Australian Popular Science News

Xbox One Is The First Games Console For People Who Don't Like Games

2013-05-22T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

"PlayStation" is a literal description of what you do with it: it's a station at which you play. Nintendo has released systems with "game" in the name - Game Boy, GameCube. But Xbox doesn't mean much of anything. Originally it stood for, in charming Microsoft fashion, "DirectX Box," as it used the familiar DirectX graphics technology. Now? It's just a box. Who knows what it does?

Xbox One: Here's What We Know About Microsoft's New Console

2013-05-22T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

Today, Microsoft unveiled its new console, Xbox One, from its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. There's still going to be news coming out between now and another announcement at E3 in June (which we'll be at), but this is what we saw so far.

US Has Depleted Two Lake Eries' Worth Of Groundwater Since 1900

2013-05-22T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

Over the last century, the US has depleted enough of its underground freshwater supply to fill Lake Erie twice, according to a new study from the US Geological Survey. Here's another way to understand how much water we've used. Just between 2000 and 2008, the latest period in the study and the period of fastest depletion, Americans brought enough water aboveground to contribute to 2 per cent of worldwide ocean level rise in that time.

NASA Invests In 3-D Food Printer For Mars Missions

2013-05-22T03:01:00.0000000+10:00

It would take a lot of food to get astronauts to Mars, but what if they could get whatever they wanted at the push of a button?

Oklahoma Students Design Drones That Can Fly Into Tornadoes

2013-05-22T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

The best way for researchers to get information about a tornado is to send sensors high up into the storm-a maneuver that is too dangerous for a manned aircraft and, up until now, has been too complex for most remote-controlled craft.

Reconstructing The Oklahoma Tornado From Start To Finish, In Videos

2013-05-22T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

The devastation wrought by the mile-wide, EF-4 tornado that ripped through Moore, Okla., and south Oklahoma City yesterday is really difficult to put into words. You could start with the huge path of destruction, more than a mile wide at places, that wiped entire neighbourhoods clean off the map like they were never even there. It's more difficult when you get to the two elementary schools - concrete and cinder block buildings that gave way to the truly devastating force of this storm.

Cold Fusion Machine Gets Third-Party Verification, Inventor Says

2013-05-22T00:31:00.0000000+10:00

A well-known promoter of cold fusion technology-who's been demonstrating his latest invention here and there over the past two years-has announced that an independent third party has verified his machine works. That is, it creates a large amount of energy in the form of heat, far more than it consumes.

Russia's 'Space Ark' Returns All Of Its Lizards And Half Its Mice Safely To Earth

2013-05-21T22:56:00.0000000+10:00

Less than half of the rodents, lizards, fish, and other small animals that were lofted skyward last month made it back alive, but nonetheless Russian researchers are calling their so-called "Space Ark" mission - the longest-duration space mission ever dedicated purely to biological study - a success. After spending a month in space, the Russian Bion-M landed slightly off-target but safely in a Russian field yesterday.

What We Know (And Think We Know) About The New Xbox

2013-05-21T08:25:00.0000000+10:00

Tomorrow, Microsoft will announce its long-awaited next-gen Xbox. The rumor mill has been churning for months - years, even - and reports with varying credibility have appeared. Here's what to expect.

Google Maps Helps People Find Families They Lost Decades Ago

2013-05-21T07:03:00.0000000+10:00

If you moved away from a place soon after starting kindergarten and never went back-how much would you remember about the town? Just a corner of a distinctive building, perhaps, or a stand of trees under which you liked to play.

Number Of Published Cancer Studies That Can't Be Reproduced Is Shockingly High

2013-05-21T06:00:00.0000000+10:00

In an anonymous survey taken by scientists at a prestigious cancer centre, more than half of the respondents said they'd failed to reproduce published scientific findings at least one time.

Another Big Milestone For The X-47B: Its First Touch And Go Landing

2013-05-21T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

The Navy's unmanned and autonomous X-47B continues to hit new milestones. Less than a week after completing its first catapult launch from a carrier deck last Tuesday the Unmanned Combat Aerials System (UCAS) executed its first touch and go landings - that's when an aircraft touches down like it's landing but then accelerates and takes off again - aboard the USS George H.W. Bush on Friday, bringing this technology demonstrator ever closer to being fully carrier-capable.

Giant Carnivorous Plant Found In Silicon Valley

2013-05-21T04:30:00.0000000+10:00

Yahoo! is a carnivorous plant whose prey-trapping mechanism features a deep cavity filled with liquid, known as a pitfall trap.

Lollies Won't Make You Fat... Says Lolly Industry

2013-05-21T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Good news, guys! Lollies, that which the Americans call Candy, isn't going to make you fat or kill you or anything negative at all! Feast on M&M's like an 8-year-old on Halloween, because you're totally good on this one.

How Science Got The 'Crack Baby' Epidemic So Wrong

2013-05-21T03:30:00.0000000+10:00

The New York Times has a fascinating documentary on the crack cocaine epidemic that gripped the United States in the 1980s. The short of it: The "crack baby" scare that threatened to spawn a generation of damaged children never materialized.

South Pole Lab Detects Elusive Deep-Space Neutrinos For The First Time

2013-05-21T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

It looks like the IceCube Observatory neutrino detector at the South Pole has found what it was looking for just two years after opening.

FYI: Can A Bionic Eye See As Well As A Human Eye?

2013-05-21T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

Previously blind patients who receive the recently FDA-approved Argus II bionic eye system will regain some degree of functional sight. The retinal implant technology, developed and distributed by Second Sight, can improve quality of life for patients who have lost functional vision due to retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that causes retinal cells to die. But the implant doesn't facilitate a sudden recovery of 20/20 vision.

Yahoo! Officially Acquires Tumblr For $1.1 Billion

2013-05-21T02:17:00.0000000+10:00

Marissa Mayer, the new-ish CEO of Yahoo, announced this morning (though the purchase had been approved by Yahoo's board a few days earlier) that Yahoo will purchase Tumblr, the image-centric blogging and social network beloved by, mostly, teens. Her post was illustrated with a GIF, and posted on Tumblr. David Karp, the very young CEO of Tumblr, announced the acquisition on the staff Tumblr, ending with the salutation "Fuck yeah," because he is very young.

Navy Dolphins Searching For Mines Uncover Sunken 19th Century Torpedo

2013-05-21T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

Dolphins have been used for 50 years to help the US Navy echolocate mines. That project is going away in 2017 (to be replaced by robots) but in the meantime, a team of Navy dolphins have picked up something a little more vintage.

The US's Spring in 2012 Was The Earliest On Record

2013-05-21T01:30:00.0000000+10:00

For much of the US, 2012 had the earliest spring since 1900, when systematic weather records became available for the entire US, according to a new study from the US Geological Survey.

Mars Rover Opportunity Travels Farther Than A NASA Vehicle Has Ever Traveled On Another Planet

2013-05-21T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

Curiosity may be everyone's favorite Mars robot these days, but it has a long way to rove if it's going to catch up to the Mars rover Opportunity. Last week, Opportunity traversed 263 feet of Martian frontier near Endeavour Crater, bringing its total trip odometer up to 22.22 miles - the longest distance ever traveled by a NASA vehicle on the surface of a planet not named Earth.

Study Finds Correlation Between Fiscal Conservatism And Big Biceps

2013-05-20T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

A new study in the journal Psychological Science took a look at the relationship between physical strength and political beliefs. More specifically, the study sought to answer a question: is there any correlation between "fighting ability" and opinions on redistribution of wealth?

7 Reasons Why 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Is A Beginner's Guide To Star Trek [Spoiler Alert]

2013-05-18T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

Star Trek is hardly beginner-friendly. Five television series, 12 movies, and a nerd following that defines nerd followings present a serious obstacle to the casual moviegoer. J.J. Abram's 2009 reboot of the series was an attempt to make Star Trek more accessible, but it's the second movie of the reboot, Into Darkness, where he succeeded. Here's why (spoiler alert for much of what follows):

Cambrian Fossil With Scissor-Like Claws Is Named For Johnny Depp

2013-05-18T05:02:00.0000000+10:00

Academy Awards continue to elude Johnny Depp, but as of today no one can say he hasn't been immortalized. A 505-million-year-old Cambrian fossil of a creature with scissor-like claws has been named Kooteninchela deppi in honor of Depp's role as Edward Scissorhands in the movie of the same name.

Video: MIT's Cheetah Robot Trots, Then Gallops

2013-05-18T03:56:00.0000000+10:00

Boston Dynamics' Cheetah robot may be the fastest, but MIT's version of the DARPA-backed quadruped robot is proving to be the most efficient. In a newly released video, MIT's Biomimetic Robotics Lab shows off it's new and improved Cheetah, which can move along at a respectable 13.7 miles per hour and carry its own power source. Outside of the lab on the open savannah, that's a critical capability.

First American Mission To Sample An Asteroid Gets Green Light

2013-05-18T03:28:00.0000000+10:00

Earth-bound scientists are on track to get their hands on asteroid soil, straight from the source, in 2023. An asteroid-sampling mission, planned for launch in 2016, is moving into development, NASA and the University of Arizona announced yesterday.

High School Students Devise More Accurate Climate Modeling Method

2013-05-18T03:01:00.0000000+10:00

A team of high school students have co-authored a scientific journal paper with their University of Arizona grad student instructor that could have a serious impact on the reliability of climate models. Their work details the impact of shrinkage on dried, fossilized leaves - shrinkage that is often unaccounted for in climate models. By better accounting for this change in leaf size, the students found that researchers could significantly improve the accuracy of their climate models.

Mapping The Simpsons' Slow Descent Into Suckitude

2013-05-18T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

Andrew Clark

This Bacterium Can Do Division, Compute Logarithms And Take Square Roots

2013-05-18T00:01:00.0000000+10:00

A group of engineers from MIT have created analog calculators out of living cells, according to a paper published online in Nature yesterday. By tweaking the genes of bacterial cells, the researchers were able to create circuits that can perform calculations - including division, multiplication, logarithms and square roots - in a much more efficient way than many existing biocomputers.

Giving White People The Illusion Of Darker Skin Makes Them Less Racist

2013-05-17T22:51:00.0000000+10:00

An optical illusion can change the implicit biases of Caucasian people against people with darker skin, according to a study published in the August 2013 edition of Cognition.

The First Round Of Apps For Google Glass Is Here

2013-05-17T07:35:00.0000000+10:00

Google announced today at the I/O developer conference in California that the first wave of apps, aside from the few that had already been announced, are here.

How To Puke In Space

2013-05-17T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

Today, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield passed command of the International Space Station to cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov. Hadfield's command has been so much fun, because he not only plays guitar and tweets prolifically; he also gamely answers almost any kind of question in a series of space FYI videos.

Scientists Create Bone Using Layered Clay

2013-05-17T07:00:00.0000000+10:00

Researchers at Brigham and Women's hospital have discovered that layered clay-that is, synthetic silicate nanoplatelets used in everything from glass and ceramics to food additives-can induce stem cells to become bone cells without needing any additional bone-inducing factors. In other words, the presence of this synthetic material can coax human stem cells into becoming bone all on its own, and that could have huge implications for the future of tissue engineering.

Earth's Core Is Weaker Than We Thought

2013-05-17T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

A new study in Nature Geoscience, from two Stanford researchers, indicates that our planet's super-dense, super strong core may not be as strong as we'd thought.

What High-Frequency Trading Looks Like Every Millisecond [Infographic]

2013-05-16T03:45:00.0000000+10:00

Something to think about as the millisecond tick by today: how much money you're not making from the slight discrepancies between the values of securities on the world's international exchanges. Developed by suburban Chicago-based financial data company Nanex, this visualization shows, at highly reduced speed, the automated trading activity that took place on Johnson and Johnson's stock May 2. The timescale bas been altered so that each millisecond of trading time is represented as roughly one second in the visualization, so it's slowed down about 1,000 times.

Big Pic: A Fiery Ribbon Stretching Across Orion's Belt

2013-05-16T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

Inside the European Southern Observatory's Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile, there's a submillimetre-wavelength camera perfectly tuned to peer through the clouds of interstellar dust and gas that obscure our view of what's going on elsewhere in the universe. Fortunately for us, the camera is also good at picking up the faint glow given off by those very same grains of dust, at wavelengths too long for human eyes to see. The result: images like this one a "fiery ribbon" (that's how astronomers are describing it) stretching across a segment of the Orion Nebula some 1,350 light-years away.

Android Phones Need Self-Destruct Buttons

2013-05-16T01:02:00.0000000+10:00

Today at the 2013 Google I/O conference in California, Google announced that the company would begin selling the Samsung Galaxy S4, the newest in the most successful Android phone line on the planet, themselves. When you buy a Galaxy S4 from your wireless carrier or a retail store, it comes with a skin called TouchWiz and a two-year contract. With Google, you'll pay more, but you won't get stuck with either the skin or the contract.

Dentists Study Alligators To Figure Out How Humans Could Regrow Teeth

2013-05-16T01:02:00.0000000+10:00

Once your adult teeth come in, that's all you've got to work with. Knock one out, or lose a few to decay, and you'll have to get dentures. It's a pain, but at least one team of dental researchers is now studying how to regrow human teeth - by looking at alligator teeth first.

What Information Can The Justice Department Get From Your Phone Records?

2013-05-15T07:45:00.0000000+10:00

Yesterday the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Department of Justice used subpoenas to collect telephone calling records for many of their journalists and editors. In doing so, the AP brought light to an interesting crisis at the nexus between secrecy, privacy, constitutional boundaries, and modern technology.

Autonomous X-47B Jet Fighter Makes Historic First Launch From An Aircraft Carrier

2013-05-15T07:14:00.0000000+10:00

ABOARD THE USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH, ATLANTIC OCEAN - All that was left on the carrier deck was a cloud of white steam wafting over a flight crew that was visibly bursting with excitement even with faces concealed behind bulky protective headgear, noise suppressing headsets, and darkly tinted goggles. Much of this whooping, backslapping, and enthusiastic embracing took place square in the middle of the flight deck where the Navy's experimental X-47B unmanned, autonomous combat jet had stood just moments before, Pratt and Whitney F100 jet engine screaming - before the robot gave its go-ahead salute - indicated by the a flash of its wingtip lights - and the catapult officer responded with the signal to launch, sending the X-47B catapulting off the carrier deck and into aviation history.

Was the 2013 World Press Photo Of The Year A Fake?

2013-05-15T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

In February, the winner of the prestigious World Press Photo of the Year award came under fire after allegations surfaced that it had been significantly altered. The organization has stood by the photo, but a forensic image analyst, Neal Krawetz, now claims his analysis proves that it is a composite of multiple photos.

Iranian Hackers Attacking US Banks

2013-05-15T06:00:00.0000000+10:00

Noticed any outages on your bank's website over the past year? They could have been the work of Iranian hackers. Hackers that intelligence officials identified as Iranian have affected some of the biggest U.S. banks, including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and others, Reuters reported.

Freaky Carnivorous Flower Has Super-Efficient Genome

2013-05-15T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

The humped bladderwort is a flower that's as strange as its name. It grows in mats in shallow water, it doesn't have true roots, and it bears small, inflated, hair-triggered bladders that it keeps underwater. Any time a tiny swimming animal brushes past one of these bladders, the bladder expands, opens its mouth, and then sucks the animal up and digests it. It's like a Venus flytrap and vacuum in one.

Cornstarch Replaces Cyanide In Clean New Gold Extraction Method

2013-05-15T04:30:00.0000000+10:00

Gold, precious forever but especially lately, is a tricky metal. Bound up in consumer electronics, jewelry and the ores that it comes from, gold is difficult to extract, and most modern processes do it with a highly toxic combination of cyanide salts. The cyanide leaches the gold out, but the cyanide can seep into the ground, causing environmental problems and posing threats to human health.

How To Turn An AK-47 Into A Soup Ladle

2013-05-15T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

Changing swords into plowshares and spears into pruning-hooks is an ancient metaphor for turning away from violence and toward peaceful labor. Mike Izbicki, a former Navy midshipman who in 2011 was discharged from service as a conscientious objector, has created a modern-day, literal interpretation of the analogy. He recently transformed an AK-47 that had been used by the Romanian army during the Cold War into a (rather heavy) serving ladle. Here's how he did it:

Autonomous Helicopters: The New Truckies?

2013-05-15T01:30:00.0000000+10:00

The K-MAX optionally-manned helicopter is a powerful battlefield work horse. Over the past 16 months, two (yes, just two) K-MAX drones delivered 1.45 million kg of cargo to Marines in Afghanistan. This is simultaneously more like the future and less revolutionary than headlines about pizza-delivery drones would suggest. By 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration predicts there will be 15,000 civil and commercial drones flying over the US, doing jobs like transporting cargo and inspecting pipelines.

FYI: Why Do We Hate The Sound Of Nails On A Chalkboard?

2013-05-15T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

Most people associate this cringe-worthy noise with words like "piercing" and "shrilling." But it isn't actually the sound's high-pitched tones that give us goose bumps. During a study that dates back to 1986 (the days when they actually used chalkboards), scientists at Northwestern University tested this theory by removing different frequencies from recordings of nails scratching a chalkboard. These scientists, Randolph Blake, D. Lynn Halpern and James Hillenbrand, asked subjects to rate a series of individual sounds based on unpleasantness. They found that eliminating the highest frequencies from recordings did not improve unpleasantness. Instead, when they removed frequencies from the middle or low spectrum of the sound, subjects gave more positive ratings than when all of the frequencies remained.

Your Brain Catch Grammar Errors Even You Don't Realise It

2013-05-14T06:04:00.0000000+10:00

The brain does all kinds of amazing things while you're not paying attention (you know, like regularly remind you to breathe). But it's also engaged in less critical but equally interesting tasks, like correcting the grammar of the person sitting across from you at dinner. A University of Oregon study has logged hard evidence that the brain processes and compensates for errors in grammar and syntax without your being aware of it.

How To Make A Painkiller Addiction-Proof?

2013-05-14T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

For those who have severe chronic pain, the advantage of OxyContin over other prescription painkillers is that it lasts for 12 hours. For those who like to get high on opioids, the great thing about OxyContin is that if you crush it and snort it, or mix it with water and inject it, you get 12 hours' worth of oxycodone all at once. "So basically they get a really big high," Bob Jamison, a professor of anesthesiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, tells Popular Science.

Watch People Across The World Edit Wikipedia Articles In Real Time

2013-05-14T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

At any given moment, somebody is almost certainly editing something on Wikipedia. Will that person have any expertise on the subject? Who knows!

Geophysical Coalition Testing High-Tech Tools To Unearth Hidden Graves

2013-05-14T04:28:00.0000000+10:00

Perhaps the saddest byproduct of acts of orchestrated violence isn't the staggeringly high body counts that can accrue, but the bodies that aren't counted. Conflicts like the one that ripped apart the former-Yugoslav states in the 1990s and the ongoing crisis in Syria are generally marked by dually appalling statistical categories - the one counting the confirmed dead and the one tallying the missing, victims of atrocities or otherwise that are often buried without marker or record. Mexico is no stranger to such unmarked and often mass graves, a consequence of the ongoing drug-related violence there, so its perhaps an appropriate venue for researchers to launch a collaboration to develop new technological tools to help locate and exhume hidden graves.

How Facebook Used Science To Design More Emotional Emoticons

2013-05-14T03:45:00.0000000+10:00

In 1872, Charles Darwin published The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, a book that cataloged emotional expressions in humans and their link to the animal world. In the book, Darwin described more than 50 universal emotions. Now Facebook, with the help of a psychologist who studies emotions and a Pixar illustrator, has turned some of the emotions Darwin described in the 19th century into a set of emoticons. The hope: to create emoticons that better capture the vast range of human emotion.

High School Student Wins Hackathon With A Tool That Blocks TV Spoilers

2013-05-14T02:45:00.0000000+10:00

Twivo is a simple idea: protect yourself from spoilers by censoring references to a given TV show until you can get home and catch up. It's a nice little tool with a great backstory: it was created in only 10 hours by a high school student, who was the only female entrant to finish her project in a local hackathon.

Iran Unveils Absurd New Stealth Drone

2013-05-14T02:15:00.0000000+10:00

Last week Iran unveiled the brand-new Hamaseh Stealth and Combat Drone. You can see it above.

The Troubling Way Men React To Sexual Harassment

2013-05-14T01:45:00.0000000+10:00

When men and women get sexually harassed, they take it out on their bodies, according to a new study. And of the effects researchers looked for, the strongest wad in men, who were most likely to throw up or take laxatives in response to harassment.

Watch ISS Commander Chris Hadfield Cover David Bowie's 'Space Oddity'... In Space

2013-05-14T00:45:00.0000000+10:00

International Space Station Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield has taught us so much about space. He's shown us how to make sandwiches in zero gravity (with tortillas, because bread crumbs - like potato chip crumbles - can clog the instruments) and why there's no crying in space travel. And now, with his departure from the ISS imminent, he's shown us that covers can still be cool by releasing a video of himself performing David Bowie's "Space Cowboy" aboard the ISS.

Making New Elements

2013-05-13T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

Last year, scientists in Germany set out to create the heaviest known element in the universe: element 119. For five months, they attempted to fuse the atoms of two lighter elements to form one large atom with 119 protons in its nucleus. Like other artificially created superheavy elements (those with 103 or more protons), element 119 will decay in a fraction of a second. Scientists strive to make ever-heavier elements to win acclaim (U.S. and Soviet scientists battled over their discoveries frequently during the Cold War) and to understand the processes that govern the behavior of atomic nuclei. Since wrapping up their experiment at the end of the year, the German researchers have been sifting through terabytes of data for a hint of element 119. If they find proof, the scientists will not only win the right to name it, they will do something even more unusual: add a new row to the periodic table.

Thieves Stole $45 Million From ATMs Because The U.S. Uses Absurd 40-Year-Old Technology

2013-05-11T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

Yesterday, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn revealed that an international team of thieves had stolen close to $45 million in the biggest ATM fraud case in history. The heist required some hacking and a lot of orchestration, so news organizations and police forces have been calling it high-tech and "sophisticated." Which it isn't, really! It's possible because the US - yes, specifically the US - is wildly behind the times in terms of transactional security, relying on a 50-year-old technology.

Emergency Spacewalk Likely for 'Serious' ISS Coolant Leak

2013-05-11T06:00:00.0000000+10:00

Astronauts on the International Space Station are preparing for a potential emergency spacewalk to fix an ammonia coolant leak outside the station. On Thursday, the ISS crew spotted small white flakes floating away from an area of the Station's P6 truss structure, and noticed pressure drops in the control panel of the pump and flow control system for the power-supplying solar arrays.

Burning Liquid Hydrogen For Fuel, Navy Drone Flies For 48 Hours Straight

2013-05-11T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

In drone design, there's a trade-off between flying quietly and staying airborne for a long time. The Ion Tiger drone, which just completed a continuous 48 hour 1 minute flight, might be the breakthrough that changes this.

8 Signs That Girl You Met On The Internet Is Fake

2013-05-09T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

That widowed Ukrainian engineer you just met on your favorite dating website? She's probably a scammer.

US Wants Warning Labels On Tanning Beds

2013-05-08T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Hey, kids! The US Food and Drug Administration wants you to know that it doesn't recommend tanning beds to those of you under 18. And it'd like to require tanning lamp manufacturers to carry that warning, although it won't legally prohibit minors from tanning.

Buzz Aldrin Wants To Send People On A One-Way Trip To Mars

2013-05-08T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

With enough money and enough might, humans could probably get to Mars in the next couple of decades. It's a proposition made all the more relevant by the continuing findings of the rovers Opportunity and Curiosity. It would be a mammoth undertaking, but it's possible, at least in concept. But should humans go, and should we stay? Will we? Buzz Aldrin thinks so.

Researchers Trace Languages Of Billions Back To One Ancient Ancestor

2013-05-08T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

At least 15,000 years ago, a single language started to break up. It broke into about seven different languages and, over the next 5,000 years, splintered into thousands more. Those languages became what's spoken by billions throughout Europe and Asia.

Mexican Cartels Control Pot Farms As Far North As Washington State

2013-05-08T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

You know Mexican drug cartels are responsible for terrible violence south of the U.S. border, but the groups have plenty of people in the U.S., too. A new map of cartels' influence in the U.S. shows that they even run large grow-ops in the west, as far north as Oregon and Washington.

Google Glass Isn't A Surveillance Device

2013-05-07T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

A petition created late last week on the White House's very serious petitions site requests that Google Glass be banned nationwide "until clear limitations are placed to prevent indecent public surveillance." The fear articulated in the petition is that a Glass-wearer will be able to record without a subject knowing, even in potentially sensitive places like public bathrooms.

The Impossible Dream Of The Hindenburg: How Airships Were Going To Change The World

2013-05-07T08:00:00.0000000+10:00

"Now You Can Fly Around The World," by John E. Lodge and excerpted below, originally appeared in the June 1936 issue of Popular Science magazine. The Hindenburg airship crashed May 6, 1937.

Guys: Holding A Guitar Makes You More Attractive

2013-05-07T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

Single dudes: Are you holding a guitar at this moment? If not, you are not reaching your Maximum Attractiveness Potential, according to two (2) recently published studies.

Sandy-Devastated Town Will Ditch Landlines Forever

2013-05-07T07:00:00.0000000+10:00

Verizon will not rebuild its copper-line telephone network in Mantoloking, N.J., a community of about 300 that was devastated by Hurricane Sandy, Asbury Park Press reports. Instead, the company is offering residents a new service called Verizon Voice Link, which connects wired and cordless phones to the Verizon Wireless network.

The 3D Printing Of The Future Promises Far More Than Just Guns

2013-05-07T06:00:00.0000000+10:00

The Liberator, the 3-D printed gun that we reported on earlier today, is proof-of-concept for an inevitable and dangerous idea: what happens to anti-gun legislation when people can just make weapons in their homes?

How The World's First 3D Printed Gun Works

2013-05-07T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

It started with a crowdfunding project last August. Now, nine months later, the world's first 3-D printed gun is here. Announced via Forbes exclusive on Friday, the design, called the Liberator, is now available for download.

High Schoolers Build DIY Sensor-Activated Locker For Wheelchair-Bound Classmate

2013-05-07T04:24:00.0000000+10:00

A couple high school seniors in Michigan recently rigged a junior's locker to open with the wave of a hand, the Livingston Daily reported. It's not a mean trick: The redesign helps Nick Torrance, a Pinckney Community High School junior who has muscular dystrophy, open and close his own locker.

