Database System Speedup

Current database systems use technology and abilities of CPUs from 10 to 20 years ago. Traditional database management system require too much hardware, and they make poor use of it. CWI computer scientists came up with database operations that work on sets of vectors, instead of on one database value at a time. As a result, some operations that take tens or hundreds of CPU clock cycles in other databases take just a handful in the VectorWise system. The scientists also constructed the system in a way that the work is done on data in the CPU's cache, where the processor cores can have quick access. In addition, fast decompression algorithms and table rearrangement are utilized.

One limitation of the prototype software is that the new system is designed to run on a single machine with a database of less than 10 terabytes.

Reference: IEEE Spectrum

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/ingres-and-vectorwise-claim-database-speedup

New Nanotechnology Technology

Chemical engineers in Oregon State University have invented a new technology to deposit "nanostructure films" on different surfaces. The technology can potentially make eye glasses cheaper and better, create solar cells that are more efficient and etc. The key to the process is use of a chemical bath, controlled by a microreactor, to place thin-film deposits on various substrates such as glass, plastic, silicon or aluminum.

Reference: Science Daily

Dark Matter Bolometer Detector

The existence of dark matter is induced from the behavior of faraway galaxies, which move in ways that can only be explained by a gravitational pull caused by more mass than can be seen. They estimate dark matter represents around 20 percent of the universe, with the other 75 percent made up of dark energy, a repulsive force that is causing the universe to expand at an ever-quickening pace.

Eduardo Abancens designed a prototype dark matter detector called a scintillating bolometer. It is a crystal so pure that it can conduct the energy ostensibly generated when a particle of dark matter strikes the nucleus of one of its atoms.

To prevent interference by cosmic rays, the bolometer is shielded in lead and kept half a mile underground. The challenge is to freeze the device to near-absolute zero, the temperature at which all motion stops. At the edge of absolute zero, it will possible to measure expected changes of a few millionths of a degree Fahrenheit.

Reference: “A BGO scintillating bolometer as dark matter detector prototype.” By N. Coron, E. García, J. Gironnet, J. Leblanc, P. de Marcillac, M. Martínez, Y. Ortigoza, A. Ortiz de Solórzano, C. Pobes, J. Puimedón, T. Redon, M.L. Sarsa, L. Torres and J.A. Villar. Optical Materials, Vol. 31 Issue 10, August 2009.

3-D Printing with Glass

Scientist has a technique that allows a new type of glass material to create objects using a 3-D printer. Three-dimensional printers are cheap, fast way to build prototype parts. In a typical powder-based 3-D printing system, a thin layer of powder is spread over a platform and software directs an inkjet printer to deposit droplets of binder solution only where needed. The binder reacts with the powder to bind the particles together and create a 3-D object. By adjusting the ratio of powder to liquid the team found a way to build solid parts out of powdered glass, the Vitraglyphic process.

Reference: Science Daily

Superheavy Element 114 Confirmed

Scientists have been able to confirm the production of the super heavy element 114, an important aspect in nuclear science. Using the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator (BGS) at Berkeley Lab's 88-inch Cyclotron, the researchers are able to confirm the creation of two individual nuclei of element 114. Super heavy elements greater than uranium, element 92 - decay in a time shorter than the age of Earth, so these elements need to be made artificially to confirm their existence. Scientists are hoping that element 114 is stable.

Reference:
L. Stavestra, K. Gregorich, J. Dvořák, P. A. Ellison, I. Dragojević, M. A. Garcia, and H. Nitsche. Independent verification of element 114 production in the 48Ca + 242Pu reaction. Physical Review Letters, 2009; 103, 132502 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.132502

NASA to Reveal Scientific Findings About the Moon

Lunar observations from three spacecraft: Deep Impact aka EPOXI, Cassini and Chandrayaan-1 indicates that there is the presence of water and other minerals on the Moon.

Reference: Spaceref

Compound Semiconductor Hybrid

MIT engineers figured out how to add devices made from compound semiconductors to a silicon chip that is compatible with standard chip manufacturing process. The compound semiconductor have properties that silicon alone lacks. It is faster transistors than silicon, handle more power and emit/collect light more easily.

