The next day was better… and worse. It was better because it wasn't raining yet, though the clouds were dense and opaque. It was easier because I knew what to expect of my day. Mike came to sit by me in English, and walked me to my next class, with Chess Club Eric glaring at him all the while; that was nattering. People didn't look at me quite as much as they had yesterday. I sat with a big group at lunch that included Mike, Eric, Jessica, and several other people whose names and faces I now remembered. I began to feel like I was treading water, instead of drowning in it.
I'd never given much thought to how I would die — though I'd had reason enough in the last few months — but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this. I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.
When you see geese flying along in "V" formation, you might consider what science has discovered as to why they fly that way. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in "V" formation, the whole flock adds at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.
Asus unveiled its first supercomputer on Monday, the desktop computer-sized ESC 1000, which uses Nvidia graphics processors to attain speeds up to 1.1 teraflops.
NEC Japan has introduced the world's smallest WiMAX router with Wi-Fi capability on Tuesday. The Aterm WM3300R is battery-powered but can still reach 40Mbps downstream and 10Mbps upstream when on a suitably fast 4G network. The pocketable device is meant to share access through Wi-Fi but can also be plugged into a PC using a USB adapter for mobile Internet access on a specific system.
In a survey of more than 20 top service providers, Cisco Systems finds that video and other visual applications now constitute 30 percent of traffic running through service provider networks, feeding into Cisco's assertion that such visual apps will dominate networks by 2013. In addition, the top 1 percent of broadband subscribers worldwide generate 10 percent of the traffic.
The placenta is an unborn baby’s lifeline. Attached to the inside of the uterus and connected to the fetus by the umbilical cord, the placenta works as a trading post between the mother’s and the baby’s blood supply. Oxygen and nutrients in the mother’s blood pass across the placenta to the fetus, and metabolic wastes and carbon dioxide from the fetus cross in the other direction. The placenta also helps protect the baby from infections and potentially harmful substances, but it’s not a foolproof filter. Other substances, such as alcohol, drugs, and cigarette smoke can also cross the placenta, with effects including congenital disorders, drug addiction, and fetal alcohol syndrome in the newborn. And scientists have long suspected that cancer can cross the placental barrier and spread from the mother to her unborn child, but have had no proof—until now.
Prematurity can result in lifelong health problems. Most of the babies are born in Africa and Asia.
“Tumbling time!” I called out. My group of giggling children lined up before the sea of blue mats. Megan trailed behind and stepped quietly into the back of the line. She was eight years old, the same age I was when I began sports acrobatics.
As with IBM’s leadership manufacturing microchips using copper interconnect technology, the company has now announced what it believes to be the first commercially-viable implementation of silicon-on-insulator (SOI). For more than three decades, scientists have been searching for a way to enhance existing silicon technology to speed computer performance. This new IBM success in harnessing SOI technology will result in faster computer chips that also require less power -- a key requirement for extending the battery life of small, hand-held devices that will be pervasive in the future. SOI is a major breakthrough because it advances chip manufacturing one-to two-years years ahead of conventional bulk silicon. The following provides a step-by-step look at the developments leading up to the development of SOI technology including: a basic description of what a transistor is, a description of how chips are made, the need for improving the way chips are made, the elements of SOI technology and the impact of SOI technology.