82828451
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
In 2015, Japan's Kyushu had 892 semiconductor-related companies, of which 360 were semiconductor equipment players, 248 semiconductor component players and 185 semiconductor manufacturers. Within these companies, 391 were located in Kyushu's Fukuoka Prefecture, while 176 were located in Kumamoto Prefecture and 109 in Oita Prefecture, according to Kyushu Economic Research Center. The later two Prefectures were major disaster sites of the earthquake in April 16-17
Sony's plants in Kumamoto, Nagasaki and Oita Prefectures are the company's major CIS (CMOS image sensor) production sites
Sony's plants in Nagasaki and Oita stopped operations on April 15-16 and will resume in a few days after inspections, but the company's plants in Kumamoto are still unable to resume which could create supply issues for Apple and its China-based handset clients
Because of Sony CIS solutions are highly customized, clients may have difficulties shifting orders to other suppliers in the short term. Switching orders to other suppliers will cause 2-3 month delays before they receive products
With Apple's smartphone shipments expected to be impacted, Taiwan component suppliers that rely heavily on Apple's orders are also expected to see their performances influenced
Currently, Sony has a share of over 40% in terms of sales in the worldwide CIS market. Apple and many China-based vendors have adopted Sony's CIS solutions for their high-end smartphones
82683661
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
Consuming vegetables grown with treated and reclaimed waste water can increase detectable levels of the drug carbamazepine in people’s urine
With water shortages rising worldwide, the practice of treating and reusing wastewater for agricultural and household use is growing. In Israel, for example, some 60% of water used in agriculture is reclaimed
But there is a dark side — new study shows that eating vegetables grown using reclaimed water boosts urine levels of carbamazepine, an anti-epileptic drug commonly detected in wastewater
The randomized, controlled study is the first to directly address exposure to such pharmaceutical contaminants in humans, says coauthor Ora Paltiel, a professor of hematology and epidemiology at the Hadassah-Hebrew University. “We were very surprised that the effect was so clear”
Drugs can enter the water supply by excretion—through the urine of people who take them—or by disposal of unused medicines down the toilet or in the garbage, at home or in healthcare institutions like hospitals and nursing homes. Water disposed of by drug manufacturers can also contain residues of pharmaceutical compounds
Treatment for wastewater used in agriculture generally does not remove these trace chemicals because purifying such a large quantity of water to drinking water standards would be prohibitively expensive. Therefore drugs can contaminate treated wastewater and find their way into agricultural use
“Empirically, it’s obvious that everyone who is exposed to a seven-day diet of reclaimed water is going to have a quantifiable level of this drug in their urine,” Paltiel says, though the urine levels were very low. “These are nanogram per liter levels—they are four orders of magnitude away from levels of if you were taking the drug.” Still, she says, all the produce they tested was commercially available, and even small exposures—to this drug and others—must be assessed
Levels detected in urine may be low, but people who eat a lot of produce will be exposed to such contaminants throughout their lifetimes, he adds. “We don’t really know much yet about the effects of low-level but very long-term exposure”
India, he notes, has a lot of pharmaceutical manufacturing. “There will be lots of areas where the water is really packed with drugs”
Paltiel’s group will next test whether children, elderly people, pregnant women, and vegetarians are more exposed, and whether the exposure might carry any health effects. “Reclaimed wastewater can be a partial solution to agricultural problems in semi-arid regions, but we have to be cognizant that there are potential exposures from this” she says
82650155
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
In late March China announced that telemetry to the Tiangong 1 space laboratory had ceased. The announcement on the original Xinhua story was vague, but strongly suggested that Tiangong 1 had malfunctioned
Without telemetry, China will be unable to receive any data from Tiangong's control instruments, including scientific instruments on board
More disturbing, however, highly probable that China will be unable to control the spacecraft, including its re-entry when its orbit finally decays
In recent years, the world has experienced several cases of large satellites falling back to Earth on uncontrolled trajectories. Thankfully, there have been no catastrophes. But the spaceflight community relies too much on luck instead of planning for spacecraft returns. At some point, that luck will run out, serious damage to property or lives will appear, and the space industry will have to explain itself to the public
Tiangong 1 is a large spacecraft with a high drag coefficient. It's also hollow, with a low density. It will be tricky to predict its behaviour as it enters the upper atmosphere and makes its final orbits. Nobody will be able to say when or where it will come back
Right now, it's impossible to make an educated guess on even a rough "window" for Tiangong's return. The orbit is still high. Unpredictable factors such as solar activity will influence its orbital decay. We won't have an estimate until it starts to fall much lower
Nobody can really be sure if fragments will reach the surface of the Earth, whether it is land or sea
An analysis over this matter can be had @ http://www.spacedaily.com/repo...
