সোমবার, ২৪ জুন, ২০১৩

3M Mobile Projector MP300


The 3M Mobile Projector MP300 is my new poster child for products that just miss getting everything right. It's small, lightweight, bright, physically attractive, and easy to set up. But it's limited to a single connector?an MHL-enabled HDMI port?which makes it a great choice if you can take advantage of the connector, and completely useless if you can't.

The single-port design isn't quite as limiting as it might seem. In addition to letting you connect to image sources with HDMI, Mini-HDMI, and Micro-HDMI connectors, it also lets you connect, using appropriate adaptors, to sources with an Apple Lightning port, a DisplayPort, a DVI-I or DVI-D port, or an MHL-enabled micro USB port, which includes any number of smartphones and tablets. You can even plug in the Roku Stick that we reviewed late last year. In fact, 3M sells the identical projector with the Roku Stick included, as the 3M Streaming Projector ($300 street).

A major catch, of course, is that the choices don't include either a VGA connector, which is still the ubiquitous choice for Windows computers, or support for USB direct display, which would be a good alternative. Also notable for its absence is a USB A connector that would let you plug in a USB memory key as an image source. That said, however, if you have an image source with a connector you can use, the projector can do an impressive job.

Basics and Setup
The MP300 scores well on portability. It measures roughly 2.0 by 4.3 by 4.2 inches (HWD), but seems smaller, because of rounded edges and tapering, and it weighs just 11 ounces complete with its rechargeable battery. Even with the power block, the total weight is only one pound one ounce. However, you may well choose to leave the power block at home, thanks to a long battery life, at a claimed three and a half hours in Eco mode or two and a half hours in Standard mode.

Like most projectors in its weight class, the MP300 is built around a DLP chip and LED light source, with the light source meant to last the life of the unit. The company rates it at 20,000 hours. The native resolution is WVGA (854 by 480), with input resolutions limited to standard video, rather than common computer, resolutions, at 480p (640 by 480p and 720 by 480p), 576p (720 by 576p), 720p (1280 by 720p), and 1080i (1920 by 1080i and 1440 by 1080i).

Setup is simple. Plug in a cable, point the projector at whatever you're using as a screen, and focus the image. As is typical for projectors this size, there's no zoom control, which means you have to move the projector to adjust image size. The focus control earns special mention for being much easier to adjust than with most small projectors.

One potential problem is that although the MP300 comes with an HDMI to HDMI cable, it doesn't come with any adaptors for other ports, and 3M doesn't sell any. That means you'll have to get them elsewhere, which can be more of a problem than you might think.

The connector is on the back of the unit inside a small depression and facing sideways. The positioning lets you plug in a cable?or a Roku Stick?and then close the back cover without anything sticking out behind the MP300. Unfortunately, the limited clearance between the edge of the connector and the body of the projector can get in the way.

In addition to the HDMI to HDMI cable that comes with the projector, I tried four different cables with an HDMI connector on one end and found that two of them wouldn't seat properly. This would be less of an issue if 3M also included, or at least sold, cables and adaptors that were guaranteed to fit, but it doesn't. For my tests, I connected the projector to a Blu-ray player, using one of the HDMI to HDMI cables that fit properly.

Brightness and Image Quality
The MP300 is rated at 60 lumens. That's less than some other, slightly heavier, LED-based portable projectors, like the 300-lumen Editors' Choice 3M Mobile Projector MP410, and it's a lot less than typical projectors that use standard lamps, like the 2,800-lumen Editors' Choice Epson EX3212 SVGA 3LCD Projector that I recently reviewed. As I've pointed out in other reviews, however, perception of brightness is logarithmic, so if one projector offers one fifth as many lumens as another projector, you'll perceive it is as being far more than one fifth as bright.

Based on The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendation for image brightness, a 60-lumen image using a 1.0 gain screen is suitable for a 30 to 41-inch diagonal image at a 16:9 aspect ratio in theater dark lighting, or a roughly 20-inch image with moderate ambient light. For my tests, however, I found the MP300 usable for long sessions at slightly larger sizes as well, settling on a 41-inch wide (46-inch diagonal) image as bright enough for comfortable viewing.

With no VGA port on the MP300, I couldn't run our standard suite of data image tests. However, the projector scored impressively well on our video tests, despite the low native resolution putting some obvious limits on its ability to show fine detail.

It did an excellent job resisting posterization (shading changing suddenly where it should change gradually) and a good job with shadow detail (details based on shading in dark areas), even in scenes that tend to cause those problems. It also did a good job with skin tones, and showed only a minimal level of noise. The quality was certainly good enough to be comfortable to watch for long sessions.

Rainbows and Other Issues
Rainbow artifacts, with light areas breaking up into little red-green-blue rainbows, are always a potential concern for any single-chip DLP projector. Even though I see these artifacts easily, however, I saw very few with most test clips with the MP300. The exception was with a black and white clip, where they showed often enough to be annoying. Even so, unless you're planning to watch black and white movies or old TV shows, it's unlikely that you'll find the rainbow artifacts bothersome.

Also demanding mention is the MP300's 2-watt speaker. As with the sound systems in most small projectors, it's essentially useless. Even at full volume, it was barely loud enough to make out words in a quiet room from a foot away. If you need sound, plan on using the audio output port, preferably with a powered headset or speakers.

I'd like this projector a lot better if you could use it with a computer by way of VGA or USB Direct Display. But if you have an HDMI port or other digital video output on your computer, or you don't need to use it with a computer, that's not an issue. The projector has a lot to recommend it otherwise, with a usably bright, reasonably high quality image; easy setup; light weight; and long battery life. If you need a highly portable projector for an image source that the 3M Mobile Projector MP300 works with, it's a more than attractive choice.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/zEPP0B9_f8I/0,2817,2420713,00.asp

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রবিবার, ২৩ জুন, ২০১৩

Supreme Court has range of options on gay marriage

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The waiting is almost over.

