Comcast CEO shows off 150 megabits per second download on next-gen modem. Tuesday, May 08, 2007 - LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Comcast Corp. Chief Executive Brian Roberts dazzled a cable industry audience Tuesday, showing off for the first time in public new technology that enabled a data download speed of 150 megabits per second, or roughly 25 times faster than today's standard cable modems. The cost of modems that would support the technology, called ''channel bonding,'' is ''not that dissimilar to modems today,'' he told The Associated Press after a demonstration at The Cable Show. It could be available ''within less than a couple years,'' he said.
Water plan helps sinking Kiribati stay afloat 2nd March 2009, 13:15 WST A group of Australian scientists is helping to save a tiny central Pacific island nation from a dangerous byproduct of rising sea levels. Kiribati is slowly being swamped by salt water, shrinking the land mass and threatening the islanders' precious supply of fresh water stored in underground reservoirs. A team of experts from the Australian National University in Canberra has devised a plan to help the small nation of 100,000 secure its water supply against seawater and other contamination. “They're living in a precarious situation in terms of their water resources,” said project leader and environmental expert Professor Ian White. “They don't know how much they've got, and what they do have is in danger of mixing with salt water as the sea level intrudes and making people very sick. “In that sense, it was vital to come up with a plan to help protect it and therefore the population who rely on it.” Kiribati is made up of 33 atolls, almost all of which sit just six metres or less above sea level. The nation, which has strong ties to Australia and uses the Australian dollar, is considered one of the most vulnerable to climate change in the world, along with Tuvalu and the Maldives. It was one of the first countries selected by the Global Environment Facility to trial new strategies to adapt to climate change, but a recent survey showed water supply was the biggest and most pressing concern. Read all...
Darwin Day is a global celebration of science and reason held on or around Feb. 12, the birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. This year marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN February 12, 1809 to April 19, 1882
Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day that Charles Darwin was born on in 1809. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin -- the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity. The Darwin Day Celebration website provides resources and publicity for individuals and institutions across the world to celebrate science and humanity every year, on, or near, February 12, Darwin's birthday. In addition to information about the life and legacy of Charles Darwin, this website provides practical examples, advice and templates for organizing and publicizing Darwin Day events. It also provides a directory of events where you can find celebrations taking place near you or register your own event for others to find.
150 Years after Darwin's On the Origin of Species, island evolution is entering a new phase. By habitat fragmentation, we humans create more and more islands, while at the same time, by transporting species from their native biomes, we remove the dispersal barriers that kept habitats isolated. To explore the implications of this new era of island evolution, the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden, the Netherlands, together with the Darwin Center for Biogeology in Utrecht, the Netherlands, will organise an international congress on "Island Evolution 150 Years After Darwin"11-13 February 2009Museum Naturalis, Leiden, the Netherlands The meeting will bring together traditional students of island biotas, experimental/theoretical community ecologists, and evolutionary biologists, to explore the role of island-biological processes in a world in which the "island processes" of isolation and dispersal are being drastically altered.
Bell Labs Transfers DVD In 2.3 Milliseconds By David A. Utter - Wed, 03/05/2008 - 7:22pm. We need a new word for fast Imagine downloading the remake of Casino Royale in the time it takes to blink. One experiment by Bell Labs managed to accomplish some astonishing speeds. Just don't wait for your friendly neighborhood ISP to offer comparable speeds anytime soon. The Royal Pingdom blog said Bell Labs managed a transfer rate of 2.05 terabytes per second. You won't find the equipment to handle that for sale on the shelves of big-box electronic retailers. Even more impressively, Bell Labs accomplished the transfer speed over a distance of some 1,584 miles. This is a harbinger of 100Gbps Ethernet, according to Information Week. Royal Pingdom also noted how Google transfers data retrieved by the Hubble Space Telescope by FedEx rather than through electronic transmission. It would take longer for Google to move 120 terabytes of data over the Internet than shipping it by overnight delivery.
Technology Meets The City The availability of information and technology is creating new opportunities to comprehend the character and dynamics of cities. Wiki City, a current research project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's SENSEable City Laboratory, is trying to harness this available information to create interactive systems that enable people to better understand and participate in their cities. In the SENSEable City Laboratory's "Wiki City Rome", signals from cell phone and Global Positioning System navigational devices were used to create a real-time map of the mobility of people and transit in Rome during a recent all-night street festival, White Night. Wiki City seeks to create an interactive and participatory connection between people and their city, much like the concept of the user-generated online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
Sense About Scienceis an independent charitable trust promoting good science and evidence in public debates. We do this by promoting respect for evidence and by urging scientists to engage actively with a wide range of groups, particularly when debates are controversial or difficult.
THE PORTABLE LIGHT PROJECT Portable Light is an interdisciplinary research, design and engineering project to create and implement new models for energy efficient electrical power and lighting. Portable Light applies creative processes and strategic integrative thinking to optimize existing semi-conductor technologies and create new applications to serve the large number of people—more than 2 billion—who do not have access to electric light or power. Portable Light is based upon the principle that global needs for technology development are inevitably interconnected.
