“The average energy efficiency of the top supercomputers in the world increased by 10 percent,” said Wu Feng (http://people.cs.vt.edu/~feng), an associate professor within the College of Engineering’s computer science and the electrical and computer engineering departments at Virginia Tech, of the latest rankings (http://www.green500.org/lists/2009/06/list.php).

The 10 percent increase in energy efficiency translates to a 10 megaflops/watt improvement, rising to 108 megaflops/watt from 98 megaflops/watt recorded in November 2008. (Megaflops stand for millions of floating-point operations per second.) Also, aggregate power of the list increased by 15 percent, to 230 megawatts from 200 megawatts. “While the supercomputers on the Green500 are collectively consuming more power, they are using the power more efficiently than before,” Feng added.

The Green500 List (http://www.green500.org) serves as a ranking of environmentally friendly, low-energy supercomputers and a complement to the TOP500 List. The Green500 debuted in November 2007 at the 2007 Supercomputing conference to provide a foundation for tracking trends in green supercomputing.

For the first time, the rankings show maximum energy efficiency remaining the same, but three 500-megaflops/watt supercomputers fell out of the Green500. “The three supercomputers that occupied the No. 2 spot on the November 2008 Green500 are no longer computationally powerful enough to be considered among the TOP500 supercomputers in the world, and hence, they dropped off the Green500 List. This occurrence thus provides further fuel to the argument for a ‘more inclusive’ Green500,” Feng said. “If the trend of performance doubling continues, the No. 1 machine on this Green500 is unlikely to make the November 2009 Green500 List.”

Topping the list is the BladeCenter QS22 Cluster, PowerXCell 8i 4.0 Gigahertz, Infiniband, operated by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modeling at the University of Warsaw.

Also significant: More machines range more than 200 megaflops/watt, while fewer machines are less than 50 megaflops/watt. “As more powerful supercomputers supplant the less powerful, these new machines are performing their computations more energy efficiently,” Feng said.

Meanwhile, a self-made accelerator-based supercomputer from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan catapulted into fifth spot. The self-made GRAPE-DR could be the first Green500 supercomputer with more than a million processing elements at 2.097 million, Feng said.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is the first “satellite for our satellite” to have a resolution high enough to capture the Apollo sites, reportedly able to photograph things as small as 4 feet across or four feet per pixel.

The pictures show the Apollo missions’ lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon’s surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules’ locations evident.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks.

NASA reports “The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.

The spacecraft’s current elliptical orbit resulted in image resolutions that were slightly different for each site but were all around four feet per pixel. Because the deck of the descent stage is about 12 feet in diameter, the Apollo relics themselves fill an area of about nine pixels. However, because the sun was low to the horizon when the images were made, even subtle variations in topography create long shadows. Standing slightly more than ten feet above the surface, each Apollo descent stage creates a distinct shadow that fills roughly 20 pixels.”

See all the photos here!

“A major reason explaining why women are underrepresented not only in math-intensive fields but also in senior leadership positions in most fields is that many women choose to have children, and the timing of child rearing coincides with the most demanding periods of their career, such as trying to get tenure or working exorbitant hours to get promoted,” said lead author Stephen J. Ceci, professor of human development at Cornell.

Women with advanced math abilities choose non-math fields more often than men with similar abilities, he added.

Women also tend to drop out of scientific fields — especially math and physical sciences — at higher rates than do men, particularly as they advance, because of their need for greater flexibility and the demands of parenting and caregiving, said co-author Wendy M. Williams, Cornell professor of human development.

“These are choices that all women, but almost no men, are forced to make,” she said.

The study, published in the March issue of the American Psychological Association’s Psychological Bulletin (135:2), is an integrative analysis of 35 years of research on sex differences in math. Ceci and his Cornell co-authors reviewed more than 400 articles and book chapters to better understand why women are underrepresented in such math-intensive science careers as computer science, physics, technology, engineering, chemistry and higher mathematics.

Women today comprise about 50 percent of medical school classes; yet women who enter academic medicine are less likely than men to be promoted or serve in leadership posts, the authors report. As of 2005, only 15 percent of full professors and 11 percent of department chairs were women. Non-math fields are also affected: For example, only 19 percent of the tenure-track faculty members in the top 20 philosophy departments are women.

The authors concluded that hormonal, brain and other biological sex differences were not primary factors in explaining why women were underrepresented in science careers, and that studies on social and cultural effects were inconsistent and inconclusive. They also reported that although “institutional barriers and discrimination exist, these influences still cannot explain why women are not entering or staying in STEM careers,” said Ceci. “The evidence did not show that removal of these barriers would equalize the sexes in these fields, especially given that women’s career preferences and lifestyle choices tilt them toward other careers such as medicine and biology over mathematics, computer science, physics and engineering.”

The analysis, which also was conducted with Susan Barnett, Ph.D. ‘04, a visiting scholar at Cornell, also found that “Women would comprise 33 percent of the professorships in math-intensive fields if it was based solely on being in the top 1 percent of math ability, but they currently comprise less than 10 percent,” Ceci said.

Science, technology, engineering and math are not the only professions affected by women’s career choices, said the authors. Women are still underrepresented in the top positions of such fields as medicine, law, biology, psychology, dentistry and veterinary science.

The authors recommended that universities and companies create options for women with math talents who want to pursue math-intensive careers. These could include deferred start-up of tenure-track positions and part-time work that segues to full-time tenure-track work for women who are raising children, and courtesy appointments for women unable to work full time but who would benefit from use of university resources (e-mail, library resources, grant support) to continue their research from home.

Astrobiology: Life in Space

By Linda Buzzell, AlterNet.

Not so very long ago, humans — like the rest of the animals and plants on earth — moved through our natural cycles at nature’s pace. Time was marked by the passing of the seasons, the life cycles of human, animal and plant life and the yet grander cycles of the moon and the other celestial bodies.

