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Ubuntu List of releases, End of life date,

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List of releases

End of life

Version	Code name	Docs	Release date	End of life date
Ubuntu 13.10	Saucy Salamander	Rel	October 17, 2013	July 17, 2014
Ubuntu 13.04	Raring Ringtail	Rel	April 25, 2013	January 27, 2014
Ubuntu 12.10	Quantal Quetzal	Tech / Rel	October 18, 2012	May 16, 2014
Ubuntu 11.10	Oneiric Ocelot	Tech / Rel	October 13, 2011	May 9, 2013
Ubuntu 11.04	Natty Narwhal	Tech / Rel	April 28, 2011	October 28, 2012
Ubuntu 10.10	Maverick Meerkat	Tech / Rel	October 10, 2010	April 10, 2012
Ubuntu 10.04	Lucid Lynx (Desktop)	Changes	February 16, 2012	May 9, 2013
Ubuntu 9.10	Karmic Koala	Tech / Rel	October 29, 2009	April 30, 2011
Ubuntu 9.04	Jaunty Jackalope	Tech / Rel	April 23, 2009	October 23, 2010
Ubuntu 8.10	Intrepid Ibex	Rel	October 30, 2008	April 30, 2010
Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS	Hardy Heron (Server)	Changes	January 28, 2010	May 9, 2013
Ubuntu 8.04.3 LTS	Hardy Heron	Changes	July 16, 2009
Ubuntu 8.04.2 LTS	Hardy Heron	Changes	January 22, 2009
Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS	Hardy Heron	Hardy Heron	July 3, 2008
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS	Hardy Heron	Hardy Heron/Rel	April 24, 2008
Ubuntu 8.04	Hardy Heron (Desktop)	Rel	April 24, 2008	May 12, 2011
Ubuntu 7.10	Gutsy Gibbon	Rel	October 18, 2007	April 18th, 2009
Ubuntu 7.04	Feisty Fawn	Rel	April 19, 2007	October 19, 2008
Ubuntu 6.10	Edgy Eft	Rel	October 26, 2006	April 26, 2008
Ubuntu 6.06.2 LTS	Dapper Drake (Server)		January 21, 2008	June 1, 2011
Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS	Dapper Drake		August 10, 2006
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS	Dapper Drake	Rel	June 1, 2006
Ubuntu 6.06	Dapper Drake (Desktop)	Rel	June 1, 2006	July 14, 2009
Ubuntu 5.10	Breezy Badger	Rel	October 12, 2005	April 13, 2007
Ubuntu 5.04	Hoary Hedgehog		April 8, 2005	October 31, 2006
Ubuntu 4.10	Warty Warthog		October 26, 2004	April 30, 2006

Current

Version	Code name	Docs	Release date	End of life date
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS	Trusty Tahr	Changes	July 24, 2014	April 2019
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS	Trusty Tahr	Rel	April 17, 2014	April 2019
Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS	Precise Pangolin	Changes	February 6, 2014	April 2017
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS	Precise Pangolin	Changes	August 23, 2013
Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS	Precise Pangolin	Changes	February 14, 2013
Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS	Precise Pangolin	Changes	August 24, 2012
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS	Precise Pangolin	Tech / Rel	April 26, 2012
Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS	Lucid Lynx	Changes	February 16, 2012	May 9, 2013 (Desktop) April 2015 (Server)
Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS	Lucid Lynx	Changes	July 21, 2011
Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS	Lucid Lynx	Changes	February 18, 2011
Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS	Lucid Lynx	Changes	August 17, 2010
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS	Lucid Lynx	Tech / Rel	April 29, 2010

Science and Physics: Physicists discuss quantum pigeonhole principle..!

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The pigeonhole principle: "If you put three pigeons in two pigeonholes at least two of the pigeons end up in the same hole." So where's the argument? Physicists say there is an important argument. While the principle captures the very essence of counting, the investigators said that they showed that in quantum mechanics it is not true.

Science writers reporting on the physicists' findings heard resonance with that other blogger-comment favorite, Schrödinger's cat. They suggested that those mulling over counterintuitive implications of quantum physics now have one more animal-related paradox to think about, in the form of pigeons, if any, found in pigeonholes. Physics World on Friday referred to "paradoxical pigeons" as the latest quantum conundrum. Scientists identified the paradox involving quantum pigeons; specifically, they have posed their findings on what the team calls the "quantum-pigeonhole effect." According to the team, when you put three pigeons in two pigeonholes, it is possible for none of the pigeons to share a hole. They found instances when three quantum particles, they wrote, put in two boxes "yet no two particple are in the same box."

