Adaptor die
Mar 5th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Consumer electronics: A new push is under way to let mobile
IF THE father of electromagnetism, Michael Faraday, could be transported into the 21st century, he would no doubt be awestruck by the iPhone. After five hours of tapping its touch-screen to browse the internet, make calls, play games and determine his location via satellite-positioning, he might also find himself a little puzzled. Why, with all the advances in technology and communications, would such a sophisticated device still need to be plugged in to be recharged? If phone calls and web pages can be beamed through the air to portable devices, then why not electrical power, too? It is a question many consumers and device manufacturers have been asking themselves for some time—and one that both new and established technology companies are now hoping to answer.
To seasoned observers of the electronics industry, the promise of wireless recharging sounds depressingly familiar. In 2004 Splashpower, a British technology firm, was citing “very strong” interest from consumer-electronics firms for its wireless charging pad. Based on the principle of electromagnetic induction that Faraday had discovered in the 19th century, the company’s “Splashpad” contained a coil that generated a magnetic field when a current flowed through it. When a mobile device containing a corresponding coil was brought near the pad, the process was reversed as the magnetic field generated a current in the second coil, charging the device’s battery without the use of wires. Unfortunately, although Faraday’s principles of electromagnetic induction have stood the test of time, Splashpower has not—it was declared bankrupt last year without having launched a single product.
Thanks to its simplicity and scalability, electromagnetic induction is still the technology of choice among many of the remaining companies in the wireless-charging arena. But, as Splashpower found, turning the theory into profitable practice is not straightforward. One of the main difficulties for companies has been persuading manufacturers to incorporate charging modules into their devices. But lately there have been some promising developments.
sexta-feira, 22 de maio de 2009
domingo, 10 de maio de 2009
Suffering for science
Suffering for science
May 7th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Europe votes for better regulation of animal experiments
FIFTY years ago, William Russell, a classics scholar, and Rex Burch, a microbiologist, outlined how the use of animals in scientific research could be made more humane. They wanted scientists to restrict the use of animals, to refine their experiments to minimise distress and to replace testing on animals with alternative techniques. Although the “3Rs” have become a guiding principle, the number of animals used today remains far higher than Russell and Burch would have accepted. Finally, that may be changing. On May 5th the European Parliament voted to update the rules on the use of animals in research.
Some 12m animals are used in scientific procedures each year in Europe. Most are mice and rats. The European directive on how such animals should be treated dates from 1986, long before research led to the breeding of the first creatures that carried the genes of another species. Some countries have more restrictions than others. Britain, for example, uses far fewer primates in scientific research than does France. The European Commission said in November 2008 that it wanted to update the rules to better protect laboratory animals throughout Europe. It received hundreds of amendments, but has adopted few of them.
In particular, the politicians decided against an outright ban on the use of great apes. Instead they voted to allow such experiments only when they are intended to conserve the number of chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans, or when using these species becomes essential to tackling a disease that threatens people. In practice, no great apes have been used in Europe for years and there are no breeding colonies from which to take them. In America, chimpanzees are being used to develop a vaccine for hepatitis C because they are the only creatures, other than humans, to be afflicted by the disease.
Another proposal was to ban the use of primates caught in the wild. Scientists prefer to work with the offspring of animals raised in laboratories because knowledge of the creatures’ complete medical history makes them more dependable.All experiments will be classified according to the degree of pain and distress they cause. If mild or moderate, animals can be used again. Those that experience severe pain will be killed. The legislation would allow mild procedures to be approved by an employer. But those causing moderate or severe pain would need the permission of a national authority.
May 7th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Europe votes for better regulation of animal experiments
FIFTY years ago, William Russell, a classics scholar, and Rex Burch, a microbiologist, outlined how the use of animals in scientific research could be made more humane. They wanted scientists to restrict the use of animals, to refine their experiments to minimise distress and to replace testing on animals with alternative techniques. Although the “3Rs” have become a guiding principle, the number of animals used today remains far higher than Russell and Burch would have accepted. Finally, that may be changing. On May 5th the European Parliament voted to update the rules on the use of animals in research.
Some 12m animals are used in scientific procedures each year in Europe. Most are mice and rats. The European directive on how such animals should be treated dates from 1986, long before research led to the breeding of the first creatures that carried the genes of another species. Some countries have more restrictions than others. Britain, for example, uses far fewer primates in scientific research than does France. The European Commission said in November 2008 that it wanted to update the rules to better protect laboratory animals throughout Europe. It received hundreds of amendments, but has adopted few of them.
