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Issue no. 42, 2006 Published: Dec 01, 2006
UN warning on e-waste 'mountain'
Green light for EU science plan
EU urges stronger antispam efforts
Experts find path around internet firewalls
French parliament dumping Windows for Linux
Metamaterial bridges the terahertz gap
Researchers build nano-knife to cut cells
Why do Stradivari's violins sound sublime?
Mapuche Indians declare war on Microsoft

UN warning on e-waste 'mountain'
The world's richest nations are dumping hazardous electronic waste on poor African countries, says Achim Steiner, the head of the UN's Environment Programme (UNEP). UNEP estimates that up to 50m tonnes of waste from discarded electronic goods is generated annually. Improper disposal of e-waste can release hazardous chemicals and heavy metals into the environment. Steiner made his comments at the opening of a week-long conference in Nairobi which will review the Basel Convention, aimed at reducing the movement of all types of hazardous waste. E-waste is thought to be the fastest growing part of municipal waste in the developed world. The decreasing cost of replacing computers, mobile phones and other electronic gadgets, and the speed with which technology goes out of date, mean there is more and more to be disposed of. Traditionally, much of the waste found its way to Asian countries such as China and India, but tighter regulations means more and more is ending up in Africa. When the waste is burnt, a common disposal method, it can release toxic fumes and leach chemicals such as barium and mercury into the soil. The conference will discuss how to tighten regulations to prevent this kind of incident occurring.
BBC News Nov 27, 2006	back to top

Green light for EU science plan
The European Parliament has approved a EUR 54bn plan to boost science research in Europe. Framework Programme 7 (FP7) is designed to support several priority areas of research. Of the different research categories, information technology gets the biggest chunk of funding, with a EUR 9.1bn budget. But research into climate change and energy have received a comparatively small amount of funding in the plan. The Parliament gave the go-ahead to the plan on Thursday at its second reading. FP7 is due to be formally adopted by the EU on 5 December. The programme is due to run from 2007 to 2013.
BBC News Nov 30, 2006	back to top

EU urges stronger antispam efforts
EU countries are doing too little to enforce EU rules banning unsolicited e-mail, which can account for as much as 80% of the content in a typical inbox in Europe, the European Commission said Monday. In a report, the Commission urged national regulators, governments and industry to work together more efficiently to combat the problem. A Commission spokesman said the biggest culprit remained the US, which accounts for 21.6% of spam coming into the EU. China is second with 13.4%, while France is third with 6.3%. He said EU countries should follow the lead of the Netherlands, which has cut locally generated spam by 85% since 2003, with an investment of EUR 570,000 and a full-time staff of just four people at its antispam agency. The commission said governments should lay down clear responsibilities for regulators, ensure they have the resources to do their job and help in cross-border investigations. The report called for e-mail services suppliers to apply a filtering policy and for the industry to inform customers better of the dangers and software solutions.
International Herald Tribune / Reuters / AP Nov 27, 2006	back to top

Experts find path around internet firewalls
Researchers at the University of Toronto, Canada, have developed software that will let users hop over governments' internet firewalls, raising the prospect of unfettered internet access in countries that have long tried to control how residents use the web. The Psiphon software works by first allowing a person in a country that does not censor internet content, like Canada, to set up a user name and a password for a person in a country that does, for example China. The Canadian user would then pass on the information to the Chinese user, who would log on to the Canadian's computer and effectively use it as a server to browse the internet without being censored by the Chinese government. The web traffic between the two users is encrypted and secure, so China would have difficulty tracing the usage. Human rights groups have accused countries like China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Egypt of clamping down of unfettered internet use, blocking websites linked to or operated by opposition or independence groups. Some countries also censor sites from human rights groups, news services or gay and lesbian organisations.
CNN / Reuters Nov 30, 2006	back to top

