2010-07-31

RayModeler Sony's 360-Degree Autostereoscopic 3D Display



The RayModeler 3D display you’re seeing in this video is a prototype of the kind of device sci-fi storytellers have been dreaming up for years. LED light sources allow you to see an image from all angles, 360 degrees. Objects like faces and people appear realistic giving viewers a sense of depth because the left and right eyes are seeing different images.



Sony Introduces 360-Degree Autostereoscopic Display



At  Siggraph 2010 in Los Angeles, Sony showcased the prototype of its 360-degree Autostereoscopic Display. Autostereoscopic technology is considered to be the future of 3D, and does not require special 3D glasses. The device, known as the Ray Modeler, is cylindrical in shape and features LED light sources to enable viewing of full color volumetric objects from all directions. It also allows users to control the display’s orientation with hand gestures.

SIGGRAPH 2010: Sony's 3D display doesn't require glasses


According to Sony, the system is the first display of its kind, featuring special LED light sources that show 360 unique, 24-bit color images in all directions. The user can even control the orientation of the display's content by using hand motions in proximity to the display (see video above).

Though the prototype seems far from being integrated into our everyday lives, Sony says that future iterations of their RayModeler will have many potential applications such as video entertainment, digital signage, education, museum displays, video games, advertising, and 3D telecommunication.


Sources
RayModeler 3D prototype will be showcased at SIGGRAPH « SONY make.believe
http://blog.discover.sonystyle.com/raymodeler-3d-prototype-will-be-showcased-at-siggraph
Sony Introduces 360-Degree Autostereoscopic Display - PSFK
http://www.psfk.com/2010/07/sony-introduces-360-degree-autostereoscopic-display.html
SIGGRAPH 2010: Sony's 3D display doesn't require glasses - Core77
http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/siggraph_2010_sonys_3d_display_doesnt_require_glasses__17026.asp

Related
YouTube - Sony RayModeler, a 360-Degree Autostereoscopic Display Prototype
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BFKC-NKRFw
Sony takes 3D another 360 degrees further
http://www.examiner.com/x-12491-Dallas-PS3-Examiner~y2010m7d28-Sony-takes-3D-another-360-degrees-further
Sony Tech Can Show 3D Games Without A TV Screen
http://kotaku.com/5599391/sony-tech-can-show-3d-games-without-a-tv-screen

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2010-07-27

India's $35 Tablet

India develops world's cheapest "laptop" at $35


NEW DELHI | Fri Jul 23, 2010 8:43am EDT
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India has come up with the world's cheapest "laptop," a touch-screen computing device that costs $35.
India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal this week unveiled the low-cost computing device that is designed for students, saying his department had started talks with global manufacturers to start mass production.

India Unveils A Portable Computing Device Worth Rs 1,600


Shri Kapil Sibal unveiling the low cost computing-cum-access device, in New Delhi.










The minimum expected capabilities of the device include:
  • Support for video web Conferencing facility
  • Multimedia content viewer for example .pdf, docx, .ods, adp, .doc, .xls, .jpeg, .gif, .png, .bmp, .odt, .zip, AVCHD, AVI, AC3, etc.
  • Searchable Pdf reader
  • Unzip tool for unzipping zip files.
  • Possibility of installing suitable firmware upgradation.
  • Computing capabilities such as Open Office , SciLab , cups (for printing support)
  • Media player capable of playing streamed as well as stored media files.
  • Internet browsing with flash plug-in, JavaScript, pdf plug-in java.
  • Wireless communication for Audio/video I/O.
  • Cloud computing option.
  • Remote device management capability.
  • Multimedia input output interface option (for allowing DTV, IPTv, DTH, streaming etc.)




