Scientific American 60 Second Science听抄（有音频文件）

wggmffUID: 2133909

欢迎新同学啊，大家一起练，不是每天有也没关系，一周5天还不够啊，我们也要休息啊。坚持就是胜利！

wggmffUID: 2133909

1001

Millions of birds each year hear the call of changing seasons and migrate thousands of miles from one feeding ground to another. scientists have shown that the earth's magnetic field helps guide them. But how? Research now suggest that birds may literaturely see the magnetic fly plant. scientists at the universities in Germany previously demonstrated a particular xxx that senses magnetism existed bird's eyes. A later study show this xxx and the front part of the brain are active in the present of magnetism field. Now the latest study lingstitude. The published results in the journal public library of science one. The researchers traced the path of the nuance from the eye into a specific part of the brain. Both the path and the brain original active during magnetic orientation. The tracers attached to the nuance show that this area are linked by well known brain xx evolve the vision. The scientists caution the system definitely approve, but it is a strong suggestion that birds can somehow see their ways along magnetic fields around the globe.

今天这篇不是很难，但还是有几个词听不懂。。。:)

kevinliu6883UID: 2338522

Millions of birds each year hear the call of changing season migrate thousand miles from one feeding ground to another. Scientists have shown that earth magnet fields help to guide them. But how? Researchers now suggest birds may laterally see this magnet planet. Scientists at a university in German previously demonstrated the particular molecule that sounds magnetism exist in bird’s eyes. A later study shows these molecules and frontal part of brain are active at present magnetic field. Now the latest study links two. The published result at German Public Library Science one. The researchers trace the path of nerve to the specific part of brain. Both the path and the brain region are active during magnetic orientation. The tracer attached to the nerve showed these areas are linked to well known brain circuit involving vision. The scientists called for defendant prove. But it is a pretty strong suggestion that birds can somehow see the way magnet field around the global. That’s quite a birds’ eye view.

[ 本帖最后由 kevinliu6883 于 2007-10-2 06:53 编辑 ]

kevinliu6883UID: 2338522

Cockroaches learn new tricks well in the evening, but they're lousy students in the morning.

A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that while cockroaches were able to pick up and remember lessons taught in the evenings, they might as well have stayed in bed during the morning hours.

Similar research performed on rodents suggested that the ability to learn and retain lessons is regulated by "biological clocks," which adjust the body's alertness and hormone levels over a 24-hour cycle. One study even revealed that mice subjected to jet lag—a sudden disruption to the biological clock—were more likely to die.

"This is the first example of an insect whose ability to learn is controlled by its biological clock," said researcher Terry L. Page of Vanderbilt University.

To figure out how a cockroach's biological clock impacted its learning ability, the scientists at Vanderbilt University trained cockroaches—at different times of the day—to associate the normally disliked scent of peppermint with tasty sugar water, so that they would favor it over vanilla smells, which they typically preferred.

"With the cockroaches trained in the morning, we were quite surprised at the profound learning deficit the next day," Page said. "They forgot everything and behaved as if they had no training at all."

Page noted that although they have no idea why cockroaches don't learn at that particular time of day, these kinds of studies can give insight into the interaction between learning, memory and biological clocks, as well as what can influence these processes in other creatures.

Humans also are affected by a circadian rhythm. Most previous studies of the mechanism have focused on the visual system.

"The advantage of eyes becoming more sensitive at night is so obvious that people haven’t looked much at other sensory systems," says Page. "The fact that our study involves the olfactory system suggests that the circadian cycle could be influencing a number of senses beyond vision."