Homo sapiens, a late-appearing species in the long history of our unimaginably ancient planet and universe, evolved during the recent (as the universe views these things!) Pleistocene era, adapted for a life intimately connected with and expressive of our natural surroundings on the African savannah and beyond.

And this is how we lived for millennia.

In the last 150 years, however, the human relationship with time has radically changed. Some say the problems started earlier, with the development of agriculture or writing, but it was really the Industrial Revolution — the rise of the Machine — that put humans in thrall to mechanical processes and machine time. And the recent exponential speeding up into Cybertime has accelerated the process still further. Industrial time was bad enough (Charlie Chaplin did a wonderful job of visualizing that “cog in the wheel” feeling in his film “Modern Times”) but Cybertime can be dizzyingly discombobulating for a Pleistocene primate.

And that’s how many modern people feel — completely frazzled and out of synch with our deepest selves.

The results of this disconnection from nature and nature’s pace show up in therapists’ and doctors’ offices every day. Living under unnatural time pressures causes a myriad of psychological, social and physical ailments. Delinked from the natural rhythms of our bodies and the rest of the planet, we struggle with diminishing success to adapt to the strange mechanical and disembodied world we have created.

As a practicing psychotherapist and ecotherapist, when I see patients who are suffering from depression or anxiety I ask them to keep a time-journal in which they record the hours and minutes spent each day outside, as well as the hours spent inside in front of a screen. My clients are often shocked to realize how disassociated they have become from nature and our species’ natural ways of living, and the effect this disconnection is having on their psyche. In fact, a 2007 study from the University of Essex shows that a daily “dose” of walking outside in nature can be as effective at treating mild to moderate depression as expensive antidepressant medications that can sometimes have negative side-effects.

Time poverty is now a recognized psychological and social stressor. In a speeded-up, highly complex society, there just isn’t enough time for everything: our demanding jobs, our interlocking bureaucratic responsibilities (taxes, insurance, legal issues), our loved one, kids, our community (including the rest of nature), plus commuting and keeping up with traditional media and endless 24/7 online communications. Constantly rushing to keep up as we inevitably fall further behind, we find ourselves destroying not only our own health, but our habitat and the habitat of the people, plants and animals with whom we share the planet.

Click here to read the rest at Alternet.

Symans is among the team of researchers who will converge in the Japanese city of Miki to perform the largest earthquake simulation ever attempted on a wooden structure. The multi-university team, led by Colorado State University, has placed a seven-story building – loaded with sensing equipment and video cameras – on a massive shake table, and will expose the building to the force of an earthquake that hits once every 2,500 years.

The experiment will be Webcast live on Tuesday, July 14 at 11 a.m. EDT at www.nsf.gov/neeswood, and should yield critical data and insight on how to make wooden structures stronger and better able to withstand major earthquakes.

“Right now, wood can’t compete with steel and concrete as building materials for mid-rise buildings, partly because we don’t have a good understanding of how taller wood-framed structures will perform in a strong earthquake,” said Symans, associate professor in Rensselaer’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “With this shaking table test, we’ll be collecting data that will help us to further the development of design approaches for such structures, which is one of the major goals of the project.”

The 1994 magnitude 6.7 earthquake in Northridge, Calif., and 1995 magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, clearly demonstrate the seismic vulnerability of wood-framed construction, Symans said. The shake table experiment will offer researchers a chance to better understand how wood reacts in an earthquake, he said, and the resulting data could lead to the advancement of engineering techniques for mitigating earthquake damage.

As the ground shakes, the energy that goes into a building needs to flow somewhere, Symans said. Typically, a large portion of this energy is spent moving – and damaging – the building. There are proven engineering techniques for absorbing or displacing some of this energy in order to minimize damage, but the technology for doing so has not yet been thoroughly evaluated for wooden structures. Next week’s shake should produce sufficient data to allow the research team to develop accurate computer models of mid-rise wood buildings, which can subsequently be used to advance and validate some of these seismic protection techniques.

As one example, Symans is working on the application of seismic damping systems for wooden buildings. These systems, which can be installed inside the walls of most wooden buildings, include metal bracing and dampers filled with viscous fluid. A portion of the energy generated by the earthquake is spent shaking the fluid back and forth in the dampers, which in turn reduces the energy available to damage the wall or building structure. Recently completed shaking table tests at Rensselaer on wooden walls outfitted with such a damping system have demonstrated the viability of such an approach to mitigating damage in wooden buildings.

“The system allows a significant portion of the wood-frame displacement to be transferred to the dampers where the energy can be harmlessly dissipated,” Symans said. “With dampers in place, we have a better ability to predict how a structure will react to and perform during an earthquake.”

In the 1994 Northridge earthquake, all but one of the 25 fatalities caused by building damage occurred in wooden buildings, and at least half of the $40 billion in property damage was attributed to wood buildings. The quake resulted in nearly 50,000 housing units rendered uninhabitable, most of them wood-framed buildings. The advancement of seismic protection systems could help to save lives and prevent or limit damage in similar future earthquakes, Symans said. This is particularly important considering that most residential structures in the United States, even in seismically active areas, have wooden frames.

The Miki shake is the capstone experiment of the four-year NEESWood project, which receives its primary support from the U.S. National Science Foundation Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Program. NEESWood is led by Colorado State University, in collaboration with Rensselaer, the University at Buffalo, the University of Delaware, and Texas A&M University. One intended end result of NEESWood is the development of new tools, software, and best practices that result in building code revisions and allow engineers and architects to design wooden structures which can better withstand earthquakes.

The seven-story structure has been built with new seismic design methods informed by NEESWood research for mid-rise wood frame construction. The tests in Miki, to be performed at the Hyogo Earthquake Engineering Research Center, home of the world’s largest seismic shaking table, will be used to evaluate the performance of the building and, in turn, the new design methods.

David Rosowsky, who will join Rensselaer in August as the new dean of engineering, is also a co-investigator of the NEESWood project and will attend the shake in Miki next week.

