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  • Name: Bernardo Oliveira
  • Location: Curitiba, Brazil
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  • Bio: Computer Science, Web and Mobile Technologies, Social Medias & Networking, Information Security, Neurology & Psychology, Scientific Programming, Physics and the studies of the universe.
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Google’s spy case: Not the first, nor the last

Bernardo Oliveira says:

No comments, but it gets me pissed.

Amplify’d from news.cnet.com

The recent cyberattacks on Google and other U.S. companies became public because they prompted Google’s dramatic showdown with China, but attempts to steal corporate secrets using the Internet happen under the radar on a daily basis.

Google said intellectual property was stolen in the attack on its network, but didn’t specify what. But sources familiar with the investigation into the attacks on Google, Adobe–and reportedly Yahoo, Symantec, Dow Chemical and Northrop Grumman–have said source code was the target in the attacks, and that in many of the cases the thieves were successful.

In Google’s case, insiders may have played a role in the attacks, sources familiar with the investigation told CNET.

“It is clear that our critical infrastructure is under attack from a very sophisticated, well-organized, and well-funded adversary,” he said.

“Only the stupid ones get caught,” Rica said. “I can only imagine what the smart ones are doing.”

Read more at news.cnet.com
 
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Posted by Bernardo Oliveira  4 days ago

Acoustic Levitation Could Work on Mars. Next step: Earth.

Bernardo Oliveira says:

Makes me wonder what our friends from the 1800’s would say about this…
Still, with all the controversy behind subjects like this, I’d like to see if - and if - they manage to make it work on Earth, how they would actually implement this technology if not on our daily basis, then on industrial or military areas.
Seems like we’re going to live a 70’s movie story very soon.

Amplify’d from www.gearlog.com
Researchers may have figured out a way to dislodge dust particles from sensitive equipment on the Moon or Mars using sound waves.
Here’s how it works: by playing back a high-pitched (13.8 KHz, 128 dB) standing wave of sound from a 1.25-inch tweeter, and focusing it on a reflector several inches away, researchers from the Department of Physics and Materials Science Program found it was enough to dislodge dust particles on the reflector’s surface
Later, the researchers tested this acoustic levitation process, as it is called, on a solar panel that was reduced to just 10 percent of its original power output after being coated with fine dust. The process boosted output back to 98.4 percent of maximum
This is especially important since dust particles on the Moon and on Mars are sharper and more abrasive than on Earth, thanks to the thinner atmosphere. The next step: figuring out how to make the process work when actually out in the thin atmosphere
NASA_Mars_Dust_Storm.jpg
See more at www.gearlog.com
 
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Posted by Bernardo Oliveira  13 days ago

Bilingual Brains

Amplify’d from www.scientificamerican.com
The ability to speak a second language isn’t the only thing that distinguishes bilingual people from their monolingual counterparts—their brains work differently, too. Research has shown, for instance, that children who know two languages more easily solve problems that involve misleading cues. A new study published in Psychological Science reveals that knowledge of a second language—even one learned in adolescence—affects how people read in their native tongue. The findings suggest that after learning a second language, people never look at words the same way again.
“The most important implication of the study is that even when a per­son is reading in his or her native language, there is an influence of knowledge of the nondominant second language,” Van Assche notes. “Becoming a bilingual changes one of people’s most automatic skills.”
She plans to investigate next whether people who are bilingual also process auditory language information differently. “Many questions remain,” she says.Read more at www.scientificamerican.com
 
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Posted by Bernardo Oliveira  22 days ago

Psychologists Use fMRI To Understand Ties Between Memories And The Imagination

Bernardo Oliveira says:

"This suggests that envisioning the future may be a critical prerequisite for many higher-level planning processes in the brain."

Very interesting study. Just showing one more time that we just don't know anything but guess now we're one step closer to knowing something.
This is also great as it may help those with memory loss. Perhaps there will come some tr... read more

Amplify’d from www.sciencedaily.com
psychologists at Washington University are finding that your ability to envision the future does in fact goes hand-in-hand with remembering the past. Both processes spark similar neural activity in the brain.
The study clearly demonstrates that the neural network underlying future thoughts is not only happening in the brain’s frontal cortex. Although the frontal lobes play an important role in carrying out future-oriented operations — such as anticipation, planning and monitoring — the spark for these activities may be the process of envisioning yourself in a specific future event. And that’s an activity based on the same brain network used to remember memories about our own lives. Also, patterns of activity suggest that the visual and spatial context for our imagined future is often pieced together using our past experiences, including memories of specific body movements: data our brain has stored as we navigated through similar settings in the past.Read more at www.sciencedaily.com
 
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Posted by Bernardo Oliveira  22 days ago

Eyes open for Alzheimer’s

Bernardo Oliveira says:

And I'm back.
I apologize to all my readers for the abscence, I just moved to the other side of the country and as you all can imagine, had a lot of work to do (as I still do, actually).

