After offices and homes, now it’s the turn of a stadium to go solar. The world’s largest solar stadium named Stade De Suisse has shown the path that all stadiums should follow.

Located in Bern, Switzerland, the stadium originally had 7930 solar panels made by Kyocera installed, but recently an additional 2808 solar cells have also added. This addition in solar panels made the stadium generate an overall output of 1.3 Megawatts. Stadium authorities also expect the stadium to generate a whooping 1.13 Gigawatts of electricity per year.

The amount of electricity being generated in the stadium is equivalent to the power used by 350 local house holds. Not only is the stadium generating its own electricity, but in the process it is also saving 630 ton CO2 emissions from lingering in the atmosphere.

Lunar-Resonant Streetlights Syncs with the Moon to Preserve Energy

 

Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor delivers enough light when it’s shining at its full potential. During a full moon night about 10% of the light of the sun is reflected to our planet, which means we don’t need a streetlight in those days.

But all the lights that are shining on full moon nights are doing nothing but wasting useful energy. They cannot be programmed according to the status of the moon. However, Lunar-Resonant Streetlights will soon be changing that trend. These lights somehow sync with the moon and dim down and turn off completely as the moon waxes. When it’s a new moon, it’ll be fully lit up, showing you the path to go back home. This technique results in an energy-saving of 90-95%.

What if some machine never stops running to produce an unlimited clean power everlastingly! I think it will be amazing. Now, to accomplish the same task to produce clean eco-friendly power continuously an outsized Irish company, Steorn has developed an avant-garde perpetual motion machine-Orbo that produces free energy or energy from nothing.

Perpetual motion machine:

However, we have many other machines that produce energy via water, sun and air but this free energy producing device is so unique that it can also help to solve the world’s energy predicament one day.

How Orbo functions:

Firstly, to generate free energy it utilizes power of magnetism and functions completely on the theory of time variant magneto-mechanical interactions. Secondly, the mechanical energy produced can also be converted into electrical energy by exploiting standard generator technology and by amalgamating this technology directly with Orbo or by linking the mechanical output from Orbo to the generation technology.
But it is noteworthy that the effectiveness of such mechanical/electrical conversions methods are based on the components used and is also a function of size.

Cost to develop this ultramodern machine:

To develop this machine Steorn spent more than $5.7 million in Orbo and $160,000 to place its ad on The Economist. Now, after 10 months to check Steron claims, an unnamed panel of 22 scientists is testing this technology but we will get the results sometimes at the end of this year whereas to make this machine known publicly this energy producing magical device was demonstrated at East London’s Kinetica Museum on Wednesday and on Internet too.

And as according to Steorn CEO Sean McCarthy statement that he said in a promotional video on his company’s website that ‘I have no doubts about the results’, it seems that Steorn is so confident in its innovation that it will definitely put the name of this perpetual motion machine in golden words to produce clean and unlimited power from nothing, thanks Steorn.

MIT biochemists have identified a molecular mechanism behind fear, and successfully cured it in mice, according to an article in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Researchers from MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory hope that their work could lead to the first drug to treat the millions of adults who suffer each year from persistent, debilitating fears - including hundreds of soldiers returning from conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Inhibiting a kinase, an enzyme that change proteins, called Cdk5 facilitates the extinction of fear learned in a particular context, Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and colleagues showed.

Conversely, the learned fear persisted when the kinase's activity was increased in the hippocampus, the brain's center for storing memories, the scientists found.

Cdk5, paired with the protein p35, helps new brain cells, or neurons, form and migrate to their correct positions during early brain development, and the MIT researchers looked at how Cdk5 affects the ability to form and eliminate fear-related memories.

"Remarkably, inhibiting Cdk5 facilitated extinction of learned fear in mice," Tsai said. "This data points to a promising therapeutic avenue to treat emotional disorders and raises hope for patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or phobia."

Emotional disorders such as post-traumatic stress and panic attacks stem from the inability of the brain to stop experiencing the fear associated with a specific incident or series of incidents.

For some people, upsetting memories of traumatic events do not go away on their own, or may even get worse over time, severely affecting their lives.

A study conducted by the Army in 2004 found that one in eight soldiers returning from Iraq reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

According to the National Center for PTSD in the United States, around eight percent of the population will have PTSD symptoms at some point in their lives. Some 5.2 million adults have PTSD during a given year, the center reports.

In the current research, genetically engineered mice received mild foot shocks in a certain environment and were re-exposed to the same environment without the foot shock.

