geekmannurat >>

mano ngayen a kanta ti malaonna no kua daytoy nga empitri pliyer no hap milion dyibi ti kapasitina? di pay bilionen? kaanomto pay a mangngegan amin dayta a kaadu? no adda, a, kasta kaadu a kansion. no siak, a, ket ipanko aminen dagitay koleksionko iti movies ken videos, hehe!

The 500,000 GB MP3 Player

Can you even imagine an MP3 player with a 500,000 GB capacity? It’s pretty much beyond belief. The most generous player today can only hold around 40,000 songs – they’d hardly make a dent on this.

The thing is, it could easily happen. Scientists at the University of Glasgow have created a nanotechnology breakthrough that could increase storage capacity by 150,000 times. It could mean 500,000 GB on a single chip and inch square.
The Glasgow scientists worked to create the molecule-sized switch that’s at the heart of it all.

Professor Lee Cronin at the University of Glasgow said, “What we have done is find a way to potentially increase the data storage capabilities in a radical way. We have been able to assemble a functional nanocluster that incorporates two electron donating groups, and position them precisely 0.32 nm apart so that they can form a totally new type of molecular switching device. The key advantage of the molecule sized switch is information / transistor density in traditional semi-conductors. Molecule sized switches would lead to increasing data storage to say 4 Petabits per square inch. This breakthrough shows conceptually that this is possible (showing the bulk effect) but we are yet to solve the fabrication and addressing problems. The fact these switches work on carbon means that they could be embedded in plastic chips so silicon is not needed and the system becomes much more flexible both physically and technologically.”

appow, unay a nagmayaten ngay no kastoyton kapaspas ti internet, piman! agrag-o dagiti leechers (dagitay managdownload ti ania la ditan a nagdadakkelan a files lalo ti video)… addanto ngata met kastoyto iti filipinas?

Coming soon: superfast internet
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor
From The Sunday Times
April 6, 2008

THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.

David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.

The power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at Cern have termed their “red button” day - the switching-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates.

Cern, based near Geneva, started the grid computing project seven years ago when researchers realised the LHC would generate annual data equivalent to 56m CDs - enough to make a stack 40 miles high.

This meant that scientists at Cern - where Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web in 1989 - would no longer be able to use his creation for fear of causing a global collapse.

This is because the internet has evolved by linking together a hotchpotch of cables and routing equipment, much of which was originally designed for telephone calls and therefore lacks the capacity for high-speed data transmission.

By contrast, the grid has been built with dedicated fibre optic cables and modern routing centres, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data. The 55,000 servers already installed are expected to rise to 200,000 within the next two years.

Professor Tony Doyle, technical director of the grid project, said: “We need so much processing power, there would even be an issue about getting enough electricity to run the computers if they were all at Cern. The only answer was a new network powerful enough to send the data instantly to research centres in other countries.”

That network, in effect a parallel internet, is now built, using fibre optic cables that run from Cern to 11 centres in the United States, Canada, the Far East, Europe and around the world.

One terminates at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory at Harwell in Oxfordshire.

From each centre, further connections radiate out to a host of other research institutions using existing high-speed academic networks.

It means Britain alone has 8,000 servers on the grid system – so that any student or academic will theoretically be able to hook up to the grid rather than the internet from this autumn.

Ian Bird, project leader for Cern’s high-speed computing project, said grid technology could make the internet so fast that people would stop using desktop computers to store information and entrust it all to the internet.

“It will lead to what’s known as cloud computing, where people keep all their information online and access it from anywhere,” he said.

Computers on the grid can also transmit data at lightning speed. This will allow researchers facing heavy processing tasks to call on the assistance of thousands of other computers around the world. The aim is to eliminate the dreaded “frozen screen” experienced by internet users who ask their machine to handle too much information.

The real goal of the grid is, however, to work with the LHC in tracking down nature’s most elusive particle, the Higgs boson. Predicted in theory but never yet found, the Higgs is supposed to be what gives matter mass.

The LHC has been designed to hunt out this particle - but even at optimum performance it will generate only a few thousand of the particles a year. Analysing the mountain of data will be such a large task that it will keep even the grid’s huge capacity busy for years to come.

Although the grid itself is unlikely to be directly available to domestic internet users, many telecoms providers and businesses are already introducing its pioneering technologies. One of the most potent is so-called dynamic switching, which creates a dedicated channel for internet users trying to download large volumes of data such as films. In theory this would give a standard desktop computer the ability to download a movie in five seconds rather than the current three hours or so.

Additionally, the grid is being made available to dozens of other academic researchers including astronomers and molecular biologists.

It has already been used to help design new drugs against malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills 1m people worldwide each year. Researchers used the grid to analyse 140m compounds - a task that would have taken a standard internet-linked PC 420 years.

“Projects like the grid will bring huge changes in business and society as well as science,” Doyle said.

“Holographic video conferencing is not that far away. Online gaming could evolve to include many thousands of people, and social networking could become the main way we communicate.

“The history of the internet shows you cannot predict its real impacts but we know they will be huge.”

impa-bannawagko daytoy a salaysay ngem naudi. adda nakauna. inunaannak ni asseng. ala, ditoy laengen, a.

Kastan, Pluto….

MVEMJSUNP. Malagipmo pay dayta? Iti asignaturam iti siensia idi iti elementaria, ikabesam dayta a mnemonic wenno akronim tapno malagipmo ti umno a nagan ken panagsasaganad dagiti siam a planeta iti Solar System: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune ken Pluto. Nalabit insuro pay kenka ni mistram idi ti maysa a sentence a panglakaam a mangikabesa, ti “My Very Eager Mom Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas.”

Ngem itay nabiit, kalpasan ti aganay a 76 a tawen a pannakabigbigna, naikkat ti kinaplaneta ti Pluto ket napagbalin laengen a kas “ansisit a planeta” wenno dwarf planet. Walwalo metten dagiti naan-anay a planeta iti Solar System, ti laengen Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus ken Neptune. Adda ketdi nainayon a tallo a baro a dwarf planet, ti Pluto, ti Ceres a sigud nga asteroid, ken ti baro a takuat a nainlangitan a bagi iti labes ti orbit ti Pluto a naawagan iti 2003 UB313 ken nabirngasan iti “Xena,” a nadiskubre laeng idi Hulio 29, 2005.

Saan ngaruden a MVEMJSUNP ti nasken a maikabesa itan no di ket MVEMJSUN. Wenno MVEMJSUN PCX, no iraman dagiti dwarf planet.

PASALSALI A KAKAARRUBA

Itay Agosto 24, iti taripnong dagiti astronomo ken sientista a nangaay idiay Prague, Czech Republic, iti maika-26 a General Assembly ti International Astronomical Union (IAU), ti sangalubongan a gunglo a mangtamtaming iti pannakaadal ken pannakanagan dagiti matakuatan a bambanag iti law-ang, napagnanamingan ken napasingkedan dagiti baro a depinision ken alagaden iti no ania ti makuna a maysa a planeta.

