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The BMW Welt was designed by architects Coop Himmelb[l]au in five thematic blocks: Hall, Premiere, Forum, Tower, and Double Cone, where areas have been reserved for car production, exhibition space, restaurants, shops, and even a business center. Coop Himmelb[l]au, not unfamiliar with designing large and complex spaces, developed a totally integrated and ecologically friendly air system combining both low and high tech methods to create optimal air circulation.

The multifunctional Hall, which sits as the centre point of the complex, was designed as a solar-heated, naturally ventilated sub-climatic area, removing the normal requirements for building heating and ventilation. Instead, a natural air supply is generated by thermal currents, wind pressure and turbulences when air accumulates in the area of the façade and roof projection. Air intake and outflow take place through automatically controlled and strategically placed vents providing the Hall with all its air needs.

The system proves to be especially beneficial to the Premiere section where BMW Welt produces its cars, and which directly opens up to the Hall. Because of the intensive exhaust gases that are released during the delivery process, and the subsequent energy heavy regulation typically required for air cleanup, the system was further fine-tuned to adjust the volume of air intake and outflow and to extract the exhaust fumes directly and pump in fresh air. A considerable feat given that BMW assumes a turnover of about 40 cars per hour, for a total of 250 cars per day.

On top of all this, the Forum, Tower and Double Cone are definitively public spaces, and have specially incorporated air systems to meet the comfort needs of their occupants while utilizing natural ventilation when possible.

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It has been more than 35 years since they were first used on a chewing gum packet, but they are going to be replaced by radio-frequency technology (Rfid), which uses radio waves to codify and store data in transponders. The EPC (Electronic Product Code) uses a chain of numbers to identify the label, product and an exclusive serial number for each article. This chain of numbers will be recorded on the Rfid chip sticker. Experts consider it a “revolution for selling places, businesses and homes around the world.” This was the message transmitted at the Innovation & EPC Forum celebrated in Málaga (Spain).

Rfid labels contain a chip that send a radio signal with a unique unrepeatable identifier which will be read as the article is intercepted by the reception antennae. It will be possible to send the information read by these antennaes to the EPCglobal network and compare any database. Among other things, it will also be possible to manage an on-line stock, verify replacement positions or misplaced articles, know customer preferences and obtain unlimited complementary information associating the EPC number to a database.

The EPC will allow a precise follow-up on each product without the need of visual contact, as with barcodes. This way, stores will be able to know each product’s moves and, if it was lost, at which precise moment, thanks to the simultaneous reading of all of the transported and delivered products in each movement.

Seven hundred firms have become familiarized with the Rfid technology’s mode of operating at the non-profit Aecoc/GS1 Spain testing center in Barcelona.

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The United States NAE has made public a list of which would be the main engineering challenges in the 21st century. Here are the 14 challenges:

• Reaching the goal of making solar energy accessible
• Supplying energy from fusion
• Developing methods for capturing carbon dioxide
• Managing nitrogen cycle problems
• Supplying access to drinking water
• Restoring and improving urban infrastructures
• Advancing in computer catalogs in health
• Designing better medicines
• Reverse-engineering the brain
• Preventing nuclear terror
• Protecting cyberspace
• Enriching virtual reality
• Advancing in personalized learning
• Designing tools for scientific discovery

Within these challenges is human learning and artificial intelligence, which awakens a great interest in the general public. Delving into the functioning of the brain will help the development of artificial intelligence, while at the same time new medicines should be developed to check the expansion of new viruses and dangers of terrorist origin. Also, the consequences of natural disasters will have to be confronted and the infrastructures of cities and services will have to be renovated, preserving the fragile ecological equilibrium.

Robert Socolow pointed out that this list has been elaborated in part so that the public could be aware of it and could understand to what point investments in science and engineering can improve human life.

DualBIOS was already present in some Gigabyte motherboards but only on the high-end models. Today all motherboards will enjoy this technology, which gives the motherboard the true QUAD experience. This technology includes Dual BIOS and the Express BIOS Rescue Technology, a combination that gives a security mechanism that contains four copies of BIOS distributed between Flash ROM, hard drive and the CD driver.

This technology isn’t new. Gigabyte used it for the first time in 1999. It’s a very easy system: two ROM chips are used for the motherboard’s BIOS. The main one is the one that is habitually used, while the other one is a copy that will enter automatically into action when the main one fails or isn’t capable of turning on.

After a refreshing of failed BIOS or after that extreme overclock session in which the motherboard refuses to start, the motherboard won’t be left useless.

Experiments with blind octopus suggested that these are capable of locating the sounds produced by boats or by tapping on a tank. However, Hong Young Yan, a sensory physiologist of the Taiwan National Academy of Science in Taipei, discovered that octopus and squid could be using another organ called the statocyst – sacs that contain a mineralized mass and sensory hairs – to register sounds.

