SA slips in competitiveness
South Africa has slipped slightly to number 53 in the world competitiveness rankings, released last night by IMD World Competitiveness Centre. Despite losing ground in several key areas, including several relating to electricity and government conduct, there are some...
Security breach hits US taxpayers
At least 100 000 American taxpayers have had their security compromised via a breach in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) systems. The IRS has announced that criminals used taxpayer-specific data acquired from non-IRS sources to gain unauthorised access to...
Tapping the ‘deep Web’
When you do a simple Web search on a topic, the results that pop up aren’t the whole story. The Internet contains a vast trove of information – sometimes called the “deep Web” – that isn’t indexed by search engines: information that would be useful for tracking criminals, terrorist activities, sex trafficking and the spread of diseases. Scientists could also use it to search for images and data from spacecraft. The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been developing tools as part of its Memex program that access and catalogue this mysterious online world.
Supercomputer reveals plant structure
Scientists from IBM Research, the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland have moved a step closer to identifying the nanostructure of cellulose – the basic structural component of plant cell walls. Tapping into the IBM Blue Gene/Q supercomputer at the Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative (VLSCI), researchers have been able to model the structure and dynamics of cellulose at the molecular level. The insights could pave the way for more disease-resistant varieties of crops, and increase the sustainability of the pulp, paper and fibre industry – one of the main users of cellulose.