Reference: IEEE Spectrum

Fostering Creativity in Problem Solving

Discoveries and insights on the frontiers of science do not come from thin air but emerges from incremental processes of weaving together analogies, images and simulations. Scientists built real-world models and make predictions from them. They study the cognitive process by observing scientists at work in the lab. The study can help foster improved creativity in labs and allow students to model-based reasoning approaches to problem solving.

Reference: Science Daily

Learning for Individuals in Vegetative States

Scientists, for the first time, tested that patients in vegetative and minimally conscious states can learn. After training, patients would start to blink when the tone played but before the air puff to the eye. The classical conditioning in the vegetative and minimally conscious state will be published in the Advanced Online Publication of Nature Neuroscience.

Reference: Science Daily

Humanoid Robot Plays Soccer

Created by Hajime Sakamoto, Hajime 33 is the latest addition to Sakamoto’s fleet of humanoid robots. Powered by batteries, the robot is controlled with a PS3 controller, and it can walk and kick a ball. Hajime 33 weighs in at just 44 pounds while overlooking his creator at more than 6 feet 5 inches tall.

Reference: Wired

Hybrid Motherboard

Motherboard manufacturer DFI has created a hybrid motherboard which allows for two systems to exist on a single board, allowing for a wide range of highly customized set-ups. The Hybrid P45-ION-T2A2 can run two systems simultaneously or independently, allowing users to switch between the two wholly different configurations on the fly.

Reference: PC World

Magnetism Turns Drugs On or Off

Many medical conditions require medications that is taken over a long period of time at specific quantities. This process is time consuming and current delivery techniques are not fully reliable. Researchers have created a small device that contains the drugs in a specially engineered membrane, embedded with nano-particles with minerals that have magnetic properties. When a magnetic field is turned on outside the body, the nano-particles heat up and causes the membrane to fall apart temporally, allowing drug particles to go through. Turning the magnetic field has the opposite effect and the membrane resumes stability. This technology has the potential to provide precise, repeated, long-term, on-demand delivery of drugs for a number of medical applications.

Reference:
Todd Hoare, Jesus Santamaria, Gerardo F. Goya, Silvia Irusta, Debora Lin, Samantha Lau, Robert Padera, Robert Langer, Daniel S. Kohane. A Magnetically Triggered Composite Membrane for On-Demand Drug Delivery. Nano Letters, 2009; DOI: 10.1021/nl9018935

Sustainable Fertilizer: Urine abd Wood Ash Produces Large Harvest

In a study, urine - a good source of nitrogen and wood ache - rich in minerals has been successfully used to fertilize corn, cabbage, cucumber and other crops and also reducing acidity of acid soils. This combination can be used in substitute for mineral fertilizer to increase the yields of tomato without posing any microbial or chemical risks

Reference:
Pradhan et al. Stored Human Urine Supplemented with Wood Ash as Fertilizer in Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) Cultivation and Its Impacts on Fruit Yield and Quality. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2009; 57 (16): 7612 DOI: 10.1021/jf9018917

Gene Therapy Cures Blindness in Monkeys

Two color-blind monkeys can see colours for the first time after injecting colour detecting proteins. Their brains may have reconfigured itself to use the same circuit connections in a new way. Therefore, gene therapies for severe human forms of color blindness could be successful. However, safety needs to be proven first before conducting experiments on humans.

Reference: Wired

Fast Flip Brings Blazing Fast News

Google introduced a new service called Fast Flip that reduces the time to review news, allowing users to view articles from many major publishers. Google captures the images from different websites and displays it on sliding panels. Users can modify their own topics to review and it even works with the iPhone and Android.

Reference: Google

Molecular Discovery Supports Darwin's Evolution Theory

The cells of all organisms, are composed of molecular machines built of component parts, which contributes a partial function or structural element to the machine. The mystery lies in how these machines evolved. A non-Darwinian explanation suggests that machines are "irreducibly complex", meaning it has not evolved. However, researchers have discovered that these machines although complete and complex, were a result of evolution.

