Solution for the green remote control problem

Just put a passive RFID circuit into the TV (like one of the tags in the books at Barnes & Nobles). It would start the TV in response to a remote signal---with no "always on" circuit in the TV.

Right/Left Brain Division Linked to Lower Structures

I just had an amazing realization, based on intuition and a few observations that are just too ephemeral and personal to relate here. The right half of the cerebral cortex is more closely connected to the thalamus than the left half. The left half is more centered on itself. The limbic system is equally connected to both right and left halves of the cortex.


Extending this with a mixture of logic and intuition, I would say the pre-frontal lobe is more connected to the right half of the cortex than the left.

86 Architecture Rules at Intel

Recently, Intel came out with a new line of chips based on the ancient type of software known as -86 or -286. Chips based on the software may give first come out in the early 1990s or maybe the late 1980s.

I find this very interesting. Although Intel periodically comes out with revolutionary new types of software based their chips on, such as RISC ( reduced instruction set), the old 286-based chips seem to be superseding a much more recent RISC chips, at least in many ways.

I believe the 286 represents a type of super-legacy technology that allows its practitioners to outperform its competitors due to their long familiarity with the software. I believe this is analogous to the way silicon continues to outperform every other material even though people come up with new materials sometimes it seemed to be better. In fact, silicon is the most frequently used material for nanomechanical devices, not because silicon is good material to make mechanical devices out of--- to the contrary I believe--- but because of the huge level of expertise engineers have developed in machining silicon to very small specifications due to its usage as the main material all the IC chips.

Slipping through cell walls, nanotubes deliver high-potency punch to cancer tumors in mice

PhysOrg.com


Very cool!

Now researchers at Stanford University have addressed that problem using single-walled carbon nanotubes as delivery vehicles. The new method has enabled the researchers to get a higher proportion of a given dose of medication into the tumor cells than is possible with the "free" drug—that is, the one not bound to nanotubes—thus reducing the amount of medication that they need to inject into a subject to achieve the desired therapeutic effect.

"That means you will also have less drug reaching the normal tissue," said Hongjie Dai, professor of chemistry and senior author of a paper, which will be published in the Aug. 15 issue of Cancer Research. So not only is the medication more effective against the tumor, ounce for ounce, but it greatly reduces the side effects of the medication...


All blood vessel walls are slightly porous, but in healthy vessels the pores are relatively small. By tinkering with the length of the nanotubes, the researchers were able to tailor the nanotubes so that they were too large to get through the holes in the walls of normal blood vessels, but still small enough to easily slip through the larger holes in the relatively leaky blood vessels in the tumor tissue.

That enabled the nanotubes to deliver their medicinal payload with tremendous efficiency, throwing a therapeutic wrench into the cellular means of reproduction and thus squelching the hitherto unrestrained proliferation of the tumor cells.

Economic growth in a period of political fragmentation, Western Europe 900-13001

http://www.iisg.nl/research/jvz-economic_growth.pdf

this paper tries to answer the question: Why did Europe grow rapidly economically during this period of political fragmentation. the number of states in Western Europe increased from something like 20 to something like 200 or 300 during this period.

Economic development during a time of political fragmentation contradicts most examples of economic development such as the Roman Empire, Qing dynasty in China,etc.

Paper concludes that the church and guilds were the key factors--- in opposition to the development of feudalism.

I doubt this because, as I noticed quite some time ago, the most advanced economic areas of the world ( not coming to the US which is an offshoot of Western Europe) are Western Europe and Japan--- both of which had feudalism--- which existed nowhere else as far as I know.


from another paper:

A New Civilization Emerges in Western Europe

Edited By: R. A. Guisepi

"The second limitation on the royal families came from the traditions of

feudalism and from the landed aristocracy as a powerful class. Aristocrats

tended to resist too much monarchical control in the West, and they had the

strength to make their objections heard. These aristocrats, even when vassals

of the king, had their own economic base and their own military force -

sometimes, in the case of great nobles, they had an army greater than that of

the king. The growth of the monarchy cut into aristocratic power, but this led

to new statements of the limits of kings. In 1215 the unpopular English king

John faced opposition to his taxation measures from an alliance of nobles,

townspeople, and church officials. Defeated in his war with France and then

forced down by the leading English lords, John was forced to sign the Great

Charter, or Magna Carta, which confirmed basically feudal rights against

monarchical claims. John promised to observe restraint in his dealings with

the nobles and the Church, agreeing for example not to institute new taxes

without the lords' permission or to appoint bishops without the Church's

permission. A few modern-sounding references to general rights of the English

people against the state that were included in Magna Carta largely served to

show where the feudal idea of mutual limits and obligations between rulers and

ruled could later expand.

