Fruits has lesser antioxidants than Popcorn
Popcorn contains more of the healthful antioxidant substances called “polyphenols” than fruits and vegetables, say scientists. Joe Vinson, PhD, a pioneer in analysing healthful components in chocolate, nuts and other common foods, explained that the polyphenols are more concentrated in popcorn, which averages only about 4 percent water, while polyphenols are diluted in the 90 per cent water that makes up many fruits and vegetables.
In another surprising finding, the researchers discovered that the hulls of the popcorn – the part that everyone hates for its tendency to get caught in the teeth – actually has the highest concentration of polyphenols and fibre. “Those hulls deserve more respect. They are nutritional gold nuggets,” said Vinson, who is with the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.
Vinson concluded, “Popcorn may be the perfect snack food. It’s the only snack that is 100 per cent unprocessed whole grain. All other grains are processed and diluted with other ingredients, and although cereals are called “whole grain,” this simply means that over 51 per cent of the weight of the product is whole grain. One serving of popcorn will provide more than 70 per cent of the daily intake of whole grain. The average person only gets about half a serving of whole grains a day, and popcorn could fill that gap in a very pleasant way.”
However, Vinson cautioned that the way people prepare and serve popcorn can quickly put a dent in its healthful image.
20times more powerful Solar Cells
Intensive research around the world has focused on improving the performance of solar photovoltaic cells and bringing down their cost. But little attention has been paid to the best ways of arranging those cells, which are typically placed flat on a rooftop, or sometimes attached to motorised structures that keep the cells pointed at the sun.
Now, a team of researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come up with a very different approach: building cubes or towers that extend the solar cells upward in 3D configurations. Amazingly, the results from the structures they’ve tested show power output ranging from double to more than 20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area.
The biggest boosts in power were seen in the situations where improvements are most needed: in locations far from the equator, in winter months and on cloudier days. The findings are published in Energy and Environmental Science.“I think this concept could become an important part of the future of photovoltaics,” says senior author, Jeffrey Grossman a professor at MIT.
While the cost of a given amount of energy generated by such 3D modules exceeds that of ordinary flat panels, the expense is balanced by a much higher energy output for a given footprint, as well as much more uniform power output over the course a day, seasons, and in cloudy weather. These make output more predictable, which could make integration with the power grid easier than with conventional systems.
The MIT team initially used a computer algorithm to explore an enormous variety of possible configurations, and developed analytic software that can test any given configuration under a whole range of latitudes, seasons and weather. Then, to confirm their model’s predictions, they built and tested three different arrangements of solar cells on the roof of an MIT lab building.
Complex brain – Simple wiring
Stunning new visuals of the brain reveal a deceptively simple pattern of organization in the wiring of this complex organ. Instead of nerve fibers travelling willy-nilly through the brain like spaghetti, as some imaging has suggested, the new portraits reveal sheets of parallel fibers crisscrossing other sheets at right angles in a gridlike structure that folds and contorts with the convolutions of the brain.
Using a technique he developed called diffusion spectrum magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Wedeen traced the movement of water molecules along the intersections of brain fibers (the cellular projections that form the brain's communication network), tracking the orientation of each fiber at each crossing.
This same pattern appeared in the brains of humans, rhesus monkeys, owl monkeys, marmosets and galagos, researchers report Thursday in the journal Science. “The upshot is the fibers of the brain form a 3-D grid and are organized in this exceptionally simple way,” study leader Van Wedeen, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, told LiveScience. “This motif of crossing in three axes is the basic motif of brain tissue.”
“What emerged was astonishing,” Wedeen said. “What emerged was that the set of fibers that crossed a given fiber, invariably - and that's a really strong invariably - look like mutually parallel fibers all coming in like the teeth of a comb and crossing it in one direction.” It's difficult to get high-resolution scans of fiber connectivity in the human cortex, given that humans tend to become uncomfortable if left in an MRI scanner for more than 45 minutes or so, Wedeen said. For that reason, images of human brain connections have tended to look like tangled spaghetti, he said.
