N Y B B L E M O N T H L Y N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2009.08.24 Issue No. 213
Just when you thought digital point-and-shoots can't get any better, camera manufacturers come up with something novel. A few years ago, it's a race to have the most number of megapixels and the biggest zoom. Digicams started with 1 megapixels, then 3MP, then 5MP, then 7MP. Nowadays, (for the average user) there's no point of going more than 10MP. Optical zooms went from 3x optical zoom to 12x to 20x. Anything more than that, you'll need two tripods - one for the camera body and one for the protruding lens. As for features, you've got face detection, blink detection, Bluetooth to synch pictures with your computer, WiFi to upload pictures to Facebook, GPS to tag your photos with global coordinates. Just the other day, I read about cameras with blink detection. Coupled with face detection, the camera will be able to indicate that one of your subjects has blinked, so you can take another shot before everyone walks away. Another camera comes with dual LCD screens - front and back. While pointing the camera at yourself, you can compose pictures using the smaller front LCD. Handy for photographers who are loathe to ask other people to take their pictures. When will it all end?
Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the shutterbugs about it. Thanks.
_________CARBON-EATING GREEN CEMENT_________
A British start-up company developing a cement that absorbs carbon dioxide has raised 1 million pounds to fund its work, underscoring the growing interest in eco-friendly construction ventures.
Novacem, a spin-out from
Imperial College London, is one of a number of young companies tapping new technologies to reduce the cement industry's notoriously large carbon footprint.
The trick is to make cement from magnesium silicates rather than calcium carbonate, or limestone, since this material does not emit CO2 in manufacture and absorbs the greenhouse gas as it ages. Novacem Chairman Stuart Evans said the cash injection from Imperial Innovations, the Royal Society Enterprise Fund and the London Technology Fund would help fund a pilot plant that should be up and running in northern England in 2011. The company is working with Rio Tinto on the supply of raw materials and is in discussions with a number of cement makers on future commercial production, which could be around five years away.
With an annual production of more than 2.5 billion tons, conventional Portland cement is responsible for an estimated 5 percent of global CO2 emissions, more than the airline industry. Novacem estimates that for every ton of Portland cement replaced by its product, around three-quarters of a ton of CO2 is saved, turning the cement industry into a big emitter to a big absorber of carbon.
_________ARTIFICIAL BONE MADE OF WOOD_________
A new procedure to turn blocks of wood into artificial bones has been developed by Italian scientists, who plan to implant them into large animals, and eventually humans. Wood-derived bone substitute should allow live bones to heal faster and more securely after a break than currently available metal and ceramic implants.
To create the bone substitute, the scientists start with a block of wood -- red oak, rattan and sipo work best -- and heat it until all that remains is pure carbon, which is basically charcoal. The scientists then spray calcium over the carbon, creating calcium carbide. Additional chemical and physical steps convert the calcium carbide into carbonated hydroxyapatite, which can then be implanted and serves as the artificial bone. The entire process takes about one week and costs about $850 for a single block. One block translates to about one bone implant.
Wood-based implants would have several advantages over traditional titanium or ceramic implants. Since their physical structure is more spongy than solid, like many metal or ceramic implants, live bone should grow into wood-derived bone substitute quicker and more securely. Paradoxically, metal or ceramic implants meant to prevent bone breaks can sometimes cause them. Current implants are significantly harder than the bone that surrounds them. Natural bone can flex slightly. In fact, stress helps build stronger bones. However, wood-derived bone substitute are still not cleared for use in humans. The scientists are currently limited to sheep. Application in humans is likely years away.
_________PAPER-THIN BATTERIES________
Fraunhofer's batteries use zinc anodes and manganese cathodes, which react with one another to produce electricity. The materials slowly dissipate over the lifetime of the battery, making them suitable for short-term applications like greeting cards with built-in music players. The batteries are printed using a silk screen printing process in which a rubber lip presses the organic semiconductor materials through a screen onto a flexible substrate. The lithographic-like technique uses templates to pattern layer upon layer--each about the width of a human hair--of battery components until enough bulk has been achieved for a particular application.
Printable batteries for smart cards would weight less than 1 gram and measure less that 1-mm thick. The organic materials produced 1.5 volts per cell, like conventional batteries, but use no hazardous chemicals like the heavy metals in conventional rechargeable and alkaline batteries.
Fraunhofer researchers said their battery is working in their lab, and its partners estimate that the first commercial designs will be ready for beta testing later this year. The researchers are aiming at a price point under 10 cents per card.
_________DRUG-TAINTED PAPER BILLS_________
A team from University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth has found that bills from the US and Canada are highly likely to have trace amounts of cocaine, showing for the first time a growing prevalence in the abuse of the drug.
