Cell phones catapult 'Shangri-La' Bhutan into modern age
Thimpu , Bhutan (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
Sitting in his office in Bhutan's sleepy capital, newspaper editor Tenzing Lamsang muses on the dramatic impact of cell phone technology on a remote Himalayan kingdom known as the "last Shangri-La".
"Bhutan is jumping from the feudal age to the modern age," said Lamsang, editor of The Bhutanese biweekly and online journal. "It's bypassing the industrial age."
As the last country in the w ...
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Cisco pushes into 'cloud' with $1 bn investment
New York (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
Cisco Systems announced plans Monday to invest $1 billion to step up its cloud computing with several global partners.
The California-based equipment maker said the alliance would build "the world's largest global Intercloud," or a network of clouds to support objects ranging from wearable devices to appliances to automobiles.
Partners with Cisco in the project include Australia's Telstr ...
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Busy US Gulf ship lane closed due to oil spill
Miami (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
A busy shipping lane to the port of Houston, Texas was closed Monday as clean up crews struggled to remove oil that spilled in a weekend barge crash.
The barge loaded with a million gallons of tar-like "bunker" oil collided with a ship Saturday, and the US Coast Guard said that some 168,000 gallons of oil had spilled in the accident.
Cleanup agencies deployed more than 69,000 feet of con ...
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Singapore talks on Internet's future hear plea for freedom
Singapore (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
Control of the Internet should be handed from US supervision to a diverse group of stakeholders, and not to governments that could limit freedoms, a meeting on the web's future heard Monday.
Organisers also said that a US decision to relinquish control was not the result of any one event - after speculation it came under pressure from snooping disclosures from former National Security Agenc ...
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Malaysia says missing jet crashed at sea
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
Malaysia said Monday its missing airliner had crashed in the Indian Ocean, extinguishing the hopes of relatives of those on board but shedding no light on why it veered so far off course.
A sombre Prime Minister Najib Razak said a new analysis of satellite data on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370's path placed its last position in remote waters off Australia's west coast, "far from any possibl ...
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Pinterest pinning ads to digital bulletin board
San Francisco (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
Pinterest on Monday said it will soon start pinning ads to its popular online bulletin boards.
Advertising in the form of "promoted pins" will begin appearing on Pinterest pages in the coming months, the California startup said in reply to an AFP inquiry.
Pinterest began testing promoted pins late last year and is "encouraged" by what it has so far seen, a company spokeswoman said.
F ...
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US, Japan in historic plutonium return deal
The Hague (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
Japan pledged Monday to return hundreds of kilos of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium given to Tokyo for research during the Cold War era, in the first major deal announced at a summit on nuclear security.
"By removing this nuclear material, we can prevent the risk of nuclear terrorism," Japan's special nuclear advisor, Yosuke Isozaki, said on the sidelines of the 2014 Nuclear Security Sum ...
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Panasonic and Coronal Complete Second Solar Project at University of Colorado Boulder
Newark NJ (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Panasonic Eco Solutions North America (Panasonic) and Coronal Management has announced that they have completed a 290.44 kilowatt solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation installation at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder). This installation is the second of its kind at the university; the first installation was completed in late 2012.
The new solar system provides clean energy ...
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Researchers improve performance of III-V nanowire solar cells on graphene
Chicago IL (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Imagine a field of small wires-standing at attention like a tiny field of wheat-gathering the Sun's rays as the first step in solar energy conversion.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have achieved new levels of performance for seed-free and substrate-free arrays of nanowires from class of materials called III-V (three-five) directly on graphene. These compound ...
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Researchers see Kelvin wave on quantum 'tornado' for first time
College Park MD (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Draining the water from a bathtub causes a spinning tornado to appear. The downward flow of water into the drain causes the water to rotate, and as the rotation speeds up, a vortex forms that obeys the laws of classical mechanics. However, if the water is extremely cold liquid helium, the fluid will swirl around an invisible line to form a vortex that obeys the laws of quantum mechanics.
S ...
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Recovering valuable substances from wastewater
Alzenau, Germany (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Not only plants, but also humans and animals need phosphorus, which is a building block of DNA. Many biological processes in our body can only take place if phosphorus atoms are also present. But farmers and industrial enterprises use so much of this element that soil is over-fertilized and waterways are contaminated.
This is where the experts of the German Phosphorus Platform DPP come in. ...
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New Handheld Instrument from Megger Aids in Solar Panel Positioning
Norristown PA (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Megger now offers the PVM210, a new handheld irradiance meter that aids in locating the most appropriate site to place solar panels.
Designed with both the solar detector and meter inside the unit, the PVM210 provides solar/photovoltaic engineers with a pocket-sized instrument that is easy-to-use and can be held with just one hand while working on a sloping roof or atop a ladder.
The ...
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Shock-absorbing 'goo' discovered in bone
Cambridge, UK (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Latest research shows that the chemical citrate - a by-product of natural cell metabolism - is mixed with water to create a viscous fluid that is trapped between the nano-scale crystals that form our bones.