Wedeen and his colleagues scanned four types of primate brains from deceased animals, enabling them to image the brains for up to 48 hours, as well as brains from living human subjects using a new scanner that can achieve 10 times the resolution of conventional MRI machines. Using special software, the researchers then reconstructed 3-D images of the brain-fiber pathways. “Looking across multiple species, the pattern was substantially similar,” Wedeen said.
“When you went from primates with small brains to primates with big brains … the rules were the same, but they were being applied more diversely and with more layers in the larger, more complex brains.”The finding of clear up-down, front-back and side-to-side organisation in the brain makes sense, Wedeen said, given that the brain has had to rewire both evolutionarily and during its lifetime (as it grows and learns, for example).
If the organisation of communication were chaotic, that wouldn't work. “It's like rewiring your basement at random,” Wedeen said. “First thing that happens, house burns down, you die.”With an organised grid structure, however, evolution can easily build on what came before — adding in a more complex forebrain in humans versus our monkey relatives, for example.
Liquid Solar cells now developed by Researchers
Few scientists from the University of California have developed cheap solar cells which are made up of nanocrystals.
The professor Richard Brutchey said, The solar nanocrystals are about four nanometres in size - meaning you could fit more than 250,000,000,000 on the head of a pin - and float them in a liquid solution, so “like you print a newspaper, you can print solar cells.”
Semiconductor cadmium selenide was used by these researchers to develop coating for nanocrystals. These liquid nanocrystals solar cells are cheaper in rate but are not as efficient at converting sunlight to electricity.
One of the key problems to create a stable liquid that also conducts electricity was solved by Brutchey and Webber. Previously the molecules were clubbed with the nanocrystals to avoid from sticking. This also acted as insulator which would make it terrible for conducting electricity.
The method of researchers also allows them to print on plastic without melting and can be helped to fit it anywhere.
IBM to build the Most Powerful Computer
IBM and the team building the world largest telescope are in a process of developing a super computer which will help them to study data related to space and universe origin. IBM in collaboration with ASTRON will be developing a computer which will consume less energy.
In a statement released by IBM and ASTRON it was said that, “The telescope will be used to explore evolving galaxies, dark matter and even the very origins of the universe.”
The DOME project worth $43.9 million at Netherlands will be using a technology which will read, store and analyse exactly one exabtye of raw data per day. The size is twice as the daily internet traffic. The construction of such a huge telescope, which makes use of 3000 dishes will begin in 2017 and will be put up in Australia or South Africa where there is enough space to accommodate one.
Apple is in the crosshairs of a group of anonymous hackers
A group of anonymous hackers says he wants to take Apple to target. These hackers have published on a Pastebin list of 27 user names and passwords, stolen on server’s abs.apple.com. Hackers now have art and how to maintain the suspense. “Apple is our next target, but do not worry, we are currently busy elsewhere ". Here's what we have read yesterday's account on July 4 Twitter to Anonymous.
The group then relayed an exploit published on Pastebin by a group of pirates who preferred to keep his name and simply issue a warning notice to the attention of Apple. The Cupertino company has indeed been the target of the attack this weekend against the server hosting the site abs.apple.com, where some usernames and passwords encrypted and stored in a SQL database were stolen .
A total of 27 IDs (and passwords) were captured during the operation. But beyond this initial observation, the symbolic operation aims to raise Apple, designated target of cyber criminals. One of the alleged perpetrators of the attack posted on the platform Pastebin recovered data. His nickname, "Not Yet Serious" ("not serious"), speaks volumes about the intentions of this new group that followed suit with Anonymous. Apple will now have to be vigilant. Another tweet, work of a Lebanese registered under idahc pseudo-hacker, pointed to flaws that make it highly vulnerable to other official sites of the "Apple brand."
iPhone as a wireless microphone for dictation with Dragon NaturallySpeaking
With version 11.5 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you can use the microphone of the iPhone for dictation. The Apple smart phone transmits the voice signals to the computer via WLAN.
Nuance has released version 11.5 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which has learned some new voice commands. So now it's text by voice command directly to Twitter and Facebook are posted, and searching, such as Amazon, can be easier to initiate. In addition to working with the program easier, because users can create profiles to faster and less complicated. In addition, the revised user interface that can be placed with the commands created in the sidebar and then displays the additional content for WordPad, vocabulary editor and command center.
