Electricity consumption from the manufacture of artificial intelligence (AI) chips has soared by more than 350 percent worldwide between 2023 and 2024, according to new research from Greenpeace East Asia. In East Asia, the global hub for AI semiconductor production, growing electricity demand from AI chipmaking has been met primarily …
MINI radars are being used in warning systems for cars when they are being reversed and for cruise-control systems to maintain constant distances from other vehicles. Now, Thomas McEwan, an engineer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US, has designed miniature radars that, at just $10, are less …
The title would cause non-scientists to groan, "Not another harangue on equity..." Scientists might dismiss it as a bit of hackery -- how could anyone be preposterous enough to say that equity is good science? But C V Seshadri is no hack writer or blinded boffin. Despite his Carnegie Mellon …
• FARNWAY, a farmers' cooperative in northeastern England, is all set to pave the way for bio-diesel-fuelled vehicles. It plans to run its cars and lorries on bio-diesel produced from rapeseed. Farnway is not alone in the venture. It is a member of British Bio-diesel, a consortium formed by a …
SOUTH Africa's president-elect Nelson Mandela shocked environmentalists in the West when he told a Time correspondent: "My health is good ... One of these days I am going to take a gun and go and shoot, but don't tell the environmentalists!" The remark by the leader of the African National …
WHEN chief election commissioner T N Seshan announced that identity cards would be compulsory for all elections held on or after January 1, 1995, he opened up one of the largest markets in the world. With 450 million potential cards for an equal number of voters, growing by the year, …
A FRESH approach has paved the way for small and compact high energy accelerators to propel electrically charged atomic and subatomic particles such as electrons and protons. Chandrashekar Joshi, A Lal and their colleagues from the department of electrical engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles claim that …
AS IF science isn't perplexing enough to most people, here's a technology that believes not in removing hurdles but putting them up. Fortunately, "hurdle technology" seeks not to confound reason but tries to hamper the growth of bacteria and fungi whose company spoils food and, like other technologies, is aimed …
INFORMATION is power. "Information highways" serve as economic channels for world trade now, just as the sealanes, railways and roads were the foundation of trade and commerce in times past. Small wonder, then, that -- like wealth -- its distribution is skewed; it is the economically-deprived who are also the …
A NEW type of safety catch will prevent children from accidentally triggering firearms. The US Department of Justice and the Pentagon are jointly developing "smart" guns that will fire only when held by their legitimate user (New Scientist, Vol 142, No 1921). Smart guns become operational only when sensors embedded …
ALTHOUGH many believe that he was shortchanged by the mandarins of the Indian technological and scientific establishment, Sam Pitroda still retains a concern for Indian S&T.; He was at his avuncular best last fortnight at the 7th foundation day celebrations of the Pune-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), …
THE draft new technology policy (NTP), which the government circulated in 1993 for feedback, lacks clarity, sets some inappropriate priorities and does not adequately address how goals can be achieved, says a recent survey. Some 600 scientists and engineers responded to questionnaires sent out by the Delhi-based National Institute of …
FINANCE minister Manmohan Singh has turned his back on International Monetary Fund-imposed financial discipline and given India a growth-oriented budget that pushes for further globalisation of the economy. But, given the high fiscal deficit and inflationary trends, there may be many pitfalls ahead. The budget stresses rapid technological advancement, opens …
VITAL Signs responds to the need for information on the trends that are reshaping our world. It surveys 42 global indicators, such as the decline in per capita availability of food and water, economic recession over the past two years, increasing water scarcity and the population increase to outline the …
INDIA'S long history of excellence in science and technology is well known. There are several examples of Indian products -- not just textiles and spices -- that other civilisations admired for a long time. In AD 662, Syrian astronomer-monk Severus Sebokht wrote of the knowledge of the Hindus, "...of their …
DR COMPUTER As scholars expounded on the significance of traditional sciences, a computer in the pandal outside prescribed lifestyles to the more practical-minded. The diagnostic system was a software called Prakruthi, devised by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). Based on the principles of Ayurveda, the system fires …
TECHNOLOGY is essential for improved living and working conditions. However, women -- especially those in rural areas -- are often denied access to technology because of discrimination and lack of adequate information. For instance, rural women spend many hours away from home collecting firewood. If the women were provided energy …
WOMEN have craved for diamonds and men have killed for them. The industrial revolution and the early economic development of the world would not have been possible without coal. Now, fullerenes -- the third form of carbon discovered only in 1985 -- promise exciting new applications from catalysis to superconductors. …
Imagine a gear only three hairs wide. Difficult? Not for Paul Christensen, president of Potomac Photonics Inc of Maryland, USA, who carved a miniscule gear into a flat diamond surface using a laser (Science, Vol 261, No 5129). The gear is about 300 microns (three hair-widths) across with a dozen …
• Investors have been flocking to timber-based businesses in Malaysia, where timber related stocks are being traded at high prices. This is a result of a combination of strong timber prices and a comparative scarcity of timber-related listings on the Kuala Lumpur stock market. • Japanese electronics firms are looking …
During the release of a commemorative volume on 35 Years of Indo-US Collaboration in Science and Technology, Union minister for science and technology P R Kumaramangalam sprang a surprise. In the presence of US assistant secretary for oceans and scientific affairs Elinor Constable, he criticised the US for "denying high-technology …