Kas sagudayen ti binukel ti IAU a resolusion, tapno maawagan a kas planeta ti maysa a nainlangitan a bagi iti sakup ti Solar System, (1) nasken nga addaan iti bukod nga orbit iti lawlaw ti Init; (2) nasken nga addaan iti naan-anay a kinadakkel a mamataud iti naan-anay a grabitasional a puersa a mamagbalin itoy a nagtimbukel (sphere); ken (3) nasken a “maraatanna kadagiti kaarrubana” ti bukodna nga orbit.

Ti maikatlo nga alagaden ti nakatnagan ti Pluto. Ania man a bagi iti Solar System a saan a bulan wenno satellite, a di makatungpal itoy nga alagaden, segun iti maysa pay a resolusion ti IAU, agtinnag a kas “dwarf planet,” wenno kas “Small Solar System Bodies.” Iti kaso ti Pluto, adda ngamin daytoy iti paset ti Solar System a maaw-awagan iti Kuiper Belt iti labes ti Neptuno a pakasarakan iti adu a kasla naiwaris a babassit ken dadakkel a nainlangitan a bagbagi wenno bambanag a maawagan iti Kuiber Belt Objects (KBO) wenno kas Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO). No koma kano maysa a naan-anay a planeta ti Pluto, segun iti baro nga alagaden ti IAU, kabalinanna koma a wayaan wenno dalusan ti bukodna nga orbit wenno panagrikus iti Init manipud kadagitoy a pasalsali a bambanag iti asidegna.

Tapno makuna a planeta ti maysa a planeta, awan koma ti sawsawir iti dalan ti pagrikusanna nga orbitna malaksid kadagiti bukodna a bulan wenno satellites a kaluyluyogna ket kabaelan ti bileg ti grabidadna a sagepsepen wenno padisien dagitoy a sawir wenno makasali iti orbitna. Agsipud ta bassit laeng ti Pluto (agarup 1,600 a milia laeng ti diametrona ket basbassit pay ngem ti bukodtayo a Bulan), saanna a kabaelan nga iwalin wenno iduron dagiti asideg a kakaduana a bambanag iti Kuiper Belt. Kinapudnona, adda panawen kabayatan ti naunday a 248-a-tawen a panagrikus ti Pluto iti Init nga agbasakbasak pay iti bukod nga orbit ti Neptuno iti uneg ti 20 a tawen.

Uray ti kattakuat a UB313 (Xena) a masarakan met laeng iti Kuiper Belt, uray no amang a dakdakkel ngem ti Pluto, saanna met a madaeran dagiti pasalsali a kakaarubana gapuna nga agpadada iti Pluto a nadasig laeng kas “ansisit a planeta” ken kas KBO. Manamnama idi a mapagbalin ti UB313 kas maika-10 a planeta iti Solar System. Iti isu met la a taripnong ti IAU idiay Prague, naisingasing pay ketdi ti 12 koma a planeta a mangbukel iti Solar System. Malaksid iti UB313, nainominar kas planeta ti asteroid a Ceres ken ti mismo a maysa a bulan ti Pluto, ti Charon.

‘PLANETA X’

Nadiskubre ti Pluto idi Pebrero 18, 1930, aganay a 84 a tawen kalpasan a madiskubre ti Neptuno. Ni agdadamo idi nga astronomo nga Amerikano Clyde Tombaugh ti nakasirip iti eksakto a lokasion ti Pluto kalpasan ti no mano a tawen a panagsapsapul dagiti beterano nga astronomo iti maikasiam a planeta kalpasan a masarakan ti maikawalo, ti Neptuno.

Ni astronomo a Percival Lowell, babaen ti impasdekna a Lowell Observatory iti Arizona, ti kangrunaan a nangirusat iti panagsukisok iti law-ang tapno masarakan manipud kadagiti riniwriw a bituen ken nainlangitan a bambanag ti maikasiam a planeta nga inawaganna iti “Planeta X.” Inrugina ti proyekto idi 1905, ngem agingga a pimmusay ni Lowell idi 1916, dina nasarakan ti “Planeta X.” Intultuloy latta ketdi ti obserbatorio ni Lowell a sinapsapul ti “Planeta X” agingga a nabirokan met laeng ni Tombaugh idi 1930. Napanaganan iti “Pluto” ti baro a planeta manipud iti didiosen ti uneg ti daga iti mitolohia ken iti “PL” nga inisial ni Lowell.

Buklen a kangrunaan ti bato ken danum a yelo ti Pluto ken aganay a 5,906,380,000 a kilometro ti gagangay a distansiana iti Init. Naiduma ti panagrikus ti Pluto iti Init ta immitlog ti orbitna a saan perpekto a sirkulo. Addaan iti tallo a bulan: ti Charon a naduktalan idi 1978, ken ti Nix ken Hydra a kadduktal la idi 2005.

Siguden a mapagduaduaan no maysa a naan-anay a planeta ti Pluto nangruna idi mapartuat dagiti kabaruanan a ramit iti astronomia ken dagiti nabibileg a teleskopio ken idi maduktalan dagiti Trans-Neptunian Objects iti Kuiper Belt a dandani kas kadakkel ti Pluto, kas iti 5000 Quaoar a nasarakan idi 2002 ken ti 90377 Sedna a naispatan idi 2004. Saan a dagus a nadasig kas planeta dagitoy a KBO/TNO. Adda pay dagiti nasarakan a TNO, ti 2003 EL61 Santa ken ti 2005 FY9 Easterbunny, a dandani pumadis iti kadakkel ti Pluto.

Ngem ti pannakasarak iti Xena, a dakdakkel ngem ti Pluto, ti nangpadegdeg iti pannakaipababa ti kasasaad ti Pluto. Ti ngamin Xena ti kadakkelan a bagi a nadiskubre iti Solar System manipud 1846 a pannakadiskubre ti Neptuno ket daytoy koma ti rebbengna a maawagan kas naan-anay a planeta ket ti Pluto koma ket maysa laeng a minor a planeta.

PANANGATUR

Iti pannakaikkat ti kinaplaneta ti Pluto, pakarikutan ita dagiti nadumaduma a sektor ti edukasion, publikasion, media ken dadduma pay a maseknan nga institusion ti pannakabalbaliw wenno pannakaatur dagiti nadumaduma a rekord ken pasilidad. Masapul a makorehir dagiti textbook, ensiklopedia, museo, planetarium ken dadduma pay tapno masurot ti pannakaikkat ti titulo ti Pluto kas maikasiam a planeta a mangrikrikus iti Init.

Iti Filipinas, impalgak ni Undersecretary ti Departamento ti Edukasion (DepEd) Fe Hidalgo ti mabalin a pannakabalbaliw dagiti science textbook nga us-usaren ti agarup 17 milion nga estudiante iti publiko nga elementaria ken haiskul. Saan pay a nairaman ditoy dagiti dadduma pay a libro ken materiales a pagisuro nga ar-aramaten ti riwriw met nga estudiante iti pribado nga eskuela a nasken a makorehir.