Anyway, thought it would be good to come back with a health article, this cought my attention and may surely catch yours, as this may be the first indication of a future fall... read more

Amplify’d from www.newscientist.com

Your eyes reveal a lot about you, and now that includes the health of your brain. A new way of counting dying eye cells could allow Alzheimer’s disease to be diagnosed and treated in its early stages.

Bruce Ayres/Stone/Getty)

Many neurological diseases – including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s – involve the death of neurons in the brain, but these events are extremely hard to detect.

“It’s difficult to diagnose these conditions before considerable damage has taken place, because the symptoms don’t show up straight away,” says Francesca Cordeiro at University College London.

However, this cell death also tends to extend to cells at the back of the eye, where it is much easier to detect abnormalities. So Cordeiro and her colleagues set about creating a way of detecting these eye neuron deaths.

Cordeiro says the group hopes to develop a safe marker that can be administered as eye drops and to test the imaging technique in people later this year.

Read more at www.newscientist.com
 
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Posted by Bernardo Oliveira  26 days ago

Getting Closer to String Theory

Bernardo Oliveira says:

Without string theory, physicists need two theories to explain how the universe works. General relativity explains gravity, while the other three basic forces are explained by the “standard model.” Moreover, gravity has been very difficult to reconcile with quantum theory, a problem for which string theory offers a solution.

Amplify’d from www.physorg.com
A major problem with string theory is that it has never been confirmed experimentally, which is where Donner Professor of Science Cumrun Vafa and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) come in.
A line on string theory
A Harvard theoretical physicist has discussed with scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland the possibility that they may discover a theorized “stau” particle, with a lifetime of a minute or so, that could provide the first experimental confirmation of string theory.

String theory, developed in the late 1960s and early ’70s, is a theoretical physicists’ multitool, explaining in one model all four of the universe’s main forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the two that operate inside atomic nuclei, the strong force and the weak force.

Read more at www.physorg.com
 
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Posted by Bernardo Oliveira  2 months ago

New quantum algorithm helpes solving big problems.

Bernardo Oliveira says:

“Large-scale linear systems of equations exist in many fields, such as weather prediction, engineering, and computer vision”, says Harrow. “Quantum computers could supply serious improvements for these and many other problems. For example, a trillion-variable problem would take a classical computer at least a hundred trillion steps to solve, but using the n... read more

Amplify’d from www.physorg.com
Solving big problems

One of the most basic problems in maths is solving very large linear equations. There’s nothing mysterious about them, they simply take time and the more variables there are, the longer it takes. Even a supercomputer would struggle to solve a system of equations that has a trillion variables.

Aram Harrow at the University of Bristol and colleagues from MIT in the United States have discovered a quantum algorithm that solves large problems much faster than conventional computers can.

To understand how the quantum algorithm works, think of a digital equaliser in a stereo CD player. The equaliser needs to amplify some components of the signal and attenuate others. Ordinary equalisers employ classical computer algorithms that treat each component of the sound one at a time.

By contrast, a quantum equaliser could employ a quantum algorithm that treats all components together at once (a trick called ‘quantum parallelism’). The result is a huge reduction in the difficulty of signal processing.

Read more at www.physorg.com
 
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Posted by Bernardo Oliveira  3 months ago

H1N1 Virus Can Be Killed by Acidic Ozone Water

Bernardo Oliveira says:

This is great!
But with so many supposed alternative “cures” that we’ve seen around, it’s a little hard to trust this new one. Sounds good though and it’s always good to keep the hopes up, right?