Sometime in the next week or so, the Supreme Court will announce the outcomes in cases on California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

The federal law, known by the shorthand DOMA, defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman and therefore keeps legally married gay Americans from collecting a range of federal benefits that generally are available to married people.

The justices have a lengthy menu of options from which to choose. They might come out with rulings that are simple, clear and dramatic. Or they might opt for something narrow and legalistic.

The court could strike down dozens of state laws that limit marriage to heterosexual couples, but it also could uphold gay marriage bans or say nothing meaningful about the issue at all.

A look at potential outcomes for the Proposition 8 case and then for the case about DOMA:

___

Q. What if the Supreme Court upholds Proposition 8?

A. This would leave gay Californians without the right to marry in the state and would tell the roughly three dozen states that do not allow same-sex marriages that there is no constitutional problem in limiting marriage to a man and a woman.

Such an outcome probably would trigger a political campaign in California to repeal Proposition 8 through a ballot measure, which opinion polls suggest would succeed, and could give impetus to similar voter or legislative efforts in other states. Proposition 8 itself was adopted by voters in 2008, but there has been a marked shift in Americans' attitudes about same-sex marriage in the past five years.

___

Q. What if the court strikes down Proposition 8?

A. A ruling in favor of the two same-sex couples who sued to invalidate the gay marriage ban could produce one of three possibilities. The broadest would apply across the country, in effect invalidating constitutional provisions or statutes against gay marriage everywhere.

Or a majority of the justices could agree on a middle option that applies only to California as well as Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey and Oregon. Those states already treat gay and straight couples the same in almost every respect through civil unions or domestic partnerships. The only difference is that gay couples there are not allowed to marry.

This so-called seven-state solution would say that the Constitution forbids states to withhold marriage from same-sex couples while giving them all the basic rights of married people. But this ruling would not implicate marriage bans in other states and would leave open the question of whether states could deprive gay couples of any rights at all.

The narrowest of these potential outcomes would apply to California only. The justices essentially would adopt the rationale of the federal appeals court that found that California could not take away the right to marry that had been granted by the state Supreme Court in 2008, before Proposition 8 passed.

In addition, if the Supreme Court were to rule that gays and lesbians deserve special protection from discriminatory laws, it is unlikely that any state ban on same-sex marriage could survive long, even if the justices don't issue an especially broad ruling in this case.

___

Q. Are there other potential outcomes?

A. Yes, the court has a technical way out of the case without deciding anything about same-sex marriage. The Proposition 8 challengers argue that the private parties defending the provision ? members of the group that helped put the ban on the ballot ? did not have the right to appeal the trial judge's initial decision striking it down, or that of the federal appeals court.

The justices sometimes attach great importance to this concept, known as "standing". If they find Proposition 8's proponents lack standing, the justices also would find the Supreme Court has no basis on which to decide the case.

The most likely outcome of such a ruling also would throw out the appeals court decision that struck down the ban but would leave in place the trial court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage. At the very least, the two same-sex couples almost certainly would be granted a marriage license, and Gov. Jerry Brown, D-Calif., who opposes Proposition 8, probably would give county clerks the go-ahead to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

___

Q. Are the possibilities for the DOMA case as complicated?

A. No, although there are some technical issues that could get in the way of a significant ruling.

___

Q. What happens if the court upholds Section 3 of DOMA, defining marriage for purposes of federal law as the union of a man and a woman?

A. Upholding DOMA would not affect state laws regarding marriage but would keep in place federal statutes and rules that prevent legally married gay Americans from receiving a range of benefits that are otherwise available to married people. These benefits include breaks on estate taxes, health insurance for spouses of federal workers and Social Security survivor benefits.

___

Q. What if the court strikes down the DOMA provision?

A. A ruling against DOMA would allow legally married gay couples or, in some cases, a surviving spouse in a same-sex marriage, to receive benefits and tax breaks resulting from more than 1,000 federal statutes in which marital status is relevant. For 83-year-old Edith Windsor, a New York widow whose case is before the court, such a ruling would give her a refund of $363,000 in estate taxes that were paid after the death of her spouse, Thea Spyer. The situation could become complicated for people who get married where same-sex unions are legal, but who live or move where they are not.

___

Q. What procedural problems could prevent the court from reaching a decision about DOMA?

A. As in the Proposition 8 case, there are questions about whether the House Republican leadership has standing to bring a court case to defend the law because the Obama administration decided not to.

House Republicans argue that the administration forfeited its right to participate in the case because it changed its position and now argues that the provision is unconstitutional.

If the Supreme Court finds that it does not have the authority to hear the case, Windsor probably would still get her refund because she won in the lower courts, but there would be no definitive decision about the law from the nation's highest court and it would remain on the books. It is possible the court could leave in place appeals court rulings covering seven states with same-sex marriage: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.

___

Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter: http://twitter.com/shermancourt

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-range-options-gay-marriage-071707199.html

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Funeral plans set for James Gandolfini

Concert goers display a photo of actor James Gandolfini during Day 2 of the Firefly Music Festival at The Woodlands on Saturday, June 22, 2013 in Dover, Del. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP)

Concert goers display a photo of actor James Gandolfini during Day 2 of the Firefly Music Festival at The Woodlands on Saturday, June 22, 2013 in Dover, Del. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Funeral services for actor James Gandolfini will be Thursday at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in New York City.

An HBO spokeswoman speaking on behalf of the family says the funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m.

The 51-year-old star of "The Sopranos" died Wednesday in Rome. Family spokesman Michael says Gandolfini died of a heart attack.

The Italian news agency ANSA reports Gandolfini's body departed Rome for the United States on Sunday. Kobold earlier told reporters the "provisional plan" was to repatriate Gandolfini's body Monday.

