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Power

Breakthrough In Use of Graphene For Ultracapacitors 250

Posted by kdawson from the high-credit-limit dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have achieved a breakthrough in the use of a one-atom thick graphene for storing electrical charge in ultracapacitors. They believe their development shows promise that graphene could eventually double the capacity of existing ultracapacitors. 'Through such a device, electrical charge can be rapidly stored on the graphene sheets, and released from them as well for the delivery of electrical current and, thus, electrical power,' says one of the researchers. Two main methods exist to store electrical energy: in rechargeable batteries and in ultracapacitors, which are becoming increasingly commercialized but are not yet well known to the public. Some advantages of ultracapacitors over traditional energy storage devices such as batteries include: higher power capability, longer life, a wider thermal operating range, lighter, more flexible packaging and lower maintenance. Graphene has a surface area of 2,630 square meters, almost the area of a football field, per gram of material."
Security

Virtual Honeypots 50

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
rsiles writes "Honeynet solutions were seen just as a research technology a couple of years ago. It is not the case anymore. Due to the inherent constraints and limitations of the current and widely deployed intrusion detection solutions, like IDS/IPS and antivirus, it is time to extended our detection arsenal and capabilities with new tools: virtual honeypots. Do not get confused about the book title, specially about the "virtual" term. The main reason to mention virtual honeypots, although the book covers all kind of honeynet/honeypot technologies, is because during the last few years virtualization has been a key element in the deployment of honeynets. It has offered us a significant cost reduction, more flexibility, reusability and multiple benefits. The main drawback of this solution is the detection of virtual environments by some malware specimens." Read below for the rest of Raul's review.
NASA

NASA Contractor Needs Urine 291

Posted by timothy from the space-sports dept.

Apparently, NASA sent a memo to its employees at the Johnson Space Center asking for their urine so they, NASA, could use it to test the Orion space capsule. How much urine? 30 liters per day, including weekends. Disposal of urine for up to six months would be required if Orion is to work as planned.

Alert reader nettamere adds a link to story at Discovery.com, excerpting: "Donations will be treated with a chemical that can hold solid particulates in the liquid so they don't clog up the tubing in microgravity, said Leo Makowski, company spokesman for Hamilton Sundstrand, a contractor designing the new spaceship's toilet. ... "It's difficult to come up with a faux urine, explained NASA's Jim Lewis, the systems manager overseeing development of Orion's potty. 'That's why we depend on collections.'"

Science

Computers Emulate Neanderthal Speech 220

Posted by Zonk from the borrow-a-cup-of-evolution dept.
Clarence writes "After some 30,000 years of silence, the Neanderthal race is once again speaking thanks to some advanced computer simulation. A Florida Atlantic University professor is using software vocal tract reconstructions to emulate the speech of our long-dead distant relatives. 'He says the ancient human's speech lacked the "quantal vowel" sounds that underlie modern speech. Quantal vowels provide cues that help speakers with different size vocal tracts understand one another, says Robert McCarthy, who was talking at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Columbus, Ohio, on April 11. In the 1970s, linguist Phil Lieberman, of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, inferred the dimensions of the larynx of a Neanderthal based on its skull. His team concluded that Neanderthal speech did not have the subtlety of modern human speech.'"
Medicine

Finnish Patient Gets New Jaw from His Own Stem Cells 141

Posted by Soulskill from the close-the-organ-banks dept.
An anonymous reader writes with news out of Finland, where a patient's upper jaw was replaced with bone cultivated from stem cells and grown inside the patient himself. We discussed other advances in stem cell research a few months ago. Quoting: "In this case they identified and pulled out cells called mesenchymal stem cells -- immature cells than can give rise to bone, muscle or blood vessels. When they had enough cells to work with, they attached them to a scaffold made out of a calcium phosphate biomaterial and then put it inside the patient's abdomen to grow for nine months. The cells turned into a variety of tissues and even produced blood vessels, the researchers said."
Power

Switchgrass Makes Better Ethanol Than Corn 560

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the seemingly-easy-choice dept.
statemachine writes to mention that the USDA and farmers took part in a 5-year study of switchgrass, a grass native to North America. The study found that switchgrass ethanol can deliver around 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, as opposed to corn ethanol which can only yield around 24 percent. "But even a native prairie grass needs a helping hand from scientists and farmers to deliver the yields necessary to help ethanol become a viable alternative to petroleum-derived gasoline, Vogel argues. 'To really maximize their yield potential, you need to provide nitrogen fertilization,' he says, as well as improved breeding techniques and genetic strains. 'Low input systems are just not going to be able to get the energy per acre needed to provide feed, fuel and fiber.'"
Space

