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Submission + - 200 Lumen/Watt Production Power LEDs Introduced (cree.com)

Submitted by ndverdo
ndverdo writes: Cree just announced production power LEDs reaching 200 lumen/watt. Approximately doubling the previous peak LED light efficiency, the new LEDs will require less cooling. This should enable the MK-R series to finally provide direct no-hassle replacements to popular form-factors such as MR-16 spots and incandescent lighting in general. The LEDs are sampling and it is stated that "production quantities are available with standard lead times". Reaching a 1600 lm luminous flux light output these LEDs should bring a bright future indeed.
Science

Submission + - Energy-Rich Cooked Food as Human Evolutionary Advantage (pnas.org)

Submitted by ndverdo
ndverdo writes: In a potentially significant discovery, Karina Fonseca-Azevedo and Suzana Herculano-Houzel of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil report that ape brain development was constrained by the low calorie efficacy of uncooked food: in order to provide energy to a human-size brain they would have had to eat 2 hours more per day — running into a constraint as they already spend an "average maximal" of 8 hours per day eating.

The research has been published in the PNAS paper Metabolic constraint imposes tradeoff between body size and number of brain neurons in human evolution So will feeding apes cooked food from now on lead to a Planet of the Apes scenario?
Science

Submission + - Evolutionary branch point between apes and humans: cooking (pnas.org) 2

Submitted by ndverdo
ndverdo writes: In a potentially significant discovery, Karina Fonseca-Azevedo and Suzana Herculano-Houzel of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil report that ape brain development was constrained by the low calorie efficacy of uncooked food: in order to provide energy to a human-size brain they would have had to eat 2 hours more per day — running into a constraint as they already spend an "average maximal" of 8 hours per day eating.

The research has been published in the PNAS paper Metabolic constraint imposes tradeoff between body size and number of brain neurons in human evolution So will feeding apes cooked food from now on lead to a Planet of the Apes scenario?
EU

Submission + - Earth-mass planet found orbiting Alpha Centauri B (eso.org)

Submitted by ndverdo
ndverdo writes: ESA just announced the discovery of an earth-mass planet orbiting the Star Alpha Centauri B. This marks the first time an earth-size planet has been found orbiting another star. The binary system Alpha Centauri is with 4.37 light years the closest stars to the sun. The planet's orbit is similar to Mars'. The planet was detected by a small periodic gravitational effect on its parent star.
Canada

Submission + - Database and IP records tie election fraud to Canada's ruling Conservatives (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by choongiri
choongiri writes: Canada's election fraud scandal continues to unfold. Elections Canada just matched the IP address used to set up thousands of voter suppression robocalls to one used by a Conservative Party operative, and a comparison of call records found a perfect match between the illegal calls, and records of non-supporters in the Conservative Party's CIMS voter tracking database, as well as evidence access logs may have been tampered with. Meanwhile, legal challenges to election results are underway in seven ridings, and an online petition calling for an independent public inquiry into the crisis has amassed over 44,000 signatures. The Conservative Party still maintains their innocence, calling it a baseless smear campaign.
Data Storage

Submission + - Diamonds Used To Increase Density, Performance of Phase-Change Memory (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have shown they can increase the density, performance and the durability of phase-change memory (PSM) by using diamonds to change the base alloy material. Instead of using the more typical method of applying heat to the alloy to change its state from amorphous to crystalline, thereby laying down bits in the material, the researchers used pressure from diamond-tipped tools. Using pressure versus heat allowed them to slow down the change in order to produce many varying states allowing more data to be stored on the alloy. "This phase-change memory is more stable than the material used in current flash drives. It works 100 times faster and is rewritable millions of times," said the study's lead author, Ming Xu, a doctoral student at the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. "Within about five years, it could also be used to replace hard drives in computers and give them more memory."
Science