Saan ketdi nga awaten ti dadduma nga astronomo ken sientista ken dadduma a tattao ti pannakauksob ti kinaplaneta ti Pluto, iti nagduduma a rason a sientipikal, praktikal wenno emosional. Adu pay laeng nga astronomo ti di umanamong iti baro a depinision ti maysa a planeta nga inyetnag ti IAU ket itultuloyda a bigbigen ti Pluto kas maikasiam a naan-anay a planeta.

Uray ni Dr. Alan Stern, daulo ti mision iti law-ang a “New Horizons” a proyekto ti NASA a mangdanon iti Pluto inton Hulio 2015, dina bigbigen ti resolusion ti IAU. Kunana a no suroten ti alagaden a nasken a “panangiwalin iti kaarruba,” uray ti Daga, Mars, Jupiter ken ti Neptuno a mismo kano ket saan a makatungpal ta uray dagitoy a planeta ket adu met dagiti agkaiwara nga asteroids iti orbitda.

Ipetteng met ti dadduma a saan latta koman nga ibabawi ti kinaplaneta ti Pluto ta maysan a tradision ken paseten ti pakasaritaan ti siensia kas maikasiam a planeta. Indawat met ti dadduma pay a kas pangipagpagapu ken ni Tombaugh, mabigbig latta koma kas planeta ti Pluto kas pammadayaw iti nakadiskubre itoy.

Iti met biang ni Cynthia Celebre, hepe ti Astronomy Research and Development Division ti Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) ken ti pannakabagi ti Filipinas iti naangay nga asemblia ti IAU, maseknan iti kadakkel ti magastos iti pannakabaliw dagiti textbook nangruna iti Filipinas ken kasta metten iti pannakataginayon ti historia gapuna nga ayonanna a masalimetmetan koma ti kinaplaneta ti Pluto.

PASET TI PANAGDUR-AS TI SIENSIA

Uray dagiti astrologo, mistiko, mammadles ken dadduma pay a mangam-amiris iti signo dagiti bituen ken planeta, dida met kanunongan ti pannakaiwaksi ti Pluto kas planeta. Maysa ngamin a kangrunaan a paset ti Pluto iti astrolohia ken horoscope kas maysa a kadagiti tradisional a siam a planeta.

Iti ketdi biang dagiti mangayon iti pannakabalbaliw ti status ti Pluto, maysamaysada a mangiganetget a para amin daytoy iti agtultuloy a panagdur-as ti siensia ken teknolohia ken yaadu ken yaaddang ti pannakaammo iti uniberso. Naipalagip a saan a daytoy ti umuna a pagteng a ti maysa a maipagarup a planeta ket mabaliwan ti kasasaadna. Nadakamat a ti asteroid a Ceres a nadiskubre idi 1801 iti nagbaetan ti Mars ken Jupiter ket naibilang kas planeta iti agarup kagudua ti siglo sakbay a natakuatan nga adu pay gayam ti kapadpadna nga asteroid iti lugarna.

Kas naagapad ni Richard Binzel, propesor ti Planetary Sciences iti Massachusetts Institute of Technology ken kameng ti palanet definition committee ti IAU, baliwan ti yaabante ti siensia ti amin kabayatan ti pannakasangat kadagiti baro nga inpormasion. “Ti napateg ditoy ket pasingkedan dagiti kabarbaro a takuat ken kabarbaro a siensia nga adda naidumduma a bambanag maipapan iti Pluto kadagiti walo a planeta ket kabayatan ti yaadu ti itden ti siensia a pannakaammo, adu ti masagraptayo a kabarbaro a resulta ken kabarbaro a konsiderasion.”

“At-aturen laeng ti siensia ti bagbagina,” kuna met ni Mike Brown, ti astronomo a nakatakuat iti Xena, iti panagtallugodna iti resolusion.

Pudno, paset amin ti idudur-as ti siensia ken pannakaammo ti pannakabaliw ti sasaaden ti Pluto iti Solar System tapno mawayaan dagiti maiwayat pay a panagadal ken panagtakuat iti masakbayan. Saan met a napukaw wenno naikkat ti Pluto iti bukodna a puesto iti law-ang, adda latta pay sadiay. Planeta pay laeng no planeta a talaga, ti la opisial a depinision ti kinaplaneta ti nagbaliw, ansisit man no ansisit, planetanto met latta. Ngem ketdi pay, saan a mabaliwan ti kina-Plutona kas Pluto nga ammotayo a kameng ti pamilia dagiti nainlangitan a bagi iti lawlaw ti Init.

near-death experience is a biological experience…

kano.

dagitay natay wenno dandani natay a “nagungar” a nakapadas kano a timmangwa wenno nagna iti dalan nga agturong wenno agngudo iti gloria wenno langit–saan kano nga agpayso a langit daydiay, kuna dagiti agsuksukisok.

basaentayo:

Light at end of the tunnel over near death experiences
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 11/04/2006)

Some describe a journey along a tunnel towards a light. Many say the light exudes warmth and forgiveness. Others report that gazing down on themselves in an operating theatre made them certain of life after death.

Throughout history, there have been accounts of people experiencing visions on the brink of death, what are now called near-death experiences. There are dozens of books and films on the subject, even a Journal of Near Death Studies in America, and a conference planned this October in Houston, Texas.

Today, new evidence is published that backs the idea that the near-death experience is a biological experience, rather than anything to do with a larger, spiritual dimension, a glimpse of heaven, or the existence of the soul.

People who have had near- death experiences are able to slip into dream sleep more easily than those who have not had one, according to a study published in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

“I see it as an activation of certain brain regions that are also active during the dream state,” said Prof Kevin Nelson, a neurologist and lead study author, from the University of Kentucky, Lexington.

“However, I hesitate to call it dreaming or dreaming while awake. This is the first testable hypothesis of a biological basis for these experiences.”

For his study, a near-death experience was defined as a time during a life-threatening episode when a person experienced a variety of feelings, including a sense of being outside of one’s body, unusual alertness, seeing an intense light, and a feeling of peace.

The study compared 55 people with near-death experiences with 55 people of the same age and gender who had not had them.

It found that people with near-death experiences were more likely to have a sleep-wake system in which the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness were not as clearly regulated, and the dream sleep state - when there is rapid eye movement - can intrude into normal wakeful consciousness.

Examples of “REM intrusion” include waking up and feeling that you cannot move - sleep paralysis - having sudden muscle weakness in your legs, and hearing sounds just before falling asleep or just after waking up that other people cannot hear.

Of the people with near- death experiences, 60 per cent reported REM intrusion, compared with 24 per cent of people who had not had near-death experiences.

“These findings suggest that REM-state intrusion contributes to near-death experiences,” said Prof Nelson.

Prof Nelson said other factors supported this. Several features of near-death experiences are also associated with the dream state, for example, the feeling of being outside of one’s body and being surrounded by light.

Because the brain turns off the body’s ability to move during dreaming, muscles can lose their tone, or tension.

“During a crisis that occurs with REM-state intrusion, this lack of muscle tone could reinforce a person’s sense of being dead and convey the impression of death to other people,” Prof Nelson said.