Los Alamos Lab Has Had A Secret Quantum Internet For Two Years

2013-05-07T03:56:00.0000000+10:00

The central principle of quantum mechanics - that the act of measuring a quantum object actually changes it - has some pretty amazing potential in the world of cryptography. And Los Alamos National Laboratory just revealed that it has been using a new design of quantum cryptography setup for more than two years.

New Device Detects Asbestos In Real-Time, With Lasers And Magnets

2013-05-07T03:30:00.0000000+10:00

Asbestos is an insidious killer, with a nasty habit of being most deadly when it is least visible. Fortunately, a new device can detect asbestos on site, without a lab test.

Why The U.S. National Institute Of Mental Health Plans To Abandon The DSM

2013-05-07T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health is turning its back on the so-called bible of its field. In a statement, the institute said it will start doing research in a way that ignores the categories in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is commonly known as the "DSM," plus a number to indicate the edition. This just weeks before the American Psychiatric Association plans to published the fifth (and controversial) edition of the DSM.

Q&A: Kickstarter Co-Founder Yancey Strickler

2013-05-07T02:15:00.0000000+10:00

Most independent inventors don't have bottomless bank accounts. To fund their dreams, many innovators are appealing to strangers on the Web for help. Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler weighs in on this growing source of grassroots venture capital.

An Animation Of Every Recorded Meteorite Blast In History

2013-05-07T01:30:00.0000000+10:00

Earth is bombarded all the time by space rocks, but people rarely notice them - only 1,042 have ever been seen falling. People didn't start recording these impacts until a couple hundred years ago, and then suddenly, they noticed all the time.

Why We Can't Stop Eating Icing From The Bowl

2013-05-07T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

You know when you're eating icing straight out of the bowl and you're thinking, "I don't even really like this flavour," but you keep on eating? (It's a dark, but human, moment. We understand.) Well, now one study is offering an explanation for why. Compared to calorie-free foods, foods with calories in them hit the human brain with big effects, even if people don't appear to consciously like the flavours all that much.

Acer Announces Weird Folding Laptop With The Trackpad In The Wrong Place

2013-05-04T02:28:00.0000000+10:00

At an event this morning in New York City, Acer announced a slate of new gadgets, some boring (an iPad-Mini-sized Iconia tablet, a small convertible laptop) but one distinctly...odd. The Acer Aspire R7 isn't quite like any other laptop out there.

An iPhone Case For Cops That Can Scan Irises On The Fly

2013-05-03T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

Iris scanning as a form of biometric recognition doesn't get as much attention as retinal scanning or fingerprints, but it's got a lot of advantages. Irises don't change over time, like fingerprints can, there's no need for any actual physical contact to get a scan, and it's hard to fool an iris scanner with surgery or other medical alteration. Now, there's one even bigger advantage: you can carry an iris scanner around with you in one hand.

Why a US Grocery Store Is Installing Military Cameras

2013-05-03T07:00:00.0000000+10:00

The retail giant Kroger is using infrared cameras in 95 per cent of its stores, and if all goes as planned, no one will even notice the cameras are there.

OpenWorm Is An Open-Source Virtual Worm, Accurate In Every Way

2013-05-03T06:29:00.0000000+10:00

Predictive models are essential in engineering fields, but less common in biology, though accurate simulations of living organisms could help us understand disease, drug efficacy and neuroscience.

NASA Wants To Send Your Haiku To Mars

2013-05-03T06:00:00.0000000+10:00

When NASA launches the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft in November, it wants to pack onboard a DVD containing three poetic messages to everyone's second-favorite planet. Any Earthling can submit a haiku about Mars by July 1-the DVD will include the name of each person who sends a poem, but only the three most popular haikus will eventually orbit the red planet.

Scientists Create Hybrid, Air-Transmissible Bird Flu Strains

2013-05-03T05:26:00.0000000+10:00

The most recent bird flu strain claimed another victim today, bringing the number of dead to 27, all in China. So far 127 people have fallen ill, and world health authorities say the new H7N9 flu is a global threat that should be taken seriously. The strain, which has been transmitted from chickens to humans, is so far unable to move from person to person. But scientists are figuring out how other strains could.

Scientists 3D Print A Bionic Ear With Help From A High School Kid

2013-05-03T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

A team of scientists at Princeton University - along with one very savvy high school student - have managed to create a truly bionic ear. It's not just a replacement - it has sensors woven throughout the tissue that actually enhance its hearing abilities.

Ladies, Are You Smearing Toxic Metals On Your Lips Every Day?

2013-05-03T04:30:00.0000000+10:00

A new study from the University of California, Berkeley and the Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice might make us rethink sexy red lips. According to the paper published online today in Environmental Health Perspectives, many lipsticks actually contain toxic metals.

Watch A Super-Dexterous Robot Hand Use Tweezers

2013-05-03T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Robots, while awesome, tend to be clumsy in unpredictable human environments. Machines that use hands as deftly as humans do, with only minimal direction, would be a tremendous boon to rescue and hazardous work. They'd also be a major step toward useful, multipurpose household robots.

Gecko-Like Drone Can Land On Walls And Ceilings

2013-05-03T03:30:00.0000000+10:00

This drone could become the proverbial fly on the wall. Thanks to a joint research project between the University of Maryland's Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory and Stanford's Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Lab, there is now a quadrotor that can cling to walls and land on ceilings.

Big Pic: What A Supersonic Aircraft Model Looks Like In A Wind Tunnel

2013-04-27T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

This is a 1.79 per cent scale model of a concept supersonic aircraft designed by The Boeing Company. You're seeing it through a window in the supersonic wind tunnel at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Ohio.

These QR-Code-Inspired Children's Pajamas Are Apparently A Real Thing

2013-04-27T07:00:00.0000000+10:00

"Gee," the hyper-intelligent children of this Brave New World of ours must often think, "I sure wish Mommy and Daddy had a smartphone-based way of reading me bed-time stories! Perhaps in some way that utilized QR codes?" Well, parents, that future you did not expect or ask for is here.

How Giant Concrete Balls Could Make Wind Power More Efficient

2013-04-27T06:28:00.0000000+10:00

Wind power is pretty great: One doesn't need to do much but build turbines and capture the energy from a passing breeze. But, like what happened to the Ancient Mariner, still air means trouble. Intermittent energy is not useful for a grid that requires a continuous supply.

Inside The Mind Of A Scientist Who Made Up More Than 50 Studies

2013-04-27T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

When you hear about well-regarded scientists making up data in their studies, it's easy to wonder, What were they thinking?

Largest Current Study Of AIDS Vaccine Shut Down Because It Doesn't Work

2013-04-27T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

The largest current study of a potential AIDS vaccine, a $77 million project led by a Columbia University doctor, has been shut down due to "futility." The patients will be monitored to see any long-term effects, but the message is clear: it doesn't work, shut it down.

Does Summer Always Get You Down? You Might Be A Rat

2013-04-27T03:36:00.0000000+10:00

During the short, dark winter days, many humans suffer from seasonal affective disorder, in which they experience symptoms of depression that subside come springtime (and recent research suggests all mental illnesses, not just depression, might get worse in winter.) A new study has found that rats get SAD, too-but during the long, sunny summer days, instead.

This Device Turns A Charcoal Stove Into A Mobile Charger

2013-04-27T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

VOTO is a new device that turns fire into a power source for mobile phones. Now, where there's fire, there can be modern civilisation!

Amazon.com To Battle Governments Of Brazil And Peru For The .Amazon Domain

2013-04-27T02:25:00.0000000+10:00

In 2011, ICANN, the organisation in charge of the internet's domain names, decided to open up the field and expand the list of domains from the typical .com, .net, and country codes out to, well, pretty much anything. We knew we'd see some battles over the new domains, but one of the first is an interesting case: .amazon.

US Plans To Remove Gray Wolf From Endangered Species List

2013-04-27T01:30:00.0000000+10:00

America's gray wolves are moving off the endangered species list, the Los Angeles Times has revealed.

Parachuting Canister Detects Chemical Weapons

2013-04-27T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

Army researchers at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) are developing new technology that could help US troops battle chemical warfare. The technology, a canister about the size of a soda can, can sniff out dangerous chemicals and relay information about potential hazards back to troops.

How Stopping Deforestation Would Make Us Richer [Infographic]

2013-04-26T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

Deforestation definitely isn't doing nature any favours, but at least there's a financial incentive for it, right?

How 4 Nerds Discovered The DNA Helix 60 Years Ago Today

2013-04-26T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

"DNA: It Calls the Signals of Life," by Wallace Cloud and excerpted below, originally appeared in the May 1963 issue of Popular Science magazine. Francis Crick and James Watson first described the double helix structure of DNA on April 25, 1953. - Ed

The White House's Latest Drug Policy Plan Is Actually Based On Science

2013-04-26T06:59:00.0000000+10:00

In the US, how the government approaches drugs has very little to do with science. The War on Drugs has put the focus on incarceration and enforcement, not on the public health aspects of addiction. We classify drugs based on politics, rather than their actual risk, and inhibit further research that might prove them useful to society.

We're Losing The Battle Against Wild Pigs

2013-04-26T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

From Berlin to Mississippi, feral pigs are proving to be one of the most efficient and dangerous invasive species ever known. Smart, industrious, voracious and omnivorous eaters, they reproduce quickly and destroy everything in their path. Modern Farmer has a lovely feature up on the menace - and yes, it is a menace. "The issue is as serious as swine flu," says Modern Farmer.

How It Works: The Thermal Camera That Found The Boston Bomber

2013-04-26T06:00:00.0000000+10:00

The night before police captured Dzhokar Tsarnaev, a convenience store robbery set off a series of events that included the death of an MIT police officer, a gunfight that ended with the elder Tsarnaev brother dead, and a 20 hour manhunt for the other alleged Boston Marathon bomber. The manhunt was accompanied by a citywide order to "shelter in place" (that is, stay at home and out of harms way) while police conducted a search of Watertown, where it was believed the other bomber was hiding. At 8:15pm on April 19, police cornered a man in a boat.

Humpback Whales Learn New Tricks By Watching Their Friends

2013-04-26T05:29:00.0000000+10:00

There are a lot of ways to make a grilled cheese sandwich, but you probably make yours the same way your mom did. Or maybe you picked up a habit from your roommate, and how you slice diagonally instead of down the center. Whatever you do is not innate or instinctive, it's learned - it's a cultural tradition, however mundane. Apparently, humans (and other primates) are not alone in this. Whales have multiple cultural traditions, too.

The Tangled Logic Of Time Travel In Movies [Infographic]

2013-04-26T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

This infographic by Mr. Dalliard documents the nature, logic, and scale of time travel in film. Most of the terms are straightforward, and then there's the "Novikov self-consistency principle." Developed by a Russian physicist between 1975 and 1990, it asserts:

How The New US $100 Bill Will Foil Counterfeiters

2013-04-26T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

For as long as there has been money, there've been people trying to make fake money. In the US, the latest effort to stop counterfeiting will arrive October 8, when the next $100 bill is released - and it looks like the yank might finally be starting to catch up with Australia's especially difficult to counterfeit currency.

Broadcast Your Drunken Data To The World With A Smartphone Breathalyzer

2013-04-26T02:31:00.0000000+10:00

Whether you're in a contest with your buddies over who's the drunkest, or legitimately trying to determine whether your blood alcohol content is low enough to drive home (just take a cab, dude), personal breathalyzers can be pretty fun to whip out at a bar, at least for those of us obsessed with numbers. But perhaps it's not enough of a social experience for the 21st century?

Harvard's Primate Research Lab To Close

2013-04-26T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

Harvard University announced yesterday that it would shut down its primate research center, used for research into diseases like AIDS, and move the 2,000 rhesus macaques and cotton-top tamarins to other research facilities throughout the country. Harvard cited "financial uncertainties" as the cause of the shutdown, somehow neglecting to mention that this research facility has been cited for violations of animal welfare by both governmental and private organizations.

Oxford Institute Forecasts The Possible Doom Of Humanity

2013-04-26T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

Most of us are content to just worry about the future of humanity in our spare time, but there's an entire group of academics at Oxford University in England who make that their professional mission.

Million-Neuron Artificial Brain Works In Real Time

2013-04-25T22:58:00.0000000+10:00

This new computer model of a brain has one million neurons and works just as fast as a live brain does.

A Show About 1960s NASA From The Mad Men Team? We Hope The Rumor's True

2013-04-25T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

According to Florida Today, some unspecified writers from the show Mad Men are "working on a potential TV series" to be set in Cocoa Beach, Florida. You might not have heard of Cocoa Beach, a town of about 11,000 on a sandbar in the Atlantic, east of Orlando. But it has a few things going for it that might make it a good setting for a show: it's the home of the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame, author Zora Neale Hurston lives there, and, um, it's also where many workers at Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center lived during the 1960s.

People Who Beat The Odds Aren't Brilliant, Just Lucky

2013-04-25T07:00:00.0000000+10:00

If a person made a smart business decision that was counterintuitive, you might look through the bars of his or her gated home as that person backstroked through a pool of gold coins and think, "Wow! That person has good business sense." You would almost certainly be wrong, though, weirdo, because a new study has found that people who strike it big on one or two unlikely scenarios still end up making fewer correct predictions in the long run.

How A Millionaire Sold Fake Bomb Detectors To Governments All Over The World

2013-04-25T06:23:00.0000000+10:00

It turns out someone can make millions in defence technology without any skill, innovation, or relevant expertise. Instead, as businessman James McCormick found out, it just takes some snakeoil, salesmanship, hubris, a couple bribes, and a lack of scruples. A London court found McCormick guilty of fraud on April 24.

New App Gives You An Automatic Nosejob

2013-04-25T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

Facial recognition technology helps Facebook to guess who's in pictures and, in a pilot program, the FBI to match mug shots. Or check out this creepy face mashup using recognition tech.

Why I Let My Students Cheat On Their Game Theory Exam

2013-04-25T04:30:00.0000000+10:00

On test day for my Behavioral Ecology class at UCLA, I walked into the classroom bearing an impossibly difficult exam. Rather than being neatly arranged in alternate rows with pen or pencil in hand, my students sat in one tight group, with notes and books and laptops open and available. They were poised to share each other's thoughts and to copy the best answers. As I distributed the tests, the students began to talk and write. All of this would normally be called cheating. But it was completely OK by me.

Humans Can Feel Empathy Toward Robots

2013-04-25T04:01:00.0000000+10:00

Humans feel bad when they see other humans being mistreated, but do we feel the same way about robots?

New Chemical Trick To Make Fertiliser That Won't Explode

2013-04-25T01:30:00.0000000+10:00

The same chemical that makes fertilizer so useful also makes it really cheap bomb fuel. Researchers at Sandia labs in Albuquerque wondered if they could render the explosive properties of fertilizer inert while still keeping the beneficial properties intact, and this week announced success in a test batch. Even better, they're sharing the innovation for free.

Big Pic: There's A Penis Drawing On Mars, You Guys

2013-04-25T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

We did it, everyone! A space program decades in the making has culminated with this: a penis on the surface of Mars.

A Solar Dish That Makes Electricity And Fresh Water

2013-04-25T00:30:00.0000000+10:00

It's not exactly a solar panel. It's more like a solar dish. And not only does it generate electricity, it makes water, too.

We've Finally Figured Out What Makes LED Bulbs So Inefficient

2013-04-24T23:01:00.0000000+10:00

LEDs should be lighting the way to a greener future: They use 75 percent less energy and last 25 times longer than incandescent light bulbs, and they do so at a cooler temperature. But right now, we mostly use LEDs in electronics, because they have a bit of a drooping problem: at higher currents, the amount of light they produce takes a nose-dive.

Brain Cells Will Control The Power Plants Of The Future

2013-04-24T07:35:00.0000000+10:00

Talk about a mind meld. Researchers have hooked up living brain cells, grown in a petri dish, to a computer.

Can Oxytocin Get Me A Boyfriend?

2013-04-24T06:45:00.0000000+10:00

We met up at a dim sum place in Chinatown. He smiled when he saw me, and I gave him a long hug. Already, there was none of the stiff awkwardness that had plagued our first two dates. What my companion didn't know was that minutes before arriving at the restaurant, I had inhaled two puffs of oxytocin, a polypeptide hormone that might be the biological basis for love.

Shedding New Light On Basement Marijuana Technology

2013-04-24T05:28:00.0000000+10:00

As of 2013, 24 states and Washington, DC, have either legalized marijuana or decriminalized possession of it. One of my friends lives in a state where medical marijuana is now legal, and he has taken full advantage of this to start growing the plant, which helps him manage the symptoms of a chronic illness, in his basement. Rather than use his real name, I'll just refer to him by his online handle, GrowingGreenLED. I've known GGL for years, and I knew that even when it was illegal, he used marijuana for medical reasons. The whole grow-your-own was a new thing for him - and me. Curious about the enterprise, I asked if he'd be willing to chat with me about the ins and outs of growing one's own plants. In particular, I was curious about his all-LED setup.

Reddit Is More Dangerous Than The Syrian Electronic Army's Hackers

2013-04-24T05:20:00.0000000+10:00

About an hour ago, the Associated Press's official Twitter account, @AP, issued this tweet (it's since been removed):

The Math: What Life On Kepler-62e Would Be Like

2013-04-24T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

Scientists recently located two exoplanets orbiting in the Kepler-62 star system 1,200 light years from Earth. Though much further away than other exoplanets possibly conducive to life-Gliese 581g is only 20 light years from us - Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are the smallest exoplanets the Kepler Mission has detected in their star's "goldilocks zone." And for habitability, size matters. Kepler-62e, in particular, has a radius only 60 per cent larger than Earth's, meaning that if it is a rocky planet like Earth it might have a similar mass. With a similar mass (meaning similar gravity) and an atmosphere, Kepler-62e could have life as we know it. In fact, Kepler-62e now tops the charts for potential habitable exoplanets.

Rich People Aren't Entirely Awful And Selfish: Study

2013-04-24T04:30:00.0000000+10:00

Investment bankers raking in the dough on Wall Street may get a bad rap for being selfish, but a desire to make boatloads of money won't automatically turn you into Scrooge McDuck, according to new research. A study published in the April issue of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology found that many people primarily driven by a desire for wealth are still willing to help someone in need.

This Antarctic Research Base Actually Looks Pretty Cozy

2013-04-24T03:30:00.0000000+10:00

Brazil's Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station, a permanent research base operated by the country's Navy, was destroyed by a fire in February 2012. Architectural firm Triptyque Arquitetura entered this design as a potential replacement, and although it took second place, it still looks amazing.

Did You Seriously Get Funding To Study Whether Instagram Is All Selfies?

2013-04-24T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Good work by the research team at the University of Gothenburg, which has a bright future as respectable-looking, labcoat-wearing con men if this whole science thing doesn't work out. The three-person team gave phones with Instagram to a bunch of people at a museum and watched what they did with them.

How The FBI Will Analyze Thousands Of Hours Of Boston Bombing Video

2013-04-24T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

It was a 7-Eleven's security footage that helped trace Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev to a Boston suburb the day after the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation publicly released photos and videos of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. But that won't be the end of video evidence in this case. Now that Dzhokar has been captured, U.S. agencies will comb through thousands of hours of video captured on security cameras, people's cellphones and other sources, looking for evidence to build their case against Tsarnaev in court, Grant Fredericks tells Popular Science. Fredericks is a forensic video instructor at the FBI National Academy. He also manages the use of the National Multimedia Evidence Processing Lab in Indiana. It's an enormous task, but some technologies, both old and new, now make it a little easier. I talked with Fredericks about the tech tools he and his colleagues at the FBI use. The following comes from phone and email conversations last week and today. - Francie Diep

Which Drugs Actually Kill Americans [Infographic]

2013-04-24T00:30:00.0000000+10:00

In 2010, there were 80,000 drug and alcohol overdose deaths in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's WONDER database. The database, maintained by the National Center for Health Statistics, keeps a tally of all the deaths listed on certificates nationwide. They're classified by the ICD-10 medical coding reference system.

FYI: How Does A Drug Get Its Name?

2013-04-24T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

Say it with me: Xeljanz. OK, at least try and say it with me. Shell-jance? Zell-johns? Ghel-yahns? Who knows. It's a new arthritis drug, and I have no idea how to pronounce it, but one thing is definitely clear: It could be worth billions for its maker, Pfizer. (That name you probably know how to say.)

Big Pic: Happy Earth Day From Space!

2013-04-23T08:00:00.0000000+10:00

SpaceX tweeted this photo today showing its Dragon capsule berthed to the International Space Station. Earth is beautiful every day, and you can't beat a view like this.

10 Environmental Holidays That Are Cooler Than Earth Day

2013-04-23T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

Sick of dusting off the tie-dye and patchouli every year to celebrate Earth Day, the planet's most generic holiday? Us, too. So we've gathered together 10 lesser-known holidays that take a much more specific look at how humans interact with the world.

NASA Just Led The Biggest Hackaton Ever

2013-04-23T07:00:00.0000000+10:00

This weekend, NASA led the International Space Apps Challenge, a hackaton to solve the many challenges facing life on earth and in space. It sounded like a big project, but we didn't quite expect this: it's apparently the biggest hackathon of all time, with more than 9,000 people and 484 organizations creating more than 600 pieces of software, hardware, and data visualizations of public astronomical data. The projects are being reviewed now, and we can't wait to see what they are. [Space Apps Challenge]

Researchers Treat Lazy Eye With Tetris

2013-04-23T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

The classic game Tetris has been shown to help alleviate some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and apparently it's also good at treating lazy eyes.

Apply Now For A One-Way Trip To Mars

2013-04-23T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

Want to live and die on Mars? Mars One has officially begun its worldwide search for astronauts who will fly to Mars in 2023-and never come back.

Dear President Obama: When Will You Stop Talking About Climate Change And Actually Do Something?

2013-04-23T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Dear Mr. President,

I was hoping to get a jump on this Earth Day letter during the weekend, but I fell behind because of water in my basement. Torrential rains the past few days soaked the ground so much, the water had nowhere else to go. Of course, April showers are not unusual where I live in the Midwest; the problem is that right now, I don't have enough trees and bushes to absorb them. And that's the unusual thing. Those plants died, weak and thirsty, during an epic drought last summer - the hottest year on record. Now their absence is taking a toll.

For God's Sake, Stay Inside During A Gun Fight

2013-04-23T03:30:00.0000000+10:00

Ever wonder why the people taking cell phone videos of gunfights aren't themselves hit by bullets? Turns out, there's no good explanation other than dumb luck, because according to the laws of physics, they should be totally screwed.

Hyundai Made A Flying Car (Sorta)

2013-04-23T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

For Hyundai's annual Idea Festival - a Wacky Races-style competition where engineers show off the most bonkers ideas they can dream up - a team unveiled this crazy flying car. Basically, it's a multirotor drone, except with a driver's seat and 16 rotors instead of the more conventional four.

Smoking Pot And Popping THC Pills Combat Pain, Study Finds

2013-04-23T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

Both smoked marijuana and pills made using marijuana's top active ingredient relieve pain, a new, small study found. Which to choose? Well, smoked pot worked faster, but the pills' effects lasted longer, the study found.

The First Elevated-Pin Braille Smartphone Gets A Prototype

2013-04-23T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

With smartphone interaction mostly relying on sight, since there's no tactile difference to what's on the screen, some blind people have turned to apps to make up the difference. These apps can do some pretty impressive things, like determine the denomination of currency or read text out loud, rendering braille unnecessary for some tasks. But those were workarounds, to make up for the inability to create an actual braille interface. For about three years, a team of inventors in India have been working on a smartphone that can turn apps and text into braille. Now they've got a prototype.

FYI: How Much Cocaine Can You Fit In Your, Ahem, Body?

2013-04-23T01:30:00.0000000+10:00

The first thing you learn, when investigating drug muling, is that muling is a very common and efficient way of transporting contraband. The second thing you learn is that you have no idea how elastic the gastrointestinal tract is.

FYI: Is Ecstasy Safer When It's Purer?

2013-04-23T00:30:00.0000000+10:00

Last summer, British Columbia's top health official caused an uproar when he called the risks of MDMA - the synthetic amphetamine sold as ecstasy - overblown.

3-D Print Your Doodles With This New Kickstarter Project

2013-04-23T00:04:00.0000000+10:00

A new project on Kickstarter allows amateur artists to 3D print their simple 2D doodles. The Doodle3D Wifi Box is designed to connect any wireless drawing device (i.e. any tablet, smartphone, or computer) to a 3-D printer. The software runs on the WiFi box, and users access it through their browser.

Last Week in Numbers

2013-04-20T08:24:00.0000000+10:00

All the week, all the numbers!

How Physics Can Help Solve Crimes

2013-04-20T07:00:00.0000000+10:00

It turns out that the best way to understand the science of how blood splatters is, well, science. With funding from the US Department of Justice, researchers at Iowa State University are turning to physics to reduce uncertainty and guesswork in bloodstain pattern analyses.

What Drugs You Like Depends On Where You Go Dancing [Infographic]

2013-04-20T06:27:00.0000000+10:00

MixMag's annual Global Drug Survey came out yesterday, and it has the breakdown. The survey asked 22,000 people about their drug use habits, and MixMag packaged the data in this nice little infographic. Maybe not surprisingly, the drug of choice is the legally obtainable alcohol. Cannabis isn't too far behind.

Should Police Scanners Be Public?

2013-04-20T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

The past week has seen a torrent of information, the majority inaccurate, gushing from the faucets of Twitter and Facebook and Reddit and cable news and tabloids and blog posts. The story has become not so much what happened as what didn't happen; as BuzzFeed notes, the most valuable service a respectable publication can perform right now is not to be the first but to act as Virgil, guiding the public through the morass of information they already have.

BigPic: What's This Smoky-Looking Photo From Space?

2013-04-20T04:30:00.0000000+10:00

These are swirls of ice photographed off the northern coast of Japan. This image was taken from the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who tweeted it on April 19, 2013.

Shark Attacks On Humans Vs. Human Attacks On Sharks [Infographic]

2013-04-20T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Sharks have been mythologised in our culture as ruthless brutes and hunters, but the truth is humans are way, way more of a threat to sharks than sharks are to us. About 100 million sharks are killed annually, mostly related to "finning" (when the shark fins are sliced off and sold, often for soup).

This Video Tech Found The Boston Bombers

2013-04-20T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Three days after the Boston Marathon bombings, a security camera caught one of the suspects robbing a 7-11. Police recognised him from photos and videos released by the FBI yesterday. The identification led police to the manhunt, and the rest is, well, history.

Can Virtual Reality Treat Addiction?

2013-04-20T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

When the addicts enter the room, they haven't met the people inside. They've never been there before, but the setting is familiar, and so is the pipe on the table, or the bottles of booze on the ground. Soon enough, someone's offering them a hit, or a drug deal's going down right in front of them...