“NEESWood aims to develop a new seismic design philosophy that will provide the necessary mechanisms to safely increase the height of wood-frame structures in active seismic zones of the United States, as well as mitigate earthquake damage to low-rise wood-frame structures. When this challenge is successfully met, mid-rise wood-frame construction will be an economic option in seismic regions in the United States and around the world,” said Rosowsky, currently the head of the Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M.

“It’s exciting for Rensselaer to be a part of the international team participating in the NEESWood project. This project has already brought tremendous visibility to the School of Engineering at Rensselaer which, with its geotechnical centrifuge facility, already is a part of the NEES network of world-class laboratories for earthquake engineering,” Rosowsky said.

For more information on earthquake research and simulation at Rensselaer visit: http://www.nees.rpi.edu/.

“China has become a safe haven for Web site operators that use spam to promote their products because of the willingness of some Chinese Web-hosting companies to ignore spam complaints about those sites, which are hosted on their servers for a fee,” Warner said. “The hosting companies don’t create the spam, but rather declare themselves bullet-proof hosting sites – meaning that regardless of the illegal activities being reported, they will not terminate their customer’s spam-related Web sites or domains.”

Computer spam refers to unsolicited commercial advertisements distributed online via e-mail, which can sometimes carry viruses and other programs that harm computers. For the year to date, the UAB Spam Data Mine has reviewed millions of spam e-mails and successfully connected the hundreds of thousands of advertised Web sites in the spam to 69,117 unique hosting domains, Warner said. Of the total reviewed domains, 48,552, 70 percent, had Internet domains – or addresses – that ended in the Chinese country code “.cn”. Additionally, 48,331, 70 percent, of the sites were hosted on Chinese computers.

Further encouraging the Chinese spam epidemic is the widespread availability of cheap domain names. Domain names based in China can cost as little as one yuan, or 15 cents in U.S. currency. In contrast, U.S. domain names can costs as much as $35 a year, with a portion of the fees going toward efforts to detect fraud and abuse like spam. The low domain rates in China encourage Web page operators to buy numerous domains, leading to a continuous stream of spam promoting those various sites.

“Not only is it cheap to operate spam-promoted Web sites through the Chinese technology infrastructure, there is not enough revenue being generated to pay for the creation of programs or entities that could prevent such abuses from taking place,” Warner said.

Warner said that while only a very few companies in China are responsible for perpetuating the illegal spam activity, they risk the reputation of their entire nation’s Internet presence. Warner believes the solution lies in a renewed effort by the country’s government to target companies acting as a haven for cyber-criminals rather than a complete block of all Internet flow coming from China. He said China must develop mechanisms to accept and respond to spam abuse complaints. Read more on Warner’s blog at http://garwarner.blogspot.com/.

About UAB
The UAB computer forensics program is on the front lines of cyber crime and takes a three-part approach in its response to battling the problem. The first focus is on academic training to prepare the next generation cyber-crime investigators. The program also seeks to build a public awareness of cyber crime while conducting research to develop cutting edge options for taking on cyber criminals. For more, log on to http://www.cis.uab.edu/forensics/.

There are few areas of Lower Town which I’ve not walked, and I know the St. Lawrence Seaway well as it was the entrance and exit for the Allan Line ships which my family owned.

The Image Mill is the world’s largest multi media projection screen.  Moving images are projected against the grain silos in Lower Town at the Port of Quebec.  The project was part of the 400th anniversary of the historical city.  The technology is brilliant, and the effect amazing.  The “show” takes 40 minutes and includes much reworking, improvement and enhancement to 20% of the original show.  The screen is 600 meters wide and 300 meters tall…the equivalent of 25 IMAX screens, and the effect is 3D.  It was, of course, the star attraction of the city’s 400th anniversary!

The screenings are Wednesday to Sunday starting mid-July until September 13, 2009 at the present time.  We have Ex Machina to thank for this extraordinary show, and the awesome Robert Lepage born in Quebec in 1957.  He’s a director, scenic artist, playwright, actor, film director and, at the top of the list, an applause worthy visionary.

The Image Mill transports those watching through four centuries of Quebec history in four movements: waterways (recounting the days of Quebec’s discovery and exploration), road building (that period in which the land was cleared, then developed),  rail expansion (the years of industrialiation and railway construction), and air travel (the era of balloons, airplanes and communications)  The production begins at 10:00 PM.

You can view this enormous work from many vantage points in Quebec City and Levis (on the other side of the St. Lawrence), and the wharves between the old Port Market and rue Dalhousie, north of Quai Saint-Andre will offer the best view.  Check out www.theimagemill.com and www.bonjourquebec.com.

Online here: http://www.tampabay.com/news/science/personaltech/article1008611.ece

Bing me. Bing it. It’s time to Bing and decide. Prepare yourself as Microsoft wages its all-out advertising assault on Web-surfing lingo.

Last week, the software giant launched its new online search engine, Bing. It’s spending an estimated $80 million to $100 million on a campaign to shape Bing.com as a “decision engine” for consumers.

What will you find there?

Bing focuses on four experiences: making a purchase, planning a trip, researching a health condition and finding a local business.

Like Google, Bing also provides tools to search videos, images, news and maps updated with real-time traffic info.

Bing enters a search engine landscape dominated by Google, which holds more than 81 percent of the global market, according to statistics by Market Share. Yahoo, in second, garners a little more than 9 percent.

Will Bing’s consumer focus win people over?

Dewey Davis-Thompson, who owns Internet Adept Inc., a St. Petersburg Web design service, said he hasn’t seen anything beyond Bing’s glossy interface to capture his attention.

“They may catch up with Google, but I don’t know about surpassing it,” he said. “Google is a word like Coke — like Kleenex or Trojan.

“People don’t use a search engine. They Google.”

Will they also Bing?

Find out more in this video.