This same feudal balance led, late in the 13th century, to the creation

of parliaments as bodies representing not individual voters but privileged

groups such as the nobles and the Church. The first full English parliament

convened in 1265, with the House of Lords representing the nobles and the

church hierarchy, and the Commons made up of elected representatives from

wealthy citizens of the towns. The parliament institutionalized the feudal

principle that monarchs should consult with their vassals. In particular,

parliaments gained the right to rule on any proposed changes in taxation;

through this power, they could also advise the crown on other policy issues.

While the parliamentary tradition became strongest in England, similar

institutions arose in France, Spain, and several of the regional governments

in Germany. Here too, parliaments represented the key estates: Church, nobles,

and urban leaders. They were not widely elected.

Feudal government was not modern government. People had rights according

to the estate into which they were born; there was no general concept of

citizenship and no democracy. Thus parliaments represented only a minority,

and even this minority only in terms of the three or four estates voting as

units (nobles, clergy, urban merchants, and sometimes wealthy peasants), not

some generalized collection of voters. Still, by creating a concept of limited

government and some hint of representative institutions, Western feudal

monarchy produced the beginnings of a distinctive political tradition. This

tradition differed from the political results of Japanese feudalism, which

emphasized group loyalty more than checks on central power.

During the postclassical period, a key result of the establishment of

feudal monarchy was a comparatively weak central core; although several

monarchies gained ground steadily, they wielded very few general powers. This

would change, as kings attained far more extensive powers in military affairs,

cultural patronage, and the like. However, some solid remnants of medieval

traditions, embodied in institutions like parliaments and ideas like the

separation between God's authority and state power, would define a basic

thread in the Western political process even in the later 20th century."

MEMS industry growth

The MEMS industry has witnessed large growth rates in recent years in applications including cell phones, digital still cameras, camcorders, laptops, MP3 players, and robots.

New Software Tool Helps with Floorplanning for System on a Chip

Magma takes floorplanning to another level, so to speak

"Floorplanning for SoCs seems to be a subject rife with paradox. On one hand, the exercise of iteratively refining the chip's floorplan seems to be the axel that holds hierarchical design together. On the other hand, improving the floorplan always seems to require one more level of detail than is currently available to the planners. So invariably, the floorplan is based on estimates of the size, shape, and timing of the blocks, and its quality depends heavily on the experience of the senior design staff...

"Next, Hydra can automatically generate primary floorplans, including creation of voltage domains, pin and pad placement, and gradual definition of the inner shapes of the blocks. At this point the tool can work interactively with designers to absorb, for example, information about the shape and location of hard IP blocks. The tool also creates partitions in the logical hierarchy automatically, impacting pin placement and timing as things get laid out.

"The information thus generated is passed as constraints to a shaping engine, which shapes the partitions that have been defined on the logical hierarchy, and also places and legalizes macros with a shape- and congestion-aware auto-placement engine. With this process complete, Hydra can automatically generate power grids and clock tree hierarchy. At this point the tool can generate production-quality top-level clock structures and prototype-quality block-level clock trees, Bali says. Hydra can also work with Magma's package co-design tools on placing bumps, I/O cells, and redistribution layer information along with the emerging floor plan...

