Hasta La Gadget!

Scientists from the United States have learned that dolphins are able to stay alert and active for 15 days or more at a time by sleeping only one-half of their brain. The experts believe that this ability to stay alert by using only half of their brain is a key to the survival of sea mammals. The scientists believe that the ability helps the dolphin to surface to breathe and remain vigilant for predators such as sharks.

The scientists conducted the research in California by testing the ability of two bottlenose dolphins to echolocate accurately over a certain period. The scientists say that the dolphins could echolocate accurately over a period long enough to have left other animals sleep-deprived. During the tests, the two dolphins swam around their enclosure looking for Phantom sonar targets.

Each of the eight test devices used with the dolphins was made up of a device that could pick up the dolphins sound pulses and return a phantom target. The dolphins then responded to the phantom targets by pressing a paddle. The dolphins were rewarded with a special tone with success and a fish. A false alarm gave the dolphins no tone and no reward.

The researchers report that over three sessions of five continuous days the Dolphins had a success rate of up to 99%. The female dolphin outperformed her male partner during the test. The scientists tested the female dolphin with the same experiment over a period of 30 days.

The scientists wrote, “From an anthropomorphic viewpoint, the ability of the dolphin to continuously monitor its environment for days without interruption seems extreme. However, the biological, sensory and cognitive ecology of these animals is relatively unique and demanding.”

“If dolphins sleep like terrestrial animals, they might drown. If dolphins fail to maintain vigilance, they become susceptible to predation. As a result, the apparent ‘extreme’ capabilities these animals possess are likely to be quite normal, unspectacular, and necessary for survival from the dolphin’s perspective.”

[via Independent]

Dolphins can sleep one-half of their brain at a time say researchers is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Scientists have been trying to determine for a long time exactly how the Earth came to have the moon. Many scientists have been studying how the planet was gifted with its satellite because the Earth and Moon have a similar composition and chemistry. A new scientific paper was published Wednesday that offers a new theory on how the moon was created.

According to the scientists, the Earth was spinning much faster when the moon was formed, and a day would’ve lasted only 2 to 3 hours. The scientists believe with the earth spinning so quickly that an impact with another large celestial body could’ve launched enough Earth material into space to form the moon. The theory comes from scientists Sarah Stewart and Matija Cuk.

New theory suggests that the Earth later reached the current rate of rotation due to gravitational interaction between the Earth’s orbit around the sun and the moon’s orbit around the Earth. The scientists also note that the current leading theory on how the moon was made suggests that the moon is made up from material remaining after some sort of giant body that struck the earth.

Stuart is a Harvard professor of earth and planetary sciences. Cuk is an astronomer and investigator with the SETI Institute. The scientists support their theory by pointing out that modern studies of planet formation show that the Earth grew due to a series of massive impacts that made the planet spin at near its rotational stability limit of about two hours. The scientists believe the last massive impact formed the moon.

[via Telegraph]

New scientific theory suggests the Moon was once part of the Earth is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Clearing up a landmine infested area is not exactly the dream job for most folks, considering the copious amount of risk involved while you are at work with no guarantee that you will be able to return home alive. Well, getting robots to do the job is an avenue worth exploring, but what happens when one could enlist the help of nature? Lab mice that have been genetically engineered by humans to sniff out TNT explosives could be the future, where such mice tout a sense of smell 500 times better than normal at detecting DNT, which is a chemical cousin of TNT, and they could be trained to alert their human masters to the presence of landmines, perhaps by falling down in an epileptic seizure.

Charlotte D’Hulst, a bioengineer at Hunter College, City University of New York, said, “Whatever their behavior is going to be, we think we will be able to track their change in behavior using a sort of microchip implanted under their skin that would indeed wirelessly report back to a computer.”

Since mice are smaller, a whole lot more affordable than employing a human and are a snap to breed, a bunch of these could get the job done simultaneously in a pack – and even better is the fact that mice are too light to trigger a landmine even if they are stepping on one. Known as the MouSensor Project, it is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: South Korea looks at suicidal attack drone, US Navy wants jets powered by seawater,

When it comes to passwords most of us use computer systems that require alphanumerical strings to gain access to e-mail and websites. In some instances, other forms of identification and authentication are used rather than typing a password such as fingerprints or even retina scanning. We may be using eye movements rather than typing in strings of text to gain access to secure websites and services in the future.

According to researchers, when looking at a picture everyone’s eyes move in a different sequence. The researchers claim that even if two people trace the same paths through an image the exact way their eyes move is different. A computer scientist from Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas believes that this phenomenon can be harnessed to be used as passwords in future computer systems and to supplement existing systems.

The computer scientist believes that a system can be created that identifies people, by the way, they move their eyes while looking at a computer screen. The computer scientist is Oleg Komogortsev, and he says that there are enough differences that eye movements can be “talked about” as a biometric. The researcher says that his work is in the earliest stages and needs years of work before it can be rolled out for commercial use.

He believes that eye movements could possibly be used as next-generation iris scans. Researchers have proven in the past that some iris scanners can be fooled by simply holding up a high-quality print out of the correct person’s eye in front of the scanner. Komogortsev hopes that adding an eye movement sensor could prevent scanners from being fooled with such simple means.

[via NBC News]

Eye movements could act as passwords in the future is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Researchers from Microsoft and Cornell University want to remove the tangles of cables from data centers. It’s no small feat. With thousands of machines that need every bit of bandwidth available WiFi certainly isn’t an option. To solve the issue, scientists are turning to two sources: the cutting edge of 60GHz networking and the 19th century mathematical theories of Arthur Cayley. Cayley’s 1889 paper, On the Theory of Groups, was used to guide their method for connecting servers in the most efficient and fault tolerant way possible. The findings will be presented in a paper later this month, but it won’t be clear how effectively this research can be applied to an actual data center until someone funds a prototype. The proposed Cayley data centers would rely on cylindrical server racks that have transceivers both inside and outside the tubes of machines, allowing them to pass data both among and between racks with (hopefully) minimal interference. Since the new design would do away with traditional network switches and cables, researchers believe they may eventually cost less than current designs and will draw less power. And will do so while still streaming data at 10 gigabits per second — far faster than WiGig, which also makes use of 60GHz spectrum. To read the paper in its entirety check out the source.

Filed under: Wireless, Networking, Science, Alt, Microsoft

Researchers turn to 19th century math for wireless data center breakthrough originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Oct 2012 11:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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