through 300 years of medical history: the breakthrough, delusions, and world diseases such as cholera, syphilis and tuberculosis, to release the blood and various understanding of hygiene, surgical instruments, anesthesia techniques and the possibility of surgery. There is also the setting of forced sterilized are escorted by doctors clinics Sarita during the Third Reich.

"We go from the amphitheater of anatomy of the 1700th until today, thus showing the anatomy amphitheater, a museum of anatomy, pathological dissection hall, laboratory, hospital beds, as well as exhibitions and scientific collections, and concludes with what people actually still see it as medicine, in one part of the hospital ", showing Šnalke.

Life stories of patients





Each seemingly ordinary sickbed stories life stories of patients from the last 300 years. S. Dorotea is the age of 17, 1727, brought into the world of Frederick Augustus, who died young of a fever. Hans G, children's suffering from paralysis, here lay three days 1958th Karl R, aged 55 years, due to a wound on his right index finger, he got blood poisoning. Two weeks he lay in a coma artificial and was operated on four times. Then his condition began to improve gradually. People in this state is still a challenge for medicine, says Tomas Šnalke. Despite all the advances.

Saturday 17 September 2011

Hamburger from the laboratory

For six months we will eat first hamburgers that is grown in a test tube!

The first will be an artificial hamburger stand 250,000 euros, but production of artificial meat in the future should be cheaper and more cost effective.

First, people hunted wild animals for meat. Then the animals started to grow on farms. Now scientists have to step up to a new peak: growing meat in labs. "For six months we will have the first 'sausages out of the tube,'" he told New Scientist prof. Mark Post of the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.


Serum from fetal horse

Fasting is one of the pioneers in the development of new technologies "in vitro meat" who this week met at a conference in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. He and his colleagues have so far been largely experimented with pork. From pig muscle to isolate stem cells and then fed serum from fetal horse. Finally they got 2.5 inches long and 0.5 cm wide strips of pork. While muscle tissue in animals red, "Pork from the tube" is a pale gray color and more like a squid tissue.

"This is because the 'meat from tubes' no blood and very little myoglobin, a protein that binds to iron. Now we are looking for a way to insert the myoglobin in meat to get the color, "explained the Post admitted that the taste of" lab meat "is still unknown.

In fact, according to Dutch law, scientists are not allowed to taste the "in vitro meat." "We are looking for a daring person who will try the synthetic pork. If no one answers, I'll do it, "joked Post who is now with the help of anonymous philanthropists for donations to the development of" beef from the tube. "

"I am full of hope and I believe we are in a year to dispose of the first 'in vitro' burgers," he promised, adding that the price of the first "man-made hamburger" could reach 250,000 euros. But the Post predicts that by the time production "lab meat" cheaper way to become economically viable.

Although at first it sounds bizarre, new technology could be the solution to several problems. First, world population will continue to grow over the coming decades and will be in 2050. The meat consumption will double. This will largely be due to changes in dietary habits in the new economic powers like China, India and Brazil, where meat consumption in the past ten years has increased 33 percent.
killing animals

Second, livestock and meat production are a source of greenhouse gases, nine percent of carbon dioxide emissions and 18 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions associated with livestock farming. Thirdly, the killing of animals for food is a big ethical problem, which is a famous philosopher and a vegetarian Peter Singer wrote a bestseller, "Animal Liberation".

"'In vitro' meat will be the only choice that we will be left. We eat a hamburger, rarely think that comes from dead cows. As you get used to the synthetic flesh, we do not even think about it that are grown in the lab, "concluded Mark Post.

Friday 16 September 2011

Scientists produce laser rain

Scientists have discovered a way to using giant lasers produce rain. The process, called laser condensation water could one day lead to deciphering the secrets of weather cycles and enable people to master the weather.

For some time in the world-known technique of "sowing the cloud," but it is not considered a safe way to create rain clouds filling the atmosphere because it requires the particles of dry ice and silver iodide.

When the formation of raindrops this usually lead to a widespread expulsion of chemicals and potential threats to the environment. The new laser method is different because it uses natural layers of moisture and atmospheric conditions for the production of rainfall.

Physicist Jerome Kasparijan the University of Geneva, said that the laser can operate continuously without a good line up if there is no dispersion of silver iodide large amounts in the atmosphere.

"Laser can be turned on and off at will. It's much easier to monitor its effectiveness. When the Chinese fired silver iodide into the sky it is difficult to assess whether the rain fell surely," he said.

Researchers have demonstrated a new technique on the banks of Rhone, near Lake Geneva, where they set up a giant moving laser. After 133 hours of firing a laser beam that is produced by nitric acid particles in the air lead to the development of raindrops.

Although there was no real rain, scientists are optimistic and believe that it will soon be able to control the weather, and even to prevent the downpours. "Maybe this will one day be a way to mitigate in some areas and reduce the monsoon floods," said Kasparijan.

