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Submission + - An Electric Boost for Bicyclists (nytimes.com)

Submitted by gollum123
gollum123 writes: Detroit may be introducing electric car designs and China may be pushing forward with a big expansion of its highways and trains, but people and delivery workers in New York, postal employees in Germany and commuters from Canada to Japan — are among the millions taking part in a more accidental transportation upheaval- the electric bikeIn turn, the booming Chinese electric-bike industry is spurring worldwide interest and impressive sales in India, Europe and the United States. China is exporting many bikes, and Western manufacturers are also copying the Chinese trend to produce models of their own. From virtually nothing a decade ago, electric bikes have become an $11 billion global industry.In the Netherlands, a third of the money spent on bicycles last year went to electric-powered models. Industry experts predict similar growth elsewhere in Europe, especially in Germany, France and Italy, as rising interest in cycling coincides with an aging population. India had virtually no sales until two years ago, but its nascent market is fast expanding and could eclipse Europe’s in the next year.. It began in China, where an estimated 120 million electric bicycles now hum along the roads, up from a few thousand in the 1990s. They are replacing traditional bikes and motorcycles at a rapid clip and, in many cases, allowing people to put off the switch to cars.
Google

Google About Openness 283

Posted by CmdrTaco from the good-to-be-on-top dept.
sopssa writes "Several sites, including TechCrunch and The Register, are reporting about an email Google's VP Jonathan Rosenberg sent to employees on Monday about the meaning of open. 'At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses. ... Our goal is to keep the Internet open, which promotes choice and competition and keeps users and developers from getting locked in.' But are we likely to see Google open their search engine, advertising or the famous back-end system? In their words, that would mean Google and other companies would need to work harder and innovate more to keep their users, for everyone's benefit."
Medicine

Poorer Children More Likely To Get Antipsychotics 334

Posted by kdawson from the artifact-of-the-system dept.
krou writes "A new study by a team from Rutgers and Columbia has discovered that poorer children are more likely to be given powerful antipsychotic drugs. According to the NY Times (login required), 'children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts.' It raises the question: 'Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?' Two possible explanations are offered: 'insurance reimbursements, as Medicaid often pays much less for counseling and therapy than private insurers do,' and because of 'the challenges that families in poverty may have in consistently attending counseling or therapy sessions, even when such help is available.' The study is due to be published next year in the journal Health Affairs." The full article is available behind a paywall from the first link. The lead author of the study said he "did not have clear evidence to form an opinion on whether or not children on Medicaid were being overtreated."
Privacy

Submission + - Wireless network modded to see through walls (technologyreview.com) 1

Submitted by
KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: "The way radio signals vary in a wireless network can reveal the movement of people behind closed doors, say researchers who have developed a technique called variance-based radio tomographic imaging which processes wireless signals to peer through walls. They've tested the idea with a 34-node wireless network using the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless protocol (the personal area network protocol employed by home automation services such as ZigBee). The researchers say that such a network could be easily distributed by the police or military wanting to determine what's going on inside a building. But such a network, which uses cheap off-the-shelf components, might also be easily deployed by your neighbor or anybody else wanting to monitor movements in your home."

Comment Before anyone gets overly excited... (Score 2, Informative) 348

by qkslvr846 (#27161417) Attached to: New Electrode Lets Batteries Charge In 10 Seconds
FTA:
"Ultimately, the energy capacity of lithium iron phosphate is lower than that of other lithium-ion battery materials, making Ceder's advance of limited value, says Jeff Dahn, a professor of physics at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This battery is good for acceleration, but not as much for long range."

Emphasis mine. As has been pointed out above, the practical use for rapid-discharge is in conjunction with other types of high-density storage. I envision it as analogous to the RAM and HDD paradigm.
Portables

Nanowires Boost Laptop Battery Life to 20 Hours 238

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the more-bang-for-your-buck dept.
brianmed writes to tell us that Stanford researchers have created a new use for silicon nanowires that promise to reinvent lithium-ion batteries. "The new version, developed through research led by Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, produces 10 times the amount of electricity of existing lithium-ion, known as Li-ion, batteries. A laptop that now runs on battery for two hours could operate for 20 hours, a boon to ocean-hopping business travelers. [...] The lithium is stored in a forest of tiny silicon nanowires, each with a diameter one-thousandth the thickness of a sheet of paper. The nanowires inflate four times their normal size as they soak up lithium. But, unlike other silicon shapes, they do not fracture."
The Military

The Real Mother of All Bombs, 46 Years Ago 526

Posted by kdawson from the things-that-go-boom dept.
vaporland writes "Tsar Bomba is the Western name for the RDS-220, the largest, most powerful weapon ever detonated. The bomb was tested on October 30, 1961, in an archipelago in the Arctic Sea. Developed by the Soviet Union, the bomb had a yield of about 50 megatons. Its detonation released energy equivalent to approximately 1% of the power output of the Sun for 39 nanoseconds of its detonation. The device was scaled down from its original design of 100 megatons to reduce the resulting nuclear fallout. The Tsar Bomba qualifies as the single most powerful device ever utilized throughout the history of humanity."
Space

Rocket-Powered 21-Foot Long X-Wing Actually Flies 310

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fly-me-to-the-moon dept.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that some crazy California enthusiasts have built a 21-foot long model of an X-Wing. While this might be impressive in its own right, this model actually flies. Powered by four solid-fuel rocket engines the group has high hopes for their launch next week. Let's hope the built-in R2 unit makes it out ok.

Feed OLPC featured on "60 Minutes" (slashdot.org)

From feed by lcfeed
Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project was featured last night on the popular CBS news program "60 Minutes." Prototypes of the AMD-powered OLPC laptops running Linux are now being tested by schoolchildren in Brazil and elsewhere.

Feed House Dust May Protect Against Allergic Disease Early In Life (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Endotoxin, a toxic substance made by certain types of bacteria, may reduce the risk of developing the allergic skin condition eczema or wheezing in children if they are exposed to it up to age 3, suggests a new study. The researchers found that certain environmental factors such as having a home older than 30 years, substandard home conditions, carpeting, a musty smell and interior wall leaks were all associated with higher levels of endotoxin, and contrary to popular belief, a reduction in the risk of developing certain allergies.

Feed Approved Medical Resident Hours Still Resulting In Sleepy Doctors (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Medical residents working within the mandated maximum of 80 hours per week experience severe sleepiness, a finding that may have implications for both patient care and resident safety, according to a new study. Previous studies have shown that sleep-deprived residents perform poorly in several areas like judgment and concentration and are at risk for motor vehicle accidents. There have been several instances where sleep-deprived residents have committed serious mistakes in patient care.

Feed N.Y. cops hop on Segways (cnet.com)

From feed by cnetfeed
Is it possible to look tough on a Segway? Beat officers in Coney Island and parks are going to find out. From Crave, CNET's gadgets blog.
Google

Submission + - The darkside of Google taking over your ISP's emai

Submitted by
SlinkySausage
SlinkySausage writes: "Google is offering ISPs the opportunity to turn over their entire email system to Google, with all customer email hosted as Gmail accounts. This would allow Google to rapidly grow its userbase (it trails a distant third to Yahoo Mail with only 51million users compared to Yahoo's 250million and Hotmail's 228 million users.) There are some obvious benefits to end users — Google is offering ISPs mailboxes of up to 10GB per user. But APCMag.com has posted an interesting piece looking at the "dark side" of the deal, not least the fact that it simply reinforces the attachment people have to their ISP's email address, making it much harder to change ISPs if a better deal comes up. Question is: is a 10GB ISP mailbox for every ISP user a sufficient benefit to outweigh the numerous downsides?"

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