Just Seeing Hillary Clinton's Face Improves Women's Public Speaking

2013-04-20T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

What do women in politics need? Strong female role models.

Life Inside The Most Densely Populated Place On Earth [Infographic]

2013-04-19T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

Manhattan has the highest population density of any city in the United States, at 27,000 people per square mile. Whoof! That is an awful lot of people. Unless you're comparing it to the vice-ridden former Chinese military fort known as Kowloon Walled City, which prior to its destruction in 1994 had a population density of 3.25 million people per square mile.

Find Out, For Better Or Worse, What Music Your Twitter Friends Like

2013-04-19T06:00:00.0000000+10:00

Twitter released its music service today, for web and iOS devices like the iPhone. It taps into your Twitter feed to recommend music through four channels, the most interesting of which is "NowPlaying," made up of the stuff the people you follow have tweeted about. If you have a paid Rdio or Spotify subscription, you can then listen to the full tracks as a kind of Twitter-curated playlist. It's slick and simple and works really well!

Kepler Search Finds Two New Cozy, Possibly Watery Planets Around Faraway Star

2013-04-19T05:36:00.0000000+10:00

In our solar system, only one world has just the right size, just the right temperature and just the right home for liquid water. Long ago, at least one other rocky planet had water, too, but it's gone now; Mars dried up and turned to rust. A distant moon called Europa has a lot of water, but too far from the sun's warmth, the moon remains frozen. Closer in, Mercury and Venus are too hot to keep it.

New App Tells Icelanders If Their Hookup Qualifies As Accidental Incest

2013-04-19T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

The world can seem like a mighty small place, but nowhere more so than in Iceland, a country of 320,000 people where getting it on with a relative isn't even a question - the question is, how distantly? Thanks to a new app that warns users if they're too closely related, Icelandic daters can now go to bed feeling a little more assured that they won't eventually run into their one night stand at a family reunion.

Why It's So Hard For Scientists To Study Medical Marijuana

2013-04-19T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Over in the US, 18 states (plus the District of Columbia) allow cannabis use for certain medical conditions. Despite that, scientists have a harder time doing research on the potential medical benefits of marijuana than they do on "harder" drugs like ecstasy or magic mushrooms. The US public may think of pot use as no big deal, but federal laws make it difficult for researchers to obtain legal supplies. Clinical researchers can get permission from the DEA to grow or create restricted compounds like LSD, MDMA or psilocybin in the lab; not so with cannabis.

A Box With A Hidden Video Camera Documents Its Own Journey Through The Mail

2013-04-19T03:32:00.0000000+10:00

Recently I found myself in need of shipping several valuable and highly breakable items, and I dreaded what would become of them after their boxes left my care. Would the invisible conveyor belts, giant bins and beshorted UPS guys really handle them with care? Next time maybe I will follow this guy's lead and put a camera in the box just to be sure.

FYI: What Is Anhydrous Ammonia?

2013-04-19T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

At least five people are dead and more than 160 injured after an explosion at an anhydrous ammonia fertiliser plant in the small Texas town of West. Anhydrous ammonia is a highly toxic, volatile chemical that may have exacerbated the explosion and can blind, suffocate, burn, and kill humans. What is it? And why is it so dangerous?

In 1884, A Popular Science Writer Got Way Too Stoned

2013-04-19T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

This account of what it's like to, you know, punch a massive cone before the age of prohibition on cannabis, "An Overdose of Hasheesh," by Mary C. Hungerford, originally appeared in the February 1884 issue of Popular Science magazine. That's right, 1884 - back when they were still giving babies cocaine. Now you can read the whole thing here and... it's a little bit awesome.

Humans Share Microbiomes With Their Dogs, Study Finds

2013-04-18T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

You know you share genes with your biological parents and kids, but what about microbes? A new study finds that families share skin, tongue and gut microbes with each other... and their dogs.

Supercomputers Calculate Structure Of Bones On The Molecular Level

2013-04-18T07:29:00.0000000+10:00

Like the best of statesmen, bone is both strong and a little bit flexible. That's because it combines a soft, gel-like substance (collagen) with a stiff, strong one (mineral hydroxyapatite). Now, one team of engineers say they've figured out that balancing act in detail, elucidating how the molecular structure of bone fibers help them take advantage of the best of both worlds.

FYI: Can Humans Get High On Catnip?

2013-04-18T06:15:00.0000000+10:00

While cats may feel effects from marijuana-no word on whether Sir Harry Paus actually likes the experience-"kitty pot" does not have a reciprocal effect on humans.

Audi Wants Its Cars To Predict Where Traffic Will Be

2013-04-18T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

At the GPU Technology Conference 2013 show in San Jose, Audi announced some of its plans for its Cars of the Future, The Register reports. One of the coolest ideas: cars that can predict where traffic will be, so drivers can avoid it.

Magnetic Brain Stimulation Removes Craving For Cigarettes

2013-04-18T05:02:00.0000000+10:00

Scientists at Medical University of South Carolina temporarily blunted cigarette cravings among smokers by magnetically stimulating nerve cells in their brains. The procedure, called transcranial magnetic stimulation, is already approved by the FDA to treat depression, though its efficacy is controversial (it's also been prescribed to stop people from lying and treat adult ADHD.)

Everything You Need To Know About Ricin, The Poison Mailed To President Obama

2013-04-18T04:30:00.0000000+10:00

Yesterday, an envelope addressed to Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, was found to contain a white granular substance that was identified as ricin. Today, a similar letter addressed to President Obama was found. These envelopes were intercepted off-site - they never got anywhere near their targets - but as a precaution, Capitol Police have shut down mail service until they can figure out what's going on.

Wearing A Kilt Could Make Your Sperm Stronger

2013-04-18T02:21:00.0000000+10:00

Temperature affects how much sperm a man makes, so there's been speculation that the freedom offered by a kilt can increase production. Turns out that that at least could be right: a new metastudy says wearing a kilt "likely produces an ideal physiological scrotal environment, which in turn helps maintain normal scrotal temperature, which is known to be beneficial for robust spermatogenesis and good sperm quality."

We Could Eat Trees: Scientists Turn Inedible Plant Cellulose Into Starchy Snack

2013-04-18T01:34:00.0000000+10:00

Someday, it will be be summer again and it will be time for fresh sweet corn. In the future, you might be able to eat the whole thing, cob and all.

The Chemistry of Nitrous-Powered, Pot-Infused Liquor

2013-04-18T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

Behind the bars of some of the nation's finest cocktail joints, there are secrets: secret recipes, secret bottles for friends only. One of these is the Green Dragon, a liquor potently infused with marijuana.

Why We Stand Where We Do In An Elevator

2013-04-18T00:33:00.0000000+10:00

Rebekah Rousi, a Ph.D. student in cognitive science, conducted an ethnographic study of elevator behavior in two of the tallest office buildings in Adelaide, Australia. After taking a total of 30 elevator rides in the two buildings, she discovered there was an established order to where people tended stand.

DARPA Unveils Teeny Infrared Camera With 5-Micron Pixels

2013-04-17T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

Human eyesight is such a limiting factor in military missions that DARPA is trying to fix it. Not with lasers; those are reserved for ships, but instead with a new infrared camera using pixels only five microns wide.

Issue #54 - May 2013

2013-04-17T15:03:00.0000000+10:00

The annual PopSci Invention Awards are back for 2013! We've scoured the globe for the most amazing, intriguing, significant and, damnit, portentous garage inventions of the year...

Law Enforcement Thinks The Boston Bombs Were Constructed From Pressure Cookers

2013-04-17T08:06:00.0000000+10:00

According to NBC News, law enforcement is now saying that the bombs used in the attack on the Boston Marathon were constructed of pressure cookers filled with shrapnel. This is a common and low-rent bomb, typically made from a bit of TNT or other explosive in a sealed pressure cooker. They can be triggered remotely, and the pressure cooker itself turns into shrapnel.

Rented Computers Can No Longer Legally Spy On Americans

2013-04-17T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

And interesting development in the ongoing meta-saga of Privay vs Technology over in the US: According to a settlement that went into action yesterday (April 15), rent-to-own stores will no longer be allowed to peek at what their customers do. Previously, at least one piece of software allowed rent-to-own computer businesses to log their customers' keystrokes and GPS locations, take screenshots of the rented computers while people are using them, and snap photos of users with the computers' webcam.

Twitter Is The New Police Scanner

2013-04-17T07:00:00.0000000+10:00

Since the mid-1970s, police scanners have been the only way for civilians to access real-time updates from police departments. Scanners work by flipping through multiple open radio conversations on emergency channels, providing an overall picture of a crisis from the people on the ground reacting to it. Because they offer fast and direct first-hand accounts, scanners have been invaluable for coordinating and linking emergency response.

Ale Yeast Running For Official State Microbe Of Oregon

2013-04-17T06:29:00.0000000+10:00

Oregon lawmakers in the House just voted 58-0 to approve its new state microbe. If the state Senate also approves, Oregon will boast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the humble ale yeast, as its unicellular avatar. It makes sense: according to Mark Johnson, the bill's sponsor, the craft brewing business brings Oregon some $2.4 billion in revenues each year.

The 3 People Who Love The Facebook Phone

2013-04-17T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

Professional reviewers have been positive about Facebook Home, the Android skin/launcher that turns your phone's homescreen into a sort of portal for Facebook photos and messages. The reviews almost exclusively come to the same conclusion, saying things like, "if you're a Facebook fanatic, you'll love Facebook Home." And yet it's simultaneously described as a flop. There are a billion Facebook users. How can this app, which is entirely designed to give you more Facebook, be a flop?

New Surgical Tape Works Like A Parasitic Worm

2013-04-17T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

Scientists have built a better bandage that'll stick to you like a leech. Literally. The new prototype adhesive bandage sticks even to wet skin, using a technique inspired by a parasitic worm that attaches itself to the insides of its hosts' intestines. Yum.

Zap Away Would-Be Attackers With This 3800kv Anti-Rape Bra

2013-04-17T04:30:00.0000000+10:00

In the wake of a highly publicized series of brutal rapes in India, a group of engineering students devised a way to help women deter sexual assault: Make their underwear a weapon.

Why Doctors Should Give You LSD (Maybe)

2013-04-17T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

When David Nichols earned a PhD in medicinal chemistry from the University of Iowa in 1973 by studying psychedelics, he thought he would continue studying hallucinogens indefinitely. "I thought I would work on it for the rest of my life," he says.

Can Anyone Pay To Name An Exoplanet? It's Complicated

2013-04-17T03:32:00.0000000+10:00

Remember last week when PopSci told you about a "people's choice" contest to name the planet orbiting the Alpha Centauri star system? And the International Astronomical Union had cried foul, saying the paid contest had no bearing on the names? Well, it's not really that simple. You can call a star or a planet whatever you want, and even pay to nominate your favorite; it just might not matter to anyone else.

Design Studio Working On A Business Suit That Turns Transparent When The Wearer Lies

2013-04-17T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Studio Roosegaarde, led by designer and vowel aficionado Daan Roosegaarde, is one of our favorites; we've previously followed the studio as it introduced "the Route 66 of the future," equipped with lights and warnings and pictures of snowflakes. PSFK had a talk with Roosegaarde about another undertaking, the Intimacy Project.

You Can Hear When Trees Are Thirsty

2013-04-17T01:59:00.0000000+10:00

Imagine you're just polishing off a glass of soft drink. Whatever liquid left in the straw makes that gurgling sound indicative that there's just nothing left in the glass to drink. Turns out, trees under drought stress make the same sad sound, and a few researchers hope they can use that acoustic signature to identify and save otherwise-doomed trees.

Synthetic Marijuana: What Is It, And Is It Riskier Than Regular Pot?

2013-04-17T00:30:00.0000000+10:00

Synthetic marijuana carries the sort of junior-circuit connotation befitting a drug high-schooler's favour - pot's answer to the goon bag. Then you read stories like that of Emily Bauer, a Houston-area teenager who suffered series of strokes that left her blind and paralysed after she smoked some fake weed she bought at a gas station.

Mice Skin Cells Transformed Into Brain Cells

2013-04-17T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

In what one researcher called "cellular alchemy," two different teams of scientists have reported transforming mouse and rat skin cells into brain cells of the type that's destroyed during multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and certain other disorders.

The First App-Controlled Bionic Hand

2013-04-16T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

A new bionic hand is the first to come with app control, allowing users to access complicated motion patterns-like the grip needed to play pool or right-click a mouse-with a single touchscreen tap.

How Marathons Have Been Attacked [Infographic]

2013-04-16T08:40:00.0000000+10:00

An attack on the Boston Marathon has left at least two dead, according to reports. The Global Terrorism Database catalogues events like this, and has a record of eight other attacks or attempted attacks on or involving marathons. But out of those, only one was lethal.

How To Find Someone During A Disaster

2013-04-16T08:08:00.0000000+10:00

Multiple explosions were triggered at the finish line of the Boston Marathon today, with at the time of writing an estimated two dead and dozens injured. We know many are trying to get in touch with people who were running the race or nearby, but with cell service all but disabled and communication avenues totally chaotic, it can be difficult to do, or even exacerbate the communication problems for others. Here are some tips.

What Are Astronauts Taking Photos Of?

2013-04-16T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

Astronauts take a lot of photos of Earth, for personal use and for specific experiments on board the International Space Station. NASA saves them on a server, and now a data cruncher has mapped them all.

The First Tax-Prep Computer Programs Blew 1983's Mind

2013-04-16T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

When Popular Science tested the first computer programs to prepare tax returns in February 1983, we wanted to know two things: Would it be faster than doing it by hand? Would it save us money? (We also enjoyed the idea of a personified computer punching greedy Uncle Sam in the nose.)

How Much Booty Do People Want? Just A Little More Than The Neighbours

2013-04-16T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

Having sex makes us happy. But what makes us even happier, apparently, is having sex more than someone else.

Should Companies Be Able To Patent Genes?

2013-04-16T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

The US Supreme Court heard a case today that may sound a bit like old news. The highest court in the land considered whether genes are patentable.

Popular Science Takes Drugs

2013-04-16T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Working and writing for Popular Science means being able to do fun things, like playing with the latest consumer electronics in Las Vegas, touring the Shanghai Expo, and getting paid to do hard drugs. We're not kidding. In 1967, reporter Robert Gannon spent a weekend getting high on LSD at a psychiatric institution in Pennsylvania. Under close supervision, Gannon passed the next 24 hours doing pirouettes, rolling around in the grass, biting his arms, and mumbling about the depravity of his generation. Then he got to write about it.

This Bioengineered Rat Kidney Could Pave The Way For On-Demand Replacement Organs

2013-04-16T02:01:00.0000000+10:00

Your kidneys may be the hardest body parts to duplicate, but maybe doctors just need a template to fill out.

The Science Of PSAs: Do Anti-Drug Ads Keep Kids Off Drugs?

2013-04-16T00:31:00.0000000+10:00

From Reefer Madness to Nancy Reagan's famous "Just Say No," we're constantly trying to convince kids that drugs aren't as fun as they think they are.

What If Darwin Had Never Existed?

2013-04-16T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

Imagine a dark, stormy night in the South Atlantic at the end of December 1832. Aboard the Royal Navy survey vessel HMS Beagle a young naturalist, racked with seasickness, staggers on deck. A sudden wave makes the ship heel violently, and he is washed over the side. The lookout calls "Man overboard!" but it is too dark to see anything in the churning sea, and the storm is too fierce for the officer on watch to risk turning the ship about. Charles Darwin is gone, and Captain Fitzroy will have to face the task of writing to his family in England to break the news. He will certainly tell them that in addition to their personal tragedy, the scientific community has lost a promising young naturalist who might have achieved great things. But he has no idea that Darwin's greatest achievement would have been to write one of the most controversial books of the century, a book that Fitzroy himself would have denounced in public: On the Origin of Species.

Is The Navy Bringing Back The Autogyro?

2013-04-15T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

Autogyros are the duck-billed platypuses of the aviation world. They look like helicopters, operate on the same principles as airplanes, and can be pulled like a kite. And if L-3's new Valkyrie drone is any indication, there's a chance autogyros might join the US Navy.

Did You Pay To Name A Planet? You Got Scammed

2013-04-13T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

Most of the more than 800 exoplanets discovered have unbelievably boring names - 16 Cygni Bb or HD 41004 Ab, to name a couple. So some enterprising entrepreneurs have started a naming contest that allows users to pay to nominate and vote on new names ($4.99 a pop, though there are obviously bulk prices available as we've got a lot of planets to name). Namers receive a certificate commemorating their contribution to the wonderful world of science. Totally not sketchy at all, right?

Every Single Person In The World On One Chart

2013-04-13T05:45:00.0000000+10:00

When you read on your computer screen that world population has surpassed 7 billion, as it did in 2011, it's hard to put that number in context. It's big a world. Where is everyone?

To Prevent Wind Turbines From Killing Birds, Add Blinds?

2013-04-13T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

Farzad Safaei's recent invention looks a bit like window frames-complete with Venetian blinds built inside-but it's actually a new wind turbine design.

Stephen Hawking Says Humans Won't Survive Another 1,000 Years On Earth

2013-04-13T04:30:00.0000000+10:00

Physicist Stephen Hawking, speaking at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said if humans don't migrate from the planet Earth to colonize other planets, they'll face extinction in 1,000 years. So, phew, we're good, guys. We've got like 900-plus years to just sit on this. That's a relief. [RT]

Human Ancestor Reconstructed, Halfway Between Chimp And Human

2013-04-13T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

In 2008, researchers found remains of a few early human-like beings in a cave in South Africa. Now, they've pieced them together into one of the most complete skeletons of a human ancestor ever made.

Are Southerners Fat, Or Just More Honest About Their Weight?

2013-04-13T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Studies have shown that the South is the most obese part of the United States. From a 2012 Centers for Disease Control report: "The South had the highest prevalence of obesity (29.5%), followed by the Midwest (29.0%), the Northeast (25.3%) and the West (24.3%)."

Edible Electronics Will Spy On Your Intestines

2013-04-13T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing edible electronic devices that could monitor health, deliver drugs, or stimulate damaged tissue in the gastrointestinal tract or small intestine.

Russia To Invest$50B In Space Program

2013-04-13T01:30:00.0000000+10:00

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans for a new space initiative today. That includes shelling out more than $50 billion over the next seven years to complete the country's Vostochny cosmodrome, modernize rockets, and eventually send cosmonauts to the moon and even Mars.

Test For HIV With A DVD Player

2013-04-13T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

In the age of Blu-Ray and Hulu, maybe DVDs are becoming less relevant. But researchers have just made a crazy invention with one: a device that simply and quickly detects HIV.

Renault's New Electric Concept Car Looks Like A Firefly On Acid

2013-04-12T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

French carmaker Renault and Welsh industrial designer Ross Lovegrove teamed up to create this LED-covered, lightning-bug-looking electric city car, called the Twin'Z. They unveiled the concept this week in Milan.

A Harvard Neuroscience Scheme To Change Decisions In Your Brain

2013-04-12T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

This week at the British Neuroscience Association, Harvard scientist Gabriel Kreiman described a rather diabolical-sounding experiment: He wants to reverse someone's decision to push a button before the person is even aware they were going to press it.

Long-Necked Giant Was Fastest-Growing Dinosaur

2013-04-12T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

During the Jurassic Period, nearly 200 million years ago, a dinosaur called Lufengosaurus roamed what is now the Yunnan Province in southern China. The long-necked plant eater was the biggest guy around at the time, at almost 30 feet long, and new research suggests it grew faster than all other known dinosaurs and living birds.

Cash Raised Through Crowdfunding Tripled In Three Years [Infographic]

2013-04-12T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

Do you remember the moment when crowdfunding became A Thing? Sites like Kickstarter have been around for a few years now, and the amount they've grown in that time is bananas, as this infographic from Statista shows. From 2010 to 2012, cash spent on crowdfunding tripled, from $900 million to about $2.7 billion. (If they included data back to 2009 here, it would've been a 529 percent increase between then and 2012.)

Brassiere Support Is A Lie, Say French Scientists

2013-04-12T03:38:00.0000000+10:00

In a 15-year study from the University of Besançon in eastern France, sports science professor Jean-Denis Rouillon found that wearing a bra may not actually keep a woman's breasts from sagging, nor alleviate back pain.

Who Or What Left This 60,000-Ton Ancient Artifact Under The Sea?

2013-04-12T02:58:00.0000000+10:00

Put on your tin-foil hats and special anti-Illuminati underwear. A recently discovered mysterious ancient rock structure under the Sea of Galilee, possibly built in the same era as Stonehenge, has archaeologists stumped. To a certain slice of the population, any unexplained man-made rock pile is clearly evidence of an extraterrestrial visit.

Iran's Time Machine... ?

2013-04-12T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

Ali Razeghi, a 27-year-old businessman and scientist in Tehran, has registered "The Aryayek Time Traveling Machine" with Iran's Center for Strategic Inventions.

9% of Americans Say They'd Bonk A Sexbot

2013-04-12T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

A poll conducted by the Huffington Post and YouGov focused on the desires and ethical questions surrounding the most pressing issue of our immediate future: sex with robots.

The Dubai Police Are Getting A Lamborghini

2013-04-12T01:30:00.0000000+10:00

Are the Dubai police looking for additions to their squad? Because we could use an excuse to drive this Lamborghini Aventador, which the city of Dubai has given to its force.

Somebody Just Shelled Out $5.3 Million For A Francis Crick Letter Describing DNA

2013-04-12T00:30:00.0000000+10:00

Describing the double-helix structure of DNA was arguably the most important scientific discovery of the 20th century. So it was a big deal when this letter, penned by one half of the duo who discovered the structure, went on sale at a New York auction. Now the letter has been sold - for $5.3 million.

Is Everyone Really Staring At You?

2013-04-12T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

Do you ever walk down the street, convinced everyone you pass is staring you right in the face? First of all, it's possible they are, so duck into an alley and use your phone's front-facing camera to see if you have any weird dirt on your face or something. If there's nothing there, keep walking.

From DARPA, A Navigational Device That Fits On A Penny And Works When GPS Doesn't

2013-04-11T07:00:00.0000000+10:00

GPS is great, but it isn't always reliable. The signal can be interrupted by, say, a tunnel, or something else smothering the relay between here and space. So DARPA wants to navigate GPS blackout areas with a chip that does everything you need when GPS stops working, and to make that tech smaller than a US penny.

New Stanford Technique To Make Brains Transparent

2013-04-11T03:30:00.0000000+10:00

A new lab technique now lets scientists make gorgeous, fully intact images of bodily organs such as the brain.

New Exoplanet-Hunting Mission To Launch In 2017

2013-04-11T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Move over Kepler. NASA has recently green-lighted two new missions as part of its Astrophysics Explorer Program.

Paolo Soleri, Utopian Architect, Is Dead

2013-04-11T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

Paolo Soleri, the futuristic, eco-conscious architect, died yesterday at 93.

Can We Smell With Our Hearts?

2013-04-10T07:40:00.0000000+10:00

In the back of your nasal cavity, you have special sensory cells that grab onto the various airborne compounds that constitute "a smell." They interpret those chemicals, shoot the result over to your brain, and you get the sense of smelling something. But researchers have recently discovered that it's not only these nasal cells that can interpret smells.

After 30 Years Off The Market, A Morning Sickness Drug Is Making A Comeback

2013-04-10T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

More than 30 years after it was removed from the US market, a morning sickness drug originally sold under the name Bendectin has been approved by the FDA.

Laser Camera Makes 3D Photos Of Objects A Kilometre Away

2013-04-10T05:20:00.0000000+10:00

A team of physicists from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh has developed laser technology that can 3D image an object up to a kilometre away. The system can accurately (within a millimetre) image even "uncooperative" objects - meaning those that don't easily reflect laser pulses, like fabric. Though at a kilometre away, it can probably capture an uncooperative human, too.

How To Crowdsource Astronomy Without People Messing It Up

2013-04-10T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Maybe it's because Jurassic Park is in theaters again, but we at Universe Today sometimes worry about how one person can mess up an otherwise technologically amazing system. It took just one nefarious employee to shut down the dinosaur park's security fences in the movie and cause havoc. How do we ensure science can fight against that, especially when everyday citizens are getting more and more involved in the scientific process?

Auto-Kitchen Records Everything You Do, For Easy Replication

2013-04-10T03:29:00.0000000+10:00

Whenever I call my mom to ask how to make something, I always get really vague advice like, "Cook it until it's thick, but not too thick" or "Add a couple smallish handfuls of flour." Or she gives me measurements in weights, which was how she was taught to cook, rather than volumes. This futuristic idea would capture and canonize Mom's cooking for anyone to reproduce perfectly.

Google Searches For Mental Illnesses Increase During The Winter

2013-04-10T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Psychiatrists have known about seasonal affective disorder - a mood disorder in which otherwise healthy people experience depression during the winter or heightened anxiety during the summer - since the early 1980s. Treatment for the winter blues often involves light therapy, with the idea being that short, dark days are kind of depressing.

I Wish I Had Had This GPS Bike Tracker When My Bike Got Stolen

2013-04-10T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

Bike theft is damnably common; most people don't bother tracking their bikes, even the best locks are pretty easy to cut through, and the resale market is constantly booming. I myself have lost two bikes to thieves. A Kickstarter project called the BikeSpike could be a solution to this problem.

Bogus Academic Conferences Lure Scientists

2013-04-10T01:58:00.0000000+10:00

If you build it, they will come. And someone, somewhere, is going to try to scam some money out of it.

The Future Of Defence Technology

2013-04-10T01:30:00.0000000+10:00

The Sea-Air-Space Exposition opened in Maryland yesterday. It is one of the US defence industry's largest trade shows - a place where government agencies and private-sector companies gather to peruse the shiniest and most fearsome new military equipment. It is also a good barometer of where the industry is headed. Here are the four most important trends I spotted:

U.S. Navy To Guard Old Ship With A Freaking Laser

2013-04-10T00:30:00.0000000+10:00

One of the US Navy's oldest ships is about to get a lot more futuristic, thanks to a laser.

Climate Change May Lead To Bumpier Airplane Rides, Study Finds

2013-04-09T07:59:00.0000000+10:00

By 2050, plane trips to Europe could take longer, use more fuel and be subject to more turbulence, according to a new study.

Dinosaurs Could Doggy Paddle Long Distances, Study Finds

2013-04-09T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

Most people still have a very last-century idea of what dinosaurs were like. No, T. rex didn't stand upright; lots of dinos were actually feathered, not leathery; and they may have been killed by a comet, not an asteroid.