How Our Brains Are Different

Standard DNA procedure for bones is to freeze them. When Coyle and her team re-examined the mummy remains they realized the Gobi desert created a natural bone baking process. “It makes the bone more brittle so it makes it easier to grind and break open more cells, so we think we are accessing more DNA to begin with,” Dr. Coyle said.

This technological innovation might have a huge impact on DNA extraction, particularly from older bones, where it is extremely difficult to get usable DNA. For her part, Dr. Coyle hopes the new technique can be used to solve cold cases.

“The researchers used calling and mobility data from over six million anonymous mobile phone users to create a comprehensive picture of the threat mobile phone viruses pose to users. The results of this study, published in the May 22 issue of Science, indicate that a highly fragmented market share has effectively hindered outbreaks thus far. Further, their work predicts that viruses will pose a serious threat once a single mobile operating system’s market share grows sufficiently large.”

So far only cell phones with operating systems (“smart phones”) can be considered susceptible, but as this feature becomes more common, technology users will need to be more aware of such threats.

]]> http://dailyrevolution.com/?feed=rss2&p=667 1 http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=623 http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=623#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 05:57:29 +0000 Kelly http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=623 In a fusion of Tech Talk Tuesday and Mother Earth Monday, Science Daily reports on mathematical modeling of climate change odds.

The news is not good. Comprehensive modeling shows that:

“…without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago – and could be even worse than that…. The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge.”

The study reports, among other items, that there is a median probability of 5.2 degrees Celsius warming by 2100, compared to a projected 2.4 degree warming in a 2003 study.

Governments need to make major changes. So do we.

“A 1,000-square-foot prototype unveiled at a Clayton show in Knoxville a few months ago was priced at around $140,000. It came furnished, with a master bedroom, full bath, open kitchen and living room with Ikea cabinetry, two ground-level deck areas and a separate “flex room” with a second full bath and a second-story deck covered by a sail-like canopy.”

The house includes a rainwater catchment system, flush-mounted solar panels, bamboo flooring, and multiple Energy Star-rated features, such as a tankless water heater, glazed windows, and dual-flush toilets. Clayton’s website allows interested people to examine the home’s features and create their own layout, and even gives a delivered cost estimate.

This just might be the house of the future.

“We need more data centres, we need more servers. Each server burns more watts than the previous generation and each watt costs more. If you compound all of these trends, you have the perfect storm.”

Globally, there are more than 1.5 billion people using the internet, and estimates put the yearly energy footprint growth rate at 10%. United States data centers are estimated to consume 1.5% of total energy annually. Google and YouTube are among the most visited websites, resulting in ever-increasing energy costs – and therefore carbon debt. The article states, “From having a relatively small impact just a few years ago, [the computer industry] is now leapfrogging other sectors like the airline industry that are more widely known for their negative environmental impact.”

“A half century ago, this nation made a commitment to lead the world in scientific and technological innovation…There are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science, that support for research is somehow a luxury at moments defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree…Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment and our quality of life than it has ever been before.”

This Daily Revolution writer applauds Obama’s decision. Commitment to science is commitment to knowledge; there can’t be too much, especially given the state of global warming and dwindling fossil fuels. It is also interesting to compare the United States’ scientific research budget to other countries’. The article includes a graph showing that Japan and South Korea allocate approximately 3.25% of their respective GDPs to science research; the countries of the European Union allocate just over 2.75%, and China just under 1.5%.

Where do you think we should be? What should we be studying, and why? Enquiring minds want to know.

I found a watch I want, but it’s an “adventure” watch for Alpha Males.  They call it a “Compass Watch for Budding MacGyvers”.  It’s a TIMEX EXPEDITION E.TIDE TEMP COMPASS, and it reveals everything from the direction to the rise and fall of tides.  Check out www.timex.com.

What’s a “Headphone Splitter for Media Unity”.  You can share video and music with this five socket splitter, compatible with all MP3 and DVD players.  See www.flight001.c0m.

I’m fascinated by the so-called upstart in the Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) arena, so popularized by Skype as well as by other companies such as Vonage and Vodaphone,  magicJack (www.magicJack.com), which enables you to access the Internet over your land-line telephone as well as your computer.  The magicJack device, which looks like a large thumb drive, connects to your computer’s USB port.  At the other end of the device is a standard jack that connects to your phone.  The device loads the software into your computer (it’s Widows and Mack Intel compatible) and you can then talk online over your landline.  On the road, you can plug the device into your computer, pop on a headset and get a dial tone.  You can also buy international service, but it doesn’t just let you talk online affordably, it allows you to forward your home voice-mails to your e-mail – just click the e-mail and listen to the message.

Have you heard about SNAGIT which allows you to take a “snapshot” of anything on your PC screen, from a specific section to the entire screen according to “Gadget Girl”, Penny Rudicil.  You can click and “snag” exactly what you need.  In order to rotate or combine images, use the editing which will also allow you to crop.  Once the images are saved, you can import them into other projects like a Power Point presentation, an e-mail or Word document.  www.snagit.com

An upstart in the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) area, so popularized by Skype as well as by other companies such as Vonage and Vodaphone, is magicJack (www.magicJack.com) which enables you to access the Internet over your land-line telephone as well as on your computer.  The magicJack device, which looks like a large thumb drive, connects to your computer’s USB port.  At the other end of the device is a standard jack that connects to your phone.  The device loads its software into your computer (it’s Windows and Mac Intel compatible), and you can then talk online over your landline.  On the road, you can plug the device  into your computer, pop on a headset and get a dial tone.  You can also buy international service.  But,  it doesn’t just let you talk online affordably, it allows you to forward your home voice-mails to your e-mail – just click the e-mail and listen to the message.

