Carbon: China hopes peak will come 'as early as possible'
Bonn (AFP) June 05, 2014 -
China hopes its emissions of greenhouse gases will peak "as early as possible" but its experts differ as to when it will happen, its chief negotiator at UN climate talks said Thursday.
Speaking to journalists at the latest round of negotiations, Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said China was working hard to boost its energy efficiency and expand ...
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China in 'massive' violation of EU solar panel deal: lobby group
Brussels (AFP) June 05, 2014 -
Chinese solar panel makers are in "massive violation" of a settlement between China and the EU that ended a bitter trade feud last year, a key European lobby said on Thursday.
Lobby group EU ProSun has been a fierce critic of Chinese manufacturers which it says have destroyed Europe's solar panel industry by dumping their products at goods below cost on the European market.
In a statemen ...
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Google working on 3D motion-sensing tablet
San Francisco (AFP) June 05, 2014 -
Google on Thursday revealed that is working on a tablet computer with 3D and motion-sensing capabilities in an effort dubbed Project Tango.
"The goal of Project Tango is to give mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion," team member Johnny Lee said at a website devoted to the endeavor.
"Our team has been working with universities, research labs, and industrial partn ...
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Hong Kong tycoons bribed former official: prosecution
Hong Kong (AFP) June 05, 2014 -
A prosecutor told a corruption trial Thursday that Hong Kong property tycoons Thomas and Raymond Kwok bribed a high-ranking official to be their "eyes and ears" in the government.
The billionaire brothers, who jointly chair development giant Sun Hung Kai Properties, were arrested along with former chief secretary Rafael Hui in a major swoop by graft investigators two years ago.
David Per ...
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Inmarsat unveils in-flight wifi plans for Europe
London (AFP) June 05, 2014 -
British satellite operator Inmarsat intends to help air passengers to stay in touch during flight in the European Union, it announced on Thursday, taking a lead from a boom in the United States.
The company said it would provide in-flight broadband wifi services to passengers flying within the European Union.
Inmarsat, whose raw data has been used in the search for missing Malaysia Airli ...
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Intel's gesture control promises hands-free life at Taiwan show
Taipei (AFP) June 05, 2014 -
US computer chip giant Intel said its gesture-controlled technology could soon become part of everyday life as it showed its vision of a no-touch lifestyle in Taiwan Thursday.
Its stand at Computex, Asia's largest technology trade show, recreates a living space centred around a kitchen, illustrating how sticky fingers on screens and recipe books could be a thing of the past.
An actress w ...
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Three new solar power plants planned for site near Sea of Japan
Tokyo (UPI) Jun 5, 2013 -
Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corp. said Thursday it signed an agreement to build three solar power plants near the country's western coast.
Marubeni said it will build and operate three solar power plants in Niigata Prefecture on the coast of the Sea of Japan. Combined, the facilities would be able to produce 2,700 kilowatts of power.
"Marubeni will construct the environmentall ...
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Japan's SoftBank unveils 'family member' robot
Urayasu, Japan (AFP) June 05, 2014 -
Japan's SoftBank on Thursday unveiled what it billed as an "emotional" humanoid robot that will entertain customers at the mobile carrier's phone outlets - and maybe become a member of their family.
Company president Masayoshi Son joked around with the talking, dancing and singing humanoid named Pepper at an event just outside Tokyo.
The bug-eyed 120-centimetre (3.9-feet) tall robot ma ...
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Vietnam PM woos investors after riots
Hanoi (AFP) June 05, 2014 -
Vietnam's prime minister pledged Thursday to step up economic reforms and prevent a repeat of riots targeting foreign-owned factories, seeking to reassure nervous investors.
Nguyen Tan Dung said the mid-May unrest, in which Beijing says four Chinese workers were killed, was "unprecedented and unexpected".
"I can confirm that there will not be any more riots," he said at a business forum ...
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Developing world helps drive renewable energy capacity to global record
Toronto, Canada (SPX) Jun 04, 2014 -
The number of emerging economy nations with policies in place to support the expansion of renewable energy has surged more than six-fold in just eight years, from 15 developing countries in 2005 to 95 early this year. Those 95 developing nations today make up the vast majority of the 144 countries with renewable energy support policies and targets in place, says REN21's Renewables 2014 Global St ...
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Quantum criticality observed in new class of materials
Houston TX (SPX) Jun 05, 2014 -
Quantum criticality, the strange electronic state that may be intimately related to high-temperature superconductivity, is notoriously difficult to study. But a new discovery of "quantum critical points" could allow physicists to develop a classification scheme for quantum criticality - the first step toward a broader explanation.
Quantum criticality occurs in only a few composite crystall ...
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WSU researchers confirm 60-year-old prediction of atomic behavior
Pullman WA (SPX) Jun 04, 2014 -
Researchers at Washington State University have used a super-cold cloud of atoms that behaves like a single atom to see a phenomenon predicted 60 years ago and witnessed only once since. The phenomenon takes place in the seemingly otherworldly realm of quantum physics and opens a new experimental path to potentially powerful quantum computing.
Working out of a lab in WSU's Webster Hall, ph ...
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No evidence of the double nature of neutrinos
Munich, Germany (SPX) Jun 05, 2014 -
Neutrinos are tiny, neutral elementary particles that, contrary to the standard model of physics, have been proven to have mass. One possible explanation for this mass could be that neutrinos are their own antiparticles, so-called Majorana particles.
