From acceleratingfuture.com,

1. Aerogel

Aerogel holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of Records, more than any other material. Sometimes called “frozen smoke”, aerogel is made by the supercritical drying of liquid gels of alumina, chromia, tin oxide, or carbon. It’s 99.8% empty space, which makes it look semi-transparent. Aerogel is a fantastic insulator — if you had a shield of aerogel, you could easily defend yourself from a flamethrower. It stops cold, it stops heat. You could build a warm dome on the Moon. (Why do people keep going on about Mars..?) Aerogels have unbelievable surface area in their internal fractal structures — cubes of aerogel just an inch on a side may have a surface area equivalent to a football field. Despite its low density, aerogel has been looked into as a component of military armor because of its insulating properties.

2. Carbon nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes are long chains of carbon held together by the strongest bond in all chemistry, the sacred sp2 bond, even stronger than the sp3 bonds that hold together diamond. Carbon nanotubes have numerous remarkable physical properties, including ballistic electron transport (making them ideal for electronics) and so much tensile strength that they are the only substance that could be used to build a space elevator. The specific strength of carbon nanotubes is 48,000 kN·m/kg, the best of known materials, compared to high-carbon steel’s 154 kN·m/kg. That’s 300 times stronger than steel. You could build towers hundreds of kilometers high with it.

3. Metamaterials

“Metamaterial” refers to any material that gains its properties from structure rather than composition. Metamaterials have been used to create microwave invisibility cloaks, 2D invisibility cloaks, and materials with other unusual optical properties. Mother-of-pearl gets its rainbow color from metamaterials of biological origin. Some metamaterials have a negative refractive index, an optical property that may be used to create “superlenses” which resolve features smaller than the wavelength of light used to image them! This technology is called subwavelength imaging. Metamaterials would used in phased array optics, a technology that could render perfect holograms on a 2D display. These holograms would be so perfect that you could be standing 6 inches from the screen, looking into the “distance” with binoculars, and not even notice it’s a hologram.

4. Bulk diamond

We’re starting to lay down thick layers of diamond in CVD machines, hinting towards a future of bulk diamond machinery. Diamond is an ideal construction material — it’s immensely strong, light, made out of the widely available element carbon, nearly complete thermal conductivity, and has among the highest melting and boiling points of all materials. By introducing trace impurities, you can make a diamond practically any color you want. Imagine a jet, with hundreds of thousands of moving parts made of fine-tuned diamond machinery. Such a craft would be more powerful than today’s best fighter planes in the way an F-22 is better than the Red Baron’s Fokker Dr.I.

5. Bulk fullerenes

Diamonds may be strong, but aggregated diamond nanorods (what I call amorphous fullerene) are stronger. Amorphous fullerene has a isothermal bulk modulus of 491 gigapascals (GPa), compared to diamond’s 442 GPa. As we see in the image, the nanoscale structure of the fullerene gives it a beautiful iridescent appearance. Fullerenes can be made substantially stronger than diamond, but for greater energy cost. After a “Diamond Age”, we may eventually transition to a “Fullerene Age” as our technology gets even more sophisticated.

6. Amorphous metal

Amorphous metals, also called metallic glasses, consist of metal with a disordered atomic structure. They can be twice as strong as steel. Because of their disordered structure, they can disperse impact energy more effectively than a metal crystal, which has points of weakness. Amorphous metals are made by quickly cooling molten metal before it has a chance to align itself in a crystal pattern. Amorphous metals may the military’s next generation of armor, before they adopt diamondoid armor in mid-century. On the green side of things, amorphous metals have electronic properties that improve the efficiency of power grids by as much as 40%, saving us thousands of tons of fossil fuel emissions.

7. Superalloys

A superalloy is a generic term for a metal that can operate at very high temperatures, up to about 2000 °F (1100 °C). They are popular for use in the superhot turbine areas of jet engines. They are used for more advanced oxygen-breathing designs, such as the ramjet and scramjet. When we’re flying through the sky in hypersonic craft, we’ll have superalloys to thank for it.

