You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Streaming music service TuneIn is already one of your favorite streaming music services, but today the service introduced TuneIn Live, a new feature that offers personalized music and station suggestions based on the type of music you enjoy.
For example, if you use TuneIn to listen to specific types of talk radio, or really love a certain artist and favorite all of their songs, TuneIn Live will show you other stations around the globe that feature that artist (or similar ones) in heavy rotation, or other stations that specialize in that type of talk radio. The team behind TuneIn note they have over 70,000 stations, so Live will help you find new stations you'll enjoy that you normally would never uncover on your own. Best of all, even free TuneIn accounts will be able to make use of it.
TuneIn's site has also recently been redesigned, and sports a new "trending" section where you can see what other users are listening to right now, whether it's a specific radio program, a new artist, or a sporting event being broadcast live. The service is already a great way to stream internet and terrestrial radio stations from around the globe wherever you are, the new TuneIn Live feature is available now on the web and in the iPad app. Live will come to the iPhone and Android soon.
Feb. 27, 2013 ? In experiments mimicking a natural environment, Duke University researchers have demonstrated that the silver nanoparticles used in many consumer products can have an adverse effect on plants and microorganisms.
Fifty days after scientists applied a single low dose of silver nanoparticles, the experimental environments produced about a third less biomass in some plants and microbes.
These preliminary findings are important, the researchers said, because little is known about the environmental effects of silver nanoparticles, which are found in textiles, clothing, children's toys and pacifiers, disinfectants and toothpaste.
"No one really knows what the effects of these particles are in the environment," said Benjamin Colman, a post-doctoral fellow in Duke's biology department and a member of the Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEINT).
"We're trying to come up with the data that can be used to help regulators determine the risks to the environment from silver nanoparticle exposures," Colman said.
Previous studies have involved high concentrations of the nanoparticles in a laboratory setting, which the researchers point out, doesn't represent "real-world" conditions.
"Results from laboratory studies are difficult to extrapolate to ecosystems, where exposures likely will be at low concentrations and there is a diversity of organisms," Colman said.
Silver nanoparticles are used in consumer products because they can kill bacteria, inhibiting unwanted odors. They work through a variety of mechanisms, including generating free radicals of oxygen which can cause DNA damage to microbial membranes without harming human cells.
The main route by which these particles enter the environment is as a by-product of sewage treatment plants. The nanoparticles are too small to be filtered out, so they and other materials end up in the resulting wastewater treatment "sludge," which is then spread on the land surface as a fertilizer.
For their studies, the researchers created mesocosms, which are small, human-made structures containing different plants and microorganisms meant to represent the environment. They applied sludge with low doses of silver nanoparticles in some of the mesocosms, then compared plants and microorganisms from treated and untreated mesocosms after 50 days.
The study appeared online Feb. 27 in the journal PLOS One.
The researchers found that one of the plants studied, a common annual grass known as Microstegium vimeneum, had 32 percent less biomass in the mesocosms treated with the nanoparticles. Microbes were also affected by the nanoparticles, Colman said. One enzyme associated with helping microbes deal with external stresses was 52 percent less active, while another enzyme that helps regulate processes within the cell was 27 percent less active. The overall biomass of the microbes was also 35 percent lower, he said.
"Our field studies show adverse responses of plants and microorganisms following a single low dose of silver nanoparticles applied by a sewage biosolid," Colman said. "An estimated 60 percent of the average 5.6 million tons of biosolids produced each year is applied to the land for various reasons, and this practice represents an important and understudied route of exposure of natural ecosystems to engineered nanoparticles."
"Our results show that silver nanoparticles in the biosolids, added at concentrations that would be expected, caused ecosystem-level impacts," Colman said. "Specifically, the nanoparticles led to an increase in nitrous oxide fluxes, changes in microbial community composition, biomass, and extracellular enzyme activity, as well as species-specific effects on the above-ground vegetation."
The researchers plan to continue to study longer-term effects of silver nanoparticles and to examine another ubiquitous nanoparticle -- titanium dioxide.
CEINT's research is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Duke University. The original article was written by Richard Merritt.
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Journal Reference:
Benjamin P. Colman, Christina L. Arnaout, Sarah Anciaux, Claudia K. Gunsch, Michael F. Hochella, Bojeong Kim, Gregory V. Lowry, Bonnie M. McGill, Brian C. Reinsch, Curtis J. Richardson, Jason M. Unrine, Justin P. Wright, Liyan Yin, Emily S. Bernhardt. Low Concentrations of Silver Nanoparticles in Biosolids Cause Adverse Ecosystem Responses under Realistic Field Scenario. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e57189 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057189
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
NVIDIA back with videos showing off gaming graphics at MWC 2013 | TalkAndroid.com
NVIDIA is back on their blog today about their new Tegra 4 chips, this time with information about games primed for Tegra powered devices. Games are a great way to show off the computing power of a new chip as NVIDIA demonstrates in a couple videos from Zombie Driver and RU Golf. With more computing power, graphics can display better textures and more polygons, making for smoother results. The new Tegra 4 chip will also let game developers take advantage of features like dynamic lighting to create accurate shadows.
Along with the enhancements, NVIDIA also released some information about five games that will be released soon specifically targeted at Tegra-powered devices, including:
Burn Zombie Burn from Tick Tock Games, your typical zombie-fighting console game;
Carie: Blood Mansion from Neowiz will include an exclusive map for Tegra device users in this action adventure game. Tegra device owners will also be able to enjoy high-res textures, enhanced physics simulations and optimized fire and smoke effects;
RPG CODEX: The Warrior from Devclan and Playbean is an action/fighting title in which the player is battling a variety of monsters. The title will take advantage of real-time dynamic shadows and HDR lighting;
Dead on Arrival 2 from N3V Games, another game pitting the player against zombies, this one taking advantage of high-res models;
RU Golf from Nutgee takes the Tegra platform to a different genre where the cartoon/anime graphics take advantage of dynamic specular lighting, shadows, bloom and lens flare effects.