In particular, the politicians decided against an outright ban on the use of great apes. Instead they voted to allow such experiments only when they are intended to conserve the number of chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans, or when using these species becomes essential to tackling a disease that threatens people. In practice, no great apes have been used in Europe for years and there are no breeding colonies from which to take them. In America, chimpanzees are being used to develop a vaccine for hepatitis C because they are the only creatures, other than humans, to be afflicted by the disease.
Another proposal was to ban the use of primates caught in the wild. Scientists prefer to work with the offspring of animals raised in laboratories because knowledge of the creatures’ complete medical history makes them more dependable.All experiments will be classified according to the degree of pain and distress they cause. If mild or moderate, animals can be used again. Those that experience severe pain will be killed. The legislation would allow mild procedures to be approved by an employer. But those causing moderate or severe pain would need the permission of a national authority.
The sound of silence
The sound of silence
May 7th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Sound generators will make electric and hybrid cars safer
WHEN cars run on electric power they not only save fuel and cut emissions but also run more quietly. Ordinarily, people might welcome quieter cars on the roads. However, as the use of hybrid and electric vehicles grows, a new concern is growing too: pedestrians and cyclists find it hard to hear them coming, especially when the cars are moving slowly through a busy town or manoeuvring in a car park. Some drivers say that when their cars are in electric mode people are more likely to step out in front of them. The solution, many now believe, is to fit electric and hybrid cars with external sound systems.
A bill going through the American Congress wants to establish a minimum level of sound for vehicles that are not using an internal-combustion engine, so that blind people and other pedestrians can hear them coming. The bill’s proponents also want that audible alert to be one that will help people judge the direction and speed of the vehicle. A similar idea is being explored by the European Commission.
Although there is little data on accidents, the latest research suggests there is cause for concern. Vehicles operating in electric mode can be particularly hard to hear below 20mph (32kph), according to experiments by Lawrence Rosenblum and his colleagues at the University of California, Riverside. Above that speed the sound of the tyres and of air flowing over the vehicle start to make it more audible.
The researchers made sophisticated recordings of Toyota Prius hybrids running on electric power and petrol-engined cars approaching at 5mph from different directions. These were played to a group of subjects wearing headphones. The subjects were asked to press one of two buttons to identify which way the vehicle was coming from as quickly and accurately as possible. As expected, they could determine the direction of the petrol-engined cars much faster. When natural background sounds, like the engine tickover of a parked car, were added, the hybrids’ direction sometimes could not be detected until they were perilously close. Both sighted and blind subjects gave similar results.
May 7th 2009
From The Economist print edition
Sound generators will make electric and hybrid cars safer
WHEN cars run on electric power they not only save fuel and cut emissions but also run more quietly. Ordinarily, people might welcome quieter cars on the roads. However, as the use of hybrid and electric vehicles grows, a new concern is growing too: pedestrians and cyclists find it hard to hear them coming, especially when the cars are moving slowly through a busy town or manoeuvring in a car park. Some drivers say that when their cars are in electric mode people are more likely to step out in front of them. The solution, many now believe, is to fit electric and hybrid cars with external sound systems.
A bill going through the American Congress wants to establish a minimum level of sound for vehicles that are not using an internal-combustion engine, so that blind people and other pedestrians can hear them coming. The bill’s proponents also want that audible alert to be one that will help people judge the direction and speed of the vehicle. A similar idea is being explored by the European Commission.
Although there is little data on accidents, the latest research suggests there is cause for concern. Vehicles operating in electric mode can be particularly hard to hear below 20mph (32kph), according to experiments by Lawrence Rosenblum and his colleagues at the University of California, Riverside. Above that speed the sound of the tyres and of air flowing over the vehicle start to make it more audible.
The researchers made sophisticated recordings of Toyota Prius hybrids running on electric power and petrol-engined cars approaching at 5mph from different directions. These were played to a group of subjects wearing headphones. The subjects were asked to press one of two buttons to identify which way the vehicle was coming from as quickly and accurately as possible. As expected, they could determine the direction of the petrol-engined cars much faster. When natural background sounds, like the engine tickover of a parked car, were added, the hybrids’ direction sometimes could not be detected until they were perilously close. Both sighted and blind subjects gave similar results.
What a waste
What a waste
May 7th 2009 | CAIRO
From The Economist print edition
Is it wise to kill the capital’s rubbish-ridding pigs?
IN A city not much noted for efficiency, Cairo’s traditional rubbish collectors, or Zabbaleen, have long been something of a paragon. While failing to keep Egypt’s teeming capital very clean, the Zabbaleen, nearly all of them members of Egypt’s 6m-plus Coptic Christian minority, do an excellent job of processing waste(lixo). Trucking refuse to the half-dozen rag-picking settlements that ring the city, they carefully sift out(separar) recyclable glass, paper and plastic. The rest is fed to pigs.
