Tree relocation - Just awesome !!!

New Kinda matter - "Color-Glass Condensate"

The new kind of matter is called color-glass condensate, and is a liquid like wave of gluons, which are elementary particles related to the strong force that sticks quarks together inside protons and neutrons (hence they are like "glue").

Scientists didn't expect this kind of matter would result from the type of particle collisions going on at the Large Hadron Collider at the time. However, it may explain some odd behavior seen inside the machine, which is a giant loop where particles race around underneath Switzerland and France.

Typical LHC particle tracks:

When scientists sped up protons (one of the building blocks of atoms) and lead ions (lead atoms, which contain 82 protons each, stripped of their electrons), and crashed them into each other, the resulting explosions liquefied those particles and gave rise to new particles in their wake. Most of these new particles, as expected, fly off in all directions at close to the speed of light.

The color-glass condensate's dense swarm of gluons may also sweep particles off in the same direction, suggested Brookhaven National Laboratory physicist Raju Venugopalan, who first predicted the substance, which may also be seen after proton-proton collisions.Entangled gluons in the color-glass condensate could explain how particles flying away from the collision point might share information about their flight direction with each other, Venugopalan said. Courtesy: Yahoo.com, CERN

ENCODE - Encyclopedia of DNA Elements released

A long-term effort to catalogue all the bits of the human genome that do something has released its results. The consortium that created this—442 members in 32 institutes around the world—has used the increasingly impressive tools available for sequencing genomes to mount a systematic analysis of 147 different types of human cell, attempting to say just what each part of the genome is doing in them. Their results confirm on a grand scale what has become clear over the decade since the Human Genome Project first produced a sequence of the three billion “letters” of which the genome is made: there is a great deal more to genomes than their genes. Impressive as it is, ENCODE is far from the last word. For one thing, its expertise and carefully calibrated techniques need to be spread far and wide—to be adopted and made useful by people doing clinical research. And there is more basic research to do. Only six of the 147 cell types looked at in ENCODE were studied in the amount of detail now possible. The others still await their close-up. So far ENCODE has looked only at cells from one person for each of the cell types studied. That is a reasonable simplification; in terms of how the genome works, the difference between what’s turned on and off in a liver cell and a skin cell is far greater than the difference between how one person’s skin cells work and those of their neighbour, however genetically different the neighbour. But it will be helpful to get a sense of differences between your liver cells and your neighbour’s—especially if you are ill and he is healthy. But ... ENCODE has definitely surpassed the original genome-sequencing efforts !!! Courtesy: The Economist

Remote Control Car - Now a reality in China !!!

The BYD Su Rui comes with a large key fob featuring a metal control panel which can be used to start and move the car from a distance of 10 meters. The Su Rui can only creep along at 1.2 mph in remote control mode, but otherwise steers and moves -- including in reverse -- as it would if the owner was behind the wheel. BYD advertises the technology as great for parking in tight spots or bringing the car to you in rainy weather, and far more impressive to your date than opening an umbrella. BYD - the battery maker-turned-carbuilder made a splash four years ago with ambitious plans to sell plug-in hybrids in the United States, winning a vote of confidence from investor Warren Buffet who took a 10 percent stake in the firm. Outside of its remote control, the Su Rui offers a few other tricks, including in-dash digital TV and multihue displays, and most of its specs and technology match up well with similar models from Asian or American automakers.
Courtesy: Yahoo.com