You can check out the comparisons between the current capabilities of Tegra devices compared to the new Tegra 4 chips in the videos below. Be sure to check back for more MWC 2013 coverage.
source: NVIDIA
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She's a Harvard-educated lawyer, former university administrator, and self-declared "mom-in-chief" who has made headlines with both her policy platforms and her fashion choices. But how much do you really know about the first lady??
- Ryan Lenora Brown,?Contributor
Question 1 of 25
1. Which of the following is NOT true of Michelle Obama?s childhood?
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Westport - There have been countless news articles about children interacting with potential predators. Parents and guardians have had to rely on web browser functions and Internet features, but new software has become more powerful to monitor web activity. Although some parents have been criticized as being overprotective, the statistics published by the Crimes Against Children Research Center (CACRC) and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children (CMEC) are rather telling:
- One in five teenagers who regularly use the Internet say they receive unwanted sexual solicitation
- Three-quarters of children are willing to share personal information on the Internet
- 25 percent of children who have encountered sexual solicitation online don?t tell their parents
- More than three-quarters of targets for online predators are 14 years of age or older
- Another 25 percent of children have made contact with pornographic material
It is a dangerous world and potential pedophiles, owners of prostitution rings and predators utilize several websites to gain access to young demographics, such as Facebook and Twitter. This has dramatically changed from the days of predators using online chat rooms, as depicted in the hit NBC show ?To Catch a Predator.?
John Whitaker, special agent in charge of Georgia Bureau of Investigation's Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit, told USA Today that ?there is no real way for parents to monitor it all.? With innovations in technology, parents, children, businesses, public departments and other individuals and entities no longer have to be victims of Internet breaches. WebWatcher, found in 2002, is the latest company that has been recognized as one of the top remote monitoring software on the Internet and can be used by anyone. Its features allow users to see messages, keystrokes, screenshots, visited websites and a lot more in real-time from anywhere in the world. It offers real-time alerts and triggers of questionable activity directly to your email, which is available for Microsoft Windows and Apple MAC OS X. WebWatcher, based in Westport, Connecticut, also maintains software for smartphones. WebWatcher Mobile employs the same type of online security and user interface and permits account holders access to emails, phone calls, text messages and other aspects available for Android and BlackBerry devices. For those who store important and sensitive data on laptops, another top feature is its Laptop Cop. This capability protects owners if the laptop is lost or stolen. It gives users the advantage of retrieving, restoring, locking down and geolocating the laptop. All of these functions can be accessed by any web browser in the world. The entire process takes five minutes to complete: download and install, record and transmit and access and review. WebWatcher is invisible on the monitored devices and all of the activity, whether it be screenshots, call logs or instant messages (IMS), is sent to the online account and can be accessed at any place and any time. PCMag.com awarded WebWatcher an Editors? Choice, while it also was an About.com winner, a top pick of Well Research Reviews and Inc. 500?s 2011 fastest growing companies in the United States. It has been featured on Fox News and NBC and in Forbes magazine. In a world where personal data has been public and hacking has become the norm, Internet security has become the forefront of Internet and computer innovations.
Relying on videos of the meteor as it streaked across the sky over the Ural mountains, a pair of Colombian astronomers say they have reconstructed the space rock's orbit.
By Eoin O'Carroll,?Staff / February 26, 2013
This dashcam video frame grab shows a meteor streaking across the sky of Russia?s Ural Mountains earlier this month.
Nasha gazeta/www.ng.kz/AP/File
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A duo of Colombian scientists say they have reconstructed the orbit of the meteor that exploded earlier this month over?Chelyabinsk, Russia.?
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition
This is a virtual exploration of th epreliminary orbit computed by Zuluaga & Ferrin (2013). Scientific details can be found at arxiv:1302.5377
Relying on videos of the meteor from?Chelyabinsk's Revolutionary Square?and in the nearby city of Korkino, astronomers Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin at the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, triangulated the speed and position of the meteorite as it fell to Earth.
Zuluaga and?Ferrin's?conclusion rests on the assumptions that a 20-foot hole in the ice of?Lake Chebarkul was caused by a fragment of the meteor, and that this fragment was traveling along the same trajectory as its parent body. Divers have yet to find a meteorite in the lake.?
The pair were inspired by blogger Stefan Geens, who analyzed video of the shadows cast by light poles in?Revolutionary Square as the blazing meteor passed overhead. Using simple trigonometry, Geens estimated the path of the meteor, noticing that it squared nicely with an image of the meteor's contrail that just happened to have been picked up by a European weather satellite.?
In a paper published online at arXiv.org,?Zuluaga and?Ferrin took Geen's analysis further, using a gravitational analysis to reconstruct the path of the rock going back four years before impact. Their analysis indicates that the meteor was one of the Apollo asteroids, a class of space rocks whose elongated orbits occasionally cross that of our planet. There are about 5,200 known Apollo asteroids, the largest of them being 1866 Sisyphus, a six-mile wide rock discovered in 1972. Sisyphus is comparable in size to the impactor thought to have caused a global extinction event some 66 million years ago, ending the age of the dinosaurs.?
In an effort to prevent a repeat of this sort of event, European Space Agency officials announced a plan to smash a spacecraft into an Apollo asteroid?in 2022?to alter its orbit, just for practice. The target of the joint European/US Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment mission, a rock named?65803 Didymos, poses no threat to our planet in the?foreseeable?future, unless of course the mission goes seriously wrong and Didymos is knocked into our path.??
Pain isn't always a pain. Sometimes it can actually feel good.
People experience pleasure during a painful stimulus if the stimulus turns out to be less bad than they were expecting, new research suggests.
"It is not hard to understand that pain can be interpreted as less severe when an individual is aware that it could have been much more painful," said study co-author Siri Leknes, a psychologist at the University of Oslo in Norway, in a statement. "Less expected, however, is the discovery that pain may be experienced as pleasant if something worse has been avoided."
The findings were published in the March issue of the journal Pain.
Too hot
To see how people perceived pain, Leknes and her colleagues hooked 16 participants up to a device that applied a variable level of painful heat to their arms. At the same time, the researchers measured their brain activity using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.
In the first setting, participants experienced a series of either a slightly painful stimulus ? about as painful as grasping a slightly too hot cup of coffee ? or no pain.
In a second setup, the participants experienced a series of either moderate or intense pain. On a screen, the participants could see what type of pain was coming up next in the series.