A worldwide study of bills from over 30 cities in five countries found a startling statistic: “cocaine is present in up to 90 percent of paper money in the United States, particularly in large cities such as Baltimore, Boston, and Detroit. The scientists found traces of cocaine in 95 percent of the banknotes analyzed from Washington, D.C., alone.” What is intriguing is that a study conducted two years ago showed 67 percent of bills had traces of cocaine.
How the drug gets on the bills is well-understood. Money changes hand during a drug deal (of course), but bills are also used in the consumption of cocaine as the drug can be rolled into a bill and snorted. The city with the greatest chance of finding traces of the drug was DC. Salt Lake City bills were the least likely to be contaminated.
In comparison, Canadian bills came back at 85% contamination while Brazil’s banknotes registered at 80%. China and Japan had the lowest levels, with China at 20 percent and Japan at 12 percent (though only 16 bills were studied from Japan). Despite the high incidence level in the US, researchers do not think there is a health concern among the general public when handling the bills. Experts say that for the most part, you can't get high by sniffing a regular banknote, unless it was used directly in drug uptake or during a drug exchange. It also won't affect your health and is unlikely interfere with blood and urine tests used for drug detection.
_________NEW DIGITAL ALBUM FORMAT_________
Forget WAV, MP3 and M4A – major labels have something new in mind, and it's called
CMX. Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI are reportedly preparing a new digital album format that will include songs, lyrics, videos, liner notes and artwork.
It's a file that you click on, it opens and it would have a brand new look, with a launch page and all the different options. When you click on it you're not just going to get the 10 tracks, you're going to get the artwork, the video and mobile products. However, this may be of little interest if
CMX isn't compatible with iTunes, the default music software for iPods, iPhones and Apple computers. Whereas labels are eager to resuscitate the album format in an age of singles, Apple is concerned with selling hardware, including a tablet computer rumoured to be launching this fall.
The news comes just weeks after reports of a similar project, Cocktail, being developed by Apple. According to the Times, Apple rejected CMX and instead began work on an in-house alternative. It is not clear how Cocktail and CMX will differ, other than ownership.
The major labels plan to launch CMX, which is just a working title for the format, in November. It will reportedly be "soft-launched" with a few select releases.
_________PARENTS BAFFLED BY SCIENTIFIC QUESTIONS_________
A recent survey of UK parents with children aged five to 16 showed that four in five have been stumped by a science question posed by their children. More than half of the 1,002 parents surveyed thought their children knew more about science than they did. And 20% of parents said they felt silly when they did not know the answer to their children's questions.
The top three most-asked questions were: "Where do babies come from?", "What makes a rainbow?" and "Why is the sky blue?".
The survey was carried out to mark the launch of a new website by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The website - Science: So what? So everything - gives information to parents on answering those tricky questions from children, as well as downloadable activity sheets and ideas of places to visit.
How to answer about where babies come from? The website explains that babies are created when a cell from the mother and a cell from the father join together or "fuse".
After the two cells fuse, the site goes on, they divide over and over again to create a ball of cells called an embryo that goes on to become a baby that grows inside the mother for nine months. The website explains how a rainbow is made from light and water - with help from the sun. And the sky is blue, it says, because the sun produces white light which is made up of all the colours of the rainbow. But a clear, cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more easily than they do red light.
_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
Stop Playing Homework and Do Your Video Games - A Video Game Quintet
Omegle
Talk to Strangers!
io9
We come from the future.
Mindcipher: Challenge yourself...
_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
If two bits make 25 cents, then there are eight bits in a buck. But there are also eight bits in a byte. Does this mean a byte is worth a buck?
_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
~ Albert Einstein
_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Can you use a marinade again?
According to food experts, marinades for meat are for a one-time use only. You should never save and reuse a marinade.
Source: Arcamax Trivia
_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
Two atoms run into each other. The first says: "Oh no, I've lost my electron!" The second says: "Are you sure?" The first says: "I'm Positive!"
Bonus joke: Two muffins are sitting in an oven. The first says "Wow it's hot in here." The second says "AAAHHHH! A talking Muffin!"
That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.
Some reviews said District 9 the best sci-fi movie of the year, and I tend to agree. Good movie plot aside, the technology described in the movie is believable, and in some cases, already available. I was put off a bit by the "home-video" style of filming, but the CGI is pretty good.
In the ensuing scuffle, Wikus, the evacuation team leader, got in contact with some alien chemical and starts to morph. Now the government and the Nigerians are after Wikus because his modified DNA is able to activate the alien weaponry, whereas human DNA cannot. Wikus doesn't care about all this. All he wants is to become normal again and get back with his wife.
Fortunately for him, we was able to get into an alien battle suit that he used to fight off the MNU agents, the mercenaries, and the Nigerians. This gave Christopher and his son enough time to activate the tractor beam on the mother ship to lift up the damaged drop ship. Meanwhile, Wikus and his robotic suit is sustaining heavy damage from enemy fire to the point that the suit finally gave up the ghost and spewed him out. Just as the head mercenary is about to kill Wikus, the aliens move in and tear him to pieces.
