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Gold Nanoparticle Optical Disks Have Half Millennium Storage

Despite all the technological achievements there is no real practical way to store data for the posterity of the human race. All the methods we have break down over time.  New optical disks that use gold particles may be the answer. They have a 10TB capacity and it is claimed that they will last six centuries. The disks can be mass produced. Currently, standard disks used by data centers hold 2TB of data and last only two years. If the new technology is for real it will be a huge step forward. The best disks all optical, we have to date last for a maximum of 50 years and they have not been put into service because of high cost. Australian and Chinese researchers say there is still a long way to go before the gold particle strategy is fully developed. Gold nanomaterials are combined with hybrid glass which produces a structure with great strength. Data can be stored across the whole spectrum of visible light rays. There is a trade off :  increasing the storage lev...

Sauropods Were Ideally Suited to Grow Large

The largest animals ever to roam the Earth were sauropod dinosaurs in the Jurassic and Cretaceous eras.  They did not eat meat.  Despite having to constantly eat grass and leaves the heaviest reached 50 tonnes. The periods going back from the present are Cenozoic, Cretaceous, Jurassic, Triassic and Paleozoic.  The last four are grouped into the Mesozoic era.  It is in this general broad time frame that the gigantic dinosaur arose and died off. Though for the most part these creatures walked with their heads in an horizontal position, for feeding it is presumed that they reached up vertically to feed on young branches and leaves high in the trees.  Other herbivores could not reached up to this rich food source.  Mammals had not yet risen.  Giraffes appeared much later. Having plenty of food meant the sauropods could evolve and become very large.  Their bones were light and with a small head the neck became long.  They swallowed fo...