The team from California and colleagues in Israel, Italy and the UK are authors of the paper, "The quantum pigeonhole principle and the nature of quantum correlations," by Y. Aharonov, F. Colombo, S. Popescu, I. Sabadini, D.C.Struppa, and J. Tollaksen. The research is described on the arXiv preprint server.

"It's one of those things that seem to be impossible," said co-author Jeff Tollaksen, physics professor at Chapman University, in Physics World, but it is a consequence of quantum mechanics.

"In conclusion," said the authors," we presented a new quantum effect that requires us to revisit some of the most basic notions of quantum physics—the notions of separability, of correlations and of interactions."

Science and Tech: World’s Largest Wind-Solar Hybrid Installation Unveiled In Jamaica

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The world's largest hybrid renewable energy project to date was recently commissioned on the rooftop of the Myers, Fletcher, & Gordon (MFG) law firm in Kingston, Jamaica. Developed by WindStream Technologies, the landmark urban installation consists of 50 WindStream SolarMill units to harness available wind and solar resources.

The SolarMill is a new distributed energy technology consisting of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWT), solar panels and proprietary "smart" electronics. The energy generated by each SolarMill can either be used off grid with a storage system or inverted for use in grid-tied applications. Occupying the roof space, about the size of a solar panel, each SolarMill provides the highest energy density currently available in the renewable market.

The installation is said to generate over 106,000 kWh of renewable energy annually, (25 kW of wind and 55 kW of solar) with a return on investment (ROI) of less than four years. Over the course of the projected 25-year life span, the energy cost savings are expected to exceed $2 million. WindStream competed for and was awarded the project for its ability to maximize energy production and ROI within the confines of limited roof space.

"This was a bold undertaking and we expect to reap rich rewards through our partnership with WindStream," says Donovan Cunningham, COO of Myers Fletcher & Gordon.

The MFG SolarMill installation is a part of a larger effort by Jamaica Public Service (JPS) to provide greater access to renewable energy solutions in a country where the cost of energy is over three times the U.S. average. JPS and WindStream also collaborated with Eaton Houghton of Caribbean ESCO as the Caribbean's lead energy efficiency auditor for the project.

"The SolarMill installation is an excellent model for other businesses to follow," says Travis Campbell, COO of WindStream Technologies. "If you are interested in energy efficiency and saving money, SolarMills are a simple, cost-effective solution."

source: http://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2014/07/worlds-largest-wind-solar-hybrid-installation-unveiled-jamaica/

Science and Tech: Turning a smart phone into a high-resolution microscope ,Scientist almost threw away new superlens

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An Australian National University scientist has discovered a simple, cheap way of turning a smart phone into a high-resolution microscope, opening the door to a revolution in science and medicine in developing countries.

SOURCE:

Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/user/ANUchannel

Science and Tech: New material puts a twist in light

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New material puts a twist in light

David Powell twisting light. Credit: ANU

Science and Tech :Li-fi protocol allows use of the internet at the speed of light

in internet, internet speed, Li-fi protocol - on 04:32 - No comments

Li-fi protocol allows use of the internet at the speed of light

Sisoft Company in Mexico has developed a technology that can illuminate a large work space, an auditorium or an office, while providing full mobile internet to every device that comes into the range of the light spectrum.

The Mexican group managed to transmit audio, video and Internet across the spectrum of light emitted by LED lamps. This new technology, called Li-Fi or light fidelity, is presented as an alternative to Wi-Fi because it will maximize the original provided speed of the internet to offer safer data transfer and a transfer rate of up to 10 gigabytes per second.
The Li-Fi device circulates data via LEDs that emit an intermittent flicker at a speed imperceptible to the human eye. "As Wi-Fi uses cables to spread our connections, wireless transmission Li-Fi uses LED lamps that emit high brightness light", said Arturo Campos Fentanes, CEO of Sisoft in Mexico.

read more at http://phys.org/news/2014-07-li-fi-protocol-internet.html#ajTabs

Science and Tech: Future electronics may depend on lasers, not quartz

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Vahala's new laser frequency reference (left) is a small 6 mm disk; the quartz "tuning fork" (middle) is the frequency reference commonly used today in wristwatches to set the second. The dime (right) is for scale. Credit: Jiang Li/Caltech

Nearly all electronics require devices called oscillators that create precise frequencies—frequencies used to keep time in wristwatches or to transmit reliable signals to radios. For nearly 100 years, these oscillators have relied upon quartz crystals to provide a frequency reference, much like a tuning fork is used as a reference to tune a piano. However, future high-end navigation systems, radar systems, and even possibly tomorrow's consumer electronics will require references beyond the performance of quartz.

