Fastest train in China

China played host to railway authorities and railway experts from around the world in Beijing , and used the opportunity to showcase a high-speed train that clocked the fastest ever speed in a test run. The 16-car CRH380A, a new generation of high-speed train which Chinese Ministry of Railways officials say recorded a top speed of 486.1 kilometers per hour on Friday, far exceeding Japan's bullet trains.

Chinese railway officials say the CRH380A, designed to operate at a cruising speed of 380 kph, is the fastest train in operation in the world today. China is reportedly in the process of developing a super high-speed train that can run at 600 kph.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/fastest-train-in-china.html

Freelancer.com

Freelancer.com is a website that connects freelancers with employers who are looking to outsource their project. You can post your project and have freelancers bid on your project. If you’re a freelancer, you can browse projects and make bids to. The site offers many different kinds of services from SEO, writing, programming, website development, graphic design, script installation, marketing and more.

Detailed Overview

With the explotion of ecommerce and the need for businesses to hire qualified workers, freelance sites have been becoming very popular. The site is very easy to use. If you’re looking for work, you can just browse through categories or use the search function to find specific projects. There is a huge list of employers looking to hire. If you belong to the other side and want to find qualified freelancers, you can post a project with ease. Just write the job description, your price range, and the category. You’ll start getting bids as quick as a couple of hours.

http://www.freelancer.com/affiliates/rajeshonnet/

GetaFreelancer charges $5 or 10% (whichever is higher) of the project fee for freelancers. But they can get that fee waived if they get a gold membership for $12 a month. This is worth getting if you plan on using the site. Employers are charged $5 for posting a project, but this fee is refunded if you select a service provider. When you select a service provider, you are charged $3 or 3% (whichever is higher), but this is waived if you get the gold membership for $12 a month.

http://www.freelancer.com/affiliates/rajeshonnet/

Massive solar storm to hit Earth in 2012

Aug 26, 2010

Astronomers are predicting that a massive solar storm, is to strike our planet in 2012 with a force of 100 million hydrogen bombs! Several US media outlets have reported that NASA was warning the massive flare this month was just a precursor to a massive solar storm building that had the potential to wipe out the entire planet's power grid.

Similar storms back in 1859 and 1921 caused worldwide chaos, wiping out telegraph wires on a massive scale. The 2012 storm has the potential to be even more disruptive. "The general consensus among general astronomers (and certainly solar astronomers) is that this coming Solar maximum (2012 but possibly later into 2013) will be the most violent in 100 years," News.com.au quoted astronomy lecturer and columnist Dave Reneke as saying. "A bold statement and one taken seriously by those it will affect most, namely airline companies, communications companies and anyone working with modern GPS systems.

NASA said that a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause "1 to 2 trillion dollars in damages to society's high-tech infrastructure and require four to 10 years for complete recovery". The reason for the concern comes as the sun enters a phase known as Solar Cycle 24. Most experts agree, although those who put the date of Solar Max in 2012 are getting the most press.

Mutual Funds

Mutual Fund is an investment scheme that pools money from investors and invests it in stocks, bonds, money instruments and/or other securities. Units of these schemes reflects the share of investors. It's appreciation is judged by it's NAV.

Fund Switching in ULIPs

Investments in ULIPs are under the control of investors. Usually investments are made in equity funds. It is a good practice of investment provided that the investor takes care to switch the investment to debt funds before a huge market crash. It is the moral duty of the Financial Advisor to advice his clients about fund switching before a market crash. It is this failure that is resulting in huge loss of investors.

INSURANCE

Insurance is the business of protecting the economic value of an asset. An asset is defined as something which generates income to its owner.An asset can be lost or destroyed due to various reasons: like floods, fire, riots, death, etc. They are called hazards or perils. More often than not, the loss of an asset will result in the complete ruination of the owner.Even though Insurance cannot physically protect an asset, it can compensate the economic loss arising out of an unexpected occurance of an event. Perils are therefore unexpected occurences of events and risk is the possibility of damages arising out of peril.

The damage may or may not occur, which means, when we use the word risk, there is an element of uncertainty. Insurance guards against such uncertainties, properties and people are exposed to. It therefore goes without saying that if there is no risk, there is no need for insurance. In other words, it is an element of uncertainty which creates the need for insurance. Risks cannot be prevented or avoided; so they are transferred to an insurance company. By availing insurance, the individual transfers his responsibility of continuous generation of income even in the event of his death to an insurance company.Only economic consequence can be insured. Examples of non-economic losses are love and affection, sentimental attachment and creative abilities.

