People are built into wireless networks

Stunning forecast recently issued specialists of the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology at Queen's University Belfast (UK): a body of people can become the basis for future communication networks at the expense of many wearable sensors. A team of researchers led by Simon Cotton, which develops high-speed wireless networks of the future generation, believes that the human body is perfect for the role of receiving and transmitting stations and may serve as a basis for creating wireless networks.

"These networks" from body to body "have a lot of advantages - convinced Dr. Simon, - and they can significantly reduce costs as the construction of costly, multiple base stations, and on health services. People used to send data over the wire, then learned how to communicate through the air, and now the human body becomes the medium of communication ".

This optimistic forecast was made after an interesting experiment conducted by scientists from Korea University in Seoul. It happened this spring. I recall that when a team of researchers led by Dr. Lee Sang-Hoon transmits data at speeds of 10 megabits per second through the man's hand between two electrodes placed in the skin at a distance of 30 centimeters.

Why, as a medium for "wireless" were chosen human veils? According to many experts, low-frequency electromagnetic waves pass through the skin with little attenuation, especially its well protected "network" from outside influence. Therefore, as an "information" was used precisely these types of waves (as you know, in these wireless networks is mainly used radio microwave.)

"If we had used for each broadcast the measured vital signs, then we would need to use a variety of batteries for each sensor - explained study leader Lee Sang-hoon. - Broadband in the skin would reduce energy demand and, consequently, in power supplies approximately by 90 percent. "

In the experiment, Dr. Li and colleagues used a fairly harmless skin metal electrodes coated with a flexible polymer, which is enriched with silicon. They asked volunteers to wear an electrode on the shoulder or behind the ear for a week and made sure that option is really safe for the body.

Additionally, tests were run cytotoxicity (ie, the poison is a substance the cell surface of the electrodes or not), using cultures of human cells. It turned out that no toxic effects on epithelial cells does not render the device.

There were no abrasions and heavy feeling this device also does not call, because its thickness is only 300 micrometers, as three human hairs, and it weighs about the same. In addition, the device withstands the test flexion at 90 degrees about 700 thousand times.

What data was sent across the skin a wireless network? It was about the pulse of the human heart. However, Korean biologists believe that the spectrum of the transmitted data can be much wider. Over time, they note, so you can send every second report on the status of all human organs. This is especially important for patients suffering from diseases of the heart, kidneys, liver and pancreas, in fact in violation of the functioning of these bodies requires constant monitoring of their condition, and the traditional ways to hold it quite difficult.

"New versions might even implanted under the skin for longer-term and deep monitoring of various indicators of health of the body, such as electrocardiography (ECG) or electroencephalography (EEG)," - describes the development prospects of this technique Dr. Lee. From his point of view, in the future every physician will be able to monitor the health of his patient, being away at a considerable distance. And this will help him "corporal" wireless network.

But how can transmit information from the body on display, located in the doctor's office. After all, here low-frequency electromagnetic waves will be very inefficient. But Simon Cotton proposes a scheme of combining the two technologies of wireless networks. According to his idea that the human skin will be placed receiver that collects information from all the "physical" sensors on the skin. This receiver will be associated with microtransmitter working on traditional microwave radio waves. It was he who would liaise between the patient and doctor.
In addition, on the same principle can also "connect" the two people to each other. It is not excluded that this will be true for parents who are concerned about the health of your child, being at this time far away from him. The truth is not quite clear whether it wants the child.

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What if a person can breathe a liquid?

Impressive, is not it? This possibility opens up some future prospects. If the person can breathe a liquid, which will be saturated with oxygen it will enable the diver is at a depth of 900 meters and not feel awkward and uncomfortable in a larger diving equipment.

Then we can not be afraid of the bends, which occurs due to saturation of the human body with nitrogen. But to achieve success in this business need to spend over your body wants to risk a very serious work. This idea of breathing in the aquatic environment using liquid, which is very well dissolve oxygen, has long been developed by scientists. Back in the 80's navy in large experiments were conducted on mice.

Through which scientists have had some effect, and demonstrated that mice can breathe in water. The very first experiment, the participants were white mouse. During the experiment, mice were immersed in a closed container filled with saline solution. In this tank at a pressure of 8 atmospheres of oxygen took place (such a pressure equivalent to normal air breathing). After some time after immersion test animals was as if nothing had happened unfamiliar environment and without interference to breathe oxygen in salt water.

The experiment lasted for 10-15 hours, except that one of the mice could survive 18 hours. In one experiment, young participants in the study under pressure of 160 atmospheres, which is equivalent to what they would be lowered into the water at 1600 meters. However, after the mice returned to a normal environment, most of them died. Scientists have noticed that it happened because of small respiratory animals, when the mice returned to normal conditions excess water does not come out and stuck in the lung tissue, which subsequently led to suffocation and death.