Now, researchers in the laboratory of Kerry Vahala, the Ted and Ginger Jenkins Professor of Information Science and Technology and Applied Physics at Caltech, have developed a method to stabilize microwave signals in the range of gigahertz, or billions of cycles per second—using a pair of laser beams as the reference, in lieu of a crystal.

Quartz crystals "tune" oscillators by vibrating at relatively low frequencies—those that fall at or below the range of megahertz, or millions of cycles per second, like radio waves. However, quartz crystals are so good at tuning these low frequencies that years ago, researchers were able to apply a technique called electrical frequency division that could convert higher-frequency microwave signals into lower-frequency signals, and then stabilize these with quartz.

The new technique, which Vahala and his colleagues have dubbed electro-optical frequency division, builds off of the method of optical frequency division, developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology more than a decade ago. "Our new method reverses the architecture used in standard crystal-stabilized microwave oscillators—the 'quartz' reference is replaced by optical signals much higher in frequency than the microwave signal to be stabilized," Vahala says.

Science and Tech: Test of Einstein's equivalence principle searches for effects of spin-gravity coupling

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Test of equivalence principle searches for effects of spin-gravity coupling

Experimental configuration to test the equivalence principle, in which two strontium isotopes are laser-cooled and trapped in a vertical optical lattice. Credit: Tarallo, et al. ©2014 American Physical Society

Einstein's equivalence principle states that an object in gravitational free fall is physically equivalent to an object that is accelerating with the same amount of force in the absence of gravity. This principle lies at the heart of general relativity and has been experimentally tested many times. Now in a new paper, scientists have experimentally demonstrated a conceptually new way to test the equivalence principle that could detect the effects of a relatively new concept called spin-gravity coupling.

The study, by M. G. Tarallo, et al., is published in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

"Testing the equivalence principle, or the equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass, means testing the validity of one of the fundamental principles of general relativity," coauthor Guglielmo Tino, Professor at the University of Florence, INFN, told Phys.org. "In our experiment, we use a quantum sensor to investigate gravitational interaction; this allowed us to search for new effects."

As the researchers explain, there are a variety of ways to test the equivalence principle. These methods include studying the motion of moons and planets, the use of torsion balances, and—more recently—atom interferometry.

In the new study, the researchers have for the first time tested the equivalence principle by comparing the gravitational interaction for a bosonic particle to that of a fermionic particle. For the purpose of the experiment, the important difference between the two particles is that the bosonic particle (a strontium-88 isotope) has no spin, while the fermionic particle (a strontium-87 isotope) has a half-integer spin.

In order to determine how the differences in spin might affect a particle's gravitational interaction, the researchers performed tests to measure each isotope's acceleration due to gravity. These tests consist of confining atomic wave packets in a vertical laser standing wave, and then using a quantum effect involving delocalization to measure the effects of gravity. The new method improves the measurement precision by more than an order of magnitude over previous methods.

The results of the experiments enabled the researchers to set an upper limit of 10^-7 on the boson-to-fermion gravitational constant ratio. The researchers also searched for a dependence of gravity acceleration of strontium-87 isotope on the spin direction, but found no evidence for it.

"There are theoretical models predicting that spin and gravity should couple; that is, depending on its spin a particle should behave in different ways in a gravitational field," Tino said. "We found no evidence for that. Since we compared an atom with spin with one without spin, this is a rather stringent test. Also, in our experiment one atom is a boson and the other is a fermion and, again, we found no difference in their behavior in a gravitational field."

The results could have future applications in connection with optical clocks made of strontium, which have already demonstrated impressive stability and accuracy. In the future, it may also be possible to perform an experiment in space using a strontium optical clock and a strontium interferometer to perform stringent tests of general relativity and gravity.

"Our result reported in this paper, as well as the one we recently published on the measurement of the gravitational constant with atoms (G. Rosi, et al.), shows the great potential of quantum sensors based on ultracold atoms and atom interferometry to investigate gravity," Tino said. "We want to try new schemes to increase the sensitivity of the atom interferometer; this would allow us to perform still more stringent tests and search for new effects."

source and ref: http://phys.org/news/2014-07-equivalence-principle-effects-spin-gravity-coupling.html

Science and Physics: Moore's law, a definition, a review ,

in chemistry, Moore's Law, physics - on 02:13 - No comments

Moore's law is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. The law is named after Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, who described the trend in his 1965 paper.
His prediction has proven to be accurate, in part because the law is now used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning and to set targets for research and development.

