Wafaa Bilal è un 45enne artista newyorkese che vent’anni fa è fuggito dall’ Iraq per cercare nuove opportunità nella Grande Mela. Da allora ha spesso rimpianto ciò che si è lasciato alle spalle, ma da vero artista è riuscito a trasformare questo suo malessere in una impressionante forma espressiva.
Chiodo fisso, per la tecnologia. Anzi, perno.
Lo scorso 15 dicembre Bilaal si è sottoposto a un singolare intervento chirurgico e si è fatto impiantare nella nuca una... telecamera. Da allora l’apparecchio scatta ogni minuto un’immagine di ciò che c’è dietro le spalle di Wafaa e la invia in tempo reale al sito reale www.3rdi.me. La piccola videocamera è attaccata con 3 perni in titanio a una placca metallica posizionata qualche millimetro sotto la pelle della nuca: l’intervento, piuttosto doloroso perchè Bilaal ha rifiutato l’anestesia totale, è durato più di due ore. L’apparecchio è collegato con un cavo USB a minicomputer che Bilaal porta sempre con sè. Una connessione 3G permette l’invio in tempo reale delle immagini al sito. Oltre che dolorosa, l’espressione artistica scelta da Bilaal è anche piuttosto scomoda, perchè costringe l’artista a dormire seduto.
La performance di Bilaal è il pezzo forte di Told/Untold/Retold, la mostra d’arte contemporanea che ha inaugurato il nuovo museo arabo di arte moderna di Doha, nel Quatar.
Il corpo si ribella
Criticato da molti per la sua forma d’arte così estrema, Bilaal sostiene che è solo un assaggio di come saremo tra non molti anni: sempre più controllati, sorvegliati e vittime di un Grande Fratello globale. L’esperimento sarebbe dovuto durare un anno, ma lo scorso 4 febbraio una crisi di rigetto ha costretto Billaal a sottoporsi a un nuovo intervento per la rimozione dell’impianto. L’artista è però determinato a portare a termine la sua prova, anche se in modo meno eclatante, per esempio legandosi la webcam alla testa con uno strap.
Automotive engineering has brought in advanced concepts in today’s auto industries. Cars are now installed with 8- to 16- to 32-bit processors, with thoughts of introducing the state-of-art processor technology in the very near future.
The proven technology of dual core processors, bring in speed and faster computing power, with a lower clock speed, hence consuming less power. This would mean less heat generation. In modern information technology systems, dual core processors have already created a mark, with thoughts going on for multi-core processors to be soon introduced in the market.
In the past, auto manufacturers have used dual-core processors in automotive engineering, but the thoughts are fast changing with applications taking a new turn. It is understood that some auto manufacturers is contemplating using triple-core processors in vehicles, and is also working with groups to implement quad-core processor systems.
There are many areas in automotive engineering that have notable application that require the performance of dual-core processors. The most important areas of application are fuel saving, and emission reductions, with diagnosis of safety management and transformation of hardware based functions to systems based on software.
With regards to the transformation from single-core units to dual-core would be simpler than, if this change was required to be made from a 16-bit system to a 32-bit processor. There would have been requirement for wide changes in the software making it suitable to run on a 32-bit system. As for the transformation from single-core to dual-core, the changes would be simpler, without having any major re-writes.
Cars are now fitted with distributed systems, one of them being the distributed control of the car suspensions, which provide a much smoother ride along with superior road holding. Today, the modern car is equipped with dozens of computers, to provide balanced performance if its engine, control of fuel consumption, and emission reduction. There are cars fitted with shark fin shaped antennas on the top, which provide entertainment in the form of satellite radio, GPS, and cellular networks.
Today, automotive engineering has provided the knowledge of the application of general purpose computers in vehicles, but the disadvantage is that, these are not re-programmable. It is often wondered as to why the cars really need general purpose computer systems.
To explain matters simply, many of the existing functions in the vehicles are being extended today through use of on-board general purpose computers, which has provided large benefits regarding many of the functions that we usually find in a car. More-over, computers today makes you avail the features in a car that could not be thought of in the past. During 1980?s there were strong feeling about having a PC at home, though people did not know why they need them. Today, every home has a computer and rightly so.