The team found that mice with increased levels of Cdk5 activity had more trouble letting go of the memory of the foot shock and continued to freeze in fear.

The reverse was also true: in mice whose Cdk5 activity was inhibited, the bad memory of the shocks disappeared when the mice learned that they no longer needed to fear the environment where the foot shocks had once occurred.

"In our study, we employ mice to show that extinction of learned fear depends on counteracting components of a molecular pathway involving the protein kinase Cdk5," Tsai concluded. "We found that Cdk5 activity prevents extinction, at least in part by negatively affecting the activity of another key kinase."

Designer/Company: Sunman Kwon from Hongik University
Embedded Technology: Finger touching wearable mobile device

This new technological advancement would theoretically convert your hand into a cell phone.

Researcher, Sunman Kwon from Hongik University, has been able to manufacture a “finger touching wearable mobile device” that enables you to make calls just as if we do through a cell phone. This idea is not at all bad as you may have a 3.5G and 4G technology readily available.

How cool would it be to snap with your finger to witch on or off your iPod or Computer or many other of the gadgets around you. Or play a cool game on your Wii with this glove! Al least this controller will not smash your TV.

Researchers at Engineered Fibre Structures (EFS), a University of Manchester spin-out, are very close to give us just this, a soft-fabric electronic glove that remotely controls equipment via a Bluetooth connection.

The glove is produced from standard acrylic or stretch-nylon base yarn and it can be made on a conventional industrial knitting machine. The wearable device looks and feels like a normal glove, except it has conductive pathways knitted into the material. The fingers are tipped with contactors, so if you put your thumb together with any other finger, you create a electric circuit and pang, you can activate anything that is designed to receive those signals.

Navigate your way with your fingertips trough documents in a office application or add a new interaction experience to your online world.

The glove was recently patented by EFS, and the company’s engineers believe its current configuration is best designed for gaming. Billy Hunter, the lead commercial director for the product, said this sort of application would be a commercial success judging by current trends. ‘You’ve got all these sort of things out now like Nintendo Wii,’ he said.

The Control Glove can be used in patient rehabilitation in healthcare, as a controller in video games, as a computer interface, and as a communications device, for industrial, security and military applications.

According to the engineers involved in this project, they are content with the current configuration of the glove, but for certain applications they might need to do some redesigning.

‘The textile part of the glove is more or less done,’ said Hunter. ‘If necessary, we can change the configuration fairly easily. What we need to do now is to miniaturise the electronics in the Bluetooth.’

Now let’s hope that we will see very soon the Fingertip control glove inaction with our Wii.

Sony "Glasstron"
PLM-A35 LCD Eyeglasses

Quite possibly the coolest pair of shades that you'll ever wear. And guaranteed to attract a crowd faster than a Coolpix 950 with an EagleEye OpticZoom, unless you're using both of them at the same time!

These are the Sony PLM-A35 "Glasstron" Personal Home Theater System LCD eyeglasses.

We all complain about not being able to see our LCD screens outside in the bright sunlight, right?   Put on a pair of these bad boys, plug your digicam's video cable into the control unit and your monitor is now as visible outdoors as it is indoors.

And get this ... the PLM-A35 glasses simulate a 52" diagonal screen when viewed from a distance of 6.5 feet.

The PLM-A35 system comes complete with a control box, AC power supply, AV cables and 3 RCA-to-RCA adapter plugs. Shown here with the optional NP-F550 InfoLITHIUM battery.

The Glasstron has two 0.55-inch Liquid Crystal Displays, each with a resolution of 180,000 pixels (800 H x 225 V) and a horizontal viewing angle of 30°.  For multimedia use there's a pair of stereo ear bud speakers too, shown here in the stored position.

The control unit has the audio and video input jack, a standard 4-pin mini DIN S-Video connector, the 9vdc input jack, volume control, brightness control, auto volume leveling system and on the bottom is a user lockout switch to prevent its use by children.

This device was designed to be used by adults only, extended use can cause eye fatigue or damage. After three hours of use it displays a warning message to that effect.

You can easily take your Glasstron portable by adding a Sony NP-F550, NP-F750 or NP-F950 InfoLITHIUM rechargeable battery. Sony claims 5 hours use with the NP-F550 battery.