Unfortunately, the physical body can not cope when you inhale and exhale with the liquid so quickly that it led to the assimilation of oxygen and release carbon dioxide. However, according to one of the scientists as possible, but if the subject will be some very unpleasant procedures. To start divers will need to wear a helmet with a perforated liquid medium saturated with oxygen. The problem is that the liquid will have to breathe, but so as not to choke on, and it is possible either by duration of training, any medical intervention or by placing a special tube down his throat.

Lungs must be filled with fluid using a special breast-shell, on the principle of the pump will make a quick breath in order to prevent asphyxia. But that's not all, because the problem with the release of carbon dioxide have not been resolved. Through a catheter inserted into the femoral artery, blood will pass through a special membrane filter for removal of carbon dioxide. As you are now the prospect of free breathing underwater? Would you dive to a depth of a helmet with a tube in his throat, a membrane filter on the thigh and with a special pump on the chest in the shape of the carapace. You have not changed your mind?

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Snowbird:Aircraft

In one of the monologues known satirist was this phrase: "Why do airplanes fly, but do not flap their wings!". This joke has lost its relevance after the graduates and students of Aerospace, University of Toronto, led by Todd Reichert and Professor James D. DeLaurier was invented by an aircraft that its wings. Or rather not the plane, and Ornithopter Snowbird.

That is the name given to this unique design, weighing 94 kg and a wingspan of 32 meters. Through the muscular traction Ornithopter was kept in air 19.3 seconds and flying during this time 145 meters at a speed of 25.6 km h

To disperse Ornithopter was used normal car, which at first hauled construction. Then the rope that Snowbird was attached to the car was uncoupled and the unit moved into a state of free flight, holding in the air only at the expense of their long flexible wings. In order to design set in motion the muscular force pilot who uses cunning system of cables. Emerging horizontal and vertical thrust lead design in motion and keep it in the air.

Snowbird inventor says his creation is perhaps the most significant invention in the aircraft industry over the last decade. Despite the fact that Ornithopter is hardly a practical mode of transport, he embodies the dream of many generations of people - fly like a bird. In order to maximize ease device with a pilot on board, most Reichert had to lose 18 kg, sitting on a rigid diet.
Design, which is the first step in the development Ornithopter was designed under the project Human-Powered Ornithopter (HPO). For the construction of Snowbird were used balsa, polymers and carbon fiber.

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A new read on DNA sequencing

A new technique for reading the DNA code relies on a fundamental property of matter known as quantum tunneling, which operates at the subatomic scale. The current paper shows that single bases inside a DNA chain can indeed be read with tunneling, without interference from neighboring bases, pointing the way to low cost, rapid DNA sequencing.

The twisting, ladder-like form of the DNA molecule—the architectural floor plan of life—contains a universe of information critical to human health. Enormous effort has been invested in deciphering the genetic code, including, most famously, the Human Genome Project. Nevertheless, the process of reading some three-billion nucleotide "letters" to reveal an individual's full genome remains a costly and complex undertaking.

Now biophysicist Stuart Lindsay, of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, has demonstrated a technique that may lead to rapid, low cost reading of whole genomes, through recognition of the basic chemical units—the nucleotide bases that make up the DNA double helix. An affordable technique for DNA sequencing would be a tremendous advance for medicine, allowing routine clinical genomic screening for diagnostic purposes; the design of a new generation of custom-fit pharmaceuticals; and even genomic tinkering to enhance cellular resistance to viral or bacterial infection.

Lindsay is an ASU Regents' Professor and Carson Presidential Chair of Physics and Chemistry as well as director of the Biodesign Institute's Center for Single Molecule Biophysics. His group's research appears in the current issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Lindsay's technique for reading the DNA code relies on a fundamental property of matter known as quantum tunneling, which operates at the subatomic scale. According to quantum theory, elementary particles like electrons can do some very strange and counter-intuitive things, in defiance of classical laws of physics. Such sub-atomic, quantum entities possess both a particle and a wave-like nature. Part of the consequence of this is that an electron has some probability of moving from one side of a barrier to the other, regardless of the height or width of such a barrier.

Remarkably, an electron can accomplish this feat, even when the potential energy of the barrier exceeds the kinetic energy of the particle. Such behavior is known as quantum tunneling, and the flow of electrons is a tunneling current. Tunneling is confined to small distances—so small that a tunnel junction should be able to read one DNA base (there are four of them in the gentic code, A,T,C and G) at a time without interference from flanking bases. But the same sensitivity to distance means that vibrations of the DNA, or intervening water molecules, ruin the tunneling signal. So the Lindsay group has developed "recognition molecules" that "grab hold" of each base in turn, clutching the base against the electrodes that read out the signal. They call this new method "recognition tunneling."