The Top 50 Navigation Innovations Of All Time

2013-04-09T06:29:00.0000000+10:00

Our friends over at Flying have a great slideshow up walking us through the 50 greatest innovations in navigation of all time. It's really fun to see how primitive but effective navigation used to be - celestial navigation and bonfires are on the list - and how far we've come, using microwaves and satellites and autopilot and man, so much other cool stuff. Read the article over at Flying.

Watch Rich People Earn More Money Than You In Real Time [Infographic]

2013-04-09T06:00:00.0000000+10:00

CNNMoney has published an awesome visualization by artist Bård Edlund showing how much various people make in one minute. On the chart (and quickly moving past it) are Kobe Bryant and Exxon Mobil Corporation CEO Rex Tillerson. Also included are median and minimum wage workers, President Obama, the average teacher, and the average doctor.

Penis Size Matters, Study Says

2013-04-09T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

Despite what some people say, penis size does matter to dude-loving ladies, according to a new study.

Yes, Your Mind Can Control Your Body Temperature

2013-04-09T02:59:00.0000000+10:00

You don't have to look far to find the (mostly) positive and surprisingly powerful effects of meditation. But one of the more unexpected effects was just recently published: Tibetan nuns can change their core body temperatures with a certain form of meditation, which could keep them warm and help give their immune systems a boost.

This Weird Fish Has Clear Blood

2013-04-09T02:28:00.0000000+10:00

Deep in the Southern Ocean, just off the coast of Antarctica, there lives the Channichthyidae family of fish. These fish are highly unusual, and one of its species, the ocellated icefish (Chionodraco rastrospinosus), was just bred successfully in captivity for the first time.

Do Brain Games Work?

2013-04-09T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

Think you can make yourself smarter with brain-training software? New studies suggest that so-called brain games don't improve players' thinking or IQ, they just make you better at playing the games, the New Yorker reported.

How Thatcher The Chemist Helped Make Thatcher The Politician

2013-04-09T01:30:00.0000000+10:00

Margaret Thatcher died today at 87. She'll be remembered as the first (and only) woman to be prime minister of Britain, but what's often missed or only glanced over in her biographies, and now her obituaries, is her career as a chemist.

Researchers Rearrange Nuts In Low Gravity

2013-04-08T23:59:00.0000000+10:00

You may or may not have heard of the Brazil nut effect, but you've probably experienced it: open up a can of mixed nuts (or box of muesli, or any other heterogenous mixture of differently sized foodstuffs) and discover that the biggest items (e.g. Brazil nuts) have all migrated to the top. More scientifically, that process is called granular convection, and understanding it has applications far beyond the snack food industry, including developing avalanche safety systems (so you can ride out that avalanche in the top layers of snow) or in geology.

Mars In 30 Days Via Fusion Rocket

2013-04-08T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

A research team in Washington state is on its way to making a fusion rocket that could carry people to Mars in 30 days, NBC News reported.

This Video Of A Blossom Bat Will Convince You That Bats Are The Cutest

2013-04-06T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

So the first thing to know about bats is that there are two different suborders, which vary in geographic location and behavior but most importantly, for our purposes, in cuteness. Microchiroptera is the kind of bat we're most familiar with here in the States; these are the little, semi-ugly ones that use echolocation to hunt. Now, we love all bats, because they are exceptionally fascinating creatures, but we're prepared to admit that microchiroptera is not the most attractive suborder out there.

This Iranian Drone Could Someday Save Your Life

2013-04-06T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Lifeguards of the future may soon come with four rotors.

Scientists Can Pluck Images Out Of Your Dreams

2013-04-06T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

With just an fMRI, an algorithm, and the internet, researchers from Kyoto, Japan predicted with 60 per cent accuracy what a person was dreaming about, Smithsonian magazine reports. The idea, like the process, isn't all that complicated: Our brains react measurably differently to different stimuli: looking at a book or a building doesn't cause the same reaction. So the Kyoto team had three people sleep in an fMRI for three-hour stints over 10 days, and hooked them up to an EEG, which used electrical signals from the body to track which stage of sleep the were in were in.

Meet The NASA Scientist Who's Reinventing The Wheel

2013-04-06T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Salim Nasser never thought he'd reinvent the wheel. But he's done it, in a sense, for wheelchairs.

Why Dudes Who Can't Smell Never Get Laid

2013-04-06T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

About 2 million people in the United States can't smell anything. That's got to be great if, say, you're walking past a dumpster, but not-so-great if you're looking for love. Research suggests that men who can't smell have fewer sex partners than men with fully functioning nostrils. About five times fewer.

Invented: A Much Better Way To Predict Airline Delays

2013-04-06T00:00:00.0000000+11:00

If you consider how many things have to go right for it to work, passenger flight is a seamless experience almost all of the time. Except when it isn't, and your flight is delayed and you miss your connection. Why does this happen? It's actually a tough challenge, and airlines hate it almost as much as you do. Missed connections and annoyance cause pollution and frustration, costing airlines (and passengers) plenty of money.

How The World Will End, According To 1939

2013-04-05T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. The scientists of 1939 would like to add "moon explosion" and "giant meteor" to that list-and they created some terrifying paintings to show you just what humanity's demise will look like. Popular Science published those apocalyptic illustrations, along with a very upsetting three-page article, in its September 1939 issue.

Brain Wave Sensor Shields You From Phone Calls When Your Mind Is Too Busy

2013-04-05T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

We've had a good time with the Necomimi Cat Ears in the past - we used them to monitor our interest in the last iPhone event - but the Good Times project is a use for them we never expected.

Cthulhu Lives In The Gut Of A Termite

2013-04-05T06:32:00.0000000+11:00

Scientists have been naming species after famous people for a long time. For example, Thomas Jefferson has an extinct giant ground sloth named after him. Mark Knopfler rates a dinosaur. Frank Zappa has multiple animals sharing his namesake, including a spider, a jellyfish and a mudskipper.

FYI: Do Lobotomies Work?

2013-04-05T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

The modern lobotomy originated in the 1930s, when doctors realized that by severing fiber tracts connected to the frontal lobe, they could help patients overcome certain psychiatric problems, such as intractable depression and anxiety. Over the next two decades, the procedure would become simple and popular, completed by poking a sharpened tool above the eyeball. According to one study, about two thirds of patients showed improvement after surgery.

This Amazing, Zoomable Universe-In-A-Browser Puts Everything In Perspective

2013-04-05T05:29:00.0000000+11:00

From nanoparticles to galaxies, we can understand a lot about how our universe works - but it's hard to keep things in context. Can you really grasp how far you'd have to travel to reach Mars? Or wrap your head around the infinitesimally small size of a virus?

This Is The Facebook Phone

2013-04-05T04:20:00.0000000+11:00

Right now, in California, Facebook is announcing its new phone - or, at least, it's new homescreen. We'll be updating this post live as events happen.

In The Future We Will All Live In Photosynthetic French Sea Pods

2013-04-05T03:58:00.0000000+11:00

Scientists estimate that the sea level will rise 228 mm or more by 2030, up to more than two metres by 2100. In anticipation of a far wetter world, French architecture firm Sitbon Architectes designed this pod concept for a habitable, eco-friendly phytoplankton farm in the Indian Ocean.

BigPic: The James Webb Space Telescope, Ready To Be Frozen

2013-04-05T03:29:00.0000000+11:00

It's cold up there in space, so before the James Webb Space Telescope gets sent up there, NASA scientists are putting it through its paces, locking parts of it in a vacuum and chilling them to -414 F. We've seen what the vacuum looks like, and here we see the telescope's wings coming in for testing. The wings have 900 parts, mostly made from lightweight graphite composite materials, and can unfold from 16.4 feet to 21 feet. The tests will ensure all of those parts work in a controlled setting before the telescope is rocketed away for real.

You Have A 'Breathprint'

2013-04-05T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Right now, if doctors want to test you for something, they'll probably draw blood or politely ask you to pee in a cup. Nothing wrong with that, but it'd certainly be convenient if they just asked you to keep breathing instead.

The Newest Defense Against Biological Warfare? This Cube

2013-04-05T02:30:00.0000000+11:00

This cube could detect a biological threat in a sample of blood in less time than it takes to commute home.

How Big Is A Galaxy? Milky Way Shown To Scale

2013-04-04T23:59:00.0000000+11:00

Think the Milky Way is big? It's puny compared to M87, an elliptical galaxy 980,000 light years in diameter. The Milky Way is only 100,000 light years in diameter. Let's not even get into Hercules A, which is 1.5 million light years across.

The US Navy Sees A Bright Military Future In 3D Printing

2013-04-04T08:33:00.0000000+11:00

3D printing is the future of the Navy, say Scott Cheney-Peters and Matthew Hipple in the latest issue of the US Naval Institute's Proceedings Magazine.

BigPic: What Does This Photo, Taken From The ISS, Show?

2013-04-04T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Canadian astronaut and expedition commander Chris Hadfield shared this photo from the International Space Station today. He thought it looked like "mouthwatering generous folds of icing"; to me, it looked more like a slice of walnut-studded cake. It's actually a photo of sand dunes in Saudi Arabia.

The Changing Forensic Science Of Arson Is Freeing Innocent Convicts

2013-04-04T07:31:00.0000000+11:00

A man who spent 42 years in prison walked free yesterday, released because the evidence that he had committed arson was faulty.

Does Anybody Want A Facebook Phone?

2013-04-04T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

There have been rumours of a Facebook phone for years. Back in 2011, there even was one, sort of, in the HTC Chacha, a cheap but not bad little phone with an oddly out-of-the-way Facebook-labelled button. But now the rumours are heating up. Tomorrow, Facebook is hosting an event, and the invitation says "Come see our new home on Android."

Fund A House That Shapeshifts With The Seasons

2013-04-04T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Way back in 1903, mathematician Henry Ernest Dudeney worked out how a perfect square could be cut into sections and folded into an equilateral triangle. It's a neat trick, but what can we do with it? If you're design team D*Haus Company Limited, you try to live inside it, apparently.

How Toxic Dumping Led To Tragedy In A Small Seaside Town

2013-04-04T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

The Fernicola brothers, Nick and Frank, grew up in the dirt cowboy subculture of the New Jersey waste industry. Their father, also named Nicholas (his son always went by "Nick" to distinguish them), operated a drum reconditioning business starting in the 1940s on Avenue L in the Ironbound section of Newark, across the street from a slaughterhouse. Even by the standards of that heavily industrialised neighbourhood, it was an extraordinarily filthy way to make a living. Nicholas Fernicola specialized in cleaning, repainting, and reselling the 55-gallon steel drums that carried the foulest dregs North Jersey manufacturers could produce. There was no better place than Newark to be in that line of work. It was the "drum capital of the world," as Frank Fernicola would wistfully describe it years later.

Space Station's Giant Antimatter Magnet Finds Abundance Of Mysterious Particles

2013-04-04T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

Right in Earth's neighbourhood, space is positively bubbling with high-energy antimatter particles - a lot more than can be explained. These excess positrons - mirror opposites of negatively charged electrons - just might be signals of dark matter.

The Most Powerful Supercomputer Of 2009 Is Already Obsolete

2013-04-04T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Computers grow up so fast these days. The Roadrunner supercomputer, once the fastest computer in the world and the pride of Los Alamos, had a rich and full life. Born in 2008, it broke the Petaflop barrier, paved the way for hybrid supercomputers, and this weekend retired at the ancient age of five.

Solar Panels Now Make More Electricity Than They Use

2013-04-04T00:00:00.0000000+11:00

Solar panels make energy, but they take energy to make, too. And, until about 2010 or so, the solar panel industry used more electricity than it produced, according to a new analysis. Now, the industry is set to "pay back" the energy it used by 2020.

China Makes 50% Of Your Stuff. How Many Chinese Brands Can You Actually Name?

2013-04-03T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

China's version of Google has 580 million users. It makes, according to some surveys, around 50 per cent of all the junk in your home. When an Australian company chooses to make something actually in Australia? It's news. Because that stuff is usually made in China.

LA Becomes First City To Synchronise Every Streetlight

2013-04-03T08:32:00.0000000+11:00

Think Sydney commuting is a pain? Spare a thought for the folks in LA. Superhighways are jam-packed, cars crawl along in the worst rush hour of your life even though it's only 2 pm, and yet no one rides the scary subway. Last summer, it took me two solid hours to travel 28 miles - and that was on the highway, following a route Google said should take maybe 35 minutes.

These Are Immune Cells Grown In Space

2013-04-03T08:01:00.0000000+11:00

These are some monocytes-a type of white blood cell in the immune system-that lived on the International Space Station.

NASA Is Using Tech From The Columbia Crash Investigation To See How Trees Fail

2013-04-03T07:35:00.0000000+11:00

Stereo photogrammetry is a process used to determine the strain on a certain structure, which is why it was used to investigate the causes of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. But NASA engineers - including one who worked on that investigation - are looking into using it to determine how and why trees fall.

Nuclear Power Kills Fewer People Than Petroleum

2013-04-03T07:01:00.0000000+11:00

Using nuclear power for energy instead of coal has prevented almost 2 million pollution-related deaths around the world, and could save millions more lives in the future, according to a new paper. It's the latest publication from James Hansen, NASA's fiery climate change scientist, who is retiring on Wednesday after 46 years with the space agency.

Three Smart New Ways To Actually Block Robocalls (in the US at least)

2013-04-03T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

They slip through the US Federal Trade Commission's "Do Not Call" registry, and indeed through federal law. They fool you with that pause after "Hello," so that they sound, for a moment, like there's a real person on the other end of the line. They mostly sell fraudulent goods and services, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Baidu Working On Chinese Version Of Google Glass, Called Baidu Eye

2013-04-03T05:56:00.0000000+11:00

Baidu, the kind of bizarro Chinese Google, is rumored to be working on a take on Google's latest creation, Google Glass. According to ChinaDaily, Baidu's "Eye" project will include "an LCD display, voice-controlled image recognition and bone-sensing," will respond to voice and gesture, and would sync with a smartphone to accomplish certain tasks, like making phone calls. It's Glass, in other words.

Massive Digital Archive Contains Nearly Every Moment Of Beyoncé's Life Since 2005

2013-04-03T05:24:00.0000000+11:00

Beyoncé owns all likenesses of herself, and there are probably way more of those than you realize-because since 2005, she's had a "visual director" shoot her waking life for up to 16 hours a day, GQ reported.

Distant Black Hole Wakes Up To Grab A Light Snack

2013-04-03T03:44:00.0000000+11:00

Astronomers have spotted a black hole wake up from a decades-long nap to munch on a small passing object, maybe a brown dwarf or a super-Jupiter. For astronomers, it's a preview of a similar feeding event that will happen later this year in our own galaxy.

Obama Launching Massive Initiative To Map The Human Brain

2013-04-03T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

We've been expecting this announcement since February, and today it looks like it's happening: President Obama has announced an ambitious plan to map the circuitry of the human brain. Kicking off with $100 million in 2014, a coalition of scientists will research ways to improve brain-related tech and sketch the interactions of brain cells.

Shakespeare: Hoarder, Playwright, Fake? A Physicist Turns To Statistics For Answers

2013-04-03T02:23:00.0000000+11:00

Shakespeare was a grain hoarder and a flagrant tax evader, according to a new study that explores the Bard of Avon's financials. It's kind of surprising, and it means, weirdly, that he may have starred in a real-life version of one of his own tragedies. But that's OK. Another piece of research, in the form of a new book, suggests he couldn't have been a singular jerk: He might not have been a singular person at all.

Melting Glaciers Are Increasing Extent Of Sea Ice In Antarctica, Says Counterintuitive Study

2013-04-03T01:06:00.0000000+11:00

Climate change is expanding sea ice in Antarctica, a paradoxical finding that appears to be the result of melting glaciers, according to a new study. As freshwater glaciers melt, cold water sinks into the ocean, keeping the sea colder than it would otherwise be.

Low-Cost Robot Hand Can (Almost) Change A Tyre

2013-04-03T00:30:00.0000000+11:00

The US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is working on making dexterous robot hands to search for explosive devices, use tools, provide amputees with helpful replacements, and maybe even change tyres… but don't get too excited about that one, yet.

NASA Launches Three Military Drones Into An Active Volcano

2013-04-02T08:02:00.0000000+11:00

Even from high above, volcanoes are difficult to study, because they blow out ash and nasty chemicals that can harm airplane engines. But careful monitoring of volcano behavior can improve computer models that explain how they work, and could even predict how they'll behave in the future. To get better data, NASA is sending some military drones into the breach, where the robots can do the dirty work for them.

In A Future Where Newspapers Still Exist, Let's Deliver Them By Drone

2013-04-02T07:04:00.0000000+11:00

April Fool's Day sucks, because people on the Internet say things that would be awesome if they were real, and sadly are not. For instance, I would love to be able to search smells. But this idea - which might be real, we aren't sure - is silly: Delivering the mail with drones that can fly for 20 minutes. I mean, most humans can last longer.

Radiolab Wants Your Help To Track The Once-Every-17-Year Cicada "Swarmageddon"

2013-04-02T06:42:00.0000000+11:00

Every few summers in the heavily wooded section of southern Pennsylvania where I grew up, we'd have about a week in which everything we did - hiking through the parks, climbing trees, walking dogs, buying hoagies - would be accompanied by the roar of cicadas. It's not like a chorus of birds, or even the noise of New York City traffic. It's louder, more constant, a hissing, crackling noise like the screaming of the wind itself. Eventually it fades into white noise, but if you leave town for a weekend and come back, you can't believe anyone is talking about anything else. It's like a biblical plague transmitted only in audio.

First 3D Acoustic Cloak Hides Objects From Sonar

2013-04-02T05:34:00.0000000+11:00

This plastic ring system doesn't exactly make the eight-centimeter ball inside less noticeable to the eye-but it does make the ball undetectable to sonar at a specific pitch. Spanish scientists have created the first cloaking device to completely shield a 3D object from sonar, Science News reported.

Today In Important Science: Cats Are Particular About What They Pee On

2013-04-02T04:29:00.0000000+11:00

Cats, and many other mammals, like to pee on things. It's called "urine marking," and acts as a form of communication through scent (and, to a lesser extent, a visual signal). A new, very important study in the Journal of Zoology found that the way cats - specifically, the European wildcat - mark is intentional and particular.

Satellite Gyroscopes Can Give Early Warnings Before Drivers Get Dangerously Tired

2013-04-02T04:01:00.0000000+11:00

Mining is incredibly dangerous for lots of reasons, but simple fatigue is the worst - after long shifts operating heavy equipment, it's easier to make a mistake. Sixty-five percent of mining accidents are caused by fatigue. The European Space Agency has a solution, using satellites and gyroscopes designed for space.

A Working Transistor Built Out Of DNA Within A Living Cell

2013-04-02T03:36:00.0000000+11:00

Pretty much anything can be a computer, if it can compute logical functions, store data, and transmit information - even living cells. A team at Stanford University has accomplished one of the the final tasks necessary to turn cells into working computers: They've created a biological transistor, called a transcriptor, that uses DNA and RNA instead of electrons and responds to logical functions.

Something Is Killing Up To Half Of America's Bees

2013-03-30T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

There's some kind of environmental issue/plague/apocalypse killing America's honeybees, but years after it first started happening, scientists are still putting together what it might be. Meanwhile, 2012 was the worst year ever.

Students Create Man-Sized Autonomous Robotic Jellyfish, This Is The Beginning Of The End

2013-03-30T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Students and researchers at Virginia Tech College of Engineering have created ~~the death of us all~~ a human-sized autonomous robotic jellyfish, to better study the locomotion of the unusual real-life animal that was its inspiration.

Scientists Build Hollow Virus For Cheaper Vaccines

2013-03-30T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Call it hollow-hearted. Researchers have built a mimic of the outer capsule of the foot-and-mouth disease virus. Inside, where the virus' genetic material normally lives, is empty.

This Weird Green Rock Is From Mercury

2013-03-30T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Last year, a group of 35 meteorite samples was found in Morocco. One of them was this guy, a curiously green sample given the name NWA 7325. Further analysis indicates that its color isn't the only unusual thing about it - this meteorite isn't like any we've ever seen before.

Kinect-Powered Virtual Therapist Tracks Your Body Language To Help Diagnose You

2013-03-30T01:07:00.0000000+11:00

Could a computer program catch what a human psychiatrist can't? A new program called SimSensei, still in the early stages of development, logs people's subtle body language and fleeting facial expressions to help diagnose depression, the New Scientist reported.

How A Tool For Perfect Human Vision Grew From One Of NASA's Greatest Blunders

2013-03-30T00:00:00.0000000+11:00

Since the day the Hubble Space Telescope blinked open and saw a blurry heavens, the world of telescope optics has revolved around double-checking every possible detail. To see clearly, a telescope's mirrors must be flawless, bending and reflecting photons with absolutely perfect accuracy. While working on ways to fix Hubble's poor vision, Dan Neal and his colleagues realized another optical system could benefit from perfectly designed corrective lenses: Our eyes.

Google Street View Shows Abandoned Fukushima Town

2013-03-29T08:32:00.0000000+11:00

The 21,000 residents of Namie-machi, Japan, haven't been able to return to their hometown since March 2011. The radiation there from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster is still too high. But now they, and the rest of the world, can take a virtual tour through the town's streets.

Amazon's X-Ray Answers The Question "Where Do I Know That Actor From?" While You Watch

2013-03-29T07:52:00.0000000+11:00

It's happened to all of us: you're watching a TV show or movie, and an actor, one of those hundreds of actors who bounce around from supporting role to supporting role, pops up, as the doctor with a few lines, the doomed vacationer in a procedural, the cop who just can't let this hotshot play by his own rules any longer. Amazon's X-Ray feature makes figuring out the identity of that actor literally as easy as one tap. I sort of can't believe how well it works!

Caffeine-Addicted Bacteria Die If You Give Them Decaf

2013-03-29T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

Caffeine. Like so many other wonderful compounds that provide a lift, buzz, high or other pleasant side effect, caffeine under certain circumstances is toxic. It's most certainly poisonous to humans in high amounts, but even small amounts of caffeine in a watershed can kill off native bacteria populations and can stunt the germination and growth of many plants - which is unfortunate, because caffeine is frequently found in the water around cities. It's also used to produce certain kinds of asthma medication, and that excess frequently makes its way into wastewater. Of course, nature has already come up with a solution to the problem in the form of Pseudomonas putida CBB5, a bacterial species that lives on caffeine. That's great, but scientists were eager to develop a more manageable system to remove caffeine from wastewater, so they harvested the genes that coded for the caffeine-metabolizing proteins in P. putida and put them into a much more amenable creature: Escherichia coli.

How A Seven-Sexed Organism Gets It On

2013-03-29T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

The specifics of how a single-celled organism called Tetrahymena thermophila gets it on has been a scientific mystery for more than 50 years. See, T. thermophila has seven sexes, and it can reproduce in 21 combinations. For sexy-time, each T. thermophila can mate with another T. thermophila that has any of the six other sexes. But with so many options, how do cells determine which sex their progeny will be?

FBI Wants To Spy On Your Online Chats As They Happen

2013-03-29T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

"Is this conversation unencrypted?" is going to be the new "Are you wearing a wire?"

The European Space Agency Has Made A Snap-Proof Super-Thin Space Tether

2013-03-29T05:32:00.0000000+11:00

Electric solar sails use long metal tethers that conduct electricity and interact with solar wind ions and propel a spacecraft. Invented in 2006, the technology could allow us to sail through space cheaper and faster than ever before: One day, the European Union's ESAIL project could take us to Pluto in as little as five years.

Will Your Twitter Account Get You Fired?

2013-03-29T04:33:00.0000000+11:00

You should probably have a sense already of whether your Twitter account might get you in trouble at your job. Like, complaining about the stupidity of your boss on social media? Not the most excellent idea! But if for some reason you are just not a very reflective person, you can use FireMe! to figure out if your tweets are going to get you canned.

Watch A Ferrofluid Sculpture Move To The Rhythm

2013-03-29T03:36:00.0000000+11:00

Though they're primarily used in speakers and hard drives, ferrofluids - liquids that respond to a magnetic field like a solid - also make awesome art installations. When in the presence of a magnetic field, tiny particles of metal (usually iron) suspended in oil become magnetized and move in crazy ways.

Man Caught Smuggling More Than 10% Of An Entire Species

2013-03-29T01:58:00.0000000+11:00

It's tough enough for a species to fend off extinction without having smugglers as natural predators. In Thailand, a species-selling hub, it's even tougher, especially when someone is trying to sell off MORE THAN 10 PER CENT OF ALL OF YOU.

Meet Mathieu Mirano, The Science Geek Of The Fashion World

2013-03-29T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

When someone sends me a petri dish invitation to Fashion Week, I'm in.

Don't Panic! Texas Lab Loses Virus

2013-03-28T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Call it a bureaucratic coincidence. The same day the Government Accountability Office called for stricter standards at biological threat defense labs, a biodefense lab in Galveston, Texas, lost a vial of virus. Which is a great reason to panic, if you are a baby mouse.

Location Data Can Uniquely Identify Cellphone Users

2013-03-28T07:29:00.0000000+11:00

Just a few data points from a location-tracking cellphone are enough to identify most people, a new study found. It doesn't matter if those data are "anonymized" so they aren't linked to any identifiers such as address or phone number. Just four random points are enough to put names to 95 percent of the anonymized users in a cellphone database.

Scientists Engineer Extreme Microorganisms To Make Fuel From Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

2013-03-28T05:06:00.0000000+11:00

To find a way of fending off global warming, scientists sometimes look to nature. Plants, after all, use photosynthesis to snap up carbon dioxide, the biggest source of our climate change woes. So we get inventions like artificial leaves and ambitious projects like a plan to give fish photosynthesizing powers. One of the more interesting plans: genetically alter microorganisms so they can chow down on some CO₂, too.

Speed Of Light In Vacuum Is Not Actually Constant, Study Finds

2013-03-28T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Can you trust nothing in life? A new physics paper suggests that the speed of light in a vacuum may not be constant, and that a vacuum isn't actually entirely empty of stuff.

Apple Buys An Indoor Mapping Company, Having Finished With The Outdoors

2013-03-28T03:40:00.0000000+11:00

Having done a bang-up job with its own regular mapping app (oh wait), Apple has, according to the New York Times, acquired an indoor mapping company. Indoor maps are promising, but still young technology; we've been predicting their rise for quite a while now.

Computer Tracks Spider Species By Analysing Webs

2013-03-28T03:07:00.0000000+11:00

Spiders' webs are unique from species to species, so something like a giant cave spider and a decoy-building spider can be told apart by their webs, despite being equally terrifying. But why rely on the human eye to determine a species when you're scouring an area for spiders that live there? Just have an artificial intelligence do it for you.

