“The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe,” said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft. “By combining terabytes of incredible imagery and data with easy-to-use software for viewing and moving through all that information, the WorldWide Telescope opens the door to new ways to see and experience the wonders of space. Our hope is that it will inspire young people to explore astronomy and science, and help researchers in their quest to better understand the universe.”

The application itself is a blend of software and Web 2.0 services created with the Microsoft high-performance Visual Experience Engine, which allows seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments. WorldWide Telescope stitches together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial bodies and displays them in a way that relates to their actual position in the sky. People can freely browse through the solar system, galaxy and beyond, or take advantage of a growing number of guided tours of the sky hosted by astronomers and educators at major universities and planetariums.

“WorldWide Telescope brings to life a dream that many of us in Microsoft Research have pursued for years, and we are proud to release this as a free service to anyone who wants to explore the universe,” said Curtis Wong, manager of Microsoft’s Next Media Research Group. “Where is Saturn in the sky, in relation to the moon? Does the Milky Way really have a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy? With the universe at your fingertips, you can discover the answers for yourself.”

The service goes well beyond the simple browsing of images. Users can choose which telescope they want to look through, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Spitzer Space Telescope or others. They can view the locations of planets in the night sky — in the past, present or future. They can view the universe through different wavelengths of light to reveal hidden structures in other parts of the galaxy. Taken as a whole, the application provides a top-to-bottom view of the science of astronomy.

“Users can see the X-ray view of the sky, zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago,” said Roy Gould, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “I believe this new creation from Microsoft will have a profound impact on the way we view the universe.”

Microsoft Research has formed close ties with members of the academic, education and scientific communities to make WorldWide Telescope a reality. NASA along with other organizations coordinated with Microsoft Research to provide the imagery, provide feedback on the application from a scientific point of view, and help turn WorldWide Telescope into a rich learning application.

Microsoft’s mission to make the universe accessible to everyone was begun years ago by renowned Microsoft Senior Researcher Jim Gray. WorldWide Telescope is built on top of Gray’s pioneering development of large-scale, high-performance online databases including SkyServer and his contributions to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a project to map a large part of the Northern sky outside of the galaxy. Microsoft Research is releasing WorldWide Telescope as a service free of charge to the astronomy and education communities as a tribute to Gray with the hope that it will inspire and empower kids of all ages to explore and understand the universe in an unprecedented way.

source: MS Press.

Bukiet, a professor whose mantra is “A day without math is like a day without sunshine,” has received countless teaching honors from NJIT. He admits that his picks are not always correct. “Hey, sometimes the players just don’t perform the way they should, every fan knows that,” he said.

But getting people to think about probability and the other important aspects of math in their lives makes Bukiet feel like a winner every time.

On a more upbeat note, Bukiet’s system for recommending wagers has produced positive results for five of the seven years he has posted results. His model provides the number of games each Major League Baseball team should win in 2008. Bukiet, an avid Mets fan, is also associate dean of NJIT’s College of Science and Liberal Arts. His predictions follow, including expected number of wins for each team.

“The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Angels should make the playoffs in the American League (AL) in 2008 with the other teams lagging well behind,” he said.

“The National League (NL) should see much tighter races, with the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves winning the East and the wild card, respectively, while in the Central and West Divisions only the Pittsburgh Pirates and the San Francisco Giants have no real shot of making it to the post-season.” The Yankees and Red Sox should tie for baseball’s best record with 98 wins, with both teams making the post-season, one as AL East winner and the other as the AL wild card team. The next closest team in their division, the Toronto Blue Jays, should wind up 12 games back. In the AL Central Division, the Tigers should win, besting the Cleveland Indians by 9 games, while the Angels should win AL West by 14 games over the Seattle Mariners.

In the National League Central Division, Bukiet’s model calls for the top five teams to be within five wins of each other. With the model’s typical error, any team but the Pittsburgh Pirates (with 71 wins) could eke out the division championship. Bukiet calls for the Milwaukee Brewers to win 84, the Chicago Cubs to win 83, the Cincinnati Reds to win 81, the St. Louis Cardinals to win 80 and the Houston Astros to win 79 games.

In the NL West, the contest should be closer, said Bukiet, whose model has the top four teams within three wins of each other. The Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres, who had to play a tie-breaker to decide the wild card team in 2007 look like they might have to do it again, playing for the NL West title, both winning 85 games in 2008. The Arizona Diamondbacks should be close behind with 83 wins and the Los Angeles Dodgers can expect 82. Only the San Francisco Giants should lag with 75.

