What is the optimal correlation between Arieseni, Alba, Romania and New York,NY, USA?

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What is the optimal correlation between Arieseni, Alba, Romania and New York,NY, USA?

Silence !

or "The map is not the territory."

In the New Year Eve, at Arieseni, Alba, Romania, 1982, an well educated physician from Cluj, bring in our attention at every half hour one word: Silence ! Of course standing up on the table full of food and alcoholic beverages, including rose champagne, that's an another story, hardly yielding in order to cover some Beatles or ABA music at maximal level for that time. His hard working lesson, ended for him at 5 0'klock in the morning landing on the floor and remain there,have a strange end for me now, here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, after Obama visit, the city was incredibly quiet.

Now Don’t Hear This

The old idea of quiet zones around hospitals has found new validation in studies linking silence and healing. These are macro benefits, but often silence feels good on a purely animal level.
These problems are everywhere, but can be especially acute in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Too many people think of silence only in terms of “being silenced,” of suppressing truth. In consequence, silence itself is now often suppressed.
Another report a 50 percent drop in their general noise annoyance levels if residential buildings have a quiet side. These modest sanctuaries can provide at least a taste of silence, which is then recognized not to be silence at all, but the sounds of the larger world we inhabit: birdsong and footsteps, water, voices and wind.
Even a little bit of silence can create a sense of connection with our environment that diminishes alienation, and prompts a desire to discover more quiet.

Sleep

Another people goal is to educate Americans about the science and benefits of healthful sleep, and this, plus his title — senior director of sleep innovation and clinical research — makes him seem deliberately more man-of-science than mattress-salesman. The distinction is less clear-cut when it comes to the man himself.
For years, doctors have been discouraged by Americans’ disregard for and mismanagement of their sleep. Sleep may finally be claiming its place beside diet and exercise as both a critical health issue and a niche for profitable consumer products.
“The good news is, there’s more and more awareness about the power of a good night’s sleep,” says David Perry, bedding editor of the trade magazine Furniture Today.
The bad news: “What we’re doing in America is, we’re drugging people to make it through the night on, in many cases, a lousy bed.”

Underlying public attitudes about nuclear power is, if not fear, at least lingering anxiety. This is the industry that gave American English the all-purpose term for disaster, from the financial markets to a toddler’s tantrum: meltdown. The recent deaths of 29 coal miners in West Virginia, of six construction workers at a natural  gas plant in Connecticut in February and of five maintenance workers at a hydroelectric plant in Colorado in October 2007 have not shaken the popular conception that it is nuclear power that is dangerous. This seems to be true even as the meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, before many Americans living today were born, fades into memory.

“The nuclear industry is just so far removed from people’s lives, they don’t have much feeling for it,” said Baruch Fischhoff, a professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “They don’t really trust it. Although it hasn’t done anything recently to lose the general public’s trust, it hasn’t done anything to gain people’s trust.”

Among the elements of such calculations are whether Congress will pass legislation on carbon-dioxide emissions, which would help their project by handicapping the competition; the overall demand for power; and the price of natural gas, which is always volatile but has been especially low lately, partly because new drilling techniques have raised the amount of gas believed to be available.

... but the industry was dormant for so long that it hardly noticed that the new requirements exceeded its abilities. So Most such parts come from Japan Steel Works....For an American company to do the same would require an enormous capital investment.(Kyoto at work !)...he believed that business would continue to grow, but “at this point we’re not really sure what the winner is going to be at the end.”

“If you’re interested in investing in energy and water, you become interested in investing in agriculture,”
“Sustainable ag smells like clean tech, but it’s not so obscure that you’ve never heard of it but obscure enough there’s no competition,” said Ms. Yorio, who added that investors had approached her about bringing the Agriculture 2.0 conference to Canada, Europe and India.
...the challenge would be to build a Silicon Valley-style ecosystem around sustainable agriculture.

Instead of a stimulating cup of coffee, bracing dose of truth. “People have such very poor sense of time,”
Humans make errors. We make errors of fact and errors of judgment. We have blind spots in our field of vision and gaps in our stream of attention. Sometimes we can’t even answer the simplest questions. Where was I last week at this time? How long have I had this pain in my knee? How much money do I typically spend in a day? These weaknesses put us at a disadvantage. We make decisions with partial information. We are forced to steer by guesswork. We go with our gut.
That is, some of us do. Others use data.
Most thoughts are tagged with date, time and location. What for other people is an inchoate flow of mental life is broken up into elements and cross-referenced.
Charles Dickens was already making fun of this obsession in 1854, with his sketch of the fact-mad schoolmaster Gradgrind, who blasted his students with memorized trivia. But Dickens’s great caricature only proved the durability of the type. For another century and a half, it got worse.
If Isaac Newton weren't this kind of quantifier our culture would be quite stunted in our knowledge of physical phenomena and the rules that allow us to model and make predictions... A pity I can't make myself do this sort of thing. I recognize there is a correlation between weather, humidity, barometric pressure and the grind setting on my coffee grinder with regard to making an optimal espresso.
The trend that I see is man vs. machine and that over time we are becoming more like them; 24x7, quantitatively driven, etc. as the chip (computer brain) keeps doubling every 18 months over time this will only continue.
Isn't progress based on someone working in that area of the "known-unknown", where we know that we don't know?

