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COULD the structure of space and time be sketched out inside a cousin of plain old pencil lead? The atomic grid of graphene may mimic a lattice underlying reality, two physicists have claimed, an idea that could explain the curious spin of the electron. Graphene is an atom-thick layer of carbon in a hexagonal formation. Depending on its position in this grid, an electron can adopt either of two quantum states - a property called pseudospin which is mathematically akin to the intrinsic spin of an electron. Most physicists do not think it is true spin, but Chris Regan at the University of California, Los Angeles, disagrees. He cites work with carbon nanotubes (rolled up sheets of graphene) in the late 1990s, in which electrons were found to be reluctant to bounce back off these obstacles. Regan and his colleague Matthew Mecklenburg say this can be explained if a tricky change in spin is required to reverse direction. Their quantum model of graphene backs that up. The spin arises from the way electrons hop between atoms in graphene's lattice, says Regan. So how about the electron's intrinsic spin? It cannot be a rotation in the ordinary sense, as electrons are point particles with no radius and no innards. Instead, like pseudospin, it might come from a lattice pattern in space-time itself, says Regan. This echoes some attempts to unify quantum mechanics with gravity in which space-time is built out of tiny pieces or fundamental networks (Physical Review Letters, vol 106, p 116803). Sergei Sharapov of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kiev says that the work provides an interesting angle on how electrons and other particles acquire spin, but he is doubtful how far the analogy can be pushed. Regan admits that moving from the flatland world of graphene to higher-dimensional space is tricky. "It will be interesting to see if there are other lattices that give emergent spin," he says.

With its expansive range and unprecedented potential for anonymity, (the Internet gives voice to our deepest urges and most uninhibited thoughts. Inspired by the wealth of unfettered expression available online, neuroscientists Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, who met as Ph.D. candidates at Boston University, began plumbing a few chosen search engines (including Dogpile and AOL) to create the world's largest experiment in sexuality in 2009. Quietly tapping into a billion Web searches, they explored the private activities of more than 100 million men and women around the world. The result is the first large-scale scientific examination of human sexuality in more than half a century, since biologist Alfred Kinsey famously interviewed more than 18,000 middle-class Caucasians about their sexual behavior and published the Kinsey reports in 1948 and 1953. Building on the work of Kinsey, neuroscientists have long made the case that male and female sexuality exist on different planes. But like Kinsey himself, they have been hampered by the dubious reliability of self-reports of sexual behavior and preferences as well as by small sample sizes. That is where the Internet comes in. By accessing raw data from Web searches and employing the help of Alexa-a company that measures Web traffic and publishes a list of the million most popular sites in the world-Ogas and Gaddam shine a light on hidden desire, a quirky realm of lust, fetish, and kink that, like the far side of the moon, has barely been glimpsed. Here is a sampling of their fascinating results, selected from their book, A Billion Wicked Thoughts.

A series of fossils unearthed in southwestern China has revealed the origins of complex life in unprecedented detail, and pushed its beginning back by at least 40 million years. The specimens come from the Doushantuo formation, a layer of sediments deposited about 590 million years ago, just before the Ediacaran period's primordial fauna gave way to the kaleidoscopically complex creatures of the Cambrian explosion.

"(PhysOrg.com) -- People naturally sort words and objects into categories, a key process in forming memory. But when it comes to how things are mentally organized, cultures dramatically differ in their strategies."

Brain, bodily awareness, and the emergence of a conscious self: these entities and their relations are explored by Germanphilosopher and cognitive scientist Metzinger. Extensively working with neuroscientists he has come to the conclusion that, in fact, there is no such thing as a "self" -- that a "self" is simply the content of a model created by our brain - part of a virtual reality we create for ourselves. But if the self is not "real," he asks, why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct the self? In a series of fascinating virtual reality experiments, Metzinger and his colleagues have attempted to create so-called "out-of-body experiences" in the lab, in order to explore these questions. As a philosopher, he offers a discussion of many of the latest results in robotics, neuroscience, dream and meditation research, and argues that the brain is much more powerful than we have ever imagined. He shows us, for example, that we now have the first machines that have developed an inner image of their own body -- and actually use this model to create intelligent behavior. In addition, studies exploring the connections between phantom limbs and the brain have shown us that even people born without arms or legs sometimes experience a sensation that they do in fact have limbs that are not there. Experiments like the "rubber-hand illusion" demonstrate how we can experience a fake hand as part of our self and even feel a sensation of touch on the phantom hand form the basis and testing ground for the idea that what we have called the "self" in the past is just the content of a transparent self-model in our brains. Now, as new ways of manipulating the conscious mind-brain appear on the scene, it will soon become possible to alter our subjective reality in an unprecedented manner. The cultural consequences of this, Metzinger claims, may be immense: we will need a new approach to ethics, and we will be forced to think about ourselves in a fundamentally new way. At

ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2011) - Rising sea levels in the coming centuries is perhaps one of the most catastrophic consequences of rising temperatures. Massive economic costs, social consequences and forced migrations could result from global warming. But how frightening of times are we facing? Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute are part of a team that has calculated the long-term outlook for rising sea levels in relation to the emission of greenhouse gases and pollution of the atmosphere using climate models.

