writes "Damage to several undersea telecom cables that caused outages across the Middle East and Asia could have been an act of sabotage, the International Telecommunication Union said on Monday.
"We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago," the UN agency's head of development, Sami al-Murshed, told AFP.
"Some experts doubt the prevailing view that the cables were cut by accident, especially as the cables lie at great depths under the sea and are not passed over by ships," Murshed said on the sidelines of a conference on cyber-crime held in Gulf state of Qatar."Link to Original Source
writes "Ten years ago, astronomers made the stunning discovery that the universe is expanding at a faster pace today than it did in the past.
"Explaining why the expansion of the Universe is currently accelerating is certainly the most fascinating question in modern cosmology," says Luigi Guzzo, lead author of a paper in this week's issue of Nature, in which the new results are presented. "We have been able to show that large surveys that measure the positions and velocities of distant galaxies provide us with a new powerful way to solve this mystery."
"This implies that one of two very different possibilities must hold true," explains Enzo Branchini, member of the team. "Either the Universe is filled with a mysterious dark energy which produces a repulsive force that fights the gravitational brake from all the matter present in the Universe, or, our current theory of gravitation is not correct and needs to be modified, for example by adding extra dimensions to space.""Link to Original Source
writes "DailyTech reports the following interesting bit of news today:
Cold fusion, the ability to generate nuclear power at room temperatures, has proven to be a highly elusive feat. In fact, it is considered by many experts to be a mere pipe dream — a potentially unlimited source of clean energy that remains tantalizing, but so far unattainable.
However, a recently published academic paper from the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (Spawar) in San Diego throws cold water on skeptics of cold fusion. Appearing in the respected journal Naturwissenschaften, which counts Albert Einstein among its distinguished authors, the article claims that Spawar scientists Stanislaw Szpak and Pamela Mosier-Boss have achieved a low energy nuclear reaction (LERN) that can be replicated and verified by the scientific community."
NewScientist is also running an article on this subject, but that article is only available for subscribers."
writes "(I'm very sorry, but personally I don't have the time at the moment to send in a more worked out scoop.. hence why I add some snippets below to give an impression of the news item.)
The world's first commercially viable quantum computer was unveiled and demonstrated today in Silicon Valley by D-Wave Systems, Inc., a privately-held Canadian firm headquartered near Vancouver.
"D-Wave's breakthrough in quantum technology represents a substantial step forward in solving commercial and scientific problems which, until now, were considered intractable. Digital technology stands to reap the benefits of enhanced performance and broader application," said Herb Martin, chief executive officer.
D-Wave overcame this challenge in part by using the processes and infrastructure associated with the semiconductor industry. This and components such as a new type of analog processor, one that uses quantum mechanics rather than the conventional physics associated with digital processing, to drive the computation.
http://www.dwavesys.com/index.php?mact=News,cntnt0 1,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=4&cntnt01origid=15&cnt nt01returnid=21"