Challenge Accepted: Make Dinner From A Catalog Of Pharmaceutical Compounds

2013-03-28T02:44:00.0000000+11:00

Pretty much every chemist worth his or her salt knows the Merck Index. First published in 1889, the Merck Index is an enormous compendium of chemicals, their physical properties and their industrial uses. Its genesis as a collection of medicinal chemicals is still apparent today, and many of the compounds therein are useful in pharmaceutical production or are finished pharmaceuticals themselves. Way back in the mists of time when I was at university and doing a summer internship, my friends and I used to take bets over who could find the deadliest or gnarliest chemicals in the Merck Index, or who could find the chemical with the most carbons or chiral centers - basically anything to pass the time while I was waiting for the gel electrophoresis to finish doing its thing. The Merck Index saved my sanity that summer and won me some bragging rights (and about $5 total).

Raytheon Wants To Give Military Pilots Superhuman Hearing

2013-03-28T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Directional sound is awesome. Long a feature of cinema and state-of-the-art home entertainment systems, directional sound uses several focused speakers to create sound that hits one ear differently than the other, allowing the brain to figure out which direction the sound is coming from. This has even been heralded as providing the competitive edge to gamers. Now, Raytheon wants to transfer that same edge from gamers to actual warfighters, by making them all a little more like Daredevil.

California Working On First Commercial Biofuel From Beets

2013-03-28T00:03:00.0000000+11:00

Ninety-five percent of the ethanol fuel produced in the U.S. comes from corn, but one central California town is giving another sweet crop a try. Twelve farmers in Five Points, Calif., have received a $5 million state grant to build a plant that turns sugar beets into fuel, the Associated Press reports.

New World's Lightest Material

2013-03-27T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

Check out this contender for the title of "world's lightest solid." To demonstrate just how light it is, Zhejiang University in China, where the material's creators are based, has published pictures of chunks of it perched on small leaves, held aloft by grass seedheads and floating on the stamen of a cherry blossom. Ah, springtime.

In The Same Cataclysm That Gave The Moon Its Craters, Lots Of Asteroids Suffered Too

2013-03-27T07:31:00.0000000+11:00

About 4 billion years ago, something caused Jupiter and the other gas giant planets to shift in their orbits, shoving countless space rocks out of their positions in the asteroid belt. Tugged inward by the sun, these asteroids migrated toward Earth and the moon, ultimately bombarding our young planet and its satellite.

Could Privately Funded Orbiters Fill The Looming Weather Satellite Gap?

2013-03-27T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

Pictures like the one above, showing Hurricane Sandy, are captured by satellites owned and operated by our federal government. But we may be facing a looming gap in American weather-watching abilities. Could a private company fill it?

Will Ouya, The Hackable Game Console, Let You Pirate Games?

2013-03-27T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Ouya might be one of the biggest gadget-funding success stories in recent memory. A Kickstarter raised almost $8.6 million for the Android-based console, and it's shipping to those backers this week. The idea is to create an "open" platform, where anyone who wants to build a game can, unlike in the AAA world of PlayStation and Xbox. The question now: What are the limits of what can be played on it?

James Cameron Donates His Custom-Built Submarine To Science

2013-03-27T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

A year after his record-setting deepest dive, film director James Cameron is donating his submarine to science. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, one of the premier research institutes on the planet, will take the helm of the Deepsea Challenger. WHOI plans to incorporate the custom-built sub's technology into its existing submersibles and future research platforms.

This Shark Has Two Heads

2013-03-27T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

This is a shark fetus, with two heads. Sharks, according to Michael Wagner, MSU assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife, who confirmed the discovery, usually have only one head (I'm paraphrasing).

Brain Scan Predicts Whether Convicts Will Re-Offend: Welcome To The Sci-Fi Future

2013-03-27T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers at the Mind Research Network in New Mexico - a non-profit, partially government-funded neuroscience facility - have discovered a way to predict whether released convicts will return to their own ways. Sort of.

Climate-Fixing Scheme To Seed The Seas With Iron May Not Work

2013-03-27T02:30:00.0000000+11:00

At least one high-stakes idea for reversing the effects of global warming might not work, according to a new study.

Investigators Discover 50th Fake Study By Disgraced Dutch Psychologist

2013-03-27T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

The retraction count for former psychology professor Diederik Stapel just hit 50: Social Psychology is revoking a 2008 paper by the Dutch researcher after an investigation found "strong indications" that the results had been manipulated and faked. Stapel, who has had 49 other papers retracted since December 2011, said he wasn't sure whether the study was fraudulent or not. Suppose it's hard to keep count!

Google Flu Trends Misrepresented the Severity of This Year's Flu Season [Infographic]

2013-03-27T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Last year, we wrote about Flu Trends, Google's search engine-based influenza barometer. The takeaway: after calibrating its results against the numbers from the Centers for Disease Control - which are based on emergency-room visits - Google did a pretty good job of predicting a flu outbreak, and did so quickly, without having to wait for all those hospital reports to reach the CDC and be compiled into a weekly report.

Here's How Long It'll Be Until Google Kills That Service You Like

2013-03-27T00:00:00.0000000+11:00

With Google's recent announcement that it would be discontinuing the cultishly beloved Google Reader, some people are understandably wary about other Google products. How long until it's decided they're "underperforming" and need to be cut? Does this stuff have an expiration date?

16,000 Dead Pigs In The Huangpu: Can You Still Drink Shanghai's Water?

2013-03-26T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Chinese officials have fished more than 16,000 pig carcasses from the Huangpu River, from which more than one in five Shanghai residents draw their drinking water. Remember when it was just 2,000 pigs and that seemed pretty crazy? Meanwhile, officials keep saying that the water is still safe to drink. How likely is that, really?

Crowded Hong Kong Is Planning To Build Datacentres Deep Inside Caves

2013-03-26T06:33:00.0000000+11:00

Companies have made data centres - those big warehouses full of servers - into creative, even beautiful, spaces before. But, short on available land, Hong Kong is looking into where to put new data centres, and they're thinking caves might be the ticket.

Bioweapons Risk: Nothing Bureaucracy Can't Solve!

2013-03-26T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

A week after September 11, 2001, letters containing lethal anthrax spores killed five people, and sparked a an FBI investigation that lasted nine years. Since then, bioweapons research has become a multi-billion-dollar industry: scientists work with dangerous biological agents, like anthrax spores and infectious diseases, to come up with a defense against future biological attacks. One problem: the labs are a hot mess.

Having Too Many Choices Leads To Bad, Risky Decisions

2013-03-26T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

You'd think having options is almost always a good thing. After all, more choices means more information: all the better for making a decision. Except not really, researchers behind a new study say. In fact, given too many choices, you're more likely to make a risky decision.

Journal Editors Have A Sense Of Humor!

2013-03-26T04:59:00.0000000+11:00

The covers of scientific journals are usually staid, snooze-worthy affairs. But every now and again, one displays a sense of humour. Take, for instance, the March 19, 2013 issue of Biophysical Journal. On its cover is a clear homage to the cover of Blind Boy Fuller's LP "Truckin' My Blues Away," illustrated by Robert Crumb.

Fantastic Programmable Goo Solves Difficult Math Problems

2013-03-26T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

You've got 20 US cities to visit in one big trip. What's the shortest route you can take?

North American Hotel Workers Are More Likely To Sabotage Rude Customers

2013-03-26T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Have you ever been rude to someone in the hospitality industry? Well, first of all, don't do that, what's wrong with you? Second of all, if you're in North America, you especially shouldn't do that because the staff will spit in your food so fast your head will spin. In China, on the other hand, you'll just make all the other customers miserable, too.

Researcher Says Radar Tech Could Detect Guns At School

2013-03-26T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

A radar-based concept originally developed to detect suicide bombs abroad could be used to find people carrying concealed weapons in a crowd here at home, University of Michigan researcher Kamal Sarabandi says.

9-Year-Old Girl Gets Dinosaur Named After Her, Makes All Other Children/Adults Jealous

2013-03-23T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

A few years ago, while strolling down a beach on the Isle of Wight (a small island in the English Channel), 4-year-old Daisy Morris stumbled on something unusual. She'd always been interested in dinosaurs, and had started hunting for fossils a year earlier with her mother. But this looked a bit different - blackened bones sticking out of the sand that didn't look quite familiar.

People Think Lollies With Green Nutrition Labels Are Healthier

2013-03-23T07:02:00.0000000+11:00

No matter how smart we think we are, humanity continues to be fooled by simple marketing tricks. Various experiments have found wearing the colour red is more likely to get you a date. Another new study suggests that a green hue can convince you that a bar of chocolate isn't really that unhealthy.

Play A Chord And This Database Will Guess Which Comes Next

2013-03-23T06:29:00.0000000+11:00

Pop music might come off as formulaic sometimes, and, to some extent, that's probably true. Hook Theory is a song database, and after analysing 1,300 popular songs, looking at the chord progressions in each, it spit back some pretty cool visualisations.

Did A Comet Kill The Dinosaurs?

2013-03-23T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Some 66 million years ago, a giant space object of some kind slammed into Earth right around the Yucatan peninsula. The resultant explosion sent debris high into the atmosphere; the dust resettled to earth newly enriched with the elements iridium and osmium - elements that are much more abundant in space than on Earth - and formed a thin layer in the rock strata now called the K-Pg boundary.

American English Is Way More Emotional Than British English

2013-03-23T03:58:00.0000000+11:00

If you pick up a British or Australian book, a few cultural differences might easily differentiate it from a member of the American canon - a penchant for spelling words with an extra "u," an unfamiliar slang word...and perhaps the literary equivalent of a stiff upper lip. According to new research, over the last half a century, American writing has shown a significant uptick in emotional words compared books written by those in the Old Country.

Bill Gates Will Pay You $100,000 If You Can Make A Better Condom

2013-03-23T03:29:00.0000000+11:00

Men are idiots. Hence the common chorus of "but using a condom doesn't feel good." (The fact that having AIDS and/or babies feels much worse seems to have escaped these folks.) To be fair: The condom is still fairly primitive; the use of latex was the last major innovation (sorry, Trojan, your "fire and ice" condoms are weird and don't count), and that was decades ago. This is 2013! We are developing invisibility cloaks! We have cars that drive themselves! We have a giant telescope that can see into the past! There have been attempts to modernize the condom, but none have gone into wide production. And that means our best tool to fight the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases basically the finger of a rubber glove.

This Tiny Car Drives Itself

2013-03-22T04:36:00.0000000+11:00

We've seen some cool ideas for self-driving cars, but it's complicated designing one that can work alongside other, human-driven vehicles. One way to get around that? Make a teeny, tiny car that's small enough to take to the sidewalks, squeezing through urban walkways instead of the road.

BlackBerry Z10 Review: If They Could Turn Back Time...

2013-03-22T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

My first smartphone was a BlackBerry Curve. I have nothing but fond memories of it - the speed and ease of typing on that keyboard, the battery that lasted for days and days, the indestructibility of the thing. I think a lot of people feel that way about BlackBerry. Which makes it all the harder, because if BlackBerry had released the brand-new Z10 even just two or three years ago, it might've had a fighting chance. I like the way it thinks about some things - the gestures are cool, the homescreen's great - and the hardware is excellent.

Play Any Website Like A Marble Madness Maze, Controlled With Your Phone's Accelerometer

2013-03-22T03:20:00.0000000+11:00

If you're looking for a distraction today, this new browser-plus-phone-based game from Google turns your smartphone into a controller and any website into a maze. Then you can sit at your desk and run a little marble around the maze on your computer screen. It's pretty satisfying.

Despite Widely Varied Appearances, Giant Squid Worldwide Are Only One "Very Weird" Species

2013-03-22T00:57:00.0000000+11:00

Though the giant squid is one of the biggest living creatures on Earth, it's also one of the most elusive. The first hazy photos of a live giant squid in its natural habitat weren't taken until 2004, and it was only in January that we first got to see a live giant squid swimming through the ocean on video.

Apollo-Era Rocket Engines Rescued From The Sea

2013-03-21T09:09:00.0000000+11:00

Twisted, scum-covered pieces of the engines that sent the first people to the moon got pulled up from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean today.

Our Best Current Defence Against Asteroids Is...Prayer?

2013-03-21T08:28:00.0000000+11:00

How well are we prepared to deflect city-obliterating space rocks hurtling toward Earth? Well, NASA head Charles Bolden told Congress yesterday, "if it's coming in three weeks, pray."

Did North Korea Just Hack South Korean Banks?

2013-03-21T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Earlier today, computer systems at five major South Korean banks and TV networks crashed simultaneously. Experts immediately suspected that it was a cyber attack from North Korea, which has a famously tense relationship with its southern neighbor. The banks and TV networks feared that information might be lost or stolen, but so far the most significant problem has been sustained disruption. As of this writing, some computer systems were still down, seven hours after the attack.

US Considers Testing A Vaccine Against Weaponised Anthrax On Children

2013-03-21T06:02:00.0000000+11:00

Being an ethicist isn't easy. Here's the quandary the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues just sorted through: when it's ethical to give an anthrax vaccine to children.

GM Recalls Almost 34,000 Cars Because Of Faulty Software

2013-03-21T05:29:00.0000000+11:00

Cars are growing more and reliant on software for their basic functions, which, as cool as it is (see: the Tesla Model S), occasionally means bugs in the system.

For Polar Bears Contending With Climate Change, "It's Survival Of The Fattest"

2013-03-21T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Led by researchers at the University of Alberta, a new study in the Journal of Animal Ecology from the British Ecological Society finds that lately, due to climate change, it's only the fattest polar bears that survive the year.

180,000 Deaths A Year Around The World Linked To Sugary Drinks

2013-03-21T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

While the science linking sugary drinks with obesity and illness is still uncertain, one new study has come up with a number: 180,000 deaths a year worldwide may be associated with sodas, sports drinks, fruit drinks and other sweet, sweet beverages.

Company To Make Anti-Drone Tech Available To The Masses

2013-03-21T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Tired of skies filled with robots? Okay, that hasn't happened yet, but the Federal Aviation Authority expects that by 2020, American skies will have up to 30,000 drones operating in the US, so the possibility of a robot-crowded sky in the near future is very real. Domestic Drone Countermeasures, LLC, is planning to sell commercial anti-drone equipment aimed at protecting private citizens from prying eyes.

Superheated Water Etches Diamond

2013-03-21T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Yowch. Researchers have gotten water to etch diamond by trapping the water next to the diamond's surface and heating the water to its supercritical phase.

Watch Comet Pan-STARRS Race Around The Sun

2013-03-20T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Comet Pan-STARRS is visible in many parts of the U.S. around sunset, and it was at its peak brightness a few days ago when it made its closest pass to the sun. As they approach our star and warm up, dirty cosmic snowballs like Pan-STARRS grow bright tails, or comas, which are made of dust and ice particles that reflect light.

Can We Build Cities That Don't Freak Us Out?

2013-03-20T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

If you condensed all 200,000 years of humanity's existence into a one hour-long video and then played it back, you would have to wait 58 minutes for people to build their first city-like habitat - a honeycomb-like mud-brick town of 5,000 in present-day Turkey.

Meet The Robotic Salamander That'll Walk, Swim, And Crawl Into Your Nightmares

2013-03-20T06:45:00.0000000+11:00

Do you remember turning over rocks in your backyard, looking for tiny dark wriggling salamanders? No you don't, because you're Australian. But you've probably seen a salamander. It's like a long, slithery frog with a tail. Imagine that, but in the form of a very large robot, and you've got something close to the Salamandra Robotica II.

Roku 3 Review: Yeah, It's The Best Media Streamer

2013-03-20T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

The Roku 3 is the best media streamer. The hardware's clean, the software's snappy, the app selection is second-to-none, and it's more stable than a sumo-wrestling elephant, which is a very stable elephant indeed. If you subscribe to Hulu and/or Netflix and/or Spotify and/or Rdio and/or you download a lot of video and/or you've gotten through legal or somewhat less than legal means a password to HBO Go, and you don't already have a way to watch or listen to those things on your TV, or if you have a way but it is awkward (like, you plug your laptop into a TV, or you transcode and AirPlay things to an AppleTV), buy a Roku 3. It rules.

Google Maps Adds Views From Mt. Everest, Kilimanjaro, And More Famous Peaks

2013-03-20T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Google Maps' Street View has become more than just a way to find your way around or look at creepy images of your own house on the web. It's now a way to explore parts of the world most of us are way too lazy to visit. You can go to the Grand Canyon, or the Amazon rainforest, or see parts of North Korea. You can even explore inside offices and underwater.

FYI: Why Are Celebrities Injecting Their Faces With Blood?

2013-03-20T03:56:00.0000000+11:00

Kim Kardashian has gotten one. So, apparently, have other ladies in Miami. A "blood facial" or "vampire facial" is a cosmetic procedure during which a doctor draws a couple vials of blood from your arm, centrifuges the blood to separate out the plasma and platelets from the red blood cells, and then adds the platelet-rich plasma back into your face. Um... ew?

Text Messages Could Include Your Animated Face, Looking Frustrated

2013-03-20T03:34:00.0000000+11:00

The scourge of 21st century socializing is that text messages have approximately the same emotional capacity as a brick wall, and emoticons make you look like an overzealous kid in year 7. When you say you're "fine," does that mean you're chipper or a little bit pissed off?

Can Your Hybrid Car's Electronics Mess Up Your Pacemaker?

2013-03-20T03:03:00.0000000+11:00

At the Mayo Clinic in the US, renowned for its expertise in cardiac care, a patient recently posed a question that apparently nobody had ever asked: Will the electronics in hybrid cars interfere with implanted cardiac devices? After a bunch of tests, the heart doctors found the answer is no.

Massive Solar Power Plant Opens In Abu Dhabi

2013-03-20T02:31:00.0000000+11:00

One of the world's largest solar power plants opened this weekend in the oil-rich city of Abu Dhabi.

Science Confirms The Obvious: Unhealthy Eating Makes Your Bad Mood Worse

2013-03-20T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

As much as we all wish the answer to any problem could be "eat more junk food," powering through an entire litre of Sara Lee Ultra Choc when you're in a bad mood won't help you feel better, according to research from Penn State University. It'll probably make you feel worse, actually. Shocker.

The Numbers Behind America's Most Expensive Fighter Jet Ever [Infographic]

2013-03-20T00:00:00.0000000+11:00

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a long in-development, government-funded stealth fighter made by Lockheed Martin. Designed to replace up to seven different fighters, it could potentially do everything from night stealth missions to tank destruction to vertical takeoff, but it has been plagued by technological problems. Its other salient feature? It is the most expensive fighter jet developed. Ever.

Machine Keeps Human Liver Alive And Functioning Outside The Body For 24 Hours

2013-03-19T09:02:00.0000000+11:00

A new machine can keep human livers warm and functioning outside the body for 24 hours before successfully transplanting them, a team of Oxford scientists announced last week. The breakthrough could double the number of livers available for transplant.

This Is What The Internet Looks Like

2013-03-19T08:31:00.0000000+11:00

Peer 1 Hosting has been trying to explain what the Internet looks like since 2011, when they created an infographic map of the Internet showing networks and routing connections across the world. Now they've visualized the web in a zoomable Map of the Internet app for iPhone and Android that lets you explore connectivity in a more hands-on way.

Mariana Trench Full Of Microbial Life, Expedition Finds

2013-03-19T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

The bottomest bottom of the ocean, nearly 11,000 metres down, is actually full of microbial life, a new study found.

Are Birds Evolving To Not Get Hit By Cars?

2013-03-19T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

If you've ever had the soul-crushing misfortune of hitting a bird while speeding down the road, you can at least take heart in the fact that some birds are, on the whole, getting better at dodging them. A new paper published today in the journal Current Biology theorizes that today's natural predators (like the Ford F-150) are causing birds to adapt.

Slow-Motion Video Of A Bridge Exploding Is The Best Way To Start The Week

2013-03-19T06:01:00.0000000+11:00

Monday mornings pretty much always make me feel like blowing things up. So watching videos about things blowing up - or people blowing things up - seems to be a perfect way to ease into the work week.

Live From Space With Chris Hadfield, Canada's First Space Station Commander

2013-03-19T05:33:00.0000000+11:00

Lots of astronauts living on the International Space Station are prolific tweeters and photographers. But every few missions or so, someone comes along who really gets it, and shares the experience of life in space better than most. Like the station's newly minted commander, Chris Hadfield.

Licence to Print: 3D Gunmaker Open For Business (Sorta)

2013-03-19T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

On Saturday, 3-D printed gunsmith Defense Distributed published on Facebook a photograph of its newly acquired Title 7 Federal Firearms Licence. The Title 7 licence allows Defense Distributed to manufacture and sell ammunition and firearms.

Watch a Tiny 3D Printed Spaceship!

2013-03-19T04:31:00.0000000+11:00

About a year ago, we reported on a team using "two-photon lithography" to 3D print a teeny, tiny racecar in about four minutes. That was insanely fast - printing a racecar might've been a little sight gag - but now another team, using the same process, has printed a similarly small spaceship in less than a single minute.

Smartphone Tech Measures Your Pulse By Looking At Your Face

2013-03-19T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

New software under development could let more smartphones, tablets and security cameras take people's pulses by recording their faces for 5 seconds.

Yes, You Can Tell From His Face What Your Dog Is Feeling

2013-03-19T03:20:00.0000000+11:00

People can reliably read a dog's facial expressions, suggesting humans are finely tuned to detect emotions even in other creatures. Behavioral scientists have long known that people can accurately read other humans' emotions, but this study suggests our empathy extends to other members of the animal kingdom.

Why Do Some People Faint When They See Blood?

2013-03-19T02:26:00.0000000+11:00

Getting dizzy and fainting at the sight of someone else's blood doesn't seem to be the most, uh, evolutionarily appropriate response. How's that going to help you when you're trying to take down a buffalo? And despite it being relatively common - 3 to 4 percent of people suffer from blood phobia or a related disorder - the symptoms of it are totally different from most phobias: phobics' blood pressure and heart rate will rise then drop when they see blood, as opposed to the just-heart-racing caused by most fears. So what gives?

Carnegie Mellon Is Building A Robot Chimp That Doubles As A Tank

2013-03-19T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Chimpanzees? Cool. Tanks? Cool. Robots? Also cool. Combine them, and you have either the best transformer ever, or Carnegie Mellon's new human-sized robot chimp tank.

Issue #53 - April 2013

2013-03-18T12:36:00.0000000+11:00

Our April issue goes into spaaaaace! Well, actually it does inside the incredible Falcon Heavy rocket - the world's largest commercial launch system. Plus a bunch of other amazing machines in our annual How it Works spectacular!

How Winter Woes Inspired A Nanotech Fix For Everything From Cold Necks To Knee Pain

2013-03-16T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

With the exception of Russian novelists, not many people can say their big break was inspired by the despair of a frost-ridden, snot-icicle-inducing winter. Yet for Kranthi Kiran Vistakula, a graduate student from Hyderabad, India, the inconvenience of the Boston cold wasn't something to shrug at - it was a problem to fix.

Scientists Resurrect Bonkers Extinct Frog That Gives Birth Through Its Mouth

2013-03-16T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

In 1983, the world lost one of its weirdest frogs. The gastric-brooding frog, native to tiny portions of Queensland, Australia, gave birth through its mouth, the only frog to do so (in fact, very few other animals in the entire animal kingdom do this - it's mostly this frog and a few fish). It succumbed to extinction due to mostly non-human-related causes - parasites, loss of habitat, invasive weeds, a particular kind of fungus. There were two subspecies, the northern and souther gastric-brooding frog, and they both became extinct in the mid-80s sometime.

A New Plan For A 3D Printed House That's Actually House-Like

2013-03-16T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

We've already covered two plans for a 3-D printed house, and they couldn't be more different. The first is a Mobius-strip-style building without a beginning or an ending. The second design would be made of plastic, and it looks kinda like a spider's nest. This design, the latest contender, was created by Dutch firm DUS Public Architecture, and actually looks like a relatively normal building - a cathedral, even.

Samsung Announces Galaxy S 4; It Has All Of The Features

2013-03-15T10:38:00.0000000+11:00

At a massive event at Radio City Music Hall, featuring a live orchestra and a simulcast on a huge billboard in Times Square, Samsung showed off its newest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S 4, which is...not very interesting. But the Galaxy S line is enormously popular, with a huge advertising budget behind it, and this phone will probably also sell about a gazillion units. So, what's going on here?

Watch This Quadrotor Fly Like A Drone And Fish Like An Eagle

2013-03-15T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Bald eagles, besides being majestic and graceful and standing for freedom and all that, have a pretty cool trick: they can scoop fish straight out of the water. Flying low, they extend their talons and grab the fish from below the surface, carrying it home for a triumphant feast. Now, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia have made a drone that can imitate this same feat. Watch it in action...

NASA Resumes Production Of Plutonium-238

2013-03-15T03:33:00.0000000+11:00

For the first time in more than two decades, the United States can put a "Made in the USA" stamp on non-weapons grade plutonium, Discovery News reports.

New Results Confirm: The Particle Believed To Be The Higgs Boson Really Is The Higgs Boson

2013-03-15T02:28:00.0000000+11:00

The Higgs Boson really, really is the Higgs Boson.

Could Google Glass Allow Us To Drive Our Wheelchairs With Our Eyes?

2013-03-15T00:10:00.0000000+11:00

When Google launched their #ifihadglass campaign asking users to apply for early access to the augmented reality device, tech aficionados and cutting-edge eyewear fashionistas exploded with ideas - some annoying, some jokey, and some actually promising.

Their Big Eyes May Have Caused Neanderthals' Demise

2013-03-14T05:29:00.0000000+11:00

Anyone stuck with glasses knows the envy of those with killer eyesight. But visual acuity apparently came at a price, at least for Neanderthals. According to a paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B this week, Neanderthals' visual acuity in the low-light conditions of northern Europe - much higher than that of Homo sapiens - came at the cost of other cognitive skills, such as extended social networks and innovation maintenance.

A Subterranean Performance Inaugurates The Largest Earth Telescope Ever

2013-03-14T03:28:00.0000000+11:00

SANTIAGO, Chile - Wearing a rainbow skirt, silver face paint and a pair of metallic radio dishes on her head, Constanza Biagini was an exhibit unto herself. She stood in a dim back room of a crowded Chilean subway station, a living interpretation of the country's newest point of astronomical pride. And then she started singing.

The Science Press Is Going Crazy Over SpaceX's Most Recent Rocket Launch. Why?