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Electroreduction of Dioxygen for Fuel-Cell Applications: Materials and Challenges

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A review of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and its use in fuel-cell applications is presented. Discussed are mechanisms of the ORR and implementations of catalysts for this reaction. Specific catalysts discussed include nanoparticles, macrocycles and pyrolysis products, carbons, chalcogenides, enzymes, and coordination complexes. A prospectus for future efforts is provided.

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Toyota crisis puts spotlight on electronics - Autos- msnbc.com

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Toyota crisis puts spotlight on electronics - Autos- msnbc.com: "'Those are very hard to reproduce. The problem happens and you go back and check and it's not there. The normal tendency is to blame it on the driver and go on.'

And that's what Toyota did initially."

It's troubling not only for Toyota owners but for drivers of any modern car that's basically a computer on wheels.
Toyota, which until recently had a reputation for being high-quality and cutting-edge, began replacing mechanical accelerators with electrical ones starting with the Camry in 2002. Since the 2007 model year, all its cars have been equipped with the high-tech throttle.


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Missing button

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or "Toyota discovers the risks of flying by wire"

A friend of mine once had a Toyota that wouldn't die. ...

I think this is more than a retelling of the story of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. It also may be a Promethean tale of punishment for having stolen fire from the gods.

...Automobiles used to be mechanical devices. Now they are collections of mechanical parts that are told what to do by computers. In most cars, the gearshift, pedals and steering wheel are nothing more than proxies for electronic controls. When something goes wrong with a car, you don't start by opening the hood and unbolting pieces from the engine one at a time, the way we used to. You plug in a reader device and ask the vehicle what its problem is.

Sometimes you read...change the wire.
What if car is moving when something goes wrong with a car ? Well...any computerized truck have a little button namer "override". What for ? As a driver I have the decision on my hand, so. push that button and computer orders are ignored !
If your car have an acupuncture you ask the computer ?
In air you have a parachute. On land no way. Toyota forget the servo assisted steering lesson, if you lose the steering fluid you are able to change the direction, harder of course. And forget that speed of electronic devices, same for actions and malfunctions.
By by Volt & Co, flight by wire is to expensive.




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Australia

What do a stuffed Aborigine and the Queen have in common? The answer is Australia Day 1961.



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Lithium Ion Batteries

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Fabricating Genetically Engineered High-Power Lithium Ion Batteries Using Multiple Virus Genes
These authors contributed equally to this work.




Development of materials that deliver more energy at high charge/discharge rates is important for high power applications, including portable electronic devices and hybrid electric vehicles. Reducing materials dimensions for lithium ion batteries can boost Li+ ion and electron transfer in nanostructured electrodes. We developed a strategy for attaching electrochemically active materials to conducting carbon nanotubes networks through biological molecular recognition
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1171541



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Lights, Camera, Action

Romania ete ...!

Vive la Romania !
CANNES, France, May 27 -- The international critics corps can be a tough crowd (if they don't like a film here, they boo), but they mostly agreed that the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival presented an especially strong slate of movies. At the awards ceremony at the Palais on Sunday evening, the head of the jury, British director Stephen Frears ("The Queen"), praised the selections. "I am told by people who come every year that this was a terrific festival. Thank you. The films were a pleasure to watch." They were also tough to watch, with meditations and stories about evil, sickness and death -- but filled, too, with the triumph, or sometimes just the mere survival, of the human spirit.
And so it was no surprise that the top prize, the Palme d'Or, went to one of the darlings of the festival, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days," from Romanian director Cristian Mungiu. The film is set in 1987 Bucharest, during the waning years of the Soviet bloc. It tells the story of a college student who has an illegal abortion, her friend and the abortionist, who is also a rapist. Whew, no?

At the end of a long day in the lab, what we'd all like is an award-winning movie. What makes for a good movie? An engrossing story, deft cinematography, and an extraordinary ensemble of actors. Cannes do not offer something like that so back to nanotechnologies until Eurabians will grow up. The goal of single-molecule research is to produce a movie of the cell. Biochemistry and biophysics done in the test tube already provide an understanding of the dynamic behavior of molecules; from these studies, what goes on in cells, minute by minute or even second by second, can be inferred.
Ultimately, however, the goal is to film single molecules in single cells, focusing in closely enough not only to observe spatial and temporal characteristics but also to decipher molecular mechanisms. We're not there yet, but recent advances in single-molecule techniques bring us tantalizingly close to a molecule-scale movie of cellular life.Because cells are optically transparent, light microscopy is ideal for noninvasive imaging of cells in three dimensions. However, until recently, the resolution of lens-based optical microscopes was constrained by the diffraction barrier, which gave a resolution cutoff at half the wavelength of light. In his Review, Hell (p. 1153) discusses concepts that show how the diffraction barrier can be broken in fluorescence spectroscopy and how these techniques have been applied to achieve nanoscale resolution. His Review gives hope that real-time three-dimensional imaging of live cells with electron-microscopy resolution may not be too far away.
sciencemag
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Nanosensor

Molecular switches
The simplest active DNA nanostructures are switches or actuators that can be driven between two conformations. Motion is induced by changes in temperature or ionic conditions, or by the binding of a signalling molecule, often a DNA strand.

