[tt] KurzweilAI.net Daily Newsletter

Mon Apr 28 14:13:31 UTC 2008

KURZWEILAI.NET NEWSLETTER

NEWS
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Scientists discover exotic quantum
state of matter
PhysOrg.com April 24, 2008
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Princeton University scientists
have found that one of the most
intriguing phenomena in
condensed-matter physics--known as
the quantum Hall effect--can occur
in nature in a way that no one has
ever before...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8552&m=40924

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Death of the sitcom frees up 2,000
Wikipedias worth of cognitive
capacity
Boing Boing April 27, 2008
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In Here Comes Everybody, Clay
Shirky proposes the idea of
"cognitive surplus" -- that
automation gave us an enormous
amount of free time to think and
cogitate, and that sitcoms and other
light entertainment from the past
century were a way of absorbing that
surplus, something we're just
shaking off now. In a talk, he
compared Wikipedia, which...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8551&m=40924

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Rumor: Apple to add tactile
feedback to iPhone
CNET News.Com April 27, 2008
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Apple may be planning to license
haptic technology from Immersion for
use in the iPhone. Haptic technology
gives people sensory feedback--in
the form of a vibration or
pressure--when they use a
touchscreen. Immersion's VibeTonz
feedback technology is already in
use in more than 10 million mobile...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8550&m=40924

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Looking at neurons from all sides
PhysOrg.com April 27, 2008
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A new technique that marries a
fast-moving laser beam with a
multi-photon microscope that look at
tissues in different optical planes
will enable scientists to get a
three-dimensional view of neurons or
nerve cells as they interact, said
Baylor College of Medicine
scientists. Researchers plan to use
the technology to monitor nerve
activity in...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8549&m=40924

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Religion a figment of human
imagination
New Scientist news service April 28, 2008
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Humans alone practice religion
because they're the only creatures
to have evolved imagination, not
because it promoted social bonding,
says anthropologist Maurice Bloch of
the London School of Economics.
Instead, he argues that first, we
had to evolve the necessary brain
architecture to imagine things and
beings that don't physically exist,...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8548&m=40924

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Next Step In Robot Development Is
Child's Play
ScienceDaily April 26, 2008
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The RobotCub project, developers of
the iCub robot, want to develop
their robots' cognitive capabilities
by mimicking how small children
learn by doing and by comparing
their actions to previous
experience. (ICT Results) Six
European research labs have proposed
projects to help train the robots to
learn about their surroundings, just
as a...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8547&m=40924

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Rest In Peace Nanobacteria, You
Were Not Alive After All
Science News April 23, 2008
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Once touted as the world's smallest
living organisms, and even an
entirely new form of life,
"nanobacteria" are actually nothing
more than sub-microscopic balls of
minerals and proteins, independent
teams of scientists in Taiwan and
France report. However, nanobacteria
have been linked to kidney stone and
gallstone formation, polycystic
kidney...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8546&m=40924

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Early life could have relied on
'arsenic DNA'
New Scientist April 26, 2008
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The first lifeforms might have
evolved to make use of arsenic,
Felisa Wolfe-Simon of Harvard
University and Paul Davies of
Arizona State University suggest.
Arsenic readily forms arsenate ions
and behaves like phosphorus, which
binds to four oxygen atoms to form a
negatively charged phosphate ion
that is used to build the backbone
of DNA's...
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Home Brew for the Car, Not the Beer
Cup
New York Times April 27, 2008
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E-Fuel Corporation is developing a
home ethanol system, the E-Fuel 100
MicroFueler. It will be about as
large as a stackable washer-dryer,
sell for $9,995, and ship before
year-end. Using sugar as its main
fuel source, it could cost as little
as a dollar a gallon to make
ethanol, which would produce
one-eighth the carbon of the same
amount...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8544&m=40924

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New Properties Discovered for
Nanotube Sheets
PhysOrg.com April 25, 2008
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Specially designed carbon nanotube
sheets ("buckypaper") can increase
in width when stretched or increase
in both length and width when
uniformly compressed,
nanotechnologists at The University
of Texas at Dallas an collabotators
in Brazil have found. (University of
Texas at Dallas) These unexpected
but highly useful properties could
have...
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Gene therapy improves vision in
patients with congenital retinal
disease
KurzweilAI.net April 28, 2008
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University of Pennsylvania
researchers and colleagues have used
gene therapy to safely restore
vision in three young adults with a
rare form of congenital blindness.
The patients have one form of Leber
congenital amaurosis (LCA), a group
of inherited blinding diseases that
damage light receptors in the
retina. The diseases usually start
in...
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New 3-D ultrasound could improve
stroke diagnosis, care
KurzweilAI.net April 28, 2008
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Duke University bioengineers have
developed 3-D ultrasound technology
that compensates for the thickness
and unevenness of the skull to see
in real time the arteries within the
brain that most often clog up and
cause strokes. 3-D ultrasound is
less expensive and faster than the
traditional methods of assessing
blood flow in the brain, fMRI or...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8541&m=40924

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Protein test predicts invasive
breast cancer
New Scientist news service April 27, 2008
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University of California at San
Francisco researchers have built a
protein profile test for breast
cancer that predicts whether women
with a breast-cancer precursor
called ductal carcinoma will develop
invasive breast cancer that requires
aggressive treatment. If the
high-risk protein profiles become a
standard test, people with low-risk...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8540&m=40924

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Dirty Rotten Poxviruses
ScienceNOW Daily News April 25, 2008
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Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology researchers have found
that one poxvirus--a virus related
to smallpox--disguises itself as
junk so that it will be gobbled by
cells cleaning up floating debris.
The discovery could explain how the
smallpox virus, the deadliest member
of the poxvirus family, infects its
hosts....
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