Technology has immortality, cures for the worlds devastating diseases, quantum computing and a host of other science fiction notions in its grasp. Current trends in a number of areas indicate that over the next 10 years many of these technologies will come to fruition. "The Next 10 Years" tracks the trends that will transform our everyday lives in almost unimaginable ways.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The UK is to use the warnings of irreversible climate change and the biggest economic slump since the 1930s, outlined in yesterday's Stern review, to press for a new global deal to curb carbon emissions.

The government is urgently pushing ahead on the issue because the existing Kyoto protocol runs out in 2012, and there is no binding agreement to extend it. Downing Street is seeking the outline of a package with the G8 industrial nations and five leading developing countries by next year, or 2008 at the latest.


http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1935552,00.html

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Monday, October 30, 2006

While imperfect, the websites and their search engines have already opened extraordinary possibilities to readers and researchers in online communities worldwide.

- Google Book Search (http://books.google.com). By far the most known online library to date, the Google book project has scanned the pages of "thousands" of works into digital format.

Text from classics in the public domain is available in full. Summaries or snippets of books still under copyright are provided of books still under copyright protection.

A search engine taking the place of library card indexes makes it possible to seek authors' names, publication dates, or words or expressions in the texts or titles.

http://www.physorg.com/news81346069.html

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Monday, October 16, 2006

Doctors yesterday reported the first evidence that targeted electrical brain stimulation may help head-trauma victims stuck in a state of semiconsciousness, after an experiment apparently restored some of one patient's abilities to function and communicate.
Although the technique has been tried on only one patient, the experiment marks an unprecedented step that could lead to a new way to try to coax thousands of patients mired in similar states back toward more awareness, enabling them to function more and interact better with their families and others.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101500403.html

A rule introduced this year requiring a 97 percent reduction in the sulfur content of highway diesel fuel phases in Sunday to an estimated 80 percent of the fuel sold in the United States. The next step comes in January when new diesel truck engines will be required to have special filters to curb emissions even further. The overall result is "the single greatest achievement in clean fuel since lead was removed from gasoline more than 25 years ago," says US Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson. The agency estimates that by 2030, when most old engines will have been replaced, 20,000 premature deaths, tens of thousands of illnesses, and more than 7,000 hospital visits will be prevented every year.

http://www.physorg.com/news80113605.html

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Saturday, October 14, 2006

Now scientists from Northwestern University have demonstrated a novel carbon nanotube-based nanoelectromechanical switch exhibiting bistability based on current tunneling. The device could help advance technological developments in memory chips and electronic sensing devices.

The research is published online by the scientific journal Small.

"We believe the unique characteristics of this nano device will likely lead to many high-impact applications in the field of nanoelectronics and nanosensors," said Horacio Espinosa, professor of mechanical engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. Espinosa and Changhong Ke, a former graduate student of Espinosa's, co-authored the paper.

http://www.physorg.com/news79962685.html

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Based on a collaboration of materials scientists and chemical engineers, the research aims to duplicate the self-cleaning surfaces of the lotus plant, which grows in waterways of Asia. Despite growing in muddy conditions, the leaves and flowers remain clean because their surfaces are composed of micron- and nano-scale structures that – along with a waxy coating – prevent dirt and water from adhering. Despite their unusual surface properties, the rough surfaces allow photosynthesis to continue in the leaves.

“When rain hits the leaves of the lotus plant, it simply beads up,” noted C.P. Wong, a Regents Professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering. “When the leaves are also tilted at a small angle, the beads of water run off instantaneously. While the water is rolling off, it carries away any dirt on the surface.”

http://www.physorg.com/news79957161.html

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Monday, October 09, 2006

THE DRIVE UP INTERSTATE 84, through the verdant amphitheatrical sweep of the Columbia River Gorge to the quaint Oregon town of The Dalles, seems a trek into an alluring American past. You pass ancient basalt bluffs riven by luminous waterfalls, glimpsed through a filigree of Douglas firs. You see signs leading to museums of native Americana full of feathery and leathery tribal relics. There are farms and fisheries, vineyards arrayed on hillsides, eagles and ospreys riding the winds. On the horizon, just a half hour's drive away, stands the radiant, snowcapped peak of Mount Hood, site of 11 glaciers, source of half a dozen rivers, and home of four-season skiing. "I could live here," I say to myself with a backward glance down the highway toward urban Portland, a sylvan dream of the billboarded corridor that connects Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.10/cloudware.html

Sunday, October 08, 2006

First quantum teleportation between light and matter: "This is the first case of successful teleportation between objects of a different nature - the ones representing a 'flying' medium (light), the other a 'stationary' medium (atoms). The result presented here is of interest not only for fundamental research, but also primarily for practical application in realising quantum computers or transmitting coded data (quantum cryptography).

Since the beginning of the nineties research into quantum teleportation has been booming with theoretical and experimental physicists. Transmission of quantum information involves a fundamental problem: According to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle two complementary properties of a quantum particle, e.g. location and momentum cannot be precisely measured simultaneously. The entire information of the system thus has to be transmitted without being completely known. But the nature of the particles also carries with it the solution to this problem: the possibility of 'entangling' two particles in such a way that their properties become perfectly correlated. If a certain property is measured in one of the 'twin' particles, this determines the corresponding property of the other automatically and with immediate effect. "

Friday, October 06, 2006

Wired News: Making Water From Thin Air: "A company that developed technology capable of creating water out of thin air nearly anywhere in the world is now under contract to nourish U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq.

The water-harvesting technology was originally the brainchild of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which sought ways to ensure sustainable water supplies for U.S. combat troops deployed in arid regions like Iraq."

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

In Europe It’s Fish Oil After Heart Attacks, but Not in U.S. - New York Times: "ROME — Every patient in the cardiac care unit at the San Filippo Neri Hospital who survives a heart attack goes home with a prescription for purified fish oil, or omega-3 fatty acids.

Nola Lopez“It is clearly recommended in international guidelines,” said Dr. Massimo Santini, the hospital’s chief of cardiology, who added that it would be considered tantamount to malpractice in Italy to omit the drug."