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Monday, October 8, 2007

God in the Brain


Where is GOD? in myself ? where ?


"Scientific American is reporting on scientific work done to map the euphoric religious feelings within the brain. As a result, it's now quite possible to experience 'proximity to God' via a special helmet: 'In a series of studies conducted over the past several decades, Persinger and his team have trained their device on the temporal lobes of hundreds of people. In doing so, the researchers induced in most of them the experience of a sensed presence - a feeling that someone (or a spirit) is in the room when no one, in fact, is - or of a profound state of cosmic bliss that reveals a universal truth. During the three-minute bursts of stimulation, the affected subjects translated this perception of the divine into their own cultural and religious language - terming it God, Buddha, a benevolent presence or the wonder of the universe.""


The doughnut-shaped machine swallows the nun, who is outfitted in a plain T-shirt and loose hospital pants rather than her usual brown habit and long veil. She wears earplugs and rests her head on foam cushions to dampen the device's roar, as loud as a jet engine. Supercooled giant magnets generate intense fields around the nun's head in a high-tech attempt to read her mind as she communes with her deity.


The Carmelite nun and 14 of her Catholic sisters have left their cloistered lives temporarily for this claustrophobic blue tube that bears little resemblance to the wooden prayer stall or sparse room where such mystical experiences usually occur. Each of these nuns answered a call for volunteers "who have had an experience of intense union with God" and agreed to participate in an experiment devised by neuroscientist Mario Beauregard of the University of Montreal. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Beauregard seeks to pinpoint the brain areas that are active while the nuns recall the most powerful religious epiphany of their lives, a time they experienced a profound connection with the divine. The question: Is there a God spot in the brain?


The spiritual quest may be as old as humankind itself, but now there is a new place to look: inside our heads. Using fMRI and other tools of modern neuroscience, researchers are attempting to pin down what happens in the brain when people experience mystical awakenings during prayer and meditation or during spontaneous utterances inspired by religious fervor.


Such efforts to reveal the neural correlates of the divine-a new discipline with the warring titles "neurotheology" and "spiritual neuroscience"-not only might reconcile religion and science but also might help point to ways of eliciting pleasurable otherworldly feelings in people who do not have them or who cannot summon them at will. Because of the positive effect of such experiences on those who have them, some researchers speculate that the ability to induce them artificially could transform people's lives by making them happier, healthier and better able to concentrate. Ultimately, however, neuroscientists study this question because they want to better understand the neural basis of a phenomenon that plays a central role in the lives of so many. "These experiences have existed since the dawn of humanity. They have been reported across all cultures," Beauregard says. "It is as important to study the neural basis of [religious] experience as it is to investigate the neural basis of emotion, memory or language."


Mystical Misfirings
Scientists and scholars have long speculated that religious feeling can be tied to a specific place in the brain. In 1892 textbooks on mental illness noted a link between "religious emotionalism" and epilepsy. Nearly a century later, in 1975, neurologist Norman Geschwind of the Boston Veterans Administration Hospital first clinically described a form of epilepsy in which seizures originate as electrical misfirings within the temporal lobes, large sections of the brain that sit over the ears. Epileptics who have this form of the disorder often report intense religious experiences, leading Geschwind and others, such as neuropsychiatrist David Bear of Vanderbilt University, to speculate that localized electrical storms in the brain's temporal lobe might sometimes underlie an obsession with religious or moral issues.


Exploring this hypothesis, neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran of the University of California, San Diego, asked several of his patients who have temporal lobe epilepsy to listen to a mixture of religious, sexual and neutral words while he tested the intensity of their emotional reactions using a measure of arousal called the galvanic skin response, a fluctuation in the electrical resistance of the skin. In 1998 he reported in his book Phantoms in the Brain (William Morrow), co-authored with journalist Sandra Blakeslee, that the religious words, such as "God," elicited an unusually large emotional response in these patients, indicating that people with temporal lobe epilepsy may indeed have a greater propensity toward religious feeling.



The key, Ramachandran speculates, may be the limbic system, which comprises interior regions of the brain that govern emotion and emotional memory, such as the amygdala and hypothalamus. By strengthening the connection between the temporal lobe and these emotional centers, epileptic electrical activity may spark religious feeling.


To seal the case for the temporal lobe's involvement, Michael Persinger of Laurentian University in Ontario sought to artificially re-create religious feelings by electrically stimulating that large subdivision of the brain. So Persinger created the "God helmet," which generates weak electromagnetic fields and focuses them on particular regions of the brain's surface.


In a series of studies conducted over the past several decades, Persinger and his team have trained their device on the temporal lobes of hundreds of people. In doing so, the researchers induced in most of them the experience of a sensed presence-a feeling that someone (or a spirit) is in the room when no one, in fact, is-or of a profound state of cosmic bliss that reveals a universal truth. During the three-minute bursts of stimulation, the affected subjects translated this perception of the divine into their own cultural and religious language-terming it God, Buddha, a benevolent presence or the wonder of the universe.


Persinger thus argues that religious experience and belief in God are merely the results of electrical anomalies in the human brain. He opines that the religious bents of even the most exalted figures-for instance, Saint Paul, Moses, Muhammad and Buddha-stem from such neural quirks. The popular notion that such experiences are good, argues Persinger in his book Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs (Praeger Publishers, 1987), is an outgrowth of psychological conditioning in which religious rituals are paired with enjoyable experiences. Praying before a meal, for example, links prayer with the pleasures of eating. God, he claims, is nothing more mystical than that.


Expanded Horizons
Although a 2005 attempt by Swedish scientists to replicate Persinger's God helmet findings failed, researchers are not yet discounting the temporal lobe's role in some types of religious experience. After all, not all such experiences are the same. Some arise from following a specific religious tradition, such as the calm Catholics feel when saying the rosary. Others bring a person into a perception of contact with the divine. Yet a third category might be mystical states that reveal fundamental truths opaque to normal consciousness. Thus, it is possible that different religious feelings arise from distinct locations in the brain. Individual differences might also exist. In some people, the neural seat of religious feeling may lie in the temporal lobe, whereas in others it could reside elsewhere.


Indeed, University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist Andrew Newberg and his late colleague, Eugene d'Aquili, have pointed to the involvement of other brain regions in some people under certain circumstances. Instead of artificially inducing religious experience, Newberg and d'Aquili used brain imaging to peek at the neural machinery at work during traditional religious practices. In this case, the scientists studied Buddhist meditation, a set of formalized rituals aimed at achieving defined spiritual states, such as oneness with the universe.


When the Buddhist subjects reached their self-reported meditation peak, a state in which they lose their sense of existence as separate individuals, the researchers injected them with a radioactive isotope that is carried by the blood to active brain areas. The investigators then photographed the isotope's distribution with a special camera-a technique called single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT).


The height of this meditative trance, as they described in a 2001 paper, was associated with both a large drop in activity in a portion of the parietal lobe, which encompasses the upper back of the brain, and an increase in activity in the right prefrontal cortex, which resides behind the forehead. Because the affected part of the parietal lobe normally aids with navigation and spatial orientation, the neuroscientists surmise that its abnormal silence during meditation underlies the perceived dissolution of physical boundaries and the feeling of being at one with the universe. The prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, is charged with attention and planning, among other cognitive duties, and its recruitment at the meditation peak may reflect the fact that such contemplation often requires that a person focus intensely on a thought or object.



Neuroscientist Richard J. Davidson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues documented something similar in 2002, when they used fMRI to scan the brains of several hundred meditating Buddhists from around the world. Functional MRI tracks the flow of oxygenated blood by virtue of its magnetic properties, which differ from those of oxygen-depleted blood. Because oxygenated blood preferentially flows to where it is in high demand, fMRI highlights the brain areas that are most active during-and thus presumably most engaged in-a particular task.


Davidson's team also found that the Buddhists' meditations coincided with activation in the left prefrontal cortex, again perhaps reflecting the ability of expert practitioners to focus despite distraction. The most experienced volunteers showed lower levels of activation than did those with less training, conceivably because practice makes the task easier. This theory jibes with reports from veterans of Buddhist meditation who claim to have reached a state of "effortless concentration," Davidson says.