But in response to the global threat of swine flu, Egypt’s government has decreed (decretado)that the pigs, perhaps 250,000 of them, must go. Teams of surgical-mask-wearing pig-hunters were met at first with a barrage of rocks, bottles and manure(esterco) hurled(jogar violentamente) by the angry Zabbaleen. Now, backed by riot police and promising compensation, they are systematically hauling(lever) the beasts off for slaughter(abate, extermínio), a process expected to take several months.
With no cases of swine flu reported in Egypt to date, officials from both the UN and the World Health Organisation have condemned Egypt’s porcicide as a drastic overreaction. Some disgruntled(mal humorado) Copts, who have long complained of petty(pequena,discriminatória) discrimination and fear the influence of Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, say the move unfairly(injusto) targets(alvos) them. Others, noting that Egypt’s minister of health consulted Coptic clergy before announcing the cull(abate), see it as a plot by wealthy businessmen to uproot (arrrancar pela raiz, extirpar, remover)the Zabbaleen and seize (tomar, arrancar)their valuable land on the edge(limite) of the city. Still more rumours explain the government’s swinophobia as a ploy(blefe) to distract attention from other failings, such as not paying a promised salary bonus.
Yet most of the 80m-odd Egyptians seem relieved. While Muslims shun(afastar) pigs as ritually unclean, many Copts also fear them as disease-carriers, with panic over swine flu heightened as Egypt has suffered at least 26 deaths from avian flu since 2006, the most in any country outside Asia. Besides, the crowded pig pens(chiqueiro), surrounded by mounds(montes) of self-combusting biodegradable slime(lama, sujeira) and hemmed in(rodeado) by dense human settlement, are a stinky(fedorento) eyesore(algo desprezível). But the question no one seems to ask is, if pigs are no longer there to munch away(devorar) at them, where will Cairo’s giant piles of leftovers(sobras) go?
May 7th 2009 | CAIRO
From The Economist print edition
Is it wise to kill the capital’s rubbish-ridding pigs?
IN A city not much noted for efficiency, Cairo’s traditional rubbish collectors, or Zabbaleen, have long been something of a paragon. While failing to keep Egypt’s teeming capital very clean, the Zabbaleen, nearly all of them members of Egypt’s 6m-plus Coptic Christian minority, do an excellent job of processing waste(lixo). Trucking refuse to the half-dozen rag-picking settlements that ring the city, they carefully sift out(separar) recyclable glass, paper and plastic. The rest is fed to pigs.
But in response to the global threat of swine flu, Egypt’s government has decreed (decretado)that the pigs, perhaps 250,000 of them, must go. Teams of surgical-mask-wearing pig-hunters were met at first with a barrage of rocks, bottles and manure(esterco) hurled(jogar violentamente) by the angry Zabbaleen. Now, backed by riot police and promising compensation, they are systematically hauling(lever) the beasts off for slaughter(abate, extermínio), a process expected to take several months.
With no cases of swine flu reported in Egypt to date, officials from both the UN and the World Health Organisation have condemned Egypt’s porcicide as a drastic overreaction. Some disgruntled(mal humorado) Copts, who have long complained of petty(pequena,discriminatória) discrimination and fear the influence of Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, say the move unfairly(injusto) targets(alvos) them. Others, noting that Egypt’s minister of health consulted Coptic clergy before announcing the cull(abate), see it as a plot by wealthy businessmen to uproot (arrrancar pela raiz, extirpar, remover)the Zabbaleen and seize (tomar, arrancar)their valuable land on the edge(limite) of the city. Still more rumours explain the government’s swinophobia as a ploy(blefe) to distract attention from other failings, such as not paying a promised salary bonus.
Yet most of the 80m-odd Egyptians seem relieved. While Muslims shun(afastar) pigs as ritually unclean, many Copts also fear them as disease-carriers, with panic over swine flu heightened as Egypt has suffered at least 26 deaths from avian flu since 2006, the most in any country outside Asia. Besides, the crowded pig pens(chiqueiro), surrounded by mounds(montes) of self-combusting biodegradable slime(lama, sujeira) and hemmed in(rodeado) by dense human settlement, are a stinky(fedorento) eyesore(algo desprezível). But the question no one seems to ask is, if pigs are no longer there to munch away(devorar) at them, where will Cairo’s giant piles of leftovers(sobras) go?
sábado, 2 de maio de 2009
The pandemic threat
The pandemic threat(ameaça)
Apr 30th 2009
From The Economist print edition
It’s deadly serious; so even if the current threat fades, the world needs to be better armed
Illustration by KAL
IT IS said that no battle-plan survives contact with the enemy. This was certainly true of the plan drawn up over the past few years to combat an influenza pandemic. The generals of global health assumed that the enemy would be avian flu, probably passed from hens to humans, and that it would strike first in southern China or South-East Asia. In fact, the flu started in an unknown pig, and the attack came in Mexico, not Asia.