2013-03-13T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

On Thursday, March 7, SpaceX's Grasshopper rocket launched 263 feet into the air, hovered for 34 seconds, and then under its own power landed back where it took off. It was a record-breaking moment for the Grasshoper - in December, the rocket reached an altitude about half as high - but plenty of rockets have catapulted to even greater heights. So why was the science press really, really excited about the whole thing?

Trained Soviet Attack Dolphins!

2013-03-13T09:15:00.0000000+11:00

Last year, the Ukrainian Navy decided to reinstitute a Soviet-era dolphin training program. Specifically, according to reports, the dolphins had pistols and knives strapped to their heads and were taught to use them. Because, you know, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG.

Japan Has Won The Race To Extract Gas From Offshore Methane Ice

2013-03-13T08:45:00.0000000+11:00

Japanese officials report they've produced natural gas from underwater methane hydrate, a frozen mix of water and methane known as "burning ice." Previous experiments have successfully extracted gas from on-shore deposits, but this is the first time we've been able to do it with deep sea reserves.

Curiosity Finds Evidence That Ancient Mars Could Have Supported Life

2013-03-13T04:47:00.0000000+11:00

Only a little while after turning itself back on after a glitch stuck it in safe mode, Curiosity's chemical analysis of rock samples show something amazing: chemical evidence ancient Mars could've supported life.

Build Your Own DIY Space Plane

2013-03-12T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

One of the more delightful YouTube video genres involves sending a camera into space beneath a weather balloon. The first one I ever saw featured a father and his young son in Brookyln. Other have used it for everything from college admission letters to Hello Kitty to Natty Light, to even a LEGO version Felix Baumgartner's jump. Okay, that last one didn't actually make it to space, but it fits the genre: slow launch, frantic first person footage as it plummets, and then a triumphant recovery. Most of these drops rely on a tough camera casing that can survive the fall back to Earth.

Whoops: There's No New Lifeform In Lake Vostok After All

2013-03-12T03:42:00.0000000+11:00

We've been following the Antarctic drilling projects for a while now; there have been three major projects to drill holes in some of the coldest and most remote lakes on the planet to see what's underneath all the ice. The reason we're so interested in these hard-to-study lakes is for their relation to other worlds, specifically Europa and Enceladus, the frozen moons of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively. And last week, the Russians, who have been drilling into Lake Vostok, the coldest and deepest lake of them all, announced that they had in fact found a new type of bacteria, seemingly unrelated to all known organisms on the planet.

The US Says It Could Stop A North Korean Missile. How?

2013-03-09T10:13:00.0000000+11:00

In response to questions about North Korea's latest threats to nuke the U.S., White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said yesterday: "I can tell you that the United States is fully capable of defending against any North Korean ballistic missile attack."

Makerbot Shows Off New Digitiser

2013-03-09T07:45:00.0000000+11:00

Right at the start of South by Southwest, MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis has announced an awesome-sounding new 3D printing gadget: the MakerBot Digitiser Desktop 3D Scanner. It's exactly what it sounds like: a Makerbot-created tool that can scan real, 3-D objects and turn them into digital files. Those files can then be sent to other 3-D printers, and the objects printed on demand.

PopSci Visits The World's Largest Radio Telescope

2013-03-08T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

A new radio telescope that can hear the faintest heartbeats in the universe - colder and farther back in time than anything to come before it - is about to be officially switched on in the Chilean Andes. The Atacama Large-Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array, or ALMA, is the grandest ground-based observatory ever built.

If Earth Were Hosting An Alien Species, This Is What It Would Look Like

2013-03-08T07:57:00.0000000+11:00

In 2011, the European Space Agency launched Earth's weirdest creature, the tardigrade, into orbit for twelve days on an unmanned spacecraft. And I mean on the spacecraft - scientists attached the organisms to the outside of the rocket to test just how alien-like the very alien-looking tardigrade is.

Analysis Of 1,000 Books Finds Men Show Up 3 Times More Often Than Women [Infographic]

2013-03-08T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Plutarch was practically the worst, Edith Wharton was right on, and Shakespeare was about average.

4 Ways To Make Digital Journalism Suck Less

2013-03-08T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

What's the future of journalism? It's pretty grim if you ask the writer Nate Thayer or pretty much anyone else working in digital media today. The technological tools that make it possible to post news online, instead of on paper, have gone hand in hand with a crippling depletion of the ad revenue that supports journalism. Publishing platforms are cranking out more and more content, and advertisers are spending fewer and fewer dollars.

This Is What Facebook Looks Like Now

2013-03-08T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

At an event this morning, Facebook took the wraps off the service's latest design. The idea is, as Facebook says, to "pull back the chrome," simplifying the way the site works and looks. That means cutting down on all the boxes and lines and shading and sidebars and lord knows what else litters your homescreen right now. It's more like a mobile app than ever before; just the stream of news.

Watch This Cat Play With An Optical Illusion [Video]

2013-03-08T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Not that you need an additional reason to watch a cat video, but this clip of a cat looking at an optical illusion could be scientifically valuable, too.

Curiosity Hunkers Down While Solar Blast Races Toward Mars

2013-03-08T03:01:00.0000000+11:00

Just days after waking up from a self-imposed safe mode, the Mars rover Curiosity is getting some extra shuteye as it waits for a solar storm to calm down. On Tuesday, a huge solar flare erupted from the sun's far side as viewed from Earth. But it was right toward Mars, and it also hurled a cloud of superheated gas toward the Red Planet.

Take This Quiz To Find Your Likelihood Of Dying By 2023

2013-03-08T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

A new mortality index calculates people's chances of dying in the next 10 years if they're over 50.

How Much Porn Can You Buy For Your Kindle?

2013-03-07T10:30:00.0000000+11:00

The porn industry has always been on the forefront of technological progress, pushing us into the world of video chat, streaming media, broadband access and online payment systems. It appears they're also getting into the e-book business.

There Used To Be Freaking Camels In The Arctic

2013-03-07T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

North America was a crazy place a few million years ago. The megafauna alone would make the world's most awesome zoo collection: giant sloths! Mastodons! Nine-foot saber-toothed salmon! Dire wolves! And, believe it or not, camels. Yes, camels originally arose in North America 45 million years ago and lived there until human migrated into the area around 16,000 years ago.

Science Confirms The Obvious: Gun Laws Are Associated With Fewer Gun Deaths

2013-03-07T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

In the wake of some particularly high-profile mass shootings, the national debate over gun control is perhaps more heated than ever. Does gun control actually result in fewer deaths? Or does the solution lie in some other kind of protection?

First Mass-Produced Hydrogen Cars Roll Out

2013-03-06T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

The first hydrogen-powered car set for mass production rolled off the assembly line this week in South Korea. The vehicle, an SUV by Hyundai called the ix35 Fuel Cell, creates only water in its exhaust.

Self-Leaning Toyota i-Road Concept Debuts At 2013 Geneva Show

2013-03-06T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Toyota has reaffirmed its commitment to battery-powered electric mobility by unveiling the funky i-Road concept car this week at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show.

Will Science Let Pregnant Women Do ANYTHING?

2013-03-06T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

As cute as babies are, most aspects of pregnancy seem like the worst kind of torture you could inflict upon yourself. You can't drink, you can't smoke, you can't eat sushi or unpasteurized cheese. Parts of your body will never be the same. Plus you have a TINY HUMAN growing within you. Who knows what you're about to pop out. It could be the next Mother Teresa...but it could also be the next Donald Trump.

Is This The World's Dumbest Drone?

2013-03-06T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

This little drone only seems dumb. While its nimble brethren navigate corridors and zip in and out of windows, the Swiss-designed AirBurr crashes into just about everything, like an old rummy at last call.

A Beauitful Image Of Venus, As Seen From A Perch Near Saturn

2013-03-05T11:00:00.0000000+11:00

There's nothing quite like stretching out and taking in the stars. Except, maybe, taking in the stars from the neighbourhood of Saturn.

Brooklyn's Most Insane New Buildings Look Like Giant Angular Donuts

2013-03-05T10:30:00.0000000+11:00

On the Brooklyn side of the East River next to the Williamsburg Bridge there lies a giant, abandoned building, emblazoned with giant yellow letters proclaiming it to be the Domino Sugar factory. It takes up a lot of space, and worse, that space is on the waterfront in Williamsburg, one of the most expensive and in-demand neighborhoods in Brooklyn. And so the Domino Sugar factory is being mostly torn down to make way for an array of giant and architecturally curious buildings and parks.

Developing Space Programs To Launch Dozens Of Satellites In The Next 10 Years

2013-03-05T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

Is it just me, or is it getting crowded in here? More than 280 new observational satellites are expected to enter orbit around Earth over the next decade, Aviation Week reported from an analysis by Paris-based Euroconsult.

An Algorithm That Helps You Stalk, Er, Meet New People On The Internet

2013-03-05T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

Always wished you could be friends with your favorite celebrity… at least on Facebook? This new algorithm may help you get there.

5 Things To Know About The Baby Cured Of HIV

2013-03-05T08:28:00.0000000+11:00

It's the medical news of the moment, but there are a few things you need to know about this little miracle, and what her recovery means for the broader community and those infected with HIV.

What Submarine Warfare and Cyber Security Can Teach Us About Defeating IEDs

2013-03-05T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

No enemy weapon has confounded U.S. military planners over the last decade like Improvised Explosive Devices. IEDS have been around in some form since the invention of explosives, and were deployed in World War II, Vietnam, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Only in the past 11 years, though, with the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, have IEDS gone from just one of many concerns in hostile territory to a central threat; at one point IEDS caused the majority of military fatalities in both Iraq and Aghanistan.

World's Largest Fibre Optic Network Speeds Nuclear Research

2013-03-05T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

The world's largest fibre-optic local network is going behind the walls at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

Today On Mars: Curiosity Chills Out In Safe Mode While NASA Analyzes Computer Glitch

2013-03-05T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity paused its work over the weekend and is chilling in safe mode on Mars, while engineers on Earth try to resolve a computer glitch. The rover switched to a backup computer, but operations are on hiatus while NASA engineers work on the problem.

DJI Phantom RC Quadrotor UAS Review: A Powerful Personal Drone That Knows Its Place

2013-03-05T05:01:00.0000000+11:00

It's a sign of the times when new consumer-grade, commercially available remote-controlled drones just show up unsolicited at our offices with an invitation from the manufacturer to take them for a spin. Drones are big news these days, their reputation alternately buoyed and tarnished by their efficacy as machines of warfare and the lack of solid legalities governing their use, and likewise by their limitless potential across a range of commercial applications and their similarly limitless potential for abuse where personal privacy is concerned.

This 'DRM' Chair Will Self-Destruct After Eight Uses

2013-03-05T04:02:00.0000000+11:00

This is a self-destructing chair, and also happens to be a pretty darn funny political statement. Ever heard of DRM? It's tacked on to software to push back against piracy. You might get a limited number of downloads for certain content, for example, ensuring you can't post it up on the web for everybody with an internet connection to download.

A Virus That Steals A Bacterium's Immune System And Uses It As A Weapon

2013-03-05T03:01:00.0000000+11:00

Sometimes, I read a news item that pretty much overturns an entire class of pedagogy in my head. Take, for example, the discovery that virus particles steal and repurpose a bacteria's immune system, and use it against them. My first thought was "holy crap, bacteria have an adaptive immune system?!"

Let's Get Rid Of 16:9 Laptops Forever

2013-03-02T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

The latest laptop to cross my review desk (it's just my regular desk, I don't have two desks) is the Chromebook Pixel, Google's ultra-premium new laptop, just released this week, which is a very curious device indeed. It's beautiful and well-made, but it runs Chrome OS, which, while surprisingly capable, is really nothing more than a web browser. It is a difficult thing to review because it's great, but wildly overpriced given its capabilities - the reviews of the Pixel tend to be glowing, until the last sentence, which is "Oh, and nobody should buy this laptop, because it costs $1,300 and can only run one program."

Did The US Buy Its Moon Program From Yugoslavia?

2013-03-01T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

That whole getting to the moon thing? Actually Yugoslavian. No really.

Everything You Need To Know About The Piracy-Battling Copyright Alert System

2013-03-01T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

There's been a lot of discussion this week about the Copyright Alert System. It is a confusing thing! But if you like to steal things on the internet, or even if you don't, you should be aware of it, because this is the way copyright protection is going to work for the foreseeable future.

How One Group Is Trying To Skirt Regulations On Its $50 3D Printed Gun Part

2013-03-01T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

Enthusiasts of gun-law loopholes, this might be your new favorite workaround. A project at the crowd-funding site Rockethub wants to create a 3D printed gun part for just $50. The twist: the part is only 80 percent complete, so like an Ikea desk you'll have to finish the rest of it yourself.

Watch Boeing's Chubby Hydrogen-Powered Drone Take Off With Its Special Skateboard

2013-03-01T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

This fat airplane is designed to fly for four days at altitudes around 65,000 feet - but it's only taking baby steps so far. Boeing shared some video today of the Phantom Eye's second flight earlier this week, which lasted 66 minutes and reached altitudes of 8,000 feet.

Why Your Music Files Sound Like Crap

2013-03-01T04:02:00.0000000+11:00

Those music files - be they MP3, AAC or WMA - that you listen to on your portable music players are pretty crap when it comes to accurate sound reproduction from the original recording. But just how crap they really are wasn't known until now.

Nonprofit To Send A Married Couple Skimming Past Mars In 2018

2013-03-01T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

An audacious plan to send two people looping around Mars and back has a lot of crazy components - who will pay for it? Who will design and build the special rocket and spaceship for this mission? How can it possibly be ready in just five years? And who gets to go? And why? So far, only that last question has an answer, and it's the only non-crazy part of this new plan: Why not?

Sleeping Children Learn Better Than Adults

2013-03-01T03:05:00.0000000+11:00

While you're asleep, your brain is busy updating and rebooting. It takes the information you've gathered throughout the day subconsciously and processes it into explicit, conscious knowledge. Children usually perform worse than adults at cognitive tasks, but a new study shows that they are significantly better at this process of implicit to explicit conversion than adults.

Meet Philippe Charlier, The Forensic Scientist Who Thinks A Medieval Cadaver Smells Good

2013-03-01T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

The 13th-century cadaver, says Philippe Charlier, actually smells good. That's because its veins have been filled with a mixture of mercury and beeswax, preserving the body. "Also it was smoked, like salmon or like pork," he says. So even after 800 years, it's in pretty good shape.

U.S. Army Starts Planning For An Armored Vehicle That Skydives

2013-02-28T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

Armored vehicles are incredibly useful in battle. But they are difficult to transport to remote locations (where many confrontations take place) because they skydive very poorly. You would too if you were 50 tons of clanking machinery.

Horsemeat Scandal: An Aussie Perspective

2013-02-28T08:05:00.0000000+11:00

What with all the excitement in Europe about the horsemeat burgers, and all those terrible puns (like the man hospitalised after eating too much horse - but his condition is stable) we were starting to feel a little left out. But the Australian Institute of Food Safety has come to the rescue with this handy infographic!

Watch The World's Grossest Creature Eat Fish Tongue

2013-02-28T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

You thought you only had to worry about whether the fish you're eating is really what you ordered. NOVA has a new short video that explains that even if the snapper you buy is correctly labeled, it might still have a tongue-eating parasite living inside its mouth:

Low-Fat, Non-Fat, Gluten-Free: How The Government Influences Health Claims On Packaged Food

2013-02-28T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

Noticed a lot of new "gluten-free" and "no trans fat" snacks in your grocery store lately? It's not just you. A new study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that gluten and trans fat labels are the quickest-growing categories of food-packaging claims. Also hot now: Claims about antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids.

Captured On Google Earth: Mysterious Barcode Patterns Strewn Across U.S. Land

2013-02-28T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Consider it a barcode for bombers - an eye test for spy planes. Across empty stretches of the United States, an odd Cold War artifact persists. It is a series of asphalt rectangles coated in patterns of black and white paint. Based on the 1951 US Air Force resolution test chart, the barcode-like patterns were used to test the ability and resolution of film cameras carried by aeroplanes.

Analyze Your Urine With Your iPhone

2013-02-28T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

At a recent TED talk, inventor Myshkin Ingawale - who's best known for developing a needle-free test for hemoglobin - got some laughs when he unveiled his latest project. It's revolutionary, he said, and will one day put your future "in the toilet."

HAL Robotic Suit Gets International Safety Certificate

2013-02-28T04:59:00.0000000+11:00

We've been following the HAL robotic suit for a while now, and for good reason: Look at that thing! That looks like the future right there. And now it's gotten a worldwide stamp of safety approval.

Mouse Brain Cells Can Live Years Longer Than The Mice They Came From

2013-02-28T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

In a new study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, mouse brain cells implanted into rats survived as long as the rats did, double the average mouse lifespan.

We Know Nothing About The Correlation Between Videogames And Violence

2013-02-28T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

A report in the American Psychological Association tries to reconcile the scientific research on violent videogames with the ongoing debate. (The report is one of the best explainers on videogame violence we've ever read, by the way.) But if the research is still being debated, with nothing definitive found, then why are so many scientists and pundits on both sides acting like we have a verdict?

Watch: How Cockroaches Are Helping Scientists Design Better Robots

2013-02-27T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

Cockroaches can recover their footing before their nervous systems even kick in to tell them how, according to new research. This means their legs recover passively, without needing instructions from the command center - a useful lesson for people trying to design better multiple-legged robots.

Astronomers Calculate Russian Meteorite's Orbit, Find It Has 80 Million Cousins

2013-02-27T09:02:00.0000000+11:00

Thanks to dozens of video reports, scientists are getting a pretty good handle on the life history of the massive meteorite that exploded above Russia earlier this month. They know it is rocky and a common type, and now they know where it probably came from. Scientists are scrambling to publish papers describing its origins in the middle of the solar system.

Scientists Spot Possible Remains Of "Rodinia," Ancient Lost Microcontinent

2013-02-27T07:59:00.0000000+11:00

Tourists vacationing on the sunny isles of Reunion and Mauritius have no idea what secrets those sandy beaches hold. The islands could be hiding the remains of an ancient micro-continent, quietly torn apart between 50 and 100 million years ago, according to a new study. Scientists think they have spotted a fragment of a continent known as Mauritia.

Canadian Gamer Facing $50K Fine For Train Station Map Says He'll Release It Anyway

2013-02-27T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

Last week, we reported on a gamer facing nearly $50,000 in fines for creating a map of Montreal's Berri-UQAM metro station that officials say poses a security risk. Now Diego Liatis tells Ars Technica that he's going to follow through on releasing the map in March, lawsuit or not.

Fruit Flies Force-Feed Their Children Alcohol

2013-02-27T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Humans have been using alcohol as a medicine since ancient times, using it as an antiseptic and a pain killer, among other things. We're not the only species that does so, apparently. According to biologists at Emory University, fruit flies force alcohol on their larvae to protect them from parasitic wasps.

European Space Agency Decides Which Asteroid They'll Go Smash Into First

2013-02-27T06:29:00.0000000+11:00

A European mission to intercept and deflect an asteroid now has a target: asteroid Didymos. The proposed Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment mission couldn't have had better timing, sounding a call for proposals in the days before a huge meteorite exploded above northern Russia and an even larger chunk of space rock gave Earth a close shave.

Getting 'Em Early: Pharma Reps Give Gifts To Most Medical Students

2013-02-27T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

In spite of medical schools' efforts to shield budding doctors from the dark forces of the medical-industrial complex, more than half of medical students end up receiving gifts from pharmaceutical representatives by the end of their fourth year, according to an upcoming study.

Physicists Probe The Deep Earth For A Fifth Fundamental Force

2013-02-27T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

In general, people tend to use the phrase "force of nature" loosely, as in "she's a real force of nature." But physicists are pickier - they reserve the phrase for just four separate, universal forces they call the "fundamental forces": gravity, electro-magnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces, which hold the nucleus together and are involved with radioactive decay, respectively.

Pneumatic Muscles Power Sinewy New Leopard Robot

2013-02-27T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

With its long limbs and slender body, this new robot looks a lot like a wild cat - a leopard, maybe, or a cheetah. In comparison, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) famed cheetah robot is practically obese.

Researchers Unveil World's First 4D Printer

2013-02-27T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

We've only just started learning the amazing things we can do with 3D printing. So forgive us if we can't quite get our heads around this new idea from MIT, which researchers call "4D printing."

Can Science Solve France's Twin Rape Mystery?

2013-02-27T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

A pair of identical twins is currently being detained in the French city of Marseille for six rapes committed in the past six months. Victims have identified the twins' face, and DNA evidence from one of the crime scenes confirmed that at least one of them is guilty. But because the twins, identified only as Yohan and Elwin, share almost the same DNA, prosecutors say they have no way of determining which brother is the rapist, or if they were both involved. Shouldn't science be able to solve this kind of mystery?

Why You Can't Stop Eating Cheetos

2013-02-27T02:30:00.0000000+11:00

In a recent article in the New York Times Magazine, food scientist Steven Witherly describes Cheetos as "one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure."

DNA Testing Case Goes To The Supreme Court

2013-02-27T01:50:00.0000000+11:00

The US Supreme Court is hearing a case today about whether police may sample the DNA of people who have been arrested, but haven't been convicted of a crime.

MasterCard's New Digital Wallet Service Will Let You Skip The Checkout Line

2013-02-27T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

You know how convenient it is when you buy something on Amazon with one click? You find what you want, you click one button, and, because it has all your info stored, you can speed right through the checkout process. MasterCard has a new system called MasterPass that aims to do the same thing, and then give that power to anyone who wants it.

Smartphone-Powered Satellite Blasts Into Space

2013-02-26T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

Got an Android phone? It's now got a cousin in space. A Google Nexus One-powered nano-satellite got rocketed into orbit this morning.

DARPA Wants To Invent An Aircraft That Hovers Like A Helicopter But Flies Like A Plane

2013-02-26T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

The most useful aircraft in the world would take off, hover, and land like a helicopter but fly as fast as a plane. Decades of research toward this goal have resulted in very few usable, effective designs. Of those, the V-22 Osprey is the most (in)famous: After early years marred by fatal crashes, costs rose to $36.5 billion and development dragged on from 1989 to 2007.

New Research Sheds Light On How Dogs Became Dogs

2013-02-26T08:37:00.0000000+11:00

At first blush, the emergence of man's best friend is pretty straightforward. The first dogs descended from wolves in Europe about 14,000 years ago. Then humans domesticated those proto-dogs until the eventual animal known as a "dog" had many of the traits we associated with the animal today. That much of the evolutionary history of the modern dog has been clearly understood. But further research suggests that that European dog is not the ancestor of all our dogs; instead, every modern Western dog hails from a Southeast Asian progenitor lineage. Why? Why did some upstart Southeast Asian lineage triumph, even in Europe, instead of the endemic European one? Turns out, it might have to do with your pet dog's affinity for Cheetos.

FYI: How Do You Ship A Dinosaur Halfway Around The World?

2013-02-26T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Tarbosaurus bataar is going home. And the journey, though long, won't be that bad - especially for a 70 million-year-old like him (or her).

NYPD: Murder Is Down Because Of Our Facebook Surveillance

2013-02-26T07:39:00.0000000+11:00

Last year was a record low for murders in New York City, with only 414 (eep) counted. Part of the reason for that number? Facebook, apparently.

Homemade Jetpack Designed To Reach An Altitude Of 25,000 Feet

2013-02-26T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

It's 2013, so we've all been wondering: Where's my jetpack? The future won't have truly arrived until we can strap into a backpack and fly ourselves around town. And while that's not exactly here, it's getting a whole lot closer.

Flapping Robotic Wing Helps Biologists Uncover Secrets Of Bat Flight

2013-02-26T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

A new 3D printed robotic bat wing can emulate the flapping motion of a real bat, helping biologists simulate how the mammals fly and helping aerodynamics researchers study new flapping-wing aircraft. In the process of building and modifying the robotic wing, researchers at Brown University stumbled upon some structural fixes that provide insight into how bat bodies evolved for flight.

Enjoy These Amazing High-Def Nature GIFs

2013-02-26T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

Marinus is a 28-year-old from the Netherlands, and he makes GIFs. But not just any GIFs: his Tumblr, Head Like An Orange, is a collection of some of nature's most stunning, weirdest, sweetest, and funniest moments. At least, they are the best moments captured on film, put into TV shows, and edited down into short, spellbinding loops.

Analysis: Russian Meteorite Was An Everyday Space Rock, Common Throughout The Solar System

2013-02-26T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

The giant space rock that exploded above Russia earlier this month spent about 4.5 billion years cruising around the solar system before its fiery arrival in Earth's atmosphere. It was just an average asteroid, albeit a big one at roughly 10,000 tons. Scientists who have been analyzing it at the Urals Federal University say it was a chondrite, the most widespread space rock in our neighborhood.

The Drama Over Project Encode, And Why Big Science And Small Science Are Different

2013-02-26T03:59:00.0000000+11:00

If every new abstract read like Dan Graur's latest contribution, people wouldn't need any TLC reality shows - they could get all the drama they'd want from research papers. Graur's new paper, a takedown of a much-ballyhooed genomics project, contains some of the most fiery language ever to appear in the staid, typically decorous world of scientific literature.

The US Army's New 84-Ton Tank Is Nearly IED-Proof

2013-02-26T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

Heavy does not even begin to describe the US Army's new tank. At 84 tons, the Ground Combat Vehicle weighs more than twice as much as its predecessor, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Both vehicles are designed to carry a six-man squad (and three-man driving crew) into combat, provide covering fire, and damage enemy tanks. But the military has built the new GCV to withstand a kind of threat that didn't exist when the Bradley was deployed in the early 1980s: improvised explosive devices.

This Is The World's Smallest Space Telescope

2013-02-26T01:05:00.0000000+11:00

Sometimes a bargain satellite is best. Engineers have been making cubesats - cheap cube-satellites that hitch a ride onto rockets and are jettisoned into orbit - for a decade now, and today, another team of engineers will launch two more. The difference is, these ones will be outfitted with tiny telescopes, and they're small enough to be the smallest space telescopes in existence.

FYI: Could Hand Sanitizer Make You Catch On Fire?

2013-02-23T08:45:00.0000000+11:00

A bizarre fire ignited in a Portland hospital earlier this month, causing second- and third-degree burns in 11-year-old cancer survivor Ireland Lane. A state fire marshal report released Wednesday suggests that the blaze was started, in part, by something many of us use every day: hand sanitizer.

Is The Secret To Better Adhesives Inside A Remora's Head?