What is more, Newberg and d'Aquili obtained concordant results in 2003, when they imaged the brains of Franciscan nuns as they prayed. In this case, the pattern was associated with a different spiritual phenomenon: a sense of closeness and mingling with God, as was similarly described by Beauregard's nuns. "The more we study and compare the neurological underpinnings of different religious practices, the better we will understand these experiences," Newberg says. "We would like to [extend our work by] recruiting individuals who engage in Islamic and Jewish prayer as well as revisiting other Buddhist and Christian practices."


Newberg and his colleagues discovered yet another activity pattern when they scanned the brains of five women while they were speaking in tongues-a spontaneous expression of religious fervor in which people babble in an incomprehensible language. The researchers announced in 2006 that the activity in their subjects' frontal lobes-the entire front section of the brain-declined relative to that of five religious people who were simply singing gospel. Because the frontal lobes are broadly used for self-control, the research team concluded that the decrement in activity there enabled the loss of control necessary for such garrulous outbursts.


Spiritual Networking


Although release of frontal lobe control may be involved in the mystical experience, Beauregard believes such profound states also call on a wide range of other brain functions. To determine exactly what might underlie such phenomena, the Quebecois neuroscientist and his colleagues used fMRI to study the brains of 15 nuns during three different mental states. Two of the conditions-resting with closed eyes and recollecting an intense social experience-were control states against which they compared the third: reminiscence or revival of a vivid experience with God.


As each nun switched between these states on a technician's cue, the MRI machine recorded cross sections of her brain every three seconds, capturing the whole brain roughly every two minutes. Once the neural activity was computed and recorded, the experimenters compared the activation patterns in the two control states with those in the religious state to elucidate the brain areas that became more energized during the mystical experience. (Although Beauregard had hoped the nuns would experience a mystical union while in the scanner, the best they could do, it turned out, was to conjure up an emotionally powerful memory of union with God. "God can't be summoned at will," explained Sister Diane, the prioress of the Carmelite convent in Montreal.)


The researchers found six regions that were invigorated only during the nuns' recall of communion with God. The spiritual memory was accompanied by, for example, increased activity in the caudate nucleus, a small central brain region to which scientists have ascribed a role in learning, memory and, recently, falling in love; the neuroscientists surmise that its involvement may reflect the nuns' reported feeling of unconditional love. Another hot spot was the insula, a prune-size chunk of tissue tucked within the brain's outermost layers that monitors body sensations and governs social emotions. Neural sparks there could be related to the visceral pleasurable feelings associated with connections to the divine.



And augmented activity in the inferior parietal lobe, with its role in spatial awareness-paradoxically, the opposite of what Newberg and Davidson witnessed-might mirror the nuns' feeling of being absorbed into something greater. Either too much or too little activity in this region could, in theory, result in such a phenomenon, some scientists surmise. The remainder of the highlighted regions, the researchers reported in the September 25, 2006, issue of Neuroscience Letters, includes the medial orbitofrontal cortex, which may weigh the pleasantness of an experience; the medial prefrontal cortex, which may help govern conscious awareness of an emotional state; and, finally, the middle of the temporal lobe.


The quantity and diversity of brain regions involved in the nuns' religious experience point to the complexity of the phenomenon of spirituality. "There is no single God spot, localized uniquely in the temporal lobe of the human brain," Beauregard concludes. "These states are mediated by a neural network that is well distributed throughout the brain."


Brain scans alone cannot fully describe a mystical state, however. Because fMRI depends on blood flow, which takes place on the order of seconds, fMRI images do not capture real-time changes in the firing of neurons, which occur within milliseconds. That is why Beauregard turned to a faster technique called quantitative electroencephalography (EEG), which measures the voltage from the summed responses of millions of neurons and can track its fluctuation in real time. His team outfitted the nuns with red bathing caps studded with electrodes that pick up electric currents from neurons. These currents merge and appear as brain waves of various frequencies that change as the nuns again recall an intense experience with another person and a deep connection with God.


Beauregard and his colleagues found that the most prevalent brain waves are long, slow alpha waves such as those produced by sleep, consistent with the nuns' relaxed state. In work that has not yet been published, the scientists also spotted even lower-frequency waves in the prefrontal and parietal cortices and the temporal lobe that are associated with meditation and trance. "We see delta waves and theta waves in the same brain regions as the fMRI," Beauregard says.


Fool's Errand?


The brain mediates every human experience from breathing to contemplating the existence of God. And whereas activity in neural networks is what gives rise to these experiences, neuroimaging cannot yet pinpoint such activity at the level of individual neurons. Instead it provides far cruder anatomical information, highlighting the broad swaths of brain tissue that appear to be unusually dynamic or dormant. But using such vague structural clues to explain human feelings and behaviors may be a fool's errand. "You list a bunch of places in the brain as if naming something lets you understand it," opines neuropsychologist Seth Horowitz of Brown University. Vincent Paquette, who collaborated with Beauregard on his experiments, goes further, likening neuroimaging to phrenology, the practice in which Victorian-era scientists tried-and ultimately failed-to intuit clues about brain function and character traits from irregularities in the shape of the skull.


Spiritual neuroscience studies also face the profound challenge of language. No two mystics describe their experiences in the same way, and it is difficult to distinguish among the various types of mystical experiences, be they spiritual or traditionally religious. To add to the ambiguity, such feelings could also encompass awe of the universe or of nature. "If you are an atheist and you live a certain kind of experience, you will relate it to the magnificence of the universe. If you are a Christian, you will associate it with God. Who knows? Perhaps they are the same," Beauregard muses.



Rather than attempting to define religious experience to understand it, some say we should be boiling it down to its essential components. "When we talk about phenomena like a mystical experience, we need to be a lot more specific about what we are referring to as far as changes in attention, memory and perception," Davidson says. "Our only hope is to specify what is going on in each of those subsystems," as has been done in studies of cognition and emotion.


Other research problems abound. None of the techniques, for example, can precisely delineate specific brain regions. And it is virtually impossible to find a perfect so-called reference task for the nuns to perform against which to compare the religious experience they are trying to capture. After all, what human experience is just one detail different from the awe and love felt in the presence of God?


Making Peace


For the nuns, serenity does not come from a sense of God in their brains but from an awareness of God with them in the world. It is that peace and calm, that sense of union with all things, that Beauregard wants to capture-and perhaps even replicate. "If you know how to electrically or neurochemically change functions in the brain," he says, "then you [might] in principle be able to help normal people, not mystics, achieve spiritual states using a device that stimulates the brain electromagnetically or using lights and sounds."


Inducing truly mystical experiences could have a variety of positive effects. Recent findings suggest, for example, that meditation can improve people's ability to pay attention. Davidson and his colleagues asked 17 people who had received three months of intensive training in meditation and 23 meditation novices to perform an attention task in which they had to successively pick out two numbers embedded in a series of letters. The novices did what most people do, the investigators announced in June: they missed the second number because they were still focusing on the first-a phenomenon called attentional blink. In contrast, all the trained meditators consistently picked out both numbers, indicating that practicing meditation can improve focus.


Meditation may even delay certain signs of aging in the brain, according to preliminary work by neuroscientist Sara Lazar of Harvard University and her colleagues. A 2005 paper in NeuroReport noted that 20 experienced meditators showed increased thickness in certain brain regions relative to 15 subjects who did not meditate. In particular, the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula were between four and eight thousandths of an inch thicker in the meditators; the oldest of these subjects boasted the greatest increase in thickness, the reverse of the usual process of aging. Newberg is now investigating whether meditation can alleviate stress and sadness in cancer patients or expand the cognitive capacities of people with early memory loss.


Artificially replicating meditative trances or other spiritual states might be similarly beneficial to the mind, brain and body. Beauregard and others argue, for example, that such mystical mimicry might improve immune system function, stamp out depression or just provide a more positive outlook on life. The changes could be lasting and even transformative. "We could generate a healthy, optimal brain template," Paquette says. "If someone has a bad brain, how can they get a good brain? It's really [a potential way to] rewire our brain." Religious faith also has inherent worldly rewards, of course. It brings contentment, and charitable works motivated by such faith bring others happiness.


