Spintronics: A new way for digital data bank (NPR)

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Like semiconductor computer chips rely on electricity - positive or negative - charges for storing data. Using magnets high power laboratory, researchers have developed a new way to store the data in the spin of the nucleus of an atom.

HYNIX/AFP/Getty Images Semiconductor chips computer like rely on electricity - positive or negative - charges for storing data. Using magnets high power laboratory, researchers have developed a new way to store the data in the spin of the nucleus of an atom.

Scientists at the University of Utah have taken an important step towards the day when the digital information can be stored in spin of the nucleus of an atom, rather than as an electric charge in a semiconductor.

Scientists Setup requires powerful magnets and can only be ordered at least 454 degrees Fahrenheit, so don't expect see spin memory on the shelf in a store on the computer at any time soon.

Christoph Boehme, associate professor at the University of Utah, says the thing more important than him and his team have done is show that it is possible to store information in the spin and quite easily read.

This is how they are y: firstly, they used a strong magnetic field to ensure that all of their atoms were pointing in the same direction. Then they measured which way the nucleus of an atom was spinning. Physicists speak of rotation clockwise or counterclockwise - hourly dispatching spins either up or down.

"This up and down can now represent information," explains Boehme. "A up means one and a lower mean zero."

Storage and handling of these zeros - bits in the computer language - is at the heart of the functioning of computers. Today, these zeros and those stored in electrically - charged positively or negatively. In the future, things could be different.

"Instead of electronics, people want to use the spins and build spintronics, and if you do, you should be able to store information, explains Boehme.".

"Many worlds".

They reported in the journal Science, they were able to store information in spins for nearly two minutes. But this was not the key realization.

"The main objective of this study was to show that you could read it with an electronic device," he explains. In other words, they could use electronic classical to read stored memory. Spintronics has certain advantages in the mail. In theory, spin memory should be faster and less power to run the electronic memory of take that.

Now, Boehme works in collaboration with classic bits of information. But because it works with the atoms, the Setup program can take you in the world of quantum information. Quantum physics is all about the functioning of atoms.

"Quantum information, I can have a little bit is zero and the other at the same time," explains John Morton, a physicist at the University of Oxford in England. This idea of being in two places at the same time is difficult to explain. Morton, a way of thinking is to imagine that there are several universe there.

"Whenever that quantum mechanics allows something to exist in two States at the same time, the universe split," says Morton, and you have a universe where it is one thing and a universe where it is in the other State. "You can along these lines think all computers parallel quantum computer in different worlds."

And as you can get these worlds to talk with another, then you have a very, very powerful computer.

The magic of quantum computing

Now, does feel bad if you don't quite get why computer quantum is such a desirable to have thing.

"It is not easy to explain,", says Stephen Lyon, Professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University. He and his colleagues are still trying to encourage students to enter the field of quantum computing.

"The approach we took to say, if you think that a number from one to four, with a quantum computer could know the number each time only a single estimate." Which do not just tell you how it works, but what say you there is something there type different from what most people are used, says Lyon. "" This is kind of magic ".

Of course, it is not really magic - is physical. Physical bizarre, but the physics.

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My life on March: Beagle 2 newspapers by Colin Pillinger - review | Tim Radford (guardian)

Beagle 2 as it should have looked on the surface of March. Colin Pillinger and his team have waited in vain for his signal. Photo: PA

Beagle 2 history is so extraordinary that a bad book on adventure would be useful to review, and this is not a bad book. Review the initial conditions. In the 1960s, the British were as excited as anyone by the Apollo program and slow exploration of distant planets. But in 1971 a British satellite ascended on a rocket British (black arrow) and it is the end of the adventure. Scientists from the University of Colombia-British clung to space research deals with the military or the Nasa contracts or by joining the European Space Agency, teams and even these connections expected precarious during the years of Thatcherism, when Ministers science budgets slashed, closed laboratories and picked fighting with Europe.

And then, apparently from nowhere, Professor Colin Pillinger, Open University, a member the bizarre brigade, shamelessly promote a British Lander grafted on a European orbiter, parachute into March spring open, burrow into the Martian rock, sniff out evidence of past life and his discoveries in Great Britain relay.