General purpose computers in cars bring you the modern advantage of having applications where you have Wi-Fi enabled audio system, download mp3 music and e-books, or get your email and have it read to you as you drive. One day, you will be able to share your radio system with other drivers, keep a full GPS log of your travels, and perhaps record public shows of your interest. There are future applications to come, with the concept taking shape everyday in implementation of general purpose computers in your car.
Fizicienii de pretutindeni asteapta cu interes pornirea celui mai puternic accelerator de particule construit vreodata – Large Hadron Collider (LHC), un dispozitiv care a costat aproape 9 miliarde de dolari si care va reproduce conditiile existente in momentul genezei universului, Big Bang. Prof. Irina Arefeva si dr. Igor Volovici, de la Institutul Matematic Steklov din Moscova sunt de parere ca prin acest vast experiment ce va debuta la inceputul verii, sub egida CERN, langa orasul elvetian Geneva, omenirea ar putea face cunostinta cu calatoriile in timp.
Ideea calatoriilor in timp s-a nascut atunci cand colegul lui Albert Einstein, Kurt Godel, a folosit teoria relativitatii pentru a arata ca expeditiile in trecut sunt posibile, dar numai din momentul in care pamantenii vor reusi sa creeze prima masina temporala – ceea ce inseamna ca daca la vara, experimentul CERN va reusi, ne-am putea astepta sa primim vizitatori din viitor, anul 2008 devenind astfel „anul zero” pentru turismul temporal!
Inca din 1949, cand aceasta idee a fost relevata, fizicieni eminenti au dezbatut problema calatoriei temporale, fiindca ea submina notiunile de cauza si efect, generand paradoxuri ireconciliabile: un calator temporal s-ar fi putut intoarce in trecut pentru a-si ucide strabunii, prin urmare teoretic el nu s-ar mai fi putut naste.
Enigmaticele „gauri de vierme” exista sau nu?
Dupa aproape saizeci de ani, controversa nu a fost inca transata. Cei doi savanti rusi sustin ca energiile dezvoltate de LHC sunt concentrate intr-o particula subatomica – de milioane de miliarde de ori mai mica decat un microb – care reprezinta caramida de baza a universului. Gravitatia terestra produce insa distorsiuni in acest cuantum spatio-temporal si energia produsa de LHC poate distorsiona timpul, in asa fel incat acesta se „intoarce”, practic, inapoi.
Aceste salturi inapoi, numite de savanti „curbe temporale inchise” ne-ar putea ajuta, cel putin in teorie, sa revedem momente din trecut. Schema a prins contur atunci cand in 1988, echipa profesorului Kip Thorne de la Institutul Tehnologic Pasadena, din California, a sustinut ca asa-numitele „gauri de vierme”, prin spatiu-timp, ar putea permite calatoriile temporale – ideea fiind popularizata de regretatul Carl Sagan in cartea sa, Contact.
Irina Arefeva considera ca experimentul LHC ar putea crea „gauri de vierme”, permitand o forma de intoarcere in trecut. Desigur, nimeni nu contesta ca aceste tunele miniaturale n-ar putea permite decat particulelor subatomice sa calatoreasca in timp, dar chiar si asa, inceputul e promitator. „Tot ceea ce speram, deocamdata, ar fi ca acest experiment sa ne ofere indicii clare despre existenta gaurilor de vierme. Daca o parte din energia produsa de ciocnirile particulelor va disparea brusc, ar insemna ca in urma coliziunilor unele particule au patruns, prin gauri de vierme, inapoi in timp”, spune dr. Volovici.
Nu toata comunitatea stiintifica este insa de acord cu opiniile exprimate de cei doi savanti rusi. Dr. Brian Cox, de la Universitatea Manchester, sustine ca: „Energia miliardelor de raze cosmice care au penetrat atmosfera terestra vreme de cinci miliarde de ani este cu mult mai mare decat cea produsa la LHC, prin urmare logic ar fi ca eventualii calatori temporali sa se afle deja aici. Nu cred ca experimentul desfasurat in Elvetia va face lumina in ceea ce priveste existenta gaurilor de vierme si cu atat mai putin ne va face sa ne trezim in laborator cu vizitatori din viitor.”