"A key part of the process now, according to Bali, is budgeting. The information Hydra has generated in the process of constructing the floorplan gets pushed down to the block level as timing budgets and other constraints for the block implementation tools. As blocks are implemented, Hydra allows abstraction of detailed block designs back into the floorplanning process to refine the emerging picture of the full chip. By maintaining relative floorplanning constraints, the tool can incorporate changes without disrupting the rest of the plan.Thus, Magma claims, the tool provides a single cockpit for managing an hierarchical design from early exploration through implementation and into the final assembly process. Bali says that Hydra is unique in its ability to serve the team from planning through prototyping, and on to the preparation of the production-ready floorplan."

AI system for static and dynamic analysis of MEMS design and manufacture

artificial intelligence approach for the design and manufacturing of micro electro mechanical systems


Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) is a new field. However, the application of MEMS has increased drastically for the past decade. The design and manufacturing of MEMS require specific expertise. A computerized consultant system for thorough static and dynamic analysis of MEMS is needed for design and manufacturing. A PC-based Expert System, EASYMEMS, has been developed. EASYMEMS contains domain specific knowledge of MEMS as well as the reasoning process of a human expert. It includes three sections: material, design, and manufacturing. It can be used to select the material for MEMS. It supports human reasoning and thus can offer MEMS design guidelines for engineers. It is also capable of performing thorough static and dynamic analysis and then calculating critical dimensions for the design of MEMS. Furthermore, it can be used for the consultation for MEMS manufacture. The computer graphics offered by EASYMEMS are very helpful for both MEMS design and manufacturing. In simple words, EASYMEMS is very user-friendly and is very beneficial for MEMS engineers.

Evolution isn't finished with us. Scientists using data from the HapMap Project, a large scale effort to identify variations in human genes, have discovered evidence that evolution is actually accelerating. Granted, we're not talking about the decade scale here. Compared to your grandparents you're not some kind of advanced mutant.

But anthropologist Henry Harpending of the University of Utah, a co-author of the new study, says there have been significant changes in the last 1,000 or 2,000 years. The rate of evolution is far greater in the last few millenia, Harpending and his colleagues say, than it had been in the millions of years before. One of the possible causes of the acceleration, the scientists assert, may be the population boom. With more people, there's a greater likelihood that an advantageous genetic mutation will arise, and spread. Others contest the group's conclusions. Either way, this probably isn't the last controversial or groundbreaking idea we're going to hear about from the HapMap Project.—Gregory Mone

Mechanisms of memory [mis-]identified

This is a continuing, not very effective line of research in my opinion. That memories are stored in molecules, partly due to the 3-D bending and contorting of some kind of protein or nucleic acid, is obvious to me. (See a previous post on the subject.) Only protein, DNA, and RNA is complex enough for this task, in my view.

Obviously, there is neuronal transmission involved with the formation of memory and blocking it blocks memory. This is not, as the article (and others like it) imply, getting to the actual mechanism of memory.

phys.org

"By blocking certain mechanisms that control the way that nerve cells in the brain communicate, scientists from the University of Bristol have been able to prevent visual recognition memory in rats...

"One hypothesis is that changes at the specialised junctions (synapses) between nerve cells in the brain, hold the secrets to learning and memory. The change in the strength of communication between synapses is called synaptic plasticity and, it is believed, the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity may be important for learning and memory. Bashir and his colleagues tested this hypothesis...

"Dr Sarah Griffiths, lead author on the paper, explained: “Nerve cells in the perirhinal cortex of the brain are known to be vital for visual recognition memory. Using a combination of biological techniques and behavioural testing, we examined whether the mechanisms involved in synaptic plasticity are also vital for visual recognition memory.”

"In their experiments, they were able to identify a key molecular mechanism that controls synaptic plasticity in the perirhinal cortex. They then demonstrated that blocking the same molecular mechanism that controls synaptic plasticity also prevented visual recognition memory in rats. This shows that such memory relies on specific molecular processes in the brain."

[What a brilliant thing to prove. What are the alternatives? That memory relies on "general" molecular processes in the brain? That it relies on "non-molecular" processes? Like maybe purely ionization, or something like noble gases? Practically every life process relies on "specific molecular processes!"

The exceptions, like the concentration of Na+ in the cell, are quite simple and obviously memory is not something like that. Even the concentration of Na+ in the cell, really depends on "specific molecular processes." Or perhaps their brilliance lies in the assertion that memory is "in the brain?" That narrows it down. It's not in the hand, or the appendix?