Beagle 2 (echo Darwin's grand voyage was deliberate) should be small enough to stowaway to Mars Express. Camera, microscope, arm robot, drilling, communication and power supply were within the space occupied by a couple of dustbin lids struck together and still leave a box value shoe room for gas chromatography and mass spectrometry.

Necessary initial million would be generated from private sources (at this stage, the British Government always behaved as if there could be nothing of value for Great Britain in space) and the reluctant European hierarchy should be persuaded fly little impertinent passenger. Pillinger made happen through a mixture of tenacity, personality, industry performance and scientific imagination flair. It involves the fuzzy band (which includes the call sign) and Damian Hirst (spots on the map of the camera instrument calibration) artist and manipulate the media with great verve. He also co-opted industry reinvigorated scientific colleagues convinced politicians that they must change their mind and that he met phenomenal tight timelines. And all Beagle 2 has worked until this silence poignant 2003 Christmas day when the small dog on March does not signal the arrival of the bark.

It's a long story, but you could probably say the idea of Beagle 2 was born of a confrontation, six years earlier to a meeting of the ESA in Paris when someone "impenetrable clique" became the Pillinger (had more or less of the meeting) and said "who will construct a lander?" Steps to you. Who will pay? Not the Brits. "That challenge was probably everything had to be: on the way back Colin and his wife Judith had decided at the mission and begun work hard to make happen.

This follow-up were endless meetings and clashes with dubious academics, reluctant bureaucrats, dismissive of officials, Ministers, skepticism of dubious industrialists and unnecessary Europeans, who had to be satisfied. Of course, there are also some nostalgic allies and even enthusiastic, and that sometimes are the same people. Character key in the space community has categorically, there was no money for a mission in March before adding: "I cannot say allows you to move forward, but then I can't tell you not to do."

People who did not know should be persuaded care, people who had to make believe, and people who want to contribute preserved in the inclination of the project. European bureaucracy should be pushed into the space on board Mars Express, and then scientific Beagle and engineers had to find ways to meet more ruthless mass and space constraints and work then how landing mission safely, while on the other hand the desperate times.

At the end is disappointment. More than half of all March missions lost on launch or orbiting platform reaches or March. Had Beagle 2 has survived on landing, Pillinger was a national hero. He found chemical evidence of Martian life (and Beagle 2 remains potentially the best blow so far) he became an international superstar.

Anyway, it remains a hero. He had a go. He started March on the map for millions. Yes, is a costly loss, but not expensive measured in premiums of bankers, not to mention the bankers blunders. And now he has written a book which tells the whole story, "the really bad guys" and vouchers which helped to all. This is a book to be buying? Oh yes, if you are buff space, a member of the scientific community space British, a supporter of Beagle 2, or if you were there at the time.

This is a good book? It is well written and frolicking. "Space agencies as paper missions: that they hang work instruments, there is no parasites of the computer, they are good markets, politicians do scrap program, etc. etc....". "the sentence is vintage Pillinger: crisp, sardonic and brilliantly clear." What lets it down are the and ceteras. And this is what may discourage some readers. My life on March family memoir, biography, a window of class war, a chronicle of space science and account describes a great campaign and sometimes the strands of narrative scrimmage against each other. Chapters that said-what-de-who provide startling insight into exhausting to obtain a mission beyond the atmosphere realities, but they could be too taxing for the reader.

Neither the author can withstand distracting detail. "On page 40 his colleague James" had a "Viva Zapata" bushy and much smoked. Yes? And? On page 42, our hero visits James Lovelock on Salisbury Plain and learns that "to fly an instrument on a mission to March you may need to be intelligent and simple" but waives the momentum and direction of such a sentence with a detour on the difficulty of obtaining home again in a fog. I am all the detail (what young Pillinger preferred "no surprise" television series Maverick to Wagon Train is a nice augury of the scientist to come), but sometimes digressions threaten to seize history.

The last chapter ("God protect me from my friends") describes in detail the infighting, complaining and bitterness that followed the loss of Beagle 2. It is aggressive and rhythmic supporter, but inform the testimony.

