Physicists have created a working transistor using only a single phosphorus atom placed precisely in a silicon crystal.

The development could mark a big step towards quantum computing. While single-atom transistors have been produced before, it’s been by chance, with researchers either searching through many devices or tuning multi-atom devices to isolate one that works.

‘But this device is perfect’, says Professor Michelle Simmons, group leader and director of the ARC Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication at the University of New South Wales.

‘This is the first time anyone has shown control of a single atom in a substrate with this level of precise accuracy.’

The device even has tiny visible markers etched onto its surface so researchers can connect metal contacts and apply a voltage.
‘Our group has proved that it is really possible to position one phosphorus atom in a silicon environment – exactly as we need it – with near-atomic precision, and at the same time register gates,’ says UNSW research fellow Dr Martin Fuechsle.

The team used a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) to see and manipulate atoms at the surface of the crystal inside an ultra-high vacuum chamber. Using a lithographic process, they patterned phosphorus atoms into functional devices on […]

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It’s not very often that people who work to prevent overdose deaths get excited about something truly groundbreaking. It’s not often we get to point to something that could actually play a significant role in helping to end our country’s rapidly escalating overdose crisis. But Thursday we did.

Thursday, the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) concluded that expanded access to a generic drug called naloxone could play a role in helping to reduce opioid overdose fatalities. The research, led by the Harm Reduction Coalition, reveals that over the past 15 years, an estimated 10,000 opiate overdoses have been successfully reversed with naloxone by people present at the scene of an overdose.

With all the media around the death of Whitney Houston, many people have been talking about the tragedy of accidental drug overdose and wishing for more proven, cost-effective ways to prevent it. While we won’t know for a while what caused Houston’s death, we do know, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that the type of drug most likely to be involved in a fatal drug overdose in the US is a prescription opioid painkiller, like oxycodone.

Naloxone hydrochloride (also called Narcan), is a generic, relatively […]

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Over in France, a farmer has successfully sued Monsanto for pesticide poisoning. The farmer claims he suffered a raft of neurological troubles after inhaling the agrochemical giant’s Lasso herbicide while cleaning his sprayer in 2004. The court’s ruling against Monsanto ‘could lend weight to other health claims against pesticides,’ according to Reuters.

All very interesting, but what caught my eye was this background bit toward the end of the story:

France, the EU’s largest agricultural producer, is now targeting a 50 percent reduction in pesticide use between 2008 and 2018, with initial results showing a 4 percent cut in farm and non-farm use in 2008-2010.

Wait, France has a national policy in place to slash pesticide use within less than a decade? That’s news to me. So I did a little digging and found that back in 2008, the French government rolled out a plan called Ecophyto 2018 in response to the European Union’s 2006 Sustainable Use Directive, which called for all EU countries to concoct national policies on cutting pesticide use. Ecophyto sets an ambitious agenda for French agriculture: to meet the pesticide-reduction target while maintaining production levels.
The herbicide atrazine turned a male frog female. Is it […]

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A frigid wind is blowing from Pennsylvania Avenue to National Weather Service offices all over the country.

President Barack Obama is calling to slash $39 million dollars or four percent from National Weather Service, a part of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Under his budget plan, it would get $872.2 million in fiscal year 2013 – down from $911 million.

This is the second year in a row the National Weather Service is in the eye of the federal budget cut storm.

The National Weather Service narrowly escaped getting hit last year after President Barack Obama fought House Republicans to keep the funding. In fact, it got a net increase of three million dollars.

But this time, the downburst is coming from the White House. It’s expected to put 96 jobs on the chopping block.

NOAA Spokesperson Scott Smullen said President Obama’s proposal is an administration-wide effort to find IT efficiencies and savings across all federal agencies.

To comply, NOAA wants to ‘consolidate

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Studies have already found Monsanto’s toxic herbicide Roundup in groundwater, in streams, and even in the rain and air of US agricultural areas. It’s been found in our blood and even crosses the placental barrier to enter our unborn fetuses. So are we surprised that a German university study has now found significant concentrations of Roundup’s main ingredient glyphosate in the urine of city dwellers?

Perhaps we should be surprised at the amount: all the samples had concentrations of glyphosate at 5 to 20 times the limit for drinking water.

Roundup is used on railway lines, urban pavements, and roadsides. It’s used to dry down grain crops before harvest. But the single greatest use of Roundup is on genetically engineered ‘Roundup Ready’ crops – designed not to die when sprayed with the poison.

Wouldn’t it be good if we too were Roundup Ready, so we wouldn’t get sick or die due to the virtually omnipresent toxin? After all, studies now link it to birth defects, endocrine disruption, cancer, and abnormal sperm.

As Roundup is a best-selling product worldwide and there are massive profits hanging on its continued use, the new testing initiative has fallen prey to the usual attempts at disinformation, distortion, and intimidation. […]

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