Slashdot Mirror

Alien54 writes: "Saw this on Eureka Alert: A commercially available system for quantum key distribution and cryptography has been released by a spin-off company from the University of Geneva. The system has been tested over distances up to 70km (from Geneva to Lausanne) through standard optical fiber cables and connects to PCs via USB ports. Transmission rates of about 60 bits per seconds were achieved, sufficient for key distribution. You can see the original abstract here, which also has a link for download of the paper in PDF, Postscript, and other formats."

Erik Baard writes: "The peer-reviewed journal Science is carrying a cover story about the possibility of table top fusion. Not cold fusion, mind you, but the apparatus might look that way to some. Oak Ridge and other labs say they have gotten the fingerprints of fusion (neutron production) from collapsing bubbles in liquid, a process that heats a local area to temperatures as hot as the surface of the sun, and releases photons. The disputes are already here -- notably from Dr. Robert Park of the American Physical Society and from critical reviewers who say they haven't repeated the neutron production. But the authors say the critics didn't calibrate their equipment correctly. Articles regarding the discovery can be found on Eureka Alert " CD: Looks legit, but Pons and Fleishman (and the University of Utah for that matter) talked a good game. I suppose I'll belive in tabletop fusion when a generator comes atached to my next laptop. The author of this post also has a longer article up at the Village Voice

Anonymous Coward writes "University of Houston, Texas researchers have found subtle signs of superconductivity in nanotubes of carbon. They may conduct electricity without any resistance, at temperatures stretching up past the boiling point of water. See the story on EurekAlert"

Sub_Dude writes: "Seems the folks at a Dept. of Energy lab have come up with a way to coat steel to make it harder. The process might be interesting to mechanical engineers out there, and because the article mentions nanotechnology, Hemos will like it. The press release is here, and an award for being "one of this year's top 100 technological achievements" is here."

Ross Finlayson writes: "According to this upcoming news release, a University of Southern California has re-analyzed the data from the 1976 Viking Mars lander's soil experiments, and has discovered evidence (including circadian rhythms) that he concludes strengthens the case for life being present on Mars. The scientist also noted the difficulty in gathering the experiment's original data: 'The data were on magnetic tapes, and written in a format so old that the programmers who knew it had died.'"

wearedan writes: "I came across an article on how nitrogen acts as a semiconductor when under very high pressures.The really interesting bit is that the formed solid can be stable even when returned to ordinary atmospheric pressures."

Loiosh writes "EurekaAlert has an interesting short report concerning sperm. Scientists have found the most convincing evidence yet that a parasite can contribute to splitting a species in two, thanks to a phenomenon where a wasp's damaged sperm can be "rescued" or fixed only by mating with particular females. A bacterium called Wolbachia prevents the successful development of embryos in matings between two very closely related wasp species that could otherwise produce viable offspring. Instead of merely helping its host compete against non-infected hosts as many parasites do, Wolbachia actively seeks to eliminate non-infected hosts by stopping them from reproducing. To do this, the parasite alters the sperm of its male host, rendering it infertile when paired with an uninfected female. If, however, the male mates with an infected female, the damaged reproductive cells are "rescued" by the female's parasite. It's as if the bacterium encodes the sperm cell, rendering it useless unless it encounters the de-coding bacterium from another infected wasp. The result is that infected males can only impregnate other infected females, not uninfected ones, and makes it difficult for uninfected females to find a compatible mate."

johnwebster writes "Another Sci-Fi utility gets closer to reality: wearable translators." Babelfish, Earth-style, so you too can speak any language fluently: For example: what would you say of translator wearable of language when on a foreign execution? No fumbling for a book of expressions, any cumbersome portable computer. This mobile and light device now placed by ONR is really a flexible device, computer of girdle-model - not larger than a package fanny - making it possible the language of the speaker to be translated in the real time near for the listener. Excellent.

