A method to continuously spin a wonder material, which is worth more per kg than gold, has been developed by Cambridge-MIT Institute scientists.Discovered in 1991, carbon nanotubes are just a few billionths of a metre across, but are ultra-strong.
They have been spun before, but directly spinning them into a fibre as they are made has proven very difficult.
The Cambridge way brings the industrial production of a myriad of materials made of carbon nanotubes a step closer.
The technique has been developed in the last six months by a UK team led by Professor Alan Windle at the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI).
"Carbon nanotubes are very, very interesting structures with quite amazing potential. They represent one aspect of nanotechnology," he told BBC News Online.
"Now, suddenly, one can relate this thing called a nanotube into something people can see."
In the United States, nearly six million people commute daily by public transportation, according to the Department of Transportation. Few operators offer wireless Internet access in their stations and terminals - much less on board - even though it is now routinely found in many airports, hotels and coffee shops. But trials and planning are under way in several countries to determine the technical feasibility of offering mobile Internet access, and whether commuters will ultimately pay for the privilege.Providing Internet access on vessels and vehicles is not as simple as adding it to a fixed venue, like a restaurant or even a convention center. Boats, buses and trains have metal skins or hulls that block wireless signals. They move, often at average speeds of 20 to 100 miles per hour, requiring a system that can rapidly and seamlessly hand off a signal. And they could have large numbers of simultaneous users, many of whom are already working on laptops during the voyage.
Researchers may finally be on track to fight the AIDS virus by blocking a long-elusive target, an HIV enzyme called integrase. An experimental drug that inhibits the enzyme helped to keep the infection in check in monkeys.Far more research is needed to prove if Merck & Co.'s approach really can block this enzyme's crucial work in helping HIV reproduce and spread. After all, years of attempts at targeting integrase have failed.
In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, Merck reports that an integrase inhibitor dramatically protected monkeys when the drug was given early in infection. The drug also provided some benefit to the very sick.
Merck is studying some integrase inhibitor candidates in a few people to see whether the pills seem safe and to check for any early signs of viral suppression. Results, due by early next year, will determine whether larger studies should be performed on the prospective drugs.
Baby-short Singapore was to get a glimpse of the highs and lows of pregnancy and childbirth Saturday with the premiere of a television series that follows a couple through the entire baby-making process.The show -- dubbed "Here's Looking at You, Babe!" -- comes as the wealthy Southeast Asian city-state grapples with a precipitous fall in its birth rate, which threatens to shrink its population if it isn't reversed.
"The government wants Singaporeans to have more kids and we are stepping in," father-to-be Allan Li told Channel NewsAsia, the network that will air the series.
[A] new survey to be released today by the National Endowment for the Arts, which describes a precipitous downward trend in book consumption by Americans and a particular decline in the reading of fiction, poetry and drama.The survey, called "Reading at Risk," is based on data from "The Survey of Public Participation in the Arts," conducted by the Census Bureau in 2002. Among its findings are that fewer than half of Americans over 18 now read novels, short stories, plays or poetry; that the consumer pool for books of all kinds has diminished; and that the pace at which the nation is losing readers, especially young readers, is quickening. In addition it finds that the downward trend holds in virtually all demographic areas.
Interesting tidbits from cover story of The New York Times Magazine cover story, The Chinese Century:
Because 12 percent of China's exports to the U.S. end up on Wal-Mart's shelves, and because Wal-Mart's trade with China accounts for 1 percent of that country's gross domestic product, the company exerts tremendous downward pressure on prices.
Since 1978, [China's] gross domestic product has risen fourfold; in straight dollar terms, China's economy is the world's sixth-largest, with a G.D.P. of around $1.4 trillion. It has gone from being virtually absent in international trade to the world's third-most-active trading nation, behind the U.S. and Germany and ahead of Japan.
China is home to close to 1.5 billion people, probably, which would make the official census count of 1.3 billion too low by an amount equal to roughly the population of Germany, France and the United Kingdom combined. China has 100 cities of more than a million people.
China has 17 million university and advanced vocational students (up more than threefold in five years), the majority of whom are in science and engineering. China will produce 325,000 engineers this year. That's five times as many as in the U.S., where the number of engineering graduates has been declining since the early 1980's.
In American business this is called the ''China price.'' It is the price American suppliers to other American businesses have to match to keep their customers. It is the price at which Chinese manufacturers can deliver the same goods and services. Last November, the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank noted the complaints that ''automakers have reportedly been asking suppliers for the 'China price' on their purchases.'' It also observed that U.S. suppliers had been asked by their big customers to relocate production to China, or to find subcontractors there.
The fact that in China machines can be replaced by people for huge cost savings and without sacrifice in quality changes the competitive landscape of the global marketplace.