This is a book that says it all. Literature, its weakness is that he said everything. But, of course, the historians of British Colombia's space effort to anyone interested in the madness of bureaucracy, for connoisseurs of art of doing things to happen and people excited about Beagle 2, dynamic that is exactly what it will be so valuable.

Study on the arsenic-based life started in the blogosphere (Washington Post)

Two weeks after the release of a major study on the possibility of life based on arsenic at Mono Lake, California a torrent of criticism in the blogosphere has transformed a widely scientific triumph in a scientific soccer - ball with consequences very discussed for how research is evaluated and presented in the future.

After remained largely silent criticism - entered respected scientists as well as posters misinformed - researchers, their funders of NASA and the prestigious magazine published article responded Thursday with promises to better explain the work and meet formal review.

But in the rapidly changing Internet world, it is also clear that those involved would really know how to respond without compromising their scientific methods and their values.

Speaking at a round table conference in San Francisco science, specially convened to discuss the research of arsenic and online response, study co-author Ronald Oremland of the United States Geological Survey defended his silence as forming an integral part of the process of scientific research has tried-and-true.

"I am trained to go to the laboratory and my experiences, send to newspapers if they deserve and hope that they have passed the peer review", he said. Responding to criticism, he said, when submitting data and scientific arguments.

He said that when people launch attacks online on the work done by him and biochemist Felisa Wolfe-Simon, he doesn't really know who is behind them. "I want to participate in what may end up in a situation of Jerry Springer, with chairs, people start" he said.

However, not only was Oremland panel Thursday by blogs, but team research also released a series of answers to frequently asked questions about their work and has promised to respond by the month next to more than 20 letters and e-mails sent to the magazine science challenged in their work. The team announced that he would samples available microbes to other scientists in their research.

Spokesperson for science Ginger Pinholster said the journal hopes to publish letters and responses in March. She said that while other science documents led the challenges and critical, speed and intensity of the response of the blogosphere to arsenic is unusual, if not unique.

Discussion paper active online started even before it was released. Based on an announcement from NASA on the release of a forthcoming study with implications for Astrobiology and "extraterrestrial life", some bloggers have been predicting the news of life on the moon Titan or elsewhere in the solar system.

Rather, the involved finding microbes of Mono Lake in California, which were grown replaced so most of the phosphorus in the body, long as it is essential for life) with generally toxic arsenic. Using some of the most sophisticated tools available, the team determined then arsenic had replaced the phosphorus in the DNA and other bacteria - creating a form of long-lived key molecules impossible.

The NASA Press Conference who presented the study included a sceptic, respected chemist Steven Benner, but that has not prevented the bloggers by accusing the NASA meet history and unconditionally erroneous presentation of research. The first major blog address labour was posted by Rosie Redfield, Professor of Zoology at the University of British Columbia Colombia.

"Basically, there is no convincing evidence that arsenic has been incorporated into DNA (or any other biological molecule)," she wrote. She accused Wolfe-Simon careless testing and laboratory work team not if their results were correct.

Opioid use associated with an increased risk of adverse effects in the elderly (science daily)

PharmaLive.com (16 December 2010) - opioids appear to be associated with more adverse seniors suffering from arthritis that another commonly used analgesics, including coxibs and anti-inflammatory nonsteroidal, according to a report by December 13 27 issue of the archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives Journals. In a second report assessing use only to opiates, different types of drugs in the class were associated with different security events in older patients with non-malignant pain.

"At United States, one in five adults received an order for analgesic in 2006, cash for purchases of 230 million; prescription" However, the comparative safety of these drugs is not clear "the authors write as background information in one of the articles." ' While heart safety of non-selective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (nsNSAIDs) and selective inhibitors of cyclooxygenase-2 (coxibs) has been challenged, it is little comparable information on the third major analgesic group opioid. ".

In the first report, Daniel Solomon, M.D., M.P.H. Brigham colleagues and hospital for women, Boston, examined the comparative safety of nsNSAIDs coxibs and opioid 12,840 Medicare beneficiaries who received at least one of these pain relievers between 1999 and 2005. Using data from a database using significant health care (applications), the authors evaluated the occurrence of cardiovascular events, heart attack, stroke stroke and cardiac insufficiency among others), gastrointestinal events (GI tract bleeding and intestinal obstruction), renal acute injuries, toxic effects on the liver, as well as the falls and fractures.