French parliament dumping Windows for Linux
France's gendarmes and Ministry of Culture and Communication have done it, and now members of the country's parliament are about to switch to open source. Starting in June 2007, 1,154 French parliamentary workstations will be running on Linux, with OpenOffice.org productivity software, the Firefox web browser and an open-source e-mail client. A spokesperson for the parliament's administration said a decision as to the choice of Linux distribution and e-mail client has not yet been made. Currently, some of the parliament's servers have been running Linux, with Apache webservers and the Mambo content management system. The project was the subject of a study by technology services company Atos Origin, whose conclusions convinced the French National Assembly to make the switch.
ZDNet Nov 27, 2006	back to top

Metamaterial bridges the terahertz gap
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US have used an artificially-structured 'metamaterial' to build a device that can control highly-elusive terahertz (THz) radiation. The modulator is claimed to be ten-times better at switching a THz beam than previous designs and could pave the way for the use of the radiation in a wide range of applications in chemistry, astronomy and even airport security. The new device can switch or modulate a THz beam with 50% efficiency. It is based on an array of micrometre-sized structures, that each combine two inductive rings with a parallel-rod capacitor. Similar metamaterials using larger structures have been used to control microwave radiation and the LANL team simply reduced the size of the rings and rods to make the structure respond to radiation at about 1 THz. When a voltage is applied across the array it absorbs THz radiation in a narrow frequency band. When the voltage is switched off the structure becomes more or less transparent to THz radiation - thereby forming the basis of switch. This narrow-band operation also means that the array could be used to create filters that selectively block or transmit specific THz frequencies.
PhysicsWeb / Nature Nov 29, 2006	back to top

Researchers build nano-knife to cut cells
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado at Boulder have built what is thought to be the world's smallest knife. The device is made of a single tube of carbon atoms stretched between two tungsten needles and will be used to cut open individual cells under a microscope. Nano-tweezers, nano-bearings and nano-oscillators have also been built for very fine manipulation. The nano-knife was built to combat existing problems with slicing cell samples. Glass knives are commonly used today, but are too thick and can damage the object they are cutting. The nano-knife itself has been extensively tested and the blade is the strongest part of the device. Researchers reported that the first part to give way under stress was the weld to the tungsten and that they are trying new techniques to improve the join.
VNUnet UK Nov 24, 2006	back to top

Why do Stradivari's violins sound sublime?
A wood preservation technique was probably responsible for the exquisite sound produced by violins of the 17th-century Italian instrument makers Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri. US researchers used infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to analyse the chemical properties of the each instrument's backboard - its largest resonant component. They found that a chemical wood preservative used in timber yards around Cremona in Lombardy, where both violin makers worked, appears to have given the violins their signature sound quality. Analysis of the wood shows that it has a different chemical composition to maple grown in the region today. The researchers think the Italian masters prepared their wood by artificial means. The violin backs appear to have been brutally treated with salts of copper, iron and chromium as wood preservers. It is these salts, they suggests, that provided the mellifluous tone. Some metal ions - like copper - have powerful fungicidal properties, which is why they were used to treat the wood. But these salts may also have altered the mechanical and acoustical properties of each instrument, according to the researchers.
New Scientists / Nature Nov 29, 2006	back to top

Mapuche Indians declare war on Microsoft
Microsoft is under legal attack in an unconventional intellectual property spat. The Redmond giant is being dragged through the courts by a Chilean tribe known as the Mapuche Indians, who allege that Microsoft has stolen their language. One of the newest language packs for Windows XP is the Chilean language of Mapuzugun, the native tongue spoken by about 400,000 members of the Mapuche tribe. But while the Mapuches seem happy with being brought into the digital age, they have taken offence to Microsoft's alleged failure to consult with the tribal leaders over the production of the language pack. Although some Mapuches presumably aided Microsoft in the creation of the pack, the Mapuches claim that these people did not act in the best interest of the tribe. It is alleged that the leaders have been overlooked and that they should have control over their language. What appears to be the key issue is whether a language can be closed. It could be argued that all languages are open source by default.
VNUnet UK Nov 27, 2006	back to top