Technology – Page 877 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

When Continents Collide: A New Twist To a 50 Million-Year-Old Tale

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Fifty million years ago, India slammed into Eurasia, a collision that gave rise to the tallest landforms on the planet, the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau.

India and Eurasia continue to converge today, though at an ever-slowing pace. University of Michigan geomorphologist and geophysicist Marin Clark wanted to know when this motion will end and why. She conducted a study that led to surprising findings that could add a new wrinkle to the well-established theory of plate tectonics – the dominant, unifying theory of geology. (more…)

MU Scientists Study How to Improve Pesticide Efficiency

COLUMBIA, Mo. – In 2007, a controversial pesticide was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use on fruit and vegetable crops, mainly in California and Florida. Farm workers and scientists protested the approval of the pesticide because its active ingredient, methyl iodide, is a known carcinogen. Now, MU researchers are studying the molecular structure of the pesticide to determine if the product could be made more efficient and safer for those living near, and working in, treated fields. (more…)

China’s Urbanization Unlikely To Lead To Fast Growth of Middle Class: UW Geographer

The number of people living in China’s cities, which last year for the first time surpassed 50 percent of the national population, is considered a boon for the consumer goods market. That is based on the assumption that there will be more families with more disposable income when poor farmers from China’s countryside move to cities and become middle-class industrial and office workers. (more…)

Microsoft Announces Availability of Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Milestone lets users explore a re-imagined, no-compromises Windows experience

BARCELONA, Spain — Feb. 29, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview — the next milestone of the Windows operating system. This latest preview will be made available for download starting today at https://preview.windows.com. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview offers a more robust experience for testing the world’s most popular operating system and is available to the widest range of people yet following the initial release of the Windows 8 Developer Preview late last year. The Developer Preview received more than 3 million downloads. (more…)

Solving a Spintronic Mystery:

*Berkeley Lab Researchers Resolve Controversy Over Gallium Manganese Arsenide that Could Boost Spintronic Performance*

A long-standing controversy regarding the semiconductor gallium manganese arsenide, one of the most promising materials for spintronic technology, looks to have been resolved. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) in collaboration with scientist from University of Notre Dame have determined the origin of the charge-carriers responsible for the ferromagnetic properties that make gallium manganese arsenide such a hot commodity for spintronic devices. Such devices utilize electron spin rather than charge to read and write data, resulting in smaller, faster and much cheaper data storage and processing. (more…)

U of T Engineering Professor Develops Microfluidic Chips for Bitumen Gas Analysis

Device could save time and money for oil/gas industry

Mechanical engineering professor David Sinton and his research team have developed a process to analyze the behaviour of bitumen in reservoirs using a microfluidic chip, a tool commonly associated with the field of medical diagnostics. The process may reduce the cost and time of analyzing bitumen-gas interaction in heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs. (more…)

Ice Age Mariners From Europe Were Among America’s First People

Some of the earliest humans to inhabit America came from Europe according to a new book.

Across Atlantic Ice puts forward a compelling case for people from northern Spain travelling to America by boat, following the edge of a sea ice shelf that connected Europe and America during the last Ice Age, 14,000 to 25,000 years ago.

Across Atlantic Ice is the result of more than a decade’s research by leading archaeologists Professor Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter and Dr Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution. Through archaeological evidence, they turn the long-held theory of the origins of New World populations on its head.

For more than 400 years, it has been claimed that people first entered America from Asia, via a land bridge that spanned the Bering Sea. We now know that some people did arrive via this route nearly 15,000 years ago, probably by both land and sea. (more…)