Opioid users have experienced higher rates for most types of serious adverse events than patients taking nsNSAIDs and coxibs / nsNSAID known users lower risk. For example, fractures occurred between 101 by 1,000 users per year, compared to 19 per 1,000 per year among users of coxib opioids.

Coxibs and opioids appear to be associated with the heart risks than nsNSAIDs, but the use of opioids and coxibs has been associated with a higher risk of hospitalization or death than using nsNSAIDs. Conversely, the risk of bleeding from the gastrointestinal tract was reduced in those taking of coxibs (12 per 1,000 per year, compared with 21 per 1,000 per year between those taking a nsNSAIDs).

"Painkillers are used daily by millions of people." However, the current data do not patients or doctors to determine what type of agent is more secure. We compared nsNSAIDs, coxibs and opioids in a wide range of specific security and several events of composite security events "write the authors." "Although the nsNSAIDs pose some risks, these analyses support the safety of these agents compared with other analgesics." Recent concerns about using opioids in pain syndromes non-malignant appear to be justified on the basis of these data. »

In a second article, Dr. Solomon and his colleagues Brigham and women's Hospital not only studied Medicare beneficiaries receiving opioids non-malignant pain between 1996 and 2005. They compared the rates of adverse events after 30-180 days 6,275 patients each take one of the five types of opiates: codeine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, propoxyphene and tramadol.

The risk of GI adverse effects remained similar for all studied drugs and thirty days after the beginning of the opioid therapy the risk of cardiovascular events was also similar among all the types. However, after 180 days, the risk of cardiovascular events increased between those taking codeine. Hydrocodone as point of reference, fracture risk a 79 per cent lower among those taking tramadol and 46 percent lower among those taking propoxyphene. Compared to those taking hydrocodone, death from any cause was 2.4 times as likely among those taking of oxycodone and twice as likely among those taking codeine.

"The findings of this study do not accept with a commonly held belief that all opioids are associated with similar risks," write the authors. "The risks explained not by the prescribed dose and vary across a range of sensitivity analyses. Risks are significant and translated number needed to treat that would be considered clinically significant. Our conclusions regarding cardiovascular risk are surprising and require validation in other data sets. »

Proving that a relationship of cause and effect between the types of opioid and unwanted requires an experimental rather than the design of the observational study, they note, but these results should encourage careful and thorough. »

In addition, research letter published in the same issue, found double the risk of cardiovascular events in patients followed for a median (middle) 189 days after taking rofecoxib analgesic drug during offshore drug followed by a clinical trial. Joseph s. Ross, M.D., M.H.S., school of medicine, Yale University, and colleagues analyzed data from clinical trial which become available through litigation. Twenty - two cardiovascular events and 23 deaths occurred in patients taking rofecoxib in trial, compared to six cardiovascular events and nine deaths among the participants who took a placebo.

Studies were funded by grants and contracts from the Agency for healthcare quality and research, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the evidence to inform decisions regarding effectiveness (decision) development program.

Warning: this article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those PharmaLive.com or its staff.

Source of the story:

The story above is reproduced (with drafting adaptations by staff at PharmaLive.com) materials provided by JAMA and archives of newspapers.

Reference of the review:

Continuing after the abandonment of rofecoxib cardiovascular risk by Joseph s. Ross et al. Arch Intern Med., 2010; 170 (22): 2035-2036 DOI: 10.1001/archinternmed.2010.461

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited for this.

Long wait may be over for science (NPR) guidelines

Enlarge the Union of Concerned Scientists

Sticker distributed by the Union of scientists interested in San Francisco this week.

Union of Concerned Scientists sticker distributed by the Union of scientists interested in San Francisco this week.

Guidelines expected value by President Obama last year to prevent the Government looks to be modified or deleted for political purposes for the integrity of government scientists can be protected could be released as early as Friday.

The guidelines are almost 11 2 years behind. Meanwhile, administration has attracted criticism for its own scientific misfires.