Conformation changes induced by changes in environment
Rotary motion can be produced by changing the twist of DNA. Double-stranded DNA with the sequence (CG)n can be flipped from the usual right-handed helix (B-DNA) to a left-handed conformation (Z-DNA). This transition is favoured by high salt concentrations and low temperatures13. One of the earliest nanomechanical DNA devices14 used this transition to change the angle between two rigid DNA tiles connected by a (CG)10 stem. Each tile carried a reporter fluorophore. Förster resonant energy transfer (FRET) between fluorophores allows sensitive measurement of their separation on a nanometre length scale: the efficiency of energy transfer, mediated by a dipole - dipole interaction, scales as the inverse sixth power of their separation15. When the B - Z transition was induced by an increase in ionic strength, FRET measurements showed an increase in the separation between the fluorophores consistent with the expected relative rotation of the tiles by 3.5 turns.

Yang and co-workers converted changes in the twist of DNA into linear motion16. Their device consisted of a closed loop of double-stranded DNA attached to opposite arms of a four-arm Holliday junction (Box 1)17. A Holliday junction can migrate (isomerize) by breaking identical base pairs in one pair of opposite arms and remaking them in the other pair. A change in the conformation of the DNA within the loop was initiated by adding ethidium bromide: this intercalating dye binds between adjacent base pairs, lengthening and partially unwinding the double helix. The resulting stress was relieved by junction migration: by shortening the protruding arms of the junction the loop was allowed to lengthen without changing the total number of twists within it.

Environmentally driven changes in the conformation of single-stranded DNA can induce linear motion. Under slightly acidic conditions, a single strand with appropriately spaced cytosine bases folds into an i-motif " a compact three-dimensional structure that is held together by cytosine-protonated-cytosine base pairs18. In the presence of a near-complementary strand of DNA there is competition between the i-motif and an extended double helix formed by hybridization of the two strands (note that a perfectly complementary strand would itself fold into a stable structure called the G-quadruplex19). The i-motif device can be switched between compact and extended states by changing the pH20, 21. Cyclic switching can be driven by an oscillating chemical reaction22, 23.

The i-motif-to-duplex transition has been made to do mechanical work. One surface of a silicon cantilever was coated with tethered cytosine-containing strands and formation of the i-motif induced a compressive surface stress that bent the cantilever24. The origin of the surface stress, which is also observed when complementary strands hybridize to tethered probes25, is not understood. Electrostatic repulsion between the compact i-motifs plays a part, but the effect persists with high salt concentrations at which interactions over a distance comparable to the separation between strands are effectively screened.

It has also been suggested that the conformational change resulting from pH-dependent binding of a single strand of DNA to a duplex to form a triple-helical structure could be used as the basis of a nanomechanical actuator26, 27.

Devices such as those described above can be used to monitor and report on their environment. Box 2 describes how active DNA nanostructures are being developed as sensors, how elementary logical operations can be performed on their outputs, and how the combination of sensors and computation might be used to create smart drug-delivery systems.

Conformation changes induced by signalling
Yurke and co-workers28 constructed a pair of DNA tweezers with two rigid double-stranded arms connected at one end by a flexible single-stranded hinge (Fig. 2). In the open configuration, the arms rotate freely about the hinge. Single-stranded tails extend from the free end of both arms and serve as attachment points for a control strand — the 'set' or 'fuel' strand — that can pull the arms together by hybridizing to both of them. A short region of the set strand remains single-stranded even when hybridized to the device: it serves as a toehold for hybridization of a complementary 'unset' or 'antifuel' strand that strips the set strand from the device by branch migration (Box 1). Displacement of the set strand generates a double-stranded waste product and resets the device to its initial open configuration. The device can be driven through many cycles of operation simply by repeated sequential addition of set and unset strands. The time to half completion of a single switching operation is 10 s at typical (micromolar) control-strand concentrations: the rate constant for toehold-mediated strand exchange is 105 M-1 s-1 (ref. 29). Operation of the DNA tweezers has recently been characterized using single molecule FRET measurements30.

Figure 2: A DNA nanomachine driven by repeated sequential addition of DNA control strands.
DNA tweezers28 have two double-stranded arms connected by a flexible single-stranded hinge. The 'set' strand pulls the arms into a closed conformation by hybridizing to single-stranded tails at the ends of the arms. A short region of the set strand remains single-stranded even when it is hybridized to the tweezers: this region serves as a toehold that allows the 'unset' strand to hybridize to the set strand and strip it from the device, returning the tweezers to the open configuration and generating a double-stranded waste product. The state of the device can be determined by measuring the separation between donor and acceptor fluorophores (represented by the green triangle and red circle) using FRET.