Sources
India develops world's cheapest laptop at $35 | Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66M0R720100723
India Unveils A Portable Computing Device Worth Rs 1,600 > News on General General > Tech2.com India
http://tech2.in.com/india/news/general/india-unveils-a-portable-computing-device-worth-rs-1600/134392/0
YouTube - India unveils $30 tablet PC (Android) - India's iPad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGEDizaWX0k
The Rs. 1,600 Computing Device > News on Tablets PCs & Laptops > Tech2.com India
http://tech2.in.com/india/news/tablets-laptops/the-rs.-1600-computing-device/134482/0

Related
India Reveals Linux-Based $35 Tablet, We Reveal Why It's Likely Fake | Fast Company
http://www.fastcompany.com/1673553/cheap-computing-india-tablet-ipad-killer-olpc
Indian government announces $35 laptop - The Inquirer
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1724425/indian-government-announces-usd35-laptop
India's $35 Tablet- The Everything Killer | Linux Journal
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/indias-35-tablet-everything-killer
How can India build a $35 tablet? More details emerge | ZDNet
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/education/how-can-india-build-a-35-tablet-more-details-emerge/4138
Why India’s $35 Tablet May Be Just a Dream | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/india-35-tablet/
India’s Tablet A Bitter Pill To Swallow? | WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India
http://www.watblog.com/2010/07/27/indias-tablet-a-bitter-pill-to-swallow/
Why India’s $35 Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore | pkr.in
http://pkr.in/gadgets/why-indias-35-joke-isnt-funny-anymore.html
Labels: , ,

2010-07-25

Toward Room-Temperature Superconductors

New research may solve key problem in physics

Binghamton University physicist Michael Lawler and his colleagues have made a breakthrough that could lead to advances in superconductors. Their findings were published this week in the British journal Nature.
[...]
Superconductors are materials – often but not always metals – that conduct electricity without resistance below a certain temperature. For decades, it was thought that these materials could conduct electricity only at temperatures far below freezing. In the last 20 years, however, scientists have discovered several compounds that superconduct at much higher temperatures.
In principle, a room-temperature superconductor could allow:
  • Electricity to travel with zero energy loss from power plants to houses.
  • High-speed trains to float on top of the superconductor.
  • Cell phone towers that could handle many cell phone carriers in high-population areas.
“It’s one of the most interesting problems that we have in physics,” Lawler said. “I believe that having a challenge at that level can help produce breakthroughs in science.”

How Superconducting Levitation Works



Pseudogap

A pseudogap is a term from the field of high-temperature superconductivity which describes an energy (normally near the Fermi energy) which has very few states associated with it. This is very similar to a 'gap', which is an energy that has no allowed states. Such gaps open up, for example, when electrons interact with the lattice. The Pseudogap is a zone of the Phase diagram generic.

A pseudogap is only observed in hole-doped Cuprate superconductors. And isotope effect is only emerged on the boundary of phases between superconducting and pseudogap state.

Key Advance in Understanding ‘Pseudogap’ Phase in High-Tc Superconductors

May lead to ways to overcome barrier to room-temperature superconductivity in copper-oxides


This pattern shows the tunneling potential of electrons on oxygen atoms “north” and “east” of each copper atom (shown embedded in the pattern) in the copper-oxide layer of a superconductor in the pseudogap phase. On oxygen atoms north of each copper, the tunneling potential is strong, as indicated by the brightness of the yellow patches forming lines in the north-south direction. On oxygen atoms east of each copper, the tunneling potential is weaker, indicated by less intense yellow lines in the east-west direction. This apparent broken symmetry may help scientists understand the pseudogap phase of copper-oxide superconductors.

Scientists have been trying for some 20 years to understand why the low temperature at which copper-oxide superconductors carry current with no resistance can’t be increased to be closer to room temperature. Recently, scientists have focused on trying to understand and control an electronic phase called the “pseudogap” phase, which is non-superconducting and is observed at a temperature above the superconducting phase. But what form of electronic order (if any) characterizes the pseudogap phase has remained a frustrating and challenging mystery.
[...]
Across the entire copper-oxide crystal, the scientists found a remarkable difference in the electronic states associated with the mysterious pseudogap phase: The number of electrons able to “tunnel” to the microscope tip differed depending on the position of the oxygen atom relative to the copper atom. “Picture the copper atom at the center of the unit, with one oxygen to the ‘north’ and one to the ‘east,’ and this whole unit repeating itself over and over across the copper-oxide layer,” Davis said. “In every single copper-oxide unit, the tunneling ability of electrons from the northern oxygen atom was different from that of the eastern oxygen.”

The discovery of this asymmetrical behavior could be a breakthrough in understanding and controlling high-temperature superconductors because, historically, uncovering the reductions in symmetry responsible for other states of matter has led to huge advances in understanding and achieving control over those states. For example, discovery of the symmetries broken in liquid crystals eventually led to their control and everyday use in liquid crystal displays (LCDs).