Steve's Conclusion

Cool ... very cool!   And practical too unless you're trying to use them while walking and shooting in a different direction. Used with a digital camera or a camcorder, these are the ultimate color viewfinder. Many videographers are now using devices like these to give them the freedom to shoot low or high angle shots without the need of the usual external monitor.

They're not cheap -- I picked these up from Supreme Video for $449 (MSRP $599) and there's an even more expensive ($1995) and higher resolution model available. The resolution is 800x225 pixels which means the display is not razor sharp when used with 640x480 video but it is more than enough to know that you have your subject properly framed and the focus is close.

I got tired of sticking all kinds of LCD shades on my camera so I could see it when using add-on lenses. Even with the best sunshade on the LCD it was still a problem in extremely high ambient light conditions. Now I have the monitor virtually inches away from my eyes and it is very easy to see what I am aiming at. Plus you can switch off the camera's LCD and greatly increase the battery life. Accessing menus to change advanced features is also a breeze now that I no longer have to squint to see the LCD.

The negative to all of this is that these head-mounted LCDs are not for everyone. Some people will experience side effects such as dizziness, eye fatigue, nausia or worse. The instruction manual is loaded with legal disclaimers, the most noteable is the warning to not use them while driving or to allow their use by those under the age of 15.   I have yet to have used them for longer than ten or fifteen minutes at a time and even then I noticed that it took a few moments to get back to normal visual reality again. If used with common sense I don't see them as being any more dangerous than a pair of binoculars.

Are they for you?   I don't know, only you can answer that question. If you're looking for an inconspicuous way to take photos the answer is a definite NO.   Unless you're at a rock concert, you will be attracting attention in a major way. There's no way to hide the rainbow-colored glasses, especially out in the bright sunlight. If you have all those other high-tech toys then why not own a pair of LCD glasses too. They can be used with all sorts of video/audio devices; DVD players, VCRs, games (with TV output) and more.

This has not been a good week for Sir Richard Branson, but he is unfazed: 'I have set up 350 companies since I started. Not one of those has ever gone bankrupt'

On the face of it, this has not been a good week for the Virgin king. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Rail lost its Cross Country franchise; his 49pc partner in his Virgin Atlantic airline - Singapore Airlines - wants to bail out, and that on-screen soap opera, Virgin Media, keeps losing customers to arch-rival BSkyB, as the satellite broadcaster's latest figures show.

	Sir Richard defines Virgin as 'a way-of-life' brand

No wonder tongues are wagging - again - that the Virgin brand is losing its sheen. Why, there's even talk that should US private equity house Carlyle prevail in its £11bn tilt at Virgin Media, it would axe the Virgin name, potentially depriving 10.5pc shareholder Sir Richard of a licensing fee worth at least £8.5m a year.

Rita Clifton, chairman of brand consultancy Interbrand, acknowledges that "the Virgin brand has had its ups and downs over the years", citing the relative failures of Virgin Cola, Virgin Brides and, in the early days, Virgin Rail. While it has always bounced back, things may be getting tougher.

For Ms Clifton, the Virgin ethos has been to "identify a market with some distinctive bad guys where you could - in an irreverent, witty way - provide good value and make the big incumbents look slow and a rip-off. But it's becoming increasingly difficult to find markets where you can do that and it's more difficult to carry on being the irreverent, brash competitor when you have been around for a long time."

Virgin's business model is to build brands and license them, taking an annual fee - often a portion of turnover - which Sir Richard says comes to "tens of millions a year. The brand rights alone cover all the central costs, with some left over."

The model has allowed Sir Richard, who defines Virgin as "a way-of-life brand", to expand his empire without tying up lots of capital.

Latest research from YouGov/Brand Index shows that positive perceptions far outweigh negative on most of Virgin's bigger brands.

YouGov polls 700 people daily on different Virgin brands asking them to rate their value, quality, general impressions, corporate reputation, customer satisfaction, buzz and whether they would recommend them to a friend.

Only Virgin Cola underperforms, with a fairly consistent 10pc of pollsters more negative than positive. Contrast that with Virgin Atlantic, where the positives outweigh the negatives by more than 20pc; Virgin Megastores, 10pc-plus; Virgin Mobile, 3pc to 5pc-plus; and Virgin Media, 4pc-plus.

That's not to say Virgin Media's spat with Sky has not taken its toll on the Virgin brand per se. Anthony Wells, consumer analyst at YouGov, says: "The Virgin brands in general got a boost from the launch of Virgin Media." However, recently "Virgin has seen its brand perceptions decline".

