You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
During Expand NY we met with Rodrigo Arboleda from the One Laptop Per Child organization, Jeff Branson from SparkFun and Pat Yongpradit from Code.org to discuss the value of programming courses in the education system. What consequences could we face if we don't invest more heavily in computer science programs? Follow the link to find out.
Engadget has learned a few new details about PSN profiles just days before Sony will take the wraps off of the PlayStation 4. For the sake of privacy, public profiles will now revert to a user's PSN ID. Follow the link for the nitty gritty, along with an explanation of just what the PS4 Eye can and can't do.
As the holidays swiftly approach, we've got all you proactive gift-givers covered with expert advice on the latest and greatest gadgets from 2013. Today, we're talking household tech, including products ranging from the Nest smart thermostat to a robotic bartender. Click on through for all our hand-picked selections.
PlayJam's GameStick is an ultra-portable Android console aimed for the living room. Though the $80 handheld is more of a "lightweight" device with a small repertoire, we think it's a great source of kid-friendly leisure gaming. Click the link for our review.
SCIENCE CHINA chemistry special topic: Extraction of uranium from seawater
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
5-Nov-2013
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Contact: Bei Yan [email protected] 86-106-400-8316 Science China Press
2013 No.11 issue of SCIENCE CHINA Chemistry published a special topic on extraction of uranium from Seawater recently.
Owing to the fast economic growing and the concern over greenhouse gases and air pollution, the development of nuclear energy is one important option to meet the expanded energy consumption in our future. To achieve that goal, continuing and reliable supplies of uranium are critical to future nuclear power projects. As is well known, global terrestrial reserves of uranium are limited and the deposits in China are relatively small. Given the projected big growth in nuclear power in the future, reliable supply of uranium at a reasonable price is essential for China. Extraction of uranium from seawater faces a great challenge but has received attention for more than sixty years. It is described by American scientists recently as a"game-changing" approach if it can be realized at economic viable costs. Encouraged by the global aggressive nuclear power development plans in the past years, although the pace was slow down by Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011, extraction of uranium from seawater has been emerging as a potential approach to overcome the shortage of nuclear fuel.
Japan is playing a leading role in the research of uranium extraction from seawater; it has collected more than one kilogram of uranium from seawater by immersing functionalized polyethylene fibers in ocean. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) supported a program in 2010 to start a project for uranium extraction from seawater, some universities and institutions have been engaged in such project. Almost at the same time, a project was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), although in a small budget, to evaluate the feasibility of extracting uranium from seawater and salt lake. This could be considered as a new era for the research on uranium extraction from seawater in China. CAS and DOE have now established a tight collaboration mechanism for uranium extraction from seawater.
Besides some institutions of CAS, many research groups in universities and institutions of China have also shown great interests or already joined the work on uranium extraction from seawater. Since uranium is present in very low concentrations in ocean (3.3-3.5 ppb), the collection of uranium from seawater economically is far more difficult than any usual collection process of metal ion from aqueous solution. Therefore, many approaches should be taken to design and synthesize functional ligands, develop advanced sorbents, understand the coordination mechanism, and find suitable elution process. To make the extraction of uranium from seawater more economically competitive, mass production of high performance adsorbents at a reasonable cost and good durability of adsorbent in seawater are two most important issues.
In March 25-26, 2013, the workshop on extraction of uranium from seawater was held in Shanghai, with more than eighty attendees from China and five delegates from the US. This workshop was initiated by Prof. Zhifang Chai at Institute of High Energy Physics of CAS, and financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (CAS), and China Academy of Engineering Physics. There were four invited talks and twelve oral presentations. The numbers of attendees and presentations are much higher than expected. The topics presented at the workshop cover a wide range of areas, including computer modeling, synthesis of nanoparticle with large surface area, radiation induced grafting of polymer fiber and following amidoximation, sorption and elution processes, marine test, etc. This workshop could be considered as the first one on the topic of uranium extraction from seawater in recent twenty years in China.
