Technology – Page 916 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Got Mo-tivation?

EAST LANSING, Mich. — To help keep the symptoms of muscular dystrophy at bay, doctors say patients should maintain a positive attitude and be as active as possible; complete inactivity can make the disease worse. Lucky for Mo Gerhardt, negativity and inactivity aren’t in his vocabulary.

Gerhardt, who exudes positive energy, is an academic adviser at Michigan State University, color commentator for the MSU women’s basketball team, motivational speaker, a multiple medal winner in international powerhockey (electric wheelchair hockey) and author of the new book, “Perspective from an Electric Chair.” (more…)

Closest Type Ia Supernova in Decades Solves a Cosmic Mystery

Early close-ups of a Type Ia supernova allow Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues to picture its progenitor and infer how it exploded

Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia’s) are the extraordinarily bright and remarkably similar “standard candles” astronomers use to measure cosmic growth, a technique that in 1998 led to the discovery of dark energy – and 13 years later to a Nobel Prize, “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.” The light from thousands of SN Ia’s has been studied, but until now their physics – how they detonate and what the star systems that produce them actually look like before they explode – has been educated guesswork. (more…)

MU Unveils 3-D Visual Immersion Laboratory

*New “iLab” will allow undergraduate students to design projects in a 3-D environment*

COLUMBIA, Mo. – One of the most difficult tasks architects and interior designers face when designing buildings and rooms is visualizing exactly what their projects will look like when they are finished. Now, the University of Missouri architectural studies department has developed the Immersive Visualization Lab (iLab) to help students visualize their designs more accurately. Bimal Balakrishnan, an assistant professor of architectural studies in MU College of Human Environmental Sciences, says the iLab will be one of few labs in the country to allow undergraduate students to get hands-on experience using immersive 3-D technology to complete and test their designs as part of their design studio curriculum.

“Most university immersion labs are reserved primarily for graduate students to use for research purposes,” Balakrishnan said. “While the MU iLab will be used for research, it will also serve as an excellent teaching and experiential tool for undergraduate students.” (more…)

NASA Discovers First Earth-Size Planets Beyond Our Solar System

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-size planets orbiting a sun-like star outside our solar system. The planets, called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are too close to their star to be in the so-called habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface, but they are the smallest exoplanets ever confirmed around a star like our sun. (more…)

Abandoned Mines Hold Potential to Capture Wind Energy

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL — Minnesota’s Iron Range is pocked with ponds – abandoned open pit mines – that could help energy providers more efficiently use intermittent renewable energy sources, such as wind, to meet state renewable energy mandates. A study released Friday by the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Natural Resources Research Institute shows that the water-laden pits have the potential to store wind energy using a process developed in Europe in the late 1800s.

The pumped-hydro storage process would use excess late-night wind energy to pump water uphill from the pits to a higher-elevation holding pond. Then, when electricity demand goes up during the day, the process reverses the flow and captures the energy in hydro turbines. For every 100 megawatts used to pump the water upward, the plant generates nearly 80 megawatts through the turbines. (more…)

New Survey From FITNESS Magazine and omg! From Yahoo! Reveals Jennifer Aniston as Top Choice for New Year’s Resolution Inspiration

Aniston also voted #1 choice for celebrity work out buddy;

40% voted Britney Spears the best career makeover/comeback;

56% say Maria Shriver had the smartest life makeover of 2011 by ditching the ‘Governator’

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)-– Jennifer Aniston once again tops the charts, beating fellow hot-body celeb Halle Berry with 38% percent of the vote as the celebrity whose body is most likely to inspire real life makeovers. With ‘new year, new you’ resolutions in full swing, FITNESS Magazine teamed up with omg! From Yahoo!, the No.1 celebrity news site reaching more than 28 million fans per month, for an exclusive survey of 1,500 women and men to find out which star-studded body and life transformations rev up their New Year’s resolutions.

The survey found that 44% of women are looking to Aniston to inspire their fitness goals, followed by Berry (30%), Sofia Vergara (12%), Cameron Diaz (10%), and Blake Lively (7%). However 35% of men found inspiration from Berry. (more…)

Acid Rain Poses a Previously Unrecognized Threat to Great Lakes Sugar Maples

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— The number of sugar maples in Upper Great Lakes forests is likely to decline in coming decades, according to University of Michigan ecologists and their colleagues, due to a previously unrecognized threat from a familiar enemy: acid rain. (more…)

Meteorite Shockwaves Trigger Dust Avalanches on Mars

Dust avalanches around impact craters on Mars appear to be the result of the shock wave preceding the actual impact, according to a study led by an undergraduate student at the UA.

When a meteorite careens toward the dusty surface of the Red Planet, it kicks up dust and can cause avalanching even before the rock from outer space hits the ground, a research team led by an undergraduate student at the University of Arizona has discovered.

“We expected that some of the streaks of dust that we see on slopes are caused by seismic shaking during impact,” said Kaylan Burleigh, who led the research project. “We were surprised to find that it rather looks like shockwaves in the air trigger the avalanches even before the impact.” (more…)