DARPA-Funded Big Dog Robot Moves Almost Like a Real Dog

Check out this DARPA prototype of a 4-legged robot that can navigate rugged, complex and slippery terrain. It is very odd to see something so alive moving around so normally minus a head, lungs and tail. Expect this product to soon be adapted for war, entertainment and then eventually commercial purposes. (Props to mathew ingram for the awesome and, as he puts it, creepy link.)



http://memebox.com/futureblogger/show/177

Glimpses Of A New Mathematical World

ScienceDaily (Mar. 17, 2008)
— A new mathematical object was revealed yesterday during a lecture at the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM). Two researchers from the University of Bristol exhibited the first example of a third degree transcendental L-function. These L-functions encode deep underlying connections between many different areas of mathematics.

The news caused excitement at the AIM workshop attended by 25 of the world's leading analytic number theorists. The work is a joint project between Ce Bian and his adviser, Andrew Booker. Booker commented that, "This work was made possible by a combination of theoretical advances and the power of modern computers." During his lecture, Bian reported that it took approximately 10,000 hours of computer time to produce his initial results.

"This breakthrough opens a door to the study of higher degree L-functions," said Dennis Hejhal, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota and Uppsala University.

"It's a big advance' added Harold Stark of the University of California, San Diego, who, 30 years ago was the first to accurately calculate second degree transcendental L-functions.

"I thought we were years away from doing this. The geometry of what you have to do and the scale of the computation are orders of magnitude harder."

There are two types of L-functions: algebraic and transcendental, and these are classified according to their degree. The Riemann zeta-function is the grand-daddy of all L-functions. It holds the secret to how the prime numbers are distributed, and is a first-degree algebraic L-function.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080313124415.htm

Mathematicians Find New Solutions To An Ancient Puzzle

ScienceDaily (Mar. 14, 2008) — Many people find complex math puzzling, including some mathematicians. Recently, mathematician Daniel J. Madden and retired physicist, Lee W. Jacobi, found solutions to a puzzle that has been around for centuries.

Jacobi and Madden have found a way to generate an infinite number of solutions for a puzzle known as 'Euler's Equation of degree four.'

The equation is part of a branch of mathematics called number theory. Number theory deals with the properties of numbers and the way they relate to each other. It is filled with problems that can be likened to numerical puzzles.

"It's like a puzzle: can you find four fourth powers that add up to another fourth power" Trying to answer that question is difficult because it is highly unlikely that someone would sit down and accidentally stumble upon something like that," said Madden, an associate professor of mathematics at The University of Arizona in Tucson.

Equations are puzzles that need certain solutions "plugged into them" in order to create a statement that obeys the rules of logic.

For example, think of the equation x + 2 = 4. Plugging "3" into the equation doesn't work, but if x = 2, then the equation is correct.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080314145039.htm

Stealing Our Future: Conservatives, Foresight, and Why Nothing Works Anymore

Brad DeLong once said that "'Nobody could have foreseen ______' is
the Bush administration's version of 'The dog ate my homework.'" It
does seem to be their handy-dandy Swiss Army Knife, all-purpose
explanation for the various disasters that have happened on their
watch.

We first heard this excuse all the way back in May 2002, when
Condoleezza Rice blithely dismissed Congressional queries about 9/11 by
saying, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people
would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take
another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use
an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

A nation of Tom Clancy fans — and those who remembered Sam
Byck's too-close-for-comfort White House flyover back in the 70s
— wondered what on God's green earth these idiots were thinking.
But the Bushies decided they were onto something.

In fact, they liked this excuse so much that they trotted it out
again after Katrina. As New Orleans' Ninth Ward vanished under the mud
of Lake Ponchartrain, W went on the national airwaves to insist, "I
don't think anybody anticipated the breech of the levees."

That was wrong, too, of course: everyone from the City of New
Orleans to the Army Corps of Engineers had seen this one coming for
decades. In fact, the New Orleans Times-Picayne had done an entire
series on just this subject as recently as 2002. You’d think that
the coast-to-coast derision that followed might have alerted Bush and
crew they were reaching for an excuse that no self-respecting
third-grader would touch.

<a href='http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/stealing-our-future-conservatives-foresight-and-why-nothing-works-anymore'>link</a>

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Horrors of design: Duck Lamp

<a href='http://dvice.com/archives/2008/01/horrors_of_desi_1.php'>link</a>

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No, this is not a harp. Yes, it is a radiator. Really.

