Scientists manipulate electron, this time everyone wins

Notoriously difficult to pin down, electrons have always been free spirits — until now that is. According to a paper published by science journal Nature, folk at Cambridge University much cleverer than we have tamed single electrons, succeeding in coaxing them directly from point-to-point. The technique involves creating a small hole in gallium arsenide, called a “quantum dot,” then creating a channel of energy higher than the neighboring electrons to shuttle cargo off to another empty “dot.” Why should you care? Well, while you might not see this technology in the next smartphone, it should give quantum computing a bit of a nudge forward, smoothing the rate of information transfer. If the concept works out, it’ll improve the way qubits move around those sub-atomic circuits, where jumping around like a frog in a sock is generally considered bad form.

[Image courtesy of the io9]

Scientists manipulate electron, this time everyone wins originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ugandans say they were beaten and forced from homes to make room for carbon credit forest

New York Times reports that Ugandans say they were beaten and forced off their land to make way for a carbon credit forest.

The case twists around an emerging multibillion-dollar market trading carbon-credits under the Kyoto Protocol, which contains mechanisms for outsourcing environmental protection to developing nations.

The company involved, New Forests Company, grows forests in African countries with the purpose of selling credits from the carbon-dioxide its trees soak up to polluters abroad. Its investors include the World Bank, through its private investment arm, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC.

In 2005, the Ugandan government granted New Forests a 50-year license to grow pine and eucalyptus forests in three districts, and the company has applied to the United Nations to trade under the mechanism. The company expects that it could earn up to $1.8 million a year.

But there was just one problem: people were living on the land where the company wanted to plant trees. Indeed, they had been there a while.

Are carbon credits the new blood diamonds? (Via The Agitator)


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Ugandans say they were beaten and forced from homes to make room for carbon credit forest

Reconstructing Movie Clips by Brain Imaging

Scientists are taking one step closer to reading your mind using brain
imaging techniques:

Imagine tapping into the mind of a coma patient, or watching one’s
own dream on YouTube. With a cutting-edge blend of brain imaging and
computer simulation, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley,
are bringing these futuristic scenarios within reach.

Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational
models, UC Berkeley researchers have succeeded in decoding and reconstructing
people’s dynamic visual experiences – in this case, watching
Hollywood movie trailers.

As yet, the technology can only reconstruct movie clips people
have already viewed. However, the breakthrough paves the way for reproducing
the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and
memories, according to researchers.

“This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery,”
said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor
of the study published online today (Sept. 22) in the journal Current
Biology. “We are opening a window into the movies in our minds.”

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Reconstructing Movie Clips by Brain Imaging

Pandora rolls out HTML5 redesign to everyone, drops 40 hour listening cap

Remember that Pandora redesign that we told you about, way back in July? Well, it’s finally done testing, and is ready to bring its HTML5-based goodness to the Internet radio-loving masses. The revamp offers up a number of new features like improved socialization, easier station creation and additional information about artists, including lyrics, bios and larger album art. Coolest of all is the ditching of the 40 hour music listening limit for non-premium users — a welcome change in light of similar announcements from MOG and Rdio.

Pandora rolls out HTML5 redesign to everyone, drops 40 hour listening cap originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Guinea Pig Rental Service

Guinea pigs and other small mammals don’t do well as solitary pets. They need at least one companion or they get lonely. Guinea pig owners know this, but the Swiss government takes it very seriously. In Switzerland, it’s illegal to keep a single guinea pig, which causes a potentially endless problem:

[…] the owner would have to purchase a new, probably younger guinea pig as a companion to the ageing survivor, whose eventual death would force the purchase of yet another guinea pig, locking the owner into an endless cycle of guinea pig purchases in order to adhere to Swiss law — even though he or she may only ever have wanted one guinea pig in the first place.

Animal lover and entrepreneur Priska Küng found a solution. She owns eighty guinea pigs and rents them out to owners of solitary pigs, who can return them after their own pigs has passed on:

She takes 50 Swiss francs (€41) for a castrated male and 60 francs for a female, “as a deposit,” Küng explains. In effect, she sells the animals but pays back half the purchase price when they are returned. The job of the leased rodents is to cheer up companions in their twilight years.

Some return after just a few poignant weeks, others after months, but some stay away for years. “Sometimes people realize that they still get so much enjoyment from the guinea pigs that they want to go on keeping them and come back for another one once their supposed last pet has died,” says Küng.

Link -via Marginal Revolution | Photo by Flickr user mksystem used under Creative Commons license

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