Obama had been in Office less than two months, when he ordered his scientific advisors to develop guidelines. He said researchers Government gathered at the White House that he wanted to protect their work from political interference.

"It is let scientists, such as those who are here today, to do their work free of manipulation and coercion and listen to what they say even when it is convenient, especially when it is inconvenient," he said.

Disappointed by scientists

The guidelines were expected to be finished in four months. Instead of this, there are 21. As in other domains where the administration had difficulties to honour its promises noble beginning, ardent supporters were disappointed. Some government scientists have complained that they still be muzzled by mid-level managers.

"In recent weeks and months, there have been complaints and allegations that some practices same people complained of the Bush administration has not changed in federal agencies, said Roger Pielke Jr., Professor at the University of Colorado who writes about the intersection of science and public policy." "" So I think that every day they are not out there, people are looking for them and wish to see that things are different.

Republic of Georgia Paul Broun, the ranking Republican on scientific Oversight Subcommittee said he was eager to see the recommendations, but "I am not maintain my breath."

Budget of oil spills

Broun complained delay administration for the issuance of guidelines and some scientific statements coming from the White House itself.

"I'm a doctor." "As a scientist, I am afraid that we have scientific integrity that us censor scientists, we have good peer," said Broun.

He complained that during the discharge of oil from the Gulf of the Mexico, administration blocked with a ball low estimate of the quantity of oil was leaks from the wells, while rejecting more accurate forecasts of independent scientists, including those originally contacted by NPR. Later, the White House officials offered an overly optimistic estimate of the amount of oil had disappeared.

The boss frustrates Jeff Ruch, who runs a group called the public service for environmental responsibility.

"If they are examples of Obama administration practicing science-based decision-making, they have a long, long way to go," said Ruch.

His group has continued to find out why it took so long to the guidelines of integrity to be made public.

"Apparently, they had rules that have been shared with the Office of management and budget and other project," Ruch said. "And we are at a loss why a policy of transparency must be developed in secret."

A scientist at San Francisco meeting, this week, where science White House Counsel John Holdren was speaking, the Union of Concerned Scientists distributed saying, stickers "Hey, Mr. President, we are ready to scientific integrity."

Complex subject

Holdren repeated his promise that the guidelines would be ready by the end of the year, adding that the process was more difficult than expected.

Pielke, Professor at the University of Colorado, suspects it is probably true.

He said: "I guess at one of the reasons why extinguish these guidelines took long probably has less to do with what it's infamous passes, but the complexity even question and the realization that you can not simply mandate how science should be governed by a political or a set of policies,".

However, Pielke said, it is important that the White House finally offer guidelines promised to protect the public trust in scientists have to say.

"If you do not protect this process, you can easily get to a situation where you Republican science and democratic science," he said. "And when you do this, you throw what is most valuable and what is most important about science, which has nothing to do with impartiality, but this ability empirical claims."

Pielke added that taking into account the wide range of organisations covered by the guidelines, many details will likely to be filled later. He said that it expects that when the guidelines are finally released, it will ask to many people, "we waited a year and a half it."

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Republicans might have been a secret promise each other on matters of procedure.

This is a rare moment in the House, says Andrea Seabrook in the NPR.

The State Department must work to move the power of the army of diplomats and foreign aid.

Planet hunters: another project citizen-science (guardian)

My dedicated readers – all three of you! -know that one of the (many) themes that I like writing are all these "citizen science" fun projects that develop, launched and published. Citizen - projects and science are scientific studies that rely on people of all ages and all walks of life to help scientists seek to identify a particular phenomenon. Two of the citizen-science projects that I attended include Christmas Bird censuses (Ron) and observation of the coast and seabirds on team (COASST).

In addition to participate in citizen-science projects, I do what I can to promote citizen-science to the public. Several projects of citizen science that I published stories on include the number of future World Parrot and Foldit, protein folding game - both which I participated in (or plan).

There is a citizen science project new and fun that anyone in the world with computer and internet access can participate: Planet Hunter. This science project is a "game" online has a serious purpose: to identify stars have planets orbiting around them. These stars are identified by finding those whose light becomes dimmer for a short period of time and lightens and then again. This degradation occurs when a planet moves between the star and the observer, in this case, Kepler spacecraft NASA.