One of world's most complex math problems solved by an Indian

Computer scientist Vinay Deolalikar claims to have solved maths riddle of P vs NP - one of the world's most complex and intractable mathematical problems. Deolalikar, said that he has proven that P is not equal to NP. The solution, if right, would earn him 1 million dollars as prize money. P vs NP is one of the seven millennium problems set out by the Massachusetts-based Clay Mathematical Institute as being the "most difficult" to solve. Deolalikar claims to have proven that P, which refers to problems whose solutions are easy to find and verify, is not the same as NP, which refers to problems whose solutions are almost impossible to find but easy to verify.

For instance, calculating how to accommodate 400 students in 100 university rooms. The Clay Mathematical Institute says, "To complicate matters, the Dean has provided you with a list of pairs of incompatible students, and requested that no pair from this list appear in your final choice.

"This is an example of what computer scientists call an NP-problem, since it is easy to check if a given choice of one hundred students proposed by a co-worker is satisfactory (i.e., no pair taken from your co-worker's list also appears on the list from the Dean's office), however the task of generating such a list from scratch seems to be so hard as to be completely impractical.

"Indeed, the total number of ways of choosing one hundred students from the four hundred applicants is greater than the number of atoms in the known universe. "Thus no future civilisation could ever hope to build a supercomputer capable of solving the problem by brute force; that is, by checking every possible combination of 100 students.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-of-worlds-most-complex-math.html

Abandon Earth or face extinction: Hawking

The human race will become extinct unless it leaves Earth and colonises space within the next two centuries, according to Prof Stephen Hawking, the world's most famous astrophysicist. In an interview with the portal 'Big Think', professor Hawking has said he's an "optimist" but the next few hundred years had to be negotiated carefully if the human race is to survive.

Professor Hawking has warned that mankind was entering "an increasingly dangerous period of our history". "Our population and use of the finite resources of planet Earth and growing exponentially along without technical ability to change the environment for good and ill. But our genetic code carries selfish and aggressive instincts that were a survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next 100 years let alone the next thousand or a million. Our only chance of long term survival is not to remain on Earth but to spread into space.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/abandon-earth-or-face-extinction.html

$35 Computer

India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has 'launched' a $35 computer. The touch-screen, Linux-based device looks iPad-inspired. It emerged from a student project with a bill of material adding up to $47, a price that the minister wants to bring down to $10 'to take forward inclusive education'. It promises browser and PDF reader, wi-fi, 2GB memory, USB, Open Office, and multimedia content viewers and interfaces. The device has been developed by Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science and is named as Sakshat tablet, and is aimed to be released by 2011.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/35-computer.html

Why do we dream?

Thu, Jul 15, 2010

Scientists may have uncovered why we dream - it could be a crucial tool for sorting and filing information and discarding mental trash, says an Australian researcher. "It's a way of allowing your brain to recover and consolidate all the memories and activities of the previous day, like filing time," The Daily Telegraph quoted Prof Drew Dawson from the Centre For Sleep Research at the University of South Australia, as saying.

If we give someone a complex new task to learn and we let them sleep but don't let them dream, they're almost as bad the next day as if they didn't sleep at all. Prof Dawson said: "Your brainwaves while you're dreaming actually look very similar to your brainwaves when you are awake." This has led some scientists to theorise that dreaming is an evolutionary survival mechanism, which helps keep our brain alert. Prof Dawson said: "It might prevent you getting so deeply asleep that you would be vulnerable if you needed to wake up quickly." Brainwave tests on animals demonstrate all mammals dream, however, whether dogs and cats and other species actually have visual dreams is impossible to know.

Prof Dawson said: "It's reasonable to think they probably do, but we don't know for sure." Sleep and fatigue expert Dr Stuart Baulk believes humans were essentially paralysed when they entered dream sleep, with muscle tone changing to prevent the body moving around. Occasionally, some people experienced "sleep paralysis", where they woke and were fully conscious but still paralysed and seeing dreamlike images.

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World's first flying car

Thu, Jul 1, 2010

World's first flying car, that was caught in a legal snarl in the US, has been given the green signal. It is developed by Boston-based Terrafugia Transition. The car-cum-plane vehicle called 'the flying car' has got the waiver on its weight from the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) making it a reality.

