Friday 28 June 2013

NET GLEANINGS 026

New fibre-optic technology can increase bandwidth dramatically:
'...1.6 terabits per second, the equivalent of transmitting eight Blu-Ray DVDs every second.'

Two carcinogens present at 'safe' levels double the risk of cancer:

1977 and still going--Voyager spacecraft have almost left the solar room:
'Data from Voyager 1, now more than 18 billion kilometres from the sun, suggest the spacecraft is closer to becoming the first human-made object to reach interstellar space (for the metrically-challenged that's 11 billion miles).
'Research using Voyager 1 data and published in the journal Science today provides new detail on the last region the spacecraft will cross before it leaves the heliosphere, or the bubble around our sun, and enters interstellar space. Three papers describe how Voyager 1's entry into a region called the magnetic highway resulted in simultaneous observations of the highest rate so far of charged particles from outside heliosphere and the disappearance of charged particles from inside the heliosphere.
'Scientists have seen two of the three signs of interstellar arrival they expected to see: charged particles disappearing as they zoom out along the solar magnetic field, and cosmic rays from far outside zooming in. Scientists have not yet seen the third sign, an abrupt change in the direction of the magnetic field, which would indicate the presence of the interstellar magnetic field.'