Why the World is ready for the Semantic Web

Some people argue that although the Semantic Web technologies are all in place, the world isn’t ready for the Semantic Web vision yet; that we’re still a couple of years away from fully embracing and adopting Semantic Web principles and attitudes. Perhaps, though, the opposite is closer to the truth: that some of the biggest and best projects on the web today are based on Semantic Web principles – they just don’t happen to be using Semantic Web technologies.

Site – http://www.oreillynet.com

The American Scientist: An endangered species?

Politicians are freaking out about competition from China and India, especially when the drastic drop in American scientists and engineers being produced by the nation’s universities is considered. But is the situation quite as bleak as everyone seems to think?

Site – http://www.seedmagazine.com

Internet giants suffer defeat in US Congress

US Internet giants have suffered a defeat in the US Congress where an amendment on “Internet neutrality” was rejected by a Senate committee studying telecommunications reform.

Site – http://news.yahoo.com

Brain can be made to self-repair

Stimulating a protein on the surface of the brain’s stem cells helps rats recover after a stroke, US researchers have found. The discovery suggests that in humans it could be possible to provoke the body’s own stem cells into repairing an injury, rather than laboriously growing and transplanting new cells.

Site – http://www.nature.com

What is Evolution ?

Seeing as the word evolution gets thrown around a lot lately on Newsvine, I wanted to make sure that we are clear about what the definition of evolution is. A lot of readers will be surprised to learn the simplicity of the definition and might actually modify their argument when debating against or in favor. Moreover, for the interested readers, I wanted to introduce some concepts of evolutionary theory and phylogenetics, and thus, I have decided to begin this series of articles on my field of specialization, evolutionary theory, and what better subject than “What is Evolution?”.

Site – http://miguel.newsvine.com

Intelligent computers

YOU may call them the sixth-generation computers — those that possess the sixth sense. Information technology is now poised for a giant leap forward when you will have computers that can read the human mind.

Site – http://www.khaleejtimes.com

Five reasons Google will invent real A.I.

“I’ve received 33,000+ hits and counting to this post,” says the blogger who wrote “Wikipedia 3.0: The End of Google?” on Monday. His piece got blogged all over, promoted to the Digg front page, and fueled the starry-eyed bloggers searching for doom to herald for Google. (It was also just a troll.) Kudos to him, but he — and everyone who believed him — was wrong.

Site – http://www.valleywag.com

Reprogramming Biology

Biology is now in the early stages of an historic transition to an information science, while also gaining the tools to reprogram the ancient information systems of life. Few of us go more than a few months without changing the software programs we use in our electronic devices, yet the 23,000 software programs inside our cells called genes have not changed appreciably in thousands of years (although recent research suggests that a few have changed as recently as a few hundred years ago).

Site – http://www.sciam.com

New Top500 List Released at Supercomputing ‘06

Today the 27th Edition of the Top 500 List of World’s Fastest Supercomputers was released at ISC 2006. IBM BlueGene/L remains the world fastest computer with 280.6 TFlop/s. No new US system in the top10 this year, since they all come from Europe and Japan. The French Cluster at CEA (French NNSA equivalent) is number 5 with 42.9 TFlop/s. The Earth simulator (no 10) is no longer the largest system in Japan since the GSIC Center built a 38.2 TFlop/s Cluster, reaching the 7th place. The German cluster at Juelich is number 8 with 37.3 TFlop/s. The full list, and the previous 26 lists, are available on the Top500.org site.

Site – http://www.top500.org

Google papers

Papers published by the people at Google.

Site – http://labs.google.com/papers/

LHC due for 2007 start

The CERN laboratory in Geneva has finally announced when its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will smash its first beams together — November 2007. The date was announced today following a meeting of CERN’s Council, and comes as part of a schedule drawn up to ensure that high-energy particle beams are produced as soon as possible.

Site – http://physicsweb.org

Chandra solves black hole mystery

The way in which black holes suck in matter from neighbouring stars is a fundamentally magnetic process and not just caused by gravity. That’s the conclusion from new measurements of the X-rays emitted by the gas surrounding a nearby black hole in the Milky Way. Although predicted by theory over 30 years ago, this is the first time that this effect has been seen. The result — based on measurements from the Chandra X-ray observatory — could affect theories on how matter falls onto black holes and other compact objects.

Site – http://physicsweb.org