Under FAA rules, the flying car -- categorised as a 'light sport' aircraft -- was required to be strictly under 1,320 pounds in weight. But with the addition of car safety features such as airbags, crumple zones and a safety cage, the vehicle overshot the weight-limit. Costing about $200,000, the flying car will travel up to 725 km in the air at a speed of more than 115 km per hour.

Fuelled by gasoline, it will have front-wheel drive on the road and a propeller for flight. With its wings folded, it can be parked in an ordinary car garage. It says tests have shown that the vehicle can drive, fly and switch from being a plane to a car in just 30 seconds.

Absence of sunspots!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Sunspot numbers flow in cycles lasting about 11 years. But for the past two years, the sunspots have been missing. Their absence, the most prolonged in nearly 100 years, has taken seasoned sun watchers by surprise. The sun is under scrutiny with an armada of space telescopes. Sunspots and other clues indicate that the sun's magnetic activity is diminishing and that the sun may even be shrinking. Together, the results hint that something profound is happening inside the sun.

Groups of sunspots forewarn of gigantic solar storms that can unleash a billion times more energy than an atomic bomb. Fears that these giant eruptions could create havoc on Earth and disputes over the sun's role in climate change are adding urgency to these studies.

They form where giant loops of magnetism, generated deep inside the sun, well up and burst through the surface, leading to a localized drop in temperature that we see as a dark patch. When sunspot numbers drop at the end of each 11-year cycle, solar storms die down and all becomes much calmer.

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Jets Punched holes in clouds can create Rain!

Mon Jun 14, 2010

Aircraft can accidentally punch holes in clouds, leaving a trail of snow or rain in their wake, a new study finds. Turboprop and jet aircraft that climb or descend under certain atmospheric conditions can inadvertently trigger what's known as cloud seeding. This technology is usually associated with scemes to control whether. However, cloud seeding can happen by accident as planes soaring through mid-level clouds leave behind odd-shaped holes or channels in the clouds and cause narrow bands of snow or rain to develop and fall to the ground.Holes punched in clouds are a phenomenon that has been recognized for many years and seen in photosfrom around the world.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/jets-punched-holes-in-clouds-can-create.html

Home Security System

Consider a 8051 Microcontroller based Home Security System which will help in detection of entry of unknown person when no one is at home, It would also have fire alert, power failure, LPG gas leakage. It could use PIR detector (Passive Infrared) which senses the presence of living beings. The increase in amount of gas above the threshold of the detector could give an interrupt to the controller which would send an alert through Sound Alarm or Mobile SMS. Fire is sensed by fire detector which will give low signal to the interrupt of controller and thus an alert can be generated.

For sending SMS alert, microcontroller has to be connected to DB9 using MAX 232 for serial communication. A moblie which has DB9 female as data connectivity can be connected to controller and can send pre defined SMS to the particular number.

Adaptable Virtual Keyboard

Adaptable Virtual Keyboard could be called next generation keyboard. Ordinary keyboards have keys with specific size and specific imprints on them. The interactivity and usability of keyboards would surely increase if it could display a symbol for the current function associated with the key or if the language of the keyboard could be changed.

Existing System and their Drawbacks:

Microsoft aimed at making the virtual keyboard but the layout and functions of the keyboard cannot be changed. The system uses 3D modelling to detect a keystroke and is processor intensive. Special hardware to project the “qwerty” layout and infrared light which is required in detection undermines the sole objective of reducing hardware components and cost reduction.

Another hardware based keyboard named “Optimus Prime” has inbuilt LCD display on each key and the function of each key can be changed. This is done to increase interactivity but again, having a LCD display in every key makes is costly. The same functionality can be implemented using the Adaptable Virtual Keyboard and macros.

Design:

Consider a system which would have an application frontend which would help initialise the keyboard to the new environment. Any image projected/surface can be a reference and a photo of the same is stored in memory as a reference image. This reference image would be segmented. On running the program we would be able to detect any change in this image by comparing it with the original image stored. After detection of the segment where the change occurs, a virtual key press would be initiated by calling a macro or a function using visual basic. The current function of each key would be displayed for user convenience and can be changed according to user preference. The macro associated with each key can be varied easily from the frontend. This would make the keyboard truly adaptable.

