First up was the new Windows 7 desktop. The new desktop includes a thicker taskbar, improved system tray and no sidebar. The orb on the start menu also glistens after hover over…
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Ad Blames Illegal Immigrants for Global Warming (Video) : Planetsave
Rather than recommending that Americans cut back on their excessive consumer lifestyle, an anti-immigration group has released an advertisement touting controversial research that has claimed immigrants’ carbon footprints quadruple in size after moving to the US.
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | New minerals point to wetter Mars
A Nasa space probe has discovered a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars.
The find suggests liquid water remained on Mars’ surface a billion years later than scientists had previously thought.
DailyTech – Robot Capable of Doing Chores Developed in Japan
Toyota Motor Corp. and the University of Tokyo have jointly developed a prototype robot named “AR” capable of handling household chores according to The Mainichi Daily News. In a demonstration for reporters the robot was able to clean up rooms, put away dishes from a dining table and pickup shirts and put them in a washing machine. The robot was also capable of moving furniture in order to sweep under a table.
The robot is 155 cm tall, weighs 130 kg, and moves around on wheels. This particular robot’s strengths include the ability to distinguish different objects such as furniture and cleaning equipment. Past robots have traditionally had difficulty handling anything other than solid objects, but AR is able to recognize clothes by their creases and actually pick them up, repeating the action should it drop them.
The robot is also able to learn by analyzing past failures and alter its behavior patterns. The robot is equipped with two arms, five recognition cameras and laser sensors. AR’s movements are slow and often clumsy, but future improvements are planned according to University of Tokyo Professor Masayuki Inaba who said, “The task now is to improve its efficiency and endurance.”
According to Toyota and Tokyo University’s Information and Robot Technology Research Initiative, the robot was developed to help ease the future labor shortage looming due to Japan’s aging society and low birthrate. The developers said they will keep improving the robot and hope to start marketing it in around seven years.
DailyTech – U.S. Beats Britain to Fusion Super Steel
New steel from Oak Ridge National Laboratory is cheaper and stronger than past steel, likely to be used in ITER fusion reactor
The new steel was developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the U.S. ITER Project Office, which is housed at ORNL. The ORNL was recently in the news for inventing a new titanium manufacturing technique.
With its new cast stainless steel, it continued its successes. The new steel is approximately 70 percent stronger than comparable steels and could be a boon to the fusion industry. Its material parameters are being evaluated carefully, as it is being considered for use in shielding ITER’s fusion device.
ITER is a multibillion-dollar international research and development project which is accessing the viability of creating a commercial fusion reactor.
DailyTech – Solar Power Reaches a Magical Milestone — 25% Efficiency
A long awaited solar power milestone for unconcentrated silicon PV cells has been reached, thanks to steady improvement and research
DailyTech – One Lightbulb Project Hopes to Launch in 2010
Project hopes to send enough solar power from space to a ground station to illuminate one lightbulb
Solar power is great in that it can generate virtually free power from the energy of the sun. The catch is that existing solar power equipment isn’t particularly effective at capturing and turning the suns energy into electricity.
The concept of an orbiting satellite gathering power from space and beaming it down to the ground to power devices on Earth may sound like science fiction, but that is exactly what the One Lightbulb project hopes to accomplish.
DailyTech – Scientists Wipe Mice Memories, Forgetting the Past Could Be a Pill Away
With new medicine you may soon be able to choose to wipe your memories
The approach targets a specific chemical in the brain. This chemical, a protein, plays a crucial role in the formation of memories. When recalling a specific painful event, a drug developed by the researchers overloads this mechanism, causing an excess of the protein to be produced. This causes the brain to overload and chemically wipe all trace of the negative memory, without any apparent physiologically harmful side effects.
DailyTech – Team Builds Mach 1.4 Supercar, Set to Test in 2011
a team of top engineers are working together to design the next generation of supercar, which he hopes will about 33 percent faster than the previous speed record. Their baby is named the Bloodhound SSC (supersonic car) and they plan on surpassing 1,000 MPH — Mach 1.4 is roughly 1,065 MPH at sea-level. This would not only put the record for fastest car to shame, but it would outdo the low altitude plane record of 994 MPH.
DailyTech – Single Neuron Un-Paralyzes Monkeys in Test
The electric “re-routing” working surprisingly well and the monkeys regained control of their wrists. Their new capability was assessed by a simple video game. The game was controlled by the monkeys’ wrist motions. By moving their wrists, they could move a cursor onscreen and by moving it to a box on the side, they could earn a reward. With the incentive of the reward the monkeys soon learned to move their wrists, even though the motor cortex neuron was selected at random.
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