In the first scenario, the participants rated the moderate pain as unpleasant.
What a relief
But interestingly, participants rated the moderate pain as actually pleasurable in the second setup, when the alternative was the intense pain. During the moderate stimulus in the second setup, participants' brain activity also showed less activation in the pain region of the brain (the brain stem) and more activation in a region in the middle of the frontal lobes that's associated with pain relief and pleasure than during the same stimulus in the first setup.
"The likely explanation is that the subjects were prepared for the worst and thus felt relieved when they realized the pain was not going to be as bad as they had feared," Leknes said in a statement. "In other words, a sense of relief can be powerful enough to turn such an obviously negative experience as pain into a sensation that is comforting or even enjoyable."
The finding could shed light on why some people experience the burn of hot chili peppers or?painful sex?as pleasurable.
Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter @tiaghose or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook?& Google+.?
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
You certainly don't have to look very hard to find articles and blog posts on gluten and its purported association with a variety of health issues such as obesity, heart disease, arthritis, and non-celiac gluten sensitivity. While I don't really doubt that some people without celiac disease might legitimately be affected by gluten, I think the discussion around gluten and it's non-celiac ill effects have now crossed the line into fad.?Wheat Belly,?a diet book authored by cardiologist William Davis,?is currently the #2 best selling health and fitness book on Amazon, which advocates eliminating wheat entirely from our diets, whole grain or not, largely based upon the premise that modern wheat is nothing like what our grandparents used to eat, and so it must be connected to these growing problems, much less the increased prevalence of celiac disease. Big Ag, essentially, has manipulated the genes of this staple beyond recognition, and the unintended consequences are vast and dire, amounting to "the most powerful disruptive factor in the health of modern humans than any other". While I haven't read the book, I'm familiar with a lot of the arguments it makes, and how they are perceived in the general public, especially the contention that Davis is referring to GMO wheat, which does not exist on the market. Unfortunately it's pretty difficult to find a good, genuine science-based take on it. To paraphrase Keith Kloor, the majority of what you'll find only has the veneer of science. When I was in high school, and as an undergrad in the humanities, writing a research paper meant I started with a thesis statement and found evidence to support whatever it was I wanted to advocate for. In science-based medicine, you test a hypothesis by conducting a randomized control trial if possible, and ultimately by finding all available published reports and presenting the entire story (systematic review), or by combining the statistical analysis of multiple studies into a single large study (meta-analysis). This is not a subtle difference. Wheat Belly?is a prime example of the former, which is not necessarily a bad thing, per se. People can make a compelling argument ?without a systematic review, but it is not acceptable as a last word in medicine, health, or nutrition, period. While there may be evidence to support the idea, it's easy to minimize or even completely overlook evidence to the contrary, especially since you're not really making a point to look for it. It seems pretty obvious that the discussion around wheat could use a little objectivity.
Take a look at this pretty balanced article recently published by the New York Times on the increasing diagnoses of celiac disease.
BLAME for the increase of celiac disease sometimes falls on gluten-rich, modern wheat varietals; increased consumption of wheat, and the ubiquity of gluten in processed foods.
Yet the epidemiology of celiac disease doesn?t always support this idea. One comparative study involving some 5,500 subjects yielded a prevalence of roughly one in 100 among Finnish children, but using the same diagnostic methods, just one in 500 among their Russian counterparts.
Differing wheat consumption patterns can?t explain this disparity. If anything, Russians consume more wheat than Finns, and of similar varieties.
Neither can genetics. Although now bisected by the Finno-Russian border, Karelia, as the study region is known, was historically a single province. The two study populations are culturally, linguistically and genetically related. The predisposing gene variants are similarly prevalent in both groups.
The article goes on to suggest that exposure to different microbial environments is the biggest factor, but it's rather apparent that we have can't just point to a simple answer. The world is a complex place, our bodies are complex, nutrition and health are complex. This is pretty much what you'd expect, right?
Now take a look at some of the massive coverage on the recent randomized control trial showing significant cardiovascular benefits to the Mediterranean diet. Here's a good analysis from The Harvard School of Public Health. The Mediterranean diet arm of the study were encouraged to liberally use olive oil, eat seafood, nuts, vegetables, and whole grains, including a specific recommendation that pasta could be dressed with sofrito (garlic, tomato, onions, and aromatic herbs). The control diet this ended up favorably compared to was quite similar, but specifically geared toward being low-fat. Both were discouraged from eating red meat, high-fat dairy products like cream and butter, commercially-produced bakery goods, and carbonated beverages.
The largest differences between the two diets centered around discouraging vegetable oils, including olive oil, and encouraging 3 or more pasta or starchy dishes per day in the control group. To me, this suggests that Wheat Belly?lives in that sweet spot for widespread dissemination of being easily actionable, having some evidence to support it so that you get some good anecdotes and positive results, but is vastly oversimplified and not suitable or necessary for everyone. Remember, the Wheat Belly diet implicates even organic whole grains as being irredeemably manipulated. It's a completely wheat free diet, because modern wheat is the greatest negative factor in human health. Based on an actual experiment of almost 7,500 people, we have strong evidence that it's the amount?of wheat people eat that is problematic. You can eat some whole grains daily and still vastly decrease your risk of heart disease and obesity as long as you don't eat them 3 or more times a day.
The appendix to the NEJM study indicates that some of the patients in the control diet complained about bloating and fullness, but nothing similar from the Mediterranean diet group. The implications seem fairly obvious: there is little basis to make a draconian decision to completely eliminate something with proven health benefits such as whole grains from your diet unless you genuinely suffer from celiac disease. If you're interested in losing weight, think maybe you have gluten sensitivity, or just want to eat healthier, try something like this diet first, and definitely don't put your gluten free diet pamphlets in my child's take-home folder at school. That wasn't cool.
ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) ? The venue for talks on Iran's nuclear program between world powers and Tehran carries a symbolism that Western negotiators will hope serves as a positive omen.
In the 1990s, Kazakhstan, a sprawling former Soviet republic, gave up a huge nuclear stockpile and now wants to capitalize on its nonproliferation track record by offering to host a bank of reactor fuel that would remove the need for countries, namely Iran, to enrich uranium for themselves.
