derdesh - Slashdot User

Submission + - Nanoscale "Optical Antennas" enable 3.6TB

Submitted by

K7DAN

on Friday March 16, 2007 @07:22PM

K7DAN writes: "How would you like to be able to put your entire DVD, music, video and picture collection plus more on a single disc? An article in MIT's Technology Review (http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18295/)r eveals that Harvard University electrical engineers Kenneth Crozier and Federico Capasso have found a way to achieve a data density of 3.6 terabytes on a single DVD-like disc using nanoscale "optical antennas" added to a commercially available laser. That's equivalent to 750 of today's 4.7-gigabyte recordable DVDs. The development of this technology seems perfectly timed to enable easy storage of large video files in HD format leaving Blu-ray and HD DVD in the dust."

Submission + - Enough Water to Cover Mars... Found on Mars.

Submitted by

AbsoluteXyro

on Thursday March 15, 2007 @08:48PM

AbsoluteXyro writes: "Using a penetrating radar instrument aboard the Mars Express orbiter, enough frozen water has been found at the Martian south pole to cover the planet in over 30 feet of pure liquid water should it ever be thawed out. From the SPACE.com article: "The reflected beams revealed that 90 percent or more of the frozen polar material is pure water ice, sprinkled with dust particles. The scientists calculated that the water would form a 36-foot-deep ocean of sorts if spread over the Martian globe." This has serious implications for thirsty humanoids."

Submission + - Orson Scott Card reveals World Wide Conspiracy

Submitted by

ArmedBlog

on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @06:27PM

ArmedBlog writes: "In Orson Scott Card's latest essay, "All in a Good Cause" he reveals the faulty science and absolute manipulation that went into one of the UN's newest reports."

Submission + - The Mysterious Methane Seas of Titan

Submitted by

Riding with Robots

on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @06:05PM

Riding with Robots writes: "The robotic space probe Cassini has seen lakes of methane on Titan before, but recent close passes by Saturn's giant moon have turned up images of bizzare seas larger than the Great Lakes of North America."

Submission + - Arguments for government openness

Submitted by

mi

on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @05:58PM

mi writes: "Yahoo! carries an opinion by Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, on the benefits of government openness. Perhaps the most important observation (backed up by facts) is that openness and security are not mutually exclusive, and that openness, in fact, aids security."

Journal Journal: The Great Global Warming Swindle 3

Journal by MightyMartian on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @03:39PM

It seems that UK's Channel 4 "Great Global Warming Swindle", which the anti-global warming crowd, including Janet Daley of the Telegraph (see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/03/12/do1201.xml) has run into a bit of a problem; mainly that the only swindle going on was the program.

Submission + - 'grease monkey' satellites

Submitted by

Maggie McKee

on Thursday March 08, 2007 @06:18PM

Maggie McKee writes: ""A 'mechanic' satellite designed to refuel and repair a partner in space is set to launch on Thursday. The feats would be the first of their kind and will lay the groundwork for future autonomous robotic missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. The mechanic, ASTRO, will use a 3.3-metre-long robotic arm to grab its partner, NextSat, and draw it closer. It will also use the arm to give NextSat a new battery, and then it will use the arm to operate on itself, removing and reattaching its own flight computer." That last part doesn't sound like the best plan to me, but the mission cost of $300 million sounds like a steal compared to what I paid the last time I took my car to the mechanic."

Submission + - A Technically Rich Discussion of Nuclear Power

Submitted by

Schloopy

on Thursday March 01, 2007 @09:32PM

Schloopy writes: "Is Nuclear Power a Viable Option for Our Energy Needs?

This article does a great job covering the technical pros and cons of the basics of nuclear fission, world uranium supply, the energy lifecycle of nuclear power, greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear, the costs of nuclear energy, power, and waste; the author concludes that many positives exist with this controversial energy source, but the NIMBY/BANANA stigma of it will be difficult to overcome.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2323"

Submission + - Software tweak could boost your car's gas mileage

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Thursday March 01, 2007 @05:25PM

coondoggie writes: "Think it's possible to improve your car's gas mileage just by downloading a new piece of software? Seems to be the case according to a Dutch scientist who this week said most modern cars could reduce fuel consumption by almost 3% by downloading software he and Ford worked to develop. John Kessels' software shuts on or off the car's alternator, which charges the car battery, when it is particularly inefficient for the engine to power it, thus improving the overall efficiency of the engine. A similar technique is used for hybrid cars. The software is not proprietary to Ford and can be used in any vehicle with an engine computer, which includes the vast majority of cars sold today, Kessel says. http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1195 6"

Submission + - Free global virtual scientific library

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @06:02PM

An anonymous reader writes: More than 20,000 signatures, including several Nobel prize winners and 750 education, research, and cultural organisations from around the world came together to support free access to government funded research, "to create a freely available virtual scientific library available to the entire globe. The European Commission responded by committing more than $100m (£51m) towards facilitating greater open access through support for open access journals and for the building of the infrastructure needed to house institutional repositories that can store the millions of academic articles written each year. From the BBC article: "Last month five leading European research institutions launched a petition that called on the European Commission to establish a new policy that would require all government-funded research to be made available to the public shortly after publication. That requirement — called an open access principle — would leverage widespread internet connectivity with low-cost electronic publication to create a freely available virtual scientific library available to the entire globe." Isn't this the way its suppose to be?

Submission + - Gmail let's you get mail from other POP3 accounts.

Submitted by

snower1313

on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @04:49PM

snower1313 writes: "Gmail has just added a new feature for a limited number of users that allows 3rd party POP3 account emails to be retrieved into your Gmail Inbox. "You can retrieve your mail (new and old) from up to five other email accounts and have them all in Gmail. Then you can even create a customized 'From:' address, which lets you send messages from Gmail, but have them look like they were sent from another one of your email accounts.""

Submission + - Cheap desalinisation using waste heat

Submitted by

hcdejong

on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @08:39AM

hcdejong writes: "Dutch research organisation TNO has developed a desalinisation technique that at last, promises to be inexpensive enough to be used on a large scale.

The process is called Memstill (a contraction of Membrane and deStillation). Salt water is run through a condensor, on which water vapour condenses. Energy from the vapour is transferred to the salt water, which warms up. More energy is then added from an external heat source, making the salt water warm enough for evaporation. In a membrane array, the evaporation escapes through a membrane that allows the vapour to pass through, but which stops liquid water. The vapour ends up at the condensor.

The external heat source can be just about anything. The required temperature is only 50-100 C, which means that e.g. cooling water from an industrial plant can be used. Solar heating also works.

Thanks to this 'free' heat, TNO estimates that a production plant will be able to make freshwater for only $ 0.30-0.40 per cubic metre, lower than any other desalinisation technique, see this PDF for a comparison. The current price for potable water is about 1.50 Euro/cubic metre in the Netherlands.

Memstill is currently in use in a few pilot projects."

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