To be sure, people may differ in their proclivity to spiritual awakening. After all, not everyone finds God with the God helmet. Thus, scientists may need to retrofit the technique to the patient. And it is possible that some people's brains will simply resist succumbing to the divine.



Moreover, no matter what neural correlates scientists may find, the results cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. Although atheists might argue that finding spirituality in the brain implies that religion is nothing more than divine delusion, the nuns were thrilled by their brain scans for precisely the opposite reason: they seemed to provide confirmation of God's interactions with them. After all, finding a cerebral source for spiritual experiences could serve equally well to identify the medium through which God reaches out to humanity. Thus, the nuns' forays into the tubular brain scanner did not undermine their faith. On the contrary, the science gave them an even greater reason to believe.




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Robots to Help Elderly


Can we think that robot is doing all the odd job of human .Robot is becoming as a right worker of many things.
If you grow old , expect to be served food by a robot, ride a voice-recognition wheelchair or even possibly hire a nurse in a robotic suit — all examples of cutting-edge technology to care for the country's rapidly graying population.

With nearly 22 percent of Japan's population already aged 65 or older, businesses here have been rolling out everything from easy-entry cars to remote-controlled beds, fueling a care-technology market worth some $1.08 billion in 2006, according to industry figures.

• Click here for FOXNews.com's Patents and Innovation Center.

At a home care and rehabilitation convention in Tokyo this week, buyers crowded round a demonstration of Secom Co.'s My Spoon feeding robot, which helps elderly or disabled people eat with a spoon- and fork-fitted swiveling arm.

Operating a joystick with his chin, developer Shigehisa Kobayashi maneuvered the arm toward a block of silken tofu, deftly getting the fork to break off a bite-sized piece. The arm then returned to a preprogrammed position in front of the mouth, allowing Kobayashi to bite and swallow.

"It's all about empowering people to help themselves," Kobayashi said. The Tokyo-based company has already sold 300 of the robots, which come with a price tag of $3,500.

"We want to give the elderly control over their own lives," he said.

The rapidly aging population here has spurred a spate of concerns: a labor shortage, tax shortfalls, financial difficulties in paying the health bills and pensions of large numbers of elderly.

Moreover, a breakdown of family ties in recent years means a growing number of older Japanese are spending their golden years away from the care traditionally provided by children and grandchildren.

That's where cutting-edge technology steps in.

A rubber and nylon "muscle suit" developed by the Tokyo University of Science helps keep the elderly active by providing support for the upper body, arms and shoulders.

Powered by air pressure actuators, the prototype suit — which looks like an oversized life jacket — provides subtle backing to help older people lift heavy objects.

The intelligent wheelchair TAO Aicle from Fujitsu Ltd. and Aisin Seiki Co. uses a positioning system to automatically travel to a preset destination, and uses sensors to detect and stop at red lights, and to avoid obstacles.

Another wheelchair designed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology responds to oral commands like "forward" and "back," "right" and "left."

Then there are cars designed for easy entry for the wheelchair-bound or those with difficulty walking, like Toyota Motor Corp.'s Welcab series. Its slogan: "A car that's more patient than your daughter."

Tired? Retire to a Lowland futon bed by Kaneshiro Tsuhso Inc. that can be adjusted into a reclining seat.

And there's help for caregivers, too.

A full-body robotic suit developed by the Kanagawa Institute of Technology outside Tokyo is a massive contraption powered by 22 air pumps to help nurses hoist patients on and off their beds.

Sensors attached to the user's skin detects when muscles are trying to lift something heavy — and signals to the air pumps to kick in to provide support.

Though the suit makes its wearer look a little like Robocop, a student who was easily lifted off a table in a demonstration said he felt comfortable during the test.

"It doesn't feel at all like I'm being lifted by a robot," he said. "This feels so comfortable and very human."

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Space -How much you want - Infinity. :To Infinity — and Beyond!


Space is ours. How much ? its infinity.
The U.S. space agency is also celebrating its own 50th anniversary in 2008. Sputnik's historic launch on Oct. 4, 1957 led directly to NASA's creation in 1958 when Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act.

"This book has a wonderful collection of imagery that chronicles the first half-century of NASA," said NASA deputy administrator Shana Dale in a statement. "As we view the historic achievement of our first generation of space explorers and see how far we have come in 50 years, we also peer over the horizon to a new era of exploration that will provide us with an outpost on the moon and eventually human exploration of Mars."


Titled "America in Space" and published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, the book contains 500 color and black-and-white photographs — many never before published — that were gleaned from NASA archives.

Images show dramatic moments at lift-off as well as the faces behind-the-scenes in mission control, providing vivid illustration of the very human astronauts, scientists, engineers, and administrators.

"Abrams is tremendously proud to have collaborated with NASA to create 'America in Space,' which celebrates some of our nation's greatest achievements and is also a milestone in photographic publishing," said Eric Himmel, Abrams vice president and editor-in-chief. "It was thrilling to see these amazing images materialize from NASA's vast visual archives as the project took shape."

"America in Space" also features a foreword by Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong — the first human to walk on the moon on July 20, 1969.

NASA chief historian Steven Dick, lead photo researcher Constance Moore and other officials also contributed to the new book, the space agency said. The book sells for $50.

Survey: Many People Have Unhealthy Relationships With Computers

In our lifestyle computer becoming more important than any other relations.
Computer ,
It's the relationship you spend more time on than any other. It has deepened even during the past few years.

When things go wrong, you become enraged and tearful and attack inanimate objects — but you're willing to spend hours making things right.

Obviously, we're talking about your relationship with your personal computer.

Consider this: In a survey earlier this year, 64 percent of Americans say they spend more time with their computer than with their significant other.

Meanwhile, 84 percent said they were more dependent on their computer than they were three years ago.

Probing emotions

Those were just a couple of the recently released findings from a consumer survey conducted in January for SupportSoft Inc., a firm in Redwood City, Calif., that makes software for computer help desks.

Anthony Rodio, the firm's chief marketing officer, said SupportSoft commissioned the survey to test the waters before getting into the consumer market.

When confronted with a dead computer, 19 percent admitted to wanting to hurl it out the nearest window, 9 percent felt stranded and alone, 11 percent used language normally reserved for special occasions, 7 percent did so loudly, 3 percent did so tearfully and 3 percent additionally vented their wrath on inanimate objects. (They were not asked about animate targets — it was a survey, not a police blotter.)

On the other hand, a healthy 32 percent said that they basically shrugged.

The respondents (who were all over 18, owned a PC and enjoyed broadband Internet access) estimated they spent an average of 12 hours a month wrestling with computer problems.

Unsurprisingly, 48 percent said they would rather help a friend move than deal with a computer problem. Thirty percent said they currently felt more frustration with their computer than they felt three years ago.

Results


Rodio said that, after digesting the results, his firm decided that people were looking for support and empathy during their times of computer troubles.

So SupportSoft made the decision not to follow the example of the service firms that use "geek" and "nerd" in their business names, and instead touted their staff as supportive and caring "computer therapists." They simply named their consumer service "support.com."

"At this point we can barely hire enough people to keep up with the business," Rodio told LiveScience.

And for those people spending more time with their computers than with their animate partners?

"The computer is a nice tool, but using one is not the same as face-time," he said. "Closing the laptop would be a good thing now and then."

Source :http://www.foxnews.com

CHINA - 4 great modern inventions ,


China is growing high in the world Market, Now a days china is showing their innovative power in various sector.


China's four great modern inventions are hybrid rice, laser photocomposition system for Chinese character typesetting, total synthesis of bovine insulin and compound artemether, according to the country's netizens.


More than 100,000 netizens contributed to the debate and 51,442 valid votes were cast in an election jointly organized by the Guangdong Association of Invention (GAI), Nangfang Daily, Beijing News and sohu.com, said Zhou Zhaolong, vice GAI director.


Zhou said originality, global influence and social benefits were the three key criteria for the inventions chosen.