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Text of SJM 8016 2007-08

TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:
We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of
the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully
represent and petition as follows:
WHEREAS, The citizens of Washington state expect and require their
highest elected officials be subject to the laws of the land, like any
citizen, and uphold the constitutional oath taken by them upon assuming
office; and
WHEREAS, The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
guarantees Americans privacy and freedom from warrantless search; and
WHEREAS, In 1967, the Supreme Court held in Katz v. United States,
that the monitoring and recording of private conversations constitutes
a "search" for Fourth Amendment purposes, and that the government must
obtain a warrant before domestic wiretapping; and
WHEREAS, In 1978, Congress passed a law making it a criminal
offense to eavesdrop on Americans without judicial oversight; and
WHEREAS, In 2001, the President signed a secret executive order
authorizing warrantless surveillance of American citizens in direct
conflict with the United States Constitution and United States law; and
WHEREAS, The President both demonstrated knowledge of the law he
was breaking, and lied about breaking the law by stating on April 20,
2004, "... a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the
way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking
about getting a court order before we do so."; and
WHEREAS, The President again demonstrated knowledge of the law he
was breaking and again lied about his lawlessness by stating on July
20, 2005, "Law enforcement officers need a federal judge's permission
to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, or to track his calls, or to
search his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of
the tools we're talking about."; and
WHEREAS, On December 12, 2005, the New York Times published a
government leak that revealed the unlawful surveillance program,
stating that according to government officials: "Months after the
September 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National
Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United
States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-
approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying."; and
WHEREAS, Five days later, on December 17, 2005, the President said,
"I have reauthorized this program more than thirty times since the
September the 11th attacks, and I intend to do so for as long as our
nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups.";
and
WHEREAS, The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell,
indicated in a letter to Senator Arlen Specter that the President's
executive order in 2001 authorized additional secret surveillance
activities and undisclosed activities beyond the warrantless
surveillance of e-mails and phone calls that Bush had confirmed in
December 2005; and
WHEREAS, The President denied the necessary security clearances to
investigators from the Office of Professional Responsibility in the
Justice Department who were to have investigated this matter, but could
not and did not; and
WHEREAS, On March 10, 2004, Alberto Gonzales and the President's
Chief of Staff, Andrew H. Card, Jr. tried to bypass Acting Attorney
General James Comey by meeting directly with a sick Mr. Ashcroft in his
hospital bed. According to the testimony of James Comey before the
Senate Judiciary Committee, the purpose of this visit was to
reauthorize the secret wiretapping program, which Comey had refused to
reauthorize; and
WHEREAS, The President subsequently appointed Mr. Gonzales to the
Attorney General post, who continued to reauthorize the warrantless
surveillance program until he tendered his resignation on August 26,
2007, under threat of impeachment; and
WHEREAS, The secret surveillance program uses a "splitter" to send
a copy of internet traffic and phone calls to a secure room operated by
the NSA in the San Francisco office of AT&T, according to the testimony
of Mark Klein, the retired AT&T communications technician who admitted
to connecting the "splitter" that copied the data in 2003; and
WHEREAS, Mark Klein also indicated that similar spy rooms were
being constructed in other cities, including Seattle, Washington, and
San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego; and
WHEREAS, On August 17, 2006, the United States District Court for
the Eastern District of Michigan, in ACLU v. NSA, ruled that the NSA
wiretapping program violated privacy and free speech rights,
constitutional separation of powers, and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, and stated that "It was never the intent of the
framers to give the President such unfettered control, particularly
where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated
in the Bill of Rights"; and
WHEREAS, This unwarranted and unlawful, and seemingly
unconstitutional surveillance program is still being used to spy on
American citizens; and
WHEREAS, United States and international law forbid invading a
foreign country without provocation; and
WHEREAS, International laws ratified by Congress are part of United
States law according to Article VI of the United States Constitution,
which states "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States
which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or
which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be
the supreme Law of the Land"; and
WHEREAS, The United Nations Charter was ratified by the United
States in 1945 and requires that member states, including the United
States, not attack or threaten attack of another country without
explicit Security Council approval except for self-defense against an
armed attack; and
WHEREAS, There was no armed attack upon the United States by Iraq,
and the United Nations Security Council did not vote to approve the use
of force against Iraq; and
WHEREAS, On September 16, 2004, the Secretary General of the United
Nations Kofi Annan, commented on the United States invasion of Iraq by
stating: "It was not in conformity with the United Nations charter.
From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was
illegal."; and
WHEREAS, In October 2002, Congress authorized the President to use
his discretion to decide whether or not to use force against Iraq; and
WHEREAS, The President and Vice President mislead Congress and the
American people about the potential threat of Iraq; and
WHEREAS, The President and Vice President were either deliberately
deceitful or willfully ignorant about the potential threat of Iraq; and
WHEREAS, On March 19, 2003, the President, acting on his sole
discretion, ordered the illegal invasion of Iraq, according to his
letter to Congress dated March 21, 2003, stating "I directed U.S. Armed