kevinliu6883UID: 2338522

Edgar Somoza woke up in a morning to find he had been turned into a giant cockroach, and a moron. France Somoza could not know moron part because it was just discovered by scientists in Vanderbilt University. They just found roach’s ability to learn vary widely over a day. That’s why the cockroach is genius in the evening, but a dolt at daybreak. The researchers published their finding in the proceeding of National Academy Sciences. Test cockroach were talked over their hatred by peppermint by associated with sugar water which they like, insects train the evening retaining their memory of new sugar-peppermint association for several days. But early to rise worms just were incapable to learn anything. Why would the animal so dumb in the morning? Said one researcher, we have no idea. Anyway the discovery that roach’s memory so strongly related to circadian clock, could open a new chance to learn about how memory and biological clock work together at molecular level as well as about learning in general.

wggmffUID: 2133909

1002

Gregor Samsa awoke on a morning to find that he had been turned into a giant cockroach, and more on. Franz Kafka couldn't have known the "more on" part because it was just been discovered by scientist at Venderbilt  university. They found that the roaches' ability to learn varies widely over the day. That's why the cockroaches are genius in the evening but a dolt at day break. The researchers published their findings and processing on the National Academic of Sciences. Test cockroaches were taught to get over the hatch of peppermint by associating with sugar water which they really like. Inserts trained in the evening retain their memory of new sugar water peppermint association for several days. But early arise roaches were incapable of learning anything. Why would the animal be so dumb in the morning? Said one researcher: We have no idea! Anyway the discovery that roach memory's so strong related with circadian clock, could open up new chances to learn more how memory and biological clock work with the molecular level. As well as about learning in general.

kevinliu6883UID: 2338522

Archeologists want to uncover the age of wine container from a city in northern Spain, the original ancient Roman city Iesso. That was allowed them to dig city foundation. The problem was the military repeat name of Roman Councils. One of the names vanished to the age less damage. So archeologists call the house of institute photonics sciences at Barcelona. Current photonic archeology technique was damage the paint, or not distinguish pottery pigment. So researchers developed a new technique. They decide to focus on florescent pottery the paint banding agent. High energy photon that was usually made the band fluorescent, could destroy the remaining visible paint. So scientist realized on low energy photon typically used in biology imaging. These results have to go through another film processing to uncover the visible writing. Still only faintest trace of letters appeared. Archeologists could just make the name Luciesapeamuius which was indeed one of most likely choices. But tasty wine is still mystery.

kevinliu6883UID: 2338522

Scientists use two-photon absorption fluorescence to recover written information on Roman relics on Roman relics and solve a 2,000-year-old mystery.
When people think of archaeology, they often conjure images of adventurers such as Indiana Jones, who spend most of their time searching for mysterious ancient objects. We forget that the main objective in archaeology is to uncover the history hidden behind the objects, in the hope that they can help us understand a small fraction of the immense puzzle that is the past. Artifacts typically make a long journey from archaeological site to museum show case—with many stops along the way at high-tech research facilities.
In a discipline known as archaeometry, scientists use a number of chemical and physical procedures to obtain information from an archaeological artifact. Probably the most well-known strategy is the use of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 (14C) to date biological samples.
For non-organic objects, more indirect techniques may be used to allocate them to a particular historical context, such as studying the geological substrate where the piece was found or even the artistic style of the piece. Whenever possible, however, scientists opt for more direct techniques that gather qualitative and quantitative information about the chemical composition of the object.
With this information, researchers can trace the evolution of certain fabrication technologies through history. This information not only helps them to date archaeological objects, it enables them to identify the fabrication place and sources of raw material, revealing details about ancient trade and provenance. Analysis of chemical compounds in archaeology has been routinely based on ion beam and X-ray techniques.
Photonics enters the field of archaeometry mainly through the use of spectroscopic techniques, such as Raman spectroscopy, laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). These technologies allow for the fast, in situ identification of the chemical composition of a great variety of objects.
Researchers are also starting to use photonics for imaging within archaeology. For example, laser scan surveys can detect irregularities on a surface with important archaeological significance, uncovering features that are invisible to the naked eye. It is also used in cases where the topography of the sample is required but contact with the surface is not recommended. Examples of this are the scanning of carved rocks in the Paleolithic site of Cap Blanc, France, or the Stonehenge Scanning project.

