NanoSocial

Why did we grow large brains? There is no question that our large brains have provided humans an extraordinary advantage in the world. Still, the human brain is an incredibly expensive organ, taking up only about 2 percent of the body's mass yet using more than a fifth of the body's energy, and until about 2 million years ago none of our ancestors had a brain larger than an ape's when compared to body size. So what kicked off the push for a larger brains? One possibility is that increased smarts helped our ancestors make better tools. Another is that larger brains helped us interact better with each other. Perhaps radical changes in the environment also demanded that our ancestors deal with a shifting world. Why do humans walk on two legs? Our ancestors evolved an upright posture well before our large brains or stone tools even appeared. The question, then: Why stand and walk on two legs when our ape cousins get by on four limbs? Walking as bipeds might actually use le...

BrightSource solar thermal power plants can be equipped  with a two-tank molten salt storage system, as shown on this image. BrightSource Energy today announced molten salt energy storage for its heat-driven solar power plants, touting the advantages over flat solar photovoltaic panels. With the storage, BrightSource solar power plants can deliver electricity to the grid consistently and into the evening hours. That makes the solar power more valuable because utilities pay more for power during peak hours, which continues past nightfall. BrightSource's solar tower technology generates steam from a field of mirrors called heliostats shining onto a tower. The steam is fed into a conventional turbine to generate electricity. After turning the turbine, the steam is condensed into water and fed back to the tower to be heated again. In a plant with solar storage, the steam from the tower is fed into a heat exchanger that raises the temperature of so-called "solar salts" stored...

Battling nomads earned you buckets of trouble around 2,500 B.C., reports an international archeology team. Scars too. But at least you earned yourself a fancy burial. "Intensive excavations in the Near East, which have been carried out for over 100 years, show that this region merits to be called a cradle of civilization," begins the International Journal of Osteoarcheology report led by Jacek Tomczyk of Poland's Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University. The study team reports on two Bronze Age burials in a tomb from the ancient trade town of Terqa, a Mesopatamian archeological site in modern-day Syria. "The tomb from Terqa consisted of two chambers with stone domes. The smaller chamber contained many luxury grave goods, including jars, plates and pieces of ancient jewellery. The artifacts were placed in an orderly manner, one upon another. Small animal bones and crushed ostrich eggshells indicate that this part was visited by people who left there some offerings. Th...

We've always been told driving and alcohol don't mix, but there's now a distinct possibility we could all be driving around tanked up on tequila, according to the usually very sober  Guardian . Researchers at the University of Oxford have suggested that agave, the hardy plant from which the bitter liquor is distilled, is an ideal source from which to create the petrol substitute ethanol, as it has a far lower environmental and social impact than conventional ethanol-making crops. This comes as no surprise to Crave. We've been aware of tequila's benefits for years, but writing a white paper on the subject the morning after an extensive bout of experimentation has usually taken a back seat to figuring out why our brains feel as if they've been used as a fat person's trampoline.  Thankfully, scientists have stayed sober long enough to do the research we couldn't. They've found that, like many biofuel crops, agave-derived ethanol is potentially very eco...

The main thrust of early cloud computing discussions--even before that particular term became popular--was fundamentally about economies of scale. For example, in his book "The Big Switch," author Nick Carr writes that: "Once it becomes possible to provide the technology centrally, large-scale utility suppliers arise to displace the private providers." This was an imagined future of computing that reprised a journey taken by power generation technology in which expensive and customized local water turbines or steam engines driving gears and belts largely gave way to motors connected to the electric grid. This early-on discussion wasn't so much about how computing took place--presumably it would be handled efficiently by the mega-service providers offering this new type of utility. Rather it was about the economic model: standardized pay-as-you-go services delivered at massive scale. Worldwide server revenue associated with private clouds is forecast to grow mor...

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology say they have built what they call the world's first artificial neural network out of DNA molecules and that it can answer questions correctly. The neural net was built of four artificial neurons and 112 DNA strands. Postdoctoral scholar Lulu Qian and colleagues describe "how molecular systems can exhibit autonomous brain-like behaviors" in a paper published about their research in the July 21 issue of the journal Nature. Taking their cue from the limited intelligence exhibited by single-celled organisms, the researchers built four neurons made up of 112 distinct DNA strands (by contrast, the human brain has some 100 billion neurons). This rudimentary neural network works on a simple input-output mechanism called a strand-displacement cascade. Essentially, synthesized strands of DNA float around in water and join to other strands that have complementary base pair structures, creating an input. When such a union occurs...

If you've heard about residential LED lightbulbs, you probably know that they're energy-efficient, last a long time, and are pricier than other lightbulb technologies. I've been using LED lights in my home for several months now, and overall the transition has been good. As you consider your lighting options, here a few things that you might not know about LEDs. LEDs are cooler.  When you're running fans or an air conditioner this summer, having burning-hot incandescent bulbs just makes it harder to manage the heat. LEDs run much cooler than incandescent bulbs and significantly cooler than CFLs. Online retailer EnergyCircle actually measured the difference and found that a halogen bulb, a type of incandescent bulb, ran at 327 degrees! A Cree LED downlight was measured at 107 degrees and a Philips Par38 CFL worked at 167 degrees. That's not to say that heat isn't at all an issue. LED bulbs do get hot but the heat is dissipated by metal heat sinks that wick aw...