Slashdot Mirror
Domain: sciencedaily.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to sciencedaily.com.
Stories · 442
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Vanu Replacing Cell Tower Equipment With PCs
Dwight Schwartz writes "As reported in an article on the ScienceDaily site, researchers from Vanu, Inc. of Cambridge, MA, have successfully tested a system, the Vanu Software Radio(tm), that can replace a cellular tower's room full of communications hardware with a Pentium-based computer running Linux. The system offers the hope of making cellular technology more affordable for small, rural communities." The systems have been tested for the last several months in parts of Texas, with wider adoption planned for the near future. -
Quantum Cryptography Gets Nanotube Boost
c1ay writes "In an article at the ScienceDaily News it is reported that two researchers at the University of Rochester have discovered a new property of carbon nanotubes, ideal photon emission. "The emission bandwidth is as narrow as you can get at room temperature," says Lukas Novotny, professor of optics at Rochester and co-author of the study. Such a narrow and steady emission can make such fields as quantum cryptography and single-molecule sensors a practical reality. RSA and Elliptic Curve wouldn't stand a chance against this unbreakable encryption." -
Quantum Cryptography Gets Nanotube Boost
c1ay writes "In an article at the ScienceDaily News it is reported that two researchers at the University of Rochester have discovered a new property of carbon nanotubes, ideal photon emission. "The emission bandwidth is as narrow as you can get at room temperature," says Lukas Novotny, professor of optics at Rochester and co-author of the study. Such a narrow and steady emission can make such fields as quantum cryptography and single-molecule sensors a practical reality. RSA and Elliptic Curve wouldn't stand a chance against this unbreakable encryption." -
Oldest Modern Humans Found
DrLudicrous writes "Anthropologists have reconstructed and dated three skulls from Ethiopia that they believe to be the oldest anatomically modern human skulls in existance. They date to 160,000 years ago, in agreement with genetic studies that pin the arrival of modern humans to at least 150,000 years ago. The skulls also demonstrate evidence of ritual burial." UC Berkeley has the original release as well. -
Will Caffeine Cause Health Problems?
numbski asks: "We're all geeks here, and I think there is no question how much we love our caffeine. What concerns me is that my fiancee has noticed how much I take in during the morning, and that I even use Diet Pepsi in addition to pain killers as a medication for headaches. So I did my googling about caffeine and addiction. In the minority, you have one report making a scientific claim that there is no such thing as an addiction to caffeine, however many other articles (not to mention marketing propaganda) suggest otherwise. Perhaps not just the sake of having an addiction is what concerns me, but whatever other side effects. I generally take good care of myself, go to the gym, exercise, play hockey, eat right. I hate to have a stroke or heart attack later on in life because of the stuff. I'd be curious to know the thoughts of others who take in large amounts of caffeine, and perhaps what their doctors have said about it. I plan on talking to my own soon, but it seems like this warrants discussion amongst those who consume the most. Would/does this prevent you from grabbing your Bawls and running like hell?" -
Surgery with Femtosecond Lasers
An anonymous reader writes "Science Daily has an article on femtosecond lasers, which emit pulses of light that are a billion times shorter than an electronic camera flash and how they are currently being used in LASIK procedures." -
Diabetes "Cured" In Mice With Virus Therapy
phlack writes "Scientists at Baylor College of Medicine have found a way to treat diabetes in mice by using a virus (with the harmful genes removed) to trick the liver into working as a pancreas. This is still a ways away from working in humans, but it's progress, at least. Info can be found at Guardian and Science Daily." -
Accelerated Aging Gene Identified
bradbury writes "A host of news sources are carrying news that the gene responsible for Progeria, otherwise known as Hutchinson-Gilford Syndrome, has been identified as Lamin A (LMNA). Sources include a Eureka Alert article, a Science Daily article and a Nature Science Update article. Of interest is the fact that the gene causes at least 6 other genetic diseases. For the hard core science people, an extended discussion of LMNA can be found in the OMIM database here." -
Largest Living Organism Is A Fungus
Makarand writes "A single enormous underground fungus found growing in a Canadian forest and estimated to between 2000 and 8500 years old could easily be the largest known living organism on earth. This fungus is believed to have begun its life as a microscopic spore and then grown to cover an area of around an area of 9.65 square kilometers. That it is a single organism was confirmed by collecting samples of the fungus from different parts of the forest and observing their reactions as they were grown together on Petri dishes. Fungal growths have the ability to distinguish their own growths from other fungal individuals." -
2MASS Updates with 5 Million Pictures
B.E.M. writes "Science Daily mentions that the previously reported Two-Micron All Space Survey has updated again, this time with a total of 5 million pictures in its gallery." -
2MASS Updates with 5 Million Pictures
B.E.M. writes "Science Daily mentions that the previously reported Two-Micron All Space Survey has updated again, this time with a total of 5 million pictures in its gallery." -
Canadian Scientists Develop "Antibody Spice"
worst_name_ever writes "Scientists in Canada have developed a substance that can be added to foods to kill germs. Apparently, though, this longevity-producing spice is derived from freeze-dried egg yolks and not from giant sandworms as I would have guessed." -
Baldness Be Gone?