Strand displacement has been used to effect conformation changes in a wide variety of systems. A number of variations on the tweezers have been reported including a device where the arms are pushed apart instead of being pulled together31 and a three-state device32. Yan and co-workers33 constructed a linear array of rigid DNA tiles in which adjacent tiles could be flipped between cis and trans conformations by stripping away and replacing control strands. Different conformations were easily distinguished by atomic force microscopy. The same device has recently been incorporated into a two-dimensional DNA array34. Feng et al.35 created a two-dimensional array that could be switched between states with different lattice spacings and Hazarika and co-workers36 used strand displacement to reverse the aggregation of gold nanoparticles held together by DNA bridges37. A number of groups have used DNA control strands to switch a section of DNA between a single-stranded state, designed to fold into a compact G-quadruplex stabilized by hydrogen-bonded tetrads of guanine19, and an extended duplex38, 39, 40.

Motion of DNA devices can be triggered using RNA control strands41. By using a specific messenger RNA (mRNA) as a control strand, a tweezer device has been used to sense in vitro transcription42, 43. These experiments show how DNA devices could be controlled by transcriptional circuits44, 45, 46, 47, and point to future applications in which the presence of a specific mRNA within a cell might trigger an event such as the release of a caged drug48.

The maximum force exerted by hybridization of a signalling strand of DNA can be estimated as the free energy change of hybridization divided by the distance through which the hybridizing strands must move together, and is of the order of 10 pN (ref. 28). The fact that protein motors generate similar forces49, 50, 51, 52 encourages speculation that DNA hybridization could be used to drive DNA devices that mimic natural molecular motors.

Strand displacement has been used to effect conformation changes in a wide variety of systems. A number of variations on the tweezers have been reported including a device where the arms are pushed apart instead of being pulled together31 and a three-state device32. Yan and co-workers33 constructed a linear array of rigid DNA tiles in which adjacent tiles could be flipped between cis and trans conformations by stripping away and replacing control strands. Different conformations were easily distinguished by atomic force microscopy. The same device has recently been incorporated into a two-dimensional DNA array34. Feng et al.35 created a two-dimensional array that could be switched between states with different lattice spacings and Hazarika and co-workers36 used strand displacement to reverse the aggregation of gold nanoparticles held together by DNA bridges37. A number of groups have used DNA control strands to switch a section of DNA between a single-stranded state, designed to fold into a compact G-quadruplex stabilized by hydrogen-bonded tetrads of guanine19, and an extended duplex38, 39, 40.

Motion of DNA devices can be triggered using RNA control strands41. By using a specific messenger RNA (mRNA) as a control strand, a tweezer device has been used to sense in vitro transcription42, 43. These experiments show how DNA devices could be controlled by transcriptional circuits44, 45, 46, 47, and point to future applications in which the presence of a specific mRNA within a cell might trigger an event such as the release of a caged drug48.

The maximum force exerted by hybridization of a signalling strand of DNA can be estimated as the free energy change of hybridization divided by the distance through which the hybridizing strands must move together, and is of the order of 10 pN (ref. 28). The fact that protein motors generate similar forces49, 50, 51, 52 encourages speculation that DNA hybridization could be used to drive DNA devices that mimic natural molecular motors.





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Dueling

News - Coming Soon From DuPont: Advances in ...
... With proper dispersion, small amounts of a new DuPont nanomaterial called DNM in
a polymer can produce substantial property improvements, according to Dr. Rao. ...


Intel, IBM Unveil New Transistors
Hafnium-based materials will be incorporated in 45-nm-technology chips
Alex Tullo

IN DUELING ANNOUNCEMENTS that mark the culmination of years of research efforts, Intel and IBM say they are using hafnium-based dielectric insulating materials to construct the transistors in their next-generation 45-nm-technology chips.

Silicon dioxide has been the transistor dielectric material of choice for about 40 years. As chip size has continued to shrink, the SiO2 layer has been made thinner and thinner to maintain adequate capacitance. In the most advanced chips in production today, which have 65-nm circuit lines, the SiO2 layer is only 1.2 nm thick.
Intel
Test wafer for a 45-nm-technology chip uses hafnium.

But according to David Lammers, director of the WeSrch.com networking website for semiconductors—part of the semiconductor market research firm VLSI Research—a layer any thinner is prone to heat-generating electron tunneling. "You want a thinner electrical thickness, but you don't want all the current leakage and heat," he says.
A day after Intel's announcement, IBM said it had successfully made transistors with a hafnium-based high-k and metal combination with partners Advanced Micro Devices, Sony, and Toshiba.
How Evaporating Carbon Nanotubes Retain Their Perfection?

Feng Ding, Kun Jiao, Yu Lin, and Boris I. Yakobson*

Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005

Received November 24, 2006

Revised January 27, 2007

Abstract:

We present a mechanism of high-temperature sublimation of carbon nanotubes that does not destroy their ordered makeup even upon significant loss of mass. The atoms depart to the gas phase from the pentagon-heptagon dislocation cores, while the bond disruption is immediately repaired, and the 57 seamlessly propagate through the lattice. This explains a broad class of unsettled phenomena when at high temperature or under radiation the nanotubes do not become amorphous but rather shrink in size nearly flawlessly.
Well,the connection with small business?