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Minerals in Afghanistan

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits in Afghanistan is so large that it dwarfs the size of it’s existing war-bedraggled economy. American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan. The American-led offensive in Marja in southern Afghanistan has achieved only limited gains. Meanwhile, charges of corruption and favoritism continue to plague the Karzai government, and Mr. Karzai seems increasingly embittered toward the White House.

Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country. The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.

With virtually no mining industry or infrastructure in place today, it will take decades for Afghanistan to exploit its mineral wealth fully. “This is a country that has no mining culture,” said Jack Medlin, a geologist in the United States Geological Survey’s international affairs program. “They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.”

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/minerals-in-afghanistan.html

Virtual Computers

Mon, Dec 14

Throughout the computer industry companies of all sizes, from garage startups to Microsoft, are bracing for the possibility that their future will be in the hands of people like Sean Whetstone.

Whetstone recently upgraded his company's 6,000 desktop computers. Chief information officers order new Dells or HPs all the time. But the computers Whetstone brought in for his employees aren't the traditional metal boxes that sit next to desks or under monitors. They are "virtual" computers. Each employee has a keyboard and a screen, but the processors making the calculations and deciding what color goes in each pixel are far away, inside a big computer at Reed's main data center in London.

Windows Through The Decades

In the science fiction staple of virtual reality, people live not in the real world but as ciphers inside a computer somewhere. That's analogous to what happens with the virtual desktops at Reed. To the user, Microsoft Windows looks just as it does coming from a PC. But the electronic desktop doesn't exactly reside on the desk.

Switching to virtualized desktops is often expensive at the outset because the networking software is complicated. But the maintenance costs are a lot lower. When something goes wrong--say, a computer has a software error--Whetstone doesn't need to send someone from tech support out to the employee's desk. Instead, a technician simply logs on to the main computer and tinkers with the program running there. Whetstone expects to save 20%, or $2.4 million a year, off his technology expenses.

Next year will likely be the start of a large upgrade for PCs as big companies switch to Windows 7, Microsoft's latest operating system. With an estimated halfbillion workplace computers around the world and $3 trillion spent each year on corporate computing, that ordinarily would mean a lot of purchase orders for big, brawny new hardware.

Desktop virtualization, however, threatens to break that pattern. Instead of spending $1,000 for a system with the latest Intel chip and a fast hard drive, a company might get by with a virtualized PC running on a screen, keyboard and network connector costing in all only $150. The corporate customer gets the promise of lower support costs plus the security and simplicity that come from having data in one carefully guarded place.

A burgeoning virtualization industry is pushing the technology as the next big thing in computing. Large tech companies like Microsoft and Cisco are bracing themselves in case it turns out to be just that. "In the entire computer industry, no topic is of greater interest right now than desktop virtualization," says Mark Margevicius, analyst at research firm Gartner. "Everyone, everywhere is asking about it."

Desktop virtualization is Act II of a tech shift that began earlier in the decade involving the servers that labor behind the scenes, running databases and hosting Web sites. While crucial to a company's operations, servers tend to be busy only in spurts, spending much of their time sitting idle. At the start of the decade, when a new breed of software made it possible to make one piece of hardware act as if it were several servers, companies embarked on a wave of server consolidation. By next year, estimates Gartner, half of all serverbased computing will be on virtual machines.

If virtualization can work for servers, why not for desktop computers, which outnumber servers by a factor of a hundred? That's the prospect exciting so many companies. Wyse Technology in San Jose, Calif. made computer terminals for places like call centers for 15 years. Four years ago the company switched its emphasis to virtualization-- meaning that it is ready to replace a sea of PCs at a company like Reed Specialist Recruitment with stripped-down keyboard/screen pairs (called "thin clients"). Sales are on pace to grow 40% this year to an expected $250 million.

Hundred times faster, cooler computers on their way

Toronto, Dec 16 (IANS) Indian-origin researcher Sanjeev John and his colleague Xun Ma of the University of Toronto have discovered new behaviour of light which could lead to cooler and faster computing. The two quantum optics researchers have discovered 'new behaviours' of light changes within photonic crystals that could lead to faster optical information processing and compact computers that don't overheat.

They discovered that by sculpting a unique artificial vacuum inside a photonic crystal, we can completely control the electronic state of artificial atoms (light) within the vacuum. This discovery can enable photonic computers that are more than a hundred times faster than their electronic counterparts, without heat dissipation issues and other bottlenecks currently faced by electronic computing.

