Monthly Archives: January 2006

Swedish File Sharers Form Political Party

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A political party has been set up in Sweden that plans to participate to the upcoming national elections. Piratpartiet plans to remove all immaterial rights, including copyrights and patents and also hopes to stop Sweden’s participation in international copyright organizations, including WIPO and WTO and to make it illegal to put any restrictions on distribution of digital content.

“Pirate Party” also aims to push even further the privacy laws and to make it illegal to track or monitor citizens’ communications online and offline.

To register an official party in Sweden, they need to get 1,500 signatures to support its cause. The organization managed to gather over 4,000 signatures in first 24 hours and is in process of validating the signatures.

The party says that it is against seeing the developing world starve because the developed world refuses to share its intellectual property.

el navegante

Quantum Communication

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A trick for transferring quantum information from atoms to photons and back again could be used to create impenetrable global communication networks and computers that work at astounding speeds.

Two research groups, one led by Mikhail Lukin at Harvard University and the second headed by Alex Kuzmich of Georgia Institute of Technology, both in the US, separately demonstrated the feat using similar methods.

Both teams employed powerful laser pulses to extract quantum information from a cloud of atoms in the form of a single photon. That photon was then transmitted through a normal optical fibre before its quantum state was transferred to a second atomic cloud.

Creating communication links between such “quantum memories” – the clouds of atoms – is crucial to building complex networks that exploit quantum phenomena, such as entanglement and superposition. Quantum networks are extremely sensitive to interference, but hold great promise for secure communications and superfast computing.

New Scientist

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Iraq War Could Cost US Over $2 Trillion, Says Nobel Prize-winning Economist

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The real cost to the US of the Iraq war is likely to be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion (£1.1 trillion), up to 10 times more than previously thought, according to a report written by a Nobel prize-winning economist and a Harvard budget expert.

The study, which expanded on traditional estimates by including such costs as lifetime disability and healthcare for troops injured in the conflict as well as the impact on the American economy, concluded that the US government is continuing to underestimate the cost of the war.

Mr Stiglitz told the Guardian that despite the staggering costs laid out in their paper the economists had erred on the side of caution. “Our estimates are very conservative, and it could be that the final costs will be much higher. And it should be noted they do not include the costs of the conflict to either Iraq or the UK.” In 2003, as US and British troops were massing on the Iraq border, Larry Lindsey, George Bush’s economic adviser, suggested the costs might reach $200bn. The White House said the figure was far too high, and the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, said Iraq could finance its own reconstruction.

GuardianUK

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Spin-Mediated Consciousness Theory: Possible Roles of Oxygen Unpaired Electronic Spins and Neural Membrane Nuclear Spin Ensemble in Memory and Consciousness

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by Huping Hu, Maoxin Wu

We postulate that consciousness is connected to quantum mechanical spin since said spin is embedded in the microscopic structure of spacetime and may be more fundamental than spacetime itself. Thus, we theorize that consciousness is connected with the fabric of spacetime through spin. That is, spin is the “pixel” and “antenna” of mind. The unity of mind is achieved by non-local means within the pre-spacetime domain interfaced with spacetime. Human mind is possible because of the particular structures and dynamics of our brain postulated working as follows: The unpaired electronic spins of highly lipid-soluble and rapidly diffusing oxygen molecules extract information from the dynamical neural membranes and communicate said information through strong spin-spin couplings to the nuclear spin ensemble in the membranes for consciousness-related quantum statistical processing which survives decoherence. In turn, the dynamics of the nuclear spin ensemble has effects through spin chemistry on the classical neural activities such as action potentials and receptor functions thus connecting with the classical neural networks of the brain. Our proposal calls for associative encoding of neural memories in the dynamical structures of neural membranes. Thus, according to the present theory: (1)the dynamical nuclear spin ensemble is the “pixels” of mind; (2) the neural membranes are the pixel-embedding and associative memory storage matrices; and (3) the unpaired electrons of the rapidly diffusing oxygen molecules are the spin beam for information retrieval, communication and pixel-activation. Together, they form the interface (neural substrates) to consciousness.

MindPixel < QuantumBrain

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Antigravity Field Could Propel Spacecraft to Mars in 3 Hours

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EVERY year, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics awards prizes for the best papers presented at its annual conference. Last year’s winner in the nuclear and future flight category went to a paper calling for experimental tests of an astonishing new type of engine. According to the paper, this hyperdrive motor would propel a craft through another dimension at enormous speeds. It could leave Earth at lunchtime and get to the moon in time for dinner. There’s just one catch: the idea relies on an obscure and largely unrecognised kind of physics. Can they possibly be serious?

The AIAA is certainly not embarrassed. What’s more, the US military has begun to cast its eyes over the hyperdrive concept, and a space propulsion researcher at the US Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories has said he would be interested in putting the idea to the test. And despite the bafflement of most physicists at the theory that supposedly underpins it, Pavlos Mikellides, an aerospace engineer at the Arizona State University in Tempe who reviewed the winning paper, stands by the committee’s choice. “Even though such features have been explored before, this particular approach is quite unique,” he says.