efudddd writes "Science Daily has an interesting article about a new Nature paper; two chemical signals that turn stem cells into hair follicles have been identified. Implications are wider than just hair regrowth." -
New NASA Maps Show A Bad Day On Earth
Stephen Lau writes "ScienceDaily has an article talking about the new NASA maps that reveal the geography of the North American continent in amazing detail. One of the maps provides strong evidence of a 112 mile wide, 3000 foot deep impact crater which they believe was the comet/asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs and more than 70% of Earth's living species 65 million years ago." -
Mars May Have Liquid Iron Core
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Leprosy Genes
Edward Glamkowski writes "Science Daily (among others) has an article about host genes that make people vulnerable to leprosy. Appearently the disease still affects over one million people in 91 countries today. "This is the second study, published in 2003 by McGill/CGDN scientists, that illustrates the importance of host genes in infectious disease." Appearently they did a study on Legionnaire's disease as well and plan on studying malaria and TB." -
Factoring Out Common Genes To Find Unknown Ones
ProgressiveCynic writes "Dr. Michael Brent has designed a novel algorithm for discovering unknown genes by factoring out commonalities between the genomes of different species. Using the algorithm to compare the genomes of mice and men, he and his collegues have already discovered over a thousand new genes.
So why didn't he just use ZIP?" -
A Unified Calculus?
DeAshcroft writes "Science Daily is reporting that one Martin Bohner's work, "Asymptotic Behavior of Dynamic Equations on Time Scales," has made significant waves (ahem) in the mathematical community. The work is "part of a fairly new and exciting effort to unify continuous and discrete calculus" I guess it's time to re-learn long division." -
98% of DNS Queries at the Root Level are Unnecessary
LEPP writes "Scientists at the San Diego Supercomputer Centerfound that 98% of the DNS queries at the root level are unnecessary. This doesn't even take into account the 99.9% of web pages suck or are unnecessary anyways. This means that the remaining 2% of necessary DNS queries are probably not necessary either." -
Brown Dwarf Companion to Epsilon Indi
silent lurker writes "A team of European astronomers has discovered a Brown Dwarf object (a 'failed' star) less than 12 light-years from the Sun. It is the nearest yet known. Now designated Epsilon Indi B, it is a companion to a well-known bright star in the southern sky, Epsilon Indi (now "Epsilon Indi A"), previously thought to be single. The binary system is one of the twenty nearest stellar systems to the Sun. ...and astronomers believe there might be as many as 12x as many brown dwarf stars as there are visible ones! Hmmmm... Lots o' juicy fodder for SF content creators, dontcha think? ...not to mention astronomers themselves. See press release from European Southern Observatory. Another item is from Science Daily." -
GM Organism Produces New Amino Acid
blamanj writes "Scientists led by Scripps Research Institute chemistry professor Dr. Peter Schultz have engineered a version of the E. coli bacteria that can produce an amino acid not found in nature. Story at the Environment News Service and Science Daily." -
Pasta Outperforms Computers For Earthquake Modeling
Judebert writes "Looks like Penn State has gone organic... at least where earthquake prediction is concerned. OK, really, they were trying to physically model friction forces, with respect to earthquakes. Since the glass tubes they needed were slow to arrive, they substituted angel hair pasta instead. (Does anyone but me think this sentence should be followed by "Hilarity Ensues"?) Apparently this physical model gives better (and faster) results than the numerical model they use on their computers. Instead of slashdotting Penn, you can also check out the near-perfect duplicate article at Science Daily." -
A Tiny Galaxy is Born
phlack writes "New images from the Hubble Telescope show a new galaxy (only 68 million light years away) is in the stages of being formed, despite its neighbors (such as us) having already existed for billions of years. This can give astronomers new insight into the sgates of galaxy formation. Information can be found at the hubble telescope site, as well as ScienceDaily." -
3000-year-old Microbes
marga writes "Science Daily is running a story about a group of researchers the have been drilling into the Antarctic ice and discovered 3000-year-old microbes that could come back to life if put in contact with liquid water. And not only that, they claim that they have uncovered a whole new ecological system lying beneath the Lake Vida." -