Our archaeological problem
In our case, we were looking for a way to uncover information painted on the surface of a wine amphora that could help determine the foundation date of the Roman village of Iesso, which is nowadays the city of Guissona in Catalonia in northeast Spain. Archaeologists from the Institute of Classical Archaeology of Catalonia (ICAC) found this amphora among others near the city walls.
The place and disposition of the amphorae led the archaeologists to conclude that the objects were brought by the first Roman Legions that arrived on Iesso, and that the wine was consumed during a ritual celebration related to the wall building and the city foundation. As was usual at that time, the amphora had written on its neck the consular date—which is the name (initials) of the two Roman consuls ruling in the year of production. This was a signature of good quality wine.
Because the names and time frames for all the Roman consuls are known, this finding would allow us to date the foundation of the Roman city of Iesso. Unfortunately, at the moment of the discovery, the paint used to write the consular date was barely readable. In addition, since its discovery, natural photobleaching had taken its toll, and the archaeologists’ initial method for reading the inscription (humidifying the painted area with a water solution) had remarkably further deteriorated the quality of the paint. Using this method, the archaeologists were able to identify only the next group of letters:
Q
•
FAB
•
………..
•
COS
The first letters are the initials for Quintus Fabius, the first consul, while the last three letters signify Consolibus, a Latin word meaning “being consuls.” The name of the second consul should have been located at the space between these two groups of letters (i.e., the dotted line). However, this area was considerably damaged and most of the paint had disappeared, making it impossible to decipher the second consul name. Unfortunately, the knowledge of the first consul is not enough, since, during the same period, two different consuls owned the same name.

To uncover the missing name, we needed a detection technique that was able to detect and map small amounts of paint or some of its components (pigments or agglutinant). After examining the possible laser techniques, we discarded the use of LIBS and Raman spectroscopy. In the first case, the semidestructive nature of LIBS could damage the sample. In the second, the Raman signal generated by such a small amount of paint would be hardly distinguishable from the background signal generated by the pottery.
We decided that a technique based on fluorescence appeared to be the best option. Fluorescence from the paint is usually generated by the agglutinant, while the pigment, which is generally composed of metallic elements, inhibits it. This characteristic was quite convenient for our purposes; it helped us to identify previously painted areas where the pigment had disappeared but the agglutinant has persisted.
The amphora has been preserved in a dark area. Thus, an obvious requirement of our experiment was to avoid, at any price, laser-induced photodamage. This immediately prevented us from using high-energy photons for exciting the fluorescence. Unfortunately, it is known that the agglutinant used by the Romans (casein or albumin) fluoresces in the visible. This would require green-to-UV excitation sources, increasing the risk for photodamage. An alternative that was available in our lab was the use of  femtosecond laser pulses to produce twophoton excitation fluorescence (TPEF), which allowed us to use near-infrared light as the excitation source, thereby greatly reducing the probability of producing photodamage.
Two-photon fluorescence imaging
The best known use for the non-damaging properties of TPEF is in nonlinear microscopy for biological applications.
Nonlinear microscopy uses infrared light to help ensure cell viability and is the technique of choice for imaging in vivoover extended observation periods. Our experimental set-up, shown in the figure below, reproduces a typical nonlinear microscope scheme, except for the fact that, for our purposes, high resolution was not required. In fact, the beam of a titanium: sapphire mode-locked laser was gently focused on the painted area on the amphora. The fluorescence signal was captured by a lens and directed through a hot mirror to the detection system, which was composed of a photomultiplier tube and a lock-in amplifier; this increased the sensitivity of the detection system. Two translation stages supporting the amphora composed the scanning system. Previous experiments on amphora fragments found in the same archaeological site allowed us to test our system and determine the photodamage threshold, optimal focusing and scanning parameters. These preliminary experiments also showed that the measured fluorescence was generated only from painted areas.
After these experiments, we scanned the painted area of the amphora, shown in the bottom of the figure on p. 23. In order to adapt to the amphora’s curvature and maximize the excitation of fluorescence, we divided the painted area into three regions, and scanned each region at three different focusing positions. The scanning of one zone was performed in 100 min in complete darkness.
The fluorescence image is shown in the inset image of the figure below. At first glance, the fragment may seem to show little evidence of any writing. However, as we previously mentioned, two vital pieces of information had to be considered. First, the generated fluorescence corresponded to regions where agglutinant was present, and, second, regions that contain pigment in fact inhibit the fluorescence.
In our scanned image, this resulted in large dark areas.
To fully recover the information on the amphora, we then performed a processing imaging technique based on histogram equalization that took these features into account.