Forces, operating with other coalition forces, to commence combat
operations on March 19, 2003, against Iraq."; and
WHEREAS, United States law, 18 U.S.C Sec. 2340A forbids a United
States citizen from committing or conspiring to commit the offense of
torture outside of the United States; and
WHEREAS, International law forbids torture and the United States
has bound itself to this unconditional prohibition by the American
Convention on Human Rights signed in 1977, the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights signed in 1977 and ratified in 1992, and
the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment signed in 1988 and ratified in
1994; and
WHEREAS, In 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer,
Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a United States
civilian; and
WHEREAS, In March 2006, the United States Department of State's
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor released a 2005 report on
human rights practices in Tunisia in which it formally recognized
"submersion of the head in water" as torture; and
WHEREAS, The CIA has confirmed using waterboarding and former CIA
agency official, John Kiriakou, has told news agencies that the White
House and Justice Department knew of and authorized the use of new
harsh questioning techniques, including waterboarding; and
WHEREAS, The President, acting with the support of the Vice
President and the same former Attorney General who resigned under
threat of impeachment, authorized the abusive treatment of prisoners;
and
WHEREAS, The President and Vice President used "war on terror" as
part of their justification for authorization of the abusive
techniques; and
WHEREAS, The CIA has reportedly used waterboarding on Abd al-Rahim
al-Nashiri, one of the prisoners; and
WHEREAS, In November 2005, the CIA destroyed video evidence of
their interrogations of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri; and
WHEREAS, All the details Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri made of his claims
of torture were redacted from his transcript; and
WHEREAS, Federal attorneys defended the abusive treatment of
prisoners by arguing that antitorture provisions did not apply to
Guantanamo Bay captives; and
WHEREAS, When Congress sought to reaffirm the United States
prohibition on torture by passing a 2005 antitorture law, the President
signed the law with a signing statement that effectively states that
the President has the right to torture at his discretion because, "The
executive branch shall construe...the Act, relating to detainees, in a
manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to
supervise the unitary executive branch..."; and
WHEREAS, The abusive techniques authorized by the President were
inflicted on people the President declared "enemy combatants"; and
WHEREAS, The abusive techniques authorized by the President were
committed during an armed conflict; and
WHEREAS, The abusive techniques authorized by the President have
previously been classified as torture and prosecuted as a war crime by
the United States; and
WHEREAS, International law defines torture during an armed conflict
as a war crime; and
WHEREAS, International law defines that a commander involved in
ordering, allowing, or insufficiently preventing and prosecuting a war
crime is criminally liable under the Command Responsibility doctrine;
and
WHEREAS, The President appears to be guilty of war crimes by simple
application of the Command Responsibility doctrine to the publicly
known facts; and
WHEREAS, Based on the overwhelming evidence that has been presented
to the American people as established in this resolution, numerous
grounds for impeachment appear to exist; and
WHEREAS, Illegally authorizing torture in violation of United
States and international laws, and committing war crimes would seem to
constitute an impeachable offense; and
WHEREAS, The President's authorization and subsequent lies about an
unwarranted, unlawful, and apparently unconstitutional surveillance
program would seem to constitute an impeachable offense; and
WHEREAS, Misleading the Congress and the American people to justify
invading another country in direct violation of international and
United States laws would seem to constitute an impeachable act; and
WHEREAS, Such offenses, if committed, are subversive of
constitutional government to the great prejudice of the cause of law
and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of Washington
state and of the United States of America; and
WHEREAS, Petitions from the country at large may be presented by
the Speaker of the House according to Clause 3 of House Rule XII; and
WHEREAS, Jefferson's Manual section LIII, 603, states that
impeachment may be set in motion by charges transmitted from the
legislature of a state; and
WHEREAS, Impeachment is a process defined in the United States
Constitution by which charges are brought against a President or Vice
President or civil officers of the United States in the House of
Representatives; and
WHEREAS, The filing of these charges is followed by a trial in the
United States Senate that determines guilt or innocence; and
WHEREAS, If the President or Vice President committed such
offenses, ignoring these offenses would undermine core American values
of truth and justice; and
WHEREAS, Failing to impeach the President and Vice President if
they have committed such offenses would signal tacit approval of these
activities and sanction their use by future administrations; and
WHEREAS, Failing to impeach the President and Vice President simply
because they are serving their second term would signal future
administrations that any high crime or misdemeanor, if committed or
covered up until their second term, will be tolerated until an upcoming
election; and
WHEREAS, Freedom and liberty, and the laws and the Constitution of
the United States of America can only be protected by Americans; and
WHEREAS, America has only until January 20, 2009, to signal to
history that America will not sanction torture, America will not
sanction unprovoked war, and America will not sanction illegal spying;
and
WHEREAS, America will defend herself from all enemies foreign and
domestic; and
WHEREAS, America will protect the integrity of the Constitution and
the Executive branch; and
WHEREAS, We, your Memorialists, have each sworn an oath to protect
the United States Constitution;
NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists, exhort our Representatives in
the United States Congress to charge President George W. Bush and Vice
President Richard B. Cheney with the above offenses and commence a full
investigation and trial in the United States Senate.
BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately
transmitted to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker
of the House of Representatives, and each member of the United States
Congress.