3000-year-old Microbes
marga writes "Science Daily is running a story about a group of researchers the have been drilling into the Antarctic ice and discovered 3000-year-old microbes that could come back to life if put in contact with liquid water. And not only that, they claim that they have uncovered a whole new ecological system lying beneath the Lake Vida." -
Researchers Map Brain Areas That Process Tunes
LeBain writes "From Science Daily: 'Researchers at Dartmouth are getting closer to understanding how some melodies have a tendency to stick in your head or why hearing a particular song can bring back a high school dance. They have found and mapped the area in your brain that processes and tracks music.' Don't tell the RIAA!" -
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
eglamkowski writes "Researchers Discover Gene That Controls Ability To Learn Fear. The poor, misguided scientists say this will enable them to treat people who suffer from anxiety, panic disorders or depression(??). Of course, it also means an evil, despotic country that is cloning humans for its army can make its soldiers completely fearless, eliminating one source of possible defeat on the battlefield (breaking of morale). (Why does there seem to be no cynical scientists? ;-)" -
Nanotech Assembly One Step Closer
perrin5 writes "according to Science Daily researchers at University at Buffalo have managed to assemble 3D structures of carbon,silicon, and latex by using "non uniform AC electric fields" as the shaping impetus. I've never really understood exactly what purpose nano-machines were going to fufill, especially in their early stages. Any one care to fill me in?" -
Did Life Originate Underwater?
TuringTest writes "Sciencedaily reports a highly controversial new theory about the origins of life from Professor William Martin of the University of Dusseldorf and Dr Michael Russell of the Scottish Environmental Research Centre in Glasgow. The theory briefly states that inorganic cells where first, then living systems evolved inside these incubators which allowed an enough rich micro-environment. The small compartments would have been formed in iron sulphide rocks near hot, hydrothermal vents on the sea floor, not in the atmosphere. Wow, that would answer the chicken-egg problem." -
Eye Contact Will Influence Man-Machine Interaction
atari_kid writes "ScienceDaily is running a story about a researcher findings on the importance of eye contact in group communications. More importantly, the findings show how the amount of eye contact one receives in a group will effect the number of turns one can take in a discussion. What is interesting about the study his how it will effect the design of the future communication devices, like for example: 'Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) which support communication between people and machines.' The research findings will be also used to facilitate user interactions with devices like PDA's and cell phones. I wonder if the findings could explain why the 'beautiful people' have such influence on the mass media." -
Eye Contact Will Influence Man-Machine Interaction
atari_kid writes "ScienceDaily is running a story about a researcher findings on the importance of eye contact in group communications. More importantly, the findings show how the amount of eye contact one receives in a group will effect the number of turns one can take in a discussion. What is interesting about the study his how it will effect the design of the future communication devices, like for example: 'Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) which support communication between people and machines.' The research findings will be also used to facilitate user interactions with devices like PDA's and cell phones. I wonder if the findings could explain why the 'beautiful people' have such influence on the mass media." -
Neutron Stars Partially Dissected
mmol_6453 writes "An article at ScienceDaily details and explains observations that offer the first proof that what we consider neutron stars really are neutron superfluids. The original press release can be found here." -
The First Soybean Crop Grown In Space is harvest
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Examining Gravity Waves
Joseph "JoeDaMac" Haake writes "Sometime within the next two years, researchers will detect the first signals of gravity waves -- those weak blips from the far edges of the universe passing through our bodies every second. Predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity waves are expected to reveal, ultimately, previously unattainable mysteries of the universe." -