Sir Richard remains unfazed: "I have set up 350 companies since I started. Not one of those has ever gone bankrupt.

"If you set up so many, you try a lot of different things. Some will work spectacularly - and we have created six or seven billion-dollar businesses from scratch - with others you don't succeed in the way you hoped."

While he won't comment on his long-term intentions at Virgin Media, given the potential bid, Sir Richard insists: "Virgin Media will deliver. We have only been involved with it for eight or nine months and Sky has made some moves we believe were anti-competitive" - an assertion Sky would deny.

As Sir Richard points out, "the trains took some knocks in the early days" but the core West Coast routes have improved since Virgin Rail (49pc owned by Stagecoach) introduced its Pendolino trains.

"In retrospect, maybe it would have been better not to have put the logo on for the first three years but everyone would have still known we were running them," Sir Richard says.

Not everyone believes he should be so sanguine. Mark Radda, senior strategist at brand consultant Wolff Olins, says: "The problem with Virgin is that it has lost its focus.

"I think people find it difficult to define what Virgin is about. When it was set up, you had a rebel taking on the institutions, but now the rebel is one of the institutions."

Whereas Virgin Atlantic, which took on BA, remains "the most successful example of the brand", he says, Virgin Media is a different story. "It's licensed, so Branson is no longer controlling his brand and also the service wasn't there."

Ms Clifton reckons Sir Richard picked the wrong target with Sky.

"They aren't particularly seen as bad guys," she says. "Maybe among opinion formers, because of Murdoch, but that's not what consumers think. Virgin isn't a better value proposition and there hasn't been any shortage of innovation as far as Sky or the market is concerned."

David Kershaw, the M&C Saatchi chief executive, says: "Maybe Virgin doesn't have as much resonance for today's generation as it did for the baby boomers for whom it was the anti-establishment brand. Young people don't look to Richard Branson and say this man is the consumer champion."

Sir Richard would beg to differ, but acknowledges: "I'm approaching 60 years old and with most major companies there's a big stumble at some point, though we have avoided one so far. As long as we don't shoot ourselves in the foot in a major way, I hope the brand can continue for many years to come."

Technology will soon make a penthouse lifestyle available to everyone, says Camilla Chafer

When Bill Gates spoke about his vision of "wired homes" at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year, he conjured an image of smart homes as the homes of the future.

	Fully wired home: could the high-tech home of the future be closer than we think?

Vista, the latest Windows operating system, epitomises Gates's ambitions: it can be used to power a so-called "media centre" PC, usually placed in the living area, on which people can surf the net, create a music jukebox that will play a list of tunes, and digitally edit, organise and share photographs. Apple, too, sees the computer as the central technology underpinning the "home hub": its Apple TV is capable of streaming music and video to high-definition TV sets.

But the idea that all this stuff is "toys for the boys" is increasingly old-fashioned - as is the notion that only the super-rich can afford such high-tech wizardry. In fact, smart homes could be of enormous use to any family, allowing them to control their heating, lighting, security systems and every aspect of their homes from a digital hub, or even remotely via the internet. Soon, such smart technology could become almost as standard in new homes as washing machines are in our current homes.

As Microsoft and Apple have made clear, the PC is in a strong position to be at the centre of such smart homes, with its ability to co-ordinate digital content in the entertainment field. John Turner, head of multimedia networking at internet technology firm Computerlinks, predicts that home PCs will be reinvented as multimedia control systems capable of catering to any of their users' audio-visual requirements. "With its ability to provide living-room access to digital content via a simple remote control, the PC media centre is well positioned to be an affordable hub for the home, using networking skills to deliver what were previously 'millionaire playground' facilities such as multi-room audio, central video libraries, surveillance, intelligent lighting and heating control," he says.

"With a stable home network, it is now possible to offer highly innovative systems that control lighting, heating and even security via internet-based control systems. The results are compelling to home users and, as they become more affordable, are gaining broader market appeal."

The homes of the future could therefore have as standard the kind of technology that still seems somewhat futuristic to us today. HellermannTyton is a company that makes smart products designed specifically for the building trade, meaning that smart technology can be incorporated into new homes as they are being constructed.

"There will of course always be a small number of consumers who believe smart homes are for technically minded people or even gadget-crazy geeks," admits Graeme Wagg, their product manager. "They may also see smart-home technology as a gimmick. But the fact is that the evolution of smart-home technology and the knowledge base of the consumer will unconsciously educate both the house builder and the homebuyer. The development and continued progression of smart-home devices and technology will find their way into more and more properties."