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A cool prediction that actually came true

This is the time of year that you begin to read predictions about what will happen next year. Mobile viruses are nigh. A Macintosh tablet is on the horizon. The Detroit Tigers will win the World Series. Things like that. But how about a very specific prediction made in 1967 about the then future (1999) that is darn near dead-on accurate? That's what the folks at Philco-Ford created with this video about how people would be shopping and paying bills by the end of the 20th century. Gender stereotypes aside, it's an excellent analysis of not only what might happen, but what actually did take place. Hats off to whoever did it. Maybe they'll turn their crystal ball on who will be the 2008 World Series champs. (Won't be the Tigers.)

http://blogs.computerworld.com/a_cool_prediction_that_actually_came_true

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NASA Announces Discovery of Assault by a Black Hole

Dec.
18, 2007: A powerful jet from a supermassive black
hole is blasting a nearby galaxy, according to new data from
NASA observatories. This never-before witnessed galactic violence
may have a profound effect on planets in the jet's path and
trigger a burst of star birth in its destructive wake.

This
real-life scene, worthy of the most outlandish science fiction,
is playing out in a faraway binary galaxy system known as
3C321. Two galaxies are in orbit around one another. A supermassive
black hole at the core of the system's larger galaxy is spewing
a jet in the direction of its smaller companion.


"We've
seen many jets produced by black holes, but this is the first
time we've seen one punch into another galaxy," says
Dan Evans, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics and leader of the study. "This jet could
be causing all sorts of problems for the smaller galaxy it
is pummeling."

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http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071127-verizon-opens-up-will-support-any-device-any-app-on-its-network.html

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," appears to be Verizon Wireless' new
motto as it today announced an impressive "open access" plan for its
network that will go into effect next year. Any application can run on
any device from any developer and will have full access to Verizon
spectrum, so long as it can properly connect to the network. Google,
can you hear us now?

In a conference call this morning, Verizon's top brass insisted that
the news had nothing to do with political pressure or with the upcoming
700MHz spectrum auction (which will require some winners to abide by
such open access rules). However, they also made clear that Verizon's
open solution will be in place in 2008, not in 2011 (when the new
700MHz spectrum owner could conceivably start bringing a new network
online).

Here's how it will work: early next year, the company will publish the
technical standards needed to connect to the Verizon network. It will
also host a conference with device developers to learn more about their
needs and to help with any problems that arise. Verizon has also
dropped another $20 million into its certification lab, and any device
maker who wants to connect to Verizon's network will first need to be
certified for proper network connectivity procedures. Nothing else will
be checked.

