1) Super computer K (named for the Japanese word "kei", meaning 10 quadrillion) (with LINPACK performance of over 10 petaflops; produced jointly by RIKEN and Fujitsu), and its proposed applications:
Field 1 Predictable life science, healthcare and drug discovery foundation
Field 2 New Materials and Energy Creation
Field 3 Projection of Planet Earth Variations for Mitigating Natural Disasters
Field 4 Next-generation manufacturing technology
Field 5 The origin of matter and the universe
and artificial intelligence computer system Watson (produced by IBM), and its myriad applications as a "question-answering machine".
2) The specialized mechanism of motility of the sperm of the green tree frog, Rhacophorus arboreus, that enables these sperm to move in the highly viscous environment of the egg-containing "foam nest" that females of this species construct on vegetation.
This mechanism was elucidated in the publication:
A novel mechanism of sperm motility in a viscous environment: corkscrew-shaped spermatozoa cruise by spinning.
Cell Motil Cytoskeleton. 2009 May;66(5):281-91.
3) The recent sighting of fireflies along the nearby Philosopher's Path
4) News about a study showing that the blue light from LED displays and fluorescent lights interferes harmfully with people's circadian rhythm
5) The insights into the evolution of birds gained from the study published recently in the journal Nature online in the paper:
Birds have paedomorphic dinosaur skulls
by Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar et al.
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