Si è sempre pensato che l’uomo avesse qualcosa in più rispetto agli altri animali: più geni, più evoluzione, più complessità. Ma un’analisi approfondita del genoma dell’uomo, messo a confronto con quello di altre specie a noi imparentate (scimpanzè e macaco) ha invece rivelato che la nostra evoluzione si basa sulla sottrazione, e non solo sull’addizione.
Cacciatori del Dna perduto
Alcuni ricercatori della Stanford University (USA) hanno (virtualmente) appaiato il patrimonio genetico delle tre specie e hanno così scoperto che, in alcune zone dei cromosomi, quello che ci distingue dalle altre specie sono le delezioni, cioè appunto le mancanze. Quello che manca, inoltre, non sono geni veri e propri (cioè lunghe stringhe di Dna che codificano per una proteina) ma regioni regolative. Sono tratti di Dna non codificanti, che cioè hanno il compito di modulare i geni veri e propri, a volte aumentandone l’azione, altre volte bloccandola. L’analisi di queste delezioni, in totale 510, ha portato anche a scoprire cosa accade quando queste regioni non sono presenti.
Così il pene perse le spine
Una delle più curiose ha avuto come conseguenza la perdita di spine sul pene, strutture presenti in molti mammiferi, con funzioni ancora non del tutto chiarite. Secondo i ricercatori, questa mancanza ha portato nell’uomo a un diverso rapporto di coppia, più volto alla monogamia di altre scimmie; questo a sua volta ha indotto anche a un aumento delle cure parentali.
Mancanze vantaggiose
Ma la delezione più importante potrebbe essere quella di un tratto di Dna accanto a un gene implicato nella soppressione del tumore. Poiché questo gene agisce soprattutto nel cervello, l’abolizione del controllo della crescita cellulare (perché questo in fondo è un tumore, una crescita cellulare eccessiva) potrebbe aver portato a un aumento delle dimensioni del cervello stesso, con ovvie conseguenze per l’evoluzione umana.
Causa-effetto o selezione naturale?
Non c’è però necessariamente un rapporto causa effetto tra queste perdite e l’evoluzione umana; la spinta scatenante avrebbe potuto essere “esterna”, dovuta cioè alla selezione naturale; modifiche del comportamento alla specie umana – per esempio cambiamenti ambientali o spostamenti – avrebbero potuto portare alla perdita di alcune regioni regolative dei geni perché non più necessarie alla nuova situazione, e non l’opposto. Capire la nostra evoluzione non significa quindi solamente studiare ciò che noi abbiamo in più rispetto agli altri primati, ma anche cercare quel che manca, non quel che c’è.
Fonte: Focus.it - Si ringrazia Mauro Mandrioli per la consulenza scientifica.
Some 300 exabytes (3 × 1020 bytes) of information were stored in electronic media -- magnetic disks and tapes or optical disks -- throughout the world by 2007. Yet, the demand for electronic storage grows daily, driving an ever-increasing need to pack data into smaller volumes in quicker time. By studying how laser pulses alter the atomic structure of data-storage materials, a research team in Japan has uncovered a fundamental mechanism that could aid in the design of even faster information storage in the future1. The finding was published by Masaki Takata from the RIKEN SPring-8 Center, Harima, Shinji Kohara from the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute/SPring-8, Noboru Yamada from Panasonic Corporation and a team of scientists from Japan, Germany and Finland.
Pulses of light alter the atomic bonds (red) in the material AIST, enabling quick storage and deletion of data. Credit: 2011 Masaki Takata
Rewritable memory, such as the random-access memory found in computers or on DVDs, is based on a phase change in specific types of materials in which the atoms change from one stable arrangement to another. Pulses of laser light can induce a phase change, a process known as ‘writing,’ and the material’s phase can be identified by ‘reading’ its signature optical properties.
To provide the first full understanding of the atomic structure of one such phase-change material, AgInSbTe (AIST)—often used in rewritable DVDs—Takata and his colleagues combined state-of-the-art materials-analysis techniques and theoretical modeling. A pulse of light can change AIST from an amorphous state, in which the atoms are disordered, into a crystalline phase in which the atoms are form an ordered-lattice structure. This process of crystallization happens in just a few tens of nanoseconds: the faster the crystallization, the faster data can be written and erased. No-one understood, however, why phase changes in AIST were so fast.