He added that a biological explanation was “spiritually neutral”. “We, as neurologists, address the how of these experiences coming about but not the why,” he said.

no biolohikal laeng a “langit” di ket kasla no kuan orgasmo a marikna, kasla ‘tay panagimasmo no kua no umalimpatokka iti sex?

ne, adtoyen ti resulta dagidi nagwarwaras nga email kada websites nga intay’ man kano botosan daytoy nagpintas a projecto a pinoy–umuna a gunggona, kunam man, julie! congratulations kadatay’ amin a pinoy ngarud, a. maipagtangsittay’ met latta a talaga ni pinoy, no matter what.

Pinoy’s coconet tops BBC World Challenge
Best environmental grassroots project

First posted 01:31am (Mla time) Nov 21, 2005
By Michael Jaucian
Inquirer News Service
http://beta.inq7.net/nation/index.php?index=1&story_id=57234

LEGAZPI CITY, Albay — Agricultural engineer Justino Arboleda of the Philippines won the first prize in the First World Challenge contest sponsored by BBC World television in London on Nov. 17 for his soil erosion control net or coconet.

Coconet, made from waste coconut husk, was adjudged the best environmental grassroots project in the world. It was among 456 entries from 90 countries.

Malta, which introduced a biodiesel product, took the second prize, while Vanuatu was in third place for its rechargeable battery.

From 12 finalists, the field was cut down to three.

Fifty percent of one’s score was given by the judges and the other 50 percent by votes cast on the Internet, according to Arboleda’s wife Julie. She, however, could not give the exact number of the Internet votes her husband received.

Arboleda, who is still in London, told the Inquirer in a text message that he received the award at 7 p.m. (London time) on Nov. 17, [2 a.m. on Nov. 18 in the Philippines].

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He also received a cash prize of $20,000.

The winners will be featured by the BBC in a special program on Dec. 3 and 4 and by Newsweek magazine in its Dec. 3 issue, according to the agricultural engineer.

Arboleda said winning the first prize was a great honor for the country.

“With the world recognition, it would be very easy for us to promote our cocofiber products throughout the world,” he said.

He expressed confidence that increased demand for coconet would help alleviate poverty in the country because more jobs would be created. He said demand for coconut materials would also benefit thousands of poor Filipino coconut farmers.

Coconet is manufactured by Juboken Enterprise, which Arboleda owns.

His coconut husk business was featured by the Inquirer in January. It has provided jobs for at least 1,650 families in the Bicol region and other parts of the country.

About 800 families have benefited from the venture in Albay province, 400 in Mindanao, 150 in Aklan and 300 in Southern Leyte.

Arboleda has also developed other uses for the different waste products generated by his coconut farm. These include doormats, stuffing for car seats and mattresses, and fertilizer (made from coconut dust).

Before Arboleda bagged first prize in the BBC World Challenge, he was cited for excellence in export by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Dec. 13 last year during the Golden Shell Award held in Metro Manila.

Arboleda’s wife said she was very proud of her husband and would like to thank the Filipinos for voting for him.

She said it was Agnes Sarmiento, who told her that she had read the Inquirer story about Arboleda and his coconet project, who nominated the coconet project in the BBC World Challenge.

Arboleda was expected to arrive in Manila last night, Julie said.

nasisiglat man met dagiti programmer ken inventor a pinoy, kunam man! maipagtangsit!

Young Filipinos show off IT dev’t skills in inventions tilt

First posted 11:09pm (Mla time) Nov 18, 2005
By Alexander Villafania
INQ7.net
http://news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=56988

This year’s National Inventors Week is highlighting talented young student scientists in the hopes of finding new commercial or research and development opportunities for their inventions.

While many of the project entries in the Invention Contests are in the field of biology and industrial development, a few stalwarts are showing off their skills in computer-based innovation built with their creativity and equipment purchased directly from electronic shops.

Given that, these projects built by high school and college students show great promise to become items for commercial and industrial purposes.

One of the projects is the MicronCAM built by University of the Philippines Los Baños Assistant Professor Netzie Bebing. Her creation, which she wants to patent, is a home-built digital camera attached to the eyepiece of an ordinary microscope. The MicronCam can be attached to a television set or a PC using a VGA or USB cable.

The MicronCam can increase the magnification of an ordinary microscope from 20 to 60 times. The device is touted to be an alternative to more expensive stereo-zoom microscopes.

Another project, also by a professor, is a computer server operating system running on a mini-CD. The Eminima enables the use of practically any PC for desktop and Internet use at a fraction of the cost of regular servers. Even a PC with only an old Pentium 2 processor with 32MB of memory and without a hard disk can become a network server.

Rufino Mananghaya, IT Services head of the UPLB Institute of Development Management and Governance, is the developer of Eminima, which runs a Linux flavor called Puppy and has several other desktop and Internet applications that can be alternatives to commercial software. He said the Eminima can be used by schools, offices, or government agencies with small IT budgets.

Several student teams from the De La Salle University are also exhibiting various PC-based technologies. One of these is a mobile water gardening robot that receives orders wirelessly from a web-camera attached to a tall object in a garden. Florence Cifra, one of the developers of the gardening robot, said the webcam follows a color-detection system; depending on the command entered into the PC, the webcam will look into the colors of a particular pot of a plant and send a radio signal to the robot to water it when needed.

Cifra said most of the parts they used for the robot are available in electronic shops. He said that given a chance, the color-detection system can be replaced with visual identification so the robot can distinguish the type of plants that need to be watered.

Another project is a water-level monitoring and control system that uses a computer sound card instead of more expensive analog-to-digital equipment. According to Johann Philip Ignacio, a high school student from the Mindanao State University Integrated Development School, the sound card is a cheap analog-to-digital converter. It’s attached to a metal sensor dipped in water and reads the depth of liquid in a container.

Ignacio said this technology could be used by hydroelectric power plants, oil silos and dams. He also developed the software that reads the water level and says this can be improved by adding SMS alerts or temperature readings of water.

Students from the University of San Carlos Cebu have meanwhile created a low-cost attendance monitoring system that uses stripped-down bar code cards doubling as IDs. The project aims at providing schools with an automated personnel monitoring. Card readers that can be attached near classroom doors are connected to a computer that monitors entry and exit of students or personnel.

Vince Cabrera, one of the project heads, said the card readers also work as power switches for each room – the first student to log in would automatically switch on the lights in the room. The last student to log out will switch them off. “This would allow school administrators to know who are within the school premises and if lights are switched on or off. We’ve used components that can be easily bought off the shelf.”

Other student project entries in the contest include a computer background change detection built by students from St. Louis University in Baguio City; a 3D face modeling and recognition system developed by another group of DLSU students; and an automated guided vehicle that uses infrared and ultrasonic proximity sensors developed by a UPLB student.

These projects, whether proof-of-concept, experimental, or just thesis projects, will hopefully find their way to commercial markets, where they could put the Philippines on the map of world inventors.

daytoy man. nasirsirib man metten dagitoy a sayantis!

Einstein’s relativity theory proven with the ‘lead’ of a pencil

Scientists at The University of Manchester have discovered a new way to test Einstein’s theory of relativity using the ‘lead’ of a pencil.