Sloppy writing, sloppy thinking, and sloppy science.

The Nature of Warlordism:Insights and Analysis

In the midst of the Olympic protests, I am thinking about that central problem of Darfur (Somalia), warlordism.


By:Abdirizak Adam Hassan (Durqun)


"Warlordism as a paradigm is not a recent phenomenon to the field of factional rivalry and power politics. Many political philosophers wrote extensively on this condition of state absence and lawlessness. Thomas Hobbes, an English political philosopher of 17th-century described such a scenario as "hell on earth", and life becomes " nasty, brutish and short". Others Thought such a condition of life as "unthinkable, natural and barbaric" (John Locke), as "the day of the cannibal, Zero Hour, revealing the real man" ( Fredrick Hegel), and as "the day of the coward and the dread of the brave, cultural suicide and undoing civilization" (Jacques Rousseau). What this means is that the old world has witnessed and grabbled with what can become of the human existence in the absence of overarching conventions of a commonwealth that would indiscriminately uphold and exercise the enforcement of the law for the common survival of the society. To most of us, warlordism appears as a relatively new innovation by Somali warlords just because we are conditioned by, and accustomed to, an orderly peaceful existence provided by the state through the enforcement of law and order. Thus, we didn't know what to think of a situation where there is no state to foster us and provide basic security guarantees for us. The reality of life in southern Somalia can be best understood in shifting our thinking away from the lulling view of warlordism as a brief, circumstantial and interim situation that could be easily overcome once law and order returns. We should rather think of warlordism as a self-contained phenomena, and a full fledged known paradigm that has a substantive existence of its own right. It is a state of existence that draws its validation by default due to the absence of enforceable legal order. It has a de-facto underpinning of a legitimate operational practicality by the sole virtue of the absence of any credible challenge. And, it is a self-perpetuating bstinate state of power politics that is here to stay, unless proven otherwise. The only thing political about warlordism is the fact it acts and plans for its survival which can be only achieved through securing the supremacy and the upper hand for the control of the country, region,city or fiefdom. The rest of its manifestations are all-out belligerence of personal nature. Despite that, I argue, worlordism is not all about drunkenness and mayhem; it has a life (reason), sense of direction (goal) and adheres unto its own norms (laws) - albeit laws that don't make sense.

"The life of a typical warlord could be characterized as being paranoid at best, if not schizophrenic. Like all criminals at lose, his life is plagued with a constant and impeding insecurity and suspicion. He secretly harbors the unsettling realization that he has inflicted gross inhumanities to many people and looted many public and private wealth; and he would logically want to get away with it. Trying to get away with it, however, requires a towering vigil and expediency from his part to identify, predict and eliminate what he regards as a potential source of danger to himself. As a result, the worst kind of fear ( the bodily one) is the hallmark of the life of a warlord and it is what makes him tick. Warlordism as a profession, thus, thrives on the dynamics of sheer survival and that is what gives life and reason for the justification of its core operational norms (laws) of shrewd plotting and cold brutality. Consequently, you can expect everything from a warlord but to willingly undo himself by dismantling his power-base for the sake of the nation, his own family or anything in-between.

"The goal of a warlord is to deny justice as we know it and replace it with a justice of his own making and taste. It is a justice that would polish him as a benevolent moral statesman and as a hero who has struggled and dearly sacrificed for the common good of the nation as a whole. It is a justice that must erase his shameful past and purge all traces of his criminality by compelling the nation to submit to his wanton desires of survival, wealth, fame and power. A warlord can never conceive of any other way out of this predicament of his own making, except through the choice between two evils: (a) the inevitable continuation of the mayhem, and (b) the eventual wise decision of the people to let him realize his goal of reaching the apex of power by becoming the head of the state. His will to power is intimately connected with his will to live. Hypothetically, even if the nascent state promises a grant of a retroactive blanket amnesty for the warlords, it would not be a sufficient guarantee for their insatiable security needs. This underlines how entrenched is the resolve of a warlord and as far as he is concerned, he is here to stay.