82605273
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
President Obama urged students to open up their digital life to the federal government, if they wanted to be protected by the government, calling the current privacy expectations from Americans unrealistic
“People have a whole new set of privacy expectations that are understandable. They also expect though that since their lives are all digitized, that the digital world is safe, which creates a contradictory demand on government” he said
He pointed out that citizens expected the government to protect them from hackers and terrorists, but refused to allow the government to have some sort of access to their information
He characterized the problematic attitude as “protect me from hackers, protect me for terrorists, protect me from et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but I don’t want you to know any of your business and I don’t even want you to have the ability to investigate some of that business when it happens because of its broader implications and we’re worried about Big Brother”
Obama discussed the issue during a conversation about the Supreme Court at the University of Chicago, where he used to teach Constitutional law
Obama asserted that privacy issues would be paramount in the future of the Supreme Court, which was why he urged Congress to confirm his nomination to the court
82582629
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
Paris (AFP) — Astronomers have stumbled upon a supermassive black hole in an unexpected corner of the Universe, implying these galactic monsters are much more common than once thought, a study said Wednesday
The giant, with an estimated mass 17 billion times that of our Sun, was discovered in a relative desert, astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in the journal Nature
"While finding a gigantic black hole in a massive galaxy in a crowded area of the Universe is to be expected — like running across a skyscraper in Manhattan — it seemed less likely they could be found in the Universe's small towns," said a university statement
Big, star-rich galaxies where supermassive black holes had previously been found, are very rare
Smaller ones like the NGC 1600 galaxy housing the newly-discovered whopper, are much more common, but were not previously thought to be appropriate host
"So the question now is: 'Is this the tip of an iceberg?'" said study co-author Chung-Pei Ma. "Maybe there are a lot more monster black holes out there that don't live in a skyscraper in Manhattan, but in a tall building somewhere in the Midwestern plains"
The largest supermassive black hole spotted to date tipped the scales at about 21 billion solar masses, said the study authors
82431793
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
"Our IT organization is continuing to evolve as we engage more in open source. Whether it be what we use for distributed processing, for databases, or to accelerate our compute power or data visualization, we continue to expand the number of open technologies we explore. It has become a very important area for us, and drives the need for many different open technologies that we want to test and deploy"
"For example, we work in some of the many open source graph databases. Open databases let us look at lineages that we can’t do with traditional relational databases, or in other environments. Being able to leverage and apply these tools against unique business problems has had an impact on accelerating our decision-making and our value proposition for our customers. Each open technology has its own niche and fit for us, and we’re combining these technologies with core technologies we already have in the environment, whether it be Teradata or SAP, to create a hybrid approach for the business"
"There is a learning curve with open source, of course, but we are not turning back. Open source has been a tremendous accelerator for us. We just couldn’t do it in the traditional way, and the cost at times could be prohibitive. So we’ve seen a huge amount of value. In addition, we’re actually helping to shape the future for these technology companies as well, because our input is making their products better"
"Open source is a two-way win. You have to invest in the open source community, but the value you get back for doing that is too great not to pursue this strategy"
82367251
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
It has been an open secret that aborted human fetal tissue have been used in the production of vaccines
Traces of DNA from this tissue can persist in the final product and the DNA can include both genetic damage and markers of autism
"It is possible that these contaminating fragments could be incorporated into a child's genome and disrupt normal gene function, leading to autistic phenotypes," wrote Dr. Deisher in a paper titled "Spontaneous Integration of Human DNA Fragments into Host Genome"
With over 19 years of experience in biotechnology and vaccine development, Dr. Deisher knows what she's talking about when it comes to vaccine science
Dr. Deisher is anything but the mindless anti-vaccine caricature so often mocked by the skeptics crowd. Her extensive research into the matter clearly proves otherwise, showing that aborted human fetal cells are highly problematic both in terms of brain development and normal cellular function. Not only do vaccines made from these cell lines pose an autism risk, but they also increase one's risk of cancer
Specifically with regard to MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), varicella (chickenpox) and hepatitis A vaccines, a statistical analysis compiled by Dr. Deisher reveals that vaccines made from human fetal cell lines
"Not only are the human fetal contaminated vaccines associated with autistic disorder throughout the world, but also with epidemic childhood leukemia and lymphomas," she added
Not surprisingly, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has known for decades that aborted human fetal cell DNA causes genetic mutations in humans when injected via vaccines. But the agency, which is supposed to be looking out for human health, has done nothing to withdraw these deadly jabs from the market
n fact, when the agency came to the realization that such DNA is deadly to humans, it decided to regulate it rather than ban it. Legally speaking, the maximum amount of residual fetal cell fragments allowed in vaccines is 10 nanograms, according to the FDA, and the agency admits that even this amount is harmful
Dr. Deisher's research, however, revealed that some vaccines currently on the market contain much more than this. She wrote that fetal DNA levels ranged from 142 ng to upwards of 2,000 ng per dose, or as much as 200 times the legal limit!
"The MMR II and chickenpox vaccines and indeed all vaccines that were propagated or manufactured using the fetal cell line WI-38 are contaminated with [HERV, or human endogenous retrovirus]" wrote Dr. Deisher, noting that this retrovirus is associated with causing childhood lymphoma
http://www.naturalnews.com/053...
82250027
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
NEWS ALERT: BRUSSELS AIRPORT UNDER ATTACK
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix...
News still coming in ... two explosion at the American Airline counter inside the Brussels airport
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix...