8. Metal foam

Metal foam is what you get when you add a foaming agent, powdered titanium hydride, to molten aluminum, then let it cool. The result is a very strong substance that is relatively light, with 75-95% empty space. Because of its favorable strength-to-weight ratio, metal foams have been proposed as a construction material for space colonies. Some metal forms are so light that they float on water, which would make them excellent for building floating cities, like those analyzed by Marshall T. Savage in one of my favorite books, The Millennial Project.

9. Transparent alumina

Transparent alumina is three times stronger than steel and transparent. The number of applications for this are huge. Imagine an entire skyscraper or arcology made largely of transparent steel. The skylines of the future could look more like a series of floating black dots (opaque private rooms) rather than the monoliths of today. A huge space station made of transparent alumina could cruise in low Earth orbit without being a creepy black dot when it passes overhead. And hey… transparent swords!

10. E-textiles

If you meet up and talk to me in 2020, I’ll likely be covered in electronic textiles. Why carry some electronic gadget you can easily lose when we can just wear our computers? We’ll develop clothing that can constantly project the video of our choosing (unless it turns out being so annoying that we ban it). Imagine wearing a robe covered in a display that actually projects the night sky in realtime. Imagine talking to people over the “phone” just by making a hand gesture and activating electronics in your lapel, then merely thinking about what you want to say (thought-to-speech interfaces). The possibilities of e-textiles are limitless.



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From sangtea.blogspot.com,
You might not know this great sites that can hosts videos. I've come across this sites from searching around a Small sized videos which can be downloaded easily. Tudou.com, youku.com, 56.com are some of the popular sites that can host videos just like youtube. The main advantage of using this video hosts sites is that it is great for hosting new Full length movie cause the admin there dont mind much about it and they are rarely deleted from the sites. So unlike veoh,google video, youtube,stage6,etc New movies and uploaded and are not ( or rarely ) deleted so it makes downloading easy and resuming very easy. The other advantage is that the size are very small. A full length movie is around 200 MB and as resuming is supported its very helpful for a slow connection like myself to download the movies.
There are a good websites that gives out the movie links like www.quicksilverscreen.com , http://movielinkshare.com/blog , movieforumz.com. If you want to download a movies from this sites, I've found a great site that gives out the direct links for the download sites. Goto www.kisstudou.com and paste the video links there and you will get the direct video download links from it. You can use download manager like flashget to download it. Enjoy!!


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From popsci.com,
Cellphones, microchips, cars, even iPhones—there's virtually no high-tech Western product that China's cloners can't copy. Pretty soon, you might even prefer their work


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From uscoles.com,
Photographers set their exposure using a combination of shutter speeds and f/stops to get the correct amount of light on the film (or sensor--this all works for digital too). The shutter speed regulates how long the film is exposed to light coming through the lens. The f/stop regulates how much light is allowed through the lens by varying the area of the hole the light comes through. For any given film speed and lighting combination there is one correct amount of light to properly expose the film. This amount of light can be achieved with many different combinations of f/stops and shutter speeds. This page goes over the f/stop and especially its initially-confusing numbering at some length.


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From photoanswers.co.uk

Depth-of-field refers to the amount of the scene that appears to be sharp in your shot. Unlike our eyesight, which compensates for limited depth-of-field by quickly scanning different areas of the scene and focusing on near and distant points, camera lenses must obey some simple physical laws. Chiefly, depth-of-field extends in front of and behind the point you’ve focused the lens on. This zone of sharpness is not distributed evenly, however: it extends twice as far behind the focus point as it does in front of it.

The amount of depth-of-field in your shot is determined by three factors – the focal length of the lens, the aperture used and the distance from the subject.

