Author Archives: Guest Post

Coming Soon to a Server Near You: Fewer Internet Delays

Researchers at the UA-led Center for Integrated Access Networks, the largest optical research center in the U.S., are developing methods to improve transmission speed, efficiency and reliability of Internet content, including everything from cell phone calls or texts to emails and television.

If you’ve ever received an email or text hours after it was sent and privately raged at having missed a deadline, or twiddled your thumbs while waiting for a webpage to load, then you’ve been a victim of Internet latency. (more…)

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Flash Forward 100 Years: Climate Change Scenarios in California’s Bay-Delta

USGS scientists and academic colleagues investigated how California’s interconnected San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (the Bay-Delta system) is expected to change from 2010 to 2099 in response to both fast and moderate climate warming scenarios. Results indicate that this area will feel impacts of global climate change in the next century with shifts in its biological communities, rising sea level, and modified water supplies.

“The protection of California’s Bay-Delta system will continue to be a top priority for maintaining the state’s agricultural economy, water security to tens of millions of users, and essential habitat to a valuable ecosystem,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “This new USGS research complements ongoing initiatives to conserve the Bay-Delta by providing sound scientific understanding for managing this valuable system such that it continues to provide the services we need in the face of climate uncertainty.” (more…)

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Bing Social Search Team Makes Search ‘Less Lonely’

*Three members of Bing’s social search team chat with Microsoft News Center about working in the exciting technological frontier of search – and what they do when they’re not hard at work.*

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Sean Suchter’s last name is a misspelling of the German word for searcher, which has to be one of the greater aptronyms in the technology industry.

Suchter heads up Bing’s social search team on Microsoft’s Silicon Valley Campus, where he relishes his job as a frontiersmen in the field of search, particularly social search. (more…)

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Berkeley Lab to Build Cost Model for Fuel Cells

*A $2-million award from DOE will help bring down the cost of next-generation fuel cells.*

Fuel cells seem like an ideal energy source—they’re clean, efficient, silent and don’t require transmission lines. The hitch? They can be costly. Now scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) hope to change that equation by building a sophisticated cost model that will take into account the total cost of ownership.

With a $2-million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, a team of scientists led by Eric Masanet will perform a detailed assessment of fuel cell design and manufacturing that takes into account both intrinsic and external benefits. The aim is to quantify not only traditional manufacturing costs but also benefits that may previously have been overlooked and may ultimately bring down the cost of fuel cells. (more…)

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The Genographic Project Confirms Humans Migrated Out of Africa through Arabia

New analytical method approaches the unstudied 99% of the human genome

WASHINGTON, D.C., – 02 Nov 2011: Evolutionary history shows that human populations likely originated in Africa, and the Genographic Project, the most extensive survey of human population genetic data to date, suggests where they went next. A study by the Project finds that modern humans migrated out of Africa via a southern route through Arabia, rather than a northern route by way of Egypt. These findings will be highlighted today at a conference at the National Geographic Society. (more…)

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Digital Media A Factor in Ferocity of Political Campaigns

MU researcher finds negative language inspires further viciousness

A University of Missouri study of recent political blogs indicates politics are getting nastier due to digital media, which are segmenting people into polarized interest groups. The researcher recommends a balanced approach to finding information in order to return civility to political discourse, which is at the heart of democracy. (more…)

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