Until now it was only possible to test the theory by building expensive machinery or by studying stars in distant galaxies, but a team of British, Russian and Dutch scientists has now proven it can be done in the lab using an ultra-thin material called Graphene.

The group, led by Professor Andre Geim of the School of Physics and Astronomy, discovered the one atom thick material last year. Graphene is created by extracting one atom thick slivers of graphite via a process similar to that of tracing with a pencil.

Professor Geim, said: “To understand implications of the relativity theory, researchers often have to go considerable lengths, but our work shows that it is possible to set up direct experiments to test relativistic ideas. In theory, this will speed up possible discoveries and probably save billions of pounds now that tests can be set up using Graphene and relatively inexpensive laboratory equipment.”

In a paper published in Nature (November 10, 2005), the team describes how electric charges in Graphene appear to behave like relativistic particles with no mass (zero rest mass). The new particles are called massless Dirac fermions and are described by Einstein’s relativity theory (so-called the Dirac equation).

The team also reports several new relativistic effects. They have shown that massless Dirac fermions are pulled by magnetic fields in such a manner that they gain a dynamic (motion) mass described by the famous Einstein’s equation E=mc2. This is similar to the case of photons (particles of light) that also have no mass but can still feel the gravitational pull of the Sun due their dynamic mass described by the same equation.

Dr Kostya Novoselov, a key investigator in this research, added: “The integer and fractional quantum Hall effects are two of the most remarkable discoveries of the late 20th century. It is not easy to explain their significance but both discoveries led to Nobel prizes. One can probably appreciate the importance of our present work in terms of fundamental physics, if I mention that one of the phenomena we report is a new, relativistic type of the quantum Hall effect.”

Source: University of Manchester

malibtawan metten ti agipanablaag iti kaadut’ pakakumikoman… daytoy man pay lang:

robot kano nga addaan iti 20,000 (pay laeng) a selula ti utek. nalaingda man a nangaramid, este, nangparsua. agbalin sa ngaruden a realidad ti makunkuna a humanoid robot wenno ‘tay android? ket no riniwriw ngayen a selula ti utek ti maipanda? di pay ket kasla naan-anayen nga agut-utek a tao ngata?

US scientists’ new robot has 20,000 brain cells
New York | November 06, 2005 2:15:05 PM IST

Scientists in US have built a robot that is operating on biological principles and without any pre-specified instruction.

Researchers at the Neurosciences Institute (NSI) in La Jolla, California have developed ‘Darwin VII’ a trashcan-shaped robot that has just 20,000 brain cells.

The infant crawls across a floor strewn with blocks, grabbing and tasting as it goes, its malleable mind impressionable and hungry to learn, reports New Scientist.

It is already adapting, discovering that the striped blocks are yummy and the spotted ones taste bad, the report said.

Its exploration is driven by instincts: an interest in bright objects, a predilection for tasting things, and an innate notion of what tastes good.

Darwin VII consists of a mobile base equipped with a CCD camera for vision, microphones for hearing, conductivity sensors for taste, and effectors for movement of its base, of its head, and of a gripping manipulator, university researchers Jeffrey L. Krichmar Gerald and M. Edelman write in a paper.

(IANS)

maymaysa a tao ti nagtaudan ti kaputotan ti mapan a maysa-ket-gudua a riwriw a tao? interesting.

1.5m Chinese ‘descendants of one man’

Research into an unusually high prevalence of a particular set of genes in China has suggested that 1.5 million Chinese men are direct descendants of Giocangga, the grandfather of the founder of the Qing dynasty.

Giocangga’s extraordinary number of descendants, concentrated mainly in north-east China and Mongolia, are thought to be a result of the many wives and concubines his offspring took.

Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, a geneticist working at Britain’s Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, made the finding, based on a study of a set of genes on the male Y chromosome.

He told the BBC World Service’s Science In Action programme that these genes provided a “genetic surname” of the family to which each man belonged.

“What we did was analyse around 1,000 men from that part of the world,” he said.

“We noticed just two types of Y chromosome that were extraordinarily frequent - one of them making up around 3% of our sample.

“When we looked at it more carefully, we found that it was not present in the majority population in that area, the Han. But in the minorities, including the Mongolians, it was present at around 5%.”

‘Good chance of survival’

Scientists were then able to work out roughly where the special genes came from.

They established the origin was north-east China, around 500 years ago.

More accurate analysis then found that this particular genetic code first appeared just before the Qing dynasty, which came to the fore in 1616 and had conquered China by 1644.

“We soon realised there was a major historical event going on at this time - the establishment of the Qing dynasty, which conquered China and ruled for several hundred years,” Dr Tyler-Smith said.

“It was ruled by the Qing imperial nobility, who were a highly privileged elite class, and they had several wives and concubines.

“Because of the privilege, they could have had many children - and those children would have had a good chance of survival.”

At the time of Giocangga, the population of China was about 100 million - compared with 1.3 billion today.

This means that the average Chinese man at the time of Giocangga would only have around 20 descendants living today - in marked contrast to Giocangga’s 1.5 million men.

“The difference is accounted for by the large number of wives and concubines - and in particular, this practice being linked to the Y chromosome for many generations,” Dr Tyler-Smith added.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4396246.stm

Published: 2005/11/01 15:10:17 GMT

© BBC MMV

ala, ket ni ngata met solomon ket rinibribu met idi ti asawa ken kamalalana?

nalaing man daytoy nga ubing a producto ti anonymous a kapsit:

Ask Y: Child born from sperm donation traces father on Internet

A 15-year-old boy born from anonymously-donated sperm used an online DNA-testing service and the Internet to track down his genetic father, a feat which suggests that promises of donor secrecy are worthless, the British weekly New Scientist reports on Saturday.

The teenager was able to rip through every veil of anonymity by using a DNA test, genealogical records and searches on the Internet, it says.

The boy, who was not named, started the hunt for his biological father by rubbing a swab along the inside of his cheek, putting it in a vial and sending it off to an online US DNA genealogy service, with a payment of 289 dollars (240 euros).

The service, designed to help people uncover their family tree, matched the boy’s Y chromosome — which passes from father to son, virtually unchanged — against a databank of Y chromosomes from other men.

After nine months, he was contacted by two men whose Y chromosomes closely matched his own.

Neither men knew each other, but the similarity between their Y chromosomes suggested there was a 50-percent chance that all three had the same father, grandfather or great-grandfather.

In addition, both men had the same last name, although with different spellings.

Using this vital clue, the boy launched his Internet search.

Although his donor had been anonymous, the boy’s mother had been told the man’s date and place of birth and his college degree.

Using another online service, the boy purchased the names of everyone who had been born in the same place on the same day.

“Only one man had the surname he was looking for, and within 10 days he had made contact,” New Scientist says.

The news will be unsettling to any man who donated sperm before the advent of the Internet and before the power of genetics was fully appreciated, the magazine says.

“With the explosion of information about genetic inheritance, any man who has donated sperm could potentially be found by his biological offspring.

“Absent and unknown fathers will also become easier to trace.”

