Lifeboat Foundation

One of the unsung workhorses of modern technology is the humble interconnect. This is essentially a wire or set of wires that link one part of an electronic system to another. In ordinary silicon chips, interconnect can take up most of the area of a chip; and the speed and efficiency with which information can travel along these interconnects, is a major limiting factor in computing performance.

So it’s no wonder that physicists and engineers are creating new generations of interconnect that will become the backbone of information processing machines of the future.

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July, 2015; as you know.. was the all systems go for the CERNs Large Hadron Collider (LHC). On a Saturday evening, proton collisions resumed at the LHC and the experiments began collecting data once again. With the observation of the Higgs already in our back pocket — It was time to turn up the dial and push the LHC into double digit (TeV) energy levels. From a personal standpoint, I didn’t blink an eye hearing that large amounts of Data was being collected at every turn. BUT, I was quite surprised to learn at the ‘Amount’ being collected and processed each day — About One Petabyte.

Approximately 600 million times per second, particles collide within the (LHC). The digitized summary is recorded as a “collision event”. Physicists must then sift through the 30 petabytes or so of data produced annually to determine if the collisions have thrown up any interesting physics. Needless to say — The Hunt is On!

The Data Center processes about one Petabyte of data every day — the equivalent of around 210,000 DVDs. The center hosts 11,000 servers with 100,000 processor cores. Some 6000 changes in the database are performed every second.

Continue reading “Exotic Pentaquark Particle Discovery & CERN's Massive Data Center” »

Snipping out bad DNA code could prevent or even cure obesity in those people with a faulty gene, say scientists from two top US universities.

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A medication called modafinil is commonly used to treat people who experience narcolepsy, but it’s suspected that the vast majority of those who use the drug are taking it for another purpose that isn’t medically authorised: as a general cognitive enhancer for tasks such as studying or meeting a deadline.

Now a comprehensive review of the medication has looked at this ‘off licence’ use of the drug by healthy, non-sleep-deprived subjects to determine whether modafinil is safe – and to confirm whether the belief that it acts as a general-purpose ‘smart drug’ is grounded in reality.

According to researchers from the University of Oxford in the UK and Harvard Medical School in the US, modafinil delivers on both counts, constituting what’s thought to be the first safe smart drug that can provide demonstrable cognitive and concentration benefits. Brainpower in a pill, in other words.

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Growing brain tissue in a dish has been done before, but bold new research announced this week shows that scientists’ ability to create human brains in laboratory settings has come a long way quickly.

Researchers at the Ohio State University in the US claim to have developed the most complete laboratory-grown human brain ever, creating a model with the brain maturity of a 5-week-old foetus. The brain, which is approximately the size of a pencil eraser, contains 99 percent of the genes that would be present in a natural human foetal brain.

“It not only looks like the developing brain, its diverse cell types express nearly all genes like a brain,” Rene Anand, professor of biological chemistry and pharmacology at Ohio State and lead researcher on the brain model, said in a statement.

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Global warming

Going back to 1880.

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SCIENTISTS have discovered MRI scanners, often used to diagnose cancer, can actually help combat the disease and with less side effects than some current treatments.

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“EXCLUSIVE: Could this asteroid destroy Earth in just SIX weeks?” According to NASA, the answer is “absolutely not, you imbeciles.”

NASA issued an official statement about the conspiracy-web theory that an asteroid is heading for the Atlantic with an impact on September 23rd. “That’s the rumor that has gone viral–now here are the facts,” the agency writes. “There is no scientific basis–not one shred of evidence–that an asteroid or any other celestial object will impact Earth on those dates,” says the manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object office, Paul Chodas.

Who could be perpetrating such rumors? The theory has actually been around for years, but it’s picked up steam over the past month or two. Unsurprisingly, a major role has been played by InfoWars, which has built a business out of circulating conspiracy theories about the government, impending apocalypse, and the shadowy machinations of world powers. “We are simply taking a look at what has being said,” says InfoWars’ John Bowne in a video about the forthcoming asteroid strike. Just a simple look! So what’s being said?

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In aviation circles, the talk of the future involves phrases like “space planes” and “hypersonic atmospheric flight vehicles.” A group presently in the spotlight is from Germany; they are carrying a roadmap for low-cost space access which involves calling upon the air passenger market for fast-travel flights.

Welcome to the world of SpaceLiner, which, when fully developed, could have dramatic impact in global aerospace. The DLR Institute of Space Systems said this suborbital, hypersonic, winged passenger transport idea is under investigation at DLR-SART. (DLR is a German aerospace research agency and it evaluates complex systems of space flight. SART is Space Launcher Systems Analysis.)

SpaceLiner is a rocket-propelled intercontinental passenger transport, described by the institute as a two-stage vehicle powered by rocket propulsion.

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