[ 本帖最后由 kevinliu6883 于 2007-10-4 02:45 编辑 ]

wizjoUID: 2175360

October 04, 2007: 60-Second Science
Software Alone Doubles Cellphone Memory


No matter how much memory you have in your cellphone or PDA, you probably like to have more. Now computer engineers have come up with a way to possibly doubling memory in cellphones and other devices strictly by software. Northwestern University reserachers with colleagues at NEC Laboratories America Inc. came up with the software methodology and have applied for a pattern for what they call CRAMES, which stands for compressed RAM for embbed systems. Others attempts do increase memory ususally involve hardware solutions, like simply adding more memory. What CRAMES does relies only on the operating system software. It basically compresses some of the data stored in your phone or other electronic devices, then decompress that data when the data is needed. Meanwhile other data not needed at the moment gets compressed to make room for the data being decompressed. By shuttling various data in and out of compressed form, the same amount of RAM effectively stores perhaps doubled the amount of data. Smart phones featuring the technology has been on sale in Japan since this summer.

wizjoUID: 2175360

October 04, 2007: 60-Second Science
Software Alone Doubles Cellphone Memory

relevant materials:
Researchers double cell phone memory through software alone

Cell phones are increasingly sophisticated -- sporting such featuresas cameras, music players, games, video clips, Internet access and,lest we forget, the capability to phone someone -- but these featurescome at a price: memory.
Now computer engineers at Northwestern University and NECLaboratories America, Inc. are the first to do what many thoughtimpossible -- they have developed technology that doubles the usablememory on cell phones and other embedded systems without any changes tohardware or applications. (Embedded systems are computers withindevices not generally considered to be computers, such as cell phones,cars, iPods, medical devices and digital cameras.) The improvement wasmade in the operating system software alone.
This innovation, the result of two years of close collaborationbetween researchers at Northwestern and NEC Labs, is featured inmillions of new smartphones, the NEC-manufactured FOMA N904i, whichfirst hit shelves in Japan this summer.
“All the things you do with a cell phone or personal digitalassistant require memory,” said Robert P. Dick, assistant professor ofelectrical engineering and computer science in Northwestern’s Robert R.McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. “The technologywe’ve developed automatically takes data and reduces it to less thanhalf its original size without losing any information while theembedded system is running. It is like putting twice as much memory inthe phone without increasing its cost or power consumption.”
In early 2004, NEC Labs researchers conceived the concept ofintegrating compression technologies into the operating system itselfto provide compression as an operating system service. The idea was totransparently compress and decompress selected regions of memory (bothcode and data) to drastically reduce the memory footprint of embeddedapplications.
NEC Labs entered into a strategic partnership with Northwestern tojointly develop this idea. The team consisted of Dick, his firstdoctoral student, Lei Yang, and Haris Lekatsas and Srimat Chakradharfrom NEC Labs America.
The research team needed a way to give NEC’s cell phones more memoryto run its applications without redesigning the hardware. Topresearchers in the embedded systems field had been skeptical that thiscould be done, but the Northwestern/NEC team had a different answer.
Yes, it could be done in the software alone.
Yang, with the benefit of advice and help from the other teammembers, led the design of CRAMES (compressed RAM for embeddedsystems), a software-only compression infrastructure technology thathas minimal performance and power consumption penalties.
The team’s approach was to divide the memory in the system into twodifferent regions, one regular and one where the data is greatlycompressed. A very simple example of data compression is converting alist of 50 individual “A”s into the phrase “50 As”, which takes up lessspace but communicates the same information. Later on this can beconverted back to an identical copy of the original text.