Reference: Science Daily

Fake Video Can Convince Witnesses

Psychologists have long known that our memories of past events can be influenced by misleading information, but now they have proven that doctored video evidence can convince people to offer false eyewitness testimony. In a study of 60 college students performing a computerized gambling task, nearly half were willing to testify that they saw their partner cheat in real life after watching fabricated video evidence. The students that knew video evidence existed but did not watch the footage themselves, only 10 percent gave false testimony. The researchers emphasized that no one should testify unless they are absolutely sure their partner cheated.

Reference: Wired

Artificial Nose for Detection of Toxic Gases

In the issue of Nature Chemistry, Kenneth Suslick and his team developed an artificial, digital multidimensional extension of litmus paper for general detection of toxic industrial chemicals (TICSs) in a fast, simple and inexpensive way. The device is able to give an array of concentration of colours that indicate the specific type and concentration of the toxic gas. This brings us one step closer to have small wearable sensor that can detect multiple airborne toxins.

Reference:
Lim SH, Feng L, Kemling JW, Musto CJ, Suslick KS. An Optoelectronic Nose for Detection of Toxic Gases. Nature Chemistry, 2009 DOI: 10.1038/NCHEM.360

Underwater Benthic Rover

Benthic Rover, a robot that crawls along the ocean floor, explores deep ocean depths to track changes on the surface of the ocean as well as marine communities. With the Monterey Accelerated Research System, problems can be fixed almost immediately.

Reference: Wired

Graphitic Memory

Researchers have advanced graphite's potential as a mass data storage medium and potentially reprogrammable gate arrays that will revolutionize circuit logic design. In the online journal ACS Nano, Alexander Sinitskii show lithographic techniques to deposite .10-nanometer stripes of amorphous graphite onto silicon - creation of nonvolile memory. Graphite makes a good, dense, reliable memory that works at low voltages. It is also impervious to a wide temperature range and radiation (space and military uses).

Reference: Science Daily

Digital Contacts Provides Wealth of Information

Scientists, eye surgeons, professors and students at the University of Washington have developed a contact lens that contains built-in LED, powered wirelessly with radio frequency waves. Eventually, it can provide a wealth of information like virtual captions scrolling, monitor vital signs. To ensure the lens is safe to wear, tests have been made on rabbits, but there is still further testing to complete in order to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration. One of the challenges is loading computational power into the small device.

Reference: Wired

Forgotten Memories Still in Your Brain

A recent study indicates that brain imaging detected patterns of activation that corresponded to memories people thought they’d lost. When a person recalls a memory, it triggers neurological patterns encoded when the memory was formed. However, the in-depth details of memories are still unknown.

Reference: Wired

Plants on Steroids May Improve Our Understanding of Diseases

Researchers at Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant Biology have found a missing link for the signaling pathway for plant steroid hormones (brassinosteroids). The discovery will lead to genetic engineering of greater yield in crops and a key to understand major human diseases such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's. Brassinosteroids regulate many aspects of growth and development in plants and is similar to animal steroids, but function differently at the cellular level. The study is published in the advanced on-line issue of Nature Cell Biology.

Reference: Science Daily

Bicycle with Nanotechnology

There are companies that pursue high-end bicycles with nanotechnology: BH Bicycles, BMC and Pinarello. The BH G4 bike uses carbon nanotubes as filler material between the carbon fibers. There is no real evidence or claim that states that the bicycle is stronger or lighter after using nanotechnology. BMC has the same approach but vaguely states that "the carbon nanotubes are 20% stronger for practically the same weight." They did not define a definition for stronger nor is the word practically any helpful in describing the situation. Pinarello on the other hand says their bicycle can prevent impacts and sudden breakage. Where is the science and more reliable claims about the benefits of using nanotechnology on bicycles?

Reference: IEEE Spectrum

Robotics

Vecna Robotics and Japan's RIKEN have used teddy bear-like robots to make it accessible and friendlier to humans.

The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot

Robot for Interactive Body Assistance

Reference: IEEE Spectrum

Right and Honourable Computer - Law

European researchers have created a legal analysis query engine that incorporates artificial intelligence, game theory and semantics to offer advice, conflict prevention and dispute settlement for European law. Since European law is complex with intellectual property right (IPR) and digital rights regulation seeking a method to combat piracy, the ALIS project has developed in response.