Added Sanjeev John, "We designed a vacuum in which light passes through circuit paths that are one one-hundredth of the thickness of a human hair, and whose character changes drastically and abruptly with the wavelength of the light." "A vacuum experienced by light is not completely empty, and can be made even emptier. It's not the traditional understanding of a vacuum."

Ma said, "In this vacuum, the state of each atom - or quantum dot - can be manipulated with color-coded streams of laser pulses that sequentially excite and de-excite it in trillionths of a second. These quantum dots can in turn control other streams of optical pulses, enabling optical information processing and computing."

Said John, "This new mechanism enables micrometer scale integrated all-optical transistors to perform logic operations over multiple frequency channels in trillionths of a second at microwatt power levels, which are about one millionth of the power required by a household light bulb. That this mechanism allows for computing over many wavelengths as opposed to electronic circuits which use only one channel, would significantly surpass the performance of current day electronic transistors."

Pune calling aspiring translators

Wed, Jan 20

Though the translation industry in the country is still in its infancy compared to the $15-billion world market, it has high growth prospects in India with a potential to generate about 500,000 jobs in the country. Pune, is at the forefront of this segment.

"Many foreign companies are operating in the country, particularly in Pune. They are in need of translators but apart from the freelancers there are very few companies that operate in the translation industry in the country," said Sandeep Nulkar, chairman and managing director of Pune-based Bureau for Interpretation and Translation Services whose client base includes auto majors like Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, John Deere and SAP, Infosys, Bharat Forge among others.

http://mGinger.com/index.jsp?inviteId=1334082

The National Knowledge Commission headed by Sam Pitroda had observed that the translation industry has the potential to generate more than 500,000 jobs in India and educational courses on various languages should be given the thrust.

Apple's 'iKey' to replace the humble door key

Sun, Mar 7

London, Mar 7 (ANI): Computer giant Apple is set to revolutionize the traditional door key with introduction of a hi-tech alternative nicknamed the 'iKey'.

The technology simply requires the users to enter a pin code and wave the device over an electronic pad beside the door to open it. The same device could be used to unlock cars, front door and gain access to their office. The application states: "The device can communicate with an external device to open a lock. By way of example, the electronic device may be a model of an iPhone.

The device may be attributed with a feature to encrypt any information that passes between the iPhone and the computer-controlled lock for enhancing safety.

India has a shortage of 70,000 networking pros

New Delhi, March 24, 2010 -- While computers that process data and software that power them separately create hundreds of thousands of jobs worldwide, the networking technologies that link the two together are often underestimated. The world's leading networking equipment company, Cisco Systems, estimates that India has a shortage of 70,000 professionals in networking. Cisco, which started out with routers and expanded into a range of switches and end-user gear such as conferencing systems, says an increasing trend to outsource IT infrastructure management will only widen the shortfall in the months to come.

Quality networking professionals are a rare species at the global level too. Globally, the shortage is as high as one million. Apart from maintaining switches and routers, networking experts also take care of security and risk management in data centres and employ "virtualisation" under which a job done by a machine can now be executed through software, enabling easier network management from remote locations. Network architecture, network design, unified communications and cloud computing would also be the trends over the next five years.

Future career trends-U.S.

Feb, 2010

Computer Technology

Technological advancement and the continued integration of IT and digital communications into the workplace throughout the private, public and voluntary sectors ensures that growth in Computer Technology will continue in U.S. Systems analysts, designers and developers, computer programmers, web developers, consultants and information managers reflect the range of these career areas. Hardware engineers are also needed, working in infrastructure construction and repair, fibre, cable, satellites, etc.

Healthcare sector
The increasing number of healthcare jobs is directly attributable to the growing age of the population – people are living longer so there are more people in the older age groups – and the expansion of treatments available for medical conditions, whether delivered in the primary healthcare sector or within hospitals. Consequently, there is also an expansion in the number of administrative and support roles needing to be filled.

Other Careers
Other careers deemed to be ‘hot’ future career prospects relate to areas of scientific advance, and in particular the “bio” sciences, such as biotechnology. Tissue engineers and gene programmers have been highlighted, but all skill levels are included – as companies grow, so does their administration infrastructure. Other new scientific areas include nanotechnology and energy technology. Demographic changes are leading to other needs in addition to healthcare. Teaching and tourism, training and development, and care of the elderly are all areas where openings are set to increase, as are financial advisors.