Though experimental evidence for this is still lacking, many theoretical extensions of the standard model of physics predict the Majorana nat ...
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Analyzing Resistance to Impacts and Improving Armor Plating
Madrid, Spain (SPX) Jun 03, 2014 -
New pneumatic launchers at the Impact on Aeronautical Structures Laboratory, located at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) Science Park, make it possible to carry out a wide range of studies on problems of impact that arise in the aeronautics industry and on optimum armor plating in other sectors.
At these specialized facilities, which are linked to the UC3M-Airbus Group Joint Cen ...
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Graphene's multi-colored butterflies
Manchester, UK (SPX) Jun 03, 2014 -
Writing in Nature Physics, a large international team led by Dr Artem Mishchenko and Sir Andre Geim from The University of Manchester shows that the electronic properties of graphene change dramatically if graphene is placed on top of boron nitride, also known as 'white graphite'.
One of the major challenges for using graphene in electronics applications is the absence of a band gap, which ...
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Suntech's Modules Receives Top Quality Ranking by VDE Institute
Wuxi, China (SPX) Jun 03, 2014 -
Wuxi Suntech has announced its modules have received the VDE Quality-Tested certification, attesting that the quality of Suntech modules exceed existing industry standards. Suntech is only the third brand globally to receive this quality ranking.
"We are honored to have our modules recognized by the VDE Institute, one of the world's leading testing and certification institutes," said Sunte ...
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Toronto physicists take quantum leap toward ultra-precise measurement
Toronto, Canada (SPX) Jun 03, 2014 -
For the first time, physicists at the University of Toronto (U of T) have overcome a major challenge in the science of measurement using quantum mechanics. Their work paves the way for great advances in using quantum states to enable the next generation of ultra-precise measurement technologies.
"We've been able to conduct measurements using photons - individual particles of light - at a r ...
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Here come the 'brobots'
Washington DC (SPX) Jun 03, 2014 -
A team of researchers at the University of Twente (Netherlands) and German University in Cairo (Egypt) has developed sp*rm-inspired microrobots, which can be controlled by oscillating weak magnetic fields.
Described in a cover article in the journal Applied Physics Letters, which is from AIP Publishing, the 322 micron-long robots consist solely of a head coated in a thick cobalt-nickel lay ...
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Nano world: Where towers construct themselves
Vienna, Austria (SPX) Jun 03, 2014 -
Imagine a tower builds itself into the desired structure only by choosing the appropriate bricks. Absurd - and however, in the nano world this is reality: There an unordered crowd of components can initiate the formation of an ordered structure - a process known as self-assembly.
The physicists Christos Likos (University of Vienna), Emanuela Bianchi and Gerhard Kahl (both Vienna University ...
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Controlling Complex Systems Comprising Many Quantum Particles
Vienna, Austria (SPX) Jun 05, 2014 -
At TU Vienna, a new method was developed to utilize quantum mechanical vibrations for high precision measurements. The well-known concept of the Ramsey interferometer is applied to a complex multi particle system consisting of hundreds of atoms. Sometimes quantum particles behave like waves. This phenomenon is often used for high precision measurements, for instance in atomic clocks.
Usual ...
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Satellites improving lives in rural Africa
Paris (ESA) Jun 03, 2014 -
An ESA-supported project is showing how satcoms can help farmers, voters and educators in rural Africa. The three elements of the Sway4edu project are helping to run elections, educate teachers and improve radio programming. Satellite terminals provide Internet connectivity, with solar panels and batteries (where needed), laptops, tablets, a projector with screen, and loudspeakers.
Sway4ed ...
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Oceans worth up to $222 bln annually in CO2 capture
Bonn (AFP) June 04, 2014 -
By absorbing carbon emissions from the atmosphere, the seas avert climate damage worth up to $222 billion (163 billion euros) every year, according to an estimate released on Thursday.
Fish catches are worth another $16 billion annually, according to the report by a non-governmental watchdog, the Global Ocean Commission, which hopes that by setting an economic price on the value of internati ...
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Truvia sugar substitute proves deadly to curious fruit flies
Philadelphia (UPI) Jun 5, 2013 -
One of the most popular sugar substitutes on the market is also an insecticide - masking the bitterness of coffee one minute, killing fruit flies the next.
Millions of people every day put the sweetener erythritol in their coffee and tea. Its consumers know it better by its slightly more appetizing trade name Truvia, in which erythritol is the main ingredient. No matter what it's calle ...
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Climate talks: 'Raise your voice, not sea level' - UN
Bonn (AFP) June 05, 2014 -
The United Nations used the occasion of World Environment Day on Thursday to demand action on climate change for the protection of small island states threatened by rising seas, drought and floods.
"We have very, very alarming news from science," UN climate chief Christiana Figueres told reporters in Bonn at a new round of talks on global warming.
"Greenhouse gas concentrations continue ...
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More evidence that Earth collision formed Moon: study
Washington (AFP) June 05, 2014 -
German scientists said Thursday that moon samples collected during the 1960s and 1970s have shown new evidence that the moon formed when a young Earth collided with another celestial body.
The smashup between an early form of Earth and a planetary body named Theia some 4.5 billion years ago is put forth by what scientists call the Giant Impact Hypothesis of moon formation.
While most exp ...
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