In 1959 the Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman, in his visionary lecture entitled "There's plenty of room at the bottom", proposed the development of technology to function at the cellular and even the molecular level. Among other things he said, "...it would be interesting in surgery if you could
swallow the surgeon". This is precisely the plot of the 1966 film
'The Fantastic Voyage', made into a novel by Isaac Asimov, in which a submarine containing a medical team is shrunk and injected into a patient to perform a life saving operation. While Hollywood has to suspend the laws of physics, Feynman's proposals were based solidly on those very laws.

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Artificial Atoms

"Pompeian red is really special. It represents the height of the ancient Romans’ mastery in making colors," said Daniela Daniele, a researcher at Berlin's State Museum. That unique quality makes it all the more important to learn how to preserve Pompeii’s brilliant red pigment.
They used an unusually fine grind (2~3 µm), which makes the pigment’s color more intense. They also mixed in larger crystals 10~15 µm, which gave a shiny quality to the surface. Cinnabar that is processed in the typical way yields a dull red similar to red ochre.

Artificial Atoms

Jim_Kling

Image Courtesy: PlasmaChem GmbH, Berlin, Germany

Spherical particles of a few thousand atoms " known as nanoparticles " have been used as artificial atoms to create larger crystals that could find use in a variety of applications, such as nanoparticle-based transistors or wave guides for use in biosensors, or as computer components.

Nanoparticles are often coated with rod-like molecules to prevent further growth or agglomeration. This 'ligand shell' can be made to react with other molecules and link up with other nanoparticles to form polymers, but it does so with no particular preference the resulting structures tend to be amorphous. Nanoparticles would be even more useful if researchers could get them to assemble in a directed manner.

Francesco Stellacci and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology team synthesized gold nanoparticles and used a combination of 1-nonanethiol and 4-methylbenzenethiol as the ligand surface. They then used a two phase polymerization reaction inspired by the procedure to synthesize nylon. The nanoparticles were first exposed to a solution of 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid to form disulfide bonds with the 1-nonanethiol, leaving the carboxylic acid group from 1-nonanethiol protruding into space. They predicted that the polar 1-nonanethiol residues would be the first to react with the 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid, so that when the reaction was quenched it would yield nanoparticles with two modified poles. They then treated the mixture with a 1,6-diaminohexane and an activating agent to form amide bonds that would link the resulting carboxylic acid residue to the carboxylic acid residue hanging off of another nanoparticle.

Transmission electron microscopy images of the resulting precipitate revealed linear nanoparticle chains and no sign of aggregates. The particles formed films as large as 1 cm² and up to 60 microns thick. Such films have the potential to be used as nano-waveguides for use in biosensors. Linked nanoparticles transfer light in a characteristic way, and this can be altered when they are bound to a biological molecule. This change can be used to sense the molecule's presence.


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Chemical Nano Engineering

Previous title and current have probability 82.5% and tis is part two of Business Strategy....

Variable Co Ordinance Structures

Vegas, of course, is the Mecca of sunk-costs and chasing your losses. All those shiny lights, showgirls, and Cirque Du Soleil’s (I'm pretty sure I saw them open what seems like the 38th Cirque inside a Starbucks though I must admit the new Beatles Cirque show had me at hello) that keep you captive weren't funded by your wins.
As Scott Adams has said, "Probability is omnipotent and omnipresent. It influences every coin at any time in any place, instantly. It cannot be shielded or altered. And probability is not limited to coins and dice and slot machines. Probability is the guiding force of everything in the universe, living or nonliving, near or far, big or small, now or anytime."
CEO Zander peddled onto the stage on a bright yellow bicycle {Las Vegas for the 2007 CES (Consumer Electronics Show). Bill Gates kicked it off Sunday evening, followed Monday morning by Motorola CEO Ed Zander (full disclosure: my firm Lux Capital manages capital for Motorola through our venture capital fund). }. Gimmick aside, he's onto something. Who else rides bikes? Chinese citizens: nearly 500 million of them. What's that got to do with Motorola? A small device connected to the back wheel powers a new Motofone, which has a low-power E-Ink display that can be recharged just by kinetic energy from peddling the bike. Too early to tell if it takes off but it's an example of thinking about the so-called "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid." (That is: the four billion people who are a highly dispersed and fragmented market with low purchasing power parity who in aggregate actually have more purchasing power than France, UK, Italy, Japan and Germany combined).
Now here’s a Vegas riddle. There's a casino in Vegas with 50 slot machines. Each one is standard and has the same payout ratio. In other words, each will payout a certain percentage of the coins put into it and what triggers the payout is the same in all the machines. They all function at the same speed, the same volume and have the same amount of flashing lights. Here’s the rub: one of the machines, no matter where the casino positions it, ends up collecting about 25% more winnings for the casino at the end of every day than any of their other slot machines. Why is this? What's causing this?
The answer is that this slot machine has more "near-misses". It has more sequences that go: bar-bar-banana, bar-bar-lemon, giving the player the illusion that they were oh-so-close and results in heavier play.
Working in the middle 70's last century with variable co ordinances recognize here a lot of ideas "on debate " at that time.