2013-02-23T08:15:00.0000000+11:00

The remora, also known as a suckerfish, attaches itself to sharks, whales, turtles and any other sea creature it can grab onto with its suction disk, feeding off its hosts' parasites and leftover meals and in generally enjoying the comforts of a free ride. The name remora means "delay" in Latin, because ancient sea farers believed the fish held up their ships.

What If Oscars Were Made Of Solid Gold?

2013-02-23T07:46:00.0000000+11:00

The only thing better than winning an Oscar would be winning one made of solid gold.

The Amazing Story Of The $300 Glasses That Correct Colorblindness

2013-02-23T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

About 10 years ago, Mark Changizi started to develop research on human vision and how it could see changes in skin color. Like many academics, Changizi, an accomplished neurobiologist, went on to pen a book. The Vision Revolution challenged prevailing theories - no, we don't see red only to spot berries and fruits amid the vegetation - and detailed the amazing capabilities of why we see the way we do.

Is There a Planned Secret Manned Mission To Mars?

2013-02-23T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

The Mars rover Curiosity is already expecting a robotic pal in 2020 - but could humans make it there first? A new mysterious nonprofit organization called the Inspiration Mars Foundation is holding a press conference next week to announce a round trip to the Red Planet. The "Mission For America" would launch in January 2018, and go to Mars and back in 501 days.

Engineering College Lets Students Shop With Biometric Scans Instead Of Credit Cards

2013-02-23T04:46:00.0000000+11:00

These days, fingerprint scanners are used, but not very widely outside of Tom Cruise movies. But a small South Dakota college is doing a trial run of a scanner that has you swipe a finger to make a transaction.

The Reason All Your Favorite Companies Are Being Hacked? Dumb Employees

2013-02-23T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

When The New York Times announced in January that it had been the target of four months of cyberattacks, the media giant joined a small but growing chorus of big industry names to come forward as hacking victims. Twitter, Facebook, and Apple have all recently admitted to cybersecurity breaches, and both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal followed The New York Times with hacking announcements of their own. These admissions are a significant break from the standard post-hacking practice of keeping quiet about vulnerabilities to avoid shareholder panic.

Scientists Are Developing A Blood Test To Determine Whether People Are Suicidal

2013-02-23T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Last year, researchers in Sweden published a study linking suicide attempts to higher-than-usual levels of quinolinic acid, a neurotransmitter associated with inflammation.

Mechanical Sniffer Detects Old Book Smell, Could Help Preserve Library Collections

2013-02-22T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

That old book smell may be loveable, but it's also a sign of books' decay. Now the British Library is working with a chemical detection company to quantify that smell for book preservation.

New Study Says Unfairness Really Ruffles Crows' Feathers

2013-02-22T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

People, primates and dogs all react negatively when others get a better reward for doing the same work. Now a small study has found that crows and ravens dislike unfairness, too - the first time research has shown non-mammals react to inequity. Knowing which animals do and don't seem to notice unfairness (cleaner fish, for example, don't notice) helps scientists figure out how a sense of fairness evolved.

PlayStation's Pitch: Forget The Graphics

2013-02-22T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

One of the oddest moments of last night's PlayStation 4 announcement came when developer David Cage explained why the new console would blow everything else out of the water. He's worked on quite a few games over the years, and, you see, those games had polygons, and this new console used not 500, or even 15,000, but 30,000 polygons.

Why I Love Chromebook, And Why The Ultra-Premium Chromebook Pixel Makes No Sense

2013-02-22T07:12:00.0000000+11:00

If someone has never used a Chromebook, it's hard to explain why it's actually a good idea. Chromebooks look like laptops, but instead of running Windows or Mac OS or Linux or, hell, even Android, they run Google's Chrome OS. Chrome OS is just Google Chrome. Yeah, the browser. That's it, pretty much. It's just a browser, with some little extras like 16GB of storage and a rudimentary file browser. It sounds insane, it sounds unnecessarily limiting, and it sounds like a joke.

Silicon Valley Tycoons Bestow Surprise $33 Million Prize On 11 Unsuspecting Cancer Researchers

2013-02-22T06:02:00.0000000+11:00

Cori Bargmann's research at the Rockefeller University has shown nematode worms, one of the simplest lab animals in biology, exhibit surprisingly complex behavior when faced with new challenges. She studies the neural connections that encode those responses. Her Rockefeller colleague Titia de Lange studies mammalian telomeres, the protective caps on the end of our chromosomes whose degradation contributes to aging. She investigates how loss of telomeres can lead to genomic instability in cancer.

Apple Files For Patent On Snap-Band Watch Thing

2013-02-22T05:31:00.0000000+11:00

There's been a lot of chatter about Apple creating a smartwatch - a wearable computer that syncs with a smartphone - on such publications as, um, this one, as of late. And now Patently Apple has snagged a recently filed patent from Apple which shows what seems to be exactly that: a wrist-mounted computer.

Cornell Researchers Grow A Realistic Bio-Engineered Human Ear

2013-02-22T04:59:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers at Cornell University have managed to fabricate a bioengineered human ear that looks and acts like a natural one. They hope to be able to give children with a rare congenital ear deformity a new, 3-D printed ear that's specifically tailored to fit them.

What The Russian Meteor Explosion Sounded Like

2013-02-22T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Last week was a busy one for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, a detection agency set up to identify nations when they test nuclear weapons banned by treaty. On Tuesday, the organization's seismographs detected a rumble in North Korea that could only have been an atomic test. Then on Friday, CTBTO infrasound sensors picked up an explosion over Russia, but this time, it wasn't a nuclear test. Instead, the sensors picked up short-frequency sound waves from the Chelyabinsk meteor blast. The blast was so powerful that sound waves were detected as far north as Greenland and as far south as Antarctica. Scientists quickly determined that the event was a meteor, not a nuclear weapon, because the sound-wave pattern indicated a moving object.

Who Supplies Apple With All Those Parts? [Infographic]

2013-02-22T02:57:00.0000000+11:00

In an interview with Tim Cook last December, Bloomberg Businessweek asked the Apple CEO what it would take to "get Apple back to building things in the U.S."

7 Reasons Why Coffee Is Good For You

2013-02-22T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Coffee isn't just warm and energising, it may also be extremely good for you...

New Device Treats Brain Injury By Zapping Nerves On The Tongue

2013-02-21T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

A new electronic device could treat brain damage by stimulating nerves on the tongue to send signals to the brain. The Portable NeuroModulation Stimulator, or PoNS, is named after part of the brain stem and aims to repair damaged neural connections.

Scientists Insert A Light-Emitting Bioprobe Into A Living Cell

2013-02-21T07:59:00.0000000+11:00

A group of Stanford researchers have inserted a nano-sized, light-producing bioprobe into a single living cell for the first time, which could have implications for future cancer treatments and drug development.

This Is The Tiniest And Thus Most Adorable Planet We've Ever Seen

2013-02-21T07:28:00.0000000+11:00

NASA announced a fun new finding from its Kepler mission today - the smallest planet we've ever seen, and it's orbiting a sun that resembles our own. It orbits a star, slightly cooler and smaller than our own but in the same basic category, in the constellation Lyra, about 210 light-years away from Earth. And it has fellows: two other planets, both relatively rocky and small.

Computer Program Knows When You're Struggling With Math By Looking At Your Face

2013-02-21T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

If only Number Munchers had known when you were getting frustrated.

Google Glass Shows Off New Interface

2013-02-21T05:32:00.0000000+11:00

When Google released their original concept video for Project Glass last April, it seemed like the company was still struggling to dream up an interface that wasn't, at its core, a smartphone screen for your eyeballs. There would be pop-up notifications for text messages, calendar reminders, and weather alerts; there would be applications, like Maps, that would show up in front of you as a large, mostly opaque, smartphone-screen-shaped window; there would be a Siri-like voice command function. In short, Project Glass seemed poised to produce a more convenient version of something that already existed.

The 4 Best Conspiracy Theories About The Russian Meteorite

2013-02-21T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

When something as mundane as a birth certificate is major conspiracy-theory fodder, it should be no surprise that the folks in tin foil hats have already concocted some not-so-obvious explanations for last week's meteorite crash in Russia.

What Animal Urine Can Teach Us About Climate Change

2013-02-21T03:59:00.0000000+11:00

What do giant, years-old urine deposits have to do with climate change? Quite a bit, according to Brian Chase, a paleoclimatologist from the University of Montpelier who has been studying ancient animal urine since 2006. Chase is the principle investigator of the HYRAX project, a study of how urine from a guinea-pig-like animal called the rock hyrax can help us investigate climate change in Africa.

Proposed Asteroid-Destroying Satellite Sounds An Awful Lot Like A Death Star

2013-02-21T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

After the double-whammy of a meteorite hitting Russia and a near-miss with an asteroid, some scientists have been thinking over how to deal with space rocks. A team of California scientists is offering up an answer that sounds a little, uh, familiar.

How To Steal A Diamond

2013-02-21T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

On Monday night, an estimated $50 million worth of diamonds - both cut and uncut - were stolen from a tarmac in Belgium. We have very few facts about what actually happened in this heist; we know that a van and a Mercedes sedan drove onto the tarmac with screaming blue police lights on their roofs. We know that a group of about eight heavily armed men leapt out and took control of the sizable shipment of diamonds. We know they did not fire a single shot, and that nobody was hurt. We know that they then turned around, sped off, burned the van, and that, as yet, their whereabouts are unknown. A Belgian police force member called the job "highly professional."

Volvo's New Exterior Airbags Protect Pedestrians

2013-02-21T02:02:00.0000000+11:00

Volvo, the Swedish carmaker known for its safety engineering (a Volvo engineer invented the modern 3-point seat belt), has turned their focus to keeping those outside the car safe too. Starting with their Volvo V40, they've introduced the first car airbag for pedestrians.

Watch This Childlike Humanoid Robot Begin To Comprehend Language

2013-02-21T01:01:00.0000000+11:00

A robot with an artificial brain is learning languages - even heavily accented ones - by stringing together words and sentences. Peter Ford Dominey and his colleagues at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research taught an iCub toddler-bot to learn speech patterns, and it can think before it speaks.

Issue #52 - March 2013

2013-02-20T11:48:00.0000000+11:00

It's a big issue - literally! Supertall skysrapers are the future of construction and the future of our cities, so we take an in depth look at these marvels of architecture. Plus...

8 Things You Didn't Know About Copernicus

2013-02-20T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

It's Nicolaus Copernicus's 540th birthday today. He is widely considered the father of modern astronomy and is best known for arguing that the Earth revolves around the sun - a controversial stance until the mid-17th century.

Gamer Faces $50K Fine For Mapping A Train Station

2013-02-20T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

If you give a gaming community the tools to create a custom level, or "map," you'll end up with lots of fun stuff. Some people will even recreate real-life places, which is what Diego Liatis and friends did with Montreal's Berri-UQAM metro station. But the Société de transport de Montreal is worried the level will cause panic among straphangers presumably because it gives would-be evil-doers a handy guide to the underground system. The agency is now threatening a lawsuit if the custom level gets released.

A 12-Story Hacker Headquarters In Shanghai Is The Future Of Espionage

2013-02-20T08:45:00.0000000+11:00

This morning, private cybersecurity firm Mandiant released a report tying 141 computer attacks since 2007 to a single 12-story office building in Shanghai. That building is believed to be the headquarters of Chinese Army Unit 61398. The New York Times commissioned the report and posted a detailed article about the findings last night.

A Look Inside The European Horse Meat Trade [Infographic]

2013-02-20T08:17:00.0000000+11:00

One month into the great European horse meat scandal, two primary facts have emerged: first, it's become clear that some Europeans have been unwittingly consuming the flesh of their equine friends in products including, but not limited to, supermarket "beef" and frozen Nestlé pasta dinners; second, the scandal's perpetrators are as hard to trace - if not as ubiquitous - as the horse meat they've been hawking.

All Of Twitter Hacked, Basically

2013-02-20T07:27:00.0000000+11:00

Yesterday, the password for Burger King's official Twitter account was stolen, and whoever was behind it began doing some kinda funny things, like pretending Burger King had been bought by McDonald's, or insisting BK employees "sniff percocets" in the bathrooms, or tweeting at journalists who wrote about the hack. Today, all hell has broken loose; Jeep's account is displaying a similar streak of weirdness ("bought by Cadillac"), and just now, @MTV began behaving weirdly.

Drunk Mice Sober Up Fast After Nanoparticle Injection

2013-02-20T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

A new nanostructured enzyme complex can lower blood alcohol levels in intoxicated mice, according to a new study. The nano-pill, which assembles and encapsulates three types of enzymes, could work as a type of alcohol antidote. It also suggests that this unique protein-tailoring method could be used for lots of ailments.

NASA Restores Communications With The ISS

2013-02-20T04:59:00.0000000+11:00

During an update to flight computers earlier this morning, the International Space Station lost communications with ground controllers in Houston, but now everything is back up, according to NASA. The blackout lasted about three hours, during which time the station was able to communicate with ground control in Moscow.

When Did Primates Learn To Metabolise Alcohol?

2013-02-20T04:57:00.0000000+11:00

Humans have been fermenting alcoholic beverages since as early as 10,000 B.C., but we've probably enjoyed the effects of natural fermentation much longer than that. Our ability to digest alcohol might have sprung from a primate ancestor that ate fermenting fruits, a new theory suggests.

Hands On: HTC's New Flagship Phone Comes With A Totally New Interface

2013-02-20T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Today at a simultaneous announcement in New York City and London, HTC announced the HTC One, the company's new flagship phone. It's an Android device, but barely looks like it. That's because HTC's Sense, a user-interface overhaul, has also gotten a huge update, and it doesn't resemble regular, stock Android (which, as we saw in the Google Nexus 4, is pretty fantastic) so much as Windows Phone or even the popular app Flipboard.

Here's A Video Of Last Week's Asteroid Fly-By

2013-02-20T04:16:00.0000000+11:00

Hours after dashcams in Russia recorded a fiery, 50-foot-wide meteor hurtling through Earth's atmosphere, astronomers at the Observatorio del Teide in the Canary Islands captured this relatively peaceful video of asteroid 2012 DA14 as it streaked past Earth at a distance of about 17,000 miles. Compared to the Russian meteorite, 17,000 may seem like a lot of miles - the meteor exploded at a height of about 15 miles - but, as NASA points out, the 150-foot-wide asteroid passed within the orbits of both our moon and geosynchronous satellites.

3D-Printing Pen Adds Dimension To Your Doodles

2013-02-20T03:44:00.0000000+11:00

We've seen fun drawing/doodling inventions before, but this one, put on Kickstarter today and already more than $50,000 past its $30,000 goal, takes it to a whole new level. As you doodle in the air, the 3Doodler extrudes a plastic version of your doodle.

How Amateur Videos Will Help Astronomers Reconstruct Meteorite's Life History

2013-02-20T02:58:00.0000000+11:00

Last April, a minivan-sized chunk of leftover primordial planet punched through Earth's atmosphere at 64,000 miles per hour. The minivan-sized meteor weighed just under 100,000 pounds before it exploded high above northern California, disintegrating into rock dust and smaller meteoroids that fell onto suburban driveways in El Dorado County.

Fusion Power Could Happen Sooner Than You Think

2013-02-19T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

In a presentation that seems ripped from the Atomic Age, Lockheed Skunkworks says it might be a decade away from producing a power plant based on compact fusion reactors. Unlike current nuclear reactors, all of which use fission, nuclear fusion does not easily produce materials that can be used in nuclear weapons. Fusion reactors also offer better containment, easier shutoff, greater energy efficiency, and less radioactive waste than their fissioning cousins. Of course, with something this promising, there has to be a catch.

European Researchers Win $1.3 Billion To Simulate The Human Brain

2013-02-19T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Henry Markram, whose simulated rat brain we have covered before, now wants to build a human brain simulator one neuron at a time. That might take a little while, since there are roughly 86 billion neurons crammed in the average person's skull. But then again, Markram just scored funds - one and a half cents for each neuron.

Shouldn't We Have Been Able To See This Huge Meteor Coming?

2013-02-16T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

Friday morning's meteor, the largest object to strike Earth in more than a century, took the whole planet by surprise. But maybe it didn't have to.

Congressional Hearing Offers A Sneak Peek At The Future Of Domestic Drone Rules

2013-02-16T08:45:00.0000000+11:00

"One of my constituents built a 9-foot flying wing and sends me pictures of my house when he flies over," Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ) said wryly in a Congressional hearing today on how to regulate drones when they are granted expanded access to American airspace in 2015. It was almost the last statement in the hearing - held by the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) before the House Science, Space and Technology oversight subcommittee on unmanned aerial systems (the committee's preferred terminology for drones) - and it captured a few important points about the current state of drone law, and, perhaps, where it's headed.

What You Need To Know About Russia's Meteor

2013-02-16T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

As updates roll in from Russia and the meteorite-related injury toll rises, you may be scrambling to remember what a meteorite really is. If you're a little rusty on your astronomy, here's some basic info about space rocks and why this one was unusual.

Eating Decades-Old Novelty Chocolate Bars For Fun And Science

2013-02-16T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

Our friends over at Deadspin have undertaken one of the most pressing and important scientific experiments of our time: to eat decades-old candy bars branded with the faces of Kirby Puckett, Ken Griffey, Jr., and more, and see if they die. Plus, some interesting info in there about what actually happens to candy over time, and whether old packaged food like this really can be toxic (or whether it at least tastes good). Check it out here.

Watch Live As Asteroid 2012 DA14 Whizzes Past Earth

2013-02-16T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Want to keep tabs on asteroid 2012 DA14 as it whizzes past Earth today? NASA TV and several online astronomy outlets will be tracking this asteroid as it makes its record-setting close shave.

Astronomers: Russia's Meteorite Is Not Related To Today's Near-Earth Asteroid Fly-By

2013-02-16T03:43:00.0000000+11:00

Mere hours before an asteroid half the size of a football stadium brushes past Earth with only a few thousand miles to spare, a meteorite hurtled into Central Russia, injuring as many as 1,000 people.

Why Mosh Pits Make For A Good Physics Lesson

2013-02-16T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Have moshers been taking physics lessons? While swarms of sweaty, raging humans might look like anarchy, physicists at Cornell say heavy metal pits actually follow a certain logic, and it is similar to that of gaseous particles. That insight could be used to help predict how crowds behave in emergencies, which, in turn, could help generate better evacuation strategies - ones that even save lives.

Scientists Engineer Mice That Can't Feel The Cold

2013-02-15T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

In the depths of winter, nothing seems as tempting as the inability to feel how frostbitten your toes are. Thanks to a group of neuroscientists at the University of California, that could soon be possible (though maybe not advisable.) They were able to identify the specific neurons that transmit cold sensations and shut them off in adult mice.

5 Things Apple's Smartwatch Needs To Do

2013-02-15T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

Some hefty rumors have been tossed around lately about a smartwatch project supposedly in high gear at Apple. Smartwatches are the James Bondian ideal of high tech - a wrist-based gadget that can sync with your phone (or not), display information, play music, or...well, do stuff other than tell time, basically.

Report: Army Cancels Hybrid Airship Project

2013-02-15T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

InsideDefense is reporting that the Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), the US Army's hybrid airship and a Popular Science Best Of What's New winner in 2012, has been cancelled. The US Army did not immediately return a call for confirmation.

World's First Bionic Eye Receives FDA Approval

2013-02-15T06:10:00.0000000+11:00

This morning, I was speaking with Brian Mech, the vice-president of the medical device company Second Sight, when his land-line rang. Mech had just been telling me about the fifteen years his company has spent developing the Argus II, a retinal prosthesis that restores partial sight to people with a degenerative eye disease called Retinitis pigmentosa (RP). It had been a long process, Mech said, but he can count on one hand the number of days he hasn't woken up excited about the work ahead. And they were nearing the end - Europe approved the Argus II in 2011, and the FDA was expected to give the green light some time soon.

Technology Means The End Of Reviewers Fudging Numbers

2013-02-15T05:25:00.0000000+11:00

The Times published a scathing review of a test drive in the new Tesla Model S, in which reporter John Broder described the futuristic electric supercar (itself a winner of a Popular Science Best Of What's New award) repeatedly losing its charge, behaving oddly, and shutting down during a long-distance road trip along the Northeast Corridor.

Basis Band Review: The Only Fitness Tracker Worth Buying

2013-02-15T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

The Basis Band is the best fitness tracker on the market. It's the best because it works with your life rather than requiring that a whole bunch of extra new steps be added to your life. It encourages you to get in shape, get a better night's sleep, and live more healthfully. Previous fitness trackers were content to merely measure and present you with raw data of your current state of fitness, like a cat dropping a dead vole at the foot of your bed. The Basis Band is like a cat that digs up voles that were eating your plants and deposits said voles in the garbage can. It's the first truly next-generation fitness tracker.

What The New Drone Medal Reveals About Mental Health In The US Military

2013-02-15T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Yesterday the Pentagon announced the first new combat related medal that can be won without being physically present in a battlefield. The Distinguished Warfare Medal "will be awarded to individuals for 'extraordinary achievement' related to a military operation that occurred after Sept. 11, 2001." It is expected that these will primarily be awarded to drone pilots (though the possibility of an extraordinary achievement in cyber war exists).

Tesla Vs. The New York Times, Round Two: Elon Musk Publishes Reviewer's Data Log

2013-02-15T03:49:00.0000000+11:00

Elon Musk - CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, potential Bond villain, possible Iron Man ally - is in a very public spat with the New York Times. After the paper published a less-than-flattering account of a chilly road trip in the Tesla Model S electric supercar, Musk took to Twitter to accuse the writer of falsifying his account to make a better story. Now he's written a lengthy blog post, replete with maps and annotations, which jointly accuse Times writer John M. Broder of making things up.

New York Fashion Week Lands On Mars

2013-02-15T03:11:00.0000000+11:00

Much of the clothing in New York's Fashion Week appears to have been designed by people from another planet, but in this case there's actual extraterrestrial inspiration. Designer Nanette Lepore, who apparently is known for frilly outfits, drew inspiration from Mars for her latest collection. There are many hues of red, fuchsia and turquoise, the latter which is not a Mars color but, you know, that's OK. There are also holograms and robotic-looking shoulder pads, and other interplanetary designs.

Could Your Next Doctor's Visit Be On The Kinect?

2013-02-15T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Telemedicine - remote consultation with a doctor through technology - is the way of the future. Live in a rural area? Need to see a specialist? Just beam yourself to a doctor's office and get a scrip written without leaving your home. Problem is, a video call isn't always enough: the doctor needs to actually interact with the patient, and not many people have telemedicine infrastructure built into their homes. One thing millions of homes do have, though, is a Kinect, Microsoft's motion-sensitive Xbox 360 and PC accessory.

Happy Valentine's Day! Love, Your Sun

2013-02-15T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

This lovely heart-shaped protuberance is a superheated plasma curled up into the solar corona, erupting from a particularly active region on the sun. The Hinode X-ray telescope (it means "dawn" in Japanese) captured this image last fall, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shared it with us in honor of Valentine's Day.

We Have Life! Scientists Confirm Microbes Beneath Antarctic Glaciers

2013-02-14T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

In the race to find Earth's chilliest and deepest life forms, one team has jumped out ahead and proven it has found life. For the first time, scientists have confirmed with multiple tests that they have captured swarms of microbes living deep in the dark wetlands beneath half a mile of glacier ice.

Cyber Command Is Hiring Big Time

2013-02-14T08:45:00.0000000+11:00

While most of the US military is bracing itself for the belt-tightening that will come with scheduled budget cuts, Cyber Command is looking to expand, going from 900 members at present to an expected several thousand.

This Is Why It's A Mistake To Cure Mice Instead Of Humans

2013-02-14T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

The good news for mice is that humans have spent billions of dollars to solve their illnesses. But it seems researchers have tortured mice in vain for decades in the search for drugs to help humans recover from certain traumas, like severe burns, blunt force, and sepsis. Mouse genes just don't react the same way as human genes in all cases - in fact, sometimes they are contrary to one another. But we shouldn't get rid of our fuzzy friends entirely.

Your iPhone Is A Reliable Research Lab

2013-02-14T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Josef Bless, a PhD candidate in psychology at the University of Bergen in Norway, was listening to music on his phone when he noticed the similarity between what he was doing and the research he conducted in his lab every day.

Why Obama is Focused on Cyberdefence

2013-02-14T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

In his State of the Union Address last night, Obama highlighted the need for better American cyber defence...

The State of The Guardian's SOTU Infographic Is... Dumber

2013-02-14T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Yesterday, as a run-up to Obama's State of the Union address, The Guardian published an interactive infographic called "The state of our union is … dumber: How the linguistic standard of the presidential address has declined."

Gene Therapy Cures Diabetic Dogs In Only One Shot

2013-02-14T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Five lucky diabetic beagles have been cured of their canine type 1 diabetes using gene therapy, according to research published in the February issue of Diabetes.

Obama's Finally Serious About Climate Change

2013-02-14T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

President Obama promised to make "meaningful progress" on the issue of climate change in the State of the Union Address last night.

You're Playing Smartphone Games In The Bathroom, Aren't You? [Infographic]

2013-02-14T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Mobile gaming is big because it's just so darn convenient. You can play a round of something in bed, in transit, or - no judging here - in the bathroom, as 11 percent of mobile gamers apparently do, according to this infographic from SponsorPay (which works with game companies like Zynga and EA).

New Poll: Americans Expect A Human Mission To Mars In 20 Years

2013-02-13T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

Here's some optimistic news: 71 percent of Americans are confident humans will get to Mars in 20 years, according to a new poll. Here's some disappointing news: Americans think NASA gets way more of the federal budget than it really does.

How Did We Know North Korea Tested A Nuke?

2013-02-13T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

Early Tuesday morning, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) data detected a 5.1 magnitude earthquake in North Korea. Within minutes, night owl commenters like Jeffrey Lewis of the Arms Control Wonk in the U.S. were already discussing the political implications of Kim Jong-Un's first nuclear test. How did seismic readings become key to tracking clandestine nuclear tests?

Dallas's New $185 Million Science Museum Looks Ahhhh-mazing

2013-02-13T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science opened in December with some serious design bona fides: Los Angeles-based Thom Mayne, a Pritzker Prize winner, was the lead architect. His intention: to evoke curiosity about science.

Near-Miss Asteroid Highlights Earth's Risk Of A Nuke-Sized Collision

2013-02-13T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

The asteroid 2012 DA14, which will come within about 17,000 miles of Earth on February 15, is about half the size of a football stadium, and in a collision would generate an explosive energy equivalent to 2,500 kilotons of TNT. In comparison, the atomic bomb over Hiroshima that instantly killed more than 70,000 people released "merely" the equivalent of 17 kilotons of TNT. Seventeen-thousand miles seems like plenty of room, but in cosmic terms, it's an awfully close shave. "Remember, the Earth is a moving target, traveling around the sun at 65,000 miles per hour," former astronaut Ed Lu said in a public appearance at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research earlier this month. "So [the asteroid] is missing us by only about 14 minutes."