GoodCleanTech reports:

“So, you sent a few of your old gadgets for recycling and feel that you helped make the world a better place in your own little way. Hopefully, you’ve been following our recycling tips and our recent recycling superguide so your old electronics don’t wind up in landfills in developing countries. If you sent your old gadgets to certified recycling projects, they would most probably end up in a facility such as one in the picture on the left. Wired has recently posted a photo essay of how electronics are processed and recycled in one of Sims Recycling Solutions’ facilities. Browsing through the pics, you’ll get a general idea of how works dismantle devices to search for valuable, reusable materials and to dispose of hazardous wastes with heavy metal components before being shred. After shredding, the components are separated and then categorized, with those containing toxic materials to be sent for incineration. Overall, the slew of pictures posted could give you a general overview of how things are done in recycling centers. Last August, MIT’s Tech Review also posted a photo essay of a recycling facility that focuses on cell phones.”

Please know that I don’t play golf.  I’ve “walked” courses around the world, and once sat on a log on the island of St. Croix and watched a Robert Trent Jones’ course being dug and shaped.  One of the project managers wondered who I was, and came over to sit down with me.  He finally showed me the design for the course, and I was amazed at how complicated it was from angles, mounds and the number of sand traps plus challenging vistas.

Golf on ships and ships featuring golf on themed cruises is growing.  Crystal Cruises has an 11-day golf cruise out of Hong Kong to Singapore aboard their 940 passenger Crystal Symphony.  The cruise features putting contests, private clinics and golfing tips from Bill Stutzer, head P.G.A. golf pro from San Diego’s Pauma Valley Country Club.

The four world-class courses are in Vietnam and Thailand including the stunning 18-hole Montomerie Links overlooking the Marble Mountains and China Beach coast in Da Nang, Vietnam.  If you don’t golf  just relax in the spa, get a tan on deck and feast on fabulous food.

The simulators use real balls and clubs, plastic grass, electronic sensors and a video screen.  The simulators combine the feel of playing golf with the visuals of a live P.G.A. event (cruisesshipgolf.net).  Don’t forget that if you take a regular cruise to the Caribbean, for instance, your onboard Concierge can usually make arrangements and tee times for you to play at some of the courses on the islands.  Talk with your travel agent, and bon voyage.

Now, it’s laptops.  Mine is left at home, but there are, on the horizon, “Checkpoint-Friendly Laptop Bags,” (www.PathfinderLuggage.com) approved for X-ray screening, allowing you to keep laptops in your bag by going through checkpoints.  These new bags are expected to be on the market before the end of the year.

A staggering 12,000 laptops go lost or missing at U. S. airports every week!  Almost 70% of these are not reclaimed (per study by Dell and the Poneman Institute).

These new cases either have a separate fold-down section in a bigger case, or a stand-alone sleeve with no extra clutter.  The Transportation Security Admnistration (TSA) has been working with both Pathfinder Luggage and Targus (www.targus.com), but won’t certify or approve either company.

Pathfinder prices will start agt $49.99, and Targus’ price tag will run around $39.00 for the basic model and $100.00 for a “corporate series”.

Frequent travelers may be interested in signing up for the Clear Registered Traveler program.  Clear’s first year price tag is $100.00, plus the TSA vetting fee of $28.00 or $128.00 total.  The company claims the card-carrying members will have access  to designated airport security “fast lanes” nationwide (www.flyclear.com) with a whole less hassle.

Time will tell.

Hotels have joined the trend and Kerry Medina’s recent article in Agent at Home brought us up to date.  Across Mexico’s Riviera Maya there are new environmental initiatives.  At the Caracol complex it’s been transformed into an eco-resort by including a “zero emissions” building allowing the resort to reduce its carbon footprint.  An “eco zoo” is being pioneered where guests will be allowed to participate in such activities as lectures, tours and feedings, not to mention activities such as beach cleanups, saving tortoises in Akumal and setting exotic bird species “free” into the wild (www.sandoshotels.com).

At Banyan Tree Mayakoba, the property was mapped out to preserve a stretch of mangrove and the wildlife that lives there (www.banyantree.com).

The El Dorado Spa Resorts and Hotels by Karisma (www.karismahotels.com) also has taken steps to ensure a balance to support the tourism industry and preserve the extraordinary natural environment of the Riviera Maya.  They’ve implemented solar panels throughout their properties (El Dorado Maroma 100% invested, El Dorado Seaside Suites 70% and El Dorado Royal at 40% solar-power efficiency).  They also have quality controls over towels and sheets, and the use of green maintance supplies.

I’d been watching government members twittering each other from what they had for breakfast to comments on bills before The House.  I’m aware that the President appears to text quite a bit on his Blackberry, but we’re all facing a social media revolution vs. the Industrial Revolution which is almost past tense!

Richard Tucker of CruiseDeals.com recently won a “Shorty Award” from Twitter  followers for engaging travelers and sending out the best travel “tweets”.  There are 26 categories in The Shorty Awards.

Twitter is a privately founded startup with offices in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, CA.  Started as a side project in March, 2006, Twitter has grown into a real-time, short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices.

Fortunately, Suzanne Caplan, with whom I work on womenetcetera.com was talking with Michael Angelo Caruso on WMNY 1360 in Pittsburgh today and I learned that Facebook, Linkin.com and Twitter (considered cutting edge)  are “indirect marketing” leaders and excellent sources of networking.  Mr. Caruso stressed discretion in using your own e-mail and suggested a “disposable” e-mail address to avoid hacking.

We’re all on a threshold of boundless growth in social networking and the technology involved.  As Mr. Caruso pointed out, you can have a “technical” book published, and it’s outdated within a year.  He suggests e-books to keep up, and so the world evolves.

An Italian, David Fischer, is the architect of what is dubbed “dynamic architecture” – I’ll tip my hat to him any time.  The units are 410-3,300 square feet, and each floor is pre-assembled in a factory (including plumbing and electricity).  Then, it’s affixed to the central core and poured on location.  This results is a 30% reduction in constuction time, and 20% less in the cost factor.  680 workers will be employed using this method vs. 2,000 for standard building methods.