Hugh Whalley, the manager of the smart homes division of Siemens, agrees that the market will dictate the wider spread of smart-home technology. "These types of homes appeal to all customer groups," he says. "We install structured cabling systems - the core of smart homes - throughout the home, with bolt-ons that can be adjusted to the occupants' lifestyles.

"Young professionals might choose to have distributed audio, while a family may want control over their economic output, simulated security and zone temperature controls. We even enable older people or the disabled to stay in their homes by providing broadband services that help cater for their needs, or providing speech-activated controls."

As smart-home technology grows increasingly commonplace, Whalley suggests that consumers will become - and are becoming - less afraid of technological advances. "There's a demand for technology now, along with high expectations, from a generation who don't have an issue with either the type or use of technology.

"We recently did a development of 700 apartments in Gateshead where structured cabling was offered in the sales suite in the same way that the purchaser would be offered kitchen upgrades or new tiles.

"Also, as it becomes more commonplace, we'll see prices fall. As it is, installing structured cabling in a three-bed detached house now costs only £12,000 to £15,000, and once it's in, it can continue to be upgraded."

"In 10 years from now, it is quite conceivable that a huge majority of new-build properties will have aspects of smart-home technology implemented," says Wagg. "The number of systems and the features from one build to another are quite likely to differ. Builders and developers are unlikely to standardise which smart-home systems are installed, as continued advances in smart-home products will bring more features and benefits, and better, competing solutions."

In other words, far from being toys for the boys, smart-home technology could help to make all our lives easier. Lifestyles have become increasingly frenetic as we race between home, work, the kids and - if we're really lucky - the last vestiges of a social life. Smart homes seek to make that life easier, allowing us to control a number of tasks simultaneously.

If you're away on holiday, some systems will let you dial in remotely from anywhere in the world, using a single panel to orchestrate when the curtains open or the lights dim. And wouldn't it be nice if, at the end of a tough day, you could set the bath to fill itself at a precise time and make sure your favourite tune is playing as you walk through the front door?

Yet another busy news week. As I write this, Fox News is breaking (ahead of CNN, ABC and USA Today) the news that Bobby Cutts has been taken into custody for the murder of Jessie Davis. The man who lost his family in a violent Illinois shooting has been charged with their murder. A pair of naked twenty-somethings plummeted to their deaths from a roof top. The US and North Korea are again engaged in talks regarding North Korea's nuclear program. Iran still has a president who fancies himself the Bringer of the Apocalypse and Syria is still his willing puppet. George W. Bush is still the second-worst president in the last 100 years (and the worst Republican president), and Iraq is still a mess.

And, "The Evening Standard" is reporting that a mile-wide, cigar-shaped UFO was spotted over the English Channel. I'll let the other guys write about nukes, terrorists and murderers. I'm not passing up the chance to expound upon one of my favorite subjects.

First, the details:

The object was spotted by Captain Ray Bowyer of Aurigny Airlines while flying over the Channel Islands. Bowyer first thought the object to be about 10 miles distant but then realized it was as much as forty miles away. An experienced pilot, Bowyer judged the object to be at least a mile wide. Bowyer later spotted a second UFO, though it was much farther from his position.

An unnamed pilot with Blue Islands airline also spotted one of the objects, and two passengers aboard Bowyer's flight confirmed seeing the first one.

"The Evening Standard" quotes Captain Bowyer as saying, "I'm certainly not saying that it was something of another world. All I'm saying is that I have never seen anything like it before in all my years of flying."

Okay, so what was it?

The term "Unidentified Flying Object" does not automatically mean it's a visitor from Planet Zebes. The term simply means that it's flying and no one has a clue what it is. It's a safe bet however, that those of you who recognize the name "Zebes" doubtlessly share my view that we don't want any visitors from that particular planet.  Call me a Zebephobe if you wish.

The object could have been a bit of freakish weather, glowing gasses (from where?) in the atmosphere or yet another top-secret government project gone awry. It could, of course, have also been an extraterrestrial visitor.

These incidents are generally swept under the governmental rug or explained away as weather balloons, mass hysteria or failed satellites reentering the atmosphere. And, I'm sure that at least some of those explanations are true. But, neither weather balloons nor satellites are a mile wide. Failed satellites don't maneuver, as some UFO's have been known to do.