Hybrid rice developed by famous Chinese agronomist Yuan Longping since the early 1970s is widely grown in China, with yields up to 12,000 kg per hectare. It has greatly increased yield on China's limited amount of arable land and been introduced to some Asian and African countries.


The computerized laser photocomposition system for Chinese character typesetting has transformed China's printing from letterpress printing to electronic publishing.


The new system invented by late Peking University Professor Wang Xuan in the 1980s has been described as the second invention of the printing system for Chinese characters after Bi Sheng's invention of movable clay type in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). Bi Sheng's invention ushered in a revolution in the history of printing.


The complete synthesis of bovine insulin -- the first time that human beings have synthesized protein -- is a huge breakthrough in the life sciences. The procedure was carried out in 1966 by a team headed by late academician Wang Yinglai.


Compound artemether is a medicine invented in China in the late 1970s which has proven itself to be effective in treating malaria patients worldwide.


The compass, gunpowder, paper-making and printing are regarded as ancient China's four great inventions. "Electing four great modern inventions will encourage the new generations to press forward on the road of discovery," said Wang Yusheng, former director of the China Science and Technology Museum.


Guo Jun, vice-director of the Guangdong Academy of Sciences, the Guangdong branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the election will focus people's attention on China's scientific and technological innovations and enhance national esteem.








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Satellite reveals universe's first trillionth second


Satellite reveals universe's first trillionth second


Scientists peering back to the oldest light in the universe have new evidence for what happened within its first trillionth of a second, when the universe suddenly grew from submicroscopic to astronomical size in far less than a wink of the eye.



Timeline of the universe: The expansion of the universe over most of it's history has been relatively gradual. The notion that a rapid period "inflation" preceded the Big Bang expansion was first put forth 25 years ago. The new WMAP observations favor specific inflation scenarios over other long held ideas. Credit: NASA


Using new data from a NASA satellite, scientists have the best evidence yet to support this scenario, known as "inflation." The evidence, from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite, was gathered during three years of continuous observations of remnant afterglow light -- cosmic background radiation that lingers, much cooled, from the universe's energetic beginnings 13.7 billion years ago.


In 2003, NASA announced that the WMAP satellite had produced a detailed picture of the infant universe by measuring fluctuations in temperature of the afterglow -- answering many longstanding questions about the universe's age, composition and development. The WMAP team has built upon those results with a new measurement of the faint glare from the afterglow to obtain clues about the universe's first moments, when the seeds were sown for the formation of the first stars 400 million years later.


"It amazes me that we can say anything about what transpired within the first trillionth of a second of the universe, but we can," said Charles L. Bennett, WMAP principal investigator and a professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University. "We have never before been able to understand the infant universe with such precision. It appears that the infant universe had the kind of growth spurt that would alarm any mom or dad."


The newly detected pattern, or polarization signal, in the glare of the afterglow is the weakest cosmological signal ever detected -- less than a hundredth of the strength of the temperature signal reported three years ago.


"This is brand new territory," said Princeton University physicist Lyman Page, a WMAP team member. "We are quantifying the cosmos in a different way to open up a new window for understanding the universe in its earliest times."


Comparing the brightness of broad features to compact features in the afterglow light (like comparing the heights of short-distance ripples versus long-distance waves on a lake) helps tell the story of the infant universe. One long-held prediction was that the brightness would be the same for features of all sizes. In contrast, the simplest versions of inflation predict that the relative brightness decreases as the features get smaller. WMAP data are new evidence for the inflation prediction.


The new WMAP data, combined with other cosmology data, also support established theories on what has happened to matter and energy over the past 13.7 billion years since its inflation, according to the WMAP researchers. The result is a tightly constrained and consistent picture of how our universe grew from microscopic quantum fluctuations to enable the formation of stars, planets and life.


According to this picture, researchers say, only 4 percent of the universe is ordinary familiar atoms; another 22 percent is an as-yet unidentified dark matter, and 74 percent is a mysterious dark energy. That dark energy is now causing another growth spurt for the universe, fortunately, they say, more gentle than the one 13.7 billion years ago.


WMAP was launched on June 30, 2001, and is now a million miles from Earth in the direction opposite the sun. It is able to track temperature fluctuations at levels finer than a millionth of a degree.


The WMAP team includes researchers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; The Johns Hopkins University; Princeton University; the Canadian Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics in Toronto; the University of Texas at Austin; Cornell University; the University of Chicago; Brown University; the University of British Columbia; the University of Pennsylvania; and the University of California, Los Angeles.


MORE NEWS...


Astronomers Detect First Split-Second of the Universe


Scientists announced new evidence supporting the theory that the infant universe expanded from subatomic to astronomical size in a fraction of a second after its birth.


The finding is based on new results from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite, launched in 2001 to measure the temperature of radiant heat left over from the Big Bang, which is the theoretical beginning to the universe.


This radiation is known as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), and it is the oldest light in the universe.


Using WMAP data, researchers announced in 2003 that they had pieced together a very detailed snapshot of the universe as it was about 400,000 years after the Big Bang, and that they had determined things like its age, composition and development.


The previous data showed that the universe was about 13.7 billion years old. It also revealed that it wasn't until about 200 million years after the Big Bang that conditions were cool enough for the first stars to form. Scientists were also able to conclude that the universe is composed of about 4 percent real matter, about 23 percent dark matter, and about 73 percent dark energy. Nobody actually knows what dark matter or dark energy are, however.


The new WMAP observations, announced at a NASA press conference today, reveal what the universe was like in the first trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. From the microwave background, researchers teased out a new signal called the "polarization signal."


"This new signal is roughly 100 times weaker than the signal we analyzed three years ago and about a billion times less than the radiant warmth we feel from the Sun," said Lyman Page, a WMAP team member from Princeton University.


The researchers collected observations of this polarization signal to create a map of the early universe, allowing them to test a sub-theory within the Big Bang theory, called "inflation."


Inflation theory states that the universe underwent a rapid expansion immediately following the Big Bang.


"During this growth spurt, a tiny region, likely no larger than a marble, grew in a trillionth of a second to become larger than the visible universe," said WMAP researcher David Spergel, also from Princeton University.


The new observations reveal that the early expansion wasn't smooth, with some regions expanding faster than others.


"We find that density fluctuations on the 1- to 10-billion-light-year scale are larger than density fluctuations on the hundred-million-light-year scale," Spergel said. "That is just what inflation theory predicts."


These fluctuations are thought to have led to clumping of matter that allowed the formation of galaxies.


Brian Greene, a physicist from Columbia University who wasn't involved in the research, called the new findings "spectacular" and "stunning."


"A major question that people have asked for decades is where do stars and galaxies come from? The answer coming from WMAP data supports the idea that quantum fluctuations are the answer," Greene said. "WMAP's data supports the notion that galaxies are nothing but quantum mechanism writ large across the sky."


The new findings brings humanity closer to answering one of its oldest questions, that of where we come from, Greene said.


"WMAP certainly doesn't answer this question, but its data is taking us one giant step closer to the answer by giving us a precise quantitative look at the universe's earliest fraction of a second," Greene said. "It's a tiny window of time, but it's a critical one in our quest to learn what happened at time zero itself."






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Astronauts to Ride Rails in Emergency


Astronauts to Ride Rails in Emergency


An artist's concept of the Ares I launch pad shows the new evacuation system on the right. Astronauts and ground crew could leave the capsule and ride a rail car to a bunker for protection. The path would be marked with yellow and black arrows. Credit: NASA



As NASA revamps Launch Complex 39B to host the new Orion spacecraft and Ares I rocket of the Constellation Program, engineers are preparing to install a new kind of departure system to evacuate astronauts.
The agency calls it the Orion Emergency Egress System, but it is fundamentally a group of multi-passenger cars on a set of rails reminiscent of a roller coaster. Its purpose is to move astronauts and ground crew quickly from the vehicle entry on the launch pad to a protective concrete bunker in case of an emergency.


Similar systems have been built into launch pads since the Saturn rockets and for the space shuttle. Both earlier systems were cables running from the spacecraft's crew ingress level to an area near a bunker. There has never been an emergency on the pad that required the crew use these systems.