Service sector
Services that already exist will grow further as the population ages. Standard professions include the legal sector, police, teachers, tutors, etc. Meanwhile, there is a general return amongst certain income sectors of paying for domestic support with the services of maids and cleaners, drivers, etc. This is increasingly common as the higher divorce levels yield more one-parent families. New services are developing that are opening out into recognized career fields. Many of these are provided directly to the consumer. Counselling and various complementary therapies are obvious examples, as well as physical training instructors and coaches.

Declining Careers

Technological revolution has led to a downturn in a number of work areas. Declining careers include traditional printing jobs, such as typesetting, which have been largely replaced by electronic processes. Secretarial posts are replaced by Personal Assistant or Administrator roles. Work relating to fax machines, telephone and telex operations has also declined, as communication tasks are now fulfilled via the PC.

Shoes that may harvest pounding of walking to power mobiles!

Tue, Feb 16, 2010

Washington, Feb 16 (ANI): Princeton University engineers have developed power-generating rubber films that could be used to harness natural body movements such as breathing and walking to power pacemakers, mobile phones and other electronic devices. The material, composed of ceramic nanoribbons embedded onto silicone rubber sheets, generates electricity when flexed and converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. Shoes made of the material can harvest the pounding of walking and running to power mobile electrical devices.

Placed against the lungs, sheets of the material could use breathing motions to power pacemakers, obviating the current need for surgical replacement of the batteries which power the devices. The Princeton team is the first to successfully combine silicone and nanoribbons of lead zirconate titanate (PZT), a ceramic material that is piezoelectric, meaning it generates an electrical voltage when pressure is applied to it. Of all piezoelectric materials, PZT is the most efficient, able to convert 80 percent of the mechanical energy applied to it into electrical energy.

"PZT is 100 times more efficient than quartz, another piezoelectric material. You don't generate that much power from walking or breathing, so you want to harness it as efficiently as possible," said Michael McAlpine, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, at Princeton, who led the project.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2010/06/on-shoes-that-may-harvest-pounding-of.html

Living cells controlled by synthetic DNA!

Researchers constructed a bacterium's "genetic software" and transplanted it into a host cell. The resulting microbe then looked and behaved like the species "dictated" by the synthetic DNA.
Researchers hope eventually to design bacterial cells that will produce medicines and fuels and even absorb greenhouse gases. The team was led by Dr Craig Venter of the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in Maryland and California.He and his colleagues had previously made a synthetic bacterial genome, and transplanted the genome of one bacterium into another.

Now, the scientists have put both methods together, to create what they call a "synthetic cell", although only its genome is truly synthetic. The researchers copied an existing bacterial genome. They sequenced its genetic code and then used "synthesis machines" to chemically construct a copy.

Earlier in 2001, Thaksin Shinawatra "decoded" the chromosome of an existing bacterial cell - using a computer to read each of the letters of genetic code. In 2006, he copied this code and chemically constructed a new synthetic chromosome, piecing together blocks of DNA. The team inserted this chromosome into a bacterial cell which replicated itself. Synthetic bacteria might be used to make new fuels and drugs.

The new bacteria replicated over a billion times, producing copies that contained and were controlled by the constructed, synthetic DNA. "This is the first time any synthetic DNA has been in complete control of a cell," said Dr Venter.

New Industrial Revolution!

Dr Venter and his colleagues hope eventually to design and build new bacteria that will perform useful functions. "I think they're going to potentially create a new industrial revolution," he said. "If we can really get cells to do the production that we want, they could help wean us off oil and reverse some of the damage to the environment by capturing carbon dioxide."

Dr Helen Wallace from Genewatch UK, an organisation that monitors developments in genetic technologies, told BBC News that synthetic bacteria could be dangerous. "If you release new organisms into the environment, you can do more harm than good," she said. "By releasing them into areas of pollution, [with the aim of cleaning it up], you're actually releasing a new kind of pollution. "We don't know how these organisms will behave in the environment."

The risks are unparalleled, we need safety evaluation for this kind of radical research and protections from military or terrorist misuse Julian Savulescu Oxford University ethics professor Profile: Craig Venter Q&A: The meaning of synthetic life Ethics concern over synthetic cell

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/living-cells-controlled-by-synthetic.html

Scientist infects himself with computer virus!