Submission + - Nanoparticles heated by radio waves switch on genes in mice (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: Researchers have used radio waves to remotely activate engineered insulin-producing genes in mice. In the long term, the work could lead to medical procedures in which patients’ genes are triggered on demand.
The researchers coated coated iron oxide nanoparticles with antibodies that bind to a modified version of a temperature-sensitive ion channel. They injected these particles into tumors grown under the skins of mice, then heated the nanoparticles with low-frequency radio waves. The nanoparticles heated the ion channel, activating it and allowing calcium to flow into cells. The influx of calcium switched on an engineered calcium-sensitive gene that produces insulin (abstract).
Hardware

Submission + - Raspberry Pi Reviewed, Initial Setup Guide (techspot.com)

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: It has been six years in the making, with the original goal of the project intending to reignite computer programming in schools across the country. Despite those honorable intentions, the $35 ARM-based credit-card sized computer has captured the imagination of programmers, consumers and tinkerers alike, resulting in unprecedented demand for the product.

Last month the first 10,000 credit-card sized computers were set to make their way to those who pre-ordered them back in February. TechSpot takes a look at the Pi Model B, covering the basic steps for setting up the computer, as well as basic post-installation tasks those first using it might encounter.
Space

Submission + - ESA juices up for mission to Jupiter's icy moons (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that Jupiter’s icy moons will be the focus of its next Large science mission. Getting the nod over the New Gravitational Wave Observatory (NGO), that would have hunted for gravitational waves, and ATHENA, the Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics, the Jupiter Icy moons Explorer (JUICE) is scheduled to arrive at Jupiter in 2030 with the goal of studying its Galilean moons as potential habitats for life.
Android

Submission + - European Union Court of Justice strikes down Patents on Software Languages (google.at)

Submitted by ndverdo
ndverdo writes: the EU Court of Justice just struck down a case launched by SAS to disallow the replication of SAS APIs and the use in an IDE by World Programming Ltd. This could have far reaching implications on Oracle vs. Google on Java APIs in Android.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute_lawsuit_with_World_Programming

Comment Age of lean governments - not yet (Score 1) 186

by ndverdo (#31089644) Attached to: India Suspended From PayPal For "At Least a Few Months"
I use services from India regularly commercially and pay with Paypal as bank transfers have disproportionally too high transaction costs. Without paypal (and there are no other non-obscure options to wire low-value amounts) I simply stop sourcing this route and go elsewhere. Makes me wonder why people don't rebell against paying bureaucrats that despite being well-fed from taxes in the end make them poorer.

Comment not in 2010 (Score 1) 332

by ndverdo (#29560241) Attached to: Apple Behind Intel's USB Competitor?
the cost of a 10Gb optical interface (optical transceiver and layer 2 forwarding) is presently that of several macbook pros. Unless mass-manufacturing planar optics makes a huge jump forward in the next days, your next interface in 2010 is going to be electrical.
Medicine

Submission + - 3-5 Coffees a Day Lower Alzheimer's Risk 63%

Submitted by ndverdo
ndverdo writes: WebMD has the synopsis of a long-running study done by researchers in Finland and Sweden that showed an approximate 63% reduction of developing Alzheimer's through drinking 3-5 cups of coffee a day relative to a control group of little or no coffee drinkers. When will the study be replicated and the active substances for the effect be identified?
Of the participants, 15.9% were low coffee drinkers, 45.6% were moderate coffee drinkers, and 38.5% were high coffee drinkers. After an average of 21 years, 1,409 people between ages 65 and 79 were re-examined. A total of 61 were classified as having dementia, 48 with Alzheimer's. The study showed that coffee drinkers at midlife had a lower risk for dementia or Alzheimer's later in life than people who drank little or no coffee at midlife. The lowest risk was found among moderate coffee drinkers. Moderate coffee drinkers had a 65%-70% decreased risk of dementia and a 62%-64% decreased risk of Alzheimer's compared with low coffee drinkers, the researchers write.

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