The Correction menu shows the new versions more alternative concepts of recognition and the user can add to the vocabulary faster rates or prevent the unwanted detection of a word. The Dictation can be changed in size and displays more word and sentence alternatives.
Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking represents 11.5 the free iPhone app Dragon remote microphone to the side, which makes the iPhone to the wireless microphone. The texts are spoken into the microphone of the iPhone and transfer them from the app for a wireless connection to NaturallySpeaking on the PC - Dragon Dictate for Mac is not supported yet.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 Premium is on 20 June on the market and will cost 149 €. The Home, Professional, and Legal versions will follow in the coming weeks. Users of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 will receive the new version as a free upgrade.
Pre-release version of Windows 8 appeared on the Internet
Circulating in file sharing and file-sharing networks for a short pre-release version of Windows 8 It is the build 7989 that some further insight into the next version of Microsoft operating system provides.
In early June was officially launched by Microsoft Windows 8. The new Windows will also run on ARM and relies entirely on apps: the user should obtain new Apps on App Store and a larger place them anywhere on the screen, and can shrink. The Start menu is an app index in full-screen gone, reminiscent as the complete layout of tiles on his Smartphone surfaces. In contrast to normal Windows programs should be small apps applications based on JavaScript and HTML5.
Windows 8 is optimized for touch operation and to the Internet Explorer 10 on board. One can see that Microsoft has especially smart phones and tablets in the visor with the new Windows.
Provides further insight now the build 7989, which circulated on the Internet. According to Redmond Pie , it shows a new virtual keyboard, which raises the Aero-optics on board and which is based on Windows Phone 7. Also support relocation and SMS support on board, also indicate code-analysis suggests that some features are disabled by default and must be unlocked. It is still unclear what Microsoft intended it, whether it is possible to pay extra features are, so that all Windows users start with the same base version of the operating system and then buy piece by piece, the functions they need.
When will Windows 8 will come on the market has not yet been determined. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hints ever made, however, it could by 2012 be ready.
Amazon launches tablet said to have been in August or September
The speculation about a tablet from Amazon does not break. Digitimes reported, citing a manufacturer of components that the device comes in August or September on the market and wants to sell Amazon this year alone, four million shares.
Such a fast start would be also necessary, Amazon wanted to take the holiday shopping season and reach the numbers bandied. Could also help that the online retailer, according to the Digitimes his one tablet provides streaming service for movies to the side wants.
A paragraph 700000-800000 tablets per month is aiming at Amazon and would thus probably from the state's number two on the tablet market behind Apple soar. Because according to Digitimes has currently Asus held this position - with only 400 000 tablets shipped in the first half of 2011. For the full year is targeting two million-selling Asus Eee pads on.
As the Digitimes reported, the processor of the Amazon Tablets by Texas Instruments comes from the touch panel LCD Wintek and some components of ILI Technology. Quanta are responsible for the assembly.
Back in May was busy speculating about an Amazon-Tablet. Back then it was called, Amazon plane two models with Tegra processors. In the initial model therefore would be a dual-core processor Tegra 2 operate in the more powerful model is a quad-core processor Tegra third.
Microsoft does not charge more for Azure Upload
The software giant yesterday were surprised with a modified cloud strategy will require the in-house service Windows Azure for incoming data flowing out of money. Therefore, new customers are attracted.
After Google runs the second fastest after all, Microsoft cloud service, as only recently found out testers.
Still lead to another advantage to the field, customers can be from 1 July for no more uploads its data to the checkout asked. Regardless of whether cloud or corporate network are particularly burdened by just a lot of traffic.
Microsoft wants to reduce this decision; the entry barriers for new customers, as a first great wave of migration of all data collected in the Azure cloud is initially strong in the money. Now admission is free, which could irritate customers, especially with large volumes. They have to pay only for the future, then future download of data, the group reported in company blog.
Already in February, Microsoft had deliberately lured developers. Those do nothing for the Azure platform pay for storage or transfer, but only agree with the Small Azure Compute plan. Started, the MS-cloud platform originally in 2009 (as reported).