The teams’ analyses and modeling showed that AIST crystallizes in a different way to other commercially available phase-change materials. They found that crystallization of AIST is a simple process: the laser light excites the bonding electrons and causes them to move. A central atom of antimony (Sb) switches between one long (amorphous) and one short (crystalline) bond without any bond breaking (Fig. 1). “We hope to verify this bond-interchange model in the near future,” says Takata. “Crystallization is the storage-rate-limiting process in all phase-change materials, and an atomistic understanding of it is essential.”
The researchers also discovered that the absence of cavities within the crystal structure contributes to the faster writing speeds on AIST. This contrasts starkly with the alternative material germanium antimony telluride in which 10% of lattice sites in are empty.
As many students of history are familiar, Galileo Galilei, famed mathematician & astronomer, known today by many as the “father of modern science”, was forced by the Catholic Church under threat of torture to recant his “heretical” view that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice-versa in the 17th century. This scientifically valid idea voided long held religious dogma and hence challenged the Church's integrity itself.
In a letter from 1634, René Descartes, one of the world's most noted thinkers and philosophers, stated: “Doubtless you know that Galileo was recently censored by the Inquisitors of the Faith, and that his views about the movement of the earth were condemned as heretical. I must tell you that all the things I explained in my treatise, which included the doctrine of the movement of the earth, were so interdependent that it is enough to discover that one of them is false to know that all the arguments I was using are unsound. Though I thought they were based on very certain and evident proofs, I would not wish, for anything in the world, to maintain them against the authority of the church.... I desire to live in peace and to continue the life I have begun under the motto to 'live well you must live unseen'.”
If we step back and think about the challenges that faced this small progressive and scientific community during 17th Century Europe and compare the fear and patterns of suppression coming from the established orthodoxy of that time to that of the modern-day, we find only mere variation. Descartes' revelation and retreat from exposure, as expressed by the motto: 'to live well you must live unseen' is a disheartening disposition that speaks volumes and sadly carries on to this day across the world. The use of fear, intimidation and other time tested variations of oppression continue to persist as the dominant institutions of our society work to protect it's established orders regardless of social validity. Even more, the overall cultural itself, which invariably tends to support the accepted beliefs put forward by those that define “power” of a period, also tends to condemn those who choose to pose a challenge as it becomes a threat to the mass accepted identity itself.
The result is that many simply are not willing to risk their lives, occupations and reputations to challenge the orthodoxy of the time.
In late May 2011 news reports were generated that detailed how the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States was actively targeting “Political Activists” under the pretense of “Terrorism”.
Just as people like John Lennon and Martin Luther King Jr. were watched and harassed by the FBI for their activism decades ago, it appears modern, so-called “Anti-Terrorism” resources are being used to target environmentalists, peace, animal and political activists.
Just like the accusations of “Communism” against people like MLK Jr. in the mid 20th century, this newer, more generalized device called “Terrorism” of the 21st century is no less an “heretical”, accusatory tool than what was employed by the Inquisition century's ago to maintain the politico-religious social system.
So, we can sympathize with Descartes' notion, as to move against the Zeitgeist is to position yourself against the odds, regardless of how empirical, necessary or obvious the truth you wish to convey and act upon is.
Unfortunately, Descartes' position is unacceptable in the modern world. The risks that now exist within our current order are beginning to far outweigh the temporal personal risks generated by the act of activist objection itself.
It is no longer issues of accurate data, “rights” and “freedoms”. Today our very stability as a civilization is now in question and, if left unhindered, it threatens us all, regardless of one's position in the modern feudal hierarchy.
So, we can sit in confusion and watch as global unemployment rises due to technological unemployment and the resulting regional instability that is sure to grow. We can stare blankly at the systematic debt collapse of the world economy, country by country, like dominos, as self-appointed global banking institutions that derive money out of nothing impose austerity measures against the poor and middle class of each country to help support the wealthy, furthering the income divide.
