Without apologizing for the delay...

More news important to your future.

KurzweilAI.net Is my sister publication in a way, though I didn't discover it untill after I began this blog. A post references a New Scientist article describing new miniscule sensors that change their shape to move in the harsh Martian environment. This seems a logical step towards the possibility of nanoscale exploration of the universe.

Engadget posts a video uploaded to youtube by IBM. Big Blue apparently has some interesting ideas for the future of computing. My guess is that it wouldn't take more than three years to see this stuff ubiquitous in the market if there was enough push for it. Voice recognition at this level is doable today and the wireless technologies for the purposes demonstrated are in production. The only thing in between is software and hardware development.

Physorg.com posts an article on the Gravity Probe-B experiment, giving a thorough explanation of how the new experiment works.

Another post describes the studies scientists have done to discover the genes associated with learning and memory. Not only have they identified the genes involved, they've also made this database availible and searchable, making use of this knowledge much more efficient.

Yet another describes the current state of plastic solar panel technology and how it will soon be cost-effective to deploy.

Two more articles were posted on KurzweilAI.net in rapid fire, researchers are hard at work enabling printers to make electronics and bones from scratch. Add these to the list including plastic, chocolate, cake icing, metal, ceramics, paper, and soon organs. This is personally one of my favorite disruptive technologies. Being able to make your own stuff is what seperates people from large corporations.


Breaking with my usual trend of just the news that matters in the long run, I'd like to put in a quick shot to Swaptree, described in this DownloadSquad post. It's a new web2.0 beta that works like Ebay, only you trade items rather than buy them. They finally approved my application and I made my first trade yesterday, my copy of "Rayman: Raving Rabbids" for Stephen Hawking's "Illustrated Theory of Everything". I'll let you know when it comes in.


That's it for the moment, but I've got some news to browse for the pest of the day and you may see another post by monday.

My apologies for the lack of updates. My Internet connection is still a work in progress and a multitude of distractions weigh themselves upon me.

Much of the news for today is from physorg.com. Two separate groups of biomedical engineers have published experiments regarding evidence that the nano-scale surface texture of implanted materials assists in the substance being accepted by the body. This research could pave the way for new materials science to crafting implants that will not be rejected by the growth of new tissue.

Also at the atomic scales, another engineering team has designed a new form of solar panel that utilizes a miniscule 3d pattern on it's surface to reflect un-absorbed light back into itself. A process by which the panels can be made has been developed, but testing has yet to be preformed to determine if these panels will be more efficient.

Even more from the nano front, a generator has been designed that can harvest energy from vibrations at the sub-microscopic level. While much research has been preformed on the tools and uses of nanomachines, not much thought has been put towards powering them. This generator is capable of producing microamps of electricity, more than enough to power anything we'd like at that scale.

Zooming in a step smaller than the nano, scientists are working on deriving a communication medium from the strange realm of quantum entanglement. The Caltech Quantum Optics group has tacked on a third first. Previously, they succeeded in creating a remote pair of entangled nodes, and then used them to teleport a photon. Now, these scientists have demonstrated a quantum based repeater segment, one that divides a group of entangled atoms. the scientist separated them by threemeters and employed an encryption method known as photon polarization to ensure a secure transmission.

The last big story is, that a large number of alpine and ice climbers are reporting eyewitness accounts of global warming. Climate science may seem remote when one talks about a few degrees change over a century, but with mountaineers bemoaning ice dissapearing from peaks all around the world, it gets much more personal.

Since I've been away so long, here are a few quickie headlines.

Studies show that tendency towards religiousness is a partially genetic trait.

Los Angeles plans to pump sludge down into empty oil and gas resivours to generate energy.

Scientific American reports that a study shows that people prefer an even distribution of wealth.

That's all for today. I'll try not to procrastinate so long with my next post.