This fluid allows enough movement, or 'slip', between these crystals so that bones are flexible, and don't shatter under pressure. It is the inbuilt shock absorber in bone that, until n ...
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A new concept for manufacturing wrinkling patterns on hard-nano-film/soft-matter-substrate
Beijing, China (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Wrinkling is a common phenomenon for thin stiff film adhered on soft substrate. Various wrinkling phenomenon has been reported previously. Wu Dan, Yin Yajun, Xie Huimin,et al from Tsinghua University proposed a new method to control wrinkling and buckling of thin stiff film on soft substrate.
It is found that the curve pattern on the soft substrate has obvious influence on the wrinkling di ...
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NTU scientists discover material that can be solar cell by day, light panel by night
Singapore (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
In future, when your mobile or tablet runs out of battery, you could just recharge it by putting it out in the sun. Nanyang Technological University (NTU) scientists have developed a next-generation solar cell material which can also emit light, in addition to converting light to electricity.
This solar cell is developed from Perovskite, a promising material that could hold the key to crea ...
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Tiendas Soriana Hanwha Q CELLS, and ILIOSS partner to install 31 MW of solar power in Mexico
Monterrey, Mexico (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Tiendas Soriana and Hanwha Q CELLS has announced a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for 31 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) solar power at 120 retail locations across Mexico that will create significant long-term energy savings for Soriana.
The agreement lays the foundation for a long-term partnership, which could lead to new installations at additional Soriana stores in the futur ...
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Researchers Grow Carbon Nanofibers Using Ambient Air, Without Toxic Ammonia
Raleigh NC (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Researchers from North Carolina State University have demonstrated that vertically aligned carbon nanofibers (VACNFs) can be manufactured using ambient air, making the manufacturing process safer and less expensive. VACNFs hold promise for use in gene-delivery tools, sensors, batteries and other technologies.
Conventional techniques for creating VACNFs rely on the use of ammonia gas, which ...
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Hunt for an unidentified electron object
Cambridge, UK (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Researchers have developed a new mathematical framework capable of describing motions in superfluids - low temperature fluids that exhibit classical as well as quantum behavior. The framework was used to lift the veil of mystery surrounding strange objects in superfluid helium (detected ten years ago at Brown University).
The study, conducted by an international collaboration of researcher ...
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Pioneering research offers new insight into improved wave energy testing
Exeter, UK (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
Pioneering research could provide a significant boost in the vital quest to harness wave power as a viable renewable energy source for the future. Scientists from the University of Exeter have studied how wave energy developers can more accurately measure, and predict the wave conditions within wave energy test sites.
The research, which is published in leading scientific journal Energy, d ...
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Could diamonds be a computer's best friend?
Columbus OH (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
For the first time, physicists have demonstrated that information can flow through a diamond wire. In the experiment, electrons did not flow through diamond as they do in traditional electronics; rather, they stayed in place and passed along a magnetic effect called "spin" to each other down the wire-like a row of sports spectators doing "the wave."
Spin could one day be used to transmit d ...
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France opens criminal probe into air pollution
Paris (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
French prosecutors have opened a preliminary probe after an environmental group filed a criminal complaint over this month's spike in air pollution, a judicial source said Monday.
The complaint for "endangering others" was filed by green group Ecologie Sans Frontiere amid intense pollution this month that saw particulates in the air exceed safe levels for five straight days in Paris.
Par ...
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108 reported unaccounted for in US landslide
Los Angeles, United States (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
A total of 108 people have been reported missing or unaccounted for after a landslide in the northwestern US state of Washington, a local emergency official said Monday.
The confirmed death toll remains at eight after the massive landslide slammed "like a freight train" into a mountainside community, said Snohomish County emergency management chief John Pennington.
He stressed that 108 ...
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Weather extremes 'consistent' with man-made climate change: UN
Geneva (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
The Philippines' devastating Typhoon Haiyan and drought in Australia are among recent weather extremes consistent with man-made climate change, the UN's weather agency said Monday.
"Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change," Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meterological Organization (WMO), said as ...
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EU slaps seafood trade ban on Belize, Cambodia, Guinea
Brussels (AFP) March 24, 2014 -
In its toughest move yet to eradicate illegal fishing, the European Union on Monday blacklisted Belize, Cambodia and Guinea, effectively banning their products from the world's most valuable seafood market.
The move to target the three "as countries acting insufficiently against illegal fishing" means EU states will now be required to ban their fish imports and EU vessels required to stay ou ...
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Could Alien Life Cope with a Hotter, Brighter Star?
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Mar 25, 2014 -
The stars in the night sky shine in myriad hues and brightnesses-piercing blues, clean whites, smoldering crimsons. Every star has a different mass, the basic characteristic that determines its size, lifespan, light output and temperature (which we discern as a particular color).
Yet when it comes to the existence of life, we know with certainty of only a single star-a toasty, yellow-whiti ...
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