The hens, though, deserve some credit. The world has not had a pandemic (a global epidemic) of influenza since 1968. Four decades are long enough to forget that something is dangerous, and people might have done so had they not spent the past ten years considering the possibility that a form of bird flu which emerged in Hong Kong in 1997 might be one mutation away from going worldwide.
The new was raised on April 29th to just one notch below the level of a certified pandemic by the World Health Organisation. In an effort to halt(parar) the spread of the disease, Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón, has announced that non-essential services should close down between May 1st and 5th, and people should stay at home. Part of the reason for worry is that, unlike ordinary flu, which mostly carries off the old, the victims of this disease are mostly young and otherwise healthy.
Still, this epidemic has not actually killed many people yet. That there have been a mere handful of confirmed deaths is probably the result of a lack of proper tests. But even if all the possibles are counted in, a couple of hundred fatalities cannot compare with the 30,000 deaths caused in America each year by seasonal influenza. So how scared should we be?
Apr 30th 2009
From The Economist print edition
It’s deadly serious; so even if the current threat fades, the world needs to be better armed
Illustration by KAL
IT IS said that no battle-plan survives contact with the enemy. This was certainly true of the plan drawn up over the past few years to combat an influenza pandemic. The generals of global health assumed that the enemy would be avian flu, probably passed from hens to humans, and that it would strike first in southern China or South-East Asia. In fact, the flu started in an unknown pig, and the attack came in Mexico, not Asia.
The hens, though, deserve some credit. The world has not had a pandemic (a global epidemic) of influenza since 1968. Four decades are long enough to forget that something is dangerous, and people might have done so had they not spent the past ten years considering the possibility that a form of bird flu which emerged in Hong Kong in 1997 might be one mutation away from going worldwide.
The new was raised on April 29th to just one notch below the level of a certified pandemic by the World Health Organisation. In an effort to halt(parar) the spread of the disease, Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón, has announced that non-essential services should close down between May 1st and 5th, and people should stay at home. Part of the reason for worry is that, unlike ordinary flu, which mostly carries off the old, the victims of this disease are mostly young and otherwise healthy.
Still, this epidemic has not actually killed many people yet. That there have been a mere handful of confirmed deaths is probably the result of a lack of proper tests. But even if all the possibles are counted in, a couple of hundred fatalities cannot compare with the 30,000 deaths caused in America each year by seasonal influenza. So how scared should we be?
Pain but no panic
Pain but no panic
Apr 30th 2009
From The Economist print edition
A traditionally crisis-prone region is belying its reputation. But that has not spared it from the world recession
UNTIL recently many Latin Americans saw the financial crisis and the global recession as events happening somewhere else. But in the past six months the region’s economies have swiftly slumped along with the rest of the world, showing double-digit falls in industrial output. Workers have been laid off in Mexican car factories, Brazilian aircraft plants and Peruvian building sites. For Latin Americans such woes are sadly familiar: income per person in the region has fallen on five separate occasions since 1980. What is different this time is that Latin Americans are faring no worse than the rest of the world. And there are reasons to believe that their recession may be relatively short and mild. That may not be cause for celebration but it is a crumb of comfort.
The bad news is, however, quite bad. Latin American countries have been hit by four different recessionary forces. As the financial crisis in the developed world transmuted into a collapse of manufacturing, trade plunged: total exports for five of the region’s larger economies fell by a third between August and December, partly because fewer goods were sold and partly because the price of commodities fell.
The flow of capital to the region also dried up, leading to a steep rise in borrowing costs for governments and companies. The Institute of International Finance, a bankers’ group, thinks that net private capital flows to Latin America will fall by more than half this year compared with last, to $43 billion (down from a record $184 billion in 2007). Foreign banks have trimmed credit lines, especially for trade. In addition, remittances from Latin Americans working abroad have begun to contract, and fewer tourists have come visiting.