Properties Depend On Cluster Size

Numbers of edge atoms dictate physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles
Mitch Jacoby
What a difference a few atoms can make.
Tiny variations in the numbers of atoms along the edges of molybdenum disulfide nanoparticles can profoundly influence the crystal's atomic-scale structure and coordination, electronic properties, and other characteristics, researchers in Denmark have shown. The findings may lead to improvements in MoS2-based desulfurization catalysts for fuel cleanup and to advanced lubricants and other applications.
With legislation in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and elsewhere calling for ever lower levels of sulfur in transportation fuels, scientists are redoubling their efforts to sort out the reaction mechanism that drives hydrodesulfurization, a process in which sulfur is stripped from hydrocarbons and converted to volatile hydrogen sulfide in the presence of MoS2-based catalysts.
Previous studies indicate that the edges of thin, supported MoS2 nanoclusters, which are often equilateral-triangular in shape, contain highly active catalytic sites, which are especially active when the clusters are very small. The high activity is often attributed to the unique coordination of edge atoms and the presence of reactive edge defect sites. But those features have not been explored in atomic-resolution detail until now.
On the basis of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) measurements, Aarhus University physics professors Jeppe V. Lauritsen and Flemming Besenbacher and their coworkers at Aarhus and at catalyst manufacturer Haldor Topsøe have shown that nanoclusters with six or more molybdenum atoms along an edge coordinate sulfur differently than do nanoclusters containing fewer than six edge molybdenum atoms. Specifically, the team finds that along the edges of the larger crystallites, each Mo atom bonds with two outermost S atoms (S "dimers"), which tend to line up with neighboring atoms to form pairs of S "dimers." In contrast, the edges of smaller clusters exhibit Mo-S=Mo bridge structures (Nat. Nanotechnol. 2007, 2, 21). The team also reports that the smaller clusters are less stable (more reactive) and more prone to vacancy defects than the larger clusters. And they note size-dependent differences in the clusters' STM signatures, which indicate the clusters' differing electronic structures.
In an accompanying commentary, Gotthard Seifert, of the Technical University of Dresden, and Sibylle Gemming, of the Rosendorf Research Center, both in Germany, note that the difference between the large and small nanoclusters "turns out to be the key to understanding the structural, electronic, and catalytic properties of these particles."

Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347

The last key principle is this: evolution. Organisms, technologies, business models, social structures all evolve. And this is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. There are a few key aspects in the process of evolutions whether in life, inventions or ventures.
First is "variation". In life: it’s via random mutation. In technology: it’s via accidental discovery, intentional invention, trial and error and combination of already existing technologies.
The second aspect: once there are a variety of things, it’s clear that some are better than others.
The third feature is that there’s some process or algorithm of "selection". And of course the fore mentioned 'better' depends on what environment or landscape the thing is performing or competing in. The fancy name for this is "fitness landscape". Think of climbing a mountain: you try to scale a local peak. When you get to the top, you might see a new peak which could even require you to descend, move to the new base and then climb again. Tiger Woods did this years ago to perfect his swing so did IBM. And so it is with technology adoption, startup companies and even incumbent companies that can adapt and reinvent themselves.
The last key feature is amplification. Good biological designs or good technologies or businesses benefit from positive feedback effects and get dialed up. They get amplified, attract capital, get more adopted and spread through the proverbial (or literal) gene pool. Conversely, bad ones get dialed down. They get negative feedback, lose prominence, suffer from decreased population size or even extinction.
There’s one key part of this framework that I’ve found frustrating. Feynman famously said that for a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. But I’ve realized to the unfortunate happenstance of investors: that people can be fooled namely by other people.
APPLICATIONS: TRANSISTORS
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have made ultrathin silicon transistors that operate more than 50 times faster than previous flexible-silicon devices. The advance could help make possible flexible high-end electronics that would be useful in a variety of applications, from computers to communication. Jack Ma, professor of electrical and computer engineering and lead researcher on the project, is interested in using flexible electronics to redesign large-scale antennas that could be molded in the shape of, say, an airplane. For instance, radar antennas could be made to cover a large area on an airplane, he says, increasing sensitivity and area of coverage.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/18055/

Cite:
FORBES/WOLFE Nanotech Weekly Insider:
JAN.12.2006 by Josh Wolfe (email: nanotech@forbes.com )

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The End of Alchemy

Paracelsus-03 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

or The End of Damascus Sword.