Amplify’d from www.physorg.com
Scientists have found that acidic ozone water can effectively kill H1N1 viruses, with the advantages that it leaves no environmentally harmful residue and is inexpensive to prepare.
H1N1 Virus Can Be Killed by Acidic Ozone Water
Scientists have found that acidic ozone water can deactivate H1N1 viruses very effectively, offering a promising disinfectant for the millions of people trying to avoid the disease. Acidic ozone water (AOW) is made from regular tap water mixed with a small amount of acid such as hydrochloric acid, along with an ozonized gas that can be produced in the lab. After deactivating the virus, the substance eventually decays into plain water, leaving no residue or harmful materials in the environment.
AOW also has the advantage that it may cost significantly less to prepare compared with chemical disinfectants.Read more at www.physorg.com
 
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Posted by Bernardo Oliveira  3 months ago

Physicists Calculate Number of Parallel Universes

Amplify’d from www.physorg.com
Universes
The strongest limit on the number of possible universes is the human ability to distinguish between different universes.
Over the past few decades, the idea that our universe could be one of many alternate universes within a giant multiverse has grown from a sci-fi fantasy into a legitimate theoretical possibility. Several theories of physics and astronomy have hypothesized the existence of a multiverse made of many parallel universes. One obvious question that arises, then, is exactly how many of these parallel universes might there be.

In a new study, Stanford physicists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin have calculated the number of all possible universes, coming up with an answer of 10^10^16. If that number sounds large, the scientists explain that it would have been even more humongous, except that we observers are limited in our ability to distinguish more universes; otherwise, there could be as many as 10^10^10^7 universes.

Read more at www.physorg.com
 

Bernardo Oliveira says:

Think it’s crazy? Check this out, then:

To work these numbers out, Linde and Vanchurin looked back to the time shortly after the , which they view as a quantum process that generated lots of quantum fluctuations. Then during the period of inflation, the universe grew rapidly and these quantum fluctuations were “frozen” into classical perturbations in distinct regions. Today, each of these regions could be a different universe, having its own distinct laws of low energy physics.

By analyzing the mechanism (called “slow roll “) that initially generated the , the scientists could estimate the number of resulting universes at 10^10^10^7 (a number which is dependent on the model they used). However, this number is limited by other factors, specifically by the limits of the human brain. Since the total amount of information that one individual can absorb in a lifetime is about 10^16 bits, which is equivalent to 10^10^16 configurations, this means that a human brain couldn’t distinguish more than 10^10^16 universes.

Oh well, that wouldn’t happen if we could store information in quantum size, would it? :D

This is fascinating and extremely good work! I find it interesting that they could make such a big step on this even without proving the theories behind it. It’s awesome to find a number that could be direclty related to our “infinity”. 10^10^16 is our limit and who would’ve know that?

The study also makes possible many new researches on the subject. And it goes even better:
“When we analyze the probability of the existence of a universe of a given type, we should be talking about a consistent pair: the universe and an observer who makes the rest of the universe ‘alive’ and the wave function of the rest of the universe time-dependent,” the scientists write.

Beautifully complicated. But hell, nodody said that it had to be simple. I’m now very excited to see the further studies on it. Hope you guys enjoy it just as much as I did. :)

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Posted by Bernardo Oliveira  3 months ago

Invisible hand in invisible matter. Dark matter might not exist.

Amplify’d from www.physorg.com
An international team of astronomers have found an unexpected link between mysterious ‘dark matter’ and the visible stars and gas in galaxies that could revolutionise our current understanding of gravity.

Such a force might solve an even bigger mystery, known as ‘dark energy’, which is ruling the accelerated expansion of the Universe. A more radical solution is a revision of the laws of gravity first developed by Isaac Newton in 1687 and refined by Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity in 1916. Einstein never fully decided whether his equation should add an omnipresent constant source, now called dark energy.

the team believes that the interactions between dark and ordinary matter could be more important and more complex than previously thought, and even speculate that dark matter might not exist and that the anomalous motions of stars in galaxies are due to a modification of gravity on extragalactic scales.Read more at www.physorg.com
 

Bernardo Oliveira says:

Dr Famaey added, “If we account for our observations with a modified law of , it makes perfect sense to replace the effective action of hypothetical dark matter with a force closely related to the distribution of visible matter.”

The implications of the new research could change some of the most widely held scientific theories about the history and expansion of the universe.

Lead researcher Dr. Gianfranco Gentile at the University of Ghent concludes, “Understanding this puzzling conspiracy is probably the key to unlock the formation of and their structures.”

What about NASA’s direct proof on dark matter’s existance? Broken study?

This is actually makes sense, but so far is a little hard to accept. Does anyone have any ideas about this?

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Posted by Bernardo Oliveira  4 months ago
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