The software applications run along and when an application needsdata from the compressed region the hardware pauses the software, theoperating system accesses the data, uncompresses it and puts the datainto the regular region where the application can access it. Theapplication continues running without ever knowing the data it neededwas compressed.
The CRAMES technology in the new NEC smartphones uses an existingdata compression algorithm, called LZ0. In ongoing work, Yang hasdeveloped a compression algorithm that is more advanced, takingadvantage of recently seen patterns in the data. Her algorithm is twiceas fast, allowing negligible reduction in performance and battery lifeeven when 60 percent of an embedded system’s memory is removed. Thealgorithm works for a wide range of applications and may be used infuture NEC phones.
Other research and industry solutions to increasing memory inembedded systems have been addressed in hardware, some by simplyputting in more memory and others by adding a custom hardwarecompression unit. Skeptics had thought a software solution would resultin power consumption penalties that were too high.
“Our team proved it can be done entirely in software,” said Dick, anexpert in embedded systems who worked as a visiting researcher at NECLabs America before joining the Northwestern faculty. “You have to bepretty careful about the design of the compression software andalgorithm. The phrase ‘heroic design effort’ comes to mind. That’s whatLei Yang did when designing CRAMES.”
Shortly after joining Dick’s lab, Yang worked at NEC Labs America asa summer intern in 2004, charged with tackling the memory problem. Yangcontinued to work on the early design and prototypes of the CRAMESsystem back at Northwestern and through a second NEC summer internship.
Each team member at NEC and Northwestern was involved in thetechnical aspects of the work from the start, meeting once or twice aweek. When the work went from research prototyping to productdevelopment, NEC took over.
Northwestern and NEC have filed a joint patent application on the CRAMES technology.

[ 本帖最后由 wizjo 于 2007-10-4 18:02 编辑 ]

kevinliu6883UID: 2338522

No matter of how much memory you have in your cellphone or PDA, you probably like to have more. Now computer engineers have come up with a way to possibly double memory in cellphones and other devices straightly by software. Northwestern University researchers working with colleagues at NEC laboratories American Inc. came up with software methodology, and applied for a pattern for what they called CRAMS which stands for compressed RAM for embedded system. Other attempts do increase memory usually involve hardware solutions, like simply adding more memory. What CRAMA does rely on only operating system software. It basically compresses some of data stored in your phone or other electronic device then decompress that data when the data are needed. Meanwhile other data not needed at moment get compressed to make room for data being decompressed. By shuttling various data in and out of compressed form, the same amount of RAM effectively perhaps double the amount of data. Smart phones featuring the technology have been on sale in Japan since this summer.

jieqilongUID: 138369

Archaeologists want to uncover the age of wine container from the city in northern Spain, originally the ancient Roman city  ESO. That would allow them to    DATE   the city’s foundation. The problem was they need to repaint the names of Roman Dansole, one of those names vanished from the age ……So archaeologists call the help from the institute of  photonic science. Current photonic archaeology techniques would rather damage the paint, are not distinguished from pottery pigment. So researchers there developed a new technique.  They decided to focus on fluorescent quality of paints’ binding agent. High energy photons that usually make the bind fluorescent, could destroy remaining of visible paint. So scientists relied on low energy photon, typically used biological imaging. These results such then go through another few imaging processes to uncover the invisible writing. Still only the faintest tracing , the letters appeared. Archaeologists could just make out the name of Luci permimies , which was indeed  one of the most likely choices.  The taste of wine was still a mystery.