"The operational norms (laws) of Warlordism are simple, unwritten and tactical in nature. They are not "laws" per se, but laws nevertheless, in as much as they make sense and can be explained by the rational mind. They are akin to the raw tenets of balance of power and the logic of maximizing gains. Sometimes securing any scant of a relative gain over other warlords might be about enough for a given warlord. Often times, however, a warlord of good standing may raise the stakes and aim for an absolute gain. When such a warlord emerges, the rest of the warlords would suddenly cease all active hostilities between them and form a tactical alliance for the purpose of confronting him. Curiously though, even if the alliance succeeds in defeating their common enemy, it would not go the extra mile and form a government. What may explain this unwitting loss of opportunity is primarily the simple fact that forming a government and thereby ending warlordism would involve the emergence of one of them as the leader, and that spells as horrific a scenario as the one they just collectively defeated. Their need (use) for each other stops there and they would invariably resume their perpetual enmity of each other. A warlord for a warlord is both a sworn enemy and an occasional tactical ally (savior). This neurosis that trips between [H]ate-love dichotomy stems from the dictates of being realistic and not letting lofty ideals of any kind undermine ones sacred desire for survival and perseverance. It is what gives credence to the old classical theories of balance of power and Real-Politick which are the passionate breechings of realism."


Forms of warlordism can be found in many different realms and the idea of it can be extended to a general principle---the formation of a rogue power center within a structure originally designed for another purpose. Here is an example from politics in India:


Factionalism within Cong takes ugly turn

"Factionalism within the Congress took an ugly turn today with the acting leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP), Capt Ajay Singh, alleging that the Union Minister of State, Mr Rao Inderjeet Singh, worked against him and other party candidates in the Ahirwal belt in just concluded Assembly elections.

"Capt Ajay Singh, Congress MLA from Rewari, without naming Mr Rao Inderjeet Singh said the Union Minister of State, who hails from South Haryana, worked against party nominees.

"The allegation of Capt Ajay Singh, considered to be in the vanguard of anti-Rao Bireder Singh politics, assumes serious political significance. In the Ahirwal belt, comprising districts of Rewari, Gurgaon and Mahendergarh, politics of Congress leaders is polarised between pro and anti-Rao Birender Singh, former Chief Minister of Haryana. Rao Inderjeet Singh is the son of Rao Birender Singh...

"However, some leaders like Capt Ajay Singh, Rao Dharam Pal (Sohna), Rao Narender Singh (Ateli), Ms Anita Yadav (Salawas), have been winning elections in the past inspite of the opposition from the Rao Birender Singh’s clan. The anti-Rao Birender Singh faction allege that Rao Birender Singh’s family has a vested interest in not allowing others to rise and always try to brow beat the Congress leadership by claiming that it has monopoly in Ahirwal politics. The family leverages the figure of Rao Bireder Singh in the Congress high command just to scupper the political growth of the leaders who show signs of “independence and maturity” and “preferred loyalty” to the party organisation, they add."

Researchers stumped by drug addiction paradox

http://www.physorg.com/news127559887.html

Phys.org

"Throughout history, plants have created their toxins by mimicking their own [errror in article, I think, must mean animals' own] molecules that regulate metabolism, growth and reproduction. When ingested by herbivores, some of these molecules can interfere with nearly every step in the animal’s neural signaling process...

"However, the researchers point to several other studies which show that the detoxification enzymes developed by animals (and which originally evolved in bacteria about 3.5 billion years ago) expanded in animals about 400 million years ago – about the same time that plants were evolving their own toxins. In other words, animals and plants seemed to have coevolved competitive genes in response to each other, which contradicts the evolutionary interpretation.

"As the researchers investigated further, they compiled other studies showing evidence that humans inherited these detox genes from their mammalian ancestors. Interestingly, although many modern animal species can tolerate plant toxins, different species possess different detox function levels. Even among humans from different geographic locations, these functions differ. Often, human populations with greater numbers of toxin-metabolizing genes originate from parts of the world that contain an abundance of those plants. For example, human populations in and near Turkey have a very high frequency of enzymes that can metabolize opiates, and the opiate poppy is native to the Turkish region...