London, May 27 (ANI): Dr Mark Gasson, a cybernetics expert at the University of Reading, has become the first human to be infected with a computer virus. Gasson has had a computer chip implanted in his hand which is programmed to open security doors to his lab. The chip also ensures that only he is able to switch on and use his mobile phone.

But the British boffin deliberately infected the chip with a computer virus. It was then automatically transmitted to affect to the lab security system. "Once the system is infected, anybody accessing the building with their passcard would be infected too," he told Sky News. The virus on his chip is benign. But malicious computer code could give criminals access to a building. (ANI)

Matter Wins Battle Over Antimatter-that's why we exist:

The fact that matter and antimatter particles destroy each other on contact has long puzzled physicists wondering how life, or universe can exist at all. But new results from a particle accelerator experiment suggest that matter does seem to win in the end. The experiment has shown a small — but significant — 1 percent difference between the amount of matter and antimatter produced, which could hint at how our matter-dominated existence came about.

The theory, known as the Standard Model of particle physics, has predicted some violation of matter-antimatter symmetry, but not enough to explain how our universe arose consisting mostly of matter with barely a trace of antimatter. But this latest experiment came up with an unbalanced ratio of matter to antimatter that goes beyond the imbalance predicted by the Standard Model. Specifically, physicists discovered a 1 percent difference between pairs of muons and antimuons that arise from the decay of particles known as B mesons.

The results, announced Tuesday, came from analyzing eight years worth of data from the Tevatron collider at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill.

The Tevatron collider and its bigger cousin, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland, can smash matter and antimatter particles together to create energy, as well as new particles and antiparticles. Otherwise, antiparticles only arise due to extreme events such as nuclear reactions or cosmic rays from dying stars.

Nano for the skies!

Tue, Feb 2, 2010

Mumbai, Feb.2 --As the number of billionaires in the country is increasing rapidly, Western aircraft makers are lining up to sell flying machines to individuals, clubs and companies in India. But they still remain the zone of hobbyists, and not in the commercial run.

German plane maker Flight Designs has launched through its Indian distributor Carver Aviation a two-seater turbo prop plane CTLS for Rs 90 lakh inclusive of all costs. It has an airworthy certification from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

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"Over 1,000 CTLS planes have been sold across the world so far and it is one of the safest planes in its category," said Sanjiv Bhatia, CEO of Swank Aviation, which is marketing the plane in India.

"We have approached over 150 prospective buyers and plan to sell 12 to 20 planes this year." The CTLS costs more than the cheapest Cessna C-162, which industry sources estimate has an Indian price of around Rs. 70 lakh. There are 200 Cessnas in the country.

Hottest temperature ever heads science to Big Bang

Scientists have created the hottest temperature ever in the lab -- 4 trillion degrees Celsius -- hot enough to break matter down into the kind of soup that existed microseconds after the birth of the universe. They used a giant atom smasher at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York to knock gold ions together to make the ultra-hot explosions -- which lasted only for milliseconds. But that is enough to give physicists fodder for years of study that they hope will help them understand why and how the universe formed.

"That temperature is hot enough to melt protons and neutrons," Brookhaven's Steven Vigdor told a news conference at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Washington on Monday. These particles make up atoms, but they are themselves made up of smaller components called quarks and gluons.

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What the physicists are looking for are tiny irregularities that can explain why matter clumped out of the primeval hot soup. They also hope to use their findings for more practical applications -- such as in the field of "spintronics" that aims to make smaller, faster and more powerful computing devices. They used the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC, pronounced "rick"), a particle accelerator and collider that is 2.4 mile (3.8 km) around and buried 12 feet (4 metres) underground in Upton, New York to collide gold ions billions of times.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/hottest-temperature-ever-heads-science.html

Wipro launches eco-friendly PCs

Thu, Jan 28

Bangalore, Jan 28 (PTI) Wipro Infotech, leading provider of IT and business transformation services, unveiled its new 'eco-friendly' desktop, manufactured with materials free of harmful chemicals like polyvinyl chloride and brominated flame retardants.

Based on the Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Wipro Greenware range of desktops are free from carcinogenic materials such as PVC and BFRs, Chief Executive of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering Ecoeye, Social and Community Initiatives Anurag Behar told reporters here.