The current paper in Nature Nanotechnology shows that single bases inside a DNA chain can indeed be read with tunneling, without interference from neighboring bases. Each base generates a distinct electronic signal, current spikes of a particular size and frequency that serve to identify each base. Surprisingly, the technique even recognizes a small chemical change that nature sometimes uses to fine-tune the expression of genes, the so called "epigenetic" code. While an individual's genetic code is the same in every cell, the epigenetic code is tissue and cell specific and unlike the genome itself, the epigenome can respond to environmental changes during an individual's life.

To read longer lengths of DNA, Lindsay's group is working to couple the tunneling readout to a nanopore—a tiny hole through which DNA is dragged, one base at a time, by an electric field. The paper in Nature Nanotechnology has something to say about this problem too. "It has always been believed that the problem with passing DNA through a nanopore is that it flies through so quickly that there is no time to read the sequence" Lindsay says. Surprisingly, the tunneling signals reported in the Nanture Nanotechnology paper last for a long time—nearly a second per base read.

To test this result, Lindsay teamed with a colleague, Robert Ros, to measure how hard one has to pull to break the complex of a DNA base plus the recognition molecules. They did this with an atomic force microscope. "These measurements confirmed the long lifetime of the complex, and also showed that the reading time could be speeded up at will by the application of a small additional pulling force" says Ros. "Thus the stage is set for combining tunneling reads with a device that passes DNA through a nanopore" says Lindsay.

Sequencing through recognition tunneling, if proven successful for whole genome reading, could represent a substantial savings in cost and hopefully, in time as well. Existing methods of DNA sequencing typically rely on cutting the full molecule into thousands of component bits, snipping apart the ladder of complementary bases and reading these fragments. Later, the pieces must be meticulously re-assembled, with the aid of massive computing power. "Direct readout of the epigenetic code holds the key to understanding why cells in different tissues are different, despite having the same genome" Lindsay adds, a reference to the new ability to read epigenetic modifications with tunneling.

Lindsay stresses much work remains to be done before the application of sequencing by recognition can become a clinical reality. "Right now, we can only read two or three bases as the tunneling probe drifts over them, and some bases are more accurately identified than others," he says. However, the group expects this to improve as future generations of recognition molecules are synthesized.

"The basic physics is now demonstrated" Lindsay says, adding "perhaps it will soon be possible to incorporate these principles into mass produced computer chips." The day of the "genome on a lap-top" might be coming sooner than previously thought possible.

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New Saudi train ready to shuttle hajj pilgrims

The Mashair Railway, also known as Mecca Metro, rolls out on Sunday to serve pilgrims beginning the annual hajj rituals near the Muslim holy city, bringing a new solution to crowding.
The dual-track light railway, with its initial number of nine stations, connects the three holy sites of Mina, Muzdalifah and Mount Arafat -- areas that see massive congestion during the five-day pilgrimage.It will replace 4,000 buses previously used.
The first official trip will set off from Mina at 8:00 pm (1700 GMT), as pilgrims gather there, outside Mecca on the Tarwiah Day to prepare for the peak day of Arafat, when some 2.5 million are expected to gather on Mount Arafat and its surrounding plain. The Chinese-built railway, only to be used for five days a year now, will only operate at 35 percent of its full final capacity in the first phase.

It will be open only to Saudi and Gulf pilgrims, forecast at some 130,000 Saudis, 10,000 Kuwaitis and 10,000 Bahrainis, said Saeed al-Qurashi, head of the Hajj and Umra Committee at the Mecca Chamber of Commerce. The number is modest in comparison with the total number of pilgrims, but other nationalities will be able to use the train in the second phase. While all pilgrims begin the journey in Mecca, the train initially will run only from Mina, to the east, and on to Muzdalifah and Mount Arafat further east. All pilgrims leave Mina for Arafat by the 9th of the Dhul Hijja month of the Muslim lunar calendar, which is Monday this year. Later Monday they all descend by train back to Muzdalifah, halfway between Arafat and Mina, and Tuesday they all head back to Mina, where they stay up to three nights. The railway will eventually stretch the extra few kilometres to Mecca, home of the Muslim holiest shrine. At Arafat 1 station, the light-green train pulled in during one of the trial runs conducted to test its readiness. Chinese workers were seen still working to fix a ventilation system on the 10-metre- (33 feet) wide marble platform. "The platform has a capacity to accommodate 3,000 passengers at a time," said Yasser al-Sibaei, a Saudi supervisor at the station. He said the plan is to get 3,000 passengers into the train, and then bring the same number onto the platform for the next journey.
Platforms are protected by glass barriers whose doors open simultaneously with the train doors to ensure the security of waiting passengers.

