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Force is the Key to Granular State-Shifting

By Guest PostFebruary 21, 2013Scienceadding energy, behavior, change, change in force, dirt, granular materials, granular system, heat, james puckett, karen daniels, north Carolina, plastic granules, plastic material, property of equilibration, sand, state, state of material, state university, thermodynamic system, thermodynamics, thermometer, transition, types of particles, underlying ideas

Ever wonder why sand can both run through an hourglass like a liquid and be solid enough to support buildings? It’s because granular materials – like sand or dirt – can change their behavior, or state. Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that the forces individual grains exert on one another are what most affect that transition.

Physicists have explored the changing behavior of granular materials by comparing it to what happens in thermodynamic systems. In a thermodynamic system, you can change the state of a material – like water – from a liquid to a gas by adding energy (heat) to the system. One of the most fundamental and important observations about temperature, however, is that it has the ability to equilibrate: a hot cup of tea eventually cools to match the temperature of the room. (more…)

Yammer Accelerates Momentum Following Microsoft Acquisition

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2013Technologyadam pisoni, david sacks, dwf llp, enterprise social networking, forbes global, glaxosmithkline, grundfos, mcgladrey llp, microsoft acquisition, natural gas, office web apps, reckitt benckiser, rio tinto, sabmiller, scott singer, united states, yammer

Quadruples sales in Q4; surpasses 7 million users.

SAN FRANCISCO — Feb. 20, 2013 — Yammer, Inc., a best-in-class Enterprise Social Network and part of the Microsoft Office Division, today announced record growth in 2012 and accelerating momentum following the Microsoft acquisition.

2012 Highlights

• Full-year 2012 sales nearly tripled year-over-year (ended Jan. 31, 2013)

• Fourth-quarter sales quadrupled year-over-year (ended Jan. 31, 2013)

• Number of paying customers increased 165 percent in 2012

• Surpassed 7 million registered users (more…)

IBM THINK Exhibit Opens at INNOVENTIONS at Epcot

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2013Technologyandroid tablets, apple ipads, centennial, danielle miller, epcot, florida, flow of data, gesture wall, high school teachers, ibm, ibm think, innovation, innoventions west, lee green, lincoln center, new york, orlando area, Technology, think exhibit app, university high school, walt disney, world resort

Exciting educational experience extends into classrooms with free lesson plans and mobile apps

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – 20 Feb 2013: In celebration of National Engineers Week,IBM teamed up with Orlando-area high school teachers and students today to unveil IBM THINK, a new interactive experience in INNOVENTIONS West at Epcot at Walt Disney World Resort. The 6,600 square-foot interactive exhibit is designed to showcase how the world can work better with the help of technology and innovation. The THINK experience presented by IBM explores how technology transforms the way we live and work. (more…)

European Satellite Confirms UW Numbers: Arctic Ocean is on Thin Ice

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2013Environmentandy ridout, arctic ocean, Arctic sea ice, arctic waters, assimilation system, axel schweiger, below the ice, cloud, cryosat 2 satellite, data, duncan wingham, european satellite, european space agency, extent, ice ocean modeling, icesat, jinlun zhang, katharine giles, land elevation satellite, NASA, ocean surface, pan arctic, piomas, polar scientist, rosemary willatt, satellite observation, seymour laxon, thin ice, total volume, uk, university of washington, vulnerable, warming

The September 2012 record low in Arctic sea-ice extent was big news, but a missing piece of the puzzle was lurking below the ocean’s surface. What volume of ice floats on Arctic waters? And how does that compare to previous summers? These are difficult but important questions, because how much ice actually remains suggests how vulnerable the ice pack will be to more warming.

New satellite observations confirm a University of Washington analysis that for the past three years has produced widely quoted estimates of Arctic sea-ice volume. Findings based on observations from a European Space Agency satellite, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, show that the Arctic has lost more than a third of summer sea-ice volume since a decade ago, when a U.S. satellite collected similar data. (more…)

In Conversation with: Paul Bracken, Expert on Nuclear ‘Power Politics’

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2013Politicsnuclear power politics, nuclear program, nuclear war plan, second nuclear age, weapons program

North Korea, which just conducted its third nuclear test, is using its weapons program to deter the United States by holding its allies “hostage,” according to Paul Bracken, who teaches management and political science at Yale. (more…)

Unchecked Antibiotic Use in Animals May Affect Global Human Health

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2013Healthabsorbed by animals, animal health, animal production, animals, antibiotic resistance genes, antibiotics in china, args, bacteria, China, china alone, chinese, commercial pig farms, consumer of antibiotics, downstream, fend off diseases, fertilizer, global human health, global risk, groundwater, impact on environment, james tiedje, largest producer, management of wastes, michigan state university, microbes carrying args, multidrug resistance, pollutants, production, rivers, unchecked antibiotic use, united states, use of antibiotics, veterinary antibiotic, world organization, yong guan zhu

The increasing production and use of antibiotics, about half of which is used in animal production, is mirrored by the growing number of antibiotic resistance genes, or ARGs, effectively reducing antibiotics’ ability to fend off diseases – in animals and humans.

A study in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that China – the world’s largest producer and consumer of antibiotics – and many other countries don’t monitor the powerful medicine’s usage or impact on the environment. (more…)

Higgs Boson Discussion Launches UChicago Discovery Series

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2013Education, Science17 miles, accelerator, aircraft, argonne physicist, atlas, calibrate, cern physics laboratory, circumference, critical mass, david logan center, detector, donald levy, elementary particles, fermi, gigantic machines, higgs boson, high energy physics, internet, Large Hadron Collider, lch, lightening arresters, louis block professor, marcela carena, mark oreglia, mass, national accelerator laboratory, particle, particle beams, patricia mcbride, physics, protocol for communicating, sterilize milk cartons, switzerland, theoretical physicists, time, tom lecompte, toroidal lhc apparatus, uchicago discovery series, universe, university of chicago, virtual audience, young kee kim

The long-sought Higgs boson—the particle that endows all elementary particles in the universe with mass—was elusive no longer when scientists at the CERN physics laboratory in Switzerland, discovered it last summer.

The July 4, 2012 announcement of the discovery appealed to both the general public and the media: Fifty-five media organizations and more than one billion television viewers made it an event that couldn’t be missed. Time even dubbed the Higgs boson “Particle of the Year.” (more…)

Size of Lunch Dictates Force of Crunch

By Guest PostFebruary 19, 2013Science3d, animal, animal bite force, animated computer model, biology letters, bite, bite strength relationship, brown university, co evolving foods, crush, crushing device, daily sustenance, ecology and evolution, ecosystem, elizabeth brainerd, eric lopresti, force, humans, jaw, length force relationship, maximum force, measure, muscle, muscle length, nicholas gidmark, nicolai konow, optimal value, phenomenon of physiology, piston activated, population, predators and prey, prey sizes, species, variable bite force, x ray markers, xray videos

Even in the same animal, not all bites are the same. A new study finds that because the force in a muscle depends on how much it is stretched, an animal’s bite force depends on the size of what it is biting. The finding has direct implications for ecology and evolution.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Many animals prefer food — snails, nuts, etc. — that must be cracked and crushed. Scientists have measured the maximum force of their impressive bites before, but a new study introduces a significant subtlety: bite force depends not only on the size and strength of the eater, but also the size of the eatee. That insight has important implications in the lives of predators and prey. (more…)

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