We can twiddle our thumbs as what we have called “democracy” turns inexplicably into global plutocracy and the world economy becomes measured by how much money the rich move around amongst themselves. We can distract ourselves with our little gadgets as the rain-forests – considered by many to be the “lungs” of this planet – are destroyed at faster and faster rates, reducing our ability to absorb the growing CO2 in the atmosphere. We can keep the TV on as the clean water and food shortages that currently affect over 1 billion people continue to grow to 2 billion... 3 billion. We can scan the tabloids at the grocery store news stands as the very basis of industrial civilization, the Hydrocarbon Economy, inches towards crisis scarcity with virtually no active initiative taken to change course.
We can continue to pretend that our “leaders” are anything but “mis-leaders”, set in motion by monetary commercial interests that follow the rules of the free-market with all legislation and offices going to the highest bidder, one way or another... and we can stand amused as a new global arms race gains speed as each country comes to terms with the very real reality that wars for resources are upon us in a way unlike any period in history.
This is what separates our world from the one Descartes hid from.
The fact is, the fear tactics of the Orthodoxy - in this context the FBI or any such “Intelligence Agency” - are no longer worthy of viable concern or even acknowledgment. At no time in history has any true social change come in a manner that was not opposed with hostility by the dominant orders of the time. If you choose fear, then fear exists and those little lists/tactics held by the Intelligence/Police Agencies have merit. If you choose choose love, pride and self-respect then no accusations, lists, or threats can ever stop you. The trick now is in numbers and if we can gain critical mass and override the “divide and conquer” techniques used to keep the orthodoxy in place, the game is over.
The Zeitgeist Movement is a global sustainability activist group working to bring the world together for the common goal of species sustainability before it is too late. It is a social movement, not a political one, with over 1100 chapters across nearly all countries. Divisionary notions such as nations, governments, races, political parties, religions, creeds or class are non-operational distinctions in the view of The Movement. Rather, we recognize the world as one system and the human species as a singular unit, sharing a common habitat. Our overarching intent could be summarized as “the application of the scientific method for social concern.”
Nevoile de apa ale omenirii sunt uriase. In unele tari ale lumii, in special din zonele desertice, apa e un lux. Undeva, in departare (sau in apropiere) se profileaza intinderile „nesfarsite” ale apelor marilor din care s-ar putea alimenta chiar si... martienii! Dar, ca o ironie a soartei, aceste ape sunt sarate.
Si, paradoxal, in acest secol al supertehnologiilor, stiinta e departe de a face minuni in problema, aparent banala, a desalinizarii. Metodele actuale folosite pentru tratarea apei presupun investitii mari in infrastructuri si un consum ridicat de energie. Pe de alta parte, recurg la agenti chimici, unii dintre acestia toxici...
Cel mai mare rezervor de apa pentru omenire il reprezinta apa marilor si oceanelor (97% din resursele acvatice, inclusiv calotele glaciare). Necesarul de apa potabila si pentru irigatii la nivelul global ar putea fi asigurat daca ar exista o tehnologie de desalinizare cu un consum rezonabil de energie. Din pacate, pana acum procedeele folosite s-au dovedit a fi extrem de costisitoare din punct de vedere energetic. E vorba in special de distilare, prin care se obtine apa dulce in urma procesului de evaporare-condensare. Specialistii americani sunt preocupati de o noua metoda, asa-zisa „osmoza inversa”, ce consta in separarea sarii de apa cu ajutorul unei membrane semi-permeabile, apa fiind presata asupra acesteia.
Membranele, din ce in ce mai ieftine, castiga in eficacitate permitand, asadar, filtrarea de mari cantitati de apa intr-un timp tot mai scurt. Lucrurile nu se opresc insa aici. Apa filtrata este supusa apoi unor procese de decontaminare, intrucat contine numerosi compusi toxici, in cantitati foarte mici. Tratamentele chimice sunt insa foarte costisitoare. O problema in plus. Solutia ar putea veni din partea unor materii nanostructurate (particule cu o marime de cateva milionimi de milimetru) sau din partea radiatiilor ultraviolete care au capacitatea de a transforma si de a lega substantele toxice.