Atomasoft Corporation writes: "The article available here point out a new tool in nanotechnology: 'Imagine being able to store 25 full-length, DVD-quality movies on a disc the size of a quarter. That amounts to a data storage density of about 1.2 trillion bits per square inch. A recent development by University of Massachusetts researchers may someday enable consumers to do just that. The research is detailed in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Science and is funded by a National Science Foundation "Partnership in Nanotechnology" grant, the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, and the U.S. Department of Energy.'"

bmongar writes: "An article at Eurekalert mentions that scientists at Purdue University have made a chair that can sense your posture and movement. As a sufferer of low back pain I hope this leads to chairs that can sense your posture and adjust to provide proper support for your back. It would be a possible relief for millions. I can't find the links supporting this, but I believe computer professionals suffer more back pain than professional movers." This is a cool project. This stuff -- furniture, and ergonomics in general -- will only get more important, even if it's still amazingly neglected.

How they recognize the postures is interesting, too -- "Given the similarity between a pressure distribution map from the contact sensors and a greyscale image, computer vision and pattern recognition algorithms, such as Principal Components Analysis, are applied to the problem of classifying steady-state sitting postures," says the article.

bmongar writes: "An article at Eurekalert mentions that scientists at Purdue University have made a chair that can sense your posture and movement. As a sufferer of low back pain I hope this leads to chairs that can sense your posture and adjust to provide proper support for your back. It would be a possible relief for millions. I can't find the links supporting this, but I believe computer professionals suffer more back pain than professional movers." This is a cool project. This stuff -- furniture, and ergonomics in general -- will only get more important, even if it's still amazingly neglected.

How they recognize the postures is interesting, too -- "Given the similarity between a pressure distribution map from the contact sensors and a greyscale image, computer vision and pattern recognition algorithms, such as Principal Components Analysis, are applied to the problem of classifying steady-state sitting postures," says the article.

bughunter writes: "Researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill have successfully demonstrated Tele-immersion, the next step in virtual reality which allows the live transmission of 3-dimensional representation of real scenes. Don't look for tele-immersed streaming porn just yet; it seems the sheer volume of bandwidth the demonstration consumed caused a minor panic among the Internet 2 gateway admins at UNC."

SEWilco writes: "Looking for something to make a really good heatsink? This EurekAlert summary points out that U of Penn researchers have discovered that carbon nanotubes carry heat quickly, and unexpectedly bundles of them also do this. It's due to how the heat is carried, not due to the tremendous surface area." Interestingly, according this summary, "[h]eat energy in nanotubes is carried by sound waves; in materials that are optimal conductors of heat, these waves move very rapidly in an essentially one-dimensional direction. Drs. Fischer and Johnson found that sound waves bearing thermal energy travel straight down individual carbon nanotubes at roughly 10,000 meters per second, behavior consistent with superior thermal conductivity." But what would all the overclocking sites do if the ultimate heatsink was shapeless and grey?!

leb writes: "Eurekalert has a synopsis of an upcoming Science article that describes the creation of 'microbots' 670 micrometers tall and 170 to 240 micrometers wide that were able to manipulate small cell like beads in biological environments. Coupled with a multisensor area, the microrobots also may suggest lab-on-a-chip designs, or 'factory-on-a-desk' tools, programmed to assemble various microstructures. Sounds a little like Neil Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age' to me ..."

leb writes: "Eurekalert has a synopsis of an upcoming Science article that describes the creation of 'microbots' 670 micrometers tall and 170 to 240 micrometers wide that were able to manipulate small cell like beads in biological environments. Coupled with a multisensor area, the microrobots also may suggest lab-on-a-chip designs, or 'factory-on-a-desk' tools, programmed to assemble various microstructures. Sounds a little like Neil Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age' to me ..."

Weedhopper writes: "This is a news item in reference to an article in the latest issue of Science about a reptile with feathers that predates archeopteryx by 75 million years - predating most dinosaurs in fact. Though I am suspicious of any claim that a particular biological structure is too complex to have evolved twice, the case may be that birds may not have descended from dinosaurs as is commonly believed."

