Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001
Cryptology is a big deal in the information age. Creating an uncrackable key is the holy grail of the field, and scientists at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in Tokyo reckon that encoding data with the radio signals blasted out by quasars far away in space may be effective, due to the unpredictable nature of the signals in question.
Virginia Commonwealth University chemists have discovered a new method of synthesising nanoparticles that gives greater control over the dimensions and properties of the end product. The secret? Shove the reagents in a conventional microwave oven – this makes the reaction much faster, and all the little rods and wires arrange themselves into nice orderly arrays.
All sorts of suggestions have been made to explain the mysterious dips in biodiversity that have occured on Earth every 62 million years. And here is the latest one – our solar system’s motion through the galactic disc, an up-and-down bobbing course, could be exposing it to fluctuations in the amount of cosmic rays it receives.
Seems there’s a growing trend of taking your cell phone with you when you go to meet your maker. I think this is more a comment on the intimacy some people feel for their cell phone than on burial practices per se. I can actually empathize. I’ve noticed that I’m much less comfortable allowing someone else to use my laptop, which is pretty heavily personalized, then my desktop.
Paypal has launched Paypal Mobile and some people think it’s the Next Thing. I’m a bit skeptical — seems a lot more complicated to text someone money than to hand them a fiver.