Sources
New research may solve key problem in physics » Binghamton University Research News - Insights and Innovations From Binghamton University
http://discovere.binghamton.edu/features/superconductor-3158.html
YouTube - How Superconducting Levitation Works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4XEQVnIFmQ&feature=related
Pseudogap - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudogap
Key Advance in Understanding ‘Pseudogap’ Phase in High-Tc Superconductors
http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=1155&template=Today&template=Today

Related
Access : Intra-unit-cell electronic nematicity of the high-Tc copper-oxide pseudogap states : Nature
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7304/full/nature09169.html
J.C. Seamus Davis Group
http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~jcdavis/
Cornell Chronicle: 'Broken symmetry' points to new superconductors
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July10/Nematicity.html
New superconductor research may solve key problem in physics
http://www.physorg.com/news198341919.html
Toward room-temperature superconductors: Key advance in understanding 'pseudogap' phase in high-Tc superconductors
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100714141534.htm

Labels: ,

2010-07-24

Ecobot III -- Self-Sustaining Biomass Eating and Pooping Robot

Self-sustaining robot has an artificial gut (w/ Video)


(PhysOrg.com) -- UK researchers have developed an autonomous robot with an artificial gut that enables it to fuel itself by eating and excreting. The robot is the first bot powered by biomass to be demonstrated operating without assistance for several days. Being self-sustaining would enable robots of the future to function unaided for long periods.



logo Energy Autonomy: Ecobot

One goal of our work is to build energetically autonomous robots. For this, the Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) technology is employed to extract electrical energy from refined foods such as sugar and unrefined foods such as insects and fruit. This is achieved by extracting electrons from the microbial metabolic processes. To be truly autonomous, robots will be required to incorporate in their behavioural repertoire actions that involve searching, collecting and digesting food. The robot will be designed to remain inactive until sufficient energy has been generated to complete its next task. This may prove to be a paradigm shift in the way action selection mechanisms are designed - (Project code-name:‘EcoBot’).

Ecobot Project & Team
Ecobot I
Ecobot II
Ecobot III

Collected from: Energy Autonomy: Ecobot


Holy crap! Scientists create pooping robot

The robot is powered by 48 small microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and moves along a steel track between sources of liquid food and water (see time-lapse video here).

The liquid food contains yeast extracts, minerals, and salt. The MFCs repeatedly digest and then recycle the food, producing hydrogen and electricity in the process. Once every 24 hours, the recycled food is pushed through a peristaltic pump into a litter tray, making EcoBot III the first poop-bot of its kind.

"Diarrhea-bot would be more appropriate," lab director Chris Melhuish told New Scientist. "It's not exactly knocking out rabbit pellets."

Ecobot III Goes Poo




Sources
Self-sustaining robot has an artificial gut (w/ Video)
http://www.physorg.com/news198817988.html
Energy Autonomy: Ecobot
http://www.brl.ac.uk/projects/ecobot/index.html
Holy crap! Scientists create pooping robot | Crave - CNET
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20011247-1.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
YouTube - Ecobot III Goes Poo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU6zi1_aZiw

Related
Self-Sustaining Robot Equipped with New Artificial Gut Eats, and Excretes, All By Itself | Popular Science
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-07/diarrhea-bot-sporting-artificial-gut-eats-excretes-all-itself
First Self-Sustaining Biomass Bot Eats, Excretes, Runs for a Week | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
http://inhabitat.com/2010/07/20/first-self-sustaining-biomass-bot-eats-excretes-runs-for-a-week/
YouTube - Eating flies robot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooGTNpZKAZY
Bristol Robotics Laboratory
http://www.brl.ac.uk/index.html
Labels: , ,

2010-07-23

R136a1 The Biggest Star Ever

Most Massive Star Discovered—Shatters Record



Giant star discovered

A giant star has been discovered by astronomers who claim it to be the biggest star ever, and is 265 times bigger than the sun.



>European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere
European
Southern
Observatory



A 300 Solar Mass Star Uncovered

21 July 2010

Using a combination of instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered the most massive stars to date, one weighing at birth more than 300 times the mass of the Sun, or twice as much as the currently accepted limit of 150 solar masses. The existence of these monsters — millions of times more luminous than the Sun, losing weight through very powerful winds — may provide an answer to the question “how massive can stars be?”



