Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, brought news of Microsoft’s plans to merge the physical world with the digital word during an Oct. 6 lecture at the University of Toronto.
“The computer is being endowed with more and more human sensing-like capability,” said Mundie. “We think this will be the predominant way people will use computers in the future.” (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— North American forests appear to have a greater capacity to soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas than researchers had previously anticipated. (more…)
Since 1995, scientists have discovered approximately 600 planets around other stars, including 50 planets last month alone, and one that orbits two stars, like Tatooine in Star Wars. Detection of the first Earthlike planet remains elusive, however, and now the University of Chicago joins the search with the addition of Jacob Bean and Daniel Fabrycky to the faculty. (more…)
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists have discovered that bacterial communication could have a significant impact on the planet’s climate.
In the ocean, bacteria coalesce on tiny particles of carbon-rich detritus sinking through the depths. WHOI marine biogeochemists Laura Hmelo, Benjamin Van Mooy, and Tracy Mincer found that these bacteria send out chemical signals to discern if other bacteria are in the neighborhood. If enough of their cohorts are nearby, then bacteria en masse commence secreting enzymes that break up the carbon-containing molecules within the particles into more digestible bits. It has been suggested that coordinated expression of enzymes is very advantageous for bacteria on sinking particles, and Hmelo and her colleagues have uncovered the first proof of this in the ocean. (more…)
*Replacing conventional laboratory tests with a new DNA sequence-based technology to identify pathogens causing bloodstream infections dramatically lowered mortality and health-care costs, a clinical study conducted by an interdisciplinary UA research team found.*
Unlike conventional laboratory tests, a new technology called PNA-FISH is designed to rapidly identify bloodstream pathogens by their genetic code. Results are available within hours instead of days providing pharmacists and physicians with information they can use to rapidly customize antimicrobial treatment for patients with infections.
PNA-FISH is an abbreviation for “peptide nucleic acid fluorescence in situ hybridization.” Rapid reporting of PNA FISH results to pharmacists and physicians cut the mortality of ICU patients with enterococcus or streptococcus bloodstream infections by almost half and slashed mortality from yeast infections by 86 percent. In addition, the intervention resulted in healthcare cost reduction of almost $5 million per year. (more…)
New assessments by researchers using the latest high-tech tools to study the diets of early hominids are challenging long-held assumptions about what our ancestors ate, says a study by the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Arkansas. (more…)
*Former prime minister’s speech honours Alan Gotlieb, former ambassador to U.S.*
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney, the man entrepreneur Peter Munk described as “one of our greatest statesmen,” attributed much of his success – and Canada’s under his leadership – to the personal relationships he and his ambassador cultivated with leaders south of the border.
Mulroney spoke at a University of Toronto conference, Diplomacy in the Digital Age, Oct. 13, an event held in honour of Alan Gotlieb, the former ambassador to the United States who served three prime ministers. (more…)
A coupled line of swinging pendulums apparently has nothing in common with an elastic film that buckles and folds under compression while floating on a liquid, but scientists at the University of Chicago and Tel Aviv University have discovered a deep connection between the two phenomena. (more…)