For Orion, the rail car would stand some 380 feet above the ground. It will be at the same height as the hatch on the Orion capsule, which is where the astronaut crews enter the spacecraft before launch.


Kelli Maloney, the lead designer for the launch pad escape system, said a trade study showed the railcar best met NASA's requirements. Those requirements call for astronauts to be able to get out of the spacecraft and into the bunker within 4 minutes.
One of the benefits of the rail system, Maloney said, is that the track can take the astronauts directly to the bunker door. That would be a big help if one of the crew members or a ground crew member was incapacitated.


Scott Colloredo, NASA's senior project integrator for Constellation ground systems, said the group called on the world's roller coaster designers for help with the concept.


"It's obviously not a thrill ride, but we're taking advantage of technology that's there," he said.


MORE NEWS...............


Space rail for large space systems


A space rail (10) having two basic elements, a box structure (12) which is configured to permit installation of payload hardware and payload services hardware along its length and a deployable back structure (14) which provides stiffness to the assembly of space rails when deployed. The box structure (10) is preferably a flat rectangular frame comprising body members (12) and the back structure (14) comprises a plurality of struts (24a-d, 30) pivotally attached to the body member (14) and to each other so as to fold into a retracted deployable position and to be deployed (unfolded) by a suitable mechanism.






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Scientists 'weigh' tiny galaxy halfway across universe

Scientists 'weigh' tiny galaxy halfway across universe


Keck Telescope image shows the bright elliptical lens galaxy and its Einstein ring. The sub-panels show a zoomed-in view, before and after subtraction of the bright foreground galaxy to leave the tiny background object ready for analysis. Credit: Marshall et al.
Color composite image of the gravitational lens system, made from Hubble (blue and green) and Keck (red) data. The blue ring is the tiny background galaxy, stretched by the gravitational pull of the foreground lens galaxy at the center of the image. Credit: Marshall & Treu

A tiny galaxy, nearly halfway across the universe, the smallest in size and mass known to exist at that distance, has been identified by an international team of scientists led by two from the University of California, Santa BarbaraThe scientists used data collected by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. This galaxy is about half the size, and approximately one-tenth the "weight" of the smallest distant galaxies typically observed, and it is 100 times lighter than our own Milky Way.
Even though this galaxy is more than six billion light years away, the reconstructed image is as sharp as the ordinary ground-based images of the nearest structure of galaxies, the Virgo cluster, which is 100 times closer to us," said lead author Phil Marshall, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Santa Barbara.

Second author Tommaso Treu, assistant professor of physics at UCSB, explained that the imaging is made possible by the fact that the newly discovered galaxy is positioned behind a massive galaxy, creating an "Einstein ring." The matter distribution in the foreground bends the light rays in much the same way a magnifying glass does. By focusing the light rays, this gravitational lensing effect increases the apparent brightness and size of the background galaxy by more than a factor of 10.
Treu and his colleagues in the Sloan Lens ACS Survey (SLACS) collaboration are at forefront of the study of Einstein ring gravitational lenses. With gravitational lensing, light from distant galaxies is deflected on its way to Earth by the gravitational field of any massive object that lies in the way. Because the light bends, the galaxy is distorted into an arc or multiple separate images. When both galaxies are exactly lined up, the light forms a bull's-eye pattern, called an Einstein ring, around the foreground galaxy.
The mass estimate for the galaxy, and the inference that many of its stars have only recently formed, is made possible by the combination of optical and near infrared images from the Hubble Space Telescope with longer wavelength images obtained with the Keck Telescope. "If the galaxy is representative of a larger population, it could be one of the building blocks of today's spiral galaxies, or perhaps a progenitor of modern dwarf galaxies," said Treu. "It does look remarkably similar to the smallest galaxies in the Virgo cluster, but is almost half the way across the universe."
Another key aspect of the research is the use of "laser guide star adaptive optics." Adaptive optics systems use bright stars in the field of view to measure the Earth's atmospheric blurring and correct for it in real time. This technique relies on having a bright star in the image as well, so it is limited to a small fraction of the night sky. The laser guide star adaptive optics system in place at the Keck Telescope uses a powerful laser to illuminate the layer of sodium atoms that exist in the Earth's atmosphere, explained Jason Melbourne, a team member from the Center for Adaptive Optics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The laser image acts as an artificial star, bright enough to perform adaptive optics correction at an arbitrary position in the sky, thus enabling much sharper imaging over most of the sky. (For more on this topic see.

strong>galaxy
A galaxy (from the Greek root γαλαξίας, meaning "milky", a reference to our own Milky Way) is a massive, gravitationally bound system consisting of stars, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and dark matter.[1][2] Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million[3] (107) stars up to giants with one trillion[4] (1012) stars, all orbiting a common center of mass. Galaxies can also contain many multiple star systems, star clusters, and various interstellar clouds.


Historically, galaxies have been categorized according to their apparent shape (usually referred to as their visual morphology). A common form is the elliptical galaxy,[5] which has an ellipse-shaped light profile. Spiral galaxies are disk-shaped assemblages with curving, dusty arms. Galaxies with irregular or unusual shapes are known as peculiar galaxies, and typically result from disruption by the gravitational pull of neighbouring galaxies. Such interactions between nearby galaxies, which may ultimately result in galaxies merging, may induce episodes of significantly increased star formation, producing what is called a starburst galaxy. Small galaxies that lack a coherent structure could also be referred to as irregular galaxies
There are probably more than one hundred billion (1011) galaxies in the observable universe.[7] Most galaxies are 1,000 to 100,000[4] parsecs in diameter and are usually separated by distances on the order of millions of parsecs (or megaparsecs).[8] Intergalactic space (the space between galaxies) is filled with a tenuous gas of an average density less than one atom per cubic metre. The majority of galaxies are organized into a hierarchy of associations called clusters, which, in turn, can form larger groups called superclusters. These larger structures are generally arranged into sheets and filaments, which surround immense voids in the universe.[9]

Although it is not yet well understood, dark matter appears to account for around 90% of the mass of most galaxies. Observational data suggests that supermassive black holes may exist at the center of many, if not all, galaxies. They are proposed to be the primary cause of active galactic nuclei found at the core of some galaxies. The Milky Way galaxy, home of Earth and the solar system, appears to harbor at least one such object within its nucleus

Modern research
In 1944, Hendrik van de Hulst predicted microwave radiation at a wavelength of 21 cm, resulting from interstellar atomic hydrogen gas;[22] this radiation was observed in 1951. The radiation allowed for much improved study of the Milky Way Galaxy, since it is not affected by dust absorption and its Doppler shift can be used to map the motion of the gas in the Galaxy. These observations led to the postulation of a rotating bar structure in the center of the Galaxy.[23] With improved radio telescopes, hydrogen gas could also be traced in other galaxies.In the 1970s it was discovered in Vera Rubin's study of the rotation speed of gas in galaxies that the total visible mass (from stars and gas) does not properly account for the speed of the rotating gas. This galaxy rotation problem is thought to be explained by the presence of large quantities of unseen dark matter.[24]Beginning in the 1990s, the Hubble Space Telescope yielded improved observations. Among other things, it established that the missing dark matter in our galaxy cannot solely consist of inherently faint and small stars.[25] The Hubble Deep Field, an extremely long exposure of a relatively empty part of the sky, provided evidence that there are about one hundred and twenty five billion galaxies in the universe.[26] Improved technology in detecting the spectra invisible to humans (radio telescopes, infra-red cameras, x-ray telescopes), allow detection of other galaxies that are not detected by Hubble. Particularly, galaxy surveys in the zone of avoidance (the region of the sky blocked by the Milky Way) have revealed a number of new galaxies

Types and morphologyGalaxies come in three main types: ellipticals, spirals, and irregulars. A slightly more extensive description of galaxy types based on their appearance is given by the Hubble sequence. Since the Hubble sequence is entirely based upon visual morphological type, it may miss certain important characteristics of galaxies such as star formation rate (in starburst galaxies) or activity in the core (in active galaxies).




