Slashdot Mirror
Domain: nrc.ca
Stories and comments across the archive that link to nrc.ca.
Stories · 5
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Interesting Planet Apparently Heating Its Star
T. Panimaesh writes "A Canadian graduate student has discovered a planet which is heating the star it rotates around. 'Evgenya Shkolnik detected a spot on HD179949 that was 700 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas and circled the star at the same pace as the planet's orbit, once every three days. First seen in 2001, it also appeared in two sets of observations in 2002. It is probably not an intrinsic feature of the star, which takes nine days to rotate. Instead, the planet appears to possess a magnetic field that interacts with the star's magnetic field.' The 'roaster' planet being studied is almost as big as Jupiter, a gas giant planet in our solar system, and has 270 times the mass of Earth. It moves at 150 Kilometres per second, completing it's orbit in just 3.5 days." -
The Status Quo Of Computer Vision
prostoalex writes "The Industrial Physicist sums up the recent advances and developments in the world of computer vision. They mention an application for human-computer interfacing using a Webcam, Philips Research Lab Seeing with Sound product, which augments vision for visually impaired, as well as various frontal face detection applications." -
Conductive Concrete Offers Building Security
zdburke writes: "In a slightly different spin on the electromagnet-protected server room in Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, the folks at the National Research Council have developed concrete that conducts electricity, or 'percolates,' allowing it to serve as an electromagnetic shield. Current uses lean toward heated loading docks, non-freezing bridges, and grounding large-scale electrical equipment, but the counter-espionage idea is cool. The NYTimes has a brief story, and the folks at UN Omaha have some great pictures. It's not exactly new (it won a Popular Science prize in 1997) but it's still cool stuff." -
Full Spectrum Lighting - Is it any better?
lennon asms: "Lighting in my apartment sucks. I am giving some thought to full-spectrum lighting fixtures, like the the Vita-lite. Some places say it's not any better than regular lighting, others say it's just great. What do you think?" I find the quality of lighting in my work environment to be very important. Would lights such as these be better than your standard soft-white or flourescent bulbs? -
Zhang Fei Temple Digitally Remastered
gtaylor writes: "The Globe and Mail reports that the Three Gorges Zhang Fei Temple in China will be disassembled before the Three Gorges dam is completed (which will flood the area where the temple stands now), and reassembled somewhere drier. Meanwhile, the Canadian National Research Council has sent over some techs who have scanned the whole complex into super-accurate 3-D models as to be sure of rebuilding the temples precisely as they were."