So, do I believe we're occasionally visited by people from other worlds? Yes, I do. I find it impossible to believe that in all the vastness of the Creation, we could be the only inhabitants. When I was a kid, my fascination with UFO's (exacerbated by Star Trek reruns) often drew my mother's irritation. Mom would tell me that "It's silly to think there could be life in outer space." And, I would always reply, "But Mom, WE are in outer space."

Stumped her every time with that.

My UFO Sighting...

When I was a small boy, my dad and I would often sit on the front steps at night just before bedtime. He'd let me ramble on about whatever was on my young mind and treat it as if it were the most profound bit of wisdom he'd ever heard. One summer night, we were sitting there on the steps when a huge glowing disk passed low over our home (no, I'm not making this up). It made no sound, but it was clearly visible overhead and I had the impression that it was rotating. It simply flew straight over us and disappeared over the tree tops. The whole thing lasted maybe five seconds. Dad scooped me up and hauled me inside.

I was of course full of questions, but for once my father had no answers. He gently but firmly told me to drop the subject and go to bed. We never spoke of it after that night, but I'll never forget it. The incident genuinely spooked him, and dad didn't spook easily.

Much has been made over the years regarding the possibility of an elaborate government cover-up where UFO's are concerned. Let's face it, folks: Our government can't keep a secret. Whether it's Bill Clinton selling us out to the Chinese or some disgruntled government employee spilling secrets to the media, nothing stays secret in this country very long. I'm betting that if our government had knowledge of the existence of extraterrestrials, or actual dealings with them, we'd know about it by now. I'm not into conspiracy theory, alien abductions or crop circles.

As to what the occasional alien visitor might be doing here, who knows? I've never been one to speculate and most supposed UFO sightings turn out to be hoaxes. It is therefore impossible to deduce from visual observation what they might be doing, since we can't be sure we're observing the real thing.

UFO hoaxers don't help the credibility of people who have actually witnessed unexplained aerial phenomena. Some fraudulent sightings turn out to be no more than a hubcap tossed into the air like a Frisbee and photographed in flight. Others are more elaborate and take time to refute. Claims of seeing a UFO become equated to sightings of Bigfoot, Chupacabra or Elvis.

Still, believing in "Flying Saucer Men" allows me a sense of boyish wonder when I gaze up at a starry night sky. It allows me to dwell upon the possibility that while I'm admiring the twinkling lights above, someone else in the vastness of space may be staring back with a sense of wonder equal to my own. If an alien spacecraft should ever land in my town, I'll be first in line asking for a ride.

Robots can help doctors to improve their bedside manner so their patients recover faster, according to a study published today.

The 6ft-tall robots make "telerounds", providing doctors with more opportunities to talk to their patients. Sitting at a computer, the surgeon can move the robot into the ward, talk to the patients, listen to them, review their charts and consult nursing staff.

To do this, the robot is equipped with a 15-inch flat screen to project the doctor's face, two high-resolution cameras, a microphone and a video conference system.

The research, conducted with a robot developed by a Californian company, was carried out at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and involved 376 patients who underwent radical surgery for obesity.

One group of 284 patients had standard bedside rounds and a second group of 92 was also assessed by "robotic telerounding".

Following robotic rounds, 77 per cent of patients were discharged on the day after the operation, whereas none of the patients assessed exclusively by bedside rounds were discharged on day one.

The average length of stay was reduced from 2.33 days for the group assessed by bedside rounds to 1.26 days for the group also assessed by the robot, according to the study in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

On its first attempt to walk up an incline, the RunBot will topple back on to its metallic backside.

	If at first you don't succeed...

However, the same as a toddler, it can learn from its mistakes until, after a few attempts, it is able to clamber up a hill with ease. RunBot already holds the world record in speed walking, managing three strides per second.

Now its inventors have expanded its repertoire so that it can learn how to tackle inclines of up to 15 degrees.

Once RunBot detects a slope with its infrared eye it adjusts its gait, leaning forward and using shorter steps.

The steps of RunBot are controlled by information received by sensors on the joints and feet, as well as an accelerometer which monitors the robot's lean.

These sensors pass data on to local neural loops - the equivalent of reflexes - that analyse the information to make adjustments to the robot's gait. If the robot encounters a slope then the higher level functions - a "brain" containing learning circuits - are used instead.

The research, published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology yesterday, was conducted by scientists led by Prof Florentin Wörgötter, at the Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience at the University of Göttingen, Germany.

