Bill Gates envisions a future in which robotic devices will become a nearly ubiquitous part of our day-to-day lives.
“I believe that technologies such as distributed computing, voice and visual recognition, and wireless broadband connectivity will open the door to a new generation of autonomous devices that enable computers to perform tasks in the physical world on our behalf. We may be on the verge of a new era, when the PC will get up off the desktop and allow us to see, hear, touch and manipulate objects in places where we are not physically present.”
Detailed 3D images of the Moon and Mars will soon be just a click away for web users, following a deal between search giant Google and US space agency Nasa.
The Space Agreement Act, signed on Monday, will put “the most useful of Nasa’s information on the internet”.
Real-time weather data and the positions of the International Space Station and shuttle could be included.
The deal will also see scientists from both institutions working together to solve complex computational problems.
“This agreement between Nasa and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars,” said Nasa administrator Michael Griffin.
The deal will make “Nasa’s space exploration work accessible to everyone,” he added.
bbc
In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body’s nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.
Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. “Mice with diabetes suddenly didn’t have diabetes any more.”
The researchers caution they have yet to confirm their findings in people, but say they expect results from human studies within a year or so. Any treatment that may emerge to help at least some patients would likely be years away from hitting the market.
But the excitement of the team from Sick Kids, whose work is being published today in the journal Cell, is almost palpable.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Dr. Hans Michael Dosch, an immunologist at the hospital and a leader of the studies. “In my career, this is unique.”
canada.com
A dozen years after Congress rejected a Clinton administration plan for universal health care, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden is readying a proposal to provide health care coverage to all Americans through a pool of private insurance plans.
“Employer-based coverage is melting away like a Popsicle on the sidewalk in August,” said Wyden, a Democrat and member of the Senate Finance Committee’s subcommittee on health care.
Wyden’s proposal, which he planned to unveil on Wednesday, is an outgrowth of work by the Citizens’ Health Care Working Group, a 14-member panel that went to 50 communities around the country and heard from 28,000 people about how to reform health care.
The group, created in 2003 by legislation sponsored by Wyden and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, recommended that the government take steps to guarantee all Americans have basic health insurance coverage by 2012.
Wyden said his plan would allow workers to carry their health insurance from job to job without penalty and would cost the federal government no more than it’s paying today for health insurance coverage. It would cover all Americans except those on Medicare or those who receive health care through the military.
USAToday
If all the cars and light trucks in the nation switched from oil to electrons, idle capacity in the existing electric power system could generate most of the electricity consumed by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. A new study for the Department of Energy finds that “off-peak” electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent of the country’s 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics.
Researchers at DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory evaluated the impact of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, on foreign oil imports, the environment, electric utilities and the consumer.
“This is the first review of what the impacts would be of very high market penetrations of PHEVs, said Eric Lightner, of DOE’s Office of Electric Delivery and Energy Reliability. “It’s important to have this baseline knowledge as consumers are looking for more efficient vehicles, automakers are evaluating the market for PHEVs and battery manufacturers are working to improve battery life and performance.”
Current batteries for these cars can easily store the energy for driving the national average commute – about 33 miles round trip a day, so the study presumes that drivers would charge up overnight when demand for electricity is much lower.
physorg
University of Minnesota tobacco researchers have found that heavy smokers who reduce their number of daily cigarettes still take in two to three times more total toxins per cigarette than light smokers.
The study, published in the December issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, cites compensatory smoking as the chief reason for the increased exposure despite decreased cigarette use.
“We found that the more that heavy smokers reduced their smoking, the more likely they were to increase their intake of toxicants per cigarette, presumably because they took more frequent puffs or inhaled deeper or longer on each cigarette to compensate for fewer cigarettes smoked,” said Dorothy Hatsukami, Ph.D., lead researcher on the study. “This indicates that they are trying to maintain a specific level of nicotine in their bodies.”
ScienceDaily
Cows, pigs, sheep and poultry have been awarded the dubious honour of being among the world’s greatest environmental threats, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The report, entitled Livestock’s long shadow, says the livestock industry is degrading land, contributing to the greenhouse effect, polluting water resources, and destroying biodiversity. In summary, the sector is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems at every scale”.
The authors say the demand for meat is expected to more than double by 2050 and therefore the environmental impact of production must be halved in order to avoid worsening the harmful impacts of the industry.
Perhaps the report’s most striking finding is that the livestock sector accounts for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions � more than transport, which emits 13.5%.
NewScientist
China is to abolish tuition and other fees for 150 million rural students, in a bid to narrow the gap between wealthy coastal provinces and poorer regions.