Each floor can pivot individually.  There are wind generators (built of carbon fibers) between each floor and solar panels on the roofs to generate enough energy to make the building self-sufficient energy wise.  These 80 storey skyscrapers will have 79 wind generators.

The cost of purchasing and/or leasing was not mentioned, but the one that is in the early stages of building in Moscow is running at an estimated cost of about $700 millions for each building.  The pictures make them look like slabs of stone placed one on top of the other, somewhat staggered.  The color of the building will change as it pivots.  Makes you wonder what will happen if your neighbors want a different view than you do?

Such advanced architecture was Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1956 The Illinois which was to be a mile-high (5,280 feet) skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois.  Had it been built, it would have then been the tallest building in the world (the Empire State Building is a quarter of the height).  It was considered as a self-supporting steel structure.  Steel is flexible, and the building probably would have swayed.  Occupants on the highest floors would have been uncomfotable.

http://www.burjdubaiskyscraper.com/2006/theillinois/the-illinois.html

www.batilux.com/newsletter

Thanks to Kate Rice, Executive Editor of  Travel Technology, I found that there’s a new guy on the block – a Netbook.  She likes the pink one, but you have a choice of color, it’s about 2.4 pounds, 10 inches wide and is priced around $250-300.  High tech can be found in metallic colors, 160 GB hard drive and webcam.  The keyboard is smaller than a laptop and the battery life is somewhat limited.

Early versions of Netbook were stripped down models designed to access the Internet and little more.  WiFi enabled, they were an answer to backpackers and students.

The Netbook should, because of its limitations, be considered a second computer and not primary.  Ultimately, with projected improvements and expansion, they could eventually replace the laptop.  In 2007 laptop sales passed desktops.  Who knows where the Netbook is going?

www.acer.com

www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/mini100/Alt.html

A global leader in his field, Garde works to shed new light on the hidden world of atoms and molecules. Equipped with state-of-the-art advanced imaging, molecular modeling, and computer simulation tools, he is a high-tech archeologist who scrutinizes nanoscale landscapes in search of clues, patterns, and systems that could lead to a better understanding of the most basic building blocks of life.

In the next few months Garde will unveil his latest simulations to the public and his fellow researchers. But instead of the more familiar setting of a classroom or academic conference, his molecules will come to life on silver screens in darkened IMAX movie theaters across the country.

Garde’s simulations are at the heart of Molecules to the MAX, the new animated IMAX film set for release in early 2009. Carefully engineered to both entertain and educate, the movie follows the exploits of Oxy, Hydro, Hydra, and other characters who populate the world of Molecularium.

The atomic environment of nearly every shot in Molecules to the MAX is derived from simulations provided by Garde and his research team. Some are among the most ambitious and intricate simulations ever undertaken.

“When you watch a modern animated movie like Shrek, and you see the fabric of the princess’ dress move, it looks quite natural because animators have taken great pains to make those movements as physically realistic as possible,” said Garde, head of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “In Molecules to the MAX, we’ve tried to push that accuracy all the way down to the level of atoms and molecules.”

The first Molecularium movie, Riding Snowflakes, released in 2004, relied heavily on Garde’s simulations. He said the longer 42-minute running time of the new IMAX film, along with emboldened animators and entertainers looking to push the boundaries of art and science, resulted in the need for larger, more involved simulations to flush out the atomic environments of Molecules to the MAX.

“The artists didn’t want to fake anything,” Garde said. “They wanted as many simulations as possible. I’ve had at least 10 to 15 students over the past few years contribute to this project.”

Along with the challenge of running the simulations, and working with animators to find a middle ground between their respective languages of art and science, Garde said seeing his work on the large screen added new facets to his own understanding and appreciation of the molecular world.

“When you watch a molecular trajectory rendered on a large screen, you begin to notice intricacies and patterns that aren’t necessarily obvious when you’re looking at it on a small computer screen,” he said.

Garde submits that many of the animations that provide the basis for Molecules to the MAX were packed with “more information and detail than was probably necessary to make a given point.” But it’s these little details that will allow his colleagues around the world – mainly chemical engineers, chemists, and physicists – to appreciate the movie on yet another level.

“It’s almost like an inside joke,” Garde said. “Like the lines in Shrek or Toy Story that go over the heads of many young people, but make the adults laugh.”

Massive computational power was required to bring Garde’s simulations and the animators’ vision to life on the big screen. Many of the complex scientific molecular simulations required hours, days, or even months of computer processing time to complete. Converting the raw data from those simulations into visual images for Molecules to the MAX was also time intensive. It took anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to render a single frame the movie – with 24 frames per second, the new 42-minute IMAX movie is made up of nearly 60,000 frames. The render time will jump even higher when the film is re-formatted, later this year, to 3-D IMAX.

An early digital version of Molecules to the MAX was screened last autumn in New York at an industry convention, and the full IMAX version will be shown to theater owners and potential film buyers in California next month at the Giant Screen Cinema Association 2009 Film Expo. The Molecularium team and giant-screen movie distributor SK Films are working to build up a buzz and land deals to show the film in IMAX theaters across the country and around the world. Planning for a national public premiere later in the year is still under way.

Garde credits his research team of talented graduate and undergraduate Rensselaer students, collaborator and Rensselaer colleague Professor Angel E. Garcia, along with Molecules to the MAX production company Nanotoon Entertainment, and fellow Molecules to the MAX executive producers and Rensselaer faculty colleagues Linda Schadler and Richard Siegel for making the Molecularium project such an enjoyable endeavor. Their goal with the IMAX movie is to entertain audiences while tangibly raising national and international science literacy with an important educational message.

Though he works closely with graduate and undergraduate students at Rensselaer, he knows it can be quite challenging to reach younger children. “If someone like me stands up to tell kids about molecules and atoms, it won’t be long before they fall asleep,” Garde said. “But Molecularium is different. It is an exciting place where molecular modeling, art, and entertainment meet education in a meaningful way. It’s a unique vehicle to tell the kind of story we’re trying to tell.”