The expected number of wins for each team is:

* AL East: Yankees – 98; Red Sox – 98; Blue Jays – 86; Rays – 75; Orioles – 63;
* AL Central: Tigers – 96; Indians – 87; White Sox – 79; Twins – 74; Royals 63;
* AL West: Angels – 92; Mariners – 78; A’s – 75; Rangers – 70;
* NL East: Mets – 92; Braves – 89; Phillies – 84; Nationals – 73; Marlins – 70;
* NL Central: Brewers – 84; Cubs – 83; Reds – 81; Cards – 80; Astros – 79; Pirates – 71;
* NL West: Rockies – 85; Padres – 85; Diamondbacks – 83; Dodgers – 82; Giants – 75;

“These results give a guide of how teams ought to perform during the season but there are so many unknowns, especially concerning trades, injuries and how rookies will perform that cannot be taken into account,” added Bukiet.

Operations Research published Bukiet’s original mathematical model on which his predictions are based. The model computes the probability of a team winning a game against another team with given hitters, bench, starting pitcher, relievers and home field advantage. Bukiet has appeared on CNN Headline News, the Jerusalem Post and Fox Radio’s Roger Hedgecock Show, KOGO, San Diego and others. Interview Bukiet in person at 501 Cullimore Hall, by telephone (973-596-8392) or email bukiet@m.njit.edu.

source:New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Besides research into extremely small structures, Vanapalli has constructed a proof-of-principle cooler, which despite the smaller dimensions, cools more effectively than conventional coolers and has therefore aroused commercial interest. Vanapalli carried out his successful research at the University of Twente, partly in cooperation with the National Institute of Standard and Technology in Boulders, US.

He focused on miniaturising regenerative coolers. These are coolers that make use of the oscillating compression and expansion of a working gas. Two factors proved to be critical in the miniaturisation of these coolers: the cycle frequency had to be increased as well as the average pressure of the gas in the system. Both are necessary to ensure that the miniaturised system has sufficient cooling capacity.

Vanapalli constructed a cooler with a frequency of 120 Hz. This cooler was approximately three times smaller than conventional (50 Hz) coolers, yet nevertheless had a higher cooling output and cooled down the smaller dimensions much faster. The cooler was realised in close cooperation with the National Institute of Standard and Technology in Boulder, US. Thales Cryogenics in Eindhoven has expressed a serious interest in this development, which is directly applicable to their products.

Vanapalli carried out a significant part of his research on even smaller and consequently even higher frequency coolers. This mainly concerned the balance between heat exchange and pressure drop in the micro-channels of the cooler. A good heat exchange requires many small gas channels but then the pressure loss is unacceptably high. Consequently a compromise must be sought. Test structures were etched in silicon with a typical width of 20 ƒÝm and a height of 200 ƒÝm. Theoretical models were found to accurately describe the pressure losses caused by this type of structures.

An important step towards a high-frequency microcooler is Vanapalli’s research on a 1 kHz compressor that works on the basis of a metal membrane moved by a piezo stack.

Regenerative coolers

Regenerative coolers compress a working gas, usually helium, cyclically. In a regenerator, incoming hot gas transfers heat to the matrix of the regenerator, where the heat is stored for a half cycle in the heat capacity of the matrix. In the second half of the cycle the returning cold gas flowing in the opposite direction through the same channel, picks up heat from the matrix and returns the matrix to its original temperature before the cycle is repeated. At equilibrium, one end of the regenerator is at room temperature while the other end is at the cold temperature.

source: Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

The development of the hard disk is now reaching its technical limits because the entire disk is served by just a single head. Consequently, the capacity of the disk and the reading and writing speed cannot expand much more in the future. Therefore research into a memory based on probes is being carried out at the University of Twente’s MESA+ research institute. Being able to control the position of each separate probe is essential for realising a system with extremely high densities.

Le Fèbre’s measurements show that a field-emission current signal can be used to adjust the position of the probes without these making direct contact with the storage medium. If a constant current is maintained and the applied voltage is varied, the distance between the probe apex and the storage medium can be adjusted from several nanometres to about 100 nanometres. The resolution is sufficient for a probe-based storage system. However for practical applications, the current stability and the lifetime of the probes will need to be improved further so that the accuracy and reproducibility of positioning can be increased.

source: Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

Surprising as it may seem, there are people who can smell sounds, see smells or hear colors. Actually, all of as, at some point in our lives, have had this skill (some authors affirm that it is common in newborns). This phenomenon, called “Synaesthesia” – from the Greek “syn” (with) and “aisthesis” (sensation) – consists of the pairing of two bodily senses by which the perception of a determined stimulus activates a different subjective perception with no external stimulus (in science, the evoker stimulus is called inducer and the additional experience concurrent).