All applications, operating systems, and runtime environments are
supported so long as the devices connect properly to Verizon's CDMA
network (they can make use of either the company's cellular and PCS
bandwidth). The fee for certification of devices will be "surprisingly
reasonable," we're told, and the program will be open to anyone. One
Verizon exec went so far as to say that if someone builds a device in
their basement on a breadboard, Verizon will test it and activate it.
Smaller players will definitely be able to get in on the action,
something that hasn't previously been possible.

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OrderFetch™ Shipping Sorter

Kiva
OrderFetch quickly directs the right orders to the right location
at the right time, installs for a fraction of the cost of
existing sortation systems, and provides dramatically higher
operational flexibility.

Features

“Pull” Material Flow –
Using OrderFetch, the shipping department sets the agenda
for the building, allowing you to pull work from picking and
reserve as needed for specific trucks.

Real-Time Truck Loading – Because
every order is mobile, it moves only when required and to
the right place. The dock door opens, the orders arrive, and
the truck leaves, reducing variability in truck loading times.
items in parallel, eliminating system bottlenecks caused by
a single point of failure.

Mobile Infrastructure – All Kiva equipment
is mobile and modular, making it easy to expand or reconfigure
the shipping area. Unlike conveyor-based sorters, output can
be expanded without disrupting operations.

Integration – OrderFetch integrates
seamlessly with Kiva ItemFetch™ split-case picking and
Kiva CaseFetch™ pallet-moving systems, creating one
seamless operation in the building.

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Missing Black Hole Report: Hundreds Found!

PASADENA, Calif. - Astronomers have unmasked hundreds of black holes
hiding deep inside dusty galaxies billions of light-years away.


The massive, growing black holes, discovered by NASA's Spitzer and
Chandra space telescopes, represent a large fraction of a long-sought
missing population. Their discovery implies there were hundreds of
millions of additional black holes growing in our young universe, more
than doubling the total amount known at that distance.

"Active, supermassive black holes were everywhere in the early
universe," said Mark Dickinson of the National Optical Astronomy
Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. "We had seen the tip of the iceberg before
in our search for these objects. Now, we can see the iceberg itself."
Dickinson is a co-author of two new papers appearing in the Nov. 10
issue of the Astrophysical Journal. Emanuele Daddi of the Commissariat
a l'Energie Atomique in France led the research.

The findings are also the first direct evidence that most, if not all,
massive galaxies in the distant universe spent their youths building
monstrous black holes at their cores.


For decades, a large population of active black holes has been
considered missing. These highly energetic structures belong to a class
of black holes called quasars. A quasar consists of a doughnut-shaped
cloud of gas and dust that surrounds and feeds a budding supermassive
black hole. As the gas and dust are devoured by the black hole, they
heat up and shoot out X-rays. Those X-rays can be detected as a general
glow in space, but often the quasars themselves can't be seen directly
because dust and gas blocks them from our view.


"We knew from other studies from about 30 years ago that there
must be more quasars in the universe, but we didn't know where to find
them until now," said Daddi.

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Home-made helicopters hit northern Nigeria

KANO (AFP) - Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi, a 24-year-old physics undergraduate in northern Nigeria, takes old cars and motorbikes to pieces in the back yard at home and builds his own helicopters from the parts.

"It took me eight months to build this one," he said, sweat pouring from his forehead as he filled the radiator of the banana yellow four-seater which he now parks in the grounds of his university.

The chopper, which has flown briefly on six occasions, is made from scrap aluminium that Abdullahi bought with the money he makes from computer and mobile phone repairs, and a donation from his father, who teaches at Kano's Bayero university.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/nigeriahelicopteroffbeat;_ylt=AsIVmuqaLsBZ9aRS3syKSG0DW7oF

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The Future of Electronic Paper

Thirty-five years in the making, electronic paper is now closer than
ever to changing the way we read, write, and study — a revolution
so profound that some see it as second only to the invention of the
printing press in the 15th century. Made of flexible material,
requiring ultra-low power consumption, cheap to manufacture,
and—most important—easy and convenient to read, e-papers of
the future are just around the corner, with the promise to hold
libraries on a chip and replace most printed newspapers before the end
of the next decade. This article will cover the history, technology,
and future of what will be the second paper revolution.