Molecules to the MAX and Molecularium are owned and managed by Rensselaer, with additional support from the U.S. National Science Foundation. The new IMAX movie was made possible by a generous gift from Rensselaer Trustee Curtis Priem ’82, co-founder of NVIDIA, a world leader in visual computing technologies. Since Schadler first developed the idea for Molecularium in 2001, the program has become the flagship educational outreach project of Rensselaer’s NSF-funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures.

The first Molecularium movie, Riding Snowflakes, was created to be projected in planetarium domes. The dome movie has won several awards, is still in distribution worldwide, and is in the process of being translated into several different languages. The Riding Snowflakes team returned to work on Molecules to the MAX. Garde, Schadler, and Siegel worked closely with the Nanotoon team, led by writer/director V. Owen Bush and writer/producer Kurt Przybilla.

The Molecularium team is also looking to bring Oxy, Hydra, and Hydro to the small screen. The group is in discussions to move the project forward and reach out to more people by bringing the new movie to television, creating new Molecularium shows for television, and also making the new Molecularium content available on DVD.

As far as Garde is concerned, the more Molecularium content produced and available to the public, the better.

“My daughter is 2 years old, and right now she’d hooked on the cartoon Jungle Book,” he said. “But I hope it won’t be too long before she’s hooked on Oxy, Hydro, and Hydra in the Molecularium.”

For more information on Molecules to the MAX and the Molecularium project, visit: www.molecularium.com.

For more information on Rensselaer’s NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures, visit: www.nano.rpi.edu.

Although almost all of the filming is done in Wales (Cardiff), one can be on the moon, gazing at the Statue of Liberty, attending a Shakespearan performance (with the Bard in view) at the original Globe Theatre in London or tumbling across the galaxy in the Tardus (a British call box).

I don’t know how comfortable the Tardus is because they don’t seem to sleep, eat or shower, but then if I’m his companion I probably don’t have to worry about that!  Sadly, for all of us, the present Dr. Who (portrayed by Scotsman David Trennant) the 10th doctor, is the last of the Time Lords.

The first Dr. Who reminded me of a friendly undertaker, ergo: not very “human friendly” and the kind of an alien whose travel companion I would not be.  The 7th, with his marvelous open-air green jelopy had, according to my last husband, been married some nine times.  He’d met Jon Pertwee in a pub outside London.

Then came the strange, almost brash Dr. Who in the white suit, Peter Davidson.  He was far too young in appearance (despite eons of “Who” experience) to remain in my thoughts, and he didn’t last very long.

And, oh, the Dr. Who (Tom Baker) with the long, multi-colored knit scarf!  Remember, in the Guinness Book of Records, this is the longest running science fiction program in the world.

The Christmas special this year, “Voyage of the Damned”, may be my last chance to be his travelling companion.  David is a breath of fresh air – especially the high top sneekers.  Farewell Tardus, farewell beloved Doctor…

The researcher pointed out that emotions (such as fear, joy or surprise) are almost instantaneous mood alterations, in contrast to emotional states (such as boredom or anxiety) which are more long-lasting, or personality, which normally lasts someone’s entire life. The designers have followed the theories of Albert Mehrabian to draw up the model, based on the five personality traits established by this American psychologist: extraversion, neuroticism, openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness.

“Every personality can be considered an emotional state by default”, indicated Arellano. An introverted and neurotic personality is therefore related to an anxious emotional state. The points of the face that define these emotions can be determined mathematically, and the algorithms developed by computer experts can be used to obtain different facial expressions “quickly and easily”. The system, which uses the MPEG-4 video coding standard for creating images, makes it possible to display basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise) and intermediate situations.

The results of the method have been assessed objectively (through an automatic recognizer which identified 82% of the expressions generated) and subjectively, through a survey carried out among a group of 75 university students. The students successfully recognised 86% of the emotions and 73% of the emotional states shown on the computer.

Even so, the researchers have detected that some emotions, such as fear and surprise, are difficult to tell apart, with context helping to differentiate between the two. The team is already working in this line and prepared a virtual storyteller which enriches the narration, using its face to express the emotions generated by the story told.

A team of researchers from the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) has developed a computer model that enables the generation of faces which for the first time display emotions and moods according to personality traits.

Arellano also points out that the display of emotions not only depends on the facial expression, but also the existence of various other factors such as gestures, voice or head movements which also help to correctly interpret an emotion, since personality has an obvious effect on them.

The researchers believe that this model could be applied in both educational environments (virtual tutors and presenters with personality traits) and in video game characters or interactive stories that have their own emotional motor. “Our next step is to leave the MPEG-4 standard aside and concentrate on a high-quality generic network which will enable the inclusion of both wrinkles and eye, eyelid and head movements, as well as synthesize the voice”, the researcher concluded.

Read the rest here.

By Mary Allan Mill

My late husband was an aeronautical and electrical engineer, and we met when he was brought to St. Louis to work in the aerospace department of what is now Boeing – McDonnell Douglas.  As part of a government contract, he worked on both the Apollo and Gemini space projects.  I admit to being a true sci-fi fan from the days of Buck Rogers’ movies at Saturday matinees.  Learning real science fact from my husband was wonderful, but I couldn’t tell anyone.

Among friends I’ve made through the years are a couple where the husband was in similar projects in Tennessee, and it was from him that I learned about the “Mechanical Army Muel” called Big Dog.  This is the latest development of a company called Boston Dynamics, and after looking at the video download I fell in love with this fabulous, somewhat fumbling, most advanced quadruped robot on earth.

There’s an on-board computer which controls locomotion.  From certain camera angles you could swear that two inept human beings with very long legs are making fools of themselves.  However, it runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, staggers across large rocks, and carries a 340 lb load.

