A Californian-based study has looked in detail at air quality and the impact of traffic-related air pollution on premature birth. Published in BioMed Central’s open access journal Environmental Health, results from this study show that traffic-related air pollution, especially polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), is associated with up to a 30% increase in premature births, and …
1. A Digital Neurosynaptic Core Using Embedded Crossbar Memory with 45pJ per Spike in 45nm (4 pages) They use the chip to get 89-94% accuracy for image recognition and classification. The grand challenge of neuromorphic computation is to develop a flexible brain-like architecture capable of a wide array of real-time applications, while striving towards the …
A major new international study involving researchers from the Sahlgrenska Academy and Sahlgrenska University Hospital has revealed that aspirin, statins, beta blockers and ACE inhibitors are prescribed far too infrequently. They are cheap, preventive medicines that could prevent a huge number of deaths from heart attacks and strokes. The study identifies aspirin, statins (cholesterol-lowering medication), …
Global production of biofuels increased 17 percent in 2010 to reach an all-time high of 105 billion liters (28 billion gallons US, 667 million barrels of oil), up from 90 billion liters (24 billion gallons US) in 2009. Biofuels provided 2.7% of all global fuel for road transportation—an increase from 2% in 2009. The two …
Sasha Pallenberg from the specialist Internet site Netbooknews has repeated his prediction that sales of tablet computers using Android would surpass those of the iPad by the end of next year. This prediction seems to be for unit sales volume and depends upon the success of $100 and cheaper tablets and $200 tablets. Dollar volume …
Example of a non-reciprocal bi-anisotropic metamaterial geometry, which explicitly violates spatial and time reversal symmetries. An elementary unit of the split ring-based “perfect magnetoelectric metamaterial” design is supplemented with a magnetized ferrite particle. The particle is magnetized and shifted along the x-direction with respect to the center of the split ring. The particle magnetization is …
Diagram of an Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator. Credit: U.S. Department of Energy Two of the robotic missions NASA selected for further study last week would be powered by experimental nuclear generators. NASA picked robotic missions to Mars, a comet and Saturn’s moon Titan as finalists last week for a launch opportunity in 2016, and two …
Ny Teknik recently participated in two new tests of the Italian ‘energy catalyzer’, providing more accurate measurements to reduce possible error sources. The new tests with the energy catalyzer, which seems to generate heat by an unknown nuclear reaction, took place in Bologna on 19 and 28 April, 2011. As in previous tests the objective …
Update – April 4, 2011 Nextbigfuture edged up in Technorati authority Temporarily at least Nextbigfuture is in the top 200 of overall blogs in terms of Technorati authority. So we are behind topless robots and icanhazcheesburgers (funny cat pictures). Also, ahead of craftzine, climate progress and lots of other sites. At least for today. We …
The Godson-3A chip was implemented in a 65 nanometer process and ran at 1 GHz to deliver 16 gigaflops of floating point oomph. The chip has 425 million transistors, an area of 174.5 square millimeters, and burned only 10 watts under load. The chip included two 16-bit HyperTransport ports (licensed from Advanced Micro Devices), 4 …
EasyJet has announced the use of a nanocoating by a company called tripleO on its planes for a range of benefits, not least fuel savings and carbon footprint reduction. The coating reduces drag by up to 39%. TripleO established thirty-years ago, has a twenty-year heritage as a surface protectant for the US military, but it …