Folding@Home Reports Success
msheppard writes "This Article describes how the folding@home distributed computing project is reporting that they used the data processed on client machines to "predict the folding rate and trajectory of the average molecule." Too bad Seti@Home hasn't had a hit yet." -
Nobel Prizes for Physics Awarded to Smart People
bobol6 writes "The 2002 Nobel Prize for Physics is out. The $1 Million is split two ways: Riccardo Giacconi gets half for building the first X-Ray telescopes, and Raymond Davis, Jr and Masatoshi Koshiba split the other half. Davis invented the water tank neutrino detector, and Koshiba used a more sophisticated one to discover neutrino oscillation. The original press release is available . News articles can be found at Science Daily and The New York Times. (Free Blah di Blah)" -
Human Limb Regeneration a Possibility?
SablKnight writes "This NY Times article (free reg. req.) says maybe. Apparently research is being done in parallel with the more controversial stem cell implantation to attempt to regenerate missing parts in humans. Though this has been a subject of mild interest for centuries, serious research started much more recently, when an experiment involving mice suffered a setback. 'A few years ago, Dr. Ellen Heber-Katz, an immunologist at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, was conducting an experiment with those mice, which develop a disease similar to lupus. As is common, Dr. Heber-Katz punched a pattern of holes in each mouse's ear to so she could tell which mouse was which. Three weeks later, she said, when she checked on the experiment, 'there were no ear holes.'' A quick google search reveals similar stories about Dr. Heber-Katz' research in other publications, such as the Science Daily and Nature." -
MIT Scientists Demo 150 Ton Magnet For Plasma Research
Dr.Luke writes "The dream of abundant fusion energy just got a step closer to reality. MIT scientists just demonstrated a mammoth 150 ton magnet that could be used to create powerful plasma container needed for a practical fusion power plant. The device produces a magnetic field 260,000 times stronger than that of Earth. Full story here." -
Debugging Software using Virtual Networks
gunnk writes "In today's large intertwined networks it is awfully easy for a bug in one piece of software to have far-flung ramifications that may be horribly difficult to track down. For example, think about the chaos that could ensue if Cisco had a subtle routing bug in it's next generation of internet switches. Unfortunately, it is too expensive to build a test environment anywhere near the scale of the real environment, so the final "testing" occurs in the real world. A new idea has come along, however, that might just help: creating a virtual world in the real world network to test the software (with the added bonus of being able to step backwards through the process to analyze bugs). Sciencedaily is running an article on this method entitled "New Computer System Solves Problems by Tricking Computers"." -
NASA 'Hyper-X' Series Scramjets
swight1701 writes "Sciencedaily.com is reporting that NASA has revealed its plans for developing Hypersonic aircraft within 2 decades. These plans include planes that could routinely go Mach 5+ and capable of taking off from an airport and visiting the IIS, or for you earthbound folk, from one airport to any other within 2 hours. And you thought your luggage gets lost NOW.:)" NASA's release includes some graphics showing what the test vehicles look like. -
Progress Toward Single Molecule Transistors
Fungii writes "There is an amazing story over at sciencedaily.com saying two research teams have managed to create single molecule transistors, looks like we don't have to worry about limitations on feature sizes for a while." -
Progress Toward Single Molecule Transistors
Fungii writes "There is an amazing story over at sciencedaily.com saying two research teams have managed to create single molecule transistors, looks like we don't have to worry about limitations on feature sizes for a while." -
Climate Change Linked to Sun's Magnetic Field
-douggy writes "Found this story at Science daily - Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth, examined existing sets of geophysical data and noticed something remarkable: the sun's magnetic activity is varying in 100,000-year cycles, a much longer time span than previously thought, and this solar activity, in turn, may likely cause the 100,000-year climate cycles on earth. Couple this with the fact that the climate (global temperatures at least) also mirror the sunspot cycle almost perfectly. Makes an interesting case for global warming really." -
No Cap On Life Expectancy?