That may be one proposal under consideration at this week's talks in Kazakhstan's commercial capital, Almaty, between Iran and six world powers ? five permanent U.N. Security council members and Germany ? on Tehran's controversial nuclear program.
Iran insists it is not working on a nuclear weapons program, but rather is enriching uranium only to make reactor fuel and for scientific and medical purposes, as allowed by international law.
But many nations are suspicious because Iran went underground after failing to get international help for its uranium enrichment program in the 1980s, working secretly until its activities were revealed a decade ago. More recent proposals for international shipments of reactor fuel in exchange for Iranian enrichment concessions have foundered, with each side blaming the other.
Kazakhstan will not be involved in the talks that start Tuesday, and are expected to last for two days.
Kazakhstan's willingness to dispense with its once formidable arsenal in large part was born out of its grim legacy as a nuclear weapon testing site in Soviet times. Some critics say, however, that Kazakhstan's vocal trumpeting of its nonproliferation record is designed to act as a smoke screen for its lack of democratic freedoms.
Amid the Soviet Union's collapse, the Central Asian nation unexpectedly found itself holding more than a thousand strategic nuclear warheads and 370 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, becoming the world's first predominantly Muslim-populated nuclear power.
Within a day of Kazakhstan declaring independence in 1991, Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat flew into Almaty in a visit that alarmed Western diplomats. Weeks later, Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev visited Pakistan, but officials ruled out cooperation on nuclear technology.
A former foreign minister of Kazakhstan last year claimed that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was yet another hopeful buyer snubbed by Kazakhstan.
Instead of responding to the overtures of Muslim partners in its neighborhood, including Iran, Kazakhstan sought help to divest itself of its powerful inheritance.
Its warheads were transferred to Russia by 1995, and the removal of highly enriched uranium stocks from a secret Soviet-built facility was done with U.S. assistance.
That process was inspired by Kazakhstan's recent history.
From 1949 to 1989, the bare flatlands of northern Kazakhstan were the site for 456 nuclear tests ? 116 of them above ground ? that affected an area the size of Arizona and populated by some 1.5 million people.
"The damage on our environment has been so serious that scientists believe it will take centuries to restore to normality," Nazarbayev said in a 2009 speech marking the 20th anniversary of the final test.
But even as Kazakhstan got rid of its nuclear arsenal, suspicions lingered.
U.S. officials investigated claims that Iran had secured components for nuclear weapons from Kazakhstan but turned up no evidence. Kazakhstan said only that it had been approached by Iran in the early 1990s for the purchase of low-enriched uranium, but not for weapons-grade material.
Since 2009, Kazakhstan has been putting itself forward as the potential host for a nuclear fuel bank to be operated under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Nazarbayev appealed to Tehran in a New York Times op-ed piece in March 2012 to eschew its pursuit for nuclear power status.
"Kazakhstan's experience shows that nations can reap huge benefits from turning their backs on nuclear weapons," Nazarbayev wrote.
Iranian diplomats are on record as supporting the fuel bank initiative, but little concrete progress has been made, prompting many observers to cast doubt on Tehran's insistence that it is not developing nuclear technology for military ends.
The fuel bank "should be a complete answer to Iran's concerns ? the fact that it is not indicates that the Iranian interest is not fuel supply but something else," said John Carlson, an adviser to the Washington D.C.-based Nuclear Threat Initiative.
The oil-rich nation's strategic geographical position abutting Russia and China, while fostering warm ties with Europe and the United States, have necessitated a nuanced diplomatic approach.
Kazakhstan and its neighboring former Soviet Central Asian nations are ambivalent toward the West's pressure on Iran, which make them useful intermediaries for Tehran. Speaking to Russian reporters in 2011, Nazarbayev insisted on pursuing diplomacy to solve questions surrounding Iran's nuclear program.
"If we talk about the Iranian nuclear program, then why don't we talk about the same program in Pakistan, and why not talk about Israel, which does in fact have nuclear weapons?" he said.
In neighboring Kyrgyzstan, the government has said it will not renew the lease on a U.S. air transit facility there used for military operations in Afghanistan when it expires in 2014 because, among other reasons, it fears that it could be subject to retaliation should Iran be attacked.
Countries in the region also have economic interests at stake. Turkmenistan, which shares a 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) land border with Iran, was delivering an average 1 billion cubic feet (30 million cubic meters) of natural gas daily to Iran between July 2011 and June 2012, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration figures.
Cultural ties and growing investment from Iran into Persian-speaking Tajikistan have also served well to secure Tehran another potential ally.
Central Asia expert Sebastien Peyrouse said in a paper published last year that countries in region feel in any event secure that they would not be target of Iranian nuclear attacks.
"They believe that if Iran got this capability, it would not use it against them. Iran as a state and a nation is highly respected in Central Asia, and there is no feeling of distrust towards a long-term partnership with it," Peyrouse wrote.
It's been over a year since rumors and statements suggested Samsung's Bada OS was due to be terminated, but that some form of it would live on within the open-source Tizen OS. Now, Samsung exec Won-Pyo Hong has confirmed as such with Korean news agency Yonhap. Rather than a complete fusion of the two, Tizen will select only the best qualities of the featurephone-friendly Bada for assimilation. Samsung's Tizen 2.0-based handsets arriving in 2013 will put the final nail in Bada's coffin, but out of respect for its fallen comrade, Tizen will obligingly run apps designed for the retired OS. Like some kind of mobile software Highlander, Tizen is now drawing power from several perished peers, and has even set its sights on the mighty Android. There can be only one.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) ? Mozilla, the non-profit foundation behind the popular Firefox Web browser, is getting into phones. But it's not stopping at Web browsers ? it's launching an entire phone operating system.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based foundation said Sunday that phones running Firefox OS will appear this summer, starting in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela.
The Firefox OS will land in a crowded environment, where many small operating systems are trying to become the "third eco-system," alongside Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Together, those two account for 91 percent of smartphone sales, according to research firm IDC.
