Donald Trump launched a promised assault on “burdens” imposed by government within hours of becoming US president on Friday by moving to loosen rules tied to Obamacare and halting the introduction of any new regulations. Between the end of the daytime inaugural parade and the start of evening balls, the Trump administration took its first major policy moves by ordering government agencies to do all they could […]
Every few seconds, our eyelids automatically shutter and our eyeballs roll back in their sockets. So why doesn’t blinking plunge us into intermittent darkness and light? New research shows that the brain works extra hard to stabilize our vision despite our fluttering eyes. Source
By Diane Bartz and Stephen Nellis Apple Inc filed a $1 billion lawsuit against supplier Qualcomm Inc on Friday, days after the U.S. government accused the chip maker of resorting to anticompetitive tactics to maintain a monopoly over key semiconductors in mobile phones. Qualcomm is a major supplier to both Apple and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd for “modem” chips that connect phones to wireless networks. The two […]
20 January 2017 The Roads and Transport Authority – Nashwan Atta’ee: A delegation from the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in Dubai has recently traveled to Paris to visit ALSTOM Company, a partner of RTA’s Rail Agency and one of the leading players in the rail industry worldwide. The visit was part of RTA’s efforts to keep abreast of the latest and most innovative solutions for broadening […]
Physicists have published the most accurate measurement of a fundamental property of the antiproton to date. This research represents a contribution to the matter-antimatter debate. (via WSJ)
Rubble and snow cover the luxury Hotel Rigopiano in Italy, where more than 30 people were staying when an avalanche came crashing on the site on Wednesday afternoon. Rescuers are still hopeful as they search for survivors. Experts are now looking into the cause of the massive avalanche, and if the earthquake that occurred mere hours before the mishap had caused a chain reaction. So far, two bodies […]
Friday 21:00 GMT Overview Financial markets gave a relatively muted response to Donald Trump’s inaugural speech as US president, with US stocks edging higher, Treasuries putting in mixed performances and the dollar easing back against its main rivals. Oil prices rose sharply amid hopes that producers would show compliance to a global deal to cut output. Gold initially struggled for traction but held above the $1,200 an […]
New research shows that limpets can repair their damaged shells with biological material so that they are as strong as the originals. However, they are still vulnerable to multiple impacts and ‘spalling’ — a well-known cause of failure in engineering materials such as concrete. (via WSJ)
As Donald Trump moves into the White House, it would be hard to dream up a cabinet friendlier to fossil fuels. His nominees include Rex Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil chief tapped for secretary of state; Scott Pruitt, picked to run the environmental watchdog he fought as Oklahoma attorney-general; and Rick Perry, a former Texas governor set to head the energy department. “Folks in the fossil fuel industry […]
The future certainly isn’t what it used to be on the dusty patch of land that faces the Siemens HQ at Masdar City. There, on a plot dedicated to experimental projects, a deceptively ordinary-looking four-bedroom villa has been built – and it appears decidedly at odds with Masdar’s earlier “greenprint” for our sustainable urban future. Not only are self-ventilating wind towers and egg-shaped rapid-transport systems noticeable by […]
Kabir Mulchandani is a hands-on developer. While he may not be laying bricks, the SKAI Holdings CEO forwent his air-conditioned office in Downtown Dubai for an often stinking hot construction site on the Palm Jumeirah for the two years that it took for his flagship $1.2 billion hotel to be built. It was only in November that he finally walked offsite when the Viceroy Dubai Palm Jumeirah […]
Bernie Dunn may have retired from the US Army but he remains on a mission in the Middle East. The Boeing regional president hit a bullseye on December 11 when his team secured an $8 billion deal with Iran Air in the airline’s first plane contract since 1979. The world’s largest aerospace manufacturer beat out its French rival, Airbus, by 11 days. Though Airbus then secured 20 […]
Researchers have proposed a theory-based approach to characterize a class of metals that possess exotic electronic properties that could help scientists find other, similarly-endowed materials. (via WSJ)
A newer version of e-cigarettes called vape pens do not look much like the traditional cigarettes, but findings of a new study involving young smokers suggest that seeing somebody use this device can spark the desire to smoke. Less Resemblance To Traditional Cigarettes Vape pens, or vaporizers, are battery-powered gadgets that work much like other e-cigarettes. These devices feature a heating element that turns liquid nicotine and […]
Ants can get their bearings whatever the orientation of their body, new research shows. Their brains may be smaller than the head of a pin, but ants are excellent navigators that use celestial and terrestrial cues to memorize their paths. To do so, they use several regions of the brain simultaneously, proving once again that the brain of insects is more complex than thought. Source
19 January 2017 Leading global publisher The Business Year (TBY) recently met with HE Essam Abdul Mohsen Al-Marzouq, the newly appointed Minister of Oil and the Minister of Electricity and Water of Kuwait. The Minister spoke extensively about privatization plans in the electricity sector and elaborated on his intentions to move the Ministry of Electricity and Water away from being a producer in order to become more […]
PALO ALTO, Calif. With monetary policy still modestly accommodative, the U.S. central bank should continue to raise interest rates slowly to keep jobs plentiful and inflation low, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Thursday. “I think that allowing the economy to run markedly and persistently “hot” would be risky and unwise,” Yellen said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. […]
Lawmakers, government officials, and aid workers are bracing themselves for a broad offensive from President-elect Donald Trump against federal programs that support family planning and gender equality around the world. As one of his first acts in the Oval Office, the Republican president-elect plans to restore the “Mexico City policy” as soon as Sunday, a congressional staffer told Foreign Policy. Also known as the “global gag rule,” […]
Submitted by Peter Schiff via Euro Pacific Capital, There is much we don’t know about how the Trump presidency will play out. Will the Wall get built? Who will pay for it? Will it have at least some fencing? Will repeal and replace happen at exactly the same time? Will Trump throw a ceremonial switch? Will there be a Trump National Golf Course in Sochi? It’s anyone’s […]
A new system called Data Civilizer automatically finds connections among many different data tables and allows users to perform database-style queries across all of them. The results of the queries can then be saved as new, orderly data sets that may draw information from dozens or even thousands of different tables. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology The age of big data has seen a host of new […]
Researchers have written computer programs that found patterns among anonymized data about web traffic and used those patterns to identify individual users. The researchers note web users with active social media are vulnerable to the attack. (via WSJ)
An example question from the Raven’s Progressive Matrices standardized test. The test taker should choose answer D because the relationships between it and the other elements in the bottom row are most similar to the relationships between the elements of the top rows. Credit: Ken Forbus A Northwestern University team developed a new computational model that performs at human levels on a standard intelligence test. This work […]
While some scientists believe that the world can achieve significant dematerialization through improvements in technology, a new study finds that technological advances alone will not bring about dematerialization and, ultimately, a sustainable world. The researchers found that no matter how much more efficient and compact a product is made, consumers will only demand more of that product and in the long run increase the total amount of […]
The world relies heavily on gasoline and other hydrocarbons to power its cars and trucks. In search of an alternative fuel type, some researchers are turning to the stuff of fireworks and explosives: metal powders. And now one team is reporting a method to produce a metal nanopowder fuel with high energy content that is stable in air and doesn’t go boom until ignited. (via WSJ)