Samarkind writes "An article over at Science Daily (no registration req'd) talks about the average life expectancy for people going up all over the world by an average of 3 months per year. They also say that the somewhat pervasive idea that people can only live so long just isn't true. The kicker that I got from the article was that the average life expectancy for men is 65... isn't that about when I'll retire?" Remember the life expectancy includes all the people who die at age 2 or 15 or 21. If you make it past 25 or so, you've got good odds to make it to 80. -
Goodbye Global Warming!...Hello Terraforming?
silance writes "Here is an article from Science Daily detailing a new method for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale and at normal concentrations. Previous systems require placement near high concentration centers such as power plants, and do not address low-concentration sources (such as internal combustion engines) which are responsible for half of the world's carbon dioxide pollution. The article descibes the technology as scalable to the point of repairing Earth's atmosphere to pre-Industrial-Age levels! Next stop, Mars..." I seem to remember something like this in SimEarth ? - but I'm not going to hold my breath (Ha! I pun!) waiting for this. -
Goodbye Global Warming!...Hello Terraforming?
silance writes "Here is an article from Science Daily detailing a new method for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale and at normal concentrations. Previous systems require placement near high concentration centers such as power plants, and do not address low-concentration sources (such as internal combustion engines) which are responsible for half of the world's carbon dioxide pollution. The article descibes the technology as scalable to the point of repairing Earth's atmosphere to pre-Industrial-Age levels! Next stop, Mars..." I seem to remember something like this in SimEarth ? - but I'm not going to hold my breath (Ha! I pun!) waiting for this. -
Holographic Television and Optical Transistors
Radical Rad writes "This is based off an article from the American Chemical Society Journal and says that 3D TV may be less than a decade away due to an advance made at UCLA which allows portions of crystals to be brightened, darkened, and change colors in nanoseconds using electic and magnetic fields. Light passing through the crystals might then be used to project moving holographic images. The same crystalline material could also be used in optical computers and probably many other applications." -
Predicting Evolution: A Beginner's Model
Silance writes "According to ScienceDaily , Scientists have developed a method of accelerating evolution in the lab that accurately mimics natural evolution. Drug-resistant E.coli strains from the 1940's that were subjected to the evolutionary speed-up process indeed followed the same evolutionary path as their natural bretheren. It is believed that the process could be used to predict the future monkey-wrenches that evolution might lob our way. Neat-o!" -
Predicting Evolution: A Beginner's Model
Silance writes "According to ScienceDaily , Scientists have developed a method of accelerating evolution in the lab that accurately mimics natural evolution. Drug-resistant E.coli strains from the 1940's that were subjected to the evolutionary speed-up process indeed followed the same evolutionary path as their natural bretheren. It is believed that the process could be used to predict the future monkey-wrenches that evolution might lob our way. Neat-o!" -
High-Density Magnets Created
Judebert writes: "University of California, Riverside scientists have created diradical magnets: magnetic particles that have two unbonded electrons instead of just one. The problem with diradical substances is that they have always been extremely chemically active, so they never stayed around longer than a few microseconds at room temperature. The new substance is stable at room temperature, even when it's in solution. And it's not even metallic. This paves the way for newer, higher-density magnetic and magneto-optical media and devices. You can help distribute the load if you visit the text mirror instead."