1. Focal length. The shorter the focal length of the lens the greater the depth-of-field, and the longer the focal length, the smaller it will be. In general, using wide-angle lenses you’ll find that most of the scene is in sharp focus, while telephoto lenses are better for giving shallow depth-of-field, allowing you to throw distracting background elements out of focus, beyond depth-of-field.

2. Aperture. The wider the aperture you use the less depth-of-field you’ll get. So, using a wide aperture of f/4 or f/2.8 will mean that less of the scene will be in sharp focus than if you use a small aperture, such as f/16 or f/22.

3. Distance. The closer you are to the subject the less depth-of-field you’ll have to work with. You’ll find it easier to get greater depth-of-field if you focus on subjects further away from the camera. Conversely, if you want shallow depth-of-field, move closer. This is most apparent when shooting close-ups, where you’ll get very shallow depth-of-field.



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From IHT,
TOKYO: In New York or Los Angeles, fans of Japanese cuisine can rattle off orders for uni and o-toro, or urbanely express a preference for soba over udon. But what about "Napolitan," cooked spaghetti that is rinsed in cold water, then stir-fried with vegetables in ketchup? Or "menchi katsu," hamburger covered in bread crumbs and deep-fried? Or "omu rice," an omelet lying over a mound of ketchup-flavored rice?


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From Photocritic blog,

History of the website

The idea of Photocritic started in the late 90s: I had a grand idea of starting a photo criticism site, based on the Norwegian foto.no photo critique site, but aimed at an international audience, and on a far greater scale. I started looking into hiring a programmer to do the work, and started learning how to code myself as well. Soon, it turned out that the idea was a bit optimistic, and eventually I stumbled over a site called PhotoSIG, which had all the functionality I wanted from a photo criticism site.

By then, however, I had bought the Photocritic.org domain, and I figured it was too good a domain to just ignore. I used it as my photography portfolio for a while. In 2002, I started out as a freelance photographer, and as it turned out, Photocritic was not used as a company name by anyone, and soon, Photocritic Ltd was born:



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From IHT,

TAIPEI, Taiwan: When Marvin Ho co-founded a Chinese language school in Taiwan in 1957, his only students were a handful of Western missionaries.

Five decades later, it is a different story. Ho's classrooms are packed with scores of people clamoring to learn what they believe is the next global language: Mandarin Chinese.

China, having traded socialism for capitalism, is emerging as an economic power, perhaps the only one that could rival U.S. dominance in the 21st century. For a new generation of students, business people and even artists, the land of opportunity now lies to the East, not the West.



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From Consumerist.com,

Here's how it works:

  • Search Google News: Pop the headline you want into the Google News and enjoy the link straight to the full and free content. You can alternatively build a Firefox keyword shortcut using this string:
    http://news.google.com/news?q=%s+source%3Awall_street_journal
  • Use The Firefox Extension Refspoof: Step 1: Download the extension here.
    Step 2: In the refspoof toolbar's "spoof:" field, type "digg.com.
    Step 3: Also in the refspoof toolbar, click the R icon, and select "static referrer."
    That's it. Click around the site; the WSJ thinks each click is coming from Digg. The WSJ is now yours for free!


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From The Economist print edition,
Scientists try to explain religion
BY THE standards of European scientific collaboration, €2m ($3.1m) is not a huge sum. But it might be the start of something that will challenge human perceptions of reality at least as much as the billions being spent by the European particle-physics laboratory (CERN) at Geneva. The first task of CERN's new machine, the Large Hadron Collider, which is due to open later this year, will be to search for the Higgs boson—an object that has been dubbed, with a certain amount of hyperbole, the God particle. The €2m, by contrast, will be spent on the search for God Himself—or, rather, for the biological reasons why so many people believe in God, gods and religion in general.

“Explaining Religion”, as the project is known, is the largest-ever scientific study of the subject. It began last September, will run for three years, and involves scholars from 14 universities and a range of disciplines from psychology to economics. And it is merely the latest manifestation of a growing tendency for science to poke its nose into the God business.