Mozilla Foundation has an ally in phone companies, who are interested in seeing an alternative to Apple and Google, particularly one coming from a non-profit foundation. Thirteen phone companies around the world have committed to supporting Firefox phones, Mozilla said, including Sprint Nextel in the U.S., though it gave no time frame for a release. Other supporters include Telecom Italia, America Movil of Mexico and Deutsche Telekom of Germany. DT is the parent of T-Mobile USA, but plans to sell Firefox phones first in Poland.
Phone makers that plan to make Firefox phones include Huawei and ZTE of China and LG of Korea. The first devices will be inexpensive touchscreen smartphones.
All the phones will run on chips supplied by San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc., whose CEO Paul Jacobs appeared at Mozilla's press event Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, on the eve of the world's largest cellphone trade show.
The industry has seen various attempts to launch "open" smartphone operating systems, with little success. Jay Sullivan, vice president of products at Mozilla, said these failed because they were designed "by committee," with too many constituents to please. While developing and supporting the Firefox browser, Mozilla has learned to develop large-scale "open" projects effectively, he said.
He also said that putting quality third-party applications on Firefox phones will be easy, because they're based on HTML 5, an emerging standard for Web applications.
"Firefox OS has achieved something that no device software platform has previously managed - translating an industry talking shop into a huge commitment from both carriers and hardware vendors at its commercial launch," said Tony Cripps an analyst at research firm Ovum. "Neither Android nor Symbian ? the closest benchmarks in terms of broad industry sponsorship that we've previously seen ? have rallied the level of support that Firefox OS has achieved so early in its development."
(Updates with details of injuries) Feb 23 (Reuters) - At least 12 fans and one driver were injured after a wreck at the Daytona Speedway on Saturday when car debris flew into the crowd near the end of the Nationwide NASCAR race. A hospital official at Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, told the Daytona News Journal that 11 spectators were being treated in the emergency room, with two of them critically injured. Four of the fans were on trauma alert and five were being treated as non-trauma cases, the newspaper reported. ...
Laser mastery narrows down sources of superconductivityPublic release date: 24-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Justin Eure jeure@bnl.gov 631-344-2347 DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
MIT and Brookhaven Lab physicists measure fleeting electron waves to uncover the elusive mechanism behind high-temperature superconductivity
UPTON, NY Identifying the mysterious mechanism underlying high-temperature superconductivity (HTS) remains one of the most important and tantalizing puzzles in physics. This remarkable phenomenon allows electric current to pass with perfect efficiency through materials chilled to subzero temperatures, and it may play an essential role in revolutionizing the entire electricity chain, from generation to transmission and grid-scale storage. Pinning down one of the possible explanations for HTSfleeting fluctuations called charge-density waves (CDWs)could help solve the mystery and pave the way for rapid technological advances.
Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have combined two state-of-the-art experimental techniques to study those electron waves with unprecedented precision in two-dimensional, custom-grown materials. The surprising results, published online February 24, 2013, in the journal Nature Materials, reveal that CDWs cannot be the root cause of the unparalleled power conveyance in HTS materials. In fact, CDW formation is an independent and likely competing instability.
"It has been difficult to determine whether or not dynamic or fluctuating CDWs even exist in HTS materials, much less identify their role," said Brookhaven Lab physicist and study coauthor Ivan Bozovic. "Do they compete with the HTS state, or are they perhaps the very essence of the phenomenon? That question has now been answered by targeted experimentation."
Custom-grown Superconductors
Electricity travels imperfectly through traditional metallic conductors, losing energy as heat due to a kind of atomic-scale friction. Impurities in these materials also cause electrons to scatter and stumble, but superconductors can overcome this hurdleassuming the synthesis process is precise.
For this experiment, Bozovic used a custom-built molecular beam epitaxy system at Brookhaven Lab to grow thin films of LaSrCuO, an HTS cuprate (copper-oxide) compound. The metallic cuprates, assembled one atomic layer at a time, are separated by insulating planes of lanthanum and strontium oxides, resulting in what's called a quasi-two-dimensional conductor. When cooled down to a low enough temperatureless than 100 degrees Kelvinstrange electron waves began to ripple through that 2D matrix. At even lower temperatures, these films became superconducting.
Electron Sea
"In quasi-two-dimensional metals, low temperatures frequently bring about interesting collective states called charge-density waves," Bozovic said. "They resemble waves rolling across the surface of a lake under a breeze, except that instead of water, here we actually have a sea of mobile electrons."
Once a CDW forms, the electron density loses uniformity as the ripples rise and fall. These waves can be described by familiar parameters: amplitude (height of the waves), wavelength (distance between waves), and phase (the wave's position on the material). Detecting CDWs typically requires high-intensity x-rays, such as those provided by synchrotron light sources like Brookhaven's NSLS and, soon, NSLS-II. And even then, the technique only works if the waves are essentially frozen upon formation. However, if CDWs actually fluctuate rapidly, they may escape detection by x-ray diffraction, which typically requires a long exposure time that blurs fast motion.
Measuring Rolling Waves
To catch CDWs in action, a research group at MIT led by physicist Nuh Gedik used an advanced ultrafast spectroscopy technique. Intense laser pulses called "pumps" cause excitations in the superconducting films, which are then probed by measuring the film reflectance with a second light pulsethis is called a pump-probe process. The second pulse is delayed by precise time intervals, and the series of measurements allow the lifetime of the excitation to be determined.
In a more sophisticated variant of the technique, largely pioneered by Gedik, the standard single pump beam is replaced by two beams hitting the surface from different sides simultaneously. This generates a standing wave of controlled wavelength in the film, but it disappears rapidly as the electrons relax back into their original state.
This technique was applied to the atomically perfect LaSrCuO films synthesized at Brookhaven Lab. In films with a critical temperature of 26 degrees Kelvin (the threshold beyond which the superconductivity breaks down), the researchers discovered two new short-lived excitationsboth caused by fluctuating CDWs.
Gedik's technique even allowed the researchers to record the lifetime of CDW fluctuationsjust 2 picoseconds (a millionth of a millionth of a second) under the coldest conditions and becoming briefer as the temperatures rose. These waves then vanished entirely at about 100 Kelvin, actually surviving at much higher temperatures than superconductivity.