In the department of Experimental Psychology and Physiology at the University of Granada, a research group is carrying out pioneer work in Spain on the systematic study of Synaesthesia and its relation with perception and emotions. Professor Juan Lupiáñez Castillo and Alicia Callejas Sevilla have devoted many years to the study of this unknown but interesting phenomenon, which affects approximately one person out of every thousand. Many of these people do not even know that they are synaesthetes, as they think they perceive the world normally.

Pioneers

Callejas’ doctoral thesis is one of the most detailed studies on this phenomenon at an international level, and it is probably the first doctoral thesis on this topic in Europe. Her study covers the various forms of Synaesthesia focussing on the most common one: the grapheme-color type (for people with this form of Synaesthesia, letters, words and numbers evoke colors in an automatic and involuntary way).

One of the distinctive characteristics of this form of Synaesthesia is the fact that people are certain about their perceptions: they feel that their way of experiencing the world is correct, and they become disappointed when they realize there is something that is not quite right. ‘Therefore, when a person with grapheme-color Synaesthesia indicates that the word table is blue, it is quite probable that if he or she ever sees the same word written in a color other than blue, this word will appear to him or her as wrong and consider it a mistake. The synaesthete might even point out that the word is ugly or that he or she does not like it because it is not correct,’ affirms Callejas. Consequently, finding the word table written in red might be unpleasant whereas seeing it in blue might be agreeable. This emotional reaction associated with how synaesthetes perceive consistent or inconsistent stimuli is an extremely interesting subject and has been studied for the first time in this doctoral thesis.

Irrepressible reactions

Some of Callejas’ conclusions show that these emotional reactions occur automatically and can not be ignored. Moreover, they can affect the synaesthete to the point of slanting his or her preferences when faced with certain stimuli which correspond to his or her inner experiences. Even more important is the fact that these emotions can transform how they perceive events associated with these experiences. These events may have no emotional meaning initially but they can become more or less pleasant if they take place at the same time the synaesthete finds a word in the correct or incorrect color.

‘Then, there are people for whom time units evoke colors – explains the researcher. It is also common for a synaesthete to see colors when listening to words, sounds in general or music notes (people who can see music, for instance). There are also cases, although fewer, where people can see colors in flavors, others perceive flavors or experience touch sensations when listening to different sounds, some link flavors to touch sensations, etc.’

Permanent vision

These researchers from Granada underline that synaesthetes always experience the same vision, Synaesthesia is permanent (a given stimulus always evokes the same color for one person) and idiosyncratic (it is different for each person). Therefore, if for a synaesthete the word dog is red, every time he or she sees it, it will be perceived as red.

Even though Synaesthesia has been known for a long time, its scientific study is relatively recent. Writings such as the Castel one, in which reference is made to previous studies about a Synaesthesia case in a blind person are found in the 18th century. The evolution of the study of this phenomenon has been spectacular – the number of researchers working on this topic is constantly increasing, as will be evident in the Conference which will take place in Granada – and, as the phase of proving that this phenomenon exists has been overcome, explains Alicia Callejas, ‘we are starting to approach questions of major theoretical importance, and to develop adequate study strategies.’ The results of her research have been published in the following prestigious scientific journals, among others: Cortex, Experimental Brain Research and Consciousness and Cognition.

Nowadays, the research field goes from grapheme-color Synaesthesia to other forms never studied before: flavors evoked by music or words (lexical-gustatory Synaesthesia), space structures linked to time units, colors and music, etc.

“When we implement small changes into a biological system which by themselves seem trivial, their effects, when viewed in a broader context, may have a much larger impact than we had thought,” said Till Roenneberg of Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich, Germany. “It is much too early to say whether DST has a serious long-term impact on health, but our results indicate that we should consider this seriously and do a lot more research on the phenomenon.”

As in other animals, the human circadian clock uses daylight to stay in synchrony with its environment as the seasons change. In fact, Roenneberg said, this “entrainment” is so exact that human behavior adjusts to the east-west progression of dawn within a given time zone.

Despite the fact that approximately 1.6 billion people experience DST, he continued, few studies have investigated its impact on human physiology and behavior. The results of the few, relatively small studies that have addressed the question have generally suggested that sleeping patterns adjust within days.

In a large survey, which examined the sleep patterns of 55,000 people in Central Europe, Roenneberg’s group now shows that the timing of sleep on free days follows the seasonal progression of dawn under standard time, but not under DST.

In a second study, they analyzed the timing of sleep and activity for eight weeks around each of the two DST transitions in 50 people, taking into account each individual’s natural clock preferences, or “chronotypes,” ranging from morning larks to night owls. They found that the timing of both sleep and peak activity levels readily adjust to the release from DST in autumn, but that the timing of activity does not adjust to the start of DST in spring, especially in those who like to stay up late and sleep in.

