Caviar come to Switzerland

Sturgeon (BLACK CAVIAR)The town of Frutigen in the Bernese Oberland is currently a hive of activity preparing a fish farm for alpine caviar and a tropical greenhouse for exotic fruit.

Warm water from springs and the Lötschberg rail base tunnel is being used for the project.

Dmitri Pugovkin, who is a biologist from Siberia, catches an almost metre-long sturgeon in a net from the tank, grabs it forcefully but carefully and lays the wriggling fish on a board.

The researcher, who is working on the project for Bern University, uses ultrasonic equipment to determine the fish’s sex.

“It is male and five years old,” he says before sliding it back into the pool.

The water has a temperature of 20 degrees Celsius and flows directly from the Lötschberg base tunnel where it has collected over a 14-kilometre stretch until it comes out at the northern portal.

The temperature is ideal for the sturgeon, a fish species that is endangered because of the much sought after caviar.

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Another story for The Swiss Caviar.

The First World Tour of Solar-Powered Car

Solar Powered Car

Swiss adventurer Louis Palmer poses for photographers inside his Solartaxi on December 17, 2008 in the southern German city of Stuttgart. A Swiss engineer completed Thursday the first ever round-the-world trip in a solar-powered car after more than 17 months on the road during which he crossed almost 40 countries.

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Source: Geneva AFP.

Star-Trek-style human teleportation

Star Trek

Researchers at Geneva University have developed a “quantum memory“, capturing a single particle of light (a photon) in a crystal and then reproducing and retransmitting it.

The findings, published in last week’s edition of the academic journal Nature, could translate into important applications in the field of quantum cryptography, guaranteeing highly secure communication, and quantum computers that will run billions of times faster than today’s machines.

Quantum teleportation is the transmission of key properties from one particle to another without a physical link. It relies on an aspect of physics known as “entanglement“, whereby the properties of two particles can be tied together even when they are far apart. Albert Einstein called it “spooky action at a distance”.

The Geneva-based team managed to stop a light particle in a tiny one-millimetre crystal cooled to a temperature of minus 270 degrees Celsius.

The photon’s properties were then passed on to some ten million atoms inside the crystal, explained Professor Nicolas Gisin, head of the Group of Applied Physics at Geneva University. He said this produced an echo, like in a cave, re-emitting the photon with the same characteristics.

“We physicists have played with photons for years. It has always been a fascinating challenge to try to stop a photon and hold it for a while – to stop it without destroying it and release it with the same quantum states,” he told swissinfo (source).

Pacquiao-De la Hoya ‘Dream Match’ on

source:
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net

Golden Boy vs Pacman

INQUIRER.net
First Posted 12:11:00 12/07/2008

MANILA, Philippines — The “Dream Match” between Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao and Oscar “Golden Boy” de la Hoya has begun at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas.

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