NASA Kepler spacecraft measure light emission over 150,000 individual stars in the constellation Swan and saves the brightness of the stars to find planets transit every thirty minutes. These data are transmitted to earth-bound scientists who download it on their computers.

Computers the Kepler team are sifting through data, but the planet hunters project was launched, because scientists know that the human brain is far superior to computers when it comes to detection and identification of trends in large amounts of data.

It is possible that no new planets will not be found or that computers have learned their task that they are fast and better than human beings humans. It is also possible that the "hive mind" hundreds (or thousands?) people everywhere worldwide surf computers Kepler team. But the Kepler team and the planet hunters know that is true, unless the collective "hive mind" tests of their computers. More exciting that simply settle a bet, it is possible that you can be the one to make a scientific discovery really interesting, as well as Caroline Moore, the girl of fourteen New York who discovered a very rare supernova 2008.

Welcome to planet hunters of the Zooniverse.

NASA fuels space shuttle Discovery test for cracks (PA) (Yahoo!)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - shuttle to powered NASA discovery platform launch Friday, not for flight, but rather to understand the mysterious cracking tests which will last month.

Discovery is rooted at least at the beginning of the month of February of potentially dangerous cracks appear in the tank of fuel to an actual launch attempt. Cracks have been fixed, but the engineers do not always understand why they occurred.

If a test countdown has started shortly after the Sunrise, team launch pumped more than 500,000 litres of liquid hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel tank externally the discovery. The tank was rigged with close to 100 gauges of strain and temperature sensors to provide clues on cracking and thousands of feet of wire for recording devices.

That discovery flying, it will be his last trip into orbit and the final two or three shuttle missions remaining. He is responsible for supplies to the international space station as well as experimental humanoid robot.

"We do sums not committing theft anytime soon." "We have achieved to wait until we know that a good answer to fly," said Mike Moses, a manager of launch, as the 15 floors discovery tank filled. "We want to make sure that we know the potential that we have before us."

Back on November 5, NASA interrupted the countdown for the discovery of Leaker of hydrogen gas. A non-related problem - cracking - later was discovered in fuel tank foam insulation in ribbed central holding instruments. When the foam has been deleted, cracks were found in two of more than a hundred of aluminium ribs or brackets that make up this region. Damaged both coasts-21 foot long each - were next to each other.

Both flight and cracks were fixed and NASA to flight in December as possible. But engineers were blocked in which caused the cracks. They think now there were a build-up of stress in brackets to the Assembly, which caused cracks when super cold fuel has been loaded into the reservoir, said Moses.

"We are 100 times smarter we were a week ago and we are 1000 times smarter that we where the failure happened first," said Moses. "We will not likely to come here with a smoking gun." But we are going to come here with a family of chess.

There is concern that cracks in the brackets may cause pieces of pop foam and in the worst case, snapping the discovery take-off. A large plate damaged foam Columbia launch in 2003 and has led to its destruction during re-entry.

Also the rope cables with sensors on the suspicious part of the tank and gauges, also painted technicians from small black dots - 10 000 to 12 000 of them - on the white foam exposed above the repaired area. Moses called finger painting and it is the case. technicians worked in temperatures, their fingers gloved in paint dipping and then pressing on their gently on the foam. Twice more points were painted on another section at the rear of the tank.

Points were part of a test of optics. A pair of cameras aimed at them for stereoscopic views. The intention was to record the movements of the tank in this area and provide additional clues on cracking.

In total, NASA plans gather 6 terabytes of data to test on Friday. The information will be analyzed in the next week.

Discovery, meanwhile, will be returned to the Assembly building vehicle week next to engineers of x-ray hooks at the rear of the fuel tank. These areas are inaccessible to the launch pad.

The objective is to launch as early as February 3 discovery or at least by the end of the month, said Moses.

NASA's shuttle program is set to retire after 30 years of flight next year. Space shuttle Endeavour is due to fly in April, and Atlantis may follow in the summer if financing is to come.

___

Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html