The actor had been headed to Sicily to appear at the Taormina Film Festival, which paid tribute to him Saturday.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-06-23-James%20Gandolfini/id-336433d33fc74ce790a84f59d9cdf016

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Duke Ellington: Jack The Bear

This is gonna be a classy Friday night. You don't have to groove to Duke Ellington all the time, but when you do you should turn on Jack The Bear. This chart showcases Jimmy Blanton (Jack the bear...get it?), a bassist who at 22 brought the band to a new level in the early 1940s. Even if you hate 32-bar form and blues choruses, or you think pretentious nonsense is happening right now, listen to the end of the track for the bass solo. That's what it sounds like when someone nails it. [Amazon, iTunes, Spotify]

Read more...

    


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/v6Sk5Qrk7hs/duke-ellington-jack-the-bear-536409718

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শনিবার, ২২ জুন, ২০১৩

Snowden in a 'safe place' as U.S. prepares to seek extradition

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Edward Snowden was in a "safe place" in Hong Kong, a newspaper reported on Saturday, as the United States prepared to seek the extradition of the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor after filing espionage charges against him.

The South China Morning Post said Snowden, who has exposed secret U.S. surveillance programs including new details published on Saturday about alleged hacking of Chinese phone companies, was not in police protection in Hong Kong, as had been reported elsewhere.

"Contrary to some reports, the former CIA analyst has not been detained, is not under police protection but is in a 'safe place' in Hong Kong," the newspaper said.

Hong Kong Police Commissioner Andy Tsang declined to comment other than to say Hong Kong would deal with the case in accordance with the law.

Two U.S. sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States was preparing to seek Snowden's extradition from Hong Kong, which is part of China but has wide-ranging autonomy, including an independent judiciary.

The United States charged Snowden with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person, according to the criminal complaint made public on Friday.

The latter two offenses fall under the U.S. Espionage Act and carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

America's use of the Espionage Act against Snowden has fueled debate among legal experts about whether that could complicate his extradition, since Hong Kong courts may choose to shield him.

Snowden says he leaked the details of the classified U.S. surveillance to expose abusive programs that trampled on citizens' rights.

Documents leaked by Snowden revealed that the NSA has access to vast amounts of internet data such as emails, chat rooms and video from large companies such as Facebook and Google, under a government program known as Prism.

They also showed that the government had worked through the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to gather so-called metadata - such as the time, duration and telephone numbers called - on all calls carried by service providers such as Verizon.

On Friday, the Guardian newspaper, citing documents shared by Snowden, said Britain's spy agency GCHQ had tapped fiber-optic cables that carry international phone and internet traffic and is sharing vast quantities of personal information with the NSA. [ID:nL5N0EX3JA]

STEALING DATA

The South China Morning Post said on Saturday that Snowden offered new details on U.S. surveillance activities in China.

The paper said documents and statements by Snowden show the NSA program had hacked major Chinese telecoms companies to access text messages and targeted China's top Tsinghua University.

The NSA program also hacked the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which has an extensive fiber-optic network, it said.

"The NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data," Snowden was quoted by the Post as saying during a June 12 interview.

President Barack Obama and his intelligence chiefs have vigorously defended the programs, saying they are regulated by law and that Congress was notified. They say the programs have been used to thwart militant plots and do not target Americans' personal lives.

Since making his revelations about massive U.S. surveillance programs, Edward Snowden, 30, has sought legal representation from human rights lawyers as he prepares to fight U.S. attempts to force him home for trial, sources in Hong Kong say.

The United States and Hong Kong signed an extradition treaty in 1998, under which scores of Americans have been sent back home to face trial.

The United States and Hong Kong have "excellent cooperation" and as a result of agreements, "there is an active extradition relationship between Hong Kong and the United States," a U.S. law enforcement official told Reuters.

However, the process can take years, lawyers say, and Snowden's case could be particularly complex.

An Icelandic businessman linked to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said on Thursday he had readied a private plane in China to fly Snowden to Iceland if Iceland's government would grant asylum.

Iceland refused on Friday to say whether it would grant asylum to Snowden.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by James Pomfret, Venus Wu and Grace Li in HONG KONG, Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball in WASHINGTON; Editing by Eric Beech)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-files-espionage-charges-against-snowden-over-leaks-015108216.html

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Interview: what leaders of defunct 'gay conversion' group are planning

Leaders of Exodus International, which announced it is closing this week, are starting a new group aimed at finding common ground within conservative churches and fostering acceptance of all sexual orientations.?

By Linda Feldmann,?Staff writer / June 22, 2013

Exodus International, a longtime leader in the Christian "gay conversion therapy" movement, is closing its doors, having concluded that trying to counsel people out of same-sex attractions doesn?t work and can do grave harm. The group?s president, Alan Chambers, issued a lengthy apology this week at the organization?s final conference.

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But the debate within the conservative Christian world over homosexuality is far from over, and it may well get sharper as the politics of gay rights ? especially gay marriage ? intensifies.?

Most of Exodus?s affiliates had already left before Mr. Chambers?s announcement and are expected to keep doing conversion therapy. A new umbrella group is already in place, the Restored Hope Network, which its website says is ?dedicated to restoring hope to those broken by sexual and relational sin, especially those impacted by homosexuality.? On Friday and Saturday, the group is having its first annual conference in Oklahoma City.

But some of Exodus?s leaders aren?t going away. They?re planning a new endeavor that they say accepts people as they are ? a reflection of changing views, particularly among younger Evangelicals, toward homosexuality and gay rights.

In interviews with the Monitor, two of Exodus?s leaders spoke of their own experiences with same-sex attraction, their abiding religious faith, and how they hope to find common ground in addressing social problems.

?Exodus has been a lightning rod ministry, and it?s been really one side of a debate, a raging debate, on issues related to sexuality,? says Chambers, speaking on the phone from his conference in Irvine, Calif.