Unique it certainly is. If the experiment gets the go-ahead and works, it could reveal new interactions between the fundamental forces of nature that would change the future of space travel. Forget spending six months or more holed up in a rocket on the way to Mars, a round trip on the hyperdrive could take as little as 5 hours. All our worries about astronauts’ muscles wasting away or their DNA being irreparably damaged by cosmic radiation would disappear overnight. What’s more the device would put travel to the stars within reach for the first time. But can the hyperdrive really get off the ground?

NewScientist

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A Long Term Perspective on Magical Process and Results

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I think of magic as a process, but not a technical one. It is a flow, it is organic…it is something which is adapted to exigencies that occur in a person’s life, but also adapts that person to those exigencies in terms of learning how to handle them. It is also, as a process, something which not only changes external reality, but also the internal reality of a person and as such is something which can’t always be measured by material manifestation.

As such, I propose that a long term perspective toward magic be taken…such a long term perspective may be highly useful to adapt in terms of thinking about not only where you want your life to be tomorrow, next week, or a month from now, but five or ten or twenty years from now. And I also want to offer the idea that a result can take much longer to manifest than is initially expected. And the result can include much needed internal changes as well as external changes. those internal changes may be needed in order for a person to be ready for what it is s/he is trying to manifest into his/her life.

Key23

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A Few Squares Of Dark Chocolate A Day May Stave Off Artery Hardening In Smokers

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Dark chocolate may stave off artery hardening in smokers, and a few squares every day could potentially cut the risk of serious heart disease, finds a small study in Heart.

Researchers compared the effects of dark (74% cocoa solids) and white chocolate on the smoothness of arterial blood flow in 20 male smokers.

In smokers the activity of both endothelial cells, which line the artery walls, and platelets, which are involved in the formation of blood clots, are continuously disrupted, making the arteries susceptible to the narrowing and hardening characteristic of coronary artery disease.

Before eating 40 g of chocolate (about 2 oz), smokers were first asked to abstain from other foods rich in antioxidants, such as onions, apples, cabbage, and cocoa products for 24 hours.

After two hours, ultrasound scans revealed that dark chocolate significantly improved the smoothness of arterial flow, an effect which lasted for eight hours. Blood sample analysis also showed that dark chocolate almost halved platelet activity. Antioxidant levels rose sharply after two hours.

ScienceDaily

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Nano-Armor: Protecting The Soldiers of Tomorrow

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An Israeli company has recently tested one of the most shock-resistant materials known to man. Five times stronger than steel and at least twice as strong as any impact-resistant material currently in use as protective gear, the new nano-based material is on its way to becoming the armor of the future.

A year ago IsraCast reported on the development of the first commercial nano-based lubricant which was developed by the Israeli company ApNano materials. A year later we find ApNano working also on a wholly different application of their technology – shielding and protection. In recent research lead by Prof. Yan Qiu Zhu of the School of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Nottingham, England, a sample of the ApNano material was subjected to severe shocks generated by a steel projectile traveling at velocities of up to 1.5 km/second. The material withstood the shock pressures generated by the impacts of up to 250 tons per square centimeter. This is approximately equivalent to dropping four diesel locomotives onto an area the size of one’s fingernail. During the test the material proved to be so strong that after the impact the samples remained essentially identical compared to the original material. Additionally, a recent study by Prof. J. M. Martin from Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France tested the new material under isostatic pressure and found it to be stable up to at least 350 tons/cm2.

IsraCast

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Animal-Free Embryo Stem Cell Lines Created

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A stem cell culture system free of animal cells has been used to derive two new human embryonic stem cell lines.

The work, reported in the journal Nature Biotechnology, moves stem cells a step closer to clinical reality by eliminating animal products that could harbor dangerous agents such as viruses from culture media.

BH

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Easy to Drive, Stackable Vehicle for People to Share

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It is not every day that a concept car re-writes the rules of more than 100 years of motoring. In development for four years by a team of architects and engineers led by William Mitchell, former head of the school of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as part of his Smart Cities research group, a new MIT car is borne of a complete rethink of people’s relationship with their cars in the ever-expanding cities of the future.

Prof Mitchell expects we will share cars that will be easier to drive in congested cities, will be pollution-free and can be customised at will.

The city car concept, with styling input by architect Frank Gehry, will be completed and delivered by MIT to General Motors early next year.

GuardianUK

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New Study: Marijuana Users Less Depressed

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In the largest-ever study of marijuana and depression, to be published in the journal Addictive Behaviors, daily or weekly marijuana users had fewer symptoms of depression than non-users. Marijuana users were also more likely to report positive moods and fewer somatic complaints such as sleeplessness. Noteworthy differences were also found between those using marijuana for medical purposes and non-medical or “recreational” users.

The new research appears to contradict statements by some government officials suggesting that marijuana is a cause of depression. For example, in a May 3, 2005, press release from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, ONDCP Director John Walters said, “Marijuana use, particularly during the teen years, can lead to depression, thoughts of suicide and schizophrenia.”

“Not only does marijuana not cause depression, it looks like it may actually alleviate it,” said Mitch Earleywine, co-author of the new study and associate professor of psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York.

MPP

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Art Therapy Can Reduce Pain And Anxiety In Cancer Patients

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A study published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management found that art therapy can reduce a broad spectrum of symptoms related to pain and anxiety in cancer patients. In the study done at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, cancer patients reported significant reductions in eight of nine symptoms measured by the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS) after spending an hour working on art projects of their choice.

ScienceDaily

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