wggmffUID: 2133909

1004

No matter how much memory you have in your cell phone or PDA you probably like to have more. Now computer engineers come up with a way of possibly double your memory in cell phone and other devices. straightly by software. Northwestern University researchers working with colleagues of NEC laboratory's American Inc, came up with the software methodology and have applied for a patent for what they call CRAMES which stands for compressed ram for embeded systems. Other attempts to increase memory usually involve hardware solutions like simply adding more memory. But CRAMES does relies only on the operating system software. It basically compresses some of the data stored in your phone or other electronic device, then decompresses that data when the data was needed, Meanwhile, other data not needed at the moment get compress to make a room for the data being decompress. By sorting varies data in and out the compress form, the same amount of ram effectively stores perhaps double the amount of data. smart phones featuring the technology have been on sale in Japan since this Summer.

kevinliu6883UID: 2338522

It is Nobel prize season which means that Ig Nobel prizes were awarded on October 4th at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Igs goes to world that can not or should not be reproduced. The legilly design is to first make people laugh and make people think or think twice anyway. Some of the winners:
The Medicine prize went to a study by sort wine Dutch one sort solowine did on a unicycle which could deliver worse flat story ever. The biology prize went to a Dutch researcher for her sense mites, bites, insects, bacteria, alga, and fungi that we share all by the way, Fungi were not included.
The Chemistry prize was award to a Japanese scientist for stretching flavor from Kimorno, yes the researcher was a flopper. Speaking of Dutch-Japanese, Spanish researcher took linguistic prize for showing that rats sometimes can tell difference between person speaking Japanese backwards and person speaking Dutch backwards. Say dadadadada. For more listen to the October 10th issue of weekly Science American podcast science talk.

kevinliu6883UID: 2338522

BOSTON — The inventor of a method to extract vanilla fragrance from cow dung, military developers of a chemical "gay bomb" and a team that researched how sheets become wrinkled won Ig Nobel Prizes for 2007.
The annual prizes, awarded by the science-humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, were presented Thursday night at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.
While some awards poke fun at popular culture, others are meant to provoke debate, honoring achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think," according to the magazine.
"These people really ought to have someone, somewhere, in some tiny way, give some kind of recognition that they have done something nobody has ever done," Annals editor Marc Abrahams said.
The Ig Nobel Prizes, in their 17th year, were handed to the winners by genuine Nobel laureates Craig Mello (medicine 2006), Dudley Herschbach (chemistry 1986), Robert Laughlin (physics 1998), William Lipscomb (chemistry 1976) and Sheldon Glashow (physics 1979).
This year's winners:
• Chemistry: Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin, or vanilla fragrance and flavoring, from cow dung.
• Linguistics: A University of Barcelona team for a study showing rats sometimes fail to distinguish between a person speaking Japanese backward and a person speaking Dutch backward.
• Peace Prize: The Air Force Wright Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, for instigating research and development of a chemical weapon, the "gay bomb," that "will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other."
• Economics: Kuo Cheng Hsieh, of Taichung, Taiwan, for patenting a device in 2001 that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them.
• Medicine: Brain Witcombe, of Gloucestershire Royal NHS Foundation Trust, and sword swallower Dan Meyer, of Antioch, Tenn., for their insightful work on the health consequences of swallowing a sword.
• Physics: A U.S.-Chilean team that ironed out the problem of how sheets become wrinkled
Biology: Johanna van Bronswijk of the Netherlands for carrying out a creepy-crawly census of all of the mites, insects, spiders, ferns and fungi that share our beds.
• Literature: Glenda Browne of Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of "the," and how it can flummox those trying to put things into alphabetical order.
• Nutrition: Brian Wansink of Cornell University for investigating the limits of human appetite by feeding volunteers a self-refilling, "bottomless" bowl of soup.
• Aviation: A National University of Quilmes, Argentina, team for discovering that impotency drugs can help hamsters recover from jet lag.

[ 本帖最后由 kevinliu6883 于 2007-10-5 23:15 编辑 ]