The elevated stations also have wide ramps for pilgrims to flow out smoothly, backed by lifts that can carry up to 50 persons at a time.
Most of the station agents appear to be Egyptian and Saudis. Egyptians with experience in running the metro of Cairo were recruited to operate the control rooms. "It is an honour to serve the pilgrims and represent our country," said Saber Bernawi, a Saudi agent said. Mansur al-Blushi, a Meccan who is at university in South Africa said he took up the seasonal work to make some pocket money. "I study abroad. It is a chance to come to see my family and make some pocket money," he told AFP. Station agents are paid 5,000 riyals (1,333 dollars/970 euros) for the two-week contract. British Serco service firm has been contracted to provide operations and maintenance consultancy, in cooperation with China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC).

The 1.8-billion-dollar project is the first of two rail links aimed at easing pilgrim traffic. The much larger Haramain High Speed Rail is set to stretch 444 kilometres (275 miles) between Mecca and Medina, the second Muslim holy site. Local Al-Rajhi construction group together with France's Alstom and China Railway Engineering won the first-phase of the 6.8-billion-riyal (1.8-billion-dollar) contract for civil works. The train which will travel through the Red Sea city of Jeddah is planned to run at a high speed reaching 360 kilometres (225 miles) per hour and ease traffic of pilgrims between the two sites.(c) 2010 AFP

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Facebook may launch e-mail services

Facebook, whispered for some time to planning their own email service, finally may be about to do it in a move that sent a shot in the bow of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
TechCrunch, a leading technology blog Silicon Valley, reported Friday that the network plans to announce a service of Web-based email address complete with@facebook.com at an event in San Francisco on Monday.

Agence France-Presse and other media have been invited to the event on Facebook, but have not said what is coming. Facebook has more than 500 million members worldwide and offers a personal email set a powerful challenge to the mail order giant - Microsoft's Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Google Gmail. Hotmail currently has the most users, 361.7 million in September, according to tracking firm comScore online, followed by Yahoo with 273.1 million and Gmail, with 193.3 million. TechCrunch said Facebook planned service Web-based email is part of a secret project known as "Project Titan" that is "unofficially referred to internally as" murderer of Gmail. '"

"And while it can only be in the early stages of its launch coming Monday, is a huge amount of potential here," said Jason Kincaid from TechCrunch. The report comes amid recent fighting a battle between Facebook and Google to exchange data and Silicon Valley engineering talent.Google last week blocked from Facebook Gmail import contact information through Palo Alto, the refusal of the network based in California to exchange and share data about their users. And The Wall Street Journal reported that Internet search king Google, in an attempt to stop defections to rival technology companies like Facebook, has all its 23,000 employees a wage increase of 10 percent. According to the newspaper, about 10 percent of Facebook employees are veterans of Google. Kincaid TechCrunch and others noted the benefits of Facebook could lead to a battle of e-mail. "Facebook is the world's most popular photo products, the product most popular events, and will soon have a local product is so popular," said Kincaid. "You can modify the design of their web mail client to display the contents of each of these in a perfect manner.

"And there is the social aspect: Facebook knows who your friends and how close it is connected with them, but that is probably a pretty good job to find out what personal email messages you want to read more and prioritize accordingly "he said. Gadget blog Gizmodo said the prospect of an email service should Facebook Google, Yahoo and Microsoft "very nervous." "Facebook mail could be a murderer, not only for its instant size potential, but because of its natural advantage in making email more useful," said Jesus Diaz Gizmodo blogger. "It can actually become the mail service 100 percent only useful out there, just e-mail shows that really matters," said Diaz. "Since Facebook knows how to interact with all your contacts, it would be perfectly able to separate what is important from what is not." "Of course, not all Facebook users will jump in your car email," said Diaz. "But more likely is that a large percentage of the user base."

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How to return sent email?

Google is introducing new services frequently. The distinction of gmail is different from the first time it launched. Some of the distinctions are under process and those can be used from Google labs. “Undo Send” is one of the under process service which will launched soon, but it will be open for all very soon. But you can use the “Undo Sent” service from Google labs.

When we press send button then the mail is sent to the destination email address and delivered within a second. But the mail can be sent in wrong email address or without complete. We may send the mail without attaching any file in mistake. Whether the mail sent willingly or unwillingly to any email address, it cannot be returned. But you can now return the sent mail using Google labs. You can find labs in settings after login your gmail account. Use undo sent send option to return your sent mail. If you active “Undo Send” you can see a massage above Inbox asking whether you want to return the sent mail. Pres undo link to return the mail in editor again. But this can be done within a few seconds. When you active the “Undo Send” option, select your desired time 5, 10, 20 or 30 seconds. If you select 30 seconds then you can return the mail within 30 seconds after send to any destination email address.

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