IN 1975 scientists expert in a new and potentially world-changing technology, genetic engineering, gathered at Asilomar, on the Monterey peninsula in California, to ponder the ethics and safety of the course they were embarking on. The year before, they had imposed on themselves a voluntary moratorium on experiments which involved the transfer of genes from [...]
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IN MORE than 30 years of teaching introductory macroeconomics, says Alan Blinder of Princeton University, he has never seen interest as high as it was last year. At Harvard, says David Laibson, students in his undergraduate macroeconomics course are “chomping at the bit”. PROVIDENCE – Brown University said Thursday it admitted just 9.3 percent of those who applied to join its Class of 2014, making this the most selective year in the school’s history. In the most selective admission process in the University’s history, Princeton has offered admission to 2,148, or 8.18 percent, of the record 26,247 applicants for the class of 2014. This compares to an admission rate of 9.79 percent at this time last year, and 9.25 percent the previous year. As MIT students celebrated π day this Sunday, 10,948 high school seniors waited nervously by their computers for the Class of 2014 admissions decisions. A record-low 6.9 percent of applicants have been accepted to the Harvard College Class of 2014. Yale College admitted 7.5 percent of its applicants to the class of 2014, equaling last year’s record low rate. THE renewable-fuel standard released in February by America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) paints an ambitious picture of biofuels’ future. It wants the amount of the stuff used as transport fuel to climb from 13 billion gallons (49 billion litres) in 2010 to 36 billion gallons in 2022, requiring by far the largest part of that [...] Admission decisions will, in fact, be released sometime after 3pm (Pacific Time) today, March 26, six days ahead of schedule. MANHASSET, NY — Researchers from Yale University and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea have successfully created a transistor made from a single molecule. The researchers showed that a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts could behave just like a silicon transistor. The tyres of the future may be made from dandelions. OTHER than being an ingredient of the more recherché sorts of salad, herbal tea or wine, dandelions are pretty useless plants. Or, at least, they were. But one species, a Russian variety called Taraxacum kok-saghyz (TKS), may yet make the big time. It produces molecules [...] A team led by Harvard researchers has discovered a family of naturally occurring proteins in human cells that protect against influenza and other illnesses—a finding that may lead to methods to speed up vaccine production and to new flu prevention drugs for humans. Marin Soljacic couldn’t sleep. The problem was his wife’s Nokia cell phone. The tyrannical device beeped on the bedside table when it needed to be plugged in. It could not be disabled. How a new communications technology disrupted America’s newspaper industry — in 1845. CHANGE is in the air. A new communications technology threatens a dramatic upheaval in America’s newspaper industry, overturning the status quo and disrupting the business model that has served the industry for years. This “great revolution”, warns one editor, will mean that some [...] Paul A. Samuelson, the first American Nobel laureate in economics and the foremost academic economist of the 20th century, died Sunday at his home in Belmont, Mass. He was 94. Copying Birds may save aircraft fuel. Source: The Economist. Photo: Corbis All elephants living in Indian zoos and circuses will be moved to wildlife parks and game sanctuaries where the animals can graze more freely, officials said Friday. A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm. PORTLAND, Ore. — Diatoms–single-celled phytoplankton (algae)–are one of the most plentiful life forms on Earth, accounting for 20 percent of the carbon dioxide removed from the environment each year. The mechanism they use–encasing themselves in patterned silicon dioxide shells as they fall to the bottom of oceans and lakes worldwide–removes as much carbon dioxide from [...] PORTLAND, Ore. — The hydrogen economy is getting a shot in the arm from a start-up that says its nanoparticle coatings could make hydrogen easy to produce at home from distilled water, and ultimately bring the cost of hydrogen fuel cells in line with that of fossil fuels. QuantumSphere Inc. says it has perfected the [...] A tiny chemical “brain” which could one day act as a remote control for swarms of nano-machines has been invented. The molecular device – just two billionths of a metre across – was able to control eight of the microscopic machines simultaneously in a test. PORTLAND, Ore. — Thermoelectric coolers and power generators were handed a 40-percent boost in performance recently by a nanotechnological reconstruction of a classic bulk material. The technique is suitable for mass production, according to its inventors at Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After 38 years, Israeli solves math code. A mathematical puzzle that baffled the top minds in the esoteric field of symbolic dynamics for nearly four decades has been cracked — by a 63-year-old immigrant who once had to work as a security guard. Nanodots could yield denser memories, ceramic engine PORTLAND, Ore. — Researchers at North Carolina State University said they were able to read and write bits at room temperature using magnetic nanodots that delivered 1 terabit of memory per centimeter2. Wall Street Journal | September 12, 2009 Karen Armstrong says we need God to grasp the wonder of our existence. UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited Wednesday a vault carved into the Arctic permafrost, filled with samples of the world’s most important seeds in case food crops are wiped out by a catastrophe. Celebrating 400th anniversary of Galileo’s Telescope. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14213985 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei Built in 427 AD, world’s first university predating Harvard and Oxford.
At a summit meeting of leaders next week in the Philippines, senior officials from India, Singapore, Japan and perhaps other countries [...] Google Earth’s got some competition now — from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which today unveiled its beta version of Bhuvan (meaning earth in Sanskrit). Between GPS devices on your car’s dashboard and digital maps of almost any locale in the world on your smartphone or laptop, it’s hard to get lost these days. Solar Eclipse July 22, 2009 | New Delhi, India STOCKHOLM (AFP) – A 16-year-old Iraqi immigrant living in Sweden has cracked a maths puzzle that has stumped experts for more than 300 years, Swedish media reported on Thursday. The dive to 10,902m (6.8 miles) took place on 31 May, at the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean. Californian school kids have been told to throw away their textbooks to help the state avoid bankruptcy. But they won’t need total recall — they’re going digital instead. The textbooks have been terminated by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilding state governor who says they are “outdated” and too expensive. http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2009061204 Whenever a new gadget hits the streets, it’s a race to see who will be the first to reduce to its constituent pieces. With the launch of the iPhone 3G S we’ve got a pair of different companies doing their darndest to disassemble the latest iteration of Apple’s iconic device. Frankly, I’d be happy to [...] |
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