Nanotechnology writes: "Available here, The molecule was developed by adding copper ions to a derivative of the amino acid methionine. The investigators were then able to switch the molecule's chirality by the addition or removal of an electron. Furthermore, they found that the molecule's chirality could be switched repeatedly, and that the two forms of the molecules polarized light in opposite directions." Especially interesting is this line from The Canary Lab's home page ("Research"): "We are also scrutinizing other aspects of signal detection technology. We prepared a new polymer very similar in structure to polyaniline ... The new polymer was designed to serve as a molecular wire for attaching electrochemical sensor molecules to electrodes."

leb writes, "What if researchers could create a tough, lightweight, moldable material, with "tunable" magnetic properties? Molded into different shapes, such a material might someday prove useful for high-density data storage, anti-static coatings for aircraft or spacecraft, and a host of other applications. A first step toward tunable, ceramic magnets is reported by a group of researchers from University of Toronto. "

notsosilentbob writes "This story about a 50 year old unsolved Quantum Physics problem at Eurekalert.org is interesting, if just for the discussion about the computing power required (SGI/Cray machines). Unlike the blowhard from BlacklightPower, this sounds like an important breakthrough. " The problem solved is that of the scattering effects of three charged particles. This is important, as this event occurs in everything from fluorescent lights to the ion etching of silicon chips.

notsosilentbob writes "This story about a 50 year old unsolved Quantum Physics problem at Eurekalert.org is interesting, if just for the discussion about the computing power required (SGI/Cray machines). Unlike the blowhard from BlacklightPower, this sounds like an important breakthrough. " The problem solved is that of the scattering effects of three charged particles. This is important, as this event occurs in everything from fluorescent lights to the ion etching of silicon chips.

DaveM writes "The Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory is working with IBM and VA Linux Systems to build "Chiba City" -- the largest supercomputing cluster dedicated to highly scalable open source software development. The 512-CPU Linux cluster will be opened to the U.S. research community, including universities, laboratories and industry. "

techtrend writes "In an article on Eurekalert, Northwestern chemists report making the world's smallest plotter, a device capable of drawing multiple lines of molecules -- each line only 15 nanometers or 30 molecules wide -- with such precision that only five nanometers. They lay down a grid of lines made of 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid (MHA). Then dots of octadecanethiol (ODT) are placed at pre-calculated positions using the grid for precision positioning. They plan to use this process to make ultrahigh density arrays of different organic and biological material and nanostructures. "

Meshula writes "An interesting article suggesting that time is an illusion of perception has appeared at New Scientist. "...quantum mechanics supports it. In 1929, the British physicist Nevill Mott and Werner Heisenberg from Germany explained how alpha particles, emitted by radioactive nuclei, form straight tracks in cloud chambers. Mott pointed out that, quantum mechanically, the emitted alpha particle is a spherical wave which slowly leaks out of the nucleus. It is difficult to picture how it is that an outgoing spherical wave can produce a straight line," he argued. We think intuitively that it should ionise atoms at random throughout space. Mott noted that we think this way because we imagine that quantum processes take place in ordinary three-dimensional space. In fact, the possible configurations of the alpha particle and the particles in the detecting chamber must be regarded as the points of a hugely multidimensional configuration space, a miniature Platonia, with the position of the radioactive nucleus playing the role of Alpha. " It's worth a read. "

FOE writes "Picked up this story from Eurekalert. Describes disco-ball like reflector to help IR networks. I really like the name: "chaos mirror" (grin). " Fairly straight-forward device: Takes the incoming beam and spreads it out over a wider range - but it's all IrDA, which has terrible range. I'll keep my ZoomAir, thanks.

bughunter writes "Carnegie Mellon University is announcing a 'spontaneous' translation system that allows speakers of different tongues to converse in natural language in real time. " I never liked the idea of putting aquatic creatures in my ear anyway.