THE INTERNAL ALCHEMY OF THE TAO

http://www.healing-tao.co.uk/tao_of_shopping/CH48_Inner_Achemy_Chart.htm

This chart was never copied for several hundred years. There was only the
original. It was never passed down to the rest of the world because it is so
profound and mysterious that an ordinary person would have no way to understand
it. It was rediscovered in the library at High Pine Tree Mountain in China
suspended from the wall. It was carefully drawn and the printing was clear, so
it was eventually reprinted at that time. When I first discovered this, I
decided to reprint it with a complete explanation using the Universal Tao
practices. By practicing the Universal Tao formulas you can start to comprehend
the detailed illustrations of this mural connecting with our body and the
universe. The Tao adept saw the human body as a microcosm of the natural world.
Its anatomy was a landscape with mountains, rivers, streams, lakes, pools,
forests, fires, stars etc. a natural harmonious landscape. It show a torso and
head with few easily identifiable structures. - Mantak Chia

The Arabs appeared in history in the seventh century. Alchemy had by then gone through a long path. The first contacts took place in Egypt, in Alexandria, where the traditions went back several centuries before Christianity. Muslim alchemy was derived from the Greek. The frequency with which Greek authors are quoted, the numerous theories that are common to both Greek and Arabic alchemy, and the large number of Arab technical terms clearly taken over from Hellenic treatises (e.g. hayuli, atisyus, athalia, iksir, qambar,S) prove beyond doubt the affiliation of Muslim and Greek alchemy. The transmission was made partly through direct contact in Egypt, partly through the medium of Syrian Christian translators, and partly by way of Persia. There are unmistakable traces of Persian influence, manifested distinctly by linguistic affinities in technical names and usage and in names of minerals. These traces are sufficiently well marked to render it probable that Persia was, indeed, one of the main channels through which alchemy came to Islam; and it is not without interest to note that many of the principal Muslim alchemists were Persians.It has already been observed that Chinese alchemy has so much in common with Greek and Arabic alchemy as to afford support to the hypothesis that all three had a common origin; and there is some reason to believe that the Chinese practiced a kind of alchemy long before the days of Islam. The remote origins of Arabic alchemy are therefore still to some extent uncertain, but there is very little to recommend the suggestion that the Arabs received any direct introduction to alchemy from the Chinese. Whatever may be the cause of the similarity between Chinese, Greek and Muslim alchemical ideas.
Information provided by:

http://www.levity.com

http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Sciences/Chemistry/Aboutchemistry/Islamictimes/MuslimAlchemists/MuslimAlchemists.htm

Paracelsus, Philippus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim
(1493-1541)Paracelsus was a physician and Alchimist, who
introduced the treatment of diseases with chemical means to the Renaissance. The
progress of the practical medicine at the beginning 16. Century is to be owed to
a large extent to it, like also the beginning to the modern medicine and
chemistry.
Time life did not omit it an opportunity, in order to make
academic authorities ridiculous. When it accepted a teaching profession in
Basel, it provoked the authorities, by burning the works of the well-known Greek
physician Galen publicly. It worsened its situation further still by the fact
that it opened its lectures for everyone and held it into German, instead of in
latin.
Like Hippokrates Paracelsus believes in a treatment, those of the
body as a whole one goes out and in the welfare strength of the body. It means,
it developed an effective means against the plague - a pill from paste with
traces of eliminations of the patient. He regarded magic or "mental forces" as
important for the healing process.
While he scoffed the Astrologie, he
looked in the Alchimie for fundamental truths: "magic is a large hidden wisdom
-, he explained understanding a large open foolishness". Its interest to the
Alchimie finally led it to some fundamental realizations in the area of the
chemotherapy.
And so the Damascus Sword reciept was lost. But new words like
swords appear: chemy, chemoterapy.How? " Paracelsus was first, which assumed
lung diseases were caused by mountain workers by inhalation of metallic "steams"
and not by bad spirit."
Alchemy was splited on two: chemistry and
chemotherapy. On the blade remain astrology!And spiritual problems passed to
religion.

http://www.paracelsus.unizh.ch/
Volumen Medicinae Paramirum Theophrasti, de Medica Industria

Related articles

• What is Alchemy?
• Philosopher's stone

Words are Swords

Regular readers recall this theory: recipes trump manufacturing. They’re more valuable. (And one of Lux’s recent, still unannounced investments underscores this long espoused theory). But about 300 years ago, a valuable recipe disappeared.

You see, around 1700, a recipe for making steel—a special kind of steel—was lost. The process was invented 1,000 years before being lost and it was for the famously sharp and lethal Damascus sword.

Researchers who recently studied a sample of the sword’s molecular structure claim they discovered carbon nanotubes—the first ever to be found in steel. And this might explain the legendary properties. The process might’ve inadvertently created nanotubes (not formally discovered for another millennium) of iron-carbon mineral cementite and when Blacksmiths etched the finished swords with acid—the nanowires which are resistant to acid might have been protected and strengthened.

A good thing for Gillette (and CVS, Walgreens and RiteAid) that that recipe for ultra-sharp blade of Damascus was lost. Of course they’d rather sell you a one, two, three or heck, seventeen-blade disposable razor—just as long as it doesn’t last too long.

Whatever the process, this was clear: the only contact you’d want with it—was in your hand—and not at your neck.

Too often we forget: life is fragile.

And too often still we forget: dominance in life isn’t a birthright. Nor an entitlement (whether you’re a company, an industry, a country or its leader). It must be earned—and can be easily and unexpectedly lost. The more stable and predictable the system seems—the less likely it is.