After the workshop, the organizing committee invited five research groups to make contributions and decided to publish them in a special mini-issue in Science China Chemistry. These five excellent contributions show us the ongoing of project in different approaches.
###
The special topic is available for free viewing at:
http://chem.scichina.com:8081/sciBe/EN/volumn/current.shtml#
Science China Press Co., Ltd. (SCP) is a scientific journal publishing company of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). For 50 years, SCP takes its mission to present to the world the best achievements by Chinese scientists on various fields of natural sciences researches.
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SCIENCE CHINA chemistry special topic: Extraction of uranium from seawater
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
5-Nov-2013
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Contact: Bei Yan [email protected] 86-106-400-8316 Science China Press
2013 No.11 issue of SCIENCE CHINA Chemistry published a special topic on extraction of uranium from Seawater recently.
Owing to the fast economic growing and the concern over greenhouse gases and air pollution, the development of nuclear energy is one important option to meet the expanded energy consumption in our future. To achieve that goal, continuing and reliable supplies of uranium are critical to future nuclear power projects. As is well known, global terrestrial reserves of uranium are limited and the deposits in China are relatively small. Given the projected big growth in nuclear power in the future, reliable supply of uranium at a reasonable price is essential for China. Extraction of uranium from seawater faces a great challenge but has received attention for more than sixty years. It is described by American scientists recently as a"game-changing" approach if it can be realized at economic viable costs. Encouraged by the global aggressive nuclear power development plans in the past years, although the pace was slow down by Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011, extraction of uranium from seawater has been emerging as a potential approach to overcome the shortage of nuclear fuel.
Japan is playing a leading role in the research of uranium extraction from seawater; it has collected more than one kilogram of uranium from seawater by immersing functionalized polyethylene fibers in ocean. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) supported a program in 2010 to start a project for uranium extraction from seawater, some universities and institutions have been engaged in such project. Almost at the same time, a project was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), although in a small budget, to evaluate the feasibility of extracting uranium from seawater and salt lake. This could be considered as a new era for the research on uranium extraction from seawater in China. CAS and DOE have now established a tight collaboration mechanism for uranium extraction from seawater.
Besides some institutions of CAS, many research groups in universities and institutions of China have also shown great interests or already joined the work on uranium extraction from seawater. Since uranium is present in very low concentrations in ocean (3.3-3.5 ppb), the collection of uranium from seawater economically is far more difficult than any usual collection process of metal ion from aqueous solution. Therefore, many approaches should be taken to design and synthesize functional ligands, develop advanced sorbents, understand the coordination mechanism, and find suitable elution process. To make the extraction of uranium from seawater more economically competitive, mass production of high performance adsorbents at a reasonable cost and good durability of adsorbent in seawater are two most important issues.
In March 25-26, 2013, the workshop on extraction of uranium from seawater was held in Shanghai, with more than eighty attendees from China and five delegates from the US. This workshop was initiated by Prof. Zhifang Chai at Institute of High Energy Physics of CAS, and financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (CAS), and China Academy of Engineering Physics. There were four invited talks and twelve oral presentations. The numbers of attendees and presentations are much higher than expected. The topics presented at the workshop cover a wide range of areas, including computer modeling, synthesis of nanoparticle with large surface area, radiation induced grafting of polymer fiber and following amidoximation, sorption and elution processes, marine test, etc. This workshop could be considered as the first one on the topic of uranium extraction from seawater in recent twenty years in China.
After the workshop, the organizing committee invited five research groups to make contributions and decided to publish them in a special mini-issue in Science China Chemistry. These five excellent contributions show us the ongoing of project in different approaches.
###
The special topic is available for free viewing at:
http://chem.scichina.com:8081/sciBe/EN/volumn/current.shtml#
Science China Press Co., Ltd. (SCP) is a scientific journal publishing company of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). For 50 years, SCP takes its mission to present to the world the best achievements by Chinese scientists on various fields of natural sciences researches.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
A vehicle from the Chinese police special tactical unit guards the sidewalk Tuesday where it is believed a car drove up before it plowed through a crowd and crashed and burned in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
Ng Han Guan/AP
A vehicle from the Chinese police special tactical unit guards the sidewalk Tuesday where it is believed a car drove up before it plowed through a crowd and crashed and burned in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
We start this morning with more news on that deadly crash in Beijing's Tiananmen square.
