China web firms odds-on winners with World Cup gambling
Beijing (AFP) July 04, 2014 -
China's Internet giants and insurance companies are finding ever more innovative ways to get around the country's strict betting laws and reap a payout as fans wager billions on the World Cup.
Gambling is banned in China, except where it is run by the government or the proceeds donated to charity, but technology behemoths Alibaba and Tencent have this year linked up with state-owned provinci ...
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Merkel heads to China, with corporate chiefs in tow
Berlin (AFP) July 04, 2014 -
German Chancellor Angela Merkel heads to China this weekend for her seventh visit, eager to deepen trade and investment ties between the export powerhouses of Europe and Asia.
For the EU's biggest economy, China is a crucial mass market, where companies want its technology and millions of newly prosperous crave German goods from Audi sedans to luxury home appliances.
Merkel is set to tra ...
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China sets yuan clearing bank in Seoul
Shanghai (AFP) July 04, 2014 -
China designated a clearing bank in Seoul for yuan transactions in South Korea on Friday, coinciding with a visit by President Xi Jinping, as Beijing promotes greater use of its currency overseas.
China's central bank has authorised the Bank of Communications, the country's fifth largest lender, to undertake yuan clearing business in the South Korean capital, the People's Bank of China (PBoC ...
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Nine killed in landslide at Indonesian gold mine
Jakarta (AFP) July 04, 2014 -
A landslide at an illegal gold mine has killed nine men in remote eastern Indonesia, an official said Friday, the latest deaths in an industry that is booming across the sprawling archipelago.
Four people were still missing and two others were rescued alive after the landslide struck Wednesday near Dageuwo village, Papua province, local search and rescue chief Marsudi told AFP.
Rescuers ...
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How do ants get around? Ultra-sensitive machines measure their every step...
Sheffield, UK (SPX) Jul 05, 2014 -
How do ants manage to move so nimbly whilst coordinating three pairs of legs and a behind that weighs up to 60% of their body mass? German scientists have recently developed a device that may reveal the answer.
Measuring the forces generated by single limbs is vital to understanding the energetics of animal locomotion. However, with very small animals such as insects, this becomes problema ...
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Hollow-fiber membranes could cut separation costs, energy use
Atlanta GA (SPX) Jul 05, 2014 -
Researchers have developed a microfluidic technique for fabricating a new class of metal-organic framework (MOF) membranes inside hollow polymer fibers that are just a few hundred microns in diameter. The new fabrication process, believed to be the first to grow MOF membranes inside hollow fibers, could potentially change the way large-scale energy-intensive chemical separations are done.
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Nature of solids and liquids explored through new pitch drop experiment
London, UK (SPX) Jul 05, 2014 -
Physicists at Queen Mary University of London have set up a new pitch drop experiment for students to explore the difference between solid and liquids.
Known as the 'world's longest experiment', the set up at the University of Queensland was famous for taking ten years for a drop of pitch - a thick, black, sticky material - to fall from a funnel.
Publishing in the journal Physics Edu ...
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Making Dreams Come True : Making Graphene from Plastic?
Seoul, Korea (SPX) Jul 05, 2014 -
Graphene is gaining heated attention, dubbed a "wonder material" with great conductivity, flexibility and durability. However, graphene is hard to come by due to the fact that its manufacturing process is complicated and mass production not possible. Recently, a domestic research team developed a carbon material without artificial defects commonly found during the production process of graphene ...
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The JBEI GT Collection: A New Resource for Advanced Biofuels Research
Emeryville CA (SPX) Jul 05, 2014 -
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have unveiled the first glycosyltransferase clone collection specifically targeted for the study of the biosynthesis of plant cell walls. The idea behind what is being called "the JBEI GT Collection" is to provide a functional genomic resource for researchers seeking to extract the sugars in plant biomass and s ...
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Interlayer distance in graphite oxide gradually changes when water is added
Umea, Sweden (SPX) Jul 05, 2014 -
Physicists from Umea University and Humboldt University in Berlin have solved a mystery that has puzzled scientists for half a century. They show with the help of powerful microscopes that the distance between graphite oxide layers gradually increases when water molecules are added. That is because the surface of graphite oxide is not flat, but varies in thickness with "hills" and "valleys" of n ...
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A million times better
Munich, Germany (SPX) Jul 05, 2014 -
Nonlinear optical materials are widely used in laser systems. However, high light intensity and long propagation are required to produce strong nonlinear optical effects. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and the Technische Universitaet Muenchen created metamaterials with a million times stronger nonlinear optical response, compared to the traditional nonlinear materials, and demo ...
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Solar panels light the way from carbon dioxide to fuel
Princeton NJ (SPX) Jul 05, 2014 -
Research to curb global warming caused by rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, usually involves three areas: Developing alternative energy sources, capturing and storing greenhouse gases, and repurposing excess greenhouse gases.
Drawing on two of these approaches, researchers in the laboratory of Andrew Bocarsly, a Princeton professor of chemistry, collabo ...
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Switzerland gets the edge on EU with China trade deal
Basel, Switzerland (AFP) July 06, 2014 -
Switzerland has one-upped its European Union neighbours with a free trade deal with China that its politicians and business sector say is crucial to boosting ties with the world's second-largest economy.
The free trade agreement (FTA), in force since Tuesday, is China's first with a mainland European country and was sealed in 2013 after two years of talks.
"We look to the huge Chinese ma ...
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With 'ribbons' of graphene, width matters
Milwaukee WI (SPX) Jul 05, 2014 -
Using graphene ribbons of unimaginably small widths - just several atoms across - a group of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) has found a novel way to "tune" the wonder material, causing the extremely efficient conductor of electricity to act as a semiconductor.
In principle, their method for producing these narrow ribbons - at a width roughly equal to the diamete ...
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