Till now the authority is still keeping mum
82225701
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
A 17 year old girl from California was awarded a $150,000 prize for inventing a device which can diagnose lung disease
Women and High Tech does happen, but when it happens it is not something forced
The 17-year-old built her device out of $35 worth of basic electronics, but it is as accurate as hospital-grade versions that cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars. She hopes it will save lives in developing countries where such a device — called a spirometer — might otherwise be inaccessible
82147225
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
ARM and TSMC have just announced 7nm FinFET collaboration agreement ( http://www.digitimes.com/news/... ) a domain Intel has deserted ( http://wccftech.com/intel-aban... )
Year 2020 is not that far off, which party is correct and ends up laughing all the way into the bank ?
81703577
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
American astronault Scott Kelly is finally coming home
After spending 340 days in the ISS, Scott Kelly is about to squeeze into a Soyuz capsule and leave the International Space Station for the first time in a long time, and starts his journey back into the Gravity Well
Too bad he has missed his chance to vote on the Super Tuesday, tho!
Another link @ http://www.bbc.com/news/scienc...
81544333
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
AMD is losing market share to Nvidia in the discrete GPU market while falling further behind Intel in the PC processor field. AMD is likely to suffer from a record low share of both markets in the first quarter of 2016
Demand for standalone graphics cards has already been sluggish given a weak PC market, and the market for standalone grahics cards continues to decline. In the already-shrinking market, AMD's rival Nvidia has eaten away at its market share
MD's discrete GPU market share has also been hurt by falling shipments of its own PC processors, the sources said.
In the PC processor market, AMD's gap behind Intel has widened. And it remains uncertain whetrher AMD's next-generation Zen architecture can help the company make a comeback
The Zen processor architecture will be introduced in high-end desktops like gaming PCs and servers, and the first Zen products are unlikely to arrive until the fourth quarter of 2016. Zen probably will not help AMD regain its PC share, but Intel may feel pressure when bargaining with PC firms
In the standalone GPU segment, AMD will have to ensure that the launch of its Polaris architecture will be on schedule. Any delays of the launch or performance issues could interrupt its way to recovery
80283347
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
A bill targeting social media content that is already being labelled unconstitutional has been put before the Kentucky General Assembly
If passed, the bill would prohibit social media users to wait an hour before posting content related to a “traumatic event” or “accident” online. Those who violate the proposed bill would face a fine anywhere between $20 to $100 depending on the incident. The bill would not apply to members of the news media, victims of the event, and emergency responders at the site of the accident
According to the sponsor of the bill, Republican State Representative John “Bam” Carney of Campbellsville, the speed at which users can access social media to post about a tragic event can be both disruptive for police officers and insensitive to the families of the victims
Carney believes that abstaining from social platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter in the wake of a serious accident would allow the police and first responders time to notify families of those involved in the incident before they find out elsewhere
Legal experts argue that the bill won’t stand up to scrutiny under the First Amendment, regarding freedom of speech. And, apparently, Carney agrees, stating, “this probably would have First Amendment problems”
80071205
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
Scientists have recreated an elusive form of the material that makes up much of the giant planets in our solar system, and the sun
A team of physicists at the University of Edinburgh, researchers used a pair of diamonds to squeeze hydrogen molecules to pressures equivalent to 3.25 million times that of Earth's atmosphere, hydrogen entered a new solid phase — named phase V — and started to show some interesting and unusual properties. Its molecules began to separate into single atoms, while the atoms' electrons began to behave like those of a metal
Hydrogen — which is among the most abundant elements in the Universe — is thought to be found in this high-pressure form in the interiors of Jupiter and Saturn
The metallic and atomic form of hydrogen, formed at elevated pressures, was first theorised to exist 80 years ago
Researchers around the world have been trying for years to create this form of the element, known as the metallic state, which is considered to be the holy grail of this field of physics
80070487
submission
Taco Cowboy writes:
We often hear misappropriation of public funds, including those which has been allotted for R&D
China has been increasing research and development (R&D) investment at an annual rate of 20 percent in the past few years, however, about 60 percent of funding has been spent on meetings and business trips, China Enterprise News reported on Tuesday
According to official statistics, China's R&D expenditure totaled 1.33 trillion yuan ($203 billion) in 2014, the paper said. In 2012, Xu Heping, an official with the Ministry of Science and Technology told reporters that the country's R&D investment will not be less than 1.5 trillion yuan in 2015, which means China's investment in R&D based on purchasing power parity will be close to that of the United States this year, and the misappropriation of R&D funds is on the increase as well
Last year the Ministry of Education disclosed four major cases of R&D funding fraud involving five university teachers and more than 16 million yuan and in another case, 283,600 yuan involving 1,505 one-way train tickets from various places to Jiamusi in the name of business trips were reimbursed, taking up nearly half of the allocated 570,000-yuan funding for two tourism research programs from 2008 to 2011
Li Ping, a Beijing-based lawyer said that fabricated budgets, false invoices and accounting fraud were used in the embezzlement of funds, "Which was not wise at all." The paper blames loopholes in fund management and insufficient supervision
Sun Hua, a researcher in the coal industry, also told the paper R&D fund allocation is not transparent and that relevant rules are not always well implemented