?Our desire in the church is to be people of peace and to be known by our ability to be in relationship with and have conversations with all different types of people. And so we want to create opportunities and conferences and spaces where people can come together who have different opinions, and different worldviews, to talk about really complex issues.?

By ?church,? he says, he means the ?global? Christian church, not any particular denomination. His new, as-yet-unnamed, endeavor ?will be rooted in a desire to ?reduce fear,? he says. The website, still under construction, is ReduceFear.org.

Chambers hopes that people of faith, regardless of sexual orientation, can come together for the common good to combat social ills such as bullying. ?

"We?ve got to get to a different place in our culture than we are at today, certainly within the church,? he says. ?There are gay and lesbian people who are in the church, and there are people who have very different beliefs about that who are in the church.?

But he tries to steer clear of politics and has no position on same-sex marriage, saying it?s a ?distraction to the people we minister to.? ?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/-5wLYwvbU2s/Interview-what-leaders-of-defunct-gay-conversion-group-are-planning

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Graphene-based system could lead to improved information processing

June 21, 2013 ? Researchers at MIT have proposed a new system that combines ferroelectric materials -- the kind often used for data storage -- with graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon known for its exceptional electronic and mechanical properties. The resulting hybrid technology could eventually lead to computer and data-storage chips that pack more components in a given area and are faster and less power-hungry.

The new system works by controlling waves called surface plasmons. These waves are oscillations of electrons confined at interfaces between materials; in the new system the waves operate at terahertz frequencies. Such frequencies lie between those of far-infrared light and microwave radio transmissions, and are considered ideal for next-generation computing devices.

The findings were reported in a paper in Applied Physics Letters by associate professor of mechanical engineering Nicholas Fang, postdoc Dafei Jin and three others.

The system would provide a new way to construct interconnected devices that use light waves, such as fiber-optic cables and photonic chips, with electronic wires and devices. Currently, such interconnection points often form a bottleneck that slows the transfer of data and adds to the number of components needed.

The team's new system allows waves to be concentrated at much smaller length scales, which could lead to a tenfold gain in the density of components that could be placed in a given area of a chip, Fang says.

The team's initial proof-of-concept device uses a small piece of graphene sandwiched between two layers of the ferroelectric material to make simple, switchable plasmonic waveguides. This work used lithium niobate, but many other such materials could be used, the researchers say.

Light can be confined in these waveguides down to one part in a few hundreds of the free-space wavelength, Jin says, which represents an order-of-magnitude improvement over any comparable waveguide system. "This opens up exciting areas for transmitting and processing optical signals," he says.

Moreover, the work may provide a new way to read and write electronic data into ferroelectric memory devices at very high speed, the MIT researchers say.

Dimitri Basov, a professor of physics at the University of California at San Diego who was not connected with this research, says the MIT team "proposed a very interesting plasmonic structure, suitable for operation in the technologically significant [terahertz] range. ? I am confident that many research groups will try to implement these devices."

Basov cautions, however, "The key issue, as in all of plasmonics, is losses. Losses need to be thoroughly explored and understood."

In addition to Fang and Jin, the research was carried out by graduate student Anshuman Kumar, former postdoc Kin Hung Fung (now at Hong Kong Polytechnic University), and research scientist Jun Xu. It was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/4eQl1-5Fu_M/130621095620.htm

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TuneWiki social music player to shut down on June 28th

TuneWiki social music player shutting down on June 28th

If you've been interested in social music listening, there's a good chance you've heard of TuneWiki's lyric syncing and discovery services. Unfortunately, you won't be hearing about them for much longer -- the company is shutting down on June 28th. The firm hasn't explained its decision, but we wouldn't count on any content working after the cutoff date. We've reached out for more details; for now, the only certainty is that lyric lovers will have to scramble for alternatives.

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Via: The Next Web

Source: TuneWiki

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/21/tunewiki-social-music-player-to-shut-down-on-june-28th/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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In Syrian chemical weapons claim, criticism about lack of transparency (Washington Post)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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Why Ocean Fertilization Could Actually Hurt Marine Health

Well, isn't this iron-ic: Putting iron into ocean waters to stimulate the uptake of carbon dioxide?a geoengineering scheme that?s been investigated for its potential to help combat global warming?may have unintended consequences that could limit its effectiveness, if not render it counterproductive.

A recent study published this month in the journal, Nature Communications, found that the outer shells of diatoms, a widespread type of algae, contain much higher levels of iron than previously documented.

They could act to "hog" iron in sea water, leaving less of it for other types of algae, according to Julia Diaz, a study co-author and researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. ?


The idea behind ocean fertilization is relatively simple: put iron into the ocean, and let the algae bloom. This purposeful introduction of nutrients is, in theory, supposed to increase marine food production and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. After the bloom, the algae die and take their carbon with them to the bottom of the ocean, where it may remain for eons, not adding to the greenhouse effect.

But it's a bit more complicated than that, according to Diaz. The study looked at the levels of iron in diatoms collected from the Southern Ocean, finding significant and surprising levels of the metal. Diatoms have been found to be more plentiful after ocean fertilization experiments, meaning they could be taking up this excess iron.

"If that's the case, that makes that iron unavailable to other organisms," Diaz tells TakePart. "And those other organisms may be more capable of drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."

While it's a bit of a stretch to suggest the ocean fertilization may release carbon dioxide in certain circumstances, it's not impossible. The ocean relies on a balance of phytoplankton, tiny-plant like cells that harness carbon dioxide, and bacteria than can eat these plants and release the gas.


Nobody knows exactly how ocean fertilization may affect this balance in the future. This study suggests that diatoms' ability to "hog" the carbon dioxide is one more complicating factor.

"It's not clear what the long-term effects of iron fertilization would be," Diaz says. "We don't know what to expect. It could be dangerous?it might not do what we want it to do."