"Based on evidence from previous studies, Sullivan, Hagen, and Hammerstein note that plant toxins may actually have some kind of benefit for animals. For instance, because plant toxins are more harmful to some species than to others, the less affected species might actually consume levels of toxin that are tolerable to themselves but much worse for the parasites or pathogens that feed on them in order to protect themselves. For example, earlier humans that consumed nicotine (in much smaller amounts than today) could have received the benefit of fewer parasitic infections. Of course, the benefits also come with trade-offs."

Swarm of Tiny UAVs With Stationary Base Relay

This is a kind of surveillance idea. There would be a large number of small, relatively inexpensive UAVs. Each UAV would incorporate a camera capable of taking only still photos. Each UAV would transmit the photos over a relatively short distance. Along with each photo would be a data package including as much information as could be economically gather about its own position including height from the ground, compass heading of the front end of the UAV, angle of tilt from horizontal, etc. GPS would definitely not be included (too expensive).

The stationary base relay (SBR) would be a relatively larger, higher-powered unit compared to the UAVs. Initially, the stationary base relay and the smaller UAVs would be delivered to the base location by a mother UAV that would drop them off and leave. The SBR would be dropped at the base of a plant. The SBR's antenna would be dropped into the foliage of the plant for camouflage.

The SBR would pick up the short-range transmissions of the UAV and relay them to the main base station, or military base. a computer at the main base station would correlate the various photos from the UAVs to create a larger (incomplete) picture of the area. The SBR would locate the source of each photo via triangulation to help with this overall image-building process. signals broadcasted from the SBR would teach the UAV where it was and train it not to stray out of range of the SBR receiver.

UAVs, and possibly the SBR, could be powered by solar energy. The SBR might have the capability of rolling to a new location, bringing the UAVs along, of course. The SBR could also receive a blackout signal from the main base station, which would of course be relayed to all UAVs---for purposes of temporary concealment in the event of possible enemy detection. Perhaps the mother UAV could also repair the SBR in the event of a malfunction.

RNA and Memory

•


RNA and Memory


Research by Flexnar and colleagues in the early 1960s demonstrated that inhibitors of RNA and protein synthesis block the formation of long term memory, when administered at the appropriate time.

"RNA and Memory: From feeding to localization" by Ralph J. Greenspan

Discovery alters longstanding concept of fixed protein structure

Phys.org

"Now, researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee have found that a protein, lymphotactin, which plays a vital role in the body’s immune response, can rapidly shift its shape --up to ten times a second-- between two totally unrelated structures, each with a unique role in defending the body...

"Dr. Volkman’s team is using highly sensitive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to solve three-dimensional protein structures. NMR provides information on the number and type of chemical entities in a molecule, and can measure distances between pairs of atoms within the molecule to produce a computer-generated 3-D model of its structure.

"They discovered that human lymphotactin, a regulatory protein released by the immune system to attract and activate white blood cells, exists naturally in two distinct structures, and that the newly-identified form has no similarity to any other known protein. They also learned that each form has a unique role, one attaching to the interior wall of the blood vessel, and the other reaching out to grab white blood cells. This means that converting from one lymphotactin structure to the other is likely essential for its activation, according to Dr. Volkman."

I predict this information will end up being central to the question of how thoughts form and how memories are stored in the brain. I believe memory storage must be based on the folding of complex molecules---maybe RNA or possibly proteins. (I suppose it would be incorrect to call RNA itself a protein, though I am not sure.) I think this because I simply cannot come up with another plausible possibility.

I believe people must sleep a certain way (on the back, stomach, left or right side) to flood blood into one part of the brain to allow these proteins to fold and unfold more easily. I think durng the day, information is stored in temporary form. Then during sleep, it is converted to a more permanent form. But it is not a simple conversion of form. Rather, the information is re-worked. Chemically, I believe this is characterized by a group of proteins or RNA molecules seeking the "lowest energy" configuration---what we perceive as "the way of looking at things that makes the best sense."