Apr 30th 2009
From The Economist print edition
A traditionally crisis-prone region is belying its reputation. But that has not spared it from the world recession
UNTIL recently many Latin Americans saw the financial crisis and the global recession as events happening somewhere else. But in the past six months the region’s economies have swiftly slumped along with the rest of the world, showing double-digit falls in industrial output. Workers have been laid off in Mexican car factories, Brazilian aircraft plants and Peruvian building sites. For Latin Americans such woes are sadly familiar: income per person in the region has fallen on five separate occasions since 1980. What is different this time is that Latin Americans are faring no worse than the rest of the world. And there are reasons to believe that their recession may be relatively short and mild. That may not be cause for celebration but it is a crumb of comfort.
The bad news is, however, quite bad. Latin American countries have been hit by four different recessionary forces. As the financial crisis in the developed world transmuted into a collapse of manufacturing, trade plunged: total exports for five of the region’s larger economies fell by a third between August and December, partly because fewer goods were sold and partly because the price of commodities fell.
The flow of capital to the region also dried up, leading to a steep rise in borrowing costs for governments and companies. The Institute of International Finance, a bankers’ group, thinks that net private capital flows to Latin America will fall by more than half this year compared with last, to $43 billion (down from a record $184 billion in 2007). Foreign banks have trimmed credit lines, especially for trade. In addition, remittances from Latin Americans working abroad have begun to contract, and fewer tourists have come visiting.
Life in thin slices
Life in thin slices
Apr 30th 2009
From The Economist print edition
An ancient smile may predict a modern divorce
A GRIM expression in a yearbook photo or family snapshot could mean more than just a passing bad mood. It could also signal that the subject is more likely to get divorced than someone with a big smile for the camera. Matthew Hertenstein and his colleagues at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana asked old boys and girls of the university to answer questions about their current sexual relationships and whether they had ever been divorced. The team then looked up pictures of their volunteers in the university’s yearbooks and graded the degree of their smiles. The less a person smiled, it turned out, the more likely he or she was to have been divorced over the course of a lifetime.
This research is a dramatic example of how “thin slices” of information can predict important aspects of people’s personalities. In past studies, researchers have shown that with very limited information—less than half a minute of interaction, the viewing of a video clip or just a look at a photograph—people can make accurate predictions about others’ sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, teaching ability and personality.
Dr Hertenstein was following up research which had shown that the women who smiled most in their college photos were most likely to be married by the age of 27, among other things. He wanted to see if the same held, over the longer term, for divorce. His study, to be published in Motivation & Emotion, looked at three groups. The first, of 306 people, came from alumni of the psychology department. The second group, of 349, was recruited from general alumni. The third, of 55 people, was recruited from the town. (In the last case, people were asked to send in photos of themselves, but were not told that the study was about smiling.) The researchers rated the photos of the subjects on a scale of two to ten. They also asked their volunteers various questions, including whether they had ever been divorced.
The relationship between smiling and divorce also held up among townspeople, even though many sent photographs of themselves as children. Facial expression predicted divorce even when the smile or frown was on a ten-year-old’s face. A photograph that records a split second from a lifetime is a very thin slice indeed. How could it predict a divorce decades in the future?
Apr 30th 2009
From The Economist print edition
An ancient smile may predict a modern divorce
A GRIM expression in a yearbook photo or family snapshot could mean more than just a passing bad mood. It could also signal that the subject is more likely to get divorced than someone with a big smile for the camera. Matthew Hertenstein and his colleagues at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana asked old boys and girls of the university to answer questions about their current sexual relationships and whether they had ever been divorced. The team then looked up pictures of their volunteers in the university’s yearbooks and graded the degree of their smiles. The less a person smiled, it turned out, the more likely he or she was to have been divorced over the course of a lifetime.
This research is a dramatic example of how “thin slices” of information can predict important aspects of people’s personalities. In past studies, researchers have shown that with very limited information—less than half a minute of interaction, the viewing of a video clip or just a look at a photograph—people can make accurate predictions about others’ sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, teaching ability and personality.
Dr Hertenstein was following up research which had shown that the women who smiled most in their college photos were most likely to be married by the age of 27, among other things. He wanted to see if the same held, over the longer term, for divorce. His study, to be published in Motivation & Emotion, looked at three groups. The first, of 306 people, came from alumni of the psychology department. The second group, of 349, was recruited from general alumni. The third, of 55 people, was recruited from the town. (In the last case, people were asked to send in photos of themselves, but were not told that the study was about smiling.) The researchers rated the photos of the subjects on a scale of two to ten. They also asked their volunteers various questions, including whether they had ever been divorced.
The relationship between smiling and divorce also held up among townspeople, even though many sent photographs of themselves as children. Facial expression predicted divorce even when the smile or frown was on a ten-year-old’s face. A photograph that records a split second from a lifetime is a very thin slice indeed. How could it predict a divorce decades in the future?
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