Government-backed programs have tested ocean fertilization a handful of times in the past. Like most geoengineering solutions, it's generally regarded by scientists as unpredictable, and unwise to be implemented without further testing, if at all.

Last summer, a group dumped one hundred metric tons of iron dust into the ocean off the coast of British Columbia. The action led to an algae bloom, and prompted international backlash and condemnation against them for using an unproven method on an already fragile ocean.

The CEO of the company that conducted the "experiment," the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, was fired last month. But the company said that it still supports the concept for its potential to feed salmon and sequester carbon.

Are you sold on the potential benefits of ocean fertilization, or do you think it's too experimental? Let us know in the Comments.


Related stories on TakePart:

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/why-ocean-fertilization-could-actually-hurt-marine-health-154849777.html

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শুক্রবার, ২১ জুন, ২০১৩

Watch Randy Couture sing ?Livin? on a Prayer?

Yes, you are watching Randy Couture sing a mellowed-down version of the Bon Jovi classic "Livin' on a Prayer." The same Randy Couture who was a champion in two weight classes in the UFC. The same Randy Couture who served in the Army, was an Olympic alternate for Greco-Roman wrestling, and has coached several high-level fights. The Randy Couture who is now starring on Spike's "Fight Master?" Yep, that's the Randy Couture who is serenading you at this moment.

"The Natural" is a man of many talents.

Thanks, Tracy Lee.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/watch-randy-couture-sing-livin-prayer-133621162.html

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Shooting Challenge: Rust

Shooting Challenge: Rust

Rust. It's the product of metal oxidation, which we interpret as everything from a ruined car to a highly sought antique patina. And for this week's Shooting Challenge, you'll capture the beauty (or horror) of rust.

Read more...

    


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/fmewmRxYYdk/shooting-challenge-rust-514261946

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AP PHOTOS: Protesters in Brazil vow further action

AAA??Jun. 20, 2013?10:50 AM ET
AP PHOTOS: Protesters in Brazil vow further action
By The Associated Press?THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES?By The Associated Press

FILE - This June 17, 2013 photo, a demonstrator holds a Brazilian flag in front of a burning barricade during a protest in Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Protesters massed in at least seven Brazilian cities for another round of demonstrations voicing disgruntlement about life in the country, raising questions about security during big events like the current Confederations Cup and a papal visit next month. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

FILE - This June 17, 2013 photo, a demonstrator holds a Brazilian flag in front of a burning barricade during a protest in Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Protesters massed in at least seven Brazilian cities for another round of demonstrations voicing disgruntlement about life in the country, raising questions about security during big events like the current Confederations Cup and a papal visit next month. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

FILE - This June 17, 2013 photo, protestors are reflected on the glass of a building, left, as they march in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Protests in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian cities, set off by a 10-cent hike in public transport fares, have clearly moved beyond that issue to tap into widespread frustration in Brazil about a heavy tax burden, politicians widely viewed as corrupt and woeful public education, health and transport systems and come as the nation hosts the Confederations Cup soccer tournament and prepares for next month's papal visit. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

FILE - This June 19, 2013 photo, a protestor uses a cardboard box as a shield against rubber bullets during clashes with riot police near the Castelao stadium in Fortaleza, Brazil. Protesters cut off the main access road to the stadium where Brazil goes up against Mexico in the Confederations Cup soccer tournament. Beginning as protests against bus fare hikes, demonstrations have quickly ballooned to include broad middle-class outrage over the failure of governments to provide basic services and ensure public safety. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)

FILE - This June 19, 2013 photo, a protestor takes aim with a bottle at riot police as others take cover near the Castelao stadium in Fortaleza, Brazil. Street demonstrations resumed around Brazil Wednesday as protesters continued their collective cry against the low-quality public services they receive in exchange for high taxes and high prices. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)

FILE - This June 19, 2013 photo, a masked protester walks away from a burning barricade near the Castelao stadium in Fortaleza, Brazil. Protesters cut off the main access road to the stadium where Brazil plays Mexico in the Confederations Cup soccer tournament later Wednesday. Beginning as protests against bus fare hikes, the demonstrations have quickly ballooned to include broad middle-class outrage over the failure of governments to provide basic services and ensure public safety. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)

Protests that began as an outcry against a 10-cent hike in bus and subway fares in Brazil's largest cities haven't ended with Wednesday's announcement that the increases would be rescinded. Protest organizers have called for mass demonstrations on Thursday in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, as people express frustration with corruption and what they say are high taxes and poor public services. Brazil will host the 2014 World Cup, but protesters say that the billions now spent on soccer stadiums would be better used for education, health and public safety.

President Dilma Rousseff has praised protesters for strengthening democracy in Brazil, where mass protests are rare. But police have responded to them with tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets.

Here's a gallery of images from the past week of protests.

Follow AP photographers and photo editors on Twitter: http://apne.ws/15Oo6jo

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-20-AP-Brazil-Protests-Photo-Gallery/id-f915afbccaab454188f944a25eff3002

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বুধবার, ১৯ জুন, ২০১৩

3-D Printer Brings Dexterity To Children With No Fingers

  • Hide caption

    One version of the Robohand includes 3-D printed parts assembled with metal hardware. New parts can be easily "printed" as the child grows.

    Courtesy of Makerbot

  • Hide caption

    Ivan Owen, a special effects artist in Bellingham, Wash., creates large mechanical hands. He is also one of the creators of the Robohand.

    Cindy Carpien/NPR

  • Hide caption

    Richard Van As, a South African carpenter who lost a portion of his hand in an accident, assembles a Robohand and fits it to Liam Dippenaar. Liam was born without fingers on his right hand.

    Courtesy of Makerbot

  • Hide caption

    Makerbot's 3-D printer can be used to make the parts for the Robohand.