Consider this image from one of my columns in 2004:

Pretend you're a turkey born on January 1st, 2006. For the next 11 months, up through Thanksgiving, life is good. Actually, life is great. You (the turkey) wake up, get fed and walk around all day. Just in time to go to sleep and do it all over again the next day. And with each new day you become conditioned to assume that the next day will be just like the one before it. And this logic works all the way up till Thanksgiving. When suddenly—boom! Off with your head! The irony is that the closer the turkey is to death, the more confident it becomes. And so it is with many investors. The turkey gets fatter and feels safer. But at the very time he should be trying to evade the blade.

Complacency is a vice. Thriving on ambiguity, uncertainty and volatility is a virtue. And against our human nature. Robert Rubin, Warren Buffett, Eddie Lampert, Bill Miller—all exemplar thrivers.

Back to swords or as Saturday Night Live once parodied Sean Connery in a Jeopardy skit, “I’ll take S words for 1000, Alex”.

There’s another sword that underscores the point that life and dominance don’t come with money-back guarantees and the delicate balance that (as you’ll see quite literally) hangs in the thread. Thirty five years ago, President Kennedy invoked words of the sword of Damocles—ever more appropriate today—when he said this:

"Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us."

The story of Damocles went like this: Damocles was a suck-up to 4th Century tyrant Dionsyius, telling him how lucky and great his life was with all his power and riches. So, Dionysius offered him a day in the life—a little taste. The next night, Damocles lived like a king: endless food and drink and women. What he didn’t notice was a sharp sword dangling by a single thread of horsehair above his head. When he did, he wanted out and immediately. Finite tragedy—within seconds and inches—suspended by chance and nearly infinite triggers (a breeze, a bump, the pull of gravity, and so on). Dionysius was trying to show the (yeah, forgive me) dual-edged sword and balancing act of power and peril.

Speaking of swords, a good friend of mine is waiting to swing his. He doesn’t know it yet—or maybe he does and plays it cool—but he’s going to be one of the great ones. Investors, that is. He reads voraciously—and not the latest Malcolm Gladwell business buzz book best-seller, but the investment classics that have stood the test of time. I can’t reveal his list, because he’s carefully cultivated it over many years. And even if I did, like Joel Greenblatt’s magic formula, and most men’s subscriptions to Men’s Health magazine, it wouldn’t do much good. People confuse owning the book with reading it, and reading it with retaining it, and retaining it with using it. This friend is a like a warrior waiting to wield his sword when the right investment opportunity comes along.

Another famous swordsman took this approach. But his wasn’t from Damascus or Damocles. It was from Kentucky. Both Michael Mauboussin and Warren Buffett have invoked baseball legend Ted Williams in how he approached swinging his Louisville Slugger, “waiting for the fat pitch would mean a trip to the Hall of Fame; swinging indiscriminately would mean a ticket to the minors."

Wait for your pitch. Swing your sword.

DEC.08.2006 by Josh Wolfe (email: nanotech@forbes.com)

Molecular switch

Frankly, some researchers didn't think what we were attempting was possible because standard descriptions in physics, for example the Stokes equation for viscosity indicated that the system might not work. But viscous forces do not apply at the nano-scale," says Dr Keith Firman, Reader in Molecular Biotechnology at Portsmouth University and coordinator of the Mol-Switch project, funded under the European Commission’s FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) initiative of the IST programme. "However, we got our molecular switch to work."

Team develops DNA switch to interface living organisms with computers from PhysOrg.com

Researchers at the University of Portsmouth, UK, have developed an electronic switch based on DNA - a world-first bio-nanotechnology breakthrough that provides the foundation for the interface between living organisms and the computer world.

But the DNA switch has immediate practical application in toxin detection, and could be used in a biodefence role as a biological sensor to detect airborne pathogens.
[...]

Nanotechnology could promote hydrogen economy

Say "nanotechnology" and people are likely to think of micro machines or zippy computer chips. But scientists are using nanotechnology in chemical reactions that could provide hydrogen for tomorrow's fuel-cell powered clean energy vehicles. Now researchers describe how they make a finely textured surface of the metal iridium that can be used to extract hydrogen from ammonia, then captured and fed to a fuel cell. The metal's surface consists of pyramids with facets five nanometers across, onto which ammonia molecules can nestle like matching puzzle pieces. This sets up the molecules to undergo complete and efficient decomposition.

Further information from:
news21e@stp-gateway.de
or tray IEN...

Don't worry, be happy!

Contrast Priciple

Scientists have long demonstrated this contrast principle with a neat trick. Take three buckets of water—one hot, one cold, and one room temperature. Start by putting your left hand in the hot and your right hand in the cold for 30 seconds. Then put them both into the room temperature water. The one that was in the hot water will feel cold and the one in the cold will now feel hot. Einstein it’s not. Relativity it is.

We like control

“The whole universe is change, and life itself is but what you deem it.” So said Roman ruler Marcus Aurelius. And centuries later Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

The value of silence

As the cliché goes, there’s a reason we have two ears and only one mouth. Its interesting that Pythagoras in 500 BC and Leonard Da Vinci were separated by a millennium but had the same idea. The former said, “It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.” The latter invoking much the same imagery said, “Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.”

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