The idea of ​​change and weather control is not new. In 1946, an American chemist and meteorologist Vincent Schaefer has developed a technique of sowing clouds, which is still applied.

In China, the government operates the largest system in the world, sowing the clouds to cause rain over the dry areas, and even in the capital Beijing.

Thursday 15 September 2011

Our universe is getting bumped to the other universes?

The fact that we live in the universe is, more or less safe. But for what it is we're not sure what lies beyond our universe. Scientists believe they may have seen evidence for the existence of other universes, of which up to now four collided with ours.

One of the theories that more represent the existence of the universe assumes that beyond our universe there are others who appear and disappear, each in his "bubble" of space and time. Usually they are not approaching each other, but sometimes some of our universe appears next, and when they do occur, there is a collision.

Collision with the whole universe would definitely have left some trace. That is, this collision would have left "scars" in the form of a disc in the cosmic microwave background radiation, and that is exactly what the cosmologists University College London found. They detected four of these "scars" that are ten times more likely to be evidence of a collision of the universe than that caused by something else we know.

However, the overall statistical significance of the traces in the cosmic microwave radiation is not great, which means that it takes a lot of data to definitively prove or reject this theory of a collision. Fortunately, Planck space observatories can make recordings that are three times higher resolution than images used in this study, so we will by 2013. receive a definitive answer to whether there is space out there floating around.

Wednesday 14 September 2011

Where is the antimatter?

The asymmetry between matter and antimatter is one of the lesser-known unsolved questions in modern cosmology. The problem is simple. Look in any space telescope or a particle detector and you will see many more particles (such as electrons or protons) than antiparticles (positrons and antiprotons). However, the currently accepted theory on the evolution of the universe say that the big bang had to produce equal amounts of matter and antimatter. If so, why today we see a lack of antimatter?

Even the great Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov 1967th The tried to explain this asymmetry, small modifications of the standard model of elementary particles. Unfortunately, even today we have no generally accepted theory of such a modification of the standard model. So it makes sense to ask another question: that the asymmetry may not just a local phenomenon? Is not the total amount of matter and antimatter in the universe * over * still the same? Do you have some distant galaxies and clusters that we see is actually made ​​up of antiparticles?

It is not easy to answer this question: how much we know, matter and antimatter behave almost identically. Only a very sensitive detectors that can detect an excess of antimatter in cosmic rays from individual galaxies. This comes into play AMS (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer), the result of Nobel laureate Samuel Ting and his huge collaboration, ambitiously projected particle detector, which should give more answers about the traces of antimatter in cosmic rays [1].

Just at the time of this writing, the crew of NASA mission STS-134 AMS installed at the International Space Station [2]. It is still not known whether the controversial AMS to provide long-awaited answers. However, anyone who is interested in science currently has a great opportunity to live following the development of one of the greatest scientific projects of our time: news and real-time monitoring is enabled on the website of the detector [3]. For now, everything works normally. It remains only waiting for the results!

Tuesday 13 September 2011

How would looklike death in black hole



The effect of the laws of physics to black holes takes the extreme values ​​so that it is no wonder why encourages imagination and curiosity not only scientists but also ordinary people.

Astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, Neil de Gras Tyson, he tried to explain what happened to us if we fall into a black hole:

"Since the black hole's gravity is so great that out of it even light, which moves the highest known rate in the universe can not escape, our fall into one of them would travel in one direction, which in turn means that no one will ever could tell nothing extreme about our experience (we could not even post that send).

Cosmic Yoga to gruesome death

Here's what befell us, according to astrophysicists, if we end up in some cases black hole.

"But if that happened, we would not have died simply because they would disappear into a black hole, but also because the gravity in order to act on our feet was greater than that which would be operated on our head. This is true even when we are at Earth because our feet closer to the center of the country. However, here the difference is negligible. On the other side of black holes are so small and dense that our height becomes important and our feet soon began to travel much faster than the head. Perhaps we feel that in the beginning was pleasant, as when the morning stretch - it would be a kind of cosmic yoga. But over time the bed has increased to such an extent that outweighed its molecular forces that connect our bodies. at one point broke and would be separated into two parts, probably the first at the bottom of the spine. Being below the waist, there are no vital organs, it seems that survived briefly - before they bled. Meanwhile, the gravity of the black hole would be more strengthened and continued to be cut up parts of our body. "- Said Tyson Neil de Gras.

After the dismemberment of the right, "špagetifikacija"

But according to de Gras Tyson is not even the worst that we experienced! In fact, as we fall into a black hole in the overlapping time and space is narrowed, which means that the space they occupy in its narrower than the depth at the top. In other words, while we stretched, the black hole at the same time the grip of us and turns us into the spaghetti in a process for this purpose called "špagetifikacijom".