To get to these low energy configurations, however, the molecules must move through higher energy configurations. The massive quantities of blood allow the molecules to more easily pass through "tangles" to get to the optimal, low energy configuration (i.e., the "best interpretation of the day's events."

MicroTweezer Specifications

MEMS Precision Instruments

MicroTweezers could work as stand alone, or as part of the Robotic System.
The range of engineering specs that are available is shown below.

(Exact data for each design will be added as it becomes avaliable.)
Tip opening displacement: between 0 to 100 microns.
Applied Force: between 10 pico Newton to 1 Milli Newton depending on the Tip Design.
Actuator Voltage: between 0 to 18V, Atuator current: between 0 to 100 MA.
Time for Tip to Open is 0.5 Sec, Time for Tip to close is 0.5 Sec.

[MEMS 2008] Micro Air Flow Sensor Mounted on Dragonfly Wing

Tech-on! tech news straight from Asia

"A research group at Graduate School of Information Science and Technology of Tokyo University developed a micro air flow sensor unit that can be attached on a wing of insects such as dragonfly to analyze the motions of the wing...

"The micro air flow sensor unit developed by the group is about 3mm-square with a thickness of about 1mm. Because two sensors are mounted on the 3mm-square chip, each sensor measures about 1.5 x 3mm...

"The sensor has a structure in which a cantilever piezoresistor, measuring about 0.5mm in length and less than 1μm in thickness, is formed on an SOI substrate with an electrode. The piezoresistor is a Si-based semiconductor."

Hmmm. How about cameras and transmitters on butterflies? Maybe a little airborne relay station to pass on the broadcasts---and also fire off some pherenome "bombs"in the right direction to keep the butterflies on track. Not promising, really.

But perhaps parts of insects could be incorporated into little UAVs.

Hmmmm. Complicated. Keeping part of an insect alive. More likely, its the whole insect, but the brain is brought under control by an implant. Gruesome and sci-fi, but workable.

"When the cantilever is bent by the wind, the resultant strain varies the electric resistance to indicate the degree of bending, hence the wind force. The cantilever only weighs 0.1μg."

MEMS companies advance rapidly

A new report by market research firm Yole Developpement ranks the top MEMS manufacturers of 2007. "Nine companies are above $200 million sales, compared to only four companies two years ago," said Jean Christophe Eloy, Yole's founder....

First third-degree, transcendental L-function Is Discovered

Glimpses of a new (mathematical) world

"A new mathematical object was revealed yesterday during a lecture at the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM). Two researchers from the University of Bristol exhibited the first example of a third degree transcendental L-function. These L-functions encode deep underlying connections between many different areas of mathematics.

"The news caused excitement at the AIM workshop attended by 25 of the world's leading analytic number theorists. The work is a joint project between Ce Bian and his adviser, Andrew Booker. Booker commented that, "This work was made possible by a combination of theoretical advances and the power of modern computers." During his lecture, Bian reported that it took approximately 10,000 hours of computer time to produce his initial results.

"'This breakthrough opens a door to the study of higher degree L-functions,' said Dennis Hejhal, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota and Uppsala University...

"There are two types of L-functions: algebraic and transcendental, and these are classified according to their degree. The Riemann zeta-function is the grand-daddy of all L-functions. It holds the secret to how the prime numbers are distributed, and is a first-degree algebraic L-function."


L-functions and modular forms


"L-functions and modular forms underlie much of twentieth century number theory
and are connected to the practical applications of number theory in cryptography. The
fundamental importance of these functions in mathematics is supported by the fact that two
of the seven Clay Mathematics Million Dollar Millennium Problems deal with properties
of these functions, namely the Riemann Hypothesis and the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer
conjecture. The Riemann Hypothesis concerns the distribution of prime numbers. The
correctness of the best algorithms for constructing large prime numbers, which are used by
the public-key cryptosystems that everybody who uses the Internet relies on daily, depends
on the truth of a generalized version of this 150-year-old unsolved problem."



from Advanced Analytic Number Theory: L-Functions by Carlos J. Moreno


"The delicate behavior of L-functions on vertical strips will be studied by using a refined version of the Phragmen Lindelof Theory due to Rademacher. This theory is based on the harmonic properties of the absolute value of the gamma function. The explicit estimates obtained for L-functions on vertical strips are useful in applications in which numerical results are desired."