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nanotechnology researchers shed light on light-emitting nanodevice


nanotechnology researchers shed light on light-emitting nanodevice


An interdisciplinary team of Cornell nanotechnology researchers has unraveled some of the fundamental physics of a material that holds promise for light-emitting, flexible semiconductors.


The discovery, which involved years of perfecting a technique for building a specific type of light-emitting device, is reported in the Sept. 30 online publication of the journal Nature Materials.


The interdisciplinary team had long studied the molecular semiconductor ruthenium tris-bipyridine. For many reasons, including its ability to allow electrons and holes (spaces where electrons were before they moved) to pass through it easily, the material has the potential to be used for flexible light-emitting devices. Sensing, microscopy and flat-panel displays are among its possible applications.


The researchers set out to understand the fundamental physics of the material -- that is, what happens when it encounters an electric field, both at the interfaces and inside the film. By fabricating a device out of the ruthenium metal complex that was spin-coated onto an insulating substrate with pre-patterned gold electrodes, the scientists were able to use electron force microscopy to measure directly the electric field of the device.


A long-standing question, according to George G. Malliaras, associate professor of materials science and engineering, director of the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility and one of the co-principal investigators, was whether an electric field, when applied to the material, is concentrated at the interfaces or in the bulk of the film.


The researchers discovered that it was at the interfaces -- two gold metal electrodes sandwiching the ruthenium complex film -- which was a huge step forward in knowing how to build and engineer future devices.


"So when you apply the electric field, ions in the material move about, and that creates the electric fields at the interfaces," Malliaras explained.


Essential to the effort was the ability to pattern the ruthenium complex using photolithography, a technique not normally used with such materials and one that took the researchers more than three years to perfect, using the knowledge of experts in nanofabrication, materials and chemistry.


The patterning worked by laying down a gold electrode and a polymer called parylene. By depositing the ruthenium complex on top of the parylene layer and filling in an etched gap between the gold electrodes, the researchers were then able to peel the parylene material off mechanically, leaving a perfect device.


Ruthenium tris-bipyridine has energy levels well suited for efficient light emission of about 600 nanometers, said Héctor D. Abruña, the E.M. Chamot Professor of Chemistry, and a principal co-investigator. The material, which has interested scientists for many years, is ideal for its stability in multiple states of oxidation, which, in turn, allows it to serve as a good electron and hole transporter. This means that a single-layer device can be made, simplifying the manufacturing process.


"It's not fabulous, but it has a reasonable emission efficiency," Abruña said. "One of the drawbacks is it has certain instabilities, but we have managed to mitigate most of them."


Among the other authors were co-principal investigators Harold G. Craighead, the C.W. Lake Jr. Professor of Engineering, and John A. Marohn, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology.



The discovery, which involved years of perfecting a technique for building a specific type of light-emitting device, is reported in the Sept. 30 online publication of the journal Nature Materials.


The interdisciplinary team had long studied the molecular semiconductor ruthenium tris-bipyridine. For many reasons, including its ability to allow electrons and holes (spaces where electrons were before they moved) to pass through it easily, the material has the potential to be used for flexible light-emitting devices. Sensing, microscopy and flat-panel displays are among its possible applications.


The researchers set out to understand the fundamental physics of the material -- that is, what happens when it encounters an electric field, both at the interfaces and inside the film. By fabricating a device out of the ruthenium metal complex that was spin-coated onto an insulating substrate with pre-patterned gold electrodes, the scientists were able to use electron force microscopy to measure directly the electric field of the device.


A long-standing question, according to George G. Malliaras, associate professor of materials science and engineering, director of the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility and one of the co-principal investigators, was whether an electric field, when applied to the material, is concentrated at the interfaces or in the bulk of the film.


The researchers discovered that it was at the interfaces -- two gold metal electrodes sandwiching the ruthenium complex film -- which was a huge step forward in knowing how to build and engineer future devices.


"So when you apply the electric field, ions in the material move about, and that creates the electric fields at the interfaces," Malliaras explained.


Essential to the effort was the ability to pattern the ruthenium complex using photolithography, a technique not normally used with such materials and one that took the researchers more than three years to perfect, using the knowledge of experts in nanofabrication, materials and chemistry.


The patterning worked by laying down a gold electrode and a polymer called parylene. By depositing the ruthenium complex on top of the parylene layer and filling in an etched gap between the gold electrodes, the researchers were then able to peel the parylene material off mechanically, leaving a perfect device.


Ruthenium tris-bipyridine has energy levels well suited for efficient light emission of about 600 nanometers, said Héctor D. Abruña, the E.M. Chamot Professor of Chemistry, and a principal co-investigator. The material, which has interested scientists for many years, is ideal for its stability in multiple states of oxidation, which, in turn, allows it to serve as a good electron and hole transporter. This means that a single-layer device can be made, simplifying the manufacturing process.


"It's not fabulous, but it has a reasonable emission efficiency," Abruña said. "One of the drawbacks is it has certain instabilities, but we have managed to mitigate most of them."


Among the other authors were co-principal investigators Harold G. Craighead, the C.W. Lake Jr. Professor of Engineering, and John A. Marohn, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology.



MORE NEWS......


Researchers create 'nanolamps' - smallest organic light-emitters



To help light up the nanoworld, a Cornell interdisciplinary team of researchers has produced microscopic "nanolamps" -- light-emitting nanofibers about the size of a virus or the tiniest of bacteria.
In a collaboration of experts in organic materials and nanofabrication, researchers have created one of the smallest organic light-emitting devices to date, made up of synthetic fibers just 200 nanometers wide. The potential applications are in flexible electronic products, which are being made increasingly smaller.
The fibers, made of a compound based on the metallic element ruthenium, are so small that they are less than the wavelength of the light they emit. Such a localized light source could prove beneficial in applications ranging from sensing to microscopy to flat-panel displays.


The work, published in the February issue of Nano Letters, was a collaboration of nine Cornell researchers, including first author José M. Moran-Mirabal, an applied physics Ph.D. student; Héctor Abruña, the E.M. Chamot Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology; George Malliaras, associate professor of materials science and engineering and director of the Cornell NanoScale Facility; and Harold Craighead, the C.W. Lake Jr. Professor of Engineering and director of the National Science Foundation-funded Nanobiotechnology Center.
Using a technique called electrospinning, the researchers spun the fibers from a mixture of the metal complex ruthenium tris-bipyridine and the polymer polyethylene oxide. They found that the fibers give off orange light when excited by low voltage through micro-patterned electrodes -- not unlike a tiny light bulb.
"Imagine you have a light bulb that is extremely small," said Malliaras, an organic materials expert. "Then you can use the bulb to illuminate objects that you wouldn't be able to see otherwise."
Craighead's research group, which focuses on nanostructures and devices, supplied the expertise on the electrospinning technique.
The technique, explained Moran-Mirabal, who works in Craighead's laboratory, can be compared with pouring syrup on a pancake on a rotating table. As the syrup is poured, it forms a spiraling pattern on the flat pancake, which in electrospinning is the substrate with micropatterned gold electrodes. The syrup would be the solution containing the metal complex-polymer mixture in solvent. A high voltage between a microfabricated tip and the substrate ejects the solution from the tip, Moran-Mirabal said, and forms a jet that is stretched and thinned. As the solvent evaporates, the fiber hardens, laying down a solid fiber on the substrate.
As scientists look for ways to innovate -- and shrink -- electronics, there is much interest in organic light-emitting devices because they hold promise for making panels that can emit light but are also flexible, said Moran-Mirabal.
"One application of organic light-emitting devices could be integration into flexible electronics," he said.
The research also shows that these tiny light-emission devices can be made with simple fabrication methods. Compared with traditional methods of high-resolution lithography, in which devices are etched onto pieces of silicon, electrospinning requires almost no fabrication and is simpler to do.
The durability of organic electronics is still under investigation, and this recently completed research is no exception, Craighead said.
"The current interest is in the ease with which this material can be made into very small light-emitting fibers," he said. "Its ultimate utility, I think, will depend on how well it stands up to subsequent processing and use."





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The Week hot market for games -: "The biggest entertainment launch in history."