Monday 12 September 2011

Hawking got the craziest bet in the history of physics?

A few years ago the world's media have published a provocative news is that the famous British physicist Stephen Hawking publicly bet $ 100 that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), but other accelerators will never be able to find Higgs boson, which is regarded as the bearer of the majority of particle mass.

As Hawking insulted Higgs and his boson?

His statement caused a real alarm in the scientific community, a Scottish physicist Peter Higgs, after whom the boson was named (Research Higgs and his colleagues in the 1960s hit the foundations of the idea of ​​a mysterious particles) provocation he experienced as a personal insult. Higgs then complained that the answer to the challenge Hawking was like "criticism of Princess Diana", but he finally responded, however, the 2008th year after Hawking joked in an interview saying that would actually be more interesting if LHC does not find the boson.

On that occasion, Higgs said that Hawking's calculations on which rested his claims are incorrect and that the idea which is not a good run because he "attempted to combine theories of particle physics and gravity ... the way to any theoretical physicist would not be considered correct ".

No sign of "God particle"

Unofficial opinion polls in the last decade physicists have shown that the vast majority of them believe that there is a mysterious boson and that's just a matter of time before the LHC to discover it. Everybody seemed to be mainly Hawking, known for controversial statements, only flaunts his ideas and authority.

But even though the launch of the LHC on 31 March 2010. to date collected and analyzed data on petabits unprecedented energies of seven trillion electron, Higgs boson still no sign. Discouraged and disappointed with the results, scientists have finally passed Monday, 22 August, at the "Biennial International Symposium on Lepton-Photon Interactions" in Mumbai reported that the 95-odstotnom safe to say that the Higgs is not found in the area where the demand - from 145 to 466 billion electron.

Physicists at CERN are not giving up the search

However, physicists at CERN (which manages the LHC included) are not yet completely given up. Namely, there exists the possibility that Higgs at lower energies, in the zone between 114 and 145 billion electron (in which it asked the experts LHC's predecessor, LEP and still searching for the Fermilab Tevatron) and five-percentage ability to hide somewhere in the band, which has already been examined at CERN. So, the LHC operation will continue, boson will continue to look for, but every day there is less hope that it will be found, all more likely to get Hawking bet against all physicists of the world.

If still no bosons, of which the universe came into being?

However, the key question now is starting to worry scientists did not want to lose the bet, but where the mass in the universe if Higgs boson does not exist? It is possible that our response to this question will require theories that go beyond the existing ones.

According to the standard model of elementary particles at high temperatures above 10 to 15 Kelvin, what would be ruled after the Big Bang (where Electroweak symmetry has been broken and Electroweak forces are not yet split into electromagnetic and weak), did not have mass. A little later, back on this critical temperature the symmetry is spontaneously disintegrated and the W and Z bosons get mass.

One of the few existing alternative is the so-called standard model. theory "TEHNIKOL" physicist Stephen Venberg according to which the original symmetry in space and could interfere with other mechanisms, not only acting Higgs boson. But you will need to prove her so much energy that even the LHC is not up, and piles of money for expensive astronomical equipment.

It should be noted that if the LHC fails to find Higgs boson, with rare Hawking and his like-minded people, gloat even though one group did not participate in the bet. Specifically, the hand can be satisfied with rubbing and U.S. congressmen who 1993rd The U.S. voted against the construction of the Great Hadron Collider versions in the United States.

Sunday 11 September 2011

"Google" runs the offline version of the service

The company "Google" will soon allow its users offline access to their web applications - mail, Gmail, Calendar (Google Calendar) suite of applications and documents (Google Docs) for situations when you can not connect to the Internet.

Access to these services will be implemented through the application of HTML5.

These applications can now work only in "Google's" Chrome browser,''''but in the future plans to support other browsers.

Application for access to Gmail already appeared in stores Chrome Web Store, while applications for the Calendar and Docs to go out these days, it was announced on the blog "Google".

Gmail application lets you read mail, work with a list of letters and answering the mail. Replies will be sent after the user re-connect to the Internet.

Docs from within the app so far is only possible to see the document while editing functions to be added later, according to the site Lenta.ru.

For applications Gmail and Calendar will be provided the ability to switch between offline and online modes. In "Googl" services and pre-existing ability to work in offline mode, but has not been realized through the application of HTML5, but by extension the development of Gears of which "Google" suspended in February 2010.

Saturday 10 September 2011

Animal species threatened with extinction - Dinosaurs of a new era

Biodiversity or biological diversity is the overall diversity of living organisms that inhabit our planet, as well as the diversity of their functions. For overall survival, it is extremely important to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, which is seriously threatened in recent decades.

