Technology – Page 581 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

How red crabs on Christmas Island speak for the tropics

Each year, the land-dwelling Christmas Island red crab takes an arduous and shockingly precise journey from its earthen burrow to the shores of the Indian Ocean where weeks of mating and egg laying await.

Native to the Australian territories of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, millions of the crabs start rolling across the island roads and landscape in crimson waves when the November rains begin. After a two-week scuttle to the sea, the male crab sets up and defends a mating burrow for himself and a female of his kind, the place where she will incubate their clutch for another two weeks. Before the morning of the high tide that precedes the December new moon, the females must emerge to release their millions of eggs into the ocean. A month later, the next generation of crabs comes ashore. (more…)

UCLA physicists played prominent role in Nobel Prize-winning Higgs boson research

Two large collaborations of scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland made worldwide news in July 2012 when they announced independent observations of the elusive Higgs boson particle — a discovery hailed as one of the greatest scientific accomplishments of recent decades.

This so-called “God particle” was first postulated some 50 years ago as a crucial element of the modern theory of the forces of nature — it is, physicists say, what gives everything in the universe mass — and it had been the subject of worldwide searches ever since. (more…)

Gorillas und die Coltan-Mafia

Claudia Praxmayers spannender Artenschutz-Thriller „Bluterde“

Tatort Kongo: Drei Gorillas brutal abgeschlachtet und einer ihrer Ranger ermordet – schlimmer hätte es für die leidenschaftliche Artenschützerin Dr. Lea Winter eigentlich nicht kommen können. Als dann auch noch ein Gorillababy verschwindet, reist sie selbst in den kongolesischen Dschungel.

Lea weiß um die Gefahr, der ihr Gorilla-Projekt dort ausgesetzt ist: Skrupellose Rebellen schürfen im Nationalpark illegal nach Coltan – ein wertvolles Erz, das weltweit für die Produktion von Handys benötigt wird und auf dem internationalen Markt viel Geld bringt. Schnell gerät Lea ins Visier der mächtigen Coltan-Mafia, deren Einfluss bis in die westliche Welt reicht und die ohne Gewissensbisse alles aus dem Weg räumt, was sie von ihrem Ziel abhält … (more…)

On the Road to Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing

Collaboration at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source Induces High Temperature Superconductivity in a Toplogical Insulator

Reliable quantum computing would make it possible to solve certain types of extremely complex technological problems millions of times faster than today’s most powerful supercomputers. Other types of problems that quantum computing could tackle would not even be feasible with today’s fastest machines. The key word is “reliable.” If the enormous potential of quantum computing is to be fully realized, scientists must learn to create “fault-tolerant” quantum computers. A small but important step toward this goal has been achieved by an international collaboration of researchers from China’s Tsinghua University and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) working at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). (more…)

Starting A New You

We can all get stuck in a rut from time to time, sometimes without really noticing it. We just keep plodding on, staying in our comfort zone, keeping our head down and just getting on with it. The things is, after a while, plodding along with your head down soon gets to be really boring. Soul destroying, even. Wouldn’t it be nicer to stride along, full of energy with your head held high, enjoying the blue skies? Making changes to your circumstances requires effort, courage and commitment, and if you are prepared to invest in yourself, the payback is well worth it.

So how do you go about achieving a new you? Start off by setting some goals. Ask yourself honestly about the things you want to change in your life, and the things you are happy to keep the same. (more…)

American history at your fingertips

The launch of the Digital Public Library of America brings greater access to local treasures.

History became easier for the nation and the world to access, thanks to the recent launch of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). (more…)

IBM Research to Accelerate Big Data Discovery

New lab unifies data, expertise and novel analytics to speed discovery in industries including retail, medicine and finance

San Jose, Calif. – 10 Oct 2013: Scientists from IBM today announced the Accelerated Discovery Lab, a new collaborative environment specifically targeted at helping clients find unknown relationships from disparate data sets.

The workspace includes access to diverse data sources, unique research capabilities for analytics such as domain models, text analytics and natural language processing capabilities derived from Watson, a powerful hardware and software infrastructure, and broad domain expertise including biology, medicine, finance, weather modeling, mathematics, computer science and information technology. This combination reduces time to insight resulting in business impact – cost savings, revenue generation and scientific impact – ahead of the traditional pace of discovery. (more…)

„Keiner weiß, was in den nächsten Monaten in Fukushima passieren wird“

Rund zweieinhalb Jahre nach Fukushima erreicht die Strahlenbelastung immer wieder neue Höchstwerte, und immer wieder hört man von Pannen am havarierten Atomkraftwerk. Wie sieht die Energiechefin Masako Konishi vom WWF Japan die Lage?

WWF Deutschland: Wie ist die aktuelle Situation vor Ort? Sind Sie besorgt?

Masako Konishi: Ich wäre gerne hoffnungsvoll, bin aber sehr besorgt. Die Taifun-Saison beginnt, das bedeutet Regen und Stürme. Kontaminiertes Wasser fließt jetzt schon in den Boden und in den Pazifik. Die Fischer in der Region wollten gerade ihre Arbeit wieder aufnehmen. Aber nach den neuesten Nachrichten über radioaktiv kontaminiertes Wasser, das aus Lecks in den Kühlwassertanks ins Meer strömt, wird das wohl auf Dauer nicht gehen. Diese Tanks stehen überall in Fukushima, es sind mehr als tausend – es gibt noch keine Lösung, was mit diesen Hundertausenden Tonnen radioaktiv verseuchten Wassers passieren soll. Es gibt so viele Probleme, die noch nicht gelöst sind. Der Premierminister sagt, wir hätten alles unter Kontrolle. Aber das sagt er auch nur, weil wir den Zuschlag für die Olympischen Spiele 2020 in Tokio bekommen haben. Keiner weiß, was in den nächsten Monaten passieren wird. (more…)