The students will be exempt from tuition fees over the course of their compulsory nine-year education.
The move would cost 15bn yuan ($1.9bn) a year, the China Daily said, or about 140 yuan ($18) a child.
But children of rural families who have migrated to China’s booming cities will not be included.
The new policy is “part of a major move to relieve the financial burden of farmers and to develop a new countryside,” the state-owned newspaper said.
In the first phase of the programme, which took effect this spring, more than 50m students living in western provinces – some of China’s poorest – were exempted.
bbc
Bushmen from the Kalahari desert have won a court case in which they accused Botswana’s government of illegally moving them from their land.
The court said the bushmen – or San people – were wrongly evicted from their ancestral homeland in 2002.
A panel of three judges ruled by two-to-one in their favour in the major issues in the case.
It is seen as a wider test of whether governments can legally move people from their tribal and ancestral lands.
The leader of the bushmen, Roy Sesana, emerged from court wearing traditional headdress and smiling broadly.
bbc
As Starbucks expanded into its 38th country (Brazil) on Wednesday, new research from a Virginia scientist shows prolonged use of caffeine—the world’s most popular drug, used daily by four out of five people globally—might literally drive you insane.
Five cups of brewed coffee per day, or the equivalent caffeine intake in tea or cola, made people more than twice as likely to exhibit adult antisocial personality disorder, and abuse of alcohol, cannabis or cocaine, according to Kenneth Kendler, director of the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioural Genetics.
These heavy caffeine users were also almost twice as likely to exhibit panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and major depression.
Even among moderate users, the odds of exhibiting one of these illnesses were increased across the board, according to Kendler’s survey of more than 3,600 adult twins, which appears in the December issue of Psychological Medicine.
canada.com
In a recent study, fuel cell expert Ulf Bossel explains that a hydrogen economy is a wasteful economy. The large amount of energy required to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds (water, natural gas, biomass), package the light gas by compression or liquefaction, transfer the energy carrier to the user, plus the energy lost when it is converted to useful electricity with fuel cells, leaves around 25% for practical use � an unacceptable value to run an economy in a sustainable future. Only niche applications like submarines and spacecraft might use hydrogen.
�More energy is needed to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds than can ever be recovered from its use,� Bossel explains to PhysOrg.com. �Therefore, making the new chemical energy carrier form natural gas would not make sense, as it would increase the gas consumption and the emission of CO2. Instead, the dwindling fossil fuel reserves must be replaced by energy from renewable sources.�
physorg
“Doc, I am ready to play ball.”
It had been years since Jeremy (not his real name) had touched a basketball.
Living with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Jeff feared contamination from dirt and germs which prevented any part of his body from touching the ground, save for the soles of his shoes.
But whilst taking part in a small clinical study to investigate the effects of psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound found in ‘magic’ mushrooms, on people with OCD, Jeremy’s bare feet lay on the floor and he expressed a willingness to engage in an activity, playing with a ball, that just hours before he would have been considered abhorrent.
Although Jeremy’s symptoms gradually returned, other patients also experienced transient relief from their OCD symptoms and one entered an extended period of remission lasting more than six months.
Lead researcher Dr Francis Moreno, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona, Tucson, said: “I really think that participating in the study influenced the patient’s remission.”
It was the first to investigate the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin to be published for more than 30 years.
bbc
minkhacks follows up
A Spaniard has become the first woman in the world to receive a double hand transplant.
A team of surgeons at Hospital La Fe in Valencia carried out the pioneering operation.
After 10 hours in the operating theatre, doctors say Alba, 47, from Castellón, whose full name has not been released, is recuperating well.
The woman faced the press this week, and looked happy and content despite heavy bandages on her hands.
Alba said after waking up from the anaesthetic and seeing her new hands for the first time, she thought: “They look beautiful!”
The operation took place on 30 November after an appropriate donor of the same sex, race and blood group was found.
In this case it was a woman who was declared brain dead following an accident.
The donor’s arms were removed from above the elbow, and the severed limbs were cooled and transported to Hospital La Fe in less than five hours.
A team of more than 10 medical professionals, including surgeons and anaesthetists, then worked to attach them to Alba’s arms.
bbc
A law passed late last week—right before the 109th Congress wrapped up its final session—will outlaw pretexting, the practice of obtaining someone else’s phone records without their permission. Pretexting has been going on for years, but the practice recently moved into the public consciousness with the recent scandal over HP’s investigation into leaks of confidential information by one or more of its board members.
Passed by voice vote on Friday night, the legislation calls for fines of up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison for individuals engaging in pretexting. Companies caught pretexting would face fines of up to $500,000.
ars
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