In some countries, sperm donors are required by law to allow their identity to be revealed to their children once their offspring reaches a certain age.

In others, though, including the United States, most sperm donors are still anonymous.

© 2005 AFP

This news is brought to you by PhysOrg.com

nabileg met a talaga ti internet ta kabalinanna dagiti kakastoy a pagteng a panangsapul iti di am-ammo nga ama a naggapuan.

tinagikukuada metten ti human gnome! ‘ton kuan no makapartuatda kadagiti producto manipud itoy, agbalinton a komoditi wenno tagilako laengen ti human gnome, anian!

One-Fifth of Human Genes Have Been Patented, Study Reveals
Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News
October 13, 2005

A new study shows that 20 percent of human genes have been patented in the United States, primarily by private firms and universities.

The study, which is reported this week in the journal Science, is the first time that a detailed map has been created to match patents to specific physical locations on the human genome.

Researchers can patent genes because they are potentially valuable research tools, useful in diagnostic tests or to discover and produce new drugs.

“It might come as a surprise to many people that in the U.S. patent system human DNA is treated like other natural chemical products,” said Fiona Murray, a business and science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and a co-author of the study.

“An isolated DNA sequence can be patented in the same manner that a new medicine, purified from a plant, could be patented if an inventor identifies a [new] application.”

Hot Spots

Gene patents were central to the biotech boom of the 1980s and 1990s. The earliest gene patents were obtained around 1978 on the gene for human growth hormone.

The human genome project and the introduction of rapid sequencing techniques brought a deluge of new genetic information and many new patents. Yet there has been little comprehensive research about the extent of gene patenting.

The new study reveals that more than 4,000 genes, or 20 percent of the almost 24,000 human genes, have been claimed in U.S. patents.

Of the patented genes, about 63 percent are assigned to private firms and 28 percent are assigned to universities.

The top patent assignee is Incyte, a Palo Alto, California-based drug company whose patents cover 2,000 human genes.

“Gene patents give their owners property rights over gene sequences—for example in a diagnostic test, as a test for the efficacy of a new drug, or in the production of therapeutic proteins,” Murray said.

“While this does not quite boil down to [the patent holders] owning our genes … these rights exclude us from using our genes for those purposes that are covered in the patent,” she said.

Specific regions of the human genome are “hot spots” of patent activity. Some genes have up to 20 patents asserting rights to how those genes can be used.

“Basically those genes that people think are relevant in disease, such as Alzheimer’s or cancer, are more likely to be patented than genes which are something of a mystery,” Murray said.

Patent Maze

The effect of gene patenting on research and investment has been the subject of great debate.

Advocates argue that gene patents, like all patents, promote the disclosure and dissemination of ideas by making important uses of gene sequences publicly known.

Patents also provide important incentives to investors who would otherwise be reluctant to invest in ideas that could be copied by competitors.

But critics caution that patents that are very broad can obstruct future innovations by preventing researchers from looking for alternative uses for a patented gene.

“You can find dozens of ways to heat a room besides the Franklin stove, but there’s only one gene to make human growth hormone,” said Robert Cook-Deegan, director of Duke University’s Center for Genome Ethics, Law, and Policy.

“If one institution owns all the rights, it may work well to introduce a new product, but it may also block other uses, including research,” he said.

In cases where there are a lot of patents surrounding one area of research, the scientific costs of gene patents—financial and otherwise—can be extremely high.

“Our data raise a number of concerns about gene patents, particularly for heavily patented genes,” Murray said. “We worry about the costs to society if scientists—academic and industry—have to walk through a complex maze of patents in order to make more progress in their research.”

source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1013_051013_gene_patent.html

makapababa kanot’ iq ti panagpayubyob? ngata? ket adu met ti ammok ken am-ammok a masirib a managtabako wenno managsigarilio. nga ad-adda kano pay tumadem tiisipda no kasta nga agpayubyobda. ngem dia la ammo, a. basaenyo:

Smoking associated with lower IQ, study finds

Smokers often say that smoking a cigarette helps them concentrate and feel more alert. But years of tobacco use may have the opposite effect, dimming the speed and accuracy of a person’s thinking ability and bringing down their IQ, according to a new study led by University of Michigan researchers.

The association between long-term smoking and diminished mental proficiency in 172 alcoholic and non-alcoholic men was a surprising finding from a study that set out to examine alcoholism’s long-term effect on the brain and thinking skills.

While the researchers confirmed previous findings that alcoholism is associated with thinking problems and lower IQ, their analysis also revealed that long-term smoking is too. The effect on memory, problem-solving and IQ was most pronounced among those who had smoked for years. Among the alcoholic men, smoking was associated with diminished thinking ability even after alcohol and drug use were accounted for.

The findings are the first to suggest a direct relationship between smoking and neurocognitive function among men with alcoholism. And, the results suggest that smoking is associated with diminished thinking ability even among men without alcohol problems.

The new findings, released online before publication by the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, were made by a team from the U-M Medical School’s Addiction Research Center, or UMARC, and their colleagues at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and Michigan State University.

Lead author Jennifer Glass, Ph.D., a research assistant professor in the U-M Department of Psychiatry, cautions that the findings need to be duplicated by other studies before any conclusions are made about smoking’s effect on the brain, or before the findings can be considered relevant to women.

But, she says, the findings should prompt alcoholism researchers to re-examine their data for any impact from smoking — a factor that is not usually taken into account in studies of alcoholism’s effects on the brain, despite the fact that 50 percent to 80 percent of alcoholics smoke. Meanwhile, the U-M-led team is launching a study that will examine the issue in adolescents, and plans to test the 172 men again soon.

“We can’t say that we’ve found a cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and decreased thinking ability, or neurocognitive proficiency,” says Glass. “But we hope our findings of an association will lead to further examination of this important issue. Perhaps it will help give smokers one more reason to quit, and encourage quitting smoking among those who are also trying to control their drinking.”

Many alcoholism-recovery programs don’t emphasize quitting smoking, even though smoking can be a social and possibly chemical “cue” associated with alcohol consumption.

Glass notes that her team’s paper is being published, coincidentally, at the same time as a paper from a team at the University of California, San Francisco, in which brain scans showed that alcoholics who smoke have lower brain volume than alcoholics who don’t smoke, and that cognitive function decreases with brain volume among non-smoking alcoholics, but not smoking alcoholics.

Taken together with previous epidemiological studies, the two new papers feed a growing body of evidence for a link between long-term smoking and thinking ability, says Robert Zucker, Ph.D., professor of Psychology in the U-M Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, and director of the UMARC. Zucker is senior author on the new paper led by Glass.

“The exact mechanism for smoking’s impact on the brain’s higher functions is still unclear, but may involve both neurochemical effects and damage to the blood vessels that supply the brain,” Zucker says. “This is consistent with other findings that people with cardiovascular disease and lung disease tend to have reduced neurocognitive function.”

The data for the new paper by Glass, Zucker and their colleagues at U-M and Michigan State University, come from an ongoing longitudinal, or long-term, project that uses interviews and standardized research questionnaires to look at mental and physical health issues in families, measured every three years.

