Sun's gravity could be tapped to call E.T. - Technology & science - Space - Space.com. Our own sun might represent the best communications device around, if only we could harness its power, scientists say. If the sun's gravity could be used to create a giant telescope, people could send and receive intensely magnified signals that could allow us to call an alien civilization, some researchers propose. According to Einstein's general relativity, the sun's behemoth mass warps space-time around it, which actually bends light rays passing by like a giant lens. If a detector was placed at the right focal distance to collect the light, the resulting image would be extremely magnified.
Automated traders eye up unlikely locations - tech - 05 November 2010. EVEN money can't move faster than light.
As today's ultra-rapid computer trading systems come up against that ultimate speed barrier, there could be one strange consequence, with some traders leaving London, New York and Tokyo and setting up business instead in central Africa or Siberia. Automated trading, also known as mechanical arbitrage, has come to account for more than half of trades in many markets around the globe. Firms may make trades thousands of times per second, and they often put their operations close to market exchanges, sometimes only a few feet away from an exchange's computers, because by cutting the time it takes for information to pass through wires they can gain millisecond advantages over their competitors.
But for one particular type of trading a very different set of locations may be needed, say physicist Alex Wissner-Gross and mathematician Cameron Freer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a paper that will appear in Physical Reveiw E. Liquid antennas turn seawater into signal. The US Navy has created a device which turns a jet of sea water into an impromptu liquid antenna, creating a powerful, high frequency broadcast tower for ships, emergency situations and easy transportation.
Created by SPAWAR System Center Pacific, the sea water antenna uses the magnetic induction properties of salt to make ordinary ocean water transmit and receive radio signals. As the pillar of water is squirted through the current probe, a magnetic field is created and signal comes through to a hooked-up communication device. Plus, depending on the height of the stream of water, you can get UHF, VHF and HF broadcasts, all from the same jet of H2O.
You can even set up multiple jets of water, at different heights, to broadcast on different bands simultaneously.