By removing toxins, recycling of electronic products would be safer, he said.

"Wipro considers launch of PVC and BFR free products a major breakthrough in clean production and recycling policy. A very difficult process with no alternative solution, Wipro worked with 37 overseas suppliers for over two years to come out with the completely toxin free product," he said.

Sr Vice-President & Business Head, India & ME business, Wipro Anand Sankaran said, "Wipro is the No. 2 greenbrand in India after Samsung and Nokia. Of our annual desktop production of two lakh units, greenware would be 15-20 per cent."

NASA develops mirror to look into galactic past

Fri, Jan 8, 2010

Washington, Jan 8 (IANS). NASA is developing a primary mirror 21.3 feet across, for use on the James Webb Space Telescope, to tell us about our beginning in the universe.

The primary mirror will serve as the telescope's eye and peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own solar system. Handling delicate space hardware holds no superstitious myths for NASA, but it's still a delicate task that requires careful preparation.

On Friday, six of the 18 Webb telescope mirror segments will be moved into the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility, or XRCF, at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, to experience mercury dipping to minus 414 degrees F to ensure they can withstand the extreme space environments.

When the primary mirror is assembled in space, it will include three different shapes of mirror segments: 6 are 'A' segments, 6 are 'B' segments and 6 are 'C' segments. This upcoming test in the XRCF will collect data from all three sizes 'A, B and C' -- a first for these in the cryogenic facility.

Supersonic freefall

Sat, Jan 23

London, January 23 (ANI): A "space diver" will try to smash the nearly 50-year-old record for the highest jump this year, becoming the first person to go supersonic in freefall. On 16 August 1960, US Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger made history by jumping out of a balloon at an altitude of some 31,333 metres.

Since then, many have tried to break that record but none have succeeded. Now, according to a report in New Scientist, Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner has announced he will make the attempt, with help from Kittinger and sponsorship from the energy drink company Red Bull.

Baumgartner, who became the first person to cross the English Channel in freefall in 2003, will be lofted to a height of 36, 575 metres in a helium balloon. After floating up for roughly three hours, he will open the door of a 1-tonne pressurised capsule, grab the handrails on either side of the exit, and step off, potentially breaking records for the highest parachute jump, as well as the fastest and longest freefall.

He should reach supersonic speeds 35 seconds after he jumps, and the resulting shock wave "is a big concern", according to the project's technical director, Art Thompson.
After falling for about six minutes, Baumgartner should open his parachute at roughly 1520 metres. The jump height is above a threshold at 19,000 metres called the Armstrong line, where the atmospheric pressure is so low that fluids start to boil.

Now, artificial nose that can 'sniff out' terrorists

Sun, Jan 24

London, Jan 24 (ANI): German scientists have come up with a system that can sniff out terrorists by capturing the smell of explosives. The artificial nose promises to make it much easier to detect the explosive triacetone triperoxide.

The device could be installed in the doorways of buses, trains and airports. It would sound an alarm if someone carrying TATP crosses the threshold. Waldvogel and his colleagues have developed a detector that responds instantly to TATP in the atmosphere. At its heart are three quartz rods, each 3 millimetres long and 40 micrometres wide, which are made to vibrate by applying an alternating voltage.

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Any TATP in the air bonds to chemicals coating the rods, causing their resonant frequency to change. The rods are coated with different chemicals - phenylene dendrimer, cyclodextrin and sodium cholate - and each changes its rod's resonant frequency in a different way. It is the combination of three changes that reveals TATP's presence.

In tests, the device was able to discriminate between the explosive and similar gases, sensing it at levels of 1 part per million.

India top test rankings after 2-0 series win

Aug 2010

MUMBAI - India secured top spot in the test rankings for the first time after handing Sri Lanka a second successive innings defeat and wrapping up their three-match series 2-0 on Sunday. "I think the real tough task from now on is to maintain this performance," said India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. "The real tough job starts from here."

LONG WAIT

"Fantastic to be at this position," Indian batting great Sachin Tendulkar told the official broadcasters. "I have been waiting a long time to get to this position. In fact just not me, (the) entire nation."

UID-Uniqui Identification

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will start issuing the 16-digit number to each resident of the country in February 2011. These numbers would be allotted on the basis of 11 biometrics including 10 fingerprints and iris, UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani said here after a meeting with Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.