„In termeni energetici, mentioneaza Mark Shannon, directorul Centrului de materiale avansate pentru purificarea apei de la Universitatea din Illinois (SUA) se poate spune ca transportul apei la mari distante presupune cheltuieli mai mari decat in cazul productiei de apa dulce prin filtrare. Sa nu uitam faptul ca 5% pana la 15% din electricitatea produsa in vestul SUA este folosita in transportul apei”. Specialistii insista, pe de alta parte, asupra colectarii apei de ploaie, fie pentru utilizare directa, fie pentru umplerea panzelor freatice, acestea beneficiind si de aportul apelor reziduale, o practica intalnita mai ales in Europa.
Scoprire che la Terra è sull’orlo di una nuova estinzione di massa non è probabilmente il modo migliore per iniziare la giornata. Eppure diversi scienziati sono convinti che il crescente numero di specie in pericolo, dai più piccoli microrganismi ai grandi mammiferi, sia un chiaro indicatore dell’avvicinarsi di questo evento. Negli ultimi 540 milioni di anni il nostro pianeta ha già affrontato cinque di questi momenti, assistendo ogni volta alla completa scomparsa di almeno il 75% delle specie animali viventi.
L'inizio della fine
In un articolo pubblicato su Nature, un gruppo di paleobiologi dell’Università di Berkley fa il punto della situazione, e confronta la situazione attuale con quella di 540 milioni di anni fa. "Se consideriamo solo i mammiferi più a rischio, quelli che hanno almeno il 50% di probabilità di estinguersi nelle prossime 3 generazioni, e ipotizziamo che entro i prossimi 1000 anni saranno definitivamente scomparsi, siamo certi di essere prossimi a una nuova estinzione di massa" afferma Anthony D. Barnosky, docente di biologia e principale autore della ricerca. Ma c’è di più: "Se tutte le specie oggi classificate come fortemente minacciate o vulnerabili scomparissero e il ritmo di estinzione non accennasse a diminuire, l’estinzione di massa potrebbe manifestarsi in un periodo compreso tra i prossimi 300 e 2200 anni". C’è però anche qualche buona notizia. Secondo Barnosky non è troppo tardi per tentare di salvare le specie a rischio, ma per farlo occorre combattere contro surriscaldamento globale, distruzione degli habitat, deforestazione, epidemie.
Ecco il colpevole
Lo scienziato fa notare che fino ad oggi si è comunque estinto solo l’1-2% delle specie sotto osservazione: è un segnale positivo ma che non deve comunque indurre ad abbassare la guardia, anche perché, secondo i ricercatori di Berkley l’attuale tasso di estinzione delle specie è più alto rispetto al passato. I ricercatori hanno calcolato che negli ultimi 500 anni sono si sono estinte 80 specie di mammiferi su 5570, mentre la media negli ultimi 500 milioni di anni è stata di gran lunga più bassa: appena due estinzioni ogni milione di anni. "La moderna estinzione di massa è guidata da una pericolosa miscela di cambiamenti climatici e attività umane: le conseguenze di questo fenomeno potrebbero essere imprevedibili, molto serie e, soprattutto, irreversibili" dichiara H. Richard Lane, direttore della National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences che ha finanziato lo studio.
Lo studio
Gli scienziati hanno calcolato i tassi di estinzione nelle diverse ere basandosi sulle evidenze fossili e, per le epoche più recenti, sulle cronache scientifiche. Lo stesso Barnosky ammette che il metodo non è esente da errori: la datazione dei fossili non è mai precisa e non si può essere certi di aver conteggiato ogni specie che sia mai esistita. La scelta di limitare lo studio ai mammiferi è stata dettata da motivi pratici: seguirne la storia fossile è più semplice rispetto ad altre classi di animali. Per confermare i risultati dello studio occorrerà comunque allargare lo spettro della ricerca a pesci, uccelli e invertebrati. "Il nostro lavoto sottolinea la necessità di intervenire per tutelare le specie a rischio: solo così sarà possible preservare la biodiversità nel lungo periodo. Se invece la maggior parte di loro morirà, entro i prossimi 1000 anni il mondo si troverà a dover affrontare la sesta estizione di massa".
