When we looked at a new kind of memory from IBM called MRAM last August, we had no idea anything would come of it less than a year later. According to Toshiba, its work on magnetoresistive random-access memory is ready to bear fruit in the shape of postage stamp-sized 1 gigabit MRAM chips that are almost ready to replace the currently common DRAM. Instant boot up MRAM improves on DRAM by operating more quickly and holding data even when the power supply to it is turned off, meaning it uses only around 10 per cent as much electricity. Moreover, an MRAM-based computer would be able to boot up instantly. Toshiba’s researchers have been able to overcome the vulnerability of MRAM to heat fluctuations by using a technique similar to that of IBM called spin-RAM, which manipulates the memory’s magnetic polarity using electric currents. Considering that DRAM sales in 2006 were worth over £16 billion, the impact of a replacement technology is guaranteed to be substantial. Current projections from Toshiba see MRAM taking over around 2015.
The Senate began what is expected to be a weeklong, contentious debate Monday over legislation to combat global warming by mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Senators voted 74-14 to proceed to the bill, but immediately it became clear Republican opponents were not going to make it easy. A request by Democrats to begin considering substantive changes in the bill was blocked by GOP opponents until Wednesday at the earliest. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada promised a thorough debate that will probably last through the week, if not longer. He said it’s clear that ‘global warming is real’ and Congress must act. But supporters of the bill acknowledged it will be difficult - perhaps impossible - to overcome a certain GOP filibuster threat against the legislation, meaning congressional action on global warming will probably be decided in the next Congress and by the next president. Many of the GOP senators who voted to debate the issue have said they are opposed to the bill. The Senate measure, which has wide Democratic and some Republican support, would cap U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, cutting them by 18 […]
Wealthy countries will be pressed to reverse two decades of declining farm aid to poor nations at the biggest meeting of world leaders to address surging food costs. The World Food Security summit starting today in Rome attracted about 35 government leaders, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who are seeking to ensure that the highest commodity prices in three decades don’t swell further the ranks of the world’s 860 million hungry people. A 60 percent increase in food prices since the beginning of 2007 has sparked riots in more than 30 countries — including Cameroon and Egypt — that depend on imported food. The wealthiest nations pledged $6.3 billion in emergency aid last year, yet critics say that will do little unless accompanied by policies that promote greater output. ‘The main message from the meeting in Rome will be that there has to be a new policy for stimulating agricultural development in developing countries and there has to be money to back it,” said Brian Gardner, director of U.K.-based Food Policy International. “But the big question is whether there will be money to back it.” United Nations Secretary-General […]
The number of young adults without health insurance rose again in 2006, so 38 percent of high school graduates and 34 percent of college graduates will spend some time uninsured in the year after graduation, a new report shows. ‘We’ve been tracking this since 2003, and every year we’ve done the study, the number of uninsured has grown,’ said report co-author Sara Collins, an assistant vice president at the Commonwealth Fund. There were 13.7 million Americans aged 19 to 29 without health insurance in 2006, up from 13.3 million in 2005, according to the latest federal data, the report said. ‘There are a couple of transition periods when you turn 19,’ Collins said. ‘Many health insurance programs won’t cover you as a child, and also when you graduate from college.’ Public programs such as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program end coverage at the age of 19. ‘Voluntary employer-provided insurance is tied to the ability to get a job, and the jobs available to young people tend to be those that don’t carry benefits,’ Collins said. While young people are less likely to need health care, ‘they do use the health-care system,’ she […]
BAKER, LA. — Curtis Westbrook cut a lonely figure as he sat outside his trailer this week, chain-smoking as workmen hauled another empty trailer away. He had already loaded all of his belongings — a television and some dishes and clothes — into his white Jeep Cherokee. But he was not sure how far the old Jeep would make it. With the motor mounts broken, he had rigged the engine on wooden sticks. In any case, he was not sure where to go. He had barely a day to meet the deadline to vacate the Renaissance Village trailer park, and he didn’t know whether he could pay $400 a month for an apartment in nearby Baton Rouge. So he just sat there, waiting. Westbrook, 53, is one of hundreds of residents across the Gulf Coast struggling to leave trailer parks by today. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, pressed by reports of potentially hazardous formaldehyde levels in trailers, is rushing to close its last six emergency trailer parks by the first day of hurricane season. FEMA says that no one will be kicked out of their trailer parks if they haven’t found a place to stay. With […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