Various scientists have been conducting brain cancer research to come up with more concrete ways of detecting the symptoms and also effective ways to heal the disease if detected in the early phase.

Are you searching for silicon labs, which can provide you best researches and data? You have come to the right place! Trivedi Science has done extensive research in materials science including silicon, lead, tin and some other materials.

The major question of how to increase crop yield dramatically, has been solved by the new upcoming biotechnological methods, there are various threats posed by these methods when it comes to genetically modified plants.

When you are talking about nutritional programs and research on poultry farming, you are likely to come in terms with the associated projects. These projects are going to talk about the influence of betaine element on hatchability and survival structure of the embryo.

"Win lots of virtual badges by completing the different challenges that get you thinking about where food comes from, and how it gets to your table."

Waterlogging presents the situation whereby the underground water comes on the surface of land and in certain cases, it gathers on the bottom level of lands it's going to assume the form of streams. In simple words, we can say that waterlogging is saturation of Soils with Water.

First full geological map of a non-earth object. Sign of things to come.

Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) are the most important legume staple food in Kenya coming second to maize. In Central Highlands of Kenya, the 0.4-0.5ton ha-1 output is below the genetic yield potential of 1.5-2ton ha-1 partly due pests and diseases. Plant parasitic nematodes (PPN) have been reported to cause yield losses of up to 60% on beans. Though bean production is important in the Central highlands of Kenya, information on PPN associated with the beans in the region is lacking. This study was therefore undertaken to establish the diversity of PPN associated with common beans and to assess the root knot nematode damage on beans in the region. The study covered 50 farms (32 in Kirinyaga and 18 in Embu Counties) distributed in eight localities namely Kibirigwi (L1), Makutano (L2), Kagio (L3), Mwea (L4) and Kutus (L5) in Kirinyaga County and Nembure (L6), Manyatta (L7) and Runyenjes (L8) in Embu County and covering three Agro Ecological Zones (AEZs); UM2 (L1, L2, L3 & L4), UM3 (L5, L7 & L8) and UM4 (L6) AEZs. Manyatta (L7) and Nembure (L6), had the highest and second highest gall indices, respectively, while Kibirigwi (L1), Makutano (L2) and Mwea (L4) had some of the lowest gall indices. The most common PPN in bean roots were Meloidogyne spp. Pratylenchus spp. and Scutellonema spp. with a frequency of 94.38%, 78.25% and 59.13%, respectively. This further confirm the importance of these nematodes in bean production systems. Upper Midland 3 (UM3) AEZs and UM4 had higher nematode population densities and diversity than UM2. Disease severity and nematode composition and distribution were notably low in the irrigated areas Kibirigwi, Kagio and Mwea compared to rain-fed areas such as Makutano, Nembure and Manyatta.

To come up with a solution, the University of Bristol's School of Chemistry has been occupied for numerous years with developing technology to transform broadly obtainable ethanol into butanol.

The contamination and potential ecological risk posed by heavy metals from thirteen (13) sediment samples from different sampling sites along the lower portion of Agusan River were analyzed and assessed using different pollution indices. The results obtained shows that the total digest concentrations of different heavy metals under investigation have the following order: Cd < Pb < Zn < Mn, for both first sampling periods. The speciation and distribution pattern have shown that significant amounts of all metals are present in the residual fraction. Similarly, oxide-bound and organic-bound fractions were found to be highly important for Zn and Mn while Cd and Pb were significantly associated in the residual and exchangeable fractions. The results of different pollution indices moreover, showed that among all the heavy metals being studied, Cd posed the highest environmental risk across all sampling stations in both sampling periods and Mn metal was highly enriched and abundant in all of the sampling stations. Importantly, PCA results suggest that Zn, Mn and Pb may have the same origin while Cd might be coming from different sources, and this is corroborated well with the cluster analysis results. The results obtained from this work provide baseline data on the assessment of heavy metal pollution in the lower portion of Agusan River. Importantly, the acquired environmental indices will certainly help safety managers in assessing and interpreting the potential risk of the sediment associated chemical status that might adversely affect aquatic organisms in the selected sampling sites.