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Submission + - MIT Making Super Efficient Origami Solar Panels (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by ByronScott
ByronScott writes: Could the next solar panels be in the shapes of origami cranes? They could be if MIT power engineering professor Jeffrey Grossman has his say. Standard flat solar panels are only optimized to capture sunlight at one point of the sun’s trajectory — otherwise they need automated tracking systems to follow the sun. But Grossman found that folded solar cell systems could produce constant power throughout the day sans tracking and his new designs are up to two and a half times more efficient per comparative length and width than traditional flat arrays.

Comment Re:Wait a minute here (Score 1) 1364

by problah (#29837603) Attached to: Legal War For WA State Sunshine Law

So it is up to you to decide what is best for someone else's child?

The psychological research that claims that a single motherhood prevents unfit offspring is the same group that believes that as long as there are two viewpoints of the world (A stern figure, and a tender figure) attribute to a healthy growth environment. They have actually stated that it does not have to be two people of opposite sex. It's the emotive value that is in concern.

So, effectively, if you have two stern parents, and noone to offer soft emotions, you will potentially have a child who is "unfit" for the "normal" society... But they'd make a great soldier!

D(B)
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - New Look at Brain Control (harvard.edu)

Submitted by one_neuron_two_neuron
one_neuron_two_neuron writes: Researchers at Harvard have taken a new look at how electricity can make neurons in the brain fire.

The scientists found some surprising things: if you stick an electrode in the brain and apply current, you don't just make a small group of neurons fire — many neurons fire a long way away from the electrode. That's probably because instead of activating the cell bodies of the neurons, what happens instead is that their axons fire. Those axons are the wiring of the brain. Your cerebral cortex is something like a big pile of unwound yoyos — if you stick an electrode into the cortex you're much more likely to hit the strings (the axons), and the yoyo connected to the string can be really far away.

So now how will you ever hook up a computer to your brain? This data shows that we need to rethink how to do that with electrical current. Stick an electrode in one place, and neurons in a totally different place will fire. New optogenetic methods (e.g. using viral delivery of proteins) might work. Or possibly we will figure out how to make the brain learn to interpret these sparse, widespread electrical patterns.

New optical techniques have made a dramatic impact on neuroscience recently, and this study uses pulsed-laser-scanning microscopy (two-photon microscopy) to take pictures of neurons deep inside the living brain. There are some pretty pictures from the journal (Neuron). And the paper is free on the authors' site.
Networking

Submission + - Build an Open Source SSL Accelerator (o3magazine.com)

Submitted by
Amin Zelfani
Amin Zelfani writes: "SSL Accelerators like Big-IP 6900 from F5 Networks typically carry a $50k or more price tag. An article over at o3magazine.com shows you how to build an SSL Accelerator thats on-par with the commercial solutions using Open Source projects. SSL Accelerators off-load the encryption / decryption process from web servers, reducing load, reducing the number of certificates needed, thanks to o3magazine this technology is now available to everyone."
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Sprint Nextel vs. 41 schools and non-profits

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "A case of corporate bullying, or good network citizenship? ... Sprint Nextel has let loose its lawyers on the FCC and 41 non-profits, most of them school systems, in an effort to get the FCC to stop granting these organizations special dispensation when they fail to renew their wireless spectrum licenses granted as part of the Educational Broadband Service. The school systems argue that they don't have the staff to keep on top of the paperwork and shouldn't be punished — some generate revenue by leasing unused portions of the spectrum to carriers such as Sprint Nextel — for such bureaucratic lapses. That may sound a lot like "the dog ate my homework" to some, and Sprint Nextel makes a fairly compelling case that a greater good would be served if the FCC would stop enabling such tardiness.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1491 4"
Wireless Networking

Submission + - The future of wireless broadband?

Submitted by
Adroit Ape
Adroit Ape writes: "The FCC is scheduled to begin auctioning the radio spectrum salvaged from analog television by February 28, 2008. Public interest groups are calling for auction rules that give new entrants a fair shot at the spectrum, which includes 60Mhz in the 700Mhz band. Are we likely to see groundbreaking innovation in wireless broadband? Who do you foresee to be the major players in the auction and subsequent technologies?"

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Mathemeticians stand on each other's shoulders while computer scientists stand on each other's toes. -- Richard Hamming

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