Beyond Fossil Fuels: Africa’s Rural Poor Begin Harnessing the Sun

As small-scale renewable energy becomes cheaper and more reliable, it is providing the first drops of modern power to people far from electricity grids and fuel pipelines.

Beyond Fossil Fuels: Africa’s Rural Poor Begin Harnessing the Sun

Backlink: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=32392fcfe724d223406702b5f6994c17

Dark Matter May Be Building Up Inside the Sun

7. Dark Matter May Be Building Up Inside the Sun

July 9

Dark matter and dark energy are always intriguing to our readers, especially any observable clues to their existence. This story about the idea that the sun could be a net for dark matter and alter how heat moves inside it in a way that would be observable from Earth is a perfect example.

Dark matter is the mysterious stuff that makes up about 83 percent of the matter in the universe, but doesn’t interact with electromagnetic forces. Although the universe contains five times as much dark matter as normal matter, dark matter is completely invisible both to human eyes and every kind of telescope ever devised. Current dark matter detectors are looking for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, that connect only with the weak nuclear force and gravity.

But what if dark matter is much lighter than WIMPs, which annihilate each other on contact? They wouldn't eliminate each other and might be swept up by the sun. And because dark matter particles only interact with each other, ignoring regular matter, they have less stuff in their way and can transport heat more efficiently inside the sun.

Full story

Image: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory

Dark Matter May Be Building Up Inside the Sun

Backlink: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/wp-content/gallery/2010-top-stories/2010topstories_sdo-sun.jpg

Oracle Says Sun Servers Set Database Record

Chief Executive Larry Ellison, investing heavily to integrate Sun technology, says an array of computers with Sparc chips tripled IBM's performance benchmark speed. Not so fast, retorts IBM

Oracle Says Sun Servers Set Database Record

Backlink: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2010/tc2010122_119111.htm