This week was a hot market for games. who cares what is :::: the game market is going in their high position , to control the global economy we have nothing to do ....and the growth of economy must changing in technology Market share and lion share is coming in the games house ,.Of course, "Halo 3" had the biggest first-day sales of any video game in history. The thing was practically unavoidable; you could even buy it at 7-Eleven.


If "Halo 3" hadn't done boffo numbers, Microsoft executives would have been hung by their joystick thumbs and the Xbox 360 would be pretty much dead.


Instead, Bill Gates' minions were crowing over $170 million in sales on day one, $300 million after the first week, and calling it "the biggest entertainment launch in history."


• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Video Gaming Center.


The first figure easily surpasses the first-day box office record set by "Spider-Man 3" and is probably pretty close to the amount that "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" pulled in during its first 24 hours on sale.


But $170 million works out to, at most, 2.83 million copies of "Halo 3" - a fraction of the estimated 6 million "Spidey" tickets or 8.3 million "Harry Potter" books that sold in the United States on their respective premiere days.




The first figure easily surpasses the first-day box office record set by "Spider-Man 3" and is probably pretty close to the amount that "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" pulled in during its first 24 hours on sale.


But $170 million works out to, at most, 2.83 million copies of "Halo 3" - a fraction of the estimated 6 million "Spidey" tickets or 8.3 million "Harry Potter" books that sold in the United States on their respective premiere days.


With nearly 5 million "Halo 3" discs floating around, there were bound to be some problems. Some gamers who bought the $70 limited-edition package, which comes in a metal case, found that their discs were scratched; Microsoft has offered to replace them.


Xbox Live also suffered a few hiccups early, as 1 million people flooded online to play the new game against each other.


As for the game itself: The single-player campaign is merely average, but the multiplayer options are phenomenal. Fans of online shoot-'em-ups will be playing "Halo 3" for years to come.


- BAND CAMP: We've been jonesing for "Rock Band" ever since Electronic Arts and MTV Games first announced it, even with the knowledge that the entire package - including software, guitar, microphone and drum kit - was going to cost much more than a typical game.


Now we know how much we'll have to set aside: $170 for the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 version, due Nov. 23, or $160 for the PlayStation 2 model, due Dec. 10.


The PS2 date is a nice holiday surprise; it hadn't been expected until next year. Still no word on a Wii edition.


Meanwhile, Activision has somehow coaxed the surviving Sex Pistols back into the studio to re-record their classic punk anthem "Anarchy in the U.K." for inclusion in "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock."


"I like it because my friends' kids like it," said guitarist Steve Jones. "And I like what kids like."


Boy, do we feel old.


"'Guitar Hero' fans have been requesting more punk rock in the game since its first iteration," said Activision music executive Tim Riley.


No kidding. So far the only punk bands that have made it into "GH" are the Ramones and the Stooges. To paraphrase Iggy Pop, we want more.


- SPACE QUEST: Richard Garriott, the computer-game pioneer who created the fantasy world of "Ultima," is about to conquer a new frontier: space.


He has spent $30 million for the chance to ride a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan to the international space station in October 2008.


Garriott is one of gaming's most likable eccentrics. He once went by the name Lord British and he lives in a medieval-style mansion in Austin, Texas.


His father was an astronaut, and Garriott said, "I grew up believing that space was going to be available for everyone at some point in the future."


- NEW IN STORES: Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" (for the DS) leads a parade of familiar franchises that are returning this week, including "Spider-Man: Friend or Foe" (Activision, for the Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and DS), "Crash of the Titans" (Sierra, for the 360, Wii, PS2 and DS), "Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow" (Sony, for the PSP) and "Chibi-Robo: Park Patrol" (Nintendo, for the DS). ... Microsoft's urban driving series returns to the 360 in "Project Gotham Racing 4." ... 2K Sports' "NBA 2K8" (360, PlayStation 3, PS2) and EA Sports' "NBA Live 08" (360, Wii, PS3, PS2, PSP) are ready to tip off, while 2K also gears up for the World Series with "MLB Power Pros" (Wii, PS2). ... And now for something completely different: Atari's microgame collection "Hot Pxl," for the PSP.





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iBricked the New Mobile Phone


It wasn't like Apple didn't warn them. The small but proud number of owners who had "unlocked" their iPhones to work with networks other than AT&T knew that the warranty forbade such hacking. If that weren't enough, Apple sent out a message a couple of weeks ago that couldn't have been more explicit. "Many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet ... will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed." Nonetheless, when the ax really fell-Apple released new iPhone software on Sept. 27-those whose updated phones were suddenly "bricked" (rendered no more useful than a ceramic block) were not the only ones who suffered. Apple, that perpetual engine of joyful and radical high-tech disruption, suddenly found itself on the wrong end of a revolution


True, the numbers of people who altered their phones are minuscule compared with the 1 million users who've bought iPhones so far. But just as a 17-year-old made international headlines a few weeks earlier when he was among the first to unlock the iPhone, the media jumped on tales of woe from iPhone lovers who were off the hook permanently. (The solution offered by one Apple PR person-buy another iPhone-seemed gratuitously cruel.) Less serious, but equally disturbing, was the fate of those who had downloaded some of the hundreds of unauthorized programs available online to increase the usefulness of the iPhone. In most cases, after they installed the iPhone update (which fixed bugs, improved the typing process and added the online iTunes Music Store application), it zapped the apps they'd added, leaving no trace. (This was the case with my own iPhone, which no longer registers the ringtones I created free of charge with an app I grabbed off the Net.)


The stories presented an easily graspable narrative: here were energetic, creative lovers of Apple who wanted to make the gadget they adored more useful, fun and flexible. That's the spirit of the computer age, the zest that gave Apple its original mojo. And for this, these tinkerers got ... a $400 brick upside the head


Apple, of course, sees things differently. "We are proceeding to improve and extend the amazing software on the iPhone," it said in a statement. "Unfortunately, some of the unauthorized hacking and unlocking programs cause damage to the iPhone's software that is not repairable." In Apple's view, the iPhone is geared to work exclusively with the AT&T network, and software installed on it has to be carefully tested so it won't create security vulnerabilities. The company doesn't see unlocking as a moral issue, but simply believes that it must protect the integrity of its product. It says that the iPhone's capabilities are best enhanced not by downloading applications but by using the phone's browser to access Web sites geared to the dynamics of the iPhone, like the excellent Facebook site customized for the device. "You don't want your phone to be an open platform-you need it to work when you need it to work," Apple CEO Steve Jobs told me in January.


But users do want the iPhone to be open-if not totally, certainly more than it is now. There is a suspicion that more than security is involved here. When choosing which applications to allow on devices that run on their networks, carriers have traditionally selected those that protect their revenue streams. (Instead of authorizing programs to turn your music into ringtones for free, carriers are more likely to give you a program that allows you to buy ringtones on the network.) If you don't like your carrier, it's hard to leave, as you are forced to sign a long-term contract with a stiff penalty for bailing.


Jobs himself once referred to the carriers as "orifices," and said he'd hold off making a phone until he got concessions that let him create a product his way. Although his deal with AT&T allowed him to satisfy those needs, in some respects it's the same old, same old-a closed system and a carrier contract written in weasel blood. The excellence of the few apps included on the phone, like Google Maps, only whets the appetite for more. Why no instant-messaging program? Why can't the iPhone open up a Word document? "Would it be smart for Apple to work with third-party apps?" asks Ed Felton, director of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton. "The answer is yes. A lot of iPhone users think of it like a computer."


Mobile users in general are getting tired of this Soviet-style system. (In Europe and Asia, consumers are treated much better.) The FCC has indicated that it may mandate carriers who bid in 2008 for the next big chunk of the wireless spectrum to open their systems to developers. One potential bidder is Google, which has an interest in making its various apps available to all.


Apple may well be the biggest beneficiary of a new unlocked and unwalled era: an unfettered iPhone would become more valuable and reach more users. Instead of explaining why some of its phones are bricked, it should be tossing bricks-to break down the walls that box in consumers.