Ruling out a Suspect
The researchers then hunted for those same signatures in cuprate films with slightly different chemical compositions and a greater density of mobile electrons. The results were both unexpected and significant for the future of HTS research.
"Interestingly, the superconducting sample with the highest critical temperature, about 39 Kelvin, showed no CDW signatures at all," Gedik said.
The consistent emergence of CDWs would have bolstered the conjecture that they play an essential role in high-temperature superconductivity. Instead, the new technique's successful detection of such electron waves in one sample but not in another (with even higher critical temperature) indicates that another mechanism must be driving the emergence of HTS.
"Results like this bring us closer to understanding the mystery of HTS, considered by many to be one of the greatest problems in physics today," Bozovic said. "The source of this extraordinary phenomenon is slowly but surely running out of places to hide."
###
Additional collaborators on this research include Darrius Torchinsky and Fahad Mahmood of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Bollinger of Brookhaven National Lab.
The work was funded by the National Science Foundation and DOE's Office of Science.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers.
Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.
Visit Brookhaven Lab's electronic newsroom for links, news archives, graphics, and more or follow Brookhaven Lab on Twitter.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Laser mastery narrows down sources of superconductivityPublic release date: 24-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Justin Eure jeure@bnl.gov 631-344-2347 DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
MIT and Brookhaven Lab physicists measure fleeting electron waves to uncover the elusive mechanism behind high-temperature superconductivity
UPTON, NY Identifying the mysterious mechanism underlying high-temperature superconductivity (HTS) remains one of the most important and tantalizing puzzles in physics. This remarkable phenomenon allows electric current to pass with perfect efficiency through materials chilled to subzero temperatures, and it may play an essential role in revolutionizing the entire electricity chain, from generation to transmission and grid-scale storage. Pinning down one of the possible explanations for HTSfleeting fluctuations called charge-density waves (CDWs)could help solve the mystery and pave the way for rapid technological advances.
Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have combined two state-of-the-art experimental techniques to study those electron waves with unprecedented precision in two-dimensional, custom-grown materials. The surprising results, published online February 24, 2013, in the journal Nature Materials, reveal that CDWs cannot be the root cause of the unparalleled power conveyance in HTS materials. In fact, CDW formation is an independent and likely competing instability.
"It has been difficult to determine whether or not dynamic or fluctuating CDWs even exist in HTS materials, much less identify their role," said Brookhaven Lab physicist and study coauthor Ivan Bozovic. "Do they compete with the HTS state, or are they perhaps the very essence of the phenomenon? That question has now been answered by targeted experimentation."
Custom-grown Superconductors
Electricity travels imperfectly through traditional metallic conductors, losing energy as heat due to a kind of atomic-scale friction. Impurities in these materials also cause electrons to scatter and stumble, but superconductors can overcome this hurdleassuming the synthesis process is precise.
For this experiment, Bozovic used a custom-built molecular beam epitaxy system at Brookhaven Lab to grow thin films of LaSrCuO, an HTS cuprate (copper-oxide) compound. The metallic cuprates, assembled one atomic layer at a time, are separated by insulating planes of lanthanum and strontium oxides, resulting in what's called a quasi-two-dimensional conductor. When cooled down to a low enough temperatureless than 100 degrees Kelvinstrange electron waves began to ripple through that 2D matrix. At even lower temperatures, these films became superconducting.
Electron Sea
"In quasi-two-dimensional metals, low temperatures frequently bring about interesting collective states called charge-density waves," Bozovic said. "They resemble waves rolling across the surface of a lake under a breeze, except that instead of water, here we actually have a sea of mobile electrons."
Once a CDW forms, the electron density loses uniformity as the ripples rise and fall. These waves can be described by familiar parameters: amplitude (height of the waves), wavelength (distance between waves), and phase (the wave's position on the material). Detecting CDWs typically requires high-intensity x-rays, such as those provided by synchrotron light sources like Brookhaven's NSLS and, soon, NSLS-II. And even then, the technique only works if the waves are essentially frozen upon formation. However, if CDWs actually fluctuate rapidly, they may escape detection by x-ray diffraction, which typically requires a long exposure time that blurs fast motion.
Measuring Rolling Waves
To catch CDWs in action, a research group at MIT led by physicist Nuh Gedik used an advanced ultrafast spectroscopy technique. Intense laser pulses called "pumps" cause excitations in the superconducting films, which are then probed by measuring the film reflectance with a second light pulsethis is called a pump-probe process. The second pulse is delayed by precise time intervals, and the series of measurements allow the lifetime of the excitation to be determined.
In a more sophisticated variant of the technique, largely pioneered by Gedik, the standard single pump beam is replaced by two beams hitting the surface from different sides simultaneously. This generates a standing wave of controlled wavelength in the film, but it disappears rapidly as the electrons relax back into their original state.
This technique was applied to the atomically perfect LaSrCuO films synthesized at Brookhaven Lab. In films with a critical temperature of 26 degrees Kelvin (the threshold beyond which the superconductivity breaks down), the researchers discovered two new short-lived excitationsboth caused by fluctuating CDWs.
Gedik's technique even allowed the researchers to record the lifetime of CDW fluctuationsjust 2 picoseconds (a millionth of a millionth of a second) under the coldest conditions and becoming briefer as the temperatures rose. These waves then vanished entirely at about 100 Kelvin, actually surviving at much higher temperatures than superconductivity.
Ruling out a Suspect
The researchers then hunted for those same signatures in cuprate films with slightly different chemical compositions and a greater density of mobile electrons. The results were both unexpected and significant for the future of HTS research.
"Interestingly, the superconducting sample with the highest critical temperature, about 39 Kelvin, showed no CDW signatures at all," Gedik said.
The consistent emergence of CDWs would have bolstered the conjecture that they play an essential role in high-temperature superconductivity. Instead, the new technique's successful detection of such electron waves in one sample but not in another (with even higher critical temperature) indicates that another mechanism must be driving the emergence of HTS.
"Results like this bring us closer to understanding the mystery of HTS, considered by many to be one of the greatest problems in physics today," Bozovic said. "The source of this extraordinary phenomenon is slowly but surely running out of places to hide."
###
Additional collaborators on this research include Darrius Torchinsky and Fahad Mahmood of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Anthony Bollinger of Brookhaven National Lab.