The study, which has run for more than fifteen years and recently was funded for another five, is supported by the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health. The new work that will explore these relationships further in youth is being funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, also a part of the NIH.

In their ninth year in the study, participants completed the MicroCog Assessment of Cognitive Function, a well-established standard battery of tests that assess short-term memory, immediate and delayed story recall, verbal analogies, mathematical reasoning and visual-spatial processing.

Scores for each test, and a global proficiency score, are based on the speed and accuracy of a person’s responses, adjusted for age and education level. The participants also took a short form of the standard IQ test, and their scores were adjusted for age.

Forty of the men had clinically diagnosable alcoholism at the time of the test, though none had been drinking within an hour of the tests. Twenty-four of these men also were smokers. The study also included 63 men who had had alcoholism earlier in life, 29 of whom smoked; and 69 men who had never been alcoholic, 13 of whom smoked. All smokers were allowed to smoke at will during the testing session, so none were in a nicotine-deprived state when they took the neurocognitive tests.

Glass and her colleagues analyzed the participants’ scores using two standard measures of long-term drinking and smoking behavior: lifetime alcohol problem severity, or LAPS, and pack-years, a measure that takes into account the number of packs of cigarettes a person smoked each day and the number of years they smoked that much.

Across the board, both smoking and drinking showed an effect: Higher pack-years and LAPS scores were both significantly associated with lower global cognitive proficiency scores and IQ.

When the researchers limited the analysis to those participants who had ever had a diagnosis of alcoholism during their lifetime, they still found a significant association between LAPS scores and IQ, and between pack-years and both IQ and overall cognitive proficiency. In fact, the impact of heavy lifetime smoking history was greater than the effect of lifetime drinking history.

This finding, Glass says, means that alcoholism researchers who have consistently found evidence of cognitive deficits among alcoholics — but who have not taken smoking into account in their analysis — may actually be seeing a combined effect of smoking and alcohol consumption among alcoholic study participants who smoke. Further analyses of these data, with smoking separated out as a variable just as hard drug use is often separated, is needed, she says.

source: http://www.hmnews.org/article2720.html

kitaem man lang, nasiglat a talaga dagiti ruso.

Blogging Predicted by 19th Century Russian Prince

Ask a Russian where television, fashion shows, hip-hop or hieroglyphs were invented and you will no doubt hear — in Russia. Believing in the Russian genius is an essential feature of the Russian mentality. That is why no Russian was surprised when we found out with the help of Lenta.ru the Internet in general, and blogging in particular, was, if not invented, at least predicted by a Russian back in 1837.

Prince Vladimir Odoevsky, 1803-1869, was a gifted man. Apart from writing philosophical books, stories for children and composing pieces of music, he also wrote science fiction, trying to imagine what his country would look like in 2,500 years, in 4338.

The fact that among other utopian inventions Odoevsky described something very close to the Internet and blogging was brought to public attention by — surprise, surprise — a blogger. Ivan Dezhurny, a Russian music producer, is generally fond of futuristic literature. Reading Odoevsky’s novel “Year 4338”, written in 1837, Dezhurny republished selected bits of the book on his personal blog to the delight of his readers.

Odoevsky suggested in future there would be a kind of connection between houses that would allow people to communicate quickly and easily, the way they do now via the Internet.

“Houses are connected by means of magnetic telegraphs that allow people who live far from each other to communicate,” Odoevsky wrote.

Even more interestingly, Odoevsky suggested every household would publish a kind of daily journal or newsletter and distribute it among selected acquaintances, a habit which Russian bloggers immediately recognized as blogging.

“We received a household journal from the local prime minister, which among other things invited us to his place for a reception,” one of Odoevsky’s characters tells a friend.

“The thing is that many households here publish such journals that replace common correspondence. Such journals usually provide information about the hosts’ good or bad health, family news, different thoughts and comments, small inventions, invitations to receptions.”

However, Odoevsky, a prince and a wealthy man, could not imagine people taking so much bother to keep their acquaintances updated on their daily affairs. He suggested the job would be carried out by the butler.

“The job of publishing such a journal daily or weekly is carried out by the butler. It is done very simply: receiving an order from the masters, he makes a notice of what they tell him, then make copies by camera obscura and sends them to the acquaintances.”

Odoevsky’s book contains other curious predictions, such as the threat of the Earth colliding with a comet and Russians planning to fire rockets at it to prevent the collision.

Literature theorists say the unusual remoteness of Odoevsky’s predictions — 2,500 years — could be explained by the slow pace of life that Russian society led in the 19th century.

source: http://www.mosnews.com/feature/2005/10/10/bloggingpredicted.shtml

agasem dayta, nasirmata ti maysa a mannurat, science fictionist, daytoy internet ken panagkanabalaag!

saan la gayam a da jules verne, h.g. wells kdpy ti nakapugto ken nakapadto kadagiti banag nga adda ken realidad itan.

very interesting. pagwerretenna manen ti utek-creative writer ket degdeganna ti awis a mangsurat datao iti science fiction wenno fictive science…

manipud iti sfgate.com (emphasis mine):

2 way-out views of technology’s role in shaping the future
Inventor predicts the fusion of human and machines; author says let go of technological fixes for humans’ sake
- Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, October 3, 2005

Inventor Ray Kurzweil’s new book, “The Singularity Is Near,” predicts the fusion of humans and machines to create powerful and potentially immortal life forms.

In his book, “Enough,” environmentalist Bill McKibben says that unless we forgo such technological fixes, and accept death, we will ultimately cease to be human.

Between these extremes rages a debate about the role that technology will — or should — play in shaping the future.

Recently the initiative has been with Kurzweil, who predicts that “within the next several decades” new beings will arise that blend human and machine traits, “a destiny we have come to refer to as the Singularity.”

As part of a book promotion tour, Kurzweil spoke to about 400 people at San Francisco’s Herbst Theater Sept. 23. The event was organized by Stewart Brand, a 67-year-old Bay Area visionary who was a leading force in the pioneering online community the Well.

At age 57, Kurzweil is a tech-industry legend whose accomplishments include inventing the first device to scan text and render it into sound to enable the blind to “read.” He has also written a series of books on artificial intelligence, beginning with “The Age of Intelligent Machines” in 1990, a precursor to “The Singularity.”

“If anything the future will be more wonderful than anything we can imagine today,” Kurzweil said in trying to get across the gist of his 652-page tome.

“The Singularity” argues that technology is a continuation of the life-improvement process commonly called evolution. DNA created biological life forms. Biological life forms advanced over eons and developed Homo sapiens. Their big brains and opposing thumbs and forefingers made them adept toolmakers. Today their cutting-edge tools — computers, software, gene-splicing techniques and nanotechnology — are poised for integration with human biological systems to evolve a hybrid life form.

Accelerating returns

Far from being some distant science-fiction dream, these bio-mechanical beings will evolve sooner rather than later, Kurzweil argues, based on another of his key ideas which he calls the law of accelerating returns.

