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POPSBuilding 'The Matrix' Feynman envisioned, a general purpose, programmable quantum computer could itself carry out quantum simulations. But such machines are still decades away, most researchers say, while machines designed only for quantum simulations may become available sooner.
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POPSCuil: Search engine to ravel Google Launches For one, Cuil has an impressive pedigree with its three founders: Tom Costello of IBM's WebFountain project, plus Anna Patterson and Russell Power of Google's TeraGoogle project, Google's massive search index. Cuil also counts former AltaVista founder Louis Monier -- who later went to eBay and then Google -- as part of the team. These people know search. In particular, they know on-the-firing line, heavy duty, industrial strength search. Not only that, they're unleashing what appears to be a comprehensive service that anyone can use. Indeed, Google already did a blog post in reaction to Cuil and its size claims on Friday, before Cuil even launched or those claims became public. If Google's paying that much attention, then anyone should.
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POPSNew breakthrough in cancer diagnosis For the study, Dr Tewari and colleagues tested blood from mice and humans with advanced prostate cancers, as well as that from healthy controls, and could distinguish which individuals had cancer based on blood microRNA measurement.
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POPSBreakthrough in animal part transplants for humans Surgeons have been able to transplant heart valves from pigs into patients for more than a decade, but these have a limited life span as they do not become populated by the patients own cells and are unable to repair any damage, meaning they must be replaced every 10 years. For young patients this poses a particular problem as the valves do not grow with the child and so must be replaced frequently. With the new technique the heart valves grow with the patient as if they were part of the original heart. The scientists use a combination of freezing, chemical baths and ultrasound to strip the animal tissue of its cells and prime the remaining biological scaffold so the patient's cells are encouraged to grow into it.
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POPSSolution to global warming: Floating cities The 'Lilypad City' would float around the world as an independent and fully self-sustainable home. With a lake at its centre to collect and purify rainwater, it would be accessed by three separate marinas and feature artificial mountains to offer the inhabitants a change of scenery from the seascape. Power for the central accommodation hub is provided through a series of renewable energy sources including solar panels on the mountain sides, wind turbines and a power station to harness the energy of the waves.
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POPSWorms Do Calculus To Find Meals In their paper, the researchers documented how two related, closely located chemosensory neurons, acting in tandem, regulate behavior. The left neuron controls an on switch, while the opposing right one an off switch. These sister neurons are situated much like the two nostrils or two eyes of mammals. Together these neurons are known as ASE for antagonistic sensory cues.
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POPSCollision I found this photo to be both shocking and thought provoking
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POPSPandas - A Group Photo Zookeepers feed a group of eight giant pandas from the quake-ravaged Sichuan province at a new zoo exhibit built for the Olympic Games in Beijing
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POPSAnother internet blog map... This map shows blogs as nodes (coloured spots) and lines represent the links between them. Nodes within the centre are blogs based on technical discussion and gadgetry. Nodes at the outer part of the sphere are non- technical blogs that link to the centre. Colours represent the URL, where blogs hosted at the same domain have the same colour. This image was created by Matthew Hurst.
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POPS1 Giant Leap A beautiful project :-) Video clips from all episodes of the program can be found on the web site.
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POPSFourteen Wild Ideas 14 interesting speculations about the present and the future. Worth looking into some the actual papers.
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