An X PRIZE is a multi-million dollar award given to the first team to achieve a specific goal, set by the X PRIZE Foundation, which has the potential to benefit humanity. Rather than awarding money to honor past achievements or directly funding research, an X PRIZE incites innovation by tapping into our competitive and entrepreneurial spirits. X PRIZE competitions capture the imagination of the public and speed radical breakthroughs that can ultimately change the way we see ourselves and how we live on this planet. Stay tuned as the X PRIZE Foundation unveils new X PRIZEs to spark revolutions in the space, medicine, energy, automotive, education, environmental, and social arenas.
Zoom liquid lenses for digital cameras Researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF) have developed zoom lenses which closely replicate the working of the human eye. These adaptive lenses should be manufactured at a dramatically smaller size than conventional zoom lenses without compromising clarity. After being granted no less than 5 U.S. patents, the UCF team has licensed the technologies to a manufacturing company. So we might soon get better zoom lenses in our cell phones and digital cameras.
On Truth and Reality - Uniting Metaphysics, Philosophy, Physics and Theology (Science and Art) from One Thing, Absolute Space and the Spherical Standing . Quantum Physics: Quantum Theory / Wave Mechanics: The Wave Structure of Matter (WSM) and Spherical Standing Wave Interactions explains Discrete Energy..
Compound-Eye Camera Analyzes Scenes A new, ultrathin camera can extract 3-D information from scenes and recognize objects. Researchers at the University of Osaka have developed an ultrathin camera that can determine the distance between objects in a scene and pick out color and structural features. In effect, the team, led by Jun Tanida, has built an integrated hardware and software system for recognizing objects and recreating 3-D scenes.
Bionic Eye - Artificial Sight: Optoelectronic Retinal Prosthesis Blindness is more feared by the public than any ailment except cancer and AIDS. We develop retinal prosthesis for restoration of sight in patients suffering from degenerative retinal diseases such as Retinitis Pigmentosa and Age-Related Macular Degeneration. In these diseases the photoreceptor cells slowly degenerate, leading to blindness. However, many of the retinal neurons that transmit signals from the photoreceptors are preserved for a prolonged period of time.
Solarnavigator.net - a world of adventure and achievement: This site is crammed full of information for students of renewable energy technology, boat design, history, geography and other important issues such as war, famine and peace.
The Research Platform FLIP is a 355 foot long manned spar buoy designed as a stable research platform for oceanographic research. FLIP is towed to its operating area in the horizontal position and through ballast changes is "flipped" to the vertical position to become a stable spar buoy with a draft of 300 feet. FLIP has been used principally for acoustics research. It has also been used in a variety of other programs, including geophysics, meteorology, physical oceanography, non-acoustic ASW and in laser propagation experiments. FLIP has operated in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
'Juiced-up' Sugar-Fueled Battery Could Power Portable Electronics Discussion at PhysOrgForum Juicing up your cell phone or iPod may take on a whole new meaning in the future. Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri have developed a fuel cell battery that runs on virtually any sugar source — from soft drinks to tree sap — and has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium ion batteries, they say.
MachinesLikeUs.com is a resource for those interested in evolutionary thought, cognitive science, artificial life and artificial intelligence.It encourages relevant scientific research and analysis, posts current news and disseminates articles that promote the following concepts: 1) Evolution is the guiding principle behind life on earth; 2) Religions and their gods are human constructs, and subject to human foibles; 3) Life and intelligence are emergent properties based upon fundamental mechanics, and, as such, are reproducible; 4) Living organisms are magnificent machines “ robust, dynamic, self-sufficient, precisely tuned to their environment “ and deserving our respect and study. You are invited to participate in the venerable quest to build Machines Like Us.
Conscious Entities - Concise illustrated descriptions and discussions of leading philosophical theories of consciousness, and well known thought experiments, and the issues they ...
Kansas: Anti-Evolution Guidelines Are Repealed - Review this StoryAssociated Press - By Associated Press - Feb 14, 2007 - Full Story - The State Board of Education repealed science guidelines questioning evolution, putting into effect new ones that reflect mainstream scientific views. The move was a political defeat for advocates of "intelligent design" who had helped write the standards being repealed. The intelligent design concept holds that life is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.
ASU helps create real face of George Washington ASU researchers and others mix technology, art, science Researchers at Arizona State University and the University of Pittsburgh have re-created Washington at three ages, using anthropology, 3-D scanning and digital reconstruction. The 2 1/2-year project culminated in new life-size figures unveiled in the fall at Washington's Mount Vernon home in Virginia.
Science - Stephen Hawking Plans Prelude to the Ride of His Life By DENNIS OVERBYE - Published: March 1, 2007 Stephen Hawking, the British cosmologist, is to take a zero-gravity ride out of Cape Canaveral on a so-called vomit comet, offering him a chance to get away from his wheelchair.
Death of the cell phone charger A Pennsylvania entrepreneur has developed technology that gives you all the battery juice you need directly from the air. Business 2.0 reports.