Time to retire the old soldering iron? In the "atomtronic" circuits pictured on the right, it is atoms, not electrons, that flow. Such circuits could form the basis for ultra-sensitive gyroscopes.
Previously, atoms have been made to flow from one point to another. To get them to flow round and round in a circuit, Kevin Wright and colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, chilled 100,000 sodium atoms until they became a Bose-Einstein condensate – a blob of floating atoms that behaves as a single, coherent quantum object.
The researchers used a complex array of lasers to trap and shape the blob into a torus. A further pair of lasers, one in a rotating configuration, gave the atoms just enough energy to circulate in unison around the ring, but not so much energy that the condensate decohered.
This "current" of atoms flowed for 40 seconds, four times longer than atoms in previous experiments.
Superfluid gyroscope
Flowing atoms act like frictionless "superfluids"", which are highly sensitive to rotation, so such atomtronic circuits might be used to build ultra-sensitive gyroscopes, says Wright.
His team also pinched off part of the torus with another laser, restricting the flow of atoms, but not stopping them entirely. In electrical circuits, the closest analogy to this is a Josephson junction, a gap over which current flows between two superconductors. These form the basis of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDS), which are used to measure magnetic fields with high sensitivity.
Matthew Davis, a physicist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, calls the new work "impressive" and agrees that it could eventually lead to "practical devices that are extremely sensitive for the detection of rotational or gravitational forces".
Telematics, a mash-up of telecommunications and informatics, is the science of scanning the world with wireless devices to extract data, sending this data to a computer network, and using the information to do anything from tracking packages to monitoring the highway speed of grocery trucks. UPS relies heavily on telematics, as does GM with its OnStar navigation system. The federal government could do a better job of capitalizing on the science, according to Michael J. Ravnitzky. So he started thinking about one of the largest mobile networks on Earth: the post office.
Ravnitzky is a chief counsel at the Postal Regulatory Commission, the government agency that oversees the U.S. Postal Service. The post office is in bad shape. From 2006 to 2009, mail volume dropped by 17 percent and officials have threatened to cut Saturday service. But where others see an inefficient and increasingly outdated system, Ravnitzky sees opportunity.
With its 218,684 vehicles stopping at more than 150 million delivery points along some 232,000 routes every day, the postal-delivery fleet could be reconceived as a vast data-gathering network. “If you were designing a data collection system from scratch, it would look a lot like the postal service,” Ravnitzky says. As he reasoned in a New York Times op-ed last December, the postal network could be used to measure air pollution and ozone levels while aiding Homeland Security operations by scanning for biological or chemical agents. Or it might detect and report WiFi and cellular dead zones. Using telematics, the postal service could evolve into an entirely new kind of public utility. It could also provide a new source of revenue. Private companies or other government agencies could buy space for their sensors on mail trucks.
Although Ravnitzky’s idea is just that—an idea—there’s precedent: Two years ago, 32 Greyhound buses rigged with sensors set off across the country to gather atmospheric and environmental data for the National Weather Service; 2,000 more such buses will roll out soon.
There’s already real interest in Ravnitzky’s plan. Marc Chapman, a compliance director for Atmos Energy, the largest natural-gas distributor in the country, says he is looking into whether sensors could be attached to postal-service trucks to detect gas leaks. Telematics might just save Saturday delivery.
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Fizicienii de pretutindeni asteapta cu interes pornirea celui mai puternic accelerator de particule construit vreodata – Large Hadron Collider (LHC), un dispozitiv care a costat aproape 9 miliarde de dolari si care va reproduce conditiile existente in momentul genezei universului, Big Bang. Prof. Irina Arefeva si dr. Igor Volovici, de la Institutul Matematic Steklov din Moscova sunt de parere ca prin acest vast experiment ce va debuta la inceputul verii, sub egida CERN, langa orasul elvetian Geneva, omenirea ar putea face cunostinta cu calatoriile in timp.
Nevoile de apa ale omenirii sunt uriase. In unele tari ale lumii, in special din zonele desertice, apa e un lux. Undeva, in departare (sau in apropiere) se profileaza intinderile „nesfarsite” ale apelor marilor din care s-ar putea alimenta chiar si... martienii! Dar, ca o ironie a soartei, aceste ape sunt sarate.
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