It is estimated that the Earth resides between 5 and 80 million plant and animal species, some of which are known and described only about 1.5 million. According to the UN a year disappear over 34,000 species become extinct and many even before they are classified as endangered on the list. The biggest threat to flora and fauna is a general pollution of the planet, destruction of habitat, poor access to land, the commercial exploitation: the uncontrolled picking and gathering fruits, poaching, trade in animals, the latter is a business that delivers up to eight billion dollars a year. According to some estimates, every four mammal species threatened with extinction and the extinction of plants and 50 percent. Many biologists believe that we are in the midst of the greatest extinction episode since the disappearance of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. For the last four decades of the 20th century in developing countries has been destroyed more than 40 percent of wild land, and more than 20 percent of tropical forest disappeared. At the same time has drained more than 50 percent wetlands, and sedimentation due to unsustainable use and one-third of coral reefs there is a danger to become extinct in the next 30 years.

"Globally, the best known mechanism of monitoring of individual species is the Red List of Threatened Species of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which contains information about the status of many species on the planet, following the trends of populations, provides estimates of recording and extinct species. The data are extremely troubling, "says Dusko Dimović from the Institute for Nature Conservation and adds:" However, the protection of biodiversity in recent decades has experienced remarkable progress and is today a very dynamic area. One of the turning point was the summit in Rio de Janeiro 1992nd when for the first time defined the principles of sustainable development, the adoption of the Declaration on Environment and Development and the adoption of the Convention on Biological Diversity and Climate Change. Today is a central theme in the consideration of human dependence on biodiversity wealth of wildlife on the planet and understanding the impact that the loss of biodiversity can have on the future of the human race. "

The fundamental question is, says our interviewee, is the quality of life on the planet can sustain and develop the same speed and in an environment highly degraded natural relationships. The role of the business sector is now recognized as crucial, because the driving force of most human activities and has many implications for the environment in which we live. "The exploitation of natural resources and nature conservation and biodiversity are essentially two competing processes, but, although it may sound paradoxical, in common is just that they are both a consequence of the need for the survival of humanity," said Aleksandar Mijovic from the Agency for Environmental Protection. "The concept of sustainable development implies the rational use of components of biological diversity for further development of civilization, but in the manner and extent of biodiversity does not cause distortion, while maintaining its potential to the needs and aspirations of present and future generations, as indicated in the Convention on Biological Diversity United Nations."

It is estimated that in our country there are more than 5200 plant species, about a thousand species of vertebrates and invertebrates, tens of thousands, which is why Serbia is one of six European centers and one of 158 centers of the world's biodiversity. The special advantage of biodiversity in Serbia is the presence of numerous endemic species (those that live only in the territory, and nowhere else in the world). According to Mijovic, in our country lives over 1,600 species designated as species of international importance. "Based on the methodology of the European Agency for the Protection of the environment, our agency has established an indicator of the situation in Serbia, which shows that the biodiversity here is still quite well preserved in comparison with other European countries. The highest degree of vulnerability was reported in forest ecosystems and especially of vulnerable ecosystems such as wetlands and high mountainous habitats, saline, and šumostepe steppe ".

Friday 9 September 2011

Optical wonder-chip

Optical chip will work a million times faster than electronic

Russian scientists are preparing a revolution in telecommunications technologies. The recently opened laboratory Saint Peterburg University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO SPbGU) water works at creating an optical chip that will give mankind unprecedented opportunities.

The main goal is to create a professional optical computer. Today's computers operate on ordinary electronic chips, which features limited, said Voice of Russia Pavel Belov laboratory manager:

Optical chip will work a million times faster than electronic. Electronic chip has reached its limits. In computers we have today manufacturers are struggling for speed, there are problems with heating system board. Optical chip to solve all these problems, it would be a tremendous step forward in communications and computer technology.

Speed ​​of operations in optical computers will reach 640 gigabits per second, ie speed up internet 100 times! Optical chips can be made of metamaterials, which in nature does, explains Pavel Belov:

We specifically create these materials. That is, we are actually dealing with the creation of a certain class of materials. Usually some materials found in nature and trying to learn about their characteristics, and then apply them. We do the opposite: first to invent the properties that are necessary, and after these properties create.

Metamaterials are already applied in the development of compact antennas for mobile phones or in medicine - to improve the sensitivity tomograph. Yet in the optical range is not so easy to make metamaterials - it is too difficult and time consuming process. Although the results can be fantastic. Who has not dreamed as a child that has a cap that makes it invisible? It turns out that it is quite possible to make such a cap, said Pavel Belov.

Now, during the initial experiments for very small objects, whose size measured in micrometers. You need to look under the microscope to a man convinced that the invisible cap works. In the future it is possible to make a camouflage clothing for the army, which will be invisible at a certain distance.

Scientists from St. Petersburg are hoping to cooperate with the innovation fund Skolkovo. Innovative city planning in the creation of laboratories for metamaterials.