Join Instablogs Community for free to Send Quick Message to Anupam. You can use the same account for over 100 blogs of Instablogs Network. You will be able to not only leave a comment on this blog, but post entries here too. If you are already a Member, Please Login to use this feature. close Join Instablogs Community for free to Add Anupam as your friend. You can use the same account for over 100 blogs of Instablogs Network. With free Instablogs Account you will be able to not only leave comments on Instablogs, but post entries too. If you are already a Member, Please Login to use this feature. Close If you want to improve your eye-sight then playing high-action video games is not a bad idea. Yes! You read it right. Actually, video games, containing high levels of action have been found bestowing good impact on our vision. This interesting revelation came came to the fore after researchers at the University of Rochester found that people who played action video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved their ability to identify letter presented in clutter, which is a visual acuity test similar to one used in regular ophthalmology clinics by 20 percent. Giving idea that how playing high-action video games helps improving vision Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester observes: When people play action games, they’re changing the brain’s pathway responsible for visual process…these games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it. That learning carries over into other activities and possibly everyday life. This disclosure is significant and interesting too and if we call it a recreational method to improve eye-sight even then there would be no stultification. Moreover, it is just another advantage that has been accredited to videogames since several other studies have already proved that there are many more advantages. Here is a look:- 1. Video games have health benefits 2. Computer games ‘do have benefits’ 3. Video game fans dance off extra pounds 4. PopCap to Investigate Cognitive Benefits of Gaming However, some studies have also dubbed video games harmful for mental as well as physical health, stating that video games give rise to violent behavior among kids, video games are addictive. Image credit: BBC

If claims made by scientists come out true then days are not far away when they will come out with a portent weapon to cure patients with HIV infection, as a new study shows them way to remove the virus from infected cells, bringing a glimmer of hope for the more than 40 million people infected worldwide.

Actually, researchers have engineered an enzyme that attacks the DNA of the HIV virus, cutting it out of the infected cells.

Throwing more light on the hope, which this study has sprouted Alan Engelman of Harvard University’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, writes:

A customized enzyme that effectively excises integrated HIV-1 from infected cells in vitro might one day help to eradicate (the) virus from AIDS patients.

Well, it would be too premature to become very enthusiastic about this new finding as the enzyme is still far from being ready to use and hasn’t even been tested in animals yet. However, one thing could certainly be said that this new way would revolutionize the way HIV-infected patients are treated.

Scientists have developed a new technique by which they are able to create cloned sperms. In future this technique could enable men with very low sperm counts to become fathers.

This technique has been tested in mice where a single healthy mouse sperm was injected into a mouse egg from which all the genetic material was removed. The sperm then was able to make more sperms on its own. Scientists have stated that further refinement of the technique will make it fit for humans as well.

Some experts have however raised safety concerns as some mice made from cloned sperms were abnormal. However, still four of these offspring had grown into normal adults.

Researchers now will need to figure out why some mice were born abnormal. They however believe that the technique had enough potential to be used in humans.

Fertility is a common problem and one in every seven couples attempting a first pregnancy face this problem and out of these couples male fertility is the reason in 40% cases.

In such a case researchers will use one of the sperm and inject it into the egg from where the genetic material will be removed, once there the sperm will develop more sperms in an effort to guarantee that the implanted embryo is healthy.

Before using the technique in humans, researchers will have to check the next generation of mice born from clone-made rodents as there might be some genetic disorders which might affect the future generations of these mice.

W przyszłym roku na niebie pojawią się latające spodki. Za 90 tysięcy dolarów każdy z nas będzie mógł stać się posiadaczem takiego latającego talerza - i to jak najbardziej poważnie.
   
   Przez ostatnie trzydzieści lat Moller International i współpracujące firmy pracowały nad nowym typem pojazdów zwanych 'wolontarami'. Stworzony w wyniku tychże prac pojazd M200G będzie pierwszym z modeli talerza rekreacyjnego o pionowym starcie i lądowaniu, przy niskich kosztach użytkowania.      

     M200G lata na wysokości do 3 metrów nad każdą powierzchnią, w tym m.in. wodą. Zastępować może właściwie wszystkie inne, dotychczas znane pojazdy służące do przemieszczania się. W stosunku do innych tego typu latających maszyn jest "dość" cichy - 85 decybeli w odległości 15 metrów.
   