    Courtesy of Jen Owen of Jen Martin Studios

  • Hide caption

    Leon McCarthy, 12, does not have fingers on his left hand. He used a Robohand at school for the first time last month.

    Courtesy of Paul McCarthy

  • Hide caption

    The newest version of the Robohand is made of snap-together parts.

    Courtesy of Jen Owen of Jen Martin Studios

Richard Van As was working in his home near Johannesburg, South Africa, in May of 2011, when he lost control of his table saw.

"It's a possibility that it was a lack of concentration," he says. "It's just that the inevitable happened."

The carpenter lost two fingers and mangled two more on his right hand. While still in the hospital, he was determined to find a way to get back to work. Eventually, solving his own problem led him to work with a stranger on the other side of the world to create a mechanical hand using a 3-D printer. Other prosthetics, including a lower jaw, have been made with the technology before, but making a hand is particularly tricky.

As soon as he got out of the hospital, Van As began researching prosthetics online. They cost thousands of dollars ? money he didn't have.

So in the meantime, he rigged up an artificial index finger for his right hand with materials from his shop. But he kept looking for help or a collaborator ? someone who could help him fix his hand.

In time, Van As came across a YouTube video from Ivan Owen. In the video, Owen, a special effects artist and puppeteer in Bellingham, Wash., was demonstrating one of his creations, a big puppet hand that relies on thin steel cables to act like tendons, allowing the metal digits to bend.

"The complexity of the human hand has always fascinated me [and] really captured my imagination," Owen says.

The two began working together long distance ? Skyping, sharing ideas, even sending parts back and forth. Finally, Owen flew to South Africa to finish the work in person with Van As. And today, Van As has a working mechanical finger to assist him with his work.

? He bent his wrist and made the fingers curl. You could see the light bulbs go off and he looked up and said, 'It copies me.' It was really an incredible moment.

But something else happened on Owen's visit to South Africa: While he was there, Van As received a call from a woman seeking help for her 5-year-old son, Liam Dippenaar, who was born without fingers on his right hand. The cause was a rare congenital condition called amniotic band syndrome. In ABS, fibrous bands can wrap around a hand or a foot in utero and cut off circulation.

Van As says he and Owen looked at each other and were of one mind: " 'Yeah, easy, no problem.' "

Within days, they developed a crude, mechanical hand for Liam, with five aluminum fingers that opened and closed with the up and down movement of Liam's wrist. Owen still remembers the 5-year-old's reaction when they rigged up the device for the first time.

"He bent his wrist and made the fingers curl," Owen says. "You could see the light bulbs go off and he looked up and said, 'It copies me.' It was really an incredible moment."

YouTube

Liam Dippenaar, born without fingers on his right hand, practices using his Robohand. He has gone from a crude hand to an improved 3-D printed version.

When Owen flew back to the United States, he wondered if the device could be turned into printable parts.

So he emailed MakerBot, a firm that makes 3-D printing equipment, to see if the company would help out. It did, offering both Owen and Van As a free 3-D printer. "Then there was no stopping us," Van As says.

What had previously taken the pair a week's time or more ? milling finger pieces, adjusting and tweaking parts ? now took 20 minutes to redesign, print and test.

Eventually, Liam's crude hand was replaced with the improved 3-D-printed version, which Van As and Owen call "Robohand."

"After practicing with it for a little while, Liam was able to pick up a coin, grab objects of different shapes and sizes," Owen says. "He's a really determined little guy."

They posted the design and instructions for Robohand on Thingiverse, a website for sharing digital designs. Anyone can download the plans and ? with a 3-D printer and about $150 in parts ? make a hand.

Videographer Paul McCarthy and his 12-year-old son, Leon, live in Marblehead, Mass. They discovered Robohand on the Web and decided to make one for Leon, who was born with no fingers on his left hand. Printing the parts (using a friend's borrowed 3-D printer) was easy, the two say. But it took them a month to figure out how to string, screw and bolt together what they describe as the "Frankenstein" version. It's still a work in progress, they say, but several weeks ago, Leon wore it to school for a tryout.

"I'm able to hold a pencil and piece of paper," Leon says. "I've done a lot more than I ever thought I could, so it's opened up a lot of new doors in my life."

Paul McCarthy says there were few options for his son. The doctor's advice when Leon was very young was to get used to using his hand without prosthetics and try to acquire a full range of abilities and motion. Leon should first learn to navigate the world relying on his one fully functioning hand and the partial dexterity of his other hand, the doctor advised.

"So the last time we went to visit his hand doctor, he recommended maybe we could start looking for prosthetics," Paul McCarthy says.

And that's when father and son found the YouTube videos of little Liam in South Africa.

So far, in addition to his work as a carpenter, Van As has fitted more than 100 children with Robohands. He doesn't charge anything ? not even for the parts ? but he does want to train others to learn how to assemble the devices and properly fit kids with them.

? The timeliness of this technology couldn't be better.

To do that, he's raised some money, and with more people helping, more people will get hands, he says.

Like Leon McCarthy.

"Leon came bouncing out of school with this biggest smile," Paul McCarthy remembers. He remembers Leon saying: "Look, it's working, the Frankenstein hand is functioning! I am holding my lunch bag."

But getting the fit just right was hard for McCarthy and his son, and experts in prosthetics say users are bound to have these kind of challenges.

Matthew Garibaldi, director of orthotics and prosthetics in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, says that making sure a prosthetic device fits is essential for it to work well.

And there are limited options for pediatric prosthetics, Garibaldi says, because there aren't many kids with upper-extremity amputations. That's one reason a device like Robohand is so appealing, he says. "Its primary function is to decrease manufacturing costs and increase productivity."

"The timeliness of this technology couldn't be better," Garibaldi says.

