Supercomputer in your room

Who doesn't dream about quicker computers? I guess no one as everyone knows the feeling then program is opening for 5 minutes, sometimes even 15 or longer. I guess we can say a huge step is already made as our clocks are much quicker than first computers of the size of a room. Faster and faster computers are made which already overcomes 10 petaflops (10^(16) floating point calculations) whereas average computer runs at less than 5 GFlops (5*10^(9) Flops). But this is still not enough. Would you like what no operation take more than a millisecond? All files would open quicker than a second? All this may be achieved in coming years as king of electronics, graphene, is being dethroned by silicene (one atom thickness, two dimensional allotrope of silicon). As it will be easier to integrate into current equipment and should be available in the market faster than graphene devices. But this is not enough as engineers from University of Toronto found a way how to create photon pairs using an integrated circuit. This leads to the solution to numerous problems as photons not only travel at speed of light but also allows using more advanced algorithms. The future belongs to optical computers as they would be not only quicker but would use less energy, make less noise, last longer and generate less heat. Nowadays heat is also a very limiting characteristic as cooling systems do not allow reducing size of devices. I am already waiting for my laptop to be much quicker than world's fastest supercomputer 京 built in Japan.

Links to sources: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428625.400-move-over-graphene-silicene-is-the-new-star-material.html

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-04/uotf-rbt043012.php

Digitalizing the universe

In this century more and more things are becoming digital. I wouldn't be surprised if some people haven't even seen a real picture. Today if you go to the party, you already know that after there will be few hundred photos taken but non of them will be printed out. Even a big part of our lives is spent in websites like Facebook or Second Life. All information is being saved in hard drives as binary code but strangely the need of paper still increases quickly. I didn't mentioned photography just randomly. Nowadays everyone competes with each other, whose camera has more pixels, especially companies making cameras. But even those huge companies couldn't win against scientists. Today it was announced that the biggest digital camera received an approval to be assembled. It's characteristics are just staggering. This camera will have 3.2 billion pixels, 320 times more than normal digital camera! It is really very hard to call it camera as weight will be 3 tons! But you can guess that it's impossible to take this camera to capture your holiday moments. Every advertisement company would wish to have it. Just imagine how big and detailed adverts could be. Anyway SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory designed it to capture night sky. All received data will be used to study dark energy and dark matter, very hot field of science research. It will also allow to create 3D map of the sky, capture rapidly changing objects and lots more. Every year 6 million gigabytes of data will be collected. Let's hope this toy will help to answer all scientists' questions. You can find more about the project by pressing the link: http://scitechdaily.com/worlds-largest-digital-camera-lsst-gets-approval/

Dark Matter disappeared?

There are two huge news in science world today but the biggest disappearance in the whole UNIVERSE easily won against usual very strange behaviour of quantum mechanics. So what did disappeared today? The answer is 23% of the whole universe, all dark matter (DK) is gone! It's just impossible to imagine such quantities and how now one  haven't seen it disappearing? Well...actually, no one has even seen dark matter or received any evidence which could prove its existence. First time DK was mentioned in 1932 so exactly 80 years ago. For all this time scientists were looking for a way to confirm it's presence, they built huge detectors for this reason and spent loads of time. But today Marcel Pawlowski and his PhD student from the University of Bonn revealed their discovery of satellite galaxies circling around Milky Way. To find them photographic plates and images were used which were taken from different apparatus. These newly discovered galaxies formed a structure which continues from 30 000 light years to 1 million light years from the center of the Galaxy. This structure perfectly fits with all data and theory. Scientists wonders that it was formed in distant past when Milky Way smashed into another galaxy. Now everyone is waiting for confirmation or rejection of this new theory. It is really very pleasant that understanding of the universe is getting better and better so a day is coming when we will say "I know everything about Universe". Next step is to explain Dark Energy which forms more than 70 percent of universe so to do it won't be very easy. To get a more detailed view please visit: http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=119616&CultureCode=en

Where did you left your avatar?