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Halo - Corporate


The Week hot market for games -: "The biggest entertainment launch in history." THE name is Halo


Halo... Neither Mr. Ryan, nor Shane Kim, the head of Microsoft's game studios, would discuss the financial terms. Microsoft originally acquired Bungie in 2000 for an undisclosed amount.


Microsoft said yesterday that it was giving up its controlling ownership of Bungie Software, the video game subsidiary that developed the hugely popular Halo franchise, including its latest iteration, Halo 3.


MicrosoftBungie, based in Kirkland, Wash., said it planned to return to its roots as an independent game studio, a move that eventually will cost Microsoft exclusive ties to one of the most successful and sought-after teams of game developers.


Harold Ryan, president and studio head of Bungie, said that he had been working for months on a plan to separate the studio from Microsoft, based in nearby Redmond, Wash. Mr. Ryan said that the companies had a good working relationship, but that developers at Bungie yearned to work for themselves, not a corporate owner.


"It's an emotionally creative point of view," he said of the decision to take the studio independent. "That's the state we wanted to be in."


Neither Mr. Ryan, nor Shane Kim, the head of Microsoft's game studios, would discuss the financial terms. Microsoft originally acquired Bungie in 2000 for an undisclosed amount.


Bungie's Halo games have been of singular significance to Microsoft in the development of its video game machine business.


Halo has been available exclusively on Microsoft's Xbox video game consoles. That has meant the game's popularity has helped drive consumers to the Xbox consoles rather than to competing systems made by Nintendo and Sony.


Microsoft said that since Halo 3 hit the market last week, it had rung up more than $300 million in sales. It has been selling at a faster pace than Halo and Halo 2, which combined sold nearly 15 million copies, Microsoft has said.


Mr. Kim said the separation furthered Microsoft's aim of getting blockbuster hits for its consoles. "It was in our best interest to support Bungie's desire to return to its independent roots," he said.


At least initially, important aspects of the relationship between Microsoft and Bungie will remain intact.


Mr. Ryan said that Bungie planned to continue to develop games exclusively for the Xbox platform. He said that at some point, Bungie would have the right to develop games for other platforms, but he declined to say when.


Bungie has 113 employees. Evan Wilson, a video game industry analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, said that leading employees of Bungie had bought out majority ownership from Microsoft. "Bungie and Microsoft clearly had different creative directions," Mr. Wilson said.


He added, "Bungie lost some key employees over the years, which while not uncommon for studios, may be an indication of that."





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Japan put its first satellite into orbit around the moon Friday


The research of space is now becoming a prestize era of developed contry, same time it is inspired by all the invention lover of the world.


Japan put its first satellite into orbit around the moon Friday, placing the country a step ahead of China and India in an increasingly heated space race in Asia.


The probe was set into lunar orbit after completing a complicated navigational maneuver late Thursday, space agency officials said. The probe will gradually move into orbit closer to the surface to the moon before conducting a yearlong observational mission.


"We believe this is a big step," said project manager Yoshisada Takizawa. "Everything is going well and we are confident."


Though four years off schedule, the mission comes at a crucial time for Japan.


China is expected to launch its own moon probe by the end of the year, and India is to follow with an unmanned lunar mission in 2008.


Japanese officials claim the $279 million Selenological and Engineering Explorer - or SELENE - is the largest lunar mission since the U.S. Apollo program in terms of overall scope and ambition, outpacing the former Soviet Union's Luna program and NASA's Clementine and Lunar Prospector projects.The mission involves placing the main satellite - called "Kaguya," after a legendary moon princess - in a circular orbit at an altitude of about 60 miles and deploying two smaller satellites in elliptical orbits, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.


Researchers will use data gathered by the probes to study the moon's origin and evolution. Takizawa said it will begin its observation phase in mid- to late-December.


"The timing was very delicate," he said at a news conference in JAXA's Tokyo headquarters via a video link from the mission command center south of the capital. "It was important to the completion of the mission, and it was successful."


Japan launched its first satellite in 1970 but is now struggling to keep up with rival China.


Japan launched a moon probe in 1990, but that was a flyby mission. It canceled a 2004 moon shot, LUNAR-A after repeated mechanical and fiscal problems.


SELINE was launched on Sept. 14 aboard one of the space program's mainstay H-2A rockets from Tanegashima, the remote island where the agency's space center is located.


To garner public interest, the probe carries sheets engraved with messages from 412,627 people around the world in its "Wish upon the Moon" campaign.


China's minister of defense and technology told China Central Television in July that everything was ready for a launch "by the end of the year" of the Chang'e 1 orbiter, which will use stereo cameras and X-ray spectrometers to map three-dimensional images of the lunar surface and study its dust.


China sent shock waves through the region in 2003 when it became the first Asian country to put its own astronauts into space.


More ominously, China also blasted an old satellite into oblivion with a land-based anti-satellite missile, the first such test ever conducted by any nation, including the United States and Russia.


That test was widely criticized for its military implications. A similar rocket could be used to shoot military satellites out of space, and create a dangerous cloud of space debris.


India plans a manned space mission by 2015, using indigenous systems and technology. That will be preceded by an unmanned moon mission, Chandrayaan-1, in April 2008.







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space war of earth - compitition of speed and time


Compitition of the world is going to diversed in space war. though war is not sweet sound , but the compitition suits good and the result of the compitition follows the origin of human life and stand on the universe,,,,,,,,


The Soviets beat the United States at getting a satellite, and a man, into space. Now, the Chinese may get to the moon before the U.S. can make a return visit.


Fifty years after Sputnik became the world's first artificial satellite, a new race is under way with the finish line on the moon. NASA, the former lunar champion, already is predicting defeat.


"I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a low-key lecture in Washington two weeks ago, marking the space agency's 50th anniversary, still a year away.


"I think when that happens, Americans will not like it. But they will just have to not like it."


Griffin's candor startled many in the space community, but insiders acknowledge the reality. China has pulled off two manned spaceflights with its own rockets and is eager to head for the moon.


NASA has a 2020 deadline for returning Americans to the moon. China would like to beat that.It has a probe poised for a launch to the moon, supposedly before year's end. The lunar orbiter is to be followed by a lander and then, by 2017, a robotic mission to return moon rocks. Whether China could land one of its "taikonauts" there before American astronauts arrive is uncertain.


The U.S. is "more technically advanced. We certainly could be back on the moon faster than the Chinese, but we don't have the political will and therefore the resources to do it," said Joan Johnson-Freese, head of the Naval War College's national security decision-making department.


Russia - the early day winner with the launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957, and the first spaceman, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961 - is no longer the competitor it was under the Soviet Union banner.


Although Russia is a key player in the international space station, with its Soyuz rockets regularly ferrying crews and cargo, it's figuring to team up with the United States in the moon arena.


It was just four years ago that China became only the third country in the world to launch its own rockets with people on board. Now it is aiming to build its own space station to orbit Earth, as well as a mission to the moon in 10 to 15 years.


Unlike the intense, cash-heavy days of the late 1950s and 1960s, budget constraints have slowed NASA's previous rocket-fast pace. It will be 16 years from the time President Bush set the lunar goal in 2004 - if NASA even gets to the moon by 2020.


That's twice as long as it took after President Kennedy issued the challenge in 1961; Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin fulfilled it in July 1969.


"Apollo was a Cold War program. It was as much a war-fighting program as any tank or plane," and both the U.S. and Soviet Union were starting from the same place, Johnson-Freese said. The Chinese, on the other hand, started halfway up the learning curve, she noted, having borrowed their spacecraft design from the Russians.


NASA insists it's not a race anymore, with grander, longer-range goals than Apollo's flags and footprints. Think lunar bases, with encapsulated minivans for transporting astronauts.


"The U.S. has to get over this feeling that it has to be a competition," said White House science adviser John Marburger.


Competition or no, the prize will encompass more than any lunar treasures.


"I think we will see, as we have seen with China's introductory manned space flights so far, we will see again that nations look up to nations that appear to be at the top of the technical pyramid and they want to do deals with those nations," Griffin said.


"That's one of the things that made us the world's greatest economic power. So I think we'll be reinstructed in that lesson in the coming years."







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