Game theory looks at how strategic interactions between rational people leading to outcomes reflecting on a person's preferences. These types of interactions are rendered mathematically and developed into algorithms. The tool aims to speed up the work done by lawyers and help resolve more straightfoward cases faster.

Reference: Science Daily

Studying the Teeth

Teeth exhibit graded mechanical properties and cathedral-like geometry, and over time they develop a network of micro-cracks which help diffuse stress. The automotive and aviation industries use sophisticated materials to prevent break-up on impact such as composite materials — layers of glass or carbon fibers — held together by a brittle matrix. In teeth, fibers are not arranged in a grid, but are "wavy" in structure, which is more resilient to cracking. If engineers can incorporate tooth enamel's wavy hierarchy, micro-cracking mechanism, and capacity to heal, lighter and stronger aircraft and space vehicles can be developed.

Reference: Science Daily

Guitar Playing Robot

Intel and National Instruments shows the new virtualization tool

Quantum Chips Can Cracks Code

Current cryptography relies on factoring huge numbers where modern computers have difficultly to efficiently complete the task. Now, researchers find using Shor's Algorithm (based on nuclear magnetic resonance ) for first factoring in a chip scale quantum computer maybe practical on code cracking and quantum computing. Since a quantum computer uses a qubit, it makes it exponentially faster to solve problems like factoring (allowing the computer to test more solutions at a time) Although quantum factoring machine is decades away, chip-scale optical architectures can help in applications like quantum key distribution or simulate quantum systems in physics experiments.

Reference: IEEE Spectrum

New Earthquake Resistant Design Revolutionizes Structual Architecture

An earthquake resistant structure passed tests in Japan that is able to stand upright after an Earthquake. During the tests on the shake table, the system survived simulated earthquakes in excess of magnitude 7. The system dissipates energy through the movement of steel frames situated around the building's core or along exterior walls. The design can be also implemented on existing buildings using seismic retrofitting. The idea of this structural system is concentrating the damage in replaceable fuses, built to flex and dissipate the shaking energy induced by the earthquake.

Reference: Science Daily

Alternative Test To Detect DNA

Researchers in Singapore are reporting development of a new electronic "nanogap" sensor that is faster, less expensive, and more practical alternative to detect DNA. The traditional method, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), makes multiple copies of trace amounts of DNA, similar to a photocopier printing multiple copies of documents, in order to detect the genetic material more easily. However, this traditional approach is expensive and cumbersome. The "nanogap sensor" translates the presence of DNA into an electrical signal to be measured by a computer with the use of a micro-sized metal pair electrodes separated by a nanogap, 1/50,000 the width of a human hair, in combination with special chemical probes to capture tiny segments of DNA.

Reference: Science Daily

Child's Play May Improve Video Gaming and Police Work

In an article published in Learning and Motivation, the researchers, Marcia Spetch and and Vadim Bulitko sought out the claim in the decision-making process involved in hiding and searching for objects. They hope to advance more realistic game environments and possibly advanced search-enhancing tools for law enforcement.

The study of the strategies and hide and seek will give programmers more information where they can use to make computer-generated characters more human-like by incorporating human characteristics and limitations.

Reference: Science Daily

Discovery of Genes May Reveal Mystery of Human Uniqueness

Scientists made a crucial discovery of inactive genes that evolved in humans after branching off from other primates, and one step closer in finding what makes us unique. Recent evidence suggest that evolutionary processes can produce a functional protein coding gene from inactive DNA.

Reference: Science Daily

Sensitivity Infrared Spectrometry with Frequency Converter

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new, highly sensitive, low-cost technique for measuring light near the infrared range. A single photon detector is the key device needed to build highly sensitive instruments for measuring spectra. Their approach is adapting a technique developed two years ago at NIST for quantum cryptography that “up converts” photons at one frequency to a higher frequency. The technique promotes the infrared photons up to the visible range using a strong, tunable laser.

Reference: Science Daily