"Portuguese researchers have created the first paper-based transistors. To be more precise, they’ve made the first field effect transistors (FET) with a paper interstrate layer. According to the research team, these new transistors offer the same level of performance as ’state-of-the-art oxide based thin film transistors (TFTs) produced on glass or crystalline silicon substrates.’ Possible applications for these paper-based transistors include new disposable electronics devices, such as paper displays, smart labels, bio-applications or RFID tags." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
"The repetitive behavior of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), such as excessive hand-washing or turning the lights on and off multiple times before leaving a room, sounds like the product of a mind in overdrive. But it may actually be the result of an underactive brain, according to a new study." So.. Drink more coffee to stop obsessing about things. :) - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
"The plot took about 16 hours to generate. The computation required 18 computers (52 cores) using the Hadoop implementation of map/reduce. We printed it as 20 sections, each 24x36 inches, each taking about between 1 and 2 hours to download to the printer and print. Both the computation and printing have significant room for speed improvements. We later reprinted it as 5 sections, each 24 inches wide and about 10 feet long." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
With this map, I can rule the world...... Or just send a whole bunch of spam posing as a Nigerian prince.... - Chris Reed
"Astronomers analyzing the first images captured by the new Hubble Space Kaleidoscope, which went online Tuesday, announced that they've acquired the first concrete evidence that the universe is in a constant state of total weirdness." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
Researchers in Japan are developing a gadget that could enable people to hold a three-dimensional image of someone in the palm of their hand. They hope the gCubik, which is still at the prototype stage, will later be developed to move in real time and appear to speak. - Kelly Fox
The strategy being employed in Louisiana by proponents of ID [Intelligent Design] - including the Seattle-based Discovery Institute - is more subtle and potentially more difficult to challenge. Instead of trying to prove that ID is science, they have sought to bestow on teachers the right to introduce non-scientific alternatives to evolution under the banner of "academic freedom". - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
I hope that "academic freedom" isn't contagious. - Kelly Fox
This also allows the introduction of alchemy, astrology and just to make the fundamentalists happy, the belief that thunder is created by Thor's hammer into the science curriculum. - Chris Reed
The 2008 update of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition features a fresh crop of new words and phrases that have successfully become part of the mainstream English language through prolonged and widespread usage in a variety of publications. One of these new entries, mondegreen ("a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung") has delighted wordplay aficionados for years. Mondegreen was first coined by author Sylvia Wright in 1954 in Atlantic magazine, when she confessed to a childhood misinterpretation of the Scottish ballad "The Bonny Earl of Moray." When she first heard the lyric "they had slain the Earl of Moray and had laid him on the green," she felt terribly sorry for the "poor Lady Mondegreen." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
"Informally known as uPower or UPA, the adapter would serve as a single power supply for one or more mobile or fixed devices or power packs. Once hooked up to the uPower adapter, an electronic appliance would use low data-rate communications to "request" the voltage it needs, and the adapter would adjust volts to operate the appliance. ... This means there is conceptually no limit to the variety of devices (even hybrid cars) that could be plugged into the UPA." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
The Nikkei business daily said Toyota would equip solar panels on the roof of the high-end version of the Prius when it redesigns the gasoline-electric hybrid car early next year, and the power generated by the system would be used for the air conditioning. - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
They're now aiming for the Mars Phoenix look? The Prius will be even more "eclectic looking" and there will be no way to stop the smug that will roll into the city. Can't wait for the Southpark episode! - Shellee
"The first high-resolution map of the human cortical network reveals that the brain has its own version of Grand Central Station, a central hub that is structurally connected to many other parts of the brain. Scientists generated the map using a new type of brain imaging known as diffusion imaging. The technique maps the largely inaccessible tangle of the brain's white matter--the long, thin fibers that ferry nerve signals between cells. Scientists hope that using the noninvasive method to study neural connections in people with Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, and autism will shed light on how changes in brain architecture are linked to these complex diseases." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
Did you catch this part? I think they're saying the singularity is near. "Network studies in other fields, from the Internet to protein interaction networks, suggest that these kinds of highly connected nodes tend to be very important for determining what the network does as a whole." - Shellee
"What do black holes and entangled particles have in common? Until about a year ago, physicists thought that the two entities existed in completely separate worlds. Then, in 2007, physicist Michael Duff from Imperial College London demonstrated a correlation between the entanglement of three qubits and the entropy of a black hole. In the past year, several studies have demonstrated even more connections." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
‘To wrap or not to wrap; that is the qubit.’ is my new motto. - Shellee
"Honda has begun the first commercial production ever of a hydrogen fuel cell-powered car.
The Japanese auto manufacturer ceremoniously launched production of its first hydrogen-powered vehicles on Sunday in Tochigi, Japan, and announced its first customers.
The four-door sedan, called the FCX Clarity, runs on electricity from a fuel cell battery that is powered by hydrogen fuel. Steam is the car's only byproduct. The car can get a combined (city and highway driving) fuel efficiency of about 72 miles per kg of H2 which, according to Honda's own estimates, is the equivalent of getting about 74 mpg on a gas-powered car. The car can be driven for about 280 miles before needing to be refueled." - Kelly Fox
that's pretty awesome. i wonder when they'll make it out to the us. probably 2020 or something, i'm being sarcastic, of course. - Cee Bee
They're available for lease in parts of California this month. - Kelly Fox
"Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users' names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on YouTube, a judge ruled Wednesday." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
You have an uncanny ability to post spook stories like this at the precise time I'm trolling the site at the center of the story. Is this deliberate? - Shellee
"The year is 1908, and it's just after seven in the morning. A man is sitting on the front porch of a trading post at Vanavara in Siberia. Little does he know, in a few moments, he will be hurled from his chair and the heat will be so intense he will feel as though his shirt is on fire.
That's how the Tunguska event felt 40 miles from ground zero." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
"New solar arrays from SolFocus generate more power than conventional solar panels but use just one-thousandth as much expensive semiconductor material. The arrays' curved mirrors focus sunlight onto one-square-centimeter solar cells, concentrating the light 500 times and improving the cells' efficiency. SolFocus's first power-producing installation will be generating 500 kilowatts of electricity by the end of the summer. The company expects that by 2010, electricity from its arrays will be about as cheap as electricity from conventional sources." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
This is a Xerox company. We saw them when we interviewed the CTO a couple of months ago. Interesting how Xerox is trying to change its image away from a copier company. - Robert Scoble
"Is the matter in the universe arranged in a fractal pattern? A new study of nearly a million galaxies suggests it is – though there are no well-accepted theories to explain why that would be so." - Kelly Fox via Bookmarklet