Apparently, these "vertical strips" are similar to or the same thing as the vertical strips they divide a shape up into in integration to measure the area under the curve.

New twist on life's power source

New twist on life's power source

http://www.physorg.com/news124463490.html

During normal photosynthesis, light energy splits water molecules. This releases oxygen and provides electrons which are then used to “fix” carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and manufacture energy-rich molecules, such as sugars. In the newly discovered process, a large proportion of these electrons are not used to fix carbon dioxide, but instead go to putting the water molecules back together, which results in much less net oxygen production.

“It might seem like the cells are just doing a futile light-driven water-to-water cycle,” says Bailey. “But this is not really true since this novel cycle is also a way of using sunlight to produce energy, while protecting the photosynthetic apparatus from damage that can be caused by the absorption of light.”

The article did not actually explain how this works at all.

Researchers engineer new polymers to change their stiffness, strength when exposed to liquids

Sea cucumbers inspired the design of chemo-responsive nanocomposite with adaptive mechanical properties.


"'"We can engineer these new polymers to change their mechanical properties -- in particular stiffness and strength -- in a programmed fashion when exposed to a specific chemical," says Weder, one of the senior authors of the paper.

"'"The materials on which we reported in Science were designed to change from a hard plastic -- think of a CD case -- to a soft rubber when brought in contact with water," adds Rowan, who has been Weder's partner on the project for almost six years...

"'"These creatures [sea cucumbers] can reversibly and quickly change the stiffness of their skin. Normally it is very soft, but, for example, in response to a threat, the animal can activate its 'body armor' by hardening its skin," explains Capadona, who has a sea cucumber in his aquarium. Marine biologists have shown in earlier studies that the switching effect in the biological tissue is derived from a distinct nanocomposite structure in which highly rigid collagen nanofibers are embedded in a soft connective tissue. The stiffness is mediated by specific chemicals that are secreted by the animal's nervous system and which control the interactions among the collagen nanofibers. When connected, the nanofibers form a reinforcing network which increases the overall stiffness of the material considerably, when compared to the disconnected (soft) state...

"'A problem observed in experimental studies [that researchers hope to solve with this type of material] is that the quality of the brain signals recorded by such microelectrodes usually degrades within a few months after implantation, making chronic applications challenging. One hypothesis for this failure is that the high stiffness of these electrodes, which is required for their insertion, causes damage to the surrounding, very soft brain tissue over time."'

New Technique for Estimates Relating to Massive Quantities of Data

Brown mathematicians prove new way to build a better estimate

phys.org


Brown University mathematician Charles “Chip” Lawrence and graduate student Luis Carvalho have proved a new way to build a better estimate to answer the question, "How do you sift through hundreds of billions of bits of information and make accurate inferences from such gargantuan sets of data?"


"For more than 80 years, one of the most common methods of statistical prediction has been maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). This method is used to find the single most probable solution, or estimate, from a set of data.

"But new technologies that capture enormous amounts of data – human genome sequencing, "Internet transaction tracking, instruments that beam high-resolution images from outer space – have opened opportunities to predict discrete “high dimensional” or “high-D” unknowns. The huge number of combinations of these “high-D” unknowns produces enormous statistical uncertainty. Data has outgrown data analysis.

"This discrepancy creates a paradox. Instead of producing more precise predictions about gene activity, shopping habits or the presence of faraway stars, these large data sets are producing more unreliable predictions, given current procedures. That’s because maximum likelihood estimators use data to identify the single most probable solution. But because any one data point swims in an increasingly immense sea, it’s not likely to be representative...

"Lawrence and Carvahlo used statistical decision theory to understand the limitations of the old procedure when faced with new “high-D” problems. They also used statistical decision-making theory to find an estimation procedure that applies to a broad range of statistical problems. These “centroid” estimators identify not the single most probable solution, but the solution that is most representative of all the data in a set."