Breakout Nations is Ruchir Sharma’s book on the Bric countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China – and the rest of the developing world. In his day job, Sharma is head of emerging market equities and global macro at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. He warns that today’s “mania” for emerging markets is driven largely by the …
New Journal of Physics – When an optical fiber is bent by more than 90 degrees, the light begins to leak away, posing a problem for fiber optics communications. But by using special lenses that can bend light by not only 90°, but also 180° (i.e., a U-turn) or 360° (i.e., a full loop), scientists …
Clever math could enable a high-quality 3-D camera so simple, cheap and power-efficient that it could be incorporated into handheld devices. At MIT, researchers have used the Kinect to create a “Minority Report”-style computer interface, a navigation system for miniature robotic helicopters and a holographic-video transmitter, among other things. Now imagine a device that provides …
BBC News – Doctors in London say they have cured a baby boy of a life-threatening disease which was destroying his liver. They implanted cells which acted like a temporary liver, allowing the damaged organ to recover. A virus had damaged his liver causing it to fail. Instead of going on a waiting list for …
Computerworld has the second half of a two-part series on technology breakthroughs that have the potential to change computing. Leaps in access, power, control 1. Multi-gigabit Wi-Fi New wireless communication standard WiGig can operate at up to 7Gbps. This is more than an order of magnitude faster than today’s 802.11n Wi-Fi, which can operate at …
Carnival of Nuclear Energy 65 is up at NEI Nuclear Notes Canadian Energy Issues – Environmentalists who make a big deal out of opposing the proposed expansion of the Keystone pipeline do so on the grounds of the sheer amount of carbon it represents. Keystone carries synthetic crude from the Alberta oil sands to refineries …
Technology Review – The automakers Volvo and Jaguar are testing the possibility of using flywheels instead of batteries in hybrid electric vehicles to aid acceleration and help engines operate more efficiently. The devices could reduce fuel consumption by 20 percent and would cost a third as much as batteries. Volvo will begin road-testing a car …
Lawrenceville plasma physics has more neutrons per joule than the National Ignition Facility * NIF produces just a bit less than a million neutrons per joule of energy. * NIF researchers reported producing an impressive 400 trillion neutrons from the fusion reactions in their best experiments. But NIF uses a lot of energy to accomplish …
A promising cancer treatment drug can restore function of a heart en route to failure from high blood pressure, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. The drug, a type of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor being evaluated in numerous ongoing clinical trials, has been shown to reverse the harmful effects of autophagy in heart …
China’s plan to build more nuclear power stations to meet the nation’s growing energy needs could soon be back on track after a safety review is set to completed this summer, according to a mainland news report Friday. The central government will assess the report and decide if safety improvements are needed, though Chinese experts …
An atomic-scale depiction of the SketchSET shows three wires (green bars) converging on the central island (center green area), which can house up to two electrons. Electrons tunnel from one wire to another through the island. Conditions on the third wire can result in distinct conductive properties. A team from Pitt, UW-Madison, and HP Labs …