Archive for the 'Science' Category
“…a familiar line spouted by Americans these days is, ‘Why should the US curb energy consumption, when India and China are guzzling petrol and polluting the whole globe?’…”
California consumes more petrol than India!
Amazing Stat: California Uses More Gas than China
VCs are collectively pumping about $7b per quarter on average in the US, with an average deal size of $7.5m, so approx 1000 new/renewed investments per quarter! The hot industries are usual suspects: software, energy and bio-tech.
VC Deals In Charts @ TechCrunch
The brain consolidates learned experiences and harden up weak memories which otherwise might fade in time. “People complain about sleep deprivation, but now with the 24/7 society and information overload we need our sleep more than ever.”
Sleeping soundly ‘boosts memory’
The new version touts two major upgrades. ‘First, TrueCrypt now performs parallel encryption and decryption operations on multi-core systems, giving you a phenomenal speedup if you have more than one processor available. Second, it now has the ability to hide an entire operating system, so even if you’re forced to reveal your pre-boot password to [...]
The total economic cost of software security flaws has been estimated at about $180 billion a year. A former cryptographer for the National Security Agency and NASA suggests creating a tax on software based on the number and severity of security bugs, even if the cost gets passed on to consumers, in order to hold [...]
Silicon Valley is experimenting with bacteria that have been genetically altered to provide ‘renewable petroleum’. Genetic alteration of very, very small bugs makes it possible for them to feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw and excrete crude oil.
Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol
Comprehensive lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can lead not only to a better physique, but also to swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level, US researchers said.
Good lifestyle can transform genes
Come 2Q09 and you’ll find thousands of new top-level domain names (TLDs), from .paris to .pepsi, in one of the biggest shake-ups in Internet history.
Internet body approves domain name big bang
Dutch security researchers rode the London Underground free for a day after easily using an ordinary laptop to clone the “smartcards” commuters use to pay fares, a hack that highlights a serious security flaw because similar cards provide access to thousands of government offices, hospitals and schools.
Hackers Crack London Tube’s Ticketing System
The Dynamic Tower design is made up of 80 pre-fabricated apartments which will spin independently of one another. According to the creators — this building never looks the same, not once in a lifetime; and would be energy self-sufficient and even feed extra power back into the grid!
Dubai plans ‘moving’ skyscraper
People who are bicultural and speak two languages may unconsciously change their personality when they switch languages, according to a U.S. study.
Switching languages can also switch personality: study
Knee brace on leg can produce enough power to run 10 mobiles!
Novel device turns walks into watts
Cancer patient’s tumours vanished within two months after being injected with billions of his own cloned immune cells.
Cloned immune cells cleared patient’s cancer
“The song ‘The Sound of Silence’ might hold more truth than ever imagined, suggests a new study that determined people can hear silent objects based on reflected and ambient sound.” - Discovery
Like Bats, People ‘Hear’ Silent Objects
Alltop.com is a refined collection of some of the best blogs on the web categorised under different sections like life, gossip, startups, programming, travel, India, China, etc. (82 categories at the time of writing).
If it adds any credibility, one of person behind Alltop is Guy Kawasaki, that was a good enough reason for [...]
Wave dragon “is a pioneering large scale ocean energy solution for bulk electricity generation.” “The Wave Dragon overtopping device elevates ocean waves to a reservoir above sea level where water is let out through a number of turbines and in this way transformed into electricity.”Watch the promotional video below.
Top500.org generates lists of world’s supercomputers based on various user defined metrics. For example here is a list of the supercomputers ranked by the processing speed (most number of operations per second) which is toped by IBM’s BlueGene/L at 478 TeraFlops (trillion operations per second).
Top500.org
A slightly lengthy but super-interesting read about the birth of SuperMemo, a software that will help you remember things. It exploits the spacing effect to decide which information to remind you of and when.
Want to Remember Everything You’ll Ever Learn? Surrender to this algorithm
BusinessWeek’s compilation of most innovative companies in the world.
The World’s Most Innovative Companies by Region
For example, here is a lesson in Physics.
Inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers at TED
Scientists are beginning to uncover evidence that meditation has a tangible effect on the brain — there is evidence that meditation changes brain structures.
Scientists probe meditation secrets
Google unveiled a browser version of its Google Sky application on Thursday for people who don’t want to download the Google Earth software. The browser version allows you to zoom in and out and pan around the celestial bodies, search for planets and galaxies and view the sky through infrared, x-ray, ultraviolet, and microwave views. [...]
With the right kit and a little know-how, it is possible to hack into a pacemaker and take control.
Scientists Demonstrate Deadly WiFi Pacemaker Hack (research paper)
‘Mike Hall has taught himself to stretch time. He uses his powers to make him a better squash player. “It’s hard to describe, but it’s a feeling of stillness, like I’m not trapped in sequential time any more,” he says. “The ball still darts around, but it moves around the court at different speeds depending [...]
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, don’t trust your instincts when it comes to selecting a mate. Human decision making is seriously flawed - but it can be fixed with a few simple sums…
As described by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, by introducing tools to measure a situation, we can affect the situation itself.
How to [...]