The team of scientists had to overcome many obstacles during their research. For example, the common way of proving that an organism can hear is by measuring how its nervous system responds electrically to sound. But this can require attaching electrodes directly on the exposed nerves, a procedure that could damage the delicate molluscs.

The next step, Yan said, would be to investigate what types of sounds cephalopods can hear.

Stem cells are cells that have the capacity to self-renovate through mitotitic cell division or to continue differentiating according to its programming and, thus, producing cells of one or more mature, functional and completely differentiated tissues depending on their degree of multipotency.

The mensechymal cells extracted from umbilical cords, dental pulp or adipose tissue can differentiate to turn into muscular, osseous or cartilage cells, as opposed to stem cells. But according to the research report, mensechymal cells extracted from the Fallopian tubes could be isolated and multiplied through in vitro procedures with the capacity of turning into muscular, adipose and osseous cells.

Tatiana Jazedje, head of the scientific team, said, “Besides providing another potential source of regenerative medicine, the results of this study could contribute to reproductive science in general.”

The designs are matchless: Their principal weapons are colors, innovative fabrics, and traditional manufacturing. There are three boutiques and four franchises at the moment, although Yokana’s expansion plan is to reach a network of 50 stores before 2011. In exchange, franchise-holders will receive provisions such as a works and interior design project or direction for corresponding jobs, among other things.

Stores:
C\ José del Toro, 11 - 11004 - Cádiz
C\ Sancho IV El Bravo, 7 - 11380 - Tarifa - Cádiz
C\ Cabrales Nº 27 bajo - 33201 - Gijón - Asturias
C\ Reyes Católicos, 35 - 18001 - Granada
C\ Jorge Juan, 12 (Callejón) - 28001 - Madrid

Web: Yokana

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The great mountain ranges of the world possess very special characteristics: They develop in areas with climatic conditions that are different than those of the surrounding areas, principally, greater precipitations (snow), greater solar radiation, greater thermal oscillations between day and night, and stronger winds. The high mountain environment is very hostile for the development of life. Only some plant and animal species that are adapted to these conditions in a major way are capable of surviving. Most of these species populated much wider areas during the last glacial period and slowly withdrew toward the mountains as the temperature of the planet increased. For this reason, the high mountain ecoysystems could be the most affected by global warming. If the temperature increased notably, the plants and animals that populate the mountains would virtually have nowhere to go, nowhere to “keep going up,” which could cause the extinction of a good percentage of them.

The Montseny is a small mountainous massif located to the northeast of Barcelona that constitutes the area of transition between the warmer and dryer atmosphere of the Mediterranean and the colder and more human (Atlantic) of the north of Spain and the west of Europe. According to this research, from 1945, the altitudinal limit of the plant species of the representative Atlantic areas of this mountain range had increased by several dozens of meters (70 in the case of the Haya), while others had disappeared.

Last week a team of Austrian scientists published the results of a study that took place in several areas of the Dolomite Alps (Italy) and arrived at the same conclusion. In only five years, the richness of the species has increased in more in elevated areas than in the inferior sub-levels or in the areas bordering the tree line, an even lower level. The increase of the number of species found in the higher areas is due to the apparition of species that are more characteristic of the lower levels (species belonging to the higher areas have only arrived to the highest peak). In the tree line areas, while the number of species hasn’t increased, the abundance of trees and bushes has.

Wong made the discovery public in a discourse titled “Protein Glycosylation: New Challenges and Opportunities” during the 12th International Symposium of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America (SCBA) that closes today. The biochemist expert stated that his research team had discovered that most flu viruses use glycoprotein to prevent their detection by the immune system. Additionally, this team has created a molecular vaccine that eliminates the glycoproteinic mask, which allows the immune system to detect and eliminate the virus.

The vaccine would not be available on the market until 10 years from now, as until now it has only been tested on animals, Wong said. The vaccine would be effective for several years, unlike current flu vaccines that need to be renewed every year.

“It can be used to fight a great variety of virus,” said the expert. Taiwan has the technology for the development and commercialization of this vaccine, which could revolutionize protection against flu viruses.

I120IConventional electronic chips are made of a small piece of silicon, which is made by cooling pure melted silicon that then solidifies into a crystal. These plates are chemically “doped” with impurities to improve their ability to conduct electricity.

The type of impurities affects the direction of the electrical charge. However, the weakness of the silicon chips is that they are very sensitive to heat. This is a factor that makes the use of fans and other cooling elements necessary, which in turn limits the future miniaturization of computers.

The physics Yulin Chen and Zhi-Xun Shen tested the behavior of the electrons on bismuth telluride, the previously mentioned compound. The results, published in the last online edition of Science Express, show a clear signature of what is called a topological insulator, a material capable of encouraging the free flow of electrons on its surface without losing energy. The advance is more significant since these researchers have proved that capacity at room temperature.