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From Wikipedia,
Norway
, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country and constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. It is bordered by Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The distance between the northern and southern parts of Norway is considerable compared to east-west distances. The country's extensive coastline along the North Atlantic Ocean is home to its famous fjords.

The Kingdom of Norway also includes the Arctic island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen. Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard is based upon the Svalbard Treaty, but that treaty does not apply to Jan Mayen. Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic Ocean and Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land in Antarctica are external dependencies, but those three entities do not form part of the kingdom.

Since World War II, Norway has experienced rapid economic growth, and is now amongst the wealthiest countries in the world,[6][7][8] with a fully developed welfare system. This economic progress is caused in part by the development of oil and gas reserves off its coast. Norway was ranked highest of all countries in human development from 2001 to 2006.[9] It also rated the most peaceful country in the world in a 2007 survey by Global Peace Index.[10] It is a founding member of NATO.


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From Wikipedia,
Tenorio Volcano National Park is a National Park in the central part of Costa Rica, which forms part of the Arenal Tilaran Conservation Area. The jewel of the National Park (Spanish Volcán Turrialba Parque Nacional) is the volcano, from which it receives it's name. The Tenorio Volcano was made part of the National Park in 1995 and is located about 26 miles northeast from the town of in the Guanacaste Province.

Tenorio Volcano consists of four volcanic peaks and two craters. One of the craters is sometimes referred to as the Montezuma Volcano. Tenorio attains a maximum height of 6,287 feet (1,913 m). The awe inspiring Rio Celeste (Light Blue River) is turned literally blue due to the emanation of sulfur from the volcano and precipitation of calcium carbonate. Thermal springs and small geysers dot the area as do rivers, waterfalls, lagoons and panoramic views. The upper area of the park is dominated by primary cloud forest, while the lower regions are carpeted with rain forest. The Tapir and the rarely seen Puma reside in the area.


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From The Wall Street Journal,
Abstract (Summary)
Between Tuesday, when financial markets began turning against Bear Stearns Cos., and Sunday night, when the bank disappeared into the arms of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Washington policy makers, federal regulators and Wall Street bankers struggled to keep the trouble from tanking financial markets and exacerbating the country's deep economic uncertainty. Cutting interest rates -- which the Fed is expected to do again today, by between a half percentage point and a full point -- hasn't yet done much to loosen capital markets gummed up by piles of bad debt.


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From Wikipedia,
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is one of the oldest financial services firms in the world. The company, headquartered in New York City, is one of the leaders in investment banking, financial services, asset and wealth management and private equity. With assets of $1.6 trillion, JPMorgan Chase is currently the third largest banking institution in the United States,[1] behind Bank of America and Citigroup. The hedge fund unit of JPMorgan Chase is the largest hedge fund in the United States with $34 billion in assets as of 2007.[2] Formed in 2000 when Chase Manhattan Corporation acquired J.P. Morgan & Co., the firm serves millions of consumers in the United States and many of the world's most prominent corporate, institutional and governmental clients.

In 2004, the company acquired Bank One of Chicago, bringing on board Bank One CEO Jamie Dimon as president and COO of the merged firm and designating him as CEO William B. Harrison, Jr.'s future successor. Dimon quickly made his influence felt by embarking on a cost-cutting strategy and placing some former Bank One executives in key ranks at the new company. Dimon became CEO in January 2006, and also became chairman in December 2006.

JPMorgan Chase operates as the brand for the holding company. Chase is used as the brand for credit card services in the United States and Canada and the bank's retail banking activities in the United States.


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From Wikipedia:
The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BSC) is the parent company of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., one of the largest global investment banks and securities trading and brokerage firms in the world. The main business areas, based on 2006 net revenue contribution, are: capital markets (equities, fixed income, investment banking; just under 80%), wealth management (under 10%) and global clearing services (12%). Bear Stearns' future remains highly ambiguous.


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