Chronos is one of the many Smalltalk-related blogs syndicated on Planet Smalltalk
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Discussion of the Essence# programming language, and related issues and technologies.

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2007-07-28

Linguists seek a time when we spoke as one

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Around 50,000 years ago, something happened to our ancestors in Africa. Anatomically modern humans, who had existed for at least 150,000 years prior, suddenly began behaving differently. Until then, their conduct scarcely differed from that of their hominid cousins, the Neanderthals. Both buried their dead; both used stone tools; and as social apes, both had some form of communication, which some think was gestural.

But then, "almost overnight, everything changes very rapidly," says Merritt Ruhlen, a lecturer in the Anthropological Sciences Department at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Humans began making much better stone tools. They started burying their dead with accouterments that suggested religion. And perhaps most telling, Homo sapiens, the "wise" apes, began creating art.

"People started having imagination at this time much more than they had earlier," says Dr. Ruhlen.


Continued




2007-07-25

Graphene Nanoelectronics: Making Tomorrow’s Computers from a Pencil Trace


Graphene Nanoelectronics: Making Tomorrow’s Computers from a Pencil Trace from PhysOrg.com

A key discovery at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could help advance the role of graphene as a possible heir to copper and silicon in nanoelectronics.

[...]




2007-07-20

Physicists get ultra-sharp glimpse of electrons


Physicists get ultra-sharp glimpse of electrons from PhysOrg.com

MIT physicists have developed a spectroscopy technique that allows researchers to inspect the world of electrons confined to a two-dimensional plane more clearly than ever before.

[Continued]






Trapped, Imaged Single Atoms May Enable Powerful Quantum Computing


Trapped, Imaged Single Atoms May Enable Powerful Quantum Computing from PhysOrg.com

Quantum computers have the potential to vastly out-perform present-day “classical” computers – if scientists can identify and manipulate promising quantum bits, or “qubits,” the basic information-storing units of a quantum computer.

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Scientists work to create nanogenerator


Scientists work to create nanogenerator from PhysOrg.com

U.S. scientists are developing a nanogenerator -- a tiny device that produces electricity from flowing blood, pulsating blood vessels, or a beating heart.

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2007-07-17

University of Pennsylvania engineers discover natural 'workbench' for nanoscale construction


University of Pennsylvania engineers discover natural 'workbench' for nanoscale construction from PhysOrg.com

Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have taken a step toward simplifying the creation of nanostructures by identifying the first inorganic material to phase separate with near-perfect order at the nanometer scale. The finding provides an atomically tuneable nanocomposite “workbench” that is cheap and easy to produce and provides a super-lattice foundation potentially suitable for building nanostructures.

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NRL scientists demonstrate efficient electrical spin injection into silicon


NRL scientists demonstrate efficient electrical spin injection into silicon from PhysOrg.com

Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have efficiently injected a current of spin-polarized electrons from a ferromagnetic metal contact into silicon, producing a large electron spin polarization in the silicon. Silicon is by far the most widely used semiconductor in the device industry, and is the basis for modern electronics.

[Continued]




2007-07-16

Nano propellers pump with proper chemistry

The ability to pump liquids at the cellular scale opens up exciting possibilities, such as precisely targeting medicines and regulating flow into and out of cells. But designing this molecular machinery has proven difficult.

Now chemists at the University of Illinois at Chicago have created a theoretical blueprint for assembling a nanoscale propeller with molecule-sized blades.

[Continued]


2007-07-13

Little Annoyances Still Big Vista Issue


Little Annoyances Still Big Vista Issue from PhysOrg.com

(AP) -- Chris Pirillo leaned away from his webcam and pointed to his printer/scanner/fax machine, which stopped scanning and faxing after he installed Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows Vista operating system.

[...]




2007-07-08

Miniature Robots Play Nano-Soccer


Miniature Robots Play Nano-Soccer from PhysOrg.com

(AP) -- Exploding from the other end of the field, a silver robot glinted under the light of the cameras and burst toward the lone defender standing between it and the goal.

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2007-07-07

Italian scientists build atomic laser

The UPI article Italian scientists build atomic laser announces the discovery by Italian scientists of a way to produce an "atom laser," which is device that generates a beam of coherent atoms (as opposed to a beam of coherent photons as generated by a classical laser.) Albert Einstein predicted in 1925 that it might be possible to produce coherent beams of atoms, but all previous attempts to actually create an atom laser failed due to an inability to prevent the atoms in the beam from colliding with each other.

Atom lasers would be particularly useful for advanced microelectronics applications.


2007-07-04

Researchers prove existence of new type of electron wave


Researchers prove existence of new type of electron wave from PhysOrg.com

New research led by University of New Hampshire physicists has proved the existence of a new type of electron wave on metal surfaces: the acoustic surface plasmon, which will have implications for developments in nano-optics, high-temperature superconductors, and the fundamental understanding of chemical reactions on surfaces. The research, led by Bogdan Diaconescu and Karsten Pohl of UNH, is published in the July 5 issue of the journal Nature.

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2007-07-03

Remotely Controlled Nanomachines


Remotely Controlled Nanomachines from PhysOrg.com

Physicists at the University of California at Berkeley have produced images that show how light can control some of the smallest possible machines.

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Teleportation method proposed by Australian scientists


Teleportation method proposed by Australian scientists from PhysOrg.com

Teleportation, a concept popularised in the original Star Trek television series, is edging closer to reality through work being conducted by theorists from The University of Queensland and Australian National University.

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2007-07-02

New method for reading DNA sheds light on basis of cell identity


New method for reading DNA sheds light on basis of cell identity from PhysOrg.com

As a fertilized egg develops into a full grown adult, mammalian cells make many crucial decisions — closing doors of opportunity as they adopt careers as liver cells, skin cells, or neurons. One of the most fundamental mysteries in biomedicine is how cells make such different career decisions despite having exactly the same DNA.

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Translating form into function


Translating form into function from PhysOrg.com

In the last 40 years, scientists have perfected ways to determine the knot-like structure of enzymes, but they’ve been stumped trying to translate the structure into an understanding of function – what the enzyme actually does in the body. This puzzle has hindered drug discovery, since many of the most successful drugs work by blocking enzyme action. Now, in an expedited article in Nature, researchers show that a solution to the puzzle is finally in sight.

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Researchers may have solved information loss paradox to find black holes do not form


Researchers may have solved information loss paradox to find black holes do not form from PhysOrg.com

"Nothing there," is what Case Western Reserve University physicists concluded about black holes after spending a year working on complex formulas to calculate the formation of new black holes. In nearly 13 printed pages with a host of calculations, the research may solve the information loss paradox that has perplexed physicists for the past 40 years.

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What Happened Before the Big Bang?


What Happened Before the Big Bang? from PhysOrg.com

New discoveries about another universe whose collapse appears to have given birth to the one we live in today will be announced in the early on-line edition of the journal Nature Physics on 1 July 2007 and will be published in the August 2007 issue of the journal's print edition.

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