Authorities say they've arrested five people in Beijing in connection with Monday's crash that killed two people and injured nearly 40. They labeled the incident a terrorist attack.
Police said the attack was "carefully planned, organized and premeditated."
The driver of the vehicle that crashed into a crowd of people was identified as Usmen Hasan, a Uighur from China's Xinjiang Province. Passengers included his mother and his wife. All three were also killed in the incident. Police said they found gasoline, two knives and steel sticks as well as a flag with extremist religious content in the jeep.
The five people arrested were also identified with names typically associated with Uighurs. Knives and a "jihad flag" were found in their homes.
The BBC adds that police were originally looking for eight suspects.
Now to Israel where the head of Teva Pharmaceuticals, the world's largest manufacturer of generic drugs, stepped down Wednesday. Just two days ago, Jeremy Levin denied media reports that he would do so.
"Since I joined Teva, we have made tremendous progress in setting a new course for the company," Levin said following his resignation. "I wish the company and its people, who I respect greatly, every success. I look forward to pursuing new opportunities where I can continue to apply my experience and contribute to the evolution of the global pharmaceutical industry."
Eyal Desheh, the firm's CFO, was named interim CEO.
The company had been criticized over plans to lay off 5,000 workers worldwide and over its tax incentives in Israel – both of which had created a rift between Teva's management and its board.
Finally, a ruling by the Supreme Court clears the way for the breakup of large media groups in the country.
Critics in the media, including Clarin, the biggest broadcaster and newspaper company, say the law silences the opposition. But supporters say it will reduce the influence of large corporations.
In a statement the Clarin Group said while it respects the court's decision, it is examining further appeals, including to international tribunals. The ruling will likely force it shed many media holdings.
The Supreme Court ruled that the 2009 law was constitutional.
Contact: Katie Delach [email protected] 215-776-6063 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Lowering the cost of health care requires lowering the cost of medical education
PHILADELPHIA The costs of medical education must be reduced as part of efforts to reign in health care costs more generally, according to a Perspective published online this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. The currently high costs of medical education which at some schools rise above $60,000 per year are sustainable only if physician salaries remain high, which the authors, led by a physician from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, say is less likely because of efforts to reduce health care costs.
Noting that students leave medical school with debt that often exceeds $150,000, the authors argue: "If we want to keep health care costs down and still have access to well-qualified physicians, we need to keep the cost of creating those physicians down by changing the way that physicians are trained. From college through licensure and credentialing, our annual physician-production costs are high, and they are made higher by the long time we devote to training."
"People wonder whether we are in a bubble market in medical education," says lead author David A. Asch, MD, MBA, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Health Care Innovation at Penn Medicine. In bubble markets, such as the recent US housing market and the dotcom bubble of 2000, prices rise based on speculation rather than intrinsic value, as people buy houses or stocks with the hope of reselling them to those with even more optimistic views of their valuation. When clearer thinking returns, those who haven't sold are left having overpaid, holding an asset they cannot unload. "In the case of medical education, students buy their education from medical schools and resell that education in the form of services to patients. Medical education can remain expensive only so long as there are patients, insurers, and employers who are willing to pay high prices for health care. But if prices for physician services decline, then the cost of medical education will have to decline too, or people won't be willing to pay for medical school in the first place," Asch says.
The authors warn that high debt-to-income ratios drive students away from less financially rewarding fields. "Debt-to-income ratios reveal how much a student has to go into the hole financially for education compared to what a graduating student might earn," says Asch. "For example, it costs approximately the same to become an orthopedist, psychiatrist, or primary care physician, but orthopedists earn much more."