Gordon Moore in 2004

The term "Moore's law" was coined around 1970 by the Caltech professor, VLSI pioneer, and entrepreneur Carver Mead in reference to a statement by Gordon E. Moore.

Transistor Count and Moore's Law - 2011

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#mediaviewer/File:Transistor_Count_and_Moore%27s_Law_-_2011.svg

Science Update: Fundamental photoresist chemistry findings could help extend Moore's Law

in chemistry, latest, Moore's Law, photoresist chemistry, physics - on 02:00 - No comments

When low concentrations of crosslinker are added to the resist (left), it is able to pattern smaller features and doesn't require longer, expensive exposures as with a high concentrations of crosslinker (right). Credit: Prashant Kulshreshtha, Berkeley Lab

(Phys.org) —Over the years, computer chips have gotten smaller thanks to advances in materials science and manufacturing technologies. This march of progress, the doubling of transistors on a microprocessor roughly every two years, is called Moore's Law. But there's one component of the chip-making process in need of an overhaul if Moore's law is to continue: the chemical mixture called photoresist. Similar to film used in photography, photoresist, also just called resist, is used to lay down the patterns of ever-shrinking lines and features on a chip.

Now, in a bid to continue decreasing transistor size while increasing computation and energy efficiency, chip-maker Intel has partnered with researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) to design an entirely new kind of resist. And importantly, they have done so by characterizing the chemistry of photoresist, crucial to further improve performance in a systematic way. The researchers believe their results could be easily incorporated by companies that make resist, and find their way into manufacturing lines as early as 2017.
The new resist effectively combines the material properties of two pre-existing kinds of resist, achieving the characteristics needed to make smaller features for microprocessors, which include better light sensitivity and mechanical stability, says Paul Ashby, staff scientist at Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry, a DOE Office of Science user facility. "We discovered that mixing chemical groups, including cross linkers and a particular type of ester, could improve the resist's performance." The work is published this week in the journal Nanotechnology.
Finding a new kind of photoresist is "one of the largest challenges facing the semiconductor industry in the materials space," says Patrick Naulleau, director of the Center for X-ray Optics (CXRO) at Berkeley Lab.

read more http://phys.org/news/2014-07-fundamental-photoresist-chemistry-law.html

Science News: Earth's Magnetic Field Is Weakening 10 Times Faster Now

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Earth's magnetic field, which protects the planet from huge blasts of deadly solar radiation, has been weakening over the past six months, according to data collected by a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite array called Swarm.

The biggest weak spots in the magnetic field — which extends 370,000 miles (600,000 kilometers) above the planet's surface — have sprung up over the Western Hemisphere, while the field has strengthened over areas like the southern Indian Ocean, according to the magnetometers onboard the Swarm satellites — three separate satellites floating in tandem.

The scientists who conducted the study are still unsure why the magnetic field is weakening, but one likely reason is that Earth's magnetic poles are getting ready to flip, said Rune Floberghagen, the ESA's Swarm mission manager. In fact, the data suggest magnetic north is moving toward Siberia.

Science And Tech: Rainwater discovered at new depths

in discover, latest, physics, water - on 00:18 - No comments

In the southern Alps, rain and snow falling on the mountains percolate to great depths. Credit: Simon Cox

University of Southampton researchers have found that rainwater can penetrate below the Earth's fractured upper crust, which could have major implications for our understanding of earthquakes and the generation of valuable mineral deposits.

It had been thought that surface water could not penetrate the ductile crust - where temperatures of more than 300°C and high pressures cause rocks to flex and flow rather than fracture - but researchers, led by Southampton's Dr Catriona Menzies, have now found fluids derived from rainwater at these levels.
Fluids in the Earth's crust can weaken rocks and may help to initiate earthquakes along locked fault lines. They also concentrate valuable metals such as gold. The new findings suggest that rainwater may be responsible for controlling these important processes, even deep in the Earth.
Researchers from the University of Southampton, GNS Science (New Zealand), the University of Otago, and the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre studied geothermal fluids and mineral veins from the Southern Alps of New Zealand, where the collision of two tectonic plates forces deeper layers of the earth closer to the surface.

read more at http://phys.org/news/2014-07-rainwater-depths.html

The team looked into the origin of the fluids, how hot they were and to what extent they had reacted with rocks deep within the mountain belt.