“While we generally think that the time changes enforced by the DST transitions are ‘only an hour,’ they have far more drastic effects if viewed in the context of the circadian clock’s seasonal changes,” Roenneberg said. “This seemingly small hour translates to a repeat of 10 weeks in the annual progression of the relationship between our sleep-wake cycle and dawn—four weeks in spring and six weeks in autumn. In effect, it’s as if the entire population of Germany, for example, is transported to Morocco in spring and back again in autumn.”

Indeed, “after taking the seasonal adjustment into account, our results show that the human circadian clock does not adjust to the DST transition,” Roenneberg said. “This is especially obvious in the late chronotypes in spring when one looks at their daily activity patterns. Essentially, their biological timing stays on standard, winter time, while they have to adjust their social schedules to the advanced clock time throughout the summer.”

source: Cell Press.

The magazine lists five reasons why iPhone grabs the honor, from “the iPhone is pretty,” to “it will make other phones better.” It says further that, “it’s part of a new way of relating to computers,” and that “touching is the new seeing.”

Whatever the case, the iPhone has been one of the most talked about and desired gadgets this year. Hackers have helped to keep it in the headlines by finding ways around the AT&T service lock. How or if the iPhone evolves, remains to be seen.

In a world first, Leeds researchers Professor Simon Phillips, Dr Stephen Carr and Dr Jonathan Hadden, together with Professor David Lilley at Dundee, have mapped the 3 dimensional structure of an enzyme responsible for splitting DNA strands – a process at the heart of human individuality.

The discovery of the T7 endonuclease 1 enzyme’s structure was made by using x-ray crystallography techniques. The enzyme is derived from a bacteriophage – a naturally occurring virus-like agent that attacks bacteria – but the molecular processes are expected to be similar in other organisms, including humans.

“Whilst the enzyme was known to play a central role, its physical structure, which is crucial to understanding the splitting process, has never been seen before. We’ve now got a 3D picture of it at work, and seen it at the point at which it is about to cut through the DNA strands. This is a major breakthrough in investigating the fundamental mechanisms at work behind the formation of a person’s DNA and how viruses replicate their DNA in the body,” says Professor Phillips.

In humans, this process starts at conception when maternal and paternal DNA strands join together at random points in their sequence(1). Enzymes such as T7 endonuclease 1 are then responsible for severing the strands at this junction, thus creating a third, unique DNA sequence for the offspring.

However, Professor Phillips says it will be some time before this process can be observed in humans. “It’s too important a discovery to rush. Our next step is to examine the process in a more complex system than bacteriophage, such as yeast,” he says.

source: University of Leeds.

Refraction always bends light one way, as one can see in the illusion of a “bent” drinking straw when observed through the side of a glass. A new metamaterial crafted from alternating layers of semiconductors (indium-gallium-arsenic and aluminum-indium-arsenic) acts as a single lens that refracts light in the opposite direction.

Image above caption: An artist’s rendition of the new light-bending metamaterial developed by researchers at NSF’s Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment Engineering Research Center and NSF’s Princeton Center for Complex Materials Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.Credit: Keith Drake

Refraction is the reason that lenses have to be curved, a trait that limits image resolution. With the new metamaterial, flat lenses are possible, theoretically allowing microscopes to capture images of objects as small as a strand of DNA. The current metamaterial lens works with infrared light, but the researchers hope the technology will expand to other wavelengths in the future.

Earlier efforts have crafted metamaterials that bend light in a similar way, but this is the first to do so using a 3-dimensional structure and a metamaterial comprised entirely of semiconductors. Those traits will prove critical for incorporating the technology into devices such as chemical threat sensors, communications equipment and medical diagnostics tools.

The paper describing the technology appeared online Oct. 14, 2007, in Nature Materials.

source: National Science Foundation.

Pesticides currently used within the European Union (EU) must be registered with the national members of the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO), which requires efficiency data derived from field trials. EPPO has defined zones of comparable climates across Europe that allow data generated in one country to support registration in another country within the same climatic zone.

The new service, Site Similarity Certification (SSC), merges satellite images with conventional data like temperature, precipitation, soil characteristics and recurring natural phenomena to improve the scientific approach in defining comparable zones and the transferability of field trial results achieved in one EU member state to another.

“In view of the needs for testing and regulating Plant Protection Products within EPPO member countries, the continuation of the already successfully started efforts to integrate the use of satellite images into the process of pesticide registration seems to be a promising tool,” Dr Udo Heimbach a member of the EPPO Working Party said. “Satellite images are intended to be used to prove the similarity of trial sites and herewith to improve the procedure of mutual recognition of trial results throughout Europe, which is one of the aims of EPPO.”

Proving the comparability of cropping sites saves the pesticide industry from carrying out expensive perennial trials, allows field trials to be planned more efficiently and creates the possibility of substituting missing field trials for Site Similarity Certifications.

source:European Space Agency.