Without Internet, Egyptians find new ways to get online

Nancy Gohring and Robert McMillan – “When countries block, we evolve,” an activist with the group We Rebuild wrote in a Twitter message Friday.

That’s just what many Egyptians have been doing this week, as groups like We Rebuild scramble to keep the country connected to the outside world, turning to landline telephones, fax machines and even ham radio to keep information flowing in and out of the country.

Although one Internet service provider — Noor Group — remains in operation, Egypt’s government abruptly ordered the rest of the country’s ISPs to shut down their services just after midnight local time Thursday. Mobile networks have also been turned off in some areas. The blackout appears designed to disrupt organization of the country’s growing protest movement, which is calling for the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“[B]asically, there are three ways of getting information out right now — get access to the Noor ISP (which has about 8 percent of the market), use a land line to call someone, or use dial-up,” Jillian York, a researcher with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, said via e-mail.

Egyptians with dial-up modems get no Internet connection when they call into their local ISP, but calling an international number to reach a modem in another country gives them a connection to the outside world.

We Rebuild is looking to expand those dial-up options. It has set up a dial-up phone number in Sweden and is compiling a list of other numbers Egyptians can call. It is distributing information about its activities on a Wiki page. …

via Without Internet, Egyptians find new ways to get online – Computerworld.

Fears of anarchy and looting linger as new day dawns in Egypt

Fires burn in the National Democratic Party ruling party headquarters, after it was set alight by anti-government protesters, in downtown Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Jan. 28, 2011. – via washpost

Fear of anarchy and looting lingered in Egypt on Sunday, with many streets in the nation’s capital left without security after police stopped patrolling.

“It seems that every major square and every small street in Cairo was basically taken over by communities … people are parading the streets, walking around with baseball bats and knives,” said Ahmed Rehab of the Council on American Islamic Relations from Cairo. “We didn’t get any sleep all night.”

As President Hosni Mubarak clung to power and tried to redeem his 30-year rule, the world’s attention fell on central Cairo, where the army was deployed to replace police forces that clashed brutally with demonstrators.

Tanks and troops continued to stand guard in the streets Sunday morning, but it was unclear how large protests would be.

The powerful Egyptian army, deployed to the streets for the first time since the mid-1980s, is much more respected than the police, and many protesters have embraced their presence. But whether the 450,000-strong armed forces will remain loyal to Mubarak is key for the nation’s future. …

via Fears of anarchy and looting linger as new day dawns in Egypt – CNN.com.

dozens of would-be thieves started entering the grounds surrounding the museum, climbing over the metal fence or jumping inside from trees lining the sidewalk outside.One man pleaded with people outside the museum’s gates on Tahrir Square not to loot the building, shouting at the crowd: “We are not like Baghdad.” After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, thieves carted off thousands of artifacts from the National Museum in Baghdad – only a fraction of which have been recovered.

Suddenly other young men – some armed with truncheons taken from the police – formed a human chain outside the main entrance in an attempt to protect the collection inside.

“I’m standing here to defend and to protect our national treasure,” said one of the men, Farid Saad, a 40-year-old engineer.

Another man, 26-year-old Ahmed Ibrahim, said it was important to guard the museum because it “has 5,000 years of our history. If they steal it, we’ll never find it again.”

Finally, four armored vehicles took up posts outside the massive coral-colored building in downtown Cairo. Soldiers surrounded the building and moved inside to protect mummies, monumental stone statues, ornate royal jewelry and other pharaonic artifacts.

The soldiers appeared to have rounded up all the would-be looters who made it onto the museum grounds …

via WashPost

Learn more quickly by transcranial magnetic brain stimulation

Dr. Klaus Funke – What sounds like science fiction is actually possible: thanks to magnetic stimulation, the activity of certain brain nerve cells can be deliberately influenced. What happens in the brain in this context has been unclear up to now. Medical experts from Bochum under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Klaus Funke (Department of Neurophysiology) have now shown that various stimulus patterns changed the activity of distinct neuronal cell types. In addition, certain stimulus patterns led to rats learning more easily. The knowledge obtained could contribute to cerebral stimulation being used more purposefully in future to treat functional disorders of the brain. The researchers have published their studies in the Journal of Neuroscience and in the European Journal of Neuroscience.

…Since the mid-1990′s, repetitive TMS has been used to make purposeful changes to the activability of nerve cells in the human cortex: “In general, the activity of the cells drops as a result of a low-frequency stimulation, i.e. with one magnetic pulse per second. At higher frequencies from five to 50 pulses per second, the activity of the cells increases”, explained Prof. Funke. Above all, the researchers are specifically addressing with the effects of specific stimulus patterns like the so-called theta burst stimulation (TBS), in which 50 Hz bursts are repeated with 5 Hz. “This rhythm is based on the natural theta rhythm of four to seven Hertz which can be observed in an EEG”, says Funke. The effect is above all dependent on whether such stimulus patterns are provided continuously (cTBS, attenuating effect) or with interruptions (intermittent, iTBS, strengthening effect).

… It is unknown to a great extent how precisely the activity of nerve cells is changed by repeated stimulation. It is assumed that the contact points (synapses) between the cells are strengthened (synaptic potentation) or weakened (synaptic depression) as a result of the repeated stimulation, a process which also plays an important role in learning. Some time ago, it was also shown that the effects of TMS and learning interact in humans. …

via Learn more quickly by transcranial magnetic brain stimulation.

Is there a rebound effect where you learn more slowly than normal after doing this for a while?

‘Air laser’ may sniff bombs, pollutants from a distance

Researchers at Princeton University developed a technique for generating a laser beam out of nothing but air. They focus a pump laser on a distant point in the air and another laser beam comes back. The image shows a pulse of infra-red light from this “air laser.” The center region represents the highest intensity; the outer areas have lower intensity light. The technique could be used for sensing minute quantities of gas in the air from a distance.

…

Princeton University engineers have developed a new laser sensing technology that may allow soldiers to detect hidden bombs from a distance and scientists to better measure airborne environmental pollutants and greenhouse gasses.

“We are able to send a laser pulse out and get another pulse back from the air itself,” said Richard Miles, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton, the research group leader and co-author on the paper. “The returning beam interacts with the molecules in the air and carries their finger prints.”

The new technique differs from previous remote laser-sensing methods in that the returning beam of light is not just a reflection or scattering of the outgoing beam. It is an entirely new laser beam generated by oxygen atoms whose electrons have been “excited” to high energy levels. This “air laser” is a much more powerful tool than previously existed for remote measurements of trace amounts of chemicals in the air. …

via ‘Air laser’ may sniff bombs, pollutants from a distance.