To see is to believe, and it would appear that it is being further developed for space projects.

www.bostondynamics.com

Play nice, says Wikipedia … use the Copyleft license! Copyleft is a play on the word copyright. Copyleft uses copyright law to remove restrictions on copying and changing a work and requiring that the same freedom be granted in modified versions.

Wikipedia says “Copyleft is a form of licensing and may be used to modify copyrights for works such as computer software, documents, music, and art. In general, copyright law allows an author to prohibit others from reproducing, adapting, or distributing copies of the author’s work. In contrast, an author may, through a copyleft licensing scheme, give every person who receives a copy of a work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute the work as long as any resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same copyleft licensing scheme. A widely used and originating copyleft license is the GNU General Public License. Similar licenses are available through Creative Commons — called Share-alike.”

“Copyleft may also be characterized as a copyright licensing scheme in which an author surrenders some but not all rights under copyright law. Instead of allowing a work to fall completely into the public domain (where no copyright restrictions are imposed), copyleft allows an author to impose some but not all copyright restrictions on those who want to engage in activities that would otherwise be considered copyright infringement. Under copyleft, copyright infringement may be avoided if the would-be infringer perpetuates the same copyleft scheme. For this reason copyleft licenses are also known as reciprocal licenses.”

“While copyright protects the rights of the creator by providing control of distribution and modification, the idea of copyleft is to grant Gratis freedom to all others. In this way, seemingly using copyrighted works as if there were no copyright law on them, with one exception: copyleft also grants the open access to information useful in supporting modification (e.g. source code) by enforcing its publication, and allows the original author to be acknowledged.”

You can read the rest of the entry on Copyleft at Wikipedia.

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Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery–what we see with the “mind’s eye”–directly impacts our visual perception.

The research was published online June 26 by the journal Current Biology.

“We found that imagery leads to a short-term memory trace that can bias future perception,” Joel Pearson, research associate in the Vanderbilt Department of Psychology. and lead author of the study, said. “This is the first research to definitively show that imagining something changes vision both while you are imagining it and later on.”

“These findings are important because they suggest a potential mechanism by which top-down expectations or recollections of previous experiences might shape perception itself,” Pearson and his co-authors wrote.

It is well known that a powerful perceptual experience can change the way a person sees things later. Just think of what can happen if you discover an unwanted pest in your kitchen, such as a mouse. Suddenly you see mice in every dust ball and dark corner–or think you do. Is it possible that imagining something, just once, might also change how you perceive things?

“You might think you need to imagine something 10 times or 100 times before it has an impact,” Frank Tong, associate professor of psychology and co-author of the study, said. “Our results show that even a single instance of imagery can tilt how you see the world one way or another, dramatically, if the conditions are right.”

To test how imagery affects perception, Pearson, Tong and co-author Colin Clifford of the University of Sydney had subjects imagine simple patterns of vertical or horizontal stripes, which are strongly represented in the primary visual areas of the brain. They then presented a green horizontal grated pattern to one eye and a red vertical grated pattern to the other to induce what is called binocular rivalry. During binocular rivalry, an individual will often alternately perceive each stimulus, with the images appearing to switch back and forth before their eyes. The subjects generally reported they had seen the image they had been imagining, proving the researcher’s hypothesis that imagery would influence the binocular rivalry battle.

Additional experiments found that the effect of imagery on perception was approximately the same as showing the research subject a faint representation of one of the patterns between trials. Stronger shifts in perception were found if subjects either viewed or imagined a particular pattern for longer periods of time. They found that both imagery and perception can lead to a build-up of a “perceptual trace” that influences subsequent perception.

Pearson, Clifford and Tong also discovered that changing the orientation of the image from what had been imagined greatly reduced the impact of imagery on perception. Because orientation is processed in early visual areas, this suggests that imagery’s interaction with perception may occur at early stages of visual processing.

The new findings offer an objective tool to assess the often-slippery concept of imagination.

“It has been very hard to pin down in the laboratory what exactly someone is experiencing when it comes to imagery, because it is so subjective,” Tong said. “We found that the imagery effect, while found in all of our subjects, could differ a lot in strength across subjects. So this might give us a metric to measure the strength of mental imagery in individuals and how that imagery may influence perception.”

The findings may also help settle a longstanding debate in the research community over whether mental imagery is visual?that one imagines something just as one sees it?or more abstract.

“More recently, with advances in human brain imaging, we now know that when you imagine something parts of the visual brain do light up and you see activity there,” Pearson said. “So there’s more and more evidence suggesting that there is a huge overlap between mental imagery and seeing the same thing. Our work shows that not only are imagery and vision related, but imagery directly influences what we see.”

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant and an Australia National Health and Mental Research Council Martin Fellowship. Pearson is a member of the Vanderbilt Vision Research Center. Tong is a member of the Vanderbilt Vision Research Center and the Vanderbilt Center for Integrative and Cognitive Neuroscience.

A multimedia version of this story is available on Exploration, Vanderbilt’s online research magazine.

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Usually it is the kids who seem to get the upper hand with technology. They zoom online with ease, chat, blog and text – while those over 40 sometimes seem techno-challenged by a VCR. (A what, Dad? Oh, you mean like an 8 track.)

Today, however, we share a technichal triumph of parents trying to keep track of thier children’s scores in school. Online report cards, attendance records and even behavioural notes are finding thier way to the worldwide web.

Nancy Rein can see that her daughter has been turning in her homework assignments or check on her test results. Mrs. Rein simply types in a web address and with her password she can check on her Cincinnati high school student’s progress. Of course, this means that hackers and other idiots might get at them too.

Systems such as PowerSchool, the program Campbell County schools use, allows parents, teachers, and students to check grades, attendance, progress and class schedules at any time from any PC. Similar Web-based programs include LetterGrade, K12Planet, and ParentConnectxp. Indian River County public schools is using another system eSembler as their web-based gradebook.

Students beware!

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