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Heat-Sensitive Wallpaper

This heat-sensitive wallpaper shows the flowers blooming when the heater is turned on.
- via poppytalk

http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2007/10/heat-sensitive-wallpaper.html

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I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer

Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to
decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out
of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the
first new artificial life form on Earth.

The announcement, which is expected within weeks and could come as
early as Monday at the annual meeting of his scientific institute in
San Diego, California, will herald a giant leap forward in the
development of designer genomes. It is certain to provoke heated debate
about the ethics of creating new species and could unlock the door to
new energy sources and techniques to combat global warming.

Mr Venter told the Guardian he thought this landmark would be "a very
important philosophical step in the history of our species. We are
going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. That
gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated
before".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange

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U-M research: New plastic is strong as steel, transparent

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—By mimicking a brick-and-mortar molecular
structure found in seashells, University of Michigan researchers
created a composite plastic that's as strong as steel but lighter and
transparent.

It's made of layers of clay nanosheets and a water-soluble polymer that shares chemistry with white glue.

Engineering professor Nicholas Kotov almost dubbed it "plastic steel,"
but the new material isn't quite stretchy enough to earn that name.
Nevertheless, he says its further development could lead to lighter,
stronger armor for soldiers or police and their vehicles. It could also
be used in microelectromechanical devices, microfluidics, biomedical
sensors and valves and unmanned aircraft.

Kotov and other U-M faculty members are authors of a paper on this
composite material, "Ultrastrong and Stiff Layered Polymer
Nanocomposites," published in the Oct. 5 edition of Science.

The
scientists solved a problem that has confounded engineers and
scientists for decades: Individual nano-size building blocks such as
nanotubes, nanosheets and nanorods are ultrastrong. But larger
materials made out of bonded nano-size building blocks were
comparatively weak. Until now.

http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6084

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A Toothy New Duck-Billed Dinosaur from Southern Utah

The newest dinosaur species to emerge from Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument had some serious bite, according to researchers from
the Utah Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah. “It
was one of the most robust duck-billed dinosaurs ever,” said
museum paleontologist Terry Gates, who is also with the U.’s
Department of Geology and Geophysics. “It was a monster.”



http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/533772/

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LG.Philips bends reality, if e-paper is your reality

E-paper displays are already thin. Now they're getting flexible, thanks to a breakthrough announced by LG.Philips.

The first color "e-paper" display measures 14.1 inches wide and 0.3 millimeters thick. Replacing the usual inflexible glass substrate is a combination of foil, which holds thin-film transistors, and plastic, which holds the color filter. Electronic ink from (who else?) E Ink Corp. generates up to 4096 colors. Like paper, this e-paper doesn't just flex — it also bounces back, and maintains 180° readability even when bent.

Of course, foil and plastic can both melt, so part of the breakthrough came in proprietary video-processing technology that prevents the panel from frying its circuits and deforming. LG.Philips had previously shown the world's first flexible black & white e-paper display in May 2006.

http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2007/05/15/lgphilips_bends.html

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Water forms floating 'bridge' when exposed to high voltage

While it's one of the most important and abundant chemical compounds on Earth, water is still a puzzle to scientists. Much research has been done to uncover the structure of water beyond the H₂O scale, which is thought to be responsible for many of water’s unique properties. However, the nature of this structure, governed by hydrogen bonds, is currently unknown.

“Water undoubtedly is the most important chemical substance in the world,” explained Elmar Fuchs and colleagues from the Graz University of Technology in Austria in a recent study. “The interaction of water with electric fields has been intensely explored over the last years. We report another unusual effect of liquid water exposed to a dc electric field: the floating water bridge.”


Upon investigating the phenomenon, the scientistsfound that water was being transported from one beaker to another, usually from the anode beaker to the cathode beaker. The cylindrical water bridge, with a diameter of 1-3 mm, could remain intact when the beakers were pulled apart at a distance of up to 25 mm.

Why water would act this way was a surprise, Fuchs told PhysOrg.com. But the group’s analyses have shown that the explanation may lie within the nature of the water’s structure. Initially, the bridge forms due to electrostatic charges on the surface of the water. The electric field then concentrates inside the water, arranging the water molecules to form a highly ordered microstructure. This microstructure remains stable, keeping the bridge intact.

http://www.physorg.com/news110191847.html