And the world of 3-D printing is moving quickly. A new version of Robohand is now available ? it's designed to snap together like Legos. Materials for this version will cost just $5.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/06/18/191279201/3-d-printer-brings-dexterity-to-children-with-no-fingers?ft=1&f=1007

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Chemical probe confirms that body makes its own rotten egg gas, H2S, to benefit health

Chemical probe confirms that body makes its own rotten egg gas, H2S, to benefit health [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 18-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Margaret Allen
mallen@smu.edu
214-768-7664
Southern Methodist University

Chemists develop chemical probe to help scientists study mechanics of critical signaling molecules, such as H2S, and to study how hydrogen sulfide benefits cardiovascular health

A new study confirms directly what scientists previously knew only indirectly: The poisonous "rotten egg" gas hydrogen sulfide is generated by our body's growing cells.

Hydrogen sulfide, or H2S, is normally toxic, but in small amounts it plays a role in cardiovascular health.

In the new study, chemists developed a chemical probe that reacts and lights up when live human cells generate hydrogen sulfide, says chemist Alexander R. Lippert, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. The discovery allows researchers to observe the process through a microscope.

The researchers captured on video the successful chemical probe at work, said Lippert, an assistant professor in SMU's Department of Chemistry.

"We made a molecular probe that, when it reacts with hydrogen sulfide, forms a fluorescent compound that can be visualized using fluorescence microscopy," Lippert said. "This is the first time that endogenously generated hydrogen sulfide has been directly visualized in a living system. This confirms a lot of hypotheses that scientists have, but no one had the tools to directly detect it in real time."

H2S is one of several small gaseous molecules increasingly recognized as key signaling molecules in the body. For example, H2S helps reduce high blood pressure. Scientists discovered in the past decade that cells in the human body generate small quantities of H2S molecules, which in turn deliver information to proteins. The proteins act on the information to perform critical functions in the body.

Previously, scientists couldn't observe H2S being generated in live cells. As a result, researchers faced challenges when studying hydrogen sulfide in living systems, Lippert said. The new discovery now provides a tool to view directly how and when hydrogen sulfide is generated, he said. Lippert and study co-author chemist Vivian S. Lin made the discovery.

"Having the tools to do this in living systems is going to open up a lot of possibilities and experiments for scientists," Lippert said. "As a tool, this will allow researchers to ask questions that weren't possible before."

Lippert's real-time video features live human cells, taken from the lining of blood vessels and treated with the chemical probe and with a protein known to promote cell growth. Once the cells start generating H2S, they behave like squiggly fluorescent green worms. Lippert discusses the discovery in a video at http://bit.ly/15ghBDs, which includes the video capture of H2S being generated.

The researchers' scientific article, "Cell-trappable fluorescent probes for endogenous hydrogen sulfide signaling and imaging H2O2 -dependent H2S production," was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lippert and Lin authored the research with Christopher J. Chang, principal investigator. Lin is a PhD candidate at the University of California at Berkeley. Chang is with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California at Berkeley. Lippert and Lin carried out the research in Chang's UC Berkeley laboratory.

Discovery can help scientists attack diseases such as cancer

H2S along with nitric oxide, carbon monoxide and others in this emerging class of gaseous signaling molecules assists the body's large proteins.

Large proteins do much of the functional work in the body, such as digesting the food we eat and harnessing the energy in the oxygen we breathe. Their size, however, forces them to move slowly inside the cell. In contrast, H2S and other small gaseous molecules diffuse quickly and easily across cellular membranes, enabling them to travel much faster and rapidly deliver information that mediates critical functions, such as blood pressure regulation, Lippert said.

For their experiments, Lippert and Lin placed living endothelial cells cultured from the internal lining of a blood vessel into a petri dish under a microscope.

Lippert and Lin then added a chemical solution containing an azide-functionalized organic molecule that they'd synthesized to act as a molecular probe. They gave the cells time to absorb the probe, then added a protein solution known to stimulate blood vessel formation. As the cells initiated blood vessel formation, H2S was generated. In reaction, the scientists observed a steady increase in the probe's fluorescence.

"Essentially we're observing the initial events that lead to the building of new blood vessels, a process that's active in babies as they develop, or in women during their menstruation cycles," Lippert said. "We see the cells get really bright as they start moving around and ruffling their membranes. That's the H2S being formed. In the control group, which weren't stimulated with the growth protein, they don't get any brighter and they don't move around."

The discovery provides new insights that can help scientists attack diseases, such as cancer, by starving the nutrient supply to a tumor, Lippert said.

"When tumors grow they need a lot of blood support because they need the nutrients to support their rapid growth," he said. "If you can stop blood vessel formation you could starve the tumor and the tumor will die. So inhibiting H2S formation might be a way to treat cancer using this method."

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Chemical probe confirms that body makes its own rotten egg gas, H2S, to benefit health [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 18-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Margaret Allen
mallen@smu.edu
214-768-7664
Southern Methodist University

Chemists develop chemical probe to help scientists study mechanics of critical signaling molecules, such as H2S, and to study how hydrogen sulfide benefits cardiovascular health

A new study confirms directly what scientists previously knew only indirectly: The poisonous "rotten egg" gas hydrogen sulfide is generated by our body's growing cells.

Hydrogen sulfide, or H2S, is normally toxic, but in small amounts it plays a role in cardiovascular health.

In the new study, chemists developed a chemical probe that reacts and lights up when live human cells generate hydrogen sulfide, says chemist Alexander R. Lippert, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. The discovery allows researchers to observe the process through a microscope.

The researchers captured on video the successful chemical probe at work, said Lippert, an assistant professor in SMU's Department of Chemistry.

"We made a molecular probe that, when it reacts with hydrogen sulfide, forms a fluorescent compound that can be visualized using fluorescence microscopy," Lippert said. "This is the first time that endogenously generated hydrogen sulfide has been directly visualized in a living system. This confirms a lot of hypotheses that scientists have, but no one had the tools to directly detect it in real time."