Voyager 2 Shows Solar System Is "Dented" 173

Posted by kdawson from the folded-spindled-mutilated dept.
Selikoff writes "NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft has found that our solar system is not round but is 'dented' by the local interstellar magnetic field, space experts said on Monday. The data were gathered by the craft on its 30-year journey when it crossed into a region called the 'termination shock.' The data showed that the southern hemisphere of the solar system's heliosphere is being pushed in. Voyager 2 is the second spacecraft to enter this region of the solar system, behind Voyager 1, which reached the northern region of the heliosheath in December 2004."
Biotech

HP Skin Patch May Replace Needles 190

Posted by kdawson from the you-may-feel-a-slight-pinch dept.
Iddo Genuth writes "HP and Crospon have developed a skin patch employing microneedles that barely penetrate the skin. The microneedles can replace conventional injections and deliver drugs through the skin without causing any pain. The skin patch technology also enables delivery of several drugs by one patch and the control of dosage and of administration time for each drug. It has the potential to be safer and more efficient than injections."
Power

Interconnecting Wind Farms To Smooth Power Production 112

Posted by Zonk from the sounds-like-a-plan dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Wind power is one of the world's fastest growing electric energy sources, but as wind is intermittent, a single wind farm cannot deliver a steady amount of energy. This is why scientists at Stanford University want to connect wind farms to develop a cheaper and more reliable power source. Interconnecting wind farms with a transmission grid should reduce the power swings caused by wind variability and provide a somewhat constant and reliable electric power (or 'baseload' power) provided by other power plants."
AMD

THG Labs In Depth With AMD Spider 103

Posted by CmdrTaco from the caught-you-in-my-web dept.
The Last Gunslinger writes "Tom's Hardware Guide has published detailed results of their laboratory analysis of AMD's recently released Spider platform, including the Phenom 9500 and 9600 running on 790FX chipsets. Amongst other interesting details, the 2.4GHz Phenom 9700 has been pushed back to Q1 2008. The 2.3GHz Phenom 9600 benchmarks on average 13.5% lower than Intel's Q6600 quad-core CPU...and the MSRP for the Phenom is about 13.6% less as well. Much is made of the AMD OverDrive utility, by which the THG labs were able to OC the Spider platform by 25% (3.0GHz) using air cooling alone."
Security

Hushmail Passing PGP Keys to the US Government 303

Posted by Zonk from the this-would-be-nonoptimal dept.
teknopurge writes "Apparently Hushmail has been providing information to law enforcement behind the backs of their clients. Billed as secure email because of their use of PGP, Hushmail has been turning over private keys of users to the authorities on request. 'DEA agents received three CDs which contained decrypted emails for the targets of the investigation that had been decrypted as part of a mutual legal assistance treaty between the United States and Canada. The news will be embarrassing to the company, which has made much of its ability to ensure that emails are not read by the authorities, including the FBI's Carnivore email monitoring software.'"
NASA

NASA Wins Nanotechnology Award 36

Posted by CowboyNeal from the good-show dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "NASA is rarely associated with nanotechnologies. But one of its researchers working at the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center just received a Nanotech Briefs Nano 50 award for a manufacturing process for high-quality carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Because of its ability to produce bundles of CNTs without using a metal catalyst, this method is simpler, safer, and cheaper than current ones. The CNTs produced by this process are also purer and well suited for medical applications."
Math

Brains Hard-Wired for Math 246

Posted by samzenpus from the easy-as-1-2-3 dept.
mcgrew writes "New Scientist is reporting that "non-human primates really can understand the meaning of numerals." The small study of two rhesus monkeys reveals that cells in their brains respond selectively to specific number values — regardless of whether the amount is represented by dots on a screen or an Arabic numeral. For example, a given brain cell in the monkey will respond to the number three, but not the number one. The results suggest that individual cells in human brains might also have a fine-tuned preference for specific numerical values." The report itself is online at PLoS Biology, Semantic Associations between Signs and Numerical Categories in the Prefrontal Cortex."

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