In essence, Kurzweil says progress occurs at an exponential rate. At first, things take forever. Eons elapsed between the primordial soup and Homo sapiens. It took thousands of years for the hunter-gatherers to get their hands on the computer mouse. But once that happened, things started to get interesting, and quickly.

Now gadgets like cell phones get smaller, faster and cheaper thanks to Moore’s Law, which says microprocessor power doubles every 18 months or so. Kurzweil’s law of accelerating returns posits that this same exponential pace governs efforts to splice DNA, unravel genomes, reverse-engineer the brain and develop nanotech machines.

Given all these developments, converging at exponential rates, Kurzweil considers it inevitable that our own technological creations will infuse new capabilities into human biological systems that have been resting on their evolutionary laurels for the last 100,000 years or so.

“We will combine the subtle capabilities of human intelligence, which is basically pattern recognition,” he said in San Francisco, “with the things that a thousand-dollar computer can already do better than us.”

Technological implants will improve our bodies, he said, citing a research paper that theorizes how nanotechnologists might build respirocytes — artificial red blood cells that can carry 236 times more oxygen than the natural alternative. “We will not just have designer babies,” he quipped, “but designer Baby Boomers.”

Kurzweil believes post-Singularity humans will cheat death. He writes: “When our human hardware crashes … software-based humans … will live out on the Web, projecting bodies whenever they need or want them, including virtual bodies in diverse realms of virtual reality.”

Kurzweil admits the potential perils of a cyborgian future. He cites the 2000 essay, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” in which software-guru-turned-venture-capitalist Bill Joy argued that, “We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes.”

Dangers of nanotech

Joy advocated limiting “development of the technologies that are too dangerous,” like self-replicating nanotech machines.

Kurzweil also acknowledges broader critiques from opposing thinkers like McKibben, whose 1989 book, “The End of Nature,” put global warming into the public lexicon. McKibben’s 2003 book, “Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age,” established him as a critic of tinkering with ourselves.

In a telephone interview from Vermont, where he writes and teaches, McKibben, 44, described himself as an environmentalist who never dreamed of riding rockets into space or living forever in disembodied virtual realms.

“I like this planet,” he said. “I like this body with all its limitations, up to and including the fact that it’s going to die.”

McKibben doubted that living forever, even if possible, would be a blessing. “Immortality may give us a world in which there is less meaning in life rather than more,” he said.

He said augmenting human capability — whether through computer-like brain function to compute pi to the nth degree, or designing fingers strong enough to penetrate granite for bare-handed rock-climbing — is unlikely to yield satisfaction.

“What actually makes people happy is full engagement,” McKibben said. “You are most alive when working at the limit of your abilities.” More capabilities would only require bigger challenges, bringing inflation into the calculation of satisfaction.

McKibben said the steroid scandals in baseball hint at what lurks in Kurzweil’s future. “Barry Bonds is poised to pass Henry Aaron next year,” he said. “That will be a very small taste of the assault on what accomplishment means when you start tinkering.”

Just say no

In contrast to Kurzweil’s view that tool making is the defining human trait, McKibben adds the characteristic he believes may decide our future. “We’re the animal who can choose not to do something we’re capable of,” he said.

As we hurtle toward the future, perhaps at Kurzweil’s exponential rate, the best mirror for these opposing views may be science fiction, said Case Western Reserve University physicist Lawrence Krauss, author of the best-selling “Physics of Star Trek.”

Krauss said the TV series captured McKibben’s notion of ability lacking fulfillment in Commander Data, the android that can do anything — except experience human limitation. On a darker side there are the Borg — the cold, hivelike cybernetic beings for whom satisfaction is irrelevant.

“You see the utopian view and the dystopian fear in ‘Star Trek,’ ” said Krauss, who understands McKibben’s reservations but shares Kurzweil’s view of a benign merger of flesh and machine — though he thinks it may take longer than just a few decades.

“That would give social structures more time to adapt,” Krauss said.

E-mail Tom Abate at tabate@sfchronicle.com.

isuna laeng ta nakabase ken nakatalimudok manen iti evolution. nga agtultuloy nga ag-evolve ti tao ket eventually agbalinton a makina. i think, adda ken adun ti nasurat a kastoy iti science fiction world. mapukaw a talaga no kua ti idea nga adda maysa nga supreme intelligent being a mammarsua/nagpasua iti amin a nabiag ken amin a banag. ta no agbalinton a cyborg wenno android wenno robot ti tao, nalawagton a produkto laengen ti tao met laeng wenno robot pay ketdin a mismo ti creator ti isuamin (kas koma iti idea/lubong ti matrix).

ala, napintas a saritaan ken diskusion daytoy ken bugas dagiti maputar nga estoria wenno fiksion.

This artist’s concept shows a view across a mysterious disk of young, blue stars encircling
a supermassive black hole at the core of the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy.
Pictures: NASA, ESA and A. Schaller

Supermassive Black Hole Confirmed
By Larry O’Hanlon, Discovery News

Sept. 21, 2005— A supermassive black hole with the tonnage of 140,000,000 suns has been found simmering at the center of the Andromeda galaxy, accompanied by a hornet’s nest of furious blue stars.

All of those blue stars, detected as just a single blue dot a few pixels wide by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), are the key to confirming, once and for all, the existence and mass of the black hole, astronomers said.

Careful analysis of the Hubble data revealed that the blue light is from hundreds of the fast-burning stars that are orbiting a relatively small and dark region at speeds that make sense only by the presence of a monster black hole.

“At this point the least extraordinary explanation of what we’re seeing is a supermassive black hole,” said astronomer John Kormendy of the University of Texas.

Kormendy and his colleagues Ralf Bender and Richard Green have reported their discovery in the Sept. 20 issue of Astrophysical Journal.

“It turns out to be bigger than we thought,” said Kormendy of the black hole’s extraordinary size.

The existence of the black hole at the center of Andromeda has been suspected for decades, he said. But there was also the possibility that the dark region seen by telescopes was just a stellar bone yard crowded with dim, burned-out star corpses.

That view has been changed because of data gathered by a now-defunct spectrograph on the HST, explained Kormendy. His team found that the blue light, when split into its composite colors (a spectrum), has the “bomb-proof” hallmark of stars, he said. And not just any stars: they are big, hot blue stars like Sirius, the brightest star in Earth’s night sky, he said.

The spectrum of what is thought to be a disk of some 400 blue stars also shows shifts that indicate the stars are orbiting the black hole. It’s the rate of the rotation of those stars about the black hole that helps the researchers to calculate the approximate mass of the black hole.

“The really special thing about what they’ve done is to use spectroscopy to measure the velocity of stars” located close to the center of Andromeda, said astrophysicist Scott Tremaine of Princeton University.

In all, there are about 35 other galaxies with suspected supermassive black holes at their center, said Kormendy. Only in two other galaxies have the black holes been considered proven: NGC 4258 (also known as M106) and our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

In fact, says Kormendy, it’s unlikely that the others will be confirmed, because they are so far away.

In contrast, Andromeda is the closest full-fledged galaxy to our own and its core is actually easier to see than the Milky Way’s, Tremaine said.