The University of Sheffield

NGC 3603 is located 22,000 light-years away from the Sun, and is a cosmic factory within which stars form quickly from the nebula´s ring of gas and dust. RMC 136a (more commonly known as R136a), another cluster of young, hot stars, is found within the Tarantula nebula, itself within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighboring galaxy to the Milky Way.

Stars with surface temperatures of over 40,000 C – more than seven times hotter than the Sun – were found, measuring tens of times larger and millions of times brighter. Many of these stars were born with a greater mass than they now posses, losing weight through very powerful winds, and models suggest that several were born in excess of 150 solar masses.

The most massive star ever found, R136a1 within the R136a cluster, has a current mass of 265 solar masses, and it is thought its birthweight was as much as 320 times that of the Sun. It is also the most luminous star ever found, close to ten million times that of the Sun. Within R136, only four stars out of an estimated 100,000 stars in the cluster weighed more than 150 solar masses at birth, yet they account for nearly half of the solar wind and radiation in the entire cluster.

In NGC 3603, two stars in a binary system were measured, to validate the models used. The stars A1, B and C in the cluster were all estimated to have weighed above or close to 150 solar masses at birth.
Collected from: News releases 2010



This video zooms in onto the R136 cluster as seen with the MAD adaptive optics instrument.


Sources
Most Massive Star Discovered—Shatters Record
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/07/100721-science-space-most-massive-star-ever-discovered-record/
YouTube - Giant star discovered
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOZUNxRDEYk&feature=player_embedded#!
ESO - eso1030 - Stars Just Got Bigger
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1030/
News releases 2010
http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/mediacentre/2010/1713.html
YouTube - Massive stars in the young cluster RMC 136a
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejgaJd5szpg

Related
Most massive star on record found in neighbouring galaxy | Science | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/21/monster-bright-star-r136a1-astronomers
Stars just got bigger: A 300-solar-mass star uncovered
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100721085352.htm
BBC News - Astronomers detect 'monster star'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10707416
Massive Blue Supergiant Challenges Theory of How Big a Star Can Be | 80beats | Discover Magazine
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/07/21/massive-blue-supergiant-challenges-theory-of-how-big-a-star-can-be/
The Associated Press: Scientists find most massive star ever discovered
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5joelBow4keHUNCD2jwivs4GdwNJwD9H3E10G0
eso1030.pdf (application/pdf Object)
http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1030/eso1030.pdf


Labels: ,

2010-07-21

Metaweb and Freebase





Welcome to Metaweb

Metaweb is a service that help you build your website around entities and not just words. What's an entity? Watch this video...



What is Metaweb?

Metaweb is a service that makes it dramatically easier for bloggers and site owners to aggregate content about a specific topic – like Tom Cruise, The Da Vinci Code, or San Francisco – and to surface related content in new and powerful ways.
Metaweb is organized around topics, or entities, which are unique, unambiguous concepts with their own URLs. In general, they are much more precise than keywords, and they carry a lot more information. Right now we catalog about 12M entities, in categories spanning movies, books, TV shows, celebrities, locations, companies, and more.
For each of these entities we collect rich metadata and links to quality content feeds around the web. And then we make that all available to you via our blogger tools and developer
[...]

What is TopicBlocks?

TopicBlocks is a unique and easy way to add images, facts, news, and other related content from across the Web to your blog posts or articles. Just select a topic – like Lindsay Lohan or Avatar and quickly get rich, relevant, free content to keep your readers engaged.
[...]

How do I use TopicBlocks?

Using TopicBlocks is easy. Just choose a topic (like an actor or a movie) and TopicBlocks will automatically grab content related to that topic – images, trailers, reviews, news, social network pages, and more – and package it into a single block. To add it to your blog post or article, just copy and paste the snippet of code we give you. To get started, visit the TopicBlocks homepage.



What is Freebase?

Freebase is an open, Creative Commons licensed repository of structured data of more than 12 million entities.
An entity is a single person, place, or thing. Freebase connects entities together as a graph.
Ways to use Freebase:
  • Use Freebase's Ids to uniquely identify entities anywhere on the web
  • Query Freebase's data using MQL
  • Build applications using our API or Acre, our hosted development platform
Freebase is also a community of thousands of data-lovers, working together to improve Freebase's data.

