Google demonstrates quantum computer image search

Google's web services may be considered cutting edge, but they run in warehouses filled with conventional computers. Now the search giant has revealed it is investigating the use of quantum computers to run its next generation of faster applications.

Source : New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18272-google-demonstrates-quantum-computer-image-search.html

MIT gestural computing makes multi-touch look old

The MIT Media Lab, home to Big Bird's illegitimate progeny, augmented reality projects aplenty, and now three-dimensional gestural computing. The new bi-directional display being demoed by the Cambridge-based boffins performs both multitouch functions that we're familiar with and hand movement recognition in the space in front of the screen -- which we're also familiar with, but mostly from the movies.

Source : Engadget

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/mit-gestural-computing-makes-multitouch-look-old-hat/

Flexible solar cell implant could restore vision

The first flexible retinal implant could restore some vision to people with certain forms of visual impairment.

Conditions such as age-related macular degeneration occur when some of the photoreceptors in the eye stop functioning properly. But as other parts of the eye still work, it should be possible to restore vision using an implant that mimics the photoreceptor layer, says Rostam Dinyari at Stanford University in California.

Source : New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18275-flexible-solar-cell-implant-could-restore-vision.html

Our atmosphere came from outer space

Comets from outer space may have created Earth's atmosphere – not volcanoes spewing out gases from deep within the planet.

The origin of the gases in Earth's atmosphere has long been a puzzle. One of the main theories is that the gases bubbled up out of the mantle via volcanoes.

Greg Holland of the University of Manchester, UK, and colleagues have arrived at a different theory after collecting samples of the noble gas krypton from several hundred kilometres beneath New Mexico.

Source : New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18277-our-atmosphere-came-from-outer-space.html

Homosexual selection: The power of same-sex liaisons

NOT long ago, the news was full of reports about two male Humboldt penguins at a zoo in Germany that adopted an egg, hatched it and reared the chick together. It seems like every time you turn around, the media spotlight has fallen on another example of same-sex liaisons in the animal kingdom.

Source : New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427370.800-homosexual-selection-the-power-of-samesex-liaisons.html

Early-bird dinosaur found in New Mexico

The remains of a two-legged meat-eating predator that roamed the Earth at the dawn of dinosaurs have been uncovered in an ancient bone bed by fossil hunters.

The feathered beast, named Tawa hallae, was the size of a large dog and sported a long neck and tail, a slender snout, and sharp, curved teeth to catch and kill its prey.

Source : guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/dec/10/tawa-hallae-feathered-theropod-mexico

Pregnant women develop emotion-reading superpowers

RAGING hormones during pregnancy prompt mood swings, but may also lead to a heightened ability to recognize threatening or aggressive faces. This may have evolved because it makes future mothers hyper-vigilant, yet it could also make them more vulnerable to anxiety.

Source : New Scientist

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427384.200-pregnant-women-develop-emotionreading-superpowers.html