The work was funded by the National Science Foundation and DOE's Office of Science.
DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers.
Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.
Visit Brookhaven Lab's electronic newsroom for links, news archives, graphics, and more or follow Brookhaven Lab on Twitter.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Actress Jessica Chastain arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Invision/AP)
Actress Jessica Chastain arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Invision/AP)
Actress Jennifer Lawrence arrives at the 85th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)
Actress Quvenzhane Wallis arrives at the 85th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)
Actress Zoe Saldana arrives at the 85th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)
Amy Adams arrives at the 85th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)
Forget Jessica Chastain vs. Jennifer Lawrence. The most heated contest on the Oscars red carpet could be the one between Giorgio Armani and Dior Haute Couture.
Giorgio Armani could claim some big wins: the designer dressed Chastain, Naomi Watts and Quvenzhane Wallis on Sunday night. Dior dressed Lawrence and Charlize Theron ? both are spokesmodels ? who hit it right in white.
Chastain, in a glistening copper-tone strapless gown with mermaid hem, looked like an old-world glamorous movie star, especially with her oversized vintage Harry Winston diamond earrings and bright red lipstick.
"I chose it because to me it was a throwback to old Hollywood," she said. "It's a very 'Happy birthday, Mr. President' dress."
Watts wore a gunmetal beaded gown with a geometric cutout on the bodice, also by Armani.
Quvenzhane (kwuh-VEHN'-juh-nay), with a silver headband in her hair and carrying a bedazzled puppy purse, wore an Armani Junior navy-blue dress with black, navy and silver jewels scattered on the skirt and a big bow on the back. She had another Armani dress, a pink one, ready for the afterparty. "I liked it because it was sparkly and puffy."
Lawrence was the belle of the ball in a white-and-pale pink strapless gown with fitted bustier and poufy hemline, sophisticated pulled-back hair, diamond-ball earrings and a delicate long necklace that hung down in back. Theron was sleek in an angular strapless dress with a fashion-right peplum and a buzz-cut hairdo.
Christos Garkinos, longtime red-carpet watcher and owner of Decades vintage store in Los Angeles, said, "You could have turned the TV off right when Charlize Theron came on. She was perfect."
The more interesting chatter, however, could be about the Jane Fondas and Sally Fields of the world. Fonda wore bright taxicab yellow Versace and Sally Field was in bright red.
"Women of a certain age almost gave the feeling that the older you get, the bolder you get," Garkinos said.
Hal Rubenstein, editor at large of InStyle magazine, was pretty impressed by 86-year-old Emmanuelle Riva in Lanvin. "Jane Fonda looks amazing because she's Jane Fonda, but Emmanuelle Riva was so elegant."
Another look that had people talking was Anne Hathaway's pale pink Prada dress. Rubenstein called the dress and Tiffany & Co. necklace "an Audrey Hepburn moment."
Garkinos wasn't as kind. Thanks to some awkwardly placed darts in the bust, he said it was more like Gwyneth Paltrow's big Academy Awards moment, when she wore a lovely Ralph Lauren pink dress but the fit wasn't quite right.
Hathaway, before the show, said her dress with a seemingly sweet vibe but with a strategically open back and sexy sides, was a last-minute choice. "It fit my mood and place where I'm at right now."
It almost seemed there were two routes to the red carpet, said Rubenstein: incredibly beaded and eye-catching, worn by Nicole Kidman in L'Wren Scott, Halle Berry in Versace, and Stacy Keibler in Naeem Khan; or a simple color with a great silhouette. He puts Lawrence, Reese Witherspoon in a strapless royal-blue Louis Vuitton gown with a black strip at the bustline and Jennifer Aniston in a Valentino red strapless gown in that camp.
"For some, there was a pull back to not do a lot, and that's where fashion is as well," Rubenstein said.
Amanda Seyfried's metallic halter dress by Alexander McQueen with a keyhole opening was three months in the making, and Berry said she trusted Donatella Versace to dress her like the Bond girl that she has been on the big screen. She ended up in a silver beaded-and-black gown with long sleeves and V neck.
Jennifer Hudson's shiny, second-skin blue Roberto Cavalli almost looked like an animal print.
Kristen Stewart had on an even paler blush gown; hers a hand-beaded strapless with tulle inserts by Reem Acra. She accentuated her gown with a 19th-century Fred Leighton necklace with 91 graduated diamonds.
Jennifer Garner chose a violet-colored Gucci with cascading ruffles in the back. Her 200-carat diamond-and-dark platinum necklace from the Neil Lane archives was a big statement.
Beaded gowns had a strong presence, worn by Sandra Bullock, in a fully embroidered Elie Saab; Renee Zellweger, in sleek Carolina Herrera; and Adele in Jenny Packham. Catherine Zeta-Jones was statuesque in an all-gold Zuhair Muhad. Queen Latifah's white V-neck tank dress by Badgley Mischka had a lot of sparkle on the straps.
Salma Hayek's midnight-blue velvet Alexander McQueen gown had a gold embellished collar, and she carried a gold skull box clutch.
Helen Hunt wore a little bit of her conscience along with her blue column gown. It was from fast-fashion retailer H&M. She chose it because it was both accessible and because the company has launched a substantial green initiative. She did wear it, however, with hundreds of thousands of dollars of borrowed jewels.
For the men, the trend was beards, with George Clooney, Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones, among them.
___
Associated Press Writer Beth Harris contributed to this report.
(3)NE/NW College Prep had three players in double figures in a 53-46 win over (6)Pal-Mac in the Class B1 quarterfinals Saturday at School 33.
Chad Cole and Tony Wright had 11 points apiece for College Prep and Breon Johnson added ten. The Panthers led 17-5 after the first quarter, but had to hold on against a tough Red Raider team.
Mitch Crist led all scorers with 15 points for Pal-Mac.
College Prep will meet (2)Newark in the Class A semifinals Wednesday. The Reds pasted (7)Dansville 69-36 Saturday. Game time and site for the semis matchup is to be determined.
Columbus, one of the leading consultancy firms for Microsoft Dynamics Solutions (NAV, AX & CRM), hosted an Extended CRM (xRM) Roadshow with Microsoft for business professionals and organizations from across a cross section of industries with special ?
