[tt] KurzweilAI.net Daily Newsletter

Mon Apr 21 14:12:09 UTC 2008

KURZWEILAI.NET NEWSLETTER

NEWS
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Infected with Insanity: Could
Microbes Cause Mental Illness?
ScientificAmerican.com April 2008
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Mental illnesses may be caused by
viral or microbial infections,
scientists have found. The strongest
evidence links schizophrenia to
prenatal influenza infection;
pregnant women who become ill with
the flu are more likely to give
birth to children who will develop
schizophrenia. The body's immune
reaction, rather than the infections...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8476&m=40924

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AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity
by 2010
CNET News.Com April 18, 2008
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AT&T has claimed that, without
investment, the Internet's current
network architecture will reach the
limits of its capacity by 2010, due
to the increasing amounts of video
and user-generated content being
uploaded. "In three years' time, 20
typical households will generate
more traffic than the entire
Internet today," said AT&T vice
president...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8475&m=40924

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Holographic storage ships next
month!
ZDNET April 18, 2008
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InPhase has (finally) announced it
will ship its optical holographic
storage system, with a claimed
lifetime of 50 years for its media.
It is targeted to film and video
companies, whose data is literally...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8474&m=40924

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25 leading-edge IT research
projects
Network World April 18, 2008
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Cutting-edge university IT research
projects include exploiting
terahertz radiation for computers
that would run a thousand times
faster, a hybrid material combining
magnetic components and computer
logic operations for faster and more
compact machines, and mapping the
entire...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8473&m=40924

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'Babelfish' to translate alien
tongues could be built
New Scientist news service April 18, 2008
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In the distant future, it might be
possible to develop complex software
to decode alien languages, says
Linguist and anthropologist Terrence
Deacon of the University of
California believes. He argues that
no matter how abstract a symbol
becomes, it is still somehow
grounded in physical reality, and
that limits the number of
relationships it...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8472&m=40924

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Quantum cryptography broken
KurzweilAI.net April 20, 2008
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Two Swedish scientsts, Jorgen
Cederlof of Google and Jan-Ake
Larsson of Link&#246;ping
University, have found a security
weakness in the quantum cryptography
authentication process--and have
devised a proposed solution. In a
paper published in IEEE Trans. Inf
Theory, 54: 1735-1741 (2008), they
point out that an eavesdropper could
gain partial...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8471&m=40924

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The new shape of music: Music has
its own geometry, researchers find
PhysOrg.com April 17, 2008
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Three music professors have
developed a method called
"geometrical music theory" that
translates the language of musical
theory into that of contemporary
geometry. (Dmitri Tymoczko,
Princeton University) They
categorize sequences of notes, like
chords, rhythms and scales into
"families" that can be represented
by points in complex...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8470&m=40924

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Robot Dials 9-1-1
LiveScience April 16, 2008
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University of Massachusetts Amherst
researchers have designed a
two-wheeled robot, known as uBOT-5,
as a in-home caregiver. It has two
arms capable of picking up small
objects, using a stethoscope, and
even dialing 9-1-1. Sensors near its
video-screen head can figure out if
someone has fallen. It can also
remind people to take their...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8469&m=40924

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Second Family of High-Temperature
Superconductors Discovered
ScienceNOW Daily News April 17, 2008
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Researchers in Japan and China have
discovered a new family of
iron-and-arsenic compounds that
operate as high-temperature
superconductors. Physicists are
hailing the discovery as a major
advance. (Kamihara et...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8468&m=40924

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In Lean Times, Biotech Grains Are
Less Taboo
New York Times April 21, 2008
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Soaring food prices and global
grain shortages are bringing new
pressures on governments, food
companies and consumers to relax
their longstanding resistance to
genetically engineered crops. With
food riots in some countries
focusing attention on how the world
will feed itself, biotechnology
proponents see their chance. They
argue that while...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8467&m=40924

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Many African-Americans have a gene
that prolongs life after heart
failure
KurzweilAI.net April 21, 2008
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Washington University School of
Medicine researchers and colleagues
have found that about 40 percent of
African-Americans have a genetic
variant that can protect them after
heart failure and prolong their
lives through an effect that
resembles that of beta blockers. The
new study offers a reason why beta
blockers--drugs widely prescribed
for...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8466&m=40924

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Google Wants to Index Your DNA, Too
BusinessWeek April 18, 2008
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After investing at least $4.4
million in the genetic screening
company 23andMe in 2007, Google is
also putting money into a second
Silicon Valley DNA-screening
startup, Navigenics. For $2,500,
Navigenics gives customers their
genetic likelihood for 18 medical
conditions, from Alzheimer's to
rheumatoid arthritis to several
types of cancer....
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8465&m=40924

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Abdominal fat hormone promotes more
abdominal fat
KurzweilAI.net April 21, 2008
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University of Western Ontario
researchers have found that
abdominal fat makes a hormone that
both stimulates hunger and increases
the number of fat cells, in a
potentially vicious cycle. It was
previously thought that only the
brain made Neuropeptide Y (NPY), the
most potent appetite-stimulating
hormone known, but in obese rats,
NPY was...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8464&m=40924

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Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
New York Times April 20, 2008
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"Expelled: No Intelligence
Allowed," a movie now in theaters,
is "a conspiracy-theory rant
masquerading as investigative
inquiry," says New York Times
reviewer Jeannette Catsoulis. (Rocky
Mountain Pictures) Positing the
theory of intelligent design as a
valid scientific hypothesis, the
film frames the refusal of "big
science" to agree as...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8463&m=40924

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Meet Nexi, MIT Media Lab's latest
robot and Internet
KurzweilAI.net April 18, 2008
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Nexi, a new experimental robot from
the MIT Media Lab, can show a wide
assortment of facial expressions to
communicate with people in
human-centric terms. Created by a
group headed by Media Lab's Cynthia
Breazeal, known for earlier
expressive robots such as Kismet,
the new robot is known as an MDS
(mobile, dextrous, social) robot.
Unlike...
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