That might suggest that there is already a medical education bubble for psychiatry and primary care, but as bad as the debt-to-income ratios might be for those fields, they are even worse for some other fields outside of medicine. The authors note that veterinary medicine is closer to a bubble market situation, which could burst when potential students recognize that the high costs of becoming a veterinarian aren't matched by high income later.
As the cost of education in general rises, students might naturally be expected to focus more on those fields that provide a better balance between cost and return. "Veterinary education is vulnerable, medicine less so. Business education still seems to be a good buy." But, Asch asks, "Do we really want a world populated only by MBAs?"
"Doctors do well financially," says Asch, "but the cost of becoming a doctor is rising faster than the benefits of being a doctor, and that is catching up to primary care more quickly than orthopedics, and that ratio is close to overtaking the veterinarians." While only about 20 percent of health care costs are attributable to physician payments, physicians' earnings have been sluggish since the early 2000s. The authors note that a burst bubble can be averted if schools see these changes coming before their students do and lower their prices.
###
Co-authors on the perspective are Sean Nicholson, PhD, Cornell University and the National Bureau of Economic Research; and Marko Vujicic, PhD of the American Dental Association.
Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4.3 billion enterprise.
The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 16 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $398 million awarded in the 2012 fiscal year.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; Chester County Hospital; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Chestnut Hill Hospital and Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine.
Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2012, Penn Medicine provided $827 million to benefit our community.
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Is medical education in a bubble market?
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
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Contact: Katie Delach [email protected] 215-776-6063 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Lowering the cost of health care requires lowering the cost of medical education
PHILADELPHIA The costs of medical education must be reduced as part of efforts to reign in health care costs more generally, according to a Perspective published online this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. The currently high costs of medical education which at some schools rise above $60,000 per year are sustainable only if physician salaries remain high, which the authors, led by a physician from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, say is less likely because of efforts to reduce health care costs.
Noting that students leave medical school with debt that often exceeds $150,000, the authors argue: "If we want to keep health care costs down and still have access to well-qualified physicians, we need to keep the cost of creating those physicians down by changing the way that physicians are trained. From college through licensure and credentialing, our annual physician-production costs are high, and they are made higher by the long time we devote to training."
"People wonder whether we are in a bubble market in medical education," says lead author David A. Asch, MD, MBA, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Health Care Innovation at Penn Medicine. In bubble markets, such as the recent US housing market and the dotcom bubble of 2000, prices rise based on speculation rather than intrinsic value, as people buy houses or stocks with the hope of reselling them to those with even more optimistic views of their valuation. When clearer thinking returns, those who haven't sold are left having overpaid, holding an asset they cannot unload. "In the case of medical education, students buy their education from medical schools and resell that education in the form of services to patients. Medical education can remain expensive only so long as there are patients, insurers, and employers who are willing to pay high prices for health care. But if prices for physician services decline, then the cost of medical education will have to decline too, or people won't be willing to pay for medical school in the first place," Asch says.
The authors warn that high debt-to-income ratios drive students away from less financially rewarding fields. "Debt-to-income ratios reveal how much a student has to go into the hole financially for education compared to what a graduating student might earn," says Asch. "For example, it costs approximately the same to become an orthopedist, psychiatrist, or primary care physician, but orthopedists earn much more."
That might suggest that there is already a medical education bubble for psychiatry and primary care, but as bad as the debt-to-income ratios might be for those fields, they are even worse for some other fields outside of medicine. The authors note that veterinary medicine is closer to a bubble market situation, which could burst when potential students recognize that the high costs of becoming a veterinarian aren't matched by high income later.
As the cost of education in general rises, students might naturally be expected to focus more on those fields that provide a better balance between cost and return. "Veterinary education is vulnerable, medicine less so. Business education still seems to be a good buy." But, Asch asks, "Do we really want a world populated only by MBAs?"
"Doctors do well financially," says Asch, "but the cost of becoming a doctor is rising faster than the benefits of being a doctor, and that is catching up to primary care more quickly than orthopedics, and that ratio is close to overtaking the veterinarians." While only about 20 percent of health care costs are attributable to physician payments, physicians' earnings have been sluggish since the early 2000s. The authors note that a burst bubble can be averted if schools see these changes coming before their students do and lower their prices.