If you're at all interested in computing technologies, you probably find yourself asking what is a network or what exactly is a protocol? Beginners in the computer world looking to actually start working with computer networks should be building up a technical background with computer networking standards. This course is designed for those who have little to no experience in networking, but want to learn solid skills to build upon.
Lessons Lesson 1: Getting Started with networking fundamentals 00:15:14 Lesson 2: Basic networking fundamentals 00:16:34 Lesson 3: Wired Network Media 00:29:10 Lesson 4: Network Topologies 00:25:27 Lesson 5: OSI Model 00:27:35 Lesson 6: TCP/IP Communication 00:28:41 Lesson 7: IP Addressing 01:20:00 Lesson 8: TCP/IP Command Line Tools 00:37:06 Lesson 9: Name Resolution 00:36:26 Lesson 10: DHCP 00:27:09 Lesson 11: Routing 00:22:37 Lesson 12: Remote Desktop Services (RDS) 00:14:39 Lesson 13: Wireless networking 00:31:45 Lesson 14: Network Security 00:37:18 Lesson 15: IPv6 Fundamentals Lesson 16: Preparing for Your networking fundamentals (98-366) Certification Exam 00:26:49 Lesson 17: Next Steps 00:09:12
Italian media says dossier alleges clergy were 'united by sexual orientation'
Vatican has hit back at the 'false and damaging' media reports
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 22:10 EST, 22 February 2013 | UPDATED: 13:44 EST, 23 February 2013
The Vatican has rubbished Italian media reports alleging the pope's resignation is linked to a secret dossier claiming there is a 'gay network' inside the clergy.
Italian newspapers have been rife with unsourced reports claiming the secret dossier from three cardinals reveals an underground network of senior clergy who have organised gay homosexual parties and faced blackmail.
La Repubblica newspaper claims the explosive allegations were made in a report into the so-called 'Vatileaks' scandal which was presented to the Pontiff on or around December 17.
But the Vatican today accused Italian media of spreading 'false and damaging' reports in an attempt to influence cardinals who will meet in a secret conclave next month to elect a new pope.
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[caption
The report came in two volumes, 'hard-bound in red' with the title 'pontifical secret' and was compiled by Spanish cardinal, Juli?n Herranz; Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, a former archbishop of Palermo; and the Slovak cardinal Jozef Tomko.
They launched the probe after the Pope's butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and charged with stealing and leaking papal correspondence revealing how the Vatican was a centre of intrigue and infighting.
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La Repubblica claimed Pope Benedict XVI quit because could not face the repercussions of dealing with the 300-page dossier - the first Pontiff to resign in 700 years.
The paper says that the investigation alleges a gay lobby exists within the Church, and has some sort of control on the careers of those in the Vatican.
No confirmation or denial: Vatican spokesman Father Lombardi
The report is quoted as saying: 'The cardinals were said to have uncovered an underground gay network, whose members organise sexual meetings in several venues in Rome and Vatican City, leaving them prone to blackmail.
'They included a villa outside the Italian capital, a sauna in a Rome suburb, a beauty parlour in the centre, and a former university residence that was in use by a provincial Italian archbishop.'
La Repubblica says that the cardinals described a number of 'factions' in their report, including one in which individuals were 'united by sexual orientation'.
The newspaper also alleges the dossier states that members of this group were blackmailed by laymen with whom they entertain relationships of a 'worldly nature'
It quoted an unnamed source said to be close to the report's authors: 'Everything revolves around the non-observance of the sixth and seventh commandments.'
The seventh commandment forbids theft, while the sixth forbids adultery, but is linked in Catholic doctrine to the proscribing of homosexual acts, explained the Guardian.
The dossier will stay in a secret papal safe and delivered to Benedict's successor when the Pope leaves office, claims La Repubblica.
The pope himself has said merely that he doesn't have the 'strength of mind and body' to carry on and would resign Feb. 28.
The Vatican claims the reports are an attempt to influence the election of the next pope.
The Vatican secretariat of state said the Catholic Church has for centuries insisted on the independence of its cardinals to freely elect their pope - a reference to episodes in the past when kings and emperors vetoed papal contenders or prevented cardinals from voting outright.
'If in the past, the so-called powers, i.e., States, exerted pressures on the election of the pope, today there is an attempt to do this through public opinion that is often based on judgments that do not typically capture the spiritual aspect of the moment that the church is living,' the statement said.
Sent to South America: Ettore Balestrero has been promoted, according to the Vatican spokesman
'It is deplorable that as we draw closer to the time of the beginning of the conclave ... that there be a widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories that cause serious damage to persons and institutions.'
Some Vatican watchers have speculated that because the Vatican bureaucracy is heavily Italian, cardinals might be persuaded to elect a non-Italian, non-Vatican-based cardinal as pope to try to impose some reform on the Curia.
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the reports 'do not correspond to reality' but the pope and some of his closest collaborators have recently denounced the dysfunction in the Apostolic Palace.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, for example, criticized the 'divisions, dissent, careerism, jealousies' that afflict the Vatican bureaucracy. He made the comments on Friday - the penultimate day of the Vatican's weeklong spiritual exercises that were attended by the pope and other officials.
Tribute: Catholics gather to watch the Pope in one of this last public appearances
Benedict too has made reference to the divisions in recent days, deploring in his final Mass as pope on Ash Wednesday how the church is often 'defiled' by attacks and divisions from within. Last Sunday, he urged its members to overcome 'pride and egoism'.
On Saturday, in his final comments to the Curia, Benedict lamented the 'evil, suffering and corruption' that have defaced God's creation. But he also thanked the Vatican bureaucrats for having helped him 'bear the burden' of his ministry with their work, love and faith these past eight years.
The Vatican's attack on the media echoed its response to previous scandals, where it has tended not to address the underlying content of accusations, but has diverted attention away.
During the 2010 explosion of sex abuse scandals, the Vatican accused the media of trying to attack the pope; during the 2012 leaks scandal, it accused the media of sensationalism without addressing the content of the leaked documents.
?VIDEO? Pope has spent eight years at the top of the catholic church