H2S is one of several small gaseous molecules increasingly recognized as key signaling molecules in the body. For example, H2S helps reduce high blood pressure. Scientists discovered in the past decade that cells in the human body generate small quantities of H2S molecules, which in turn deliver information to proteins. The proteins act on the information to perform critical functions in the body.

Previously, scientists couldn't observe H2S being generated in live cells. As a result, researchers faced challenges when studying hydrogen sulfide in living systems, Lippert said. The new discovery now provides a tool to view directly how and when hydrogen sulfide is generated, he said. Lippert and study co-author chemist Vivian S. Lin made the discovery.

"Having the tools to do this in living systems is going to open up a lot of possibilities and experiments for scientists," Lippert said. "As a tool, this will allow researchers to ask questions that weren't possible before."

Lippert's real-time video features live human cells, taken from the lining of blood vessels and treated with the chemical probe and with a protein known to promote cell growth. Once the cells start generating H2S, they behave like squiggly fluorescent green worms. Lippert discusses the discovery in a video at http://bit.ly/15ghBDs, which includes the video capture of H2S being generated.

The researchers' scientific article, "Cell-trappable fluorescent probes for endogenous hydrogen sulfide signaling and imaging H2O2 -dependent H2S production," was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lippert and Lin authored the research with Christopher J. Chang, principal investigator. Lin is a PhD candidate at the University of California at Berkeley. Chang is with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California at Berkeley. Lippert and Lin carried out the research in Chang's UC Berkeley laboratory.

Discovery can help scientists attack diseases such as cancer

H2S along with nitric oxide, carbon monoxide and others in this emerging class of gaseous signaling molecules assists the body's large proteins.

Large proteins do much of the functional work in the body, such as digesting the food we eat and harnessing the energy in the oxygen we breathe. Their size, however, forces them to move slowly inside the cell. In contrast, H2S and other small gaseous molecules diffuse quickly and easily across cellular membranes, enabling them to travel much faster and rapidly deliver information that mediates critical functions, such as blood pressure regulation, Lippert said.

For their experiments, Lippert and Lin placed living endothelial cells cultured from the internal lining of a blood vessel into a petri dish under a microscope.

Lippert and Lin then added a chemical solution containing an azide-functionalized organic molecule that they'd synthesized to act as a molecular probe. They gave the cells time to absorb the probe, then added a protein solution known to stimulate blood vessel formation. As the cells initiated blood vessel formation, H2S was generated. In reaction, the scientists observed a steady increase in the probe's fluorescence.

"Essentially we're observing the initial events that lead to the building of new blood vessels, a process that's active in babies as they develop, or in women during their menstruation cycles," Lippert said. "We see the cells get really bright as they start moving around and ruffling their membranes. That's the H2S being formed. In the control group, which weren't stimulated with the growth protein, they don't get any brighter and they don't move around."

The discovery provides new insights that can help scientists attack diseases, such as cancer, by starving the nutrient supply to a tumor, Lippert said.

"When tumors grow they need a lot of blood support because they need the nutrients to support their rapid growth," he said. "If you can stop blood vessel formation you could starve the tumor and the tumor will die. So inhibiting H2S formation might be a way to treat cancer using this method."

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/smu-cpc061813.php

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Robotic cat could be future of search-and-rescue missions

Researchers have?invented a fast, cat-like robot that could be a prototype for fleet-footed search-and-rescue robots.

By Elizabeth Barber,?Contributor / June 17, 2013

Thanks to the design of its legs, which faithfully mimic feline morphology, EPFL's four-legged 'cheetah-cub robot' shares the advantages of its biological model: it is small, light and runs very fast. In the long term, this type of machine, which is still in an experimental stage, could be used in search-and-rescue missions or for exploration.

This cat will always land on it's feet ? or so researchers hope.?

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Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (Biorob) have invented a robot that moves like a housecat and that could be a prototype for nimble search-and-rescue robots.

The new robot, called the ?cheetah-cub robot,? has been modeled on the feline leg, with three segments on each of the four legs, in the same proportions as they are on a real housecat. Springs are have been used in the robot in place of a cat?s tendons and small motors have replaced the animal?s muscles. It doesn?t have a head, however, so,?as it toddles around on a leash, it has the look of a mutant spider, but challenged in the leg department.

?This morphology gives the robot the mechanical properties from which cats benefit, that?s to say a marked running ability and elasticity in the right spots, to ensure stability,? said Alexander Sprowitz, a Biorob scientist, in a press release. ?The robot is thus naturally more autonomous.?

Clocking in at speeds of up to 3.1 miles per hour, the cat can travel seven times the length of its body each second. That makes the robot much slower than the common housecat, which can move about 29 body lengths per second, but still the fastest of all robots its size.

The new robot is not only fast ? it?s also light and stable, and researchers hope that later versions will go on to be used in exploration and search-and-rescue missions.

?It?s still in the experimental stages, but the long-term goal of the cheetah-cub robot is to be able to develop fast,?agile, ground-hugging machines for use in exploration, for example for search and rescue in natural disaster situations,? said Biorob director Auke Ijspeert, in a press release. ?Studying and using the principles of the animal kingdom to develop new solutions for use in robots is the essence of our research.?

This is not the first time that animals have served as inspiration for agile robots. Earlier this month, researchers at Carnegie Mellon developed a snake-like robot that might also eventually be used in search-and-rescue missions. Cats, too, are a popular basis for robotic invention.? Last month, MIT scientists debuted a cheetah-like robot that can reach speeds of 13.7 miles per hour ? when stabilized with parallel support bars and running on a treadmill. Good news, for those of us needing rescuing from our treadmills.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/kB7lcnydEmY/Robotic-cat-could-be-future-of-search-and-rescue-missions

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