   M200G osiąga prędkość szczytową równą 44,7 m/s (160 km/h) i średnią przelotowa na poziomie 33,5 m/s (120 km/h) przy zasięgu 160 kilometrów. Ładowność 113 kg - jak na początek całkiem sporo. Paliwo? Czysty etanol bądź benzyna.
   
   Bezpieczeństwo       

   
   M200G składa się z ośmiu zabudowanych i sterowanych komputerowo wirników Rotapower napędzanych silnikami Wankla. Wszystkie działają niezależnie, w przypadku uszkodzenia jednego z nich program automatycznie przerywa lot bezpiecznie lądując ziemi. Oddzielny system posiada także układ kontroli jakości paliwa, który podejmuje działania odpowiednio wcześnie przed wyczerpaniem się zbiorników paliwa.
   

American company began production of Double flying dishes, and will sell them to others already in 2008, approximately 90,000 dollars Sami machines ready and repeatedly tested, they really take off vertically and sit down. So, on June 28 the company Moller International has announced that a whole toolbox and began producing parts for its plates of a vehicle M200G Volantor size of a small car. Diameter plates 3-meter height of about a metre. Cruise speed of 80-120 km / h, maximum-160 km / h

After four days with phone, trouble in paradise

Falling in lust with an expensive device like the iPhone sets owners up for a hard fall if it stops working. I know, because mine died after only four days into our relationship.

At first I thought it was just a hiccup when the iPhone was working fine one minute, then wouldn’t turn on the next. I tried the prescribed reset (hold down the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons at the same time for several seconds until the device restarts) with no luck. Black screen, period. But when I plugged it in the Apple logo appeared as if restarting. Then it vanished, the screen went black again, and a few seconds later the logo reappeared, as if restarting. Again. Then again. And again. Trouble in paradise.

On a whim I held the buttons for a reset again but this time kept holding, until eventually a bright yellow triangle appeared, instructing me to Connect the iPhone to iTunes. This forced “restore mode” allowed the otherwise endless-looped iPhone to appear in iTunes, which prompted me to restore the phone. Since iTunes backs up the phone’s data after every sync I said sure, gladly, please do.

The restore process began — but then the loopy restarts started again. And again, ad nauseam. At that point I felt a little nauseous, too — four days and the iPhone I spent eight hours in line to buy was a goner.

I contacted the AT&T store and was told I could return the phone for a refund (with a 10 percent restocking fee) but could not exchange it for a replacement; all iPhone support is handled by Apple. I contacted a public relations person at Apple and she said she’d have customer service call me. While waiting on that call I decided to drive to the nearby Apple Store with the far-flung hope that they’d simply swap the phone for me (crazily assuming they’d even have another 8 GB model in stock).

An extremely polite Apple customer service rep named Nate called just as I was walking into the Apple Store. He introduced me to the store manager, Sean, who was also on the line. We hung up with Nate and conducted the service business in person. Sean said they’d simply swap my phone for another, and after some help from two guys named Chris at the Genius Bar, they took back the broken one and I left with the new iPhone. Driving home, I had a number of questions. Would they completely erase my iPhone when it reached the service department, so that my private data remains mine alone? What if they hadn’t had another iPhone in stock?

I got answers from Apple’s PR department. Yes, all iPods and iPhones that are exchanged for replacements get wiped clean. As for the in-stock issue, iPhone owners can swap a “DOA” phone for a replacement if within 30 days of purchase. If the store is out of stock or if the purchase is past thirty days (or if a customer doesn’t live near an Apple Store), the repair-by-mail process kicks in.

The owner removes the SIM card (which will work in the previously used phone that the iPhone presumably replaced), mails the iPhone to Apple, and they repair it and send it back. Apple offers the option of a rental iPhone during the repair process for a $29 fee — something that is bound to rub customers the wrong way.

There was no such fee from AT&T when one of my previous phones — the Palm Treo 680 — went in for repairs. While under warranty AT&T automatically ships a loaner phone, which you wind up keeping if they deem your original dead.

They do charge a small fee if you want the replacement sent overnight, but otherwise the repair process is free. (AT&T waived the rush fee the two additional times I had to send the Treo in for replacement due to the thin plastic bezel around the screen repeatedly cracking despite my handling the device with kid gloves.)

Why did my iPhone fail so soon? Apple’s Geniuses couldn’t say on the spot. But I think it had something to do with heat — my iPhone would get incredibly hot to the touch when plugged in and charging while I was on a long phone call. So hot I lived those first three days in constant fear that it would heat to the point of burning up.