Is Freebase a wiki?

No, though it shares some similarities with open wiki projects:
  • Freebase is a free source of information
  • Freebase is a collaborative project, and Freebase data may be edited by anyone
  • Most of the data in Freebase is openly licensed under Creative Commons
However:
  • Freebase does not run on wiki software, but on a graph database that represents structured data
  • Most wikis arrange information primarily in the form of text-based articles, while Freebase houses information in a structured, machine-readable database format
(Note that although this documentation is part of a wiki, the Freebase documentation wiki is not Freebase.)

Is Freebase a Semantic Web project?

Yes, Freebase is part of the Semantic Web. We emit Linked Open Data (via RDF) for all our entities, and are involved in various SemWeb projects/communities/etc.
Collected from: FAQ - Freebase



July 16, 2010, 4:20 pm

Google Buys Metaweb to Improve Search Results

Google said Friday that in an effort to improve these tricky types of search queries, it was buying Metaweb, a San Francisco start-up that says it makes Web sites smarter.

[...]

Google has recently added features to improve search results when people have specific questions. Type “Sarah Jessica Parker birthday” into Google, for instance, and on top of the search results, Google lists the actress’s birthday based on information it has pulled from other sites.
Metaweb will help Google do the same thing for more complicated queries, like “colleges on the West Coast with tuition under $30,000,” according to a blog post by Jack Menzel, director of product management at Google.


Sources
Metaweb - Connect your site to the web's best sources
http://www.metaweb.com/
YouTube - Welcome to Metaweb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJfrNo3Z-DU&feature=player_embedded#!
Metaweb - Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.metaweb.com/faq
What is Freebase? - Freebase
http://wiki.freebase.com/wiki/What_is_Freebase%3F
FAQ - Freebase
http://wiki.freebase.com/wiki/FAQ
Google Buys Metaweb to Improve Search Results - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/google-buys-metaweb-to-improve-search-results/

Related
Official Google Blog: Deeper understanding with Metaweb
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/deeper-understanding-with-metaweb.html
Google Gets Semantic: Buys Metaweb
http://gigaom.com/2010/07/16/google-gets-semantic-buys-metaweb/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OmMalik+%28GigaOM%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
Metaweb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaweb
Semantic Web - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
Freebase (database) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase_(database)
Facebook, Google to Battle Over Smarter Web? - PCWorld
http://www.pcworld.com/article/201325/facebook_google_to_battle_over_smarter_web.html?tk=hp_new



2010-07-20

'Thinking' Plants

Can Plants Think?

In a new study, scientists have found a cabbage relative capable of remembering and responding to information

A Polish study showed plants send electrochemical signals in a way that can be likened to an animal nervous system. This image shows chemical reactions in leaves that were not exposed to light; they are reacting to a chemical signal from a leaf that was exposed.



Plants 'can think and remember'

The scientists discovered the "nervous systems" of Arabidopsis plants

Plants are able to "remember" and "react" to information contained in light, according to researchers.

Plants, scientists say, transmit information about light intensity and quality from leaf to leaf in a very similar way to our own nervous systems.

These "electro-chemical signals" are carried by cells that act as "nerves" of the plants.

In their experiment, the scientists showed that light shone on to one leaf caused the whole plant to respond.

And the response, which took the form of light-induced chemical reactions in the leaves, continued in the dark.

This showed, they said, that the plant "remembered" the information encoded in light.
The researchers used fluorescence imaging to watch the plants respond

Thinking plants
 
What was even more peculiar, Professor Karpinski said, was that the plants' responses changed depending on the colour of the light that was being shone on them.

[...]

"So the plants perform a sort of biological light computation, using information contained in the light to immunise themselves against diseases that are prevalent during that season."




The Laboratory of Physiomics and Crop Design

Discovery of light (quantum) memory and photoelectro physiological signalling in plants


Evidence for Light Wavelength-Specific Photo-Electro-Physiological Signaling and Memory of Excess Light Episodes in Arabidopsisa

Magdalena Szechyńska-Hebda, Jerzy Kruk, Magdalena Górecka, Barbara Karpińska and Stanisław Karpiński*

SYNOPSIS
This work examines light-wavelength specific electro-physiological signaling and cellular light memory in Arabidopsis. Animals have their network of neurons, synapses, electro-physiological circuits and memory, but plants have their network of chloroplasts (connected by stromules), photo-electro-physiological signals transduced by bundle sheath cells, and cellular light memory.