Robot Maker Willow Garage Announces "Change." What Does That Mean?

2013-02-13T06:28:00.0000000+11:00

Details are pretty scarce, but it sounds like some big and possibly unfortunate changes are coming down the pike at Willow Garage, a favorite name in robotics circles. The company makes the PR2 robot, a two-armed (or optionally one-armed) robot that can do almost anything you would want your adorable robot pal to do. It's been a huge boon for robotics researchers around the world. But it sounds like there may not be any new ones coming.

How Do You Depress A Rat? Harass It With A Robot

2013-02-13T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Rats and mice are often instrumental in testing new drug treatments before they reach the clinical use phase. To create the appropriate conditions to test a drug for depression, though, researchers need to induce a model of depression in the test subject.

5 Terrible Things The Internet Does To Our Love Lives

2013-02-13T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

If you're the kind of person who's even vaguely aware of Valentine's Day, you're probably either Yelping a good restaurant to take your date to or searching Facebook for another single friend with whom to eat ice cream and cry over "Someone Like You." Technology affects your love life in ways that would've been unimaginable 30 years ago.

BigPic: An Aircraft-Fire Simulator Goes Up In Smoke

2013-02-13T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

From the outside, Daddy's Girl Rose Etta II looks like an ordinary Beechcraft 1900 plane. But commercial aircraft don't come equipped with 14 pilot lights that engulf them in flames on command. Named after a World War II B-17 bomber, Daddy's Girl Rose Etta II became the first FAA-approved mobile aircraft-fire simulator in 1996 when the Michigan Department of Transportation and Kellogg Community College commissioned it. Since then, more than 17,000 firefighters in 20 states have practiced on the craft.

Fact Check: Ex-Cop Fugitive Christopher Dorner Is Not Being Hunted By Drones

2013-02-13T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

A couple days ago, news broke in British tabloid the Daily Express that a drone was being used to track fugitive and alleged cop killer Christopher Dorner. The headline, amplified by a (since corrected) pickup from MSN, claimed that Dorner is "the first drone target on U.S. soil," and quickly spread to Global Post, the Blaze, and Gizmodo. It even inspired a speculative Op-ed in the the Guardian.

Your Dog Knows To Steal Food When Nobody's Watching

2013-02-13T02:06:00.0000000+11:00

You've probably always felt like your dog understands you, and it does - well enough to work out the best way to swipe some food from you.

Cubepix: Or, What To Do With Extra Cardboard Boxes

2013-02-12T09:55:00.0000000+11:00

Every cardboard box dreams of one day becoming a glorious digital pixel. And this is just about as close as they'll get - in a fun 8-by-8 grid of interactive goodness.

You Can Help Name Pluto's Adorably Teeny Moons

2013-02-12T09:12:00.0000000+11:00

Back in 2011, the Hubble Space Telescope was pointed at Pluto to help astronomers prepare for an upcoming spacecraft visit, and it spotted a tiny object nearby the non-planet. It was a moon, and turned out to be one of two tiny companions previously unknown to science. They were unceremoniously named P4 and P5, and nobody ever gave them better names. Now's your chance!

Video: A 3D Printed Silicone Robot Tentacle

2013-02-12T05:59:00.0000000+11:00

The fact that this soft tentacle robot bears such a striking resemblance to the male sexual organ is not entirely accidental: its maker, Matthew Borgatti, thinks that the "inflexible skeletal elements" used in state-of-the-art soft robots like Tuft's bendy caterpillar are limiting "in terms of their softness, organic-ness, and mimicry of nature."

X-Wing Squadron Kickstarter Raises $100K To Strike Back Against Death Star Kickstarter

2013-02-12T04:05:00.0000000+11:00

This Death Star-funding story just became a trilogy. First, the White House shot down a petition to build a Death Star. Then, a team took to Kickstarter to crowdfund a Death Star. Now it's Return of the Jedi: a team is looking for $11 million to build a fleet of X-Wings, and it's already got more than $100,000.

A Molecule Called Dickkopf-1 Is Your Worst Enemy As You Age

2013-02-12T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg have discovered a particular molecule, named Dickkopf-1 or Dkk1, that seems to have a positive effect on cognition in the elderly. Typically, as humans (and rats) age, they produce fewer neurons, which inhibits cognitive abilities. But when Dkk1 is blocked, older rats tested just as well as younger rats on memory and recognition tests.

Your Vacation Photos Could Help Researchers Track Whale Sharks

2013-02-12T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Conservationists can track an endangered species by photographing them, but why do that when there are endless animal images already floating around the web?

How Two Scientists Make 3D Holographic Movies Of Individual Cells

2013-02-12T01:02:00.0000000+11:00

The microscopy world just went from studying still photo galleries to watching 3D movie snippets. Two researchers have figured out a way to generate holographic images of cells at the nanoscale and see how cells react when they're messed with.

Fox News Claims Germany Has More Solar Power Than U.S. Because It's Sunnier There

2013-02-09T09:38:00.0000000+11:00

In this segment of Fox & Friends, called "Pulling the Plug: The Dim Future of Solar Power," co-host Gretchen Carlson asked asked Fox Business reporter Shibani Joshi why Germany has been able to generate so much more solar power than the U.S.

"What was Germany doing correctly?," Carlson asked. "Are they just a smaller country, have they make it more feasible - "

"They're a smaller country," Joshi answered, "and they've got a lot of sun. Right? They've got a lot more sun than we do."

A Famous Pianist Serenades Endangered Tortoises, To Get Them In The Mood

2013-02-09T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

When you're an endangered species, people will do anything to help you get busy. For a few Galapagos tortoises at the London zoo, that meant bringing in the world's most successful pianist for a private concert.

BigPic: Northeastern US, Meet Nemo

2013-02-09T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

Sandy was a colossal storm that formed when two giant low-pressure systems merged over the northeastern US in early November. Nemo, on the other hand, is a colossal storm that formed when two giant low-pressure systems merged over the northeastern US in February. But from space, the two storms look awfully similar:

What Climate Change Sounds Like

2013-02-09T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

A climatologist has teamed up with a musicologist to translate data from decades of glacial ice melt in Greenland into music.

BeerSci: A Decade-Old Beer Is Gross, Right?

2013-02-09T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

BeerSci Note: From the outset, I decided that I'd occasionally run stories by guest writers in BeerSci. After all, I'm not the only nerd on the planet who likes beer. This week's column was pitched to a fellow PopSci editor, who passed it to me. - Martha

A Map Of Where Drones Are Allowed In The US

2013-02-09T06:15:00.0000000+11:00

If you want to fly more than a hobbyist's drone in the United States, you have to get permission from the Federal Aviation Administration. We've know for a while about some drones - the ones keeping an eye on the U.S.-Mexico border, for example - but this list of applications through October 2012, obtained and mapped by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is the most up-to-date look at domestic-drone permissions we've got.

Kids Are Still Drawing 1900s Idea Of What Dinosaurs Looked Like

2013-02-09T05:32:00.0000000+11:00

An article over at the Cornell Chronicle looks into the issue of "cultural inertia" in our understanding of dinosaurs. When asked to draw a T. rex, perhaps the most well-known (in popular culture) of all dinosaurs, both young children and college students will draw an upright, small-armed, tail-dragging creature that looks like a slimmed-down Barney or a less-plasticky Rex from Toy Story.

Death Star Kickstarter: $300,000 Raised So Far

2013-02-09T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

White House officials have already shot down a proposal for a Death Star, but who needs 'em? A new Kickstarter campaign is bringing the Death Star to the people, and in four days they've raised more than £200,000 (about $300,000) out of the £20 million they're looking for. Choose your amount wisely: Biggest donors get first dibs on choice of planet to annihilate.

Alaska Brewery Uses Beer To Make More Beer

2013-02-09T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

The Associated Press has the story of Juneau's Alaskan Brewing Company, which has installed a pleasingly sustainable new boiler system that takes grain that's been used in the brewing process and burns it to power the brewery. Other breweries, such as Newcastle in the UK, have been burning spent grain for fuel before, but mixed with wood or other fuels; Alaskan claims to be the first brewery with an energy system powered solely by spent grain.

Linux-Powered Pen Calls You Out For Crappy Grammar

2013-02-09T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

In the digital age, we have barely any use for the common pen. What good is something that doesn't even have WiFi? Luckily, a European startup is creating a "learning pen" to drag penmanship lessons into the 21st century.

Coming Soon To The Coolest Classrooms: A Box Full Of Robots

2013-02-09T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Learning algebra with a robot sounds way better than learning it with flashcards, right? I know I would have had a better time learning quadratic equations if I was using them to do something actually interesting, like figure out a quadcopter's viewing area. That's the goal of this new robot-filled box made by a company called RobotsLab.

Your Immune System 'Remembers' Microbes It's Never Fought Before, New Study Says

2013-02-08T08:01:00.0000000+11:00

Immune cells are like the Hatfields and McCoys of our bodies - once wronged, they never, ever forget. This is how we gain immunity, and it's why vaccines work: Immune cells develop a memory of an invading pathogen, and they build an alert system to find and fight it should it ever return. But a new study by Stanford researchers adds a new wrinkle to this long-held immune theory. It turns out immune cells can develop this memory-like state even for pathogens they've never met. This may come from exposure to harmless microbes - or the memories may actually be borrowed from other, more experienced cells.

Giant Asteroid Impact Dated--Precisely--To Dinosaurs' End

2013-02-08T07:58:00.0000000+11:00

A couple of years ago, an international team of researchers got together to decide, once and for all, whether or not an asteroid crashed into Earth 66 million years ago and, if so, whether the impact would have been catastrophic enough to end the age of the dinosaurs and wipe out 75 percent of all life on the planet.

This Mind-Blowing, Horseshoe-Shaped Neon Hotel Can Light Up The Skyline

2013-02-08T07:01:00.0000000+11:00

Sheraton is opening a bucket-load of hotels this year, including 15 in China, and we can only hope they all look as awesome as this one, designed by Beijing-based architect Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, the firm that also designed Canada's equally crazy Absolute World towers.

Iran Releases Video Supposedly Taken From Captured U.S. Drone

2013-02-08T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

Video extracted from a CIA spy drone that Iran captured in 2011 has been broadcast on the country's state television - or that's what Iran says. The video was released in the midst of tightening U.S. sanctions to pressure Iran to limit its nuclear program and rein in institutions that are censoring free speech and political dissent.

Scientists Reconstruct Scampering Common Ancestor Of All Us Placental Mammals

2013-02-08T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

After six years of collaboration between over twenty scientists from research institutions across the country, researchers have completed the most comprehensive picture of mammalian ancestry to date. Using a combination of physical and genetic data, the researchers reconstructed the family tree of placental mammals - a group that now comprises over 5,100 species - and traced its many branches back to a common ancestor.

Can This App Put An End To New York's Controversial Stop And Frisk Searches?

2013-02-08T05:15:00.0000000+11:00

The New York Civil Liberties Union has released an app that lets bystanders document New York's stop and frisk searches. The Stop & Frisk Watch app has been out on Android since June, and now it's available for the iPhone.

Moths Looking For Love Drive A Robot Exoskeleton

2013-02-08T04:36:00.0000000+11:00

If Mothra saw this contraption there'd be some Japanese scientists on the lam. But since she's distracted, scientists strapped hapless male silkmoths into an drivable exoskeleton and lured the specter of nightmares through a maze with female moth love juice as the prize.

Second-Hand Abuse: Bad Bosses Make The Whole Office Toxic

2013-02-08T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

A bad boss doesn't just harm the employees he torments directly. He damages non-targeted workers, too, according to new research in the Journal of Social Psychology.

Creator Of Most Efficient Supercomputer To Start Working On Drone-Bugs

2013-02-08T02:02:00.0000000+11:00

Wu-chun Feng, an associate professor of computer science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, is the creator of Green Destiny, a supercomputer so efficient it basically ran on a couple of blow dryers' worth of power. He also made a list for ranking the efficiency of supercomputers, called the Green 500, then turned around and topped the list in 2011 with another computer: HokieSpeed. The next logical step would be to keep making incredilbly efficient computers, but instead, Feng is doing something slightly different: making robot drone-bugs.

NASA Prepares To Launch Rocket Into The Heart Of The Northern Lights

2013-02-08T00:55:00.0000000+11:00

NASA scientists in Poker Flats, Alaska, have been waiting since Saturday for the right weather conditions to launch a sounding rocket into the green aurora-lit skies, where it will fly to an altitude of 500 miles and capture data and imagery from within and above the northern lights.

Using Science To Discover Picasso's Genius

2013-02-07T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

A persistent mystery for art historians and especially students of 20th century art might seem small at first: what kind of paint did Picasso use? But in fact it's a very big shift - Picasso was thought to have been one of the first painters to switch from traditional oil paints to common house paint, which is quick-drying and smooth and allows for a very different style (it doesn't show brush-marks, for example). Now, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Argonne National Laboratory teamed up and used hard x-ray nanoprobes to analyze Picasso's paint at the molecular level.

Planets Like Earth Could Be Closer Than You Think

2013-02-07T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

In the search for stars that can support Earth-like planets, red dwarfs in our galactic neighborhood may lead the way to discovery. Recent research reveals red dwarf stars might host more habitable planets in close orbits than previously thought - just as long as its exoplanets huddle in close enough for light (but not so close that molten lava blankets the surface).

When Will The Internet Become Faster Than FedEx?

2013-02-07T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

There's a great little post on XKCD examining the speeds of data delivery - especially useful given today's confirmation that Saturday USPS delivery is shutting down. It's long been the case that if you need to send someone a lot of data - like, a few hundred gigabytes - it's faster to just FedEx the hard drive. But internet throughput is growing steadily, whereas FedEx's delivery capabilities have a distinct cap - so when will the internet truly be faster than FedEx? Read the post here.

British Troops Deploy The Teeniest Recon Drone

2013-02-07T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

What do you get when you cross a Predator drone and a hummingbird? For those times when a Predator is just too big for a backpack, some British troops can now deploy a new palm-sized drone equipped with a camera.

Romantic Jays Take Care To Feed Their Mates What They Particularly Crave

2013-02-07T06:43:00.0000000+11:00

Cambridge researchers took pairs of mated jaybirds and put them in adjoining compartments, so that the male could see what the female was doing through a window. They then fed the female a meal of delicious larvae of one particular kind - either all waxmoth larvae or all mealworm larvae, while her partner looked on.

5 Technological Solutions To Save The Struggling Postal Service

2013-02-07T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

The United States Postal Service will cease delivering mail on Saturday beginning in August, but will continue delivering packages. The cut will save the struggling carrier $2 billion a year.

11 Surreal Works Of Art Inspired By Space

2013-02-07T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Space Odyssey 2.0, a collaborative art installation opening this month in Belgium at art house Z33, asks some big questions about art and outer space: What is the role of science in art? How has the DIY movement changed our view of space travel? What if somebody went to the moon with a bunch of geese?

Majority Of Foodborne Illness Caused By Green Vegetables

2013-02-07T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Here's some food for thought: According to a new study by the CDC, the greatest number of foodborne illnesses are not caused by raw cookie dough or undercooked meat or questionable shellfish, but by leafy green vegetables.

Science Confirms The Obvious: Men And Women Aren't That Different

2013-02-07T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

We tend to think of the two sexes as a dichotomy. The most important question asked of new parents is "Boy or girl?" But as any tomboy could tell you, that doesn't always mean much. A new review of 13 past studies that showed significant differences has found that many of those differences are far less pronounced than the earlier studies implied.

Is This Guy Actually Trying To Fight Me? (Songbird Edition)

2013-02-07T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Okay, so let's say you're a sparrow, right? And you're just hanging out on a tree branch like normal, minding your own business, singing a little song, when all of a sudden your neighbor comes over, and he starts singing too. Which is fine, right? Except, get this: the guy isn't just singing any old tune, he's singing the exact same song you're singing. Obviously, the guy knows he's making things uncomfortable, there's no question about that. But is he just trying to ruffle your feathers a little, maybe impress some ladybirds with his boldness and wit before flying away, or are you actually going to have to fight this guy?

A Biologist Tracks Ants With Teeny Radio Tags

2013-02-07T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Samuel Ellis, a biologist from the University of York, will tag 1,000 hairy wood ants with radio receivers to find out how they communicate and travel. The multiyear project, which begins this summer in Derbyshire, U.K., will be one of the largest radio-tagging experiments of insects in the wild.

Microsoft Surface Pro Review

2013-02-06T13:00:00.0000000+11:00

The Microsoft Surface Pro is easily the most interesting laptop to cross my desk in the past few years. Not the best, but certainly the ballsiest and most unusual. And it is a laptop; this isn't a tablet, like its confusing sibling, the Surface RT, which looks nearly identical and was released late last year for half the price of this one. Instead it's an experimental ultraportable, like Lenovo's Yoga 13 (our favorite early Windows 8 laptop), which innovates with form and aesthetics while remaining, distinctly, a laptop.

This Weird Antarctic Building Can Ski On Ice

2013-02-06T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

This is the Halley VI Antarctic research station, and today it officially opens as home to up to 52 (very cold) scientists working as part of the British Antarctic Survey.

How Two Makers Built A Customizable New Prosthetic Hand For $150 And Changed A Boy's Life

2013-02-06T09:07:00.0000000+11:00

With 10,000 miles separating them, two makers designed and built a customizable 3D-printed prosthetic hand for a 5-year old boy named Liam in South Africa for $150 in parts. No power necessary.

Study Shows That Moles Can Smell In Stereo

2013-02-06T07:59:00.0000000+11:00

We see in stereo - our eyes, both on the same plane, see at the same time. This helps us see in 3-D. Whereas most fish have eyes on either side of their head and thus see a different image in each eye. A new study suggests moles, which live underground and are almost blind, can smell in stereo. Even though their nostrils are close together, they can differentiate between smell intensities from different directions to find food.

Why Amazon Created Its New Virtual Currency, Amazon Coin

2013-02-06T06:38:00.0000000+11:00

Amazon mostly soaks up cash for real world stuff, but as they move further into the Kindle and Android worlds, the company is getting more and more digital. Now the retail giant wants users to buy their Android virtual stuff with a new currency - "Amazon Coins." The currency, if successful, could allow Amazon to build loyalty in their Android ecosystem.

Weather Balloon Breaks World Record For Longest Flight

2013-02-06T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Floating 127,000 feet above frozen Antarctica, a weather balloon spent a record 55 days being bombarded with cosmic rays before heading home over the weekend. Called Super-TIGER, it has traveled longer than any comparable balloon yet, and it will help astronomers understand more about the heavy particles that are constantly pummeling our planet.

FYI: Do Zombies Experience Consciousness?

2013-02-06T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

In most pop-zombie lore, zombies have been infected with a contagion that turns them into mindless, soulless monsters on the hunt for human flesh. Even if a reanimated corpse used to be your mother/father/brother/girlfriend/BFF, now it's a zombie, and it has to die. End of story.

Hands On With Dyson's 420 MPH Hand Dryer

2013-02-06T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Last night in a venue so far on Manhattan's West Side I believe it is technically in the Hudson River, Dyson, they of the weird space heaters and world-class vacuums, showed off their newest hand dryers. There are three of them, and all have a slightly different approach than typical hand dryers. Most hand dryers, says James Dyson, use a moderate amount of heat and hot air to attempt to evaporate the water off your hands. This can take time and often leaves your hands feeling sticky.

How Do Researchers Feed Thousands Of Bloodthirsty Bed Bugs?

2013-02-06T04:08:00.0000000+11:00

When the common bed bug staged its comeback over a decade ago, scientists hadn't really studied the insect for about forty years. Once it was clear bed bugs weren't going away, researchers who wanted to learn how to thwart them first had to figure out how to keep thousands - or hundreds of thousands - alive in the lab. The first trick was to feed them. Bed bugs eat just one thing: blood.

FYI: What Caused The Power Outage At The Super Bowl?

2013-02-06T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Chill, people. Beyoncé did not cause the power outage at Super Bowl XLVII. (Her gajillion-watt halftime show had a separate generator.)

Researchers Scare The Crap Out Of Patients Who Supposedly Can't Feel Fear

2013-02-05T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

What do you do when someone exhibits no ability to feel fear? Much like when someone claims they aren't ticklish, the only possible reaction is to try to prove them wrong. Scare 'em, and scare 'em good. For science.

FYI: What Causes Muscle Twitches?

2013-02-05T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

Involuntary muscle twitches are exceedingly common and yet not very well understood. "Nearly everyone experiences it," Dr. Daniel Drachman, professor of neurology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, told me. "It occurs spontaneously in well over 90 percent of people at one time or another." Right now, as I write this sentence, it's happening to me. My left eyelid is twitching uncontrollably. It is very annoying.

With Identical Neurons, Two Worm Species Live Very Different Lives

2013-02-05T08:02:00.0000000+11:00

Two species of worms have the same set of 20 neurons that control their foregut (a digestive organ located, naturally, near the front end of the worm. The way those neurons are wired, though, completely changes their behavior.

Free WiFi For Everyone?

2013-02-05T07:15:00.0000000+11:00

Julius Genachowski and his Federal Communications Commission have proposed a first-of-its-kind plan: create a freely accessible wireless internet service that would be available throughout the United States. Though it might take several years to roll out, it could potentially replace the home broadband connections we pay for, as well as facilitate other wireless-data technologies like free voice calls, networked medical devices, and driverless cars.

Watch A Ping-Pong Ball Break The Sound Barrier, And Then A Ping-Pong Paddle

2013-02-05T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

Mark French, a professor at Purdue University, created this cannon that'll accelerate a fragile ping-pong ball up to Mach 1.2 - that's 900mph. What happens next?

King Richard III's Bones Found Under English Carpark

2013-02-05T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

Britain's most reviled king, the short-lived monarch Richard III - last of the House of York, last of the Plantagenet dynasty, final loser of the Wars of the Roses, and benefactor of Cambridge University - has finally been identified. He lay buried beneath a nondescript English parking lot until September, when the remains were exhumed. Today, researchers at Leicester University confirmed that the bones they found are indeed the remains of Richard III, the last English king to die in battle.

Drunk Eyewitnesses Are Just As Reliable As Sober Eyewitnesses

2013-02-05T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

A new study from the psychology department of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden sought to discover whether alcohol consumption really does lessen your ability to observe and remember. There's already an interesting theory about this - it's called alcoholic myopia theory, and it posits that when under the influence of alcohol, people actually pay more attention to environmental cues judged to be salient, and less attention to environmental cues that aren't salient.

Awesome Vintage Science Illustrations By The Founder Of Popular Science

2013-02-05T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

A couple of decades before he founded Popular Science, Edward Livingston Youmans published a book called Youmans' Atlas of Chemistry. Youmans was not a chemist, but he was a good writer whose singular passion in life was to learn everything there was to know about everything, and his textbook was probably the most readable thing anyone had ever published on the subject.

Iran's President Ahmadinejad Is Ready To Go Into Space

2013-02-05T03:31:00.0000000+11:00

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared earlier today that he's ready to launch into space, helping Iran's fledgling space program by risking his own life as he nears the end of his final term as president.

How To Design A Drone-Proof City

2013-02-05T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Humans have always built defenses to match the prevailing threat of the day, from medieval castles to Cold War fallout shelters. In his Shura City concept, Asher J. Kohn speculates on what it would take to drone-proof a city. He envisions several features:

Was Iran's Monkey Launch A Fake?

2013-02-02T09:44:00.0000000+11:00

On Monday, Iranian state television announced that the country had successfully launched a monkey into space and received him back safely, an event the world regarded with a mild dose of skepticism. The country has been known to embellish in the past, as we pointed out on Monday.

All Of The World's Undersea Cables In One Map

2013-02-02T08:59:00.0000000+11:00

It might feel like our communications systems have evolved past the point where we'd need tons of cables, but it couldn't be further from the truth - undersea cables are an integral part of the internet's backbone. But where are they, exactly, and which cable links which hubs?

Physicists Create Crystals That Are Nearly Alive

2013-02-02T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

The best way to understand something - such as life - is to build it yourself. That's why, determined to understand the way groups move, a team of New York University physicists set out to create particles that could imitate the way flocks of birds, schools of fish and even colonies of bacteria organize and move together.

Aerial Panoramas Capture Four Kamchatkan Volcanoes Erupting Simultaneously

2013-02-02T05:26:00.0000000+11:00

It's not rare for volcanoes to erupt on Kamchatka, the far-eastern Russian peninsula that juts out into the Pacific Ocean. The density of active volcanoes there is so outstanding UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site.

EU Invests $1.35 Billion To Find Practical Applications For Graphene

2013-02-02T05:01:00.0000000+11:00

Laboratories receive research grants all the time, but not quite like this one: a consortium of companies and research labs (phone giant Nokia is carrying the flag for the electronics researchers in this group) has received a $1.35 billion (emphasis: that's a billion with a "b") grant from future technologies wing of the European Union to develop graphene for practical applications. That is, a bunch of European researchers just received a billion euros to develop the strongest material in the world.

FYI: What Gives Ravens Quarterback Joe Flacco His Mutant-Like Arm?

2013-02-02T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

As Super Bowl XLVII approaches, NFL fans are debating and predicting what will give the Baltimore Ravens the edge over the San Francisco 49ers, and vice versa. In the Ravens' corner: quarterback Joe Flacco, who might have the strongest arm in the NFL. In college, he won the distance throwing competition in ESPN's State Farm College Football All-Star Challenge with an improbably awesome 74-yard toss. He takes advantage of that ability, too: In October, he was tied in the NFL for number of deep passes thrown 20 yards or more. That just does't seem fair. Why does Flacco get the mutant-like throwing ability?

Are We Running Out Of Geniuses?

2013-02-02T01:59:00.0000000+11:00

Is the world clear out of geniuses? Will we ever have another Copernicus, another Darwin, another Einstein to shatter the foundations of our beliefs? Perhaps not, says a man who ought to know.

How Homing Pigeons Find Their Way Home

2013-02-02T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Homing pigeons have long blown the minds of us mere mammals with their remarkable ability to find their way home, even across huge and disorienting distances. This ability to navigate to their nests (or lofts, as their habitats are often known) with astounding accuracy has never really been understood, but a new theory may have just solved the mystery. If a U.S. Geological Survey geologist is correct, homing pigeons use low-frequency sound waves that emanate from just about everything to mentally map their environments and navigate back to their lofts.

Mapping The