The ability to understand how small bodies such as moons switch from orbiting the Sun to orbiting a planet has long remained one of the outstanding problems of planetary science. A paper published in Nature on 15 May shows how this problem has been resolved using chaos theory, enabling scientists to predict where astronomers might search for new moons orbiting the giant planets.

In the last couple of years many small moons have been found orbiting the giant planets in our Solar System. For e

Speed-up may make “topic-sensitive” page rankings feasible Computer science researchers at Stanford University have developed several new techniques that together may make it possible to calculate Web page rankings as used in the Google search engine up to five times faster. The speed-ups to Google’s method may make it realistic to calculate page rankings personalized for an individual’s interests or customized to a particular topic. The Stanford team includes grad

Ambient intelligence is likely to be a novel concept for many but perhaps others will link it to advances in IC technologies. In fact, ambient intelligence wishes to create active environments capable of adapting at all times to the needs of the end-user. To achieve this aim, techniques based on context aware ubiquitous computing are used.

But, what are the needs of the end-user? And does a handicapped person have the same needs as others? Or an elderly person? The University of the Basque C

Astronomers from Cardiff University are completing the first survey ever for cosmic hydrogen, the primeval gas which emerged from the Big Bang to form all the stars and galaxies we can see today.

Since 1997 the astronomers, with their Australian colleagues, have been using two giant radio telescopes, the 64-metre diameter dish at Parkes in New South Wales, Australia, and the 76-metre dish at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, England to build up an atlas of the heavens as mapped by cosmic hydrogen.

Next-Generation, High-bandwidth Memory Architecture Targets Communication Data Storage Applications

Infineon Technologies AG and Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the release of the complete specification for reduced latency DRAM II (RLDRAM™ II) architecture. Operating at speeds of up to 400 MHz, RLDRAM II products are the second-generation, ultra high-speed double data rate (DDR) SDRAM that combines fast random access with extremely high bandwidth and high density targeting co

The storage of plutonium has long plagued scientists. “It is a dangerous metal and its long term storage must be done with special care so as not to harm the environment, ”said physicist Serguei Savrasov, Ph.D.

Finding a solution to this problem led Savrasov, an associate professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), and a team of researchers at Rutgers University and Los Alamos National Laboratories, to study how this metal reacts to heat, a natural condition of storage over time

Self-organization is a growing interdisciplinary field of research about a phenomenon that can be observed in the Universe, in nature and in social contexts. Researchers seek explanations by using both experimental, often computer-based approaches and empirical, observational approaches. Mechanisms of self-organization are beginning to be identified and the theoretical foundation is under development. Research on self-organization tries to describe and explain forms, complex patterns and behaviours t

W3C XML Protocol Working Group Requests Final Review of XML-based solution for Data Transport

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today releases the SOAP Version 1.2 Proposed Recommendation, consisting of the SOAP 1.2 Messaging Framework; SOAP 1.2 Adjuncts, and a Primer. SOAP 1.2 is a lightweight protocol intended for exchanging structured information in a decentralized, distributed environment such as the Web. A W3C Proposed Recommendation is issued after review by the W3C Director,

Researchers from Infineon Technologies AG have developed a way to make large textile surfaces such as carpeting or tent cloth “intelligent”. This technology innovation may lead to new products for the monitoring of buildings, the structural control of buildings of all kinds and for use in the advertising industry.

Woven into fabrics, a self-organizing network of robust chips is able to monitor temperatures, pressures or vibrations as required. In addition to the sensor functionality,

Computer security researchers suggest ways to thwart new form of cybercrime

Most experts on computer crime focus on attacks against Web servers, bank account tampering and other mischief confined to the digital world. But by using little more than a Web search engine and some simple software, a computer-savvy criminal or terrorist could easily leap beyond the boundaries of cyberspace to wreak havoc in the physical world, a team of Internet security researchers has concluded.

The use of toxic chemicals to sterilise medical instruments may soon be a thing of the past, according to researchers at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and the University of California in San Diego. Their work, released on 30 April 2003 in New Journal of Physics, published jointly by the Institute of Physics and the German Physical Society, tests a new way of killing bacteria using a plasma at room temperature and pressure, which could have applications in decontamination of biological

Karaoke may never be the same, thanks to research being presented in Nashville detailing the latest findings in efforts to create a computerized system that makes average singers sound like professionals.

“Our ultimate goal is to have a computer system that will transform a poor singing voice into a great singing voice,” said Mark J.T. Smith, a professor and head of Purdue University’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

To that end Smith, a former faculty member at

Jefferson Lab physicists will soon begin their own version of reuse — not with run-of-the-mill materials, but with radiofrequency energy and the high-energy electrons that they energize.

Newspaper, glass and aluminum recycling has become commonplace for most households and businesses. Jefferson Lab physicists will soon begin their own version of reuse — not with run-of-the-mill materials, but with radiofrequency energy and the high-energy electrons that they energize.

In an

Like the fury of a raging sea, this anniversary image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen, oxygen, and sulphur gas in the extremely massive and luminous molecular nebula Messier 17.

This Hubble photograph captures a small region within Messier 17 (M17), a hotbed of star formation. M17, also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, is located about 5500 light-years away in the Sagittarius constellation. The release of this image commemorates the thirte

VLT Spectra Indicate Shortest-Known-Period Planet Orbiting OGLE-TR-3

More than 100 exoplanets in orbit around stars other than the Sun have been found so far. But while their orbital periods and distances from their central stars are well known, their true masses cannot be determined with certainty, only lower limits.

This fundamental limitation is inherent in the common observational method to discover exoplanets – the measurements of small and regular changes in the centra

Virtual shapes created on a computer screen by manipulating ShapeTape, a flexible tape-like tool

U of T researchers have created software that will enable users to twist, bend, push and pull shapes in two and three dimensions.”

Our work represents a completely different way of interacting with computers,” says Professor Ravin Balakrishnan of U of T’s Department of Computer Science, who led the research. “It moves away from the ’one-size-fits-all’ keyboard and