Sources
Can Plants Think? | Popular Science
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-07/study-unveils-plant-nervous-system-illuminating-how-plants-remember-and-react
BBC News - Plants 'can think and remember'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10598926
Discovery of light (quantum) memory and photoelectro physiological signalling in plants (Szechyńska-Hebda et al., Plant Cell 2010, 22: in press). More info on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10598926 | The Laboratory of Physiomics and Crop Design
http://lfmbr.sggw.pl/?q=en/node/32

Related
Observations: Plants cannot 'think and remember,' but there's nothing stupid about them: They're shockingly sophisticated
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=plants-cannot-think-and-remember-bu-2010-07-16
Tags: science, SU
SGGW - studia wyższe - podyplomowe - architektura - biologia - biotechnologia - ekonomia - gospodarka przestrzenna - informatyka - leśnictwo - matematyka - ochrona środowiska - ogrodnictwo - produkcja - rolnictwo - turystyka - weterynaria - uczelnie wyższe
http://www.sggw.pl/?lang=en
Team | The Laboratory of Physiomics and Crop Design
http://lfmbr.sggw.pl/?q=en/node/10
Evidence for Light Wavelength-Specific Photoelectrophysiological Signaling and Memory of Excess Light Episodes in Arabidopsis -- Szechynska-Hebda et al., 10.1105/tpc.109.069302 -- THE PLANT CELL
http://www.plantcell.org/cgi/content/abstract/tpc.109.069302v1
Labels: ,

2010-07-19

Bitcoin P2P Currency

Open source innovation: Bitcoin

Alternative currencies for e-commerce have been attempted many times, but never one quite like Bitcoin. Its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, has dubbed it a "cryptocurrency," because it relies on public/private key cryptography to facilitate electronic trading in a completely anonymous, secure, peer-to-peer fashion.



Bitcoin P2P Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network based digital currency. Peer-to-peer (P2P) means that there is no central authority to issue new money or keep track of transactions. Instead, these tasks are managed collectively by the nodes of the network. Advantages:
  • Transfer money easily through the Internet, without having to trust middlemen.
  • Third parties can’t prevent or control your transactions.
  • Bitcoin transactions are practically free, whereas credit cards and online payment systems typically cost 1-5% per transaction plus various other merchant fees up to hundreds of dollars.
  • Be safe from the instability caused by fractional reserve banking and bad policies of central banks. The limited inflation of the Bitcoin system’s money supply is distributed evenly (by CPU power) throughout the network, not monopolized by the banks.
Bitcoin is an open source project created by Satoshi Nakamoto, and is currently in beta development stage. Bitcoin development is hosted at SourceForge.

Anonymous internet banking

Anonymous Internet Banking is the name given to the proposed use of strong financial cryptography to make electronic bank secrecy (or more precisely pseudonymous banking) possible. The bank issues currency in the form of electronic tokens that can be converted on presentation to the bank to some other currency. This concept has a long history in which free banking institutions have issued their own paper currency often backed by a physical commodity.
[...]
Examples of anonymous internet banking services that have already been implemented include:
  • Bitcoin: open source peer-to-peer electronic cash system that's completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties.
  • eCache: an anonymous bank operating over the Tor network.
  • Pecunix: an (optionally?) anonymous digital gold currency.
  • Yodelbank: an anonymous bank built on top of various digital gold currencies which ended operations during November 2005.

Peer-to-peer

A peer-to-peer, commonly abbreviated to P2P, is any distributed network architecture composed of participants that make a portion of their resources (such as processing power, disk storage or network bandwidth) directly available to other network participants, without the need for central coordination instances (such as servers or stable hosts).[1] Peers are both suppliers and consumers of resources, in contrast to the traditional client–server model where only servers supply, and clients consume.