I can bet that everyone has seen a film "Avatar" as it became the highest grossing film in the world of all times and some people speculates the most expensive as well. Despite everything said before this post is not about it or "Avatar" is not the main subject at least. Don't understand me wrong because there could be written a lot of articles about science used in "Avatar" as it required to improve most of technologies used before starting to make the film. Anyway few Switzerland scientists have watched it way too many times as they built a robot which is controlled by.........person's minds. This futuristic idea works with a help of brain signals, just like in the film, as they are recorded using head cap. Then signals are decoded by a computer and sent to the robot which completes a given task wherever it is as technology works over 100 kilometers distance. Most of the people from films would imagine them to be used in wars but not this time. These avatars are created to help for patients to communicate with other people if they have movement disability. The aim is really very generous but it is hard to imagine that entrepreneurs are not seeing this as a very good product of future, the future when everyone will have their own avatar or even two. So depending on your mood that day you will be able which person to be. This would be not a first mind controlled product which reached market. MindFlex is a dual game which allows you to challenge your friend and check which has a better concentration. Check this out: http://mindflexgames.com/. For more information about mind controlled robot follow the link: http://phys.org/news/2012-04-swiss-scientists-mind-robot.html.

Unlimited electricity

Are you always afraid of using too much electricity? You don't leave anything on anything even for a second longer than necessary? Then this is a very good time to turn on every electric device you have at home just as a practice for future as times are coming when electricity will be cheaper than water. It probably won't cost almost anything at all as Holy Grail of energy, nuclear fusion (nuclear fusion is a merger of two light nuclei to form a heavy nucleus. This process usually emits a lot of energy), is being controlled better and better every day. So for example today scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory announced that they found a cause for a reason preventing nuclear reactors from achieving higher efficiency. Luis Delgado-Aparicio and David Gates showed what idea of radiation-driven islands in plasma may be correct. Armed with equations which explains how plasma density limit can appear from the growth of the earlier mentioned islands causing collapse of the electric current which heats plasma up to working temperature. Now experiments are waiting and results will hopefully prove this theory to be right. You can say that this is not important as it just remembered theory from 1980s which didn't receive enough attention but you are wrong. Knowing a cause allows to look for solutions and lift density limit much higher. From now on everyone should know that nuclear fusion is coming with huge steps to change the world and wish luck for ITER the most expensive science project of all times. After building it will be the largest and most advanced fusion reactor in the world. For more information click this link:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120423143128.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29 

Immortal people are coming

If you have ever thought about being immortal than today is your lucky day! Today were announced a lot of news about improvement towards people living for thousand years. I can bet that there is no people who would like to die. Everyone wants to visit every place in Earth and go to the Moon or even Mars. To try and master everything you want. Immortality is one of the things which broaden people imagination since earliest ages. This is how gods were created, creatures humans wanted to become. And one of the common feature of gods is ability to stay alive. In the near future we will become just as gods as scientists discovered genes which causes aging. In addition almost 500 age related epigenetic changes (epigenetic factor is a factor responsible for gene activity/inactivity) were discovered and proposed to be dependent on what we eat, where we live and so on. Four of these epigenetic changes looks to cause  the rate of healthy aging and potential longevity. All this work will lead to a better understanding of aging and fighting against it. But for scientists it is not enough. How would like to live forever but still be ill? The answer is no one! So nanotechnology was invoked. This time researchers from the Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Detroit Medical Center used nano drugs to heal rabbits from cerebral palsy disease. An improvement was noticed which meant possibility of preventing cerebral palsy if disease is identified early. Research also started the age of nano drugs. It looks that in few decades all diseases will be just history. More details you can find in: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419191709.htm and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120418143755.htm

TVs evolution

Have you ever dreamed about TV which is thinner than a book? Or maybe even thinner than a pen? When listen, your dreams are coming true and even more than you could imagine. New generation TV's will be as thin as bank cards or a sheet of paper. You may have seen it in the futuristic films but have you thought that you will be able to see them with your eyes and touch it in reality? Well all this is becoming reality. Scientists need only few more years and it will be ready as most of required technology already exists as it is used in OLED screens which are usually used in telephones and becomes more popular to use it in TVs. So what happened that we don't have this technology write now? The problem is that all such screens require conductors which were usually calcium, lithium or others but they are very reactive and requires glass or other material to separate from air. Researchers from Georgia Tech came up with an idea to cover conductor with a very thin layer of polymer. It's thickness should be from 1 to 10 nm so we will definitely feel a difference then this technology will change glass and other materials. Apparently this polymer is also very cheap so shortly we will get better and cheaper TVs. It would also reduce weight so carrying it will be possible to take your TV and go to your friends house to watch a film without a problem. It is also very interesting where "Pimp My Ride" producers would decide to put screens as we already seen them everywhere, even on a snowboard! You can find more information in http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419143123.htm