###
Co-authors on the perspective are Sean Nicholson, PhD, Cornell University and the National Bureau of Economic Research; and Marko Vujicic, PhD of the American Dental Association.
Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4.3 billion enterprise.
The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 16 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $398 million awarded in the 2012 fiscal year.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; Chester County Hospital; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Chestnut Hill Hospital and Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine.
Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2012, Penn Medicine provided $827 million to benefit our community.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
If your ideal TV setup is HBO Go by itself, one option for a setup close to that is being offered by a seemingly unlikely source: Comcast. The "Internet Plus" promo dug up by DSLReports and GigaOm is the closest thing we've seen so far, promising a limited basic channel lineup (varies by area, but ...
A few weeks ago, a tiny gallery in London was transformed into a scene straight out of the 19th century. Amid piles of sand, a worker donned a silver apron and safety helmet and poured molten hot steel down a track to create long slabs of metal. The man in the apron was Raphael Hefti—not an industrial worker, but an artist.
VMware is hoping to persuade more enterprises to make the leap to virtual desktops by improving graphics capabilities and allowing them to circumvent Microsoft's licensing terms.
The company is this week hosting VMworld Europe in Barcelona and desktop virtualization is one of the big themes at the event. Along with its plan to take over the whole data center, including storage and networks, VMware has accelerated its desktop push. This week it acquired desktop-as-a-service company Desktone.
But its bread and butter is still the Horizon View platform, which will soon be upgraded to version 5.3, Pat Lee, director of product management, said in a blog post.
Running the most advanced 3D graphics applications has been the holy grail for desktop virtualization platforms and VMware is adding vDGA (virtual Dedicated Graphics Acceleration) to make that possible, according to Lee. The feature is based on VMware's DirectPath I/O and Nvidia's Grid technology, which together allow users to run their applications on a dedicated GPU.
In View 5.3, VMware has also added the ability to use Windows Server 2008 R2 as a stand-alone virtual desktop, in an effort to get around some of Microsoft's licensing terms when running a desktop in the data center or in the cloud.
For example, desktop-as-a-service providers can't resell access to a client flavor of Windows, instead users have to bring their own licenses, which can be cumbersome.
"VMware of course doesn't make a practice of advising on the specific ins and outs of Microsoft Windows licensing. ... But with this addition, all Horizon View 5.3 customers, those with private cloud deployments and those consuming from a public or hybrid-cloud service provider, will have greater flexibility and choice in how a VDI deployment is properly licensed with our friends up in Redmond," Lee said.
Windows Server 2008 instances can be configured to "pretty much look and feel just like a Windows 7 desktop," according to Lee.
That addition may not sit well with Microsoft, but VMware has made some additions in version 5.3 that should make the company a little happier, including support for Windows 8.1-based desktops and multimedia redirection for video playback on Windows 7. For the latter to work, the client must have a GPU that can H.264 video. Formats such as Flash and Windows Media Video are being considered for future releases, according to the blog post.
There is a new client optimized for iOS 7 and better for performance when accessing a desktop via a browser, as well.
VMware is also tying together View 5.3 with its growing aspirations in the data center by bundling a VSAN (Virtual SAN) beta. The platform is used to create pools of capacity from a combination of hard drives and solid state storage that come with servers. The goal is to improve resiliency while at the same cut storage related costs.
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A roleplay focused on Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
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Hey, I know you're still working on this, but is it possible to create a student with both empathy and telepathy?
Darkdiva_14
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Once you have completed working on this, I'm in :D
Surfergirl
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If your ideal TV setup is HBO Go by itself, one option for a setup close to that is being offered by a seemingly unlikely source: Comcast. The "Internet Plus" promo dug up by DSLReports and GigaOm is the closest thing we've seen so far, promising a limited basic channel lineup (varies by area, but ...
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