New Pyramid Found With Vivid Murals, Stacked Tombs

One of three stacked tombs newly discovered within a pyramid, this vividly painted chamber is unique among ancient Zapotec funerary architecture, Mexican archaeologists announced in late July.

Dating from about A.D. 650 to 850, the funerary complex was part of an elite neighborhood of the Zapotec, an agrarian culture that once thrived throughout what’s now the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca (map).

“Painted motifs in funerary contexts are quite usual in this culture,” excavation director Nelly Robles García said. “But at other sites they show important people: priests, warriors, and rulers—most likely the deceased.”

No humans appear here. Instead, the designs seem to refer to the sacred ritual ball game played by many pre-Hispanic peoples in Mesoamerica. A bit like soccer combined with basketball, the game involved hitting a hard rubber ball around a court, and sometimes ended in sacrificial death for the losers. …

via Pictures: New Pyramid Found With Vivid Murals, Stacked Tombs.

Quantum Teleportation Achieved over Record Distances

Two teams of researchers have extended the reach of quantum teleportation to unprecedented lengths, roughly equivalent to the distance between New York City and Philadelphia. But don’t expect teleportation stations to replace airports or train terminals—the teleportation scheme shifts only the quantum state of a single photon. And although part of the transfer happens instantaneously, the steps required to read out the teleported quantum state ensure that no information can be communicated faster than the speed of light.

Quantum teleportation relies on the phenomenon of entanglement, through which quantum particles share a fragile, invisible link across space. Two entangled photons, for instance, can have correlated, opposite polarization states—if one photon is vertically polarized, for instance, the other must be horizontally polarized. But, thanks to the intricacies of quantum mechanics, each photon’s specific polarization remains undecided until one of them is measured. At that instant the other photon’s polarization snaps into its opposing orientation, even if many kilometers have come between the entangled pair.

An entangled photon pair serves as the intermediary in the standard teleportation scheme. Say Alice wants to teleport the quantum state of a photon to Bob. First she takes one member of a pair of entangled photons, and Bob takes the other. Then Alice lets her entangled photon interfere with the photon to be teleported and performs a polarization measurement whose outcome depends on the quantum state of both of her particles.

Because of the link between Alice and Bob forged by entanglement, Bob’s photon instantly feels the effect of the measurement made by Alice. Bob’s photon assumes the quantum state of Alice’s original photon, but in a sort of garbled form. Bob cannot recover the quantum state Alice wanted to teleport until he reverses that garbling by tweaking his photon in a way that depends on the outcome of Alice’s measurement. So he must await word from Alice about how to complete the teleportation—and that word cannot travel faster than the speed of light. That restriction ensures that teleported information obeys the cosmic speed limit.

Even though teleportation does not allow superluminal communication, it does provide a detour around another physics blockade known as the no-cloning theorem. That theorem states that one cannot perfectly copy a quantum object to, for instance, send a facsimile to another person. But teleportation does not create a copy per se—it simply shifts the quantum information from one place to another, destroying the original in the process.

Teleportation can also securely transmit quantum information even when Alice does not know where Bob is. Bob can take his entangled particle wherever he pleases, and Alice can broadcast her instructions for how to ungarble the teleported state over whatever conventional channels—radio waves, the Internet—she pleases. That information would be useless to an eavesdropper without an entangled link to Alice. …

via Quantum Teleportation Achieved over Record Distances | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network.

Dishwashers Recalled Due to Fire Hazard

More than a million GE dishwashers are being recalled due to fire hazard.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday the voluntary recall includes about 1.3 million GE, GE Adora, GE Eterna, GE Profile and Hotpoint dishwashers. The machines’ heating elements can fail and cause fires. GE has received seven reports of fires, three of which caused extensive property damage. No injuries have been reported. The dishwashers were sold nationwide from March 2006 through August 2009 for $350 to $850. They came in black, white, bisque, stainless steel and CleanSteel colors and finishes.

The government said people should stop using the dishwashers and immediately disconnect the electric supply by shutting off the fuse or circuit breaker. The government said not to return recalled dishwashers to stores where they were purchased but that GE will provide free repairs or rebates toward new dishwashers.In a speech Thursday at the National Press Club, CPSC chairwoman Inez Tenenbaum urged people to respond right away.

“My message to consumers is to immediately stop using these recalled dishwashers and disconnect the power supply to the unit,” Tenenbaum said.

Tenenbaum credited a new consumer safety law with making people safer. The 2008 law and its implementation have “created one of the strongest product safety systems in the world.”

For more information on the dishwasher recall, people can contact GE at 866 918-8760 or visit GE’s website at

http://www.geappliances.com/recall.

via Dishwashers Recalled Due to Fire Hazard – ABC News.

Peter Schiff: Congressional Committee of Oversight & Reform

Peter Schiff: Congressional Committee of Oversight & Reform [Precision Edit] [HD] – YouTube.

Texting competition prize defended by US champion

A 17-year-old has out-tapped the competition to hold onto the title of being the US’s fastest texter.

Austin Weirschke from Wisconsin beat 10 other competitors at the sixth National Texting Championship held in New York.

Contestants had to do one task with their vision blocked and another with their hands behind their back.

Mr Weirschke said he planned to put the $50,000 (£32,012) prize money towards paying for his college education.

The competition – which is sponsored by LG Electronics and featured one device with a physical keyboard – put three skills to the test: accuracy, speed and dexterity.

Two of the tests were straight-forward – memorising and then typing phrases as quickly as possible, and translating text abbreviations into “regular speak” such as TTYL (talk to you later).

But others were more challenging, including writing words backwards – or text sdrawkcab as the round was dubbed – and having to tap out the words to the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star within 45 seconds while wearing darkened glasses that blocked the competitors’ view.

The champion said he typically sent 500 texts a day to his friends, but attributed his success to added practice with his mother.

The writer Malcolm Gladwell once wrote that studies suggested that it typically took 10,000 hours – or 417 full days – of practice to become an elite performer. …

via BBC News – Texting competition prize defended by US champion.

Nice skillz, but if cell phones cause cancer as some research indicates, his generation should start dying off early in their 30s and 40s.

Mars crater looks ‘Earth-like’

THE ancient Martian crater where the Curiosity rover landed looks strikingly similar to California’s Mojave Desert with its looming mountains and hanging haze, scientists say.

“The first impression that you get is how Earth-like this seems looking at that landscape,” said chief scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology.

Overnight, the car-size rover poked its head out for the first time since settling in Gale Crater, peered around and returned a flood of black-and-white pictures that will be stitched into a panorama.

It provided the best view so far of its destination since touching down after nailing an intricate choreography. During the last few seconds, a rocket-powered spacecraft hovered as cables lowered Curiosity to the ground.

In the latest photos, Curiosity looked out toward the northern horizon. Nearby were scour marks in the surface blasted by thrusters, which kicked up a swirl of dust. There were concerns that Curiosity got dusty, but scientists said that was not the case.

“We do see a thin coating of dust, but nothing too bad,” said Justin Maki, imaging scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission.

Scientists were giddy about the trenches because it meant Curiosity could drive up to them and start collecting samples once the science phase of the mission gets under way. …

via Mars crater looks ‘Earth-like’ | Space, Military and Medicine | Herald Sun.