Plants are extremely efficient converters of light into energy, more or less setting the bar for researchers creating photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity. As such, researchers are constantly trying to mimic the tricks that millions of years of
Read more...
Let's ask Betsy Dresser, the senior vice president of research at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans, who has raised several litters of small African wildcat clones. "Oh yes, the clones are very much wild animals with wild instincts,"
Read more...
A University of Michigan researcher thinks we can triple the fuel economies in our petroleum-powered vehicles in the next 25 years. All we need to do is replace horsepower with brainpower.
John
Read more...
East Coast residents are bracing for this monster, headed their way with 125-mph winds, as a fleet of NASA satellites and airplanes monitors its evolution.
As of Wednesday morning, Hurricane Earl was a Category 3 storm, but an especially large one. Storm-force winds
Read more...
For those who can't afford to have their ashes sent to space or who may not like the notion of being screwed into the ground post-mortem, here's another solution: have
Read more...
For the first time, a human-designed chemical enzyme -- a chemzyme -- has been used to break down a toxin found inside fruits and vegetables.
Chemzymes are designed to emulate the body's naturally
Read more...
Researchers at Yale's Grab Lab aren't about to let the nuances of rotary-wing flight restrict what unmanned aerial vehicles can do. A team there has developed a hand-like modular grasping and manipulation platform that can be fitted to the bellies of UAVs to provide them
Read more...
Quantum cryptography is one of the most secure known means of transmitting data, due to the fact that even if a third party does intercept a quantum signal, that interference changes the encryption key, making the tampering apparent to parties at both ends. But a handful
Read more...
It's been eight months since Boeing's 787 Dreamliner first took to the skies. Back then, Japan's ANA was expecting to have their first 787 roll into the hanger by the close of 2010. Now, thanks to a delay in production of the plane's Rolls-Royce engines,
Read more...
Plenty of human-gadget interfaces can let you control a robot or a computer with your mind. But these communications are command-based -- your PR2 still can't tell whether you're asking it for a beer to celebrate, or to drink away your sorrows. An EEG-based affective computing
Read more...
A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about the BeetleCam, a remote-controlled roving camera that lets photographers take pictures of wild animals up close. While clawed critters present one sort of obstacle to a great photo, the perfect shot is often blocked by something
Read more...
In just over a decade, the car industry in China has exploded. As of November 2009, China is the largest automobile market in the world, combining active partnerships with established foreign brands with a thriving, developing domestic market.
China's seemingly
Read more...
A young German guy has a detailed Instructable online this week that explains how you can exercise your inner narcissist and make a 3D paper clone of yourself.
It's worth checking out
Read more...
Conventional wind turbines have an Achilles
Read more...
Looking to build a time machine but nervous about the classic grandfather paradox, aka the Marty McFly conundrum, aka the idea that you might unwittingly do something that causes you to never exist in the first place? An MIT professor and a few of his quantum quoting
Read more...
The Most Advanced R/C Car LOSI 1/10 TEN-T TRUGGY RTR Top speed: 72km/h Size: 34.3 x 45 cm. Price: US$500 Get it: losi.com
This 18-inch off-roader
Read more...
Anthony Le, 25, has been a fan of Iron Man since he was a kid, but when he heard that the comic-book superhero was hitting the big screen in 2008, he was inspired to build his own Iron Man suit. That version was more of a costume, but his new one, finished just in time for
Read more...
Per Segerbäck lives in a modest cottage in a nature reserve some 120km northeast of Stockholm. Wolves, moose and brown bears roam freely past his front door. He keeps limited human company, because human technology makes him physically ill. How ill? On a walk last summer, he ran into one of
Read more...
Using homemade software and a standard computer port, a team of scientists has figured out exactly how easy it is to hack into a modern car -- scary news for motorists already wary of faulty brake and accelerator systems.
The research team wrote code that allows
Read more...
Taking cues from slime molds, ants, and living biological cells, a team of University of Pittsburgh researchers has designed a system of artificial cells that can communicate with one another and cooperate to carry out tasks. The computer models they've devised could
Read more...
Apple's iPad was finally launched yesterday to eager Australian crowds yesterday, with numerous media reports of enormous crowds being piled up outside
Read more...
The closer we get to the year 2015, the louder people lament that our world hardly resembles the one depicted in Back to the Future II. Although it will be awhile before any of us coast around in a flying Delorean, we've piped down our complaints, as a young
Read more...
According to both common sense and the US Academy of Pediatrics, there are two truths about hot dogs which neither science nor industry can afford to ignore: kids love hot dogs, and hot dogs are the perfect size and shape for a child to choke
Read more...
A doomsday bunker envisioned by California company Vivos can offer you, your family, and 4,000 other people the chance to escape the end of the world in a network of 20 underground shelters. Surely even the sceptics can't resist the allure of scary music played over scenes of comfortable underground
Read more...
After a weekend using the iPad, I've realised I'm not interested in hedging my reaction to it with careful considerations of its lack of a USB port or webcam. It's not every day, or every year or maybe even every decade that we're able to see a piece of technology that takes a familiar human
Read more...
Imagine a gesture-based mobile device with no screen, no keyboard, and no other peripheral inputs or outputs, a mobile device that's not really a device at all. Can you see it in your mind's eye? If so, you're probably picturing something akin to a new
Read more...
Microsoft's Kinect, the controller-free, gesture-based gaming platform that finally saw an official unveiling at E3 this week continues to surprise us, but not always necessarily in good ways. For instance, we think it's awesome that the non-peripheral peripheral can
Read more...
A $136 million Earth-based telescope using brand new adaptive optics just trumped Hubble's deep space image clarity three-fold, but such high tech optics aren't just reserved for high-dollar observatories. A breakthrough in deformable liquid mirror technology
Read more...
For all the government conspiracy militia nuts out there, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there is no such thing as silent, stealth black helicopters. The bad news is that, thanks to Eurocopter's noise-cancelling
Read more...
The future of community bike systems may not require much pedaling at all; Sanyo has just installed two "Solar Parking Lots" that serve as solar charging stations for 100 Eneloop electric hybrid
Read more...
Popular Science has been a leading source of science, technology and gadget news since 1872. With up-to-the minute latest space news, insightful commentary on the new innovations and concept cars ...if it's new or future technology you'll find it at popsci.com.au.
WW Media - Popular Science © 2010
Technology - DIY - Videos
Video: Yale's Grab Lab Demonstrates an Unmanned Helicopter With a Grabbing Hand
Video: Charming PR2 Robot Draws a Self-Portrait
Video: Robotic Wheelchair Can Be Set to Automatically Follow A Human
Video: Electronic Frontiers Australia demonstrates how easy the internet content filter will be to bypass
Corning expands its capacity for making near-indestructible LCD screens
Popular Science: breaking news, articles and media for Tech Savvy readers - science, technology, gadgets and gear, environment, social science, concept cars and much more.
The team at Popular Science has been the leading source of science, technology and gadget news since 1872. Launched in 2008 this Australian edition brings you in-depth articles, breaking news, media and videos from all around the world. Discover new technology, test drive the latest hacks and tools, keep up to date with the latest environmental news on climate change and global warming and explore the universe with our latest space news.
Popular Science - Best New Gadgets, Science Projects, Articles and News in Australia and New Zealand and from around the world, subscribe today!