Sources
Open source innovation on the cutting edge | Open Source - InfoWorld
http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source/open-source-innovation-the-cutting-edge-582?page=0,2
Bitcoin P2P Cryptocurrency | Bitcoin
http://www.bitcoin.org/
Anonymous internet banking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_internet_banking
Peer-to-peer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer

Related
Bitcoin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
Bitcoin | Download Bitcoin software for free at SourceForge.net
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/
Bitcoin P2P Cryptocurrency | Bitcoin | Latest Security News | GSO - Network Security Resources
http://www.governmentsecurity.org/latest-security-news/bitcoin-p2p-cryptocurrency-bitcoin.html
TransAlchemy: The Global Survival Market
http://www.transalchemy.com/2010/07/global-survival-market.html
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2010-07-18

The First Malaria-Proof Mosquito

Malaria: No Ordinary Mosquito Bite




Malaria-proof mosquito engineered


Scientists in the US have succeeded in genetically engineering a malaria-resistant mosquito. 

The researchers, from the University of Arizona, introduced a gene that affected the insect's gut, meaning the malaria parasite could not develop.

They report the advance, which also reduced the insects' lifespan, in the journal PLoS Pathogens.

They say that the ultimate goal is to introduce malaria-resistant mosquitoes into the environment.

malaria lifecycle




Discovery News

Malaria-Proof Mosquito Created

This major breakthrough could prevent millions of people from being infected with the life-threatening disease.


The scientists focused on the parasites as they develop by targeting the Akt gene. Previous studies have shown that Akt affects a mosquito's longevity, immune system and digestion -- all of which could affect the bug's susceptibility to malaria.

As a result, the team engineered a special version of the Akt gene into the eggs of Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes.

After infecting the mosquitoes with Plasmodium parasites and allowing them to develop, the scientists examined the mosquitoes. They found no trace of the malaria parasites in mosquitoes that had the amped up version of Akt.

Exactly how Akt eliminates malaria in mosquitoes is unknown.

The First Malaria-Proof Mosquito

Michael Riehle, holding genetically altered mosquitoes, and his team work in a highly secure lab environment to prevent their study subjects from escaping.
Riehle is a professor of entomology in UA's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and is a member of the BIO5 Institute.

Riehle's team used molecular biology techniques to design a piece of genetic information capable of inserting itself into a mosquito's genome. This construct was then injected into the eggs of the mosquitoes. The emerging generation carries the altered genetic information and passes it on to future generations.

Department of Entomology
Research Program
Mosquito borne diseases impact the lives of billions worldwide. Malaria alone infects at least 300 million people annually, resulting in 1 to 3 million deaths, mostly children. Other diseases spread by mosquitoes, such as dengue and West Nile encephalitis, continue to broaden their range. Unfortunately, traditional mosquito control methods such as insecticide treatment have become less effective as mosquitoes develop resistance to these compounds. Thus, it is critical that we develop novel means of controlling these pests. Towards this goal, my lab is attempting to better understand the mosquito’s physiology and use this knowledge to reduce the mosquito’s ability to transmit disease.
Collected from: Department of Entomology

Sources
YouTube - Malaria: No Ordinary Mosquito Bite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVbq2yQH52g
BBC News - Malaria-proof mosquito engineered
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10654599
YouTube - malaria lifecycle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szlfndj0TFE&feature=related
Malaria-Proof Mosquito Created : Discovery News
http://news.discovery.com/tech/malaria-proof-mosquito.html
The First Malaria-Proof Mosquito | UANews.org
http://uanews.org/node/32833
Department of Entomology
http://ag.arizona.edu/ento/faculty/riehle.htm

Related
Plasmodium falciparum biology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmodium_falciparum_biology
Plasmodium falciparum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmodium_falciparum
First malaria-proof mosquito created | Science Codex
http://www.sciencecodex.com/the_first_malariaproof_mosquito?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Observations: Bite me: New malaria-proof mosquito developed
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=bite-me-new-malaria-proof-mosquito-2010-07-15
The first malaria-proof mosquito
http://www.labspaces.net/105126/The_first_malaria_proof_mosquito
Department of Entomology
http://ag.arizona.edu/ento/index.htm
Plasmodium in human blood cells, malaria, molecular models
http://www.buddycom.com/cells/malaria/index.html
PLoS Pathogens: Activation of Akt Signaling Reduces the Prevalence and Intensity of Malaria Parasite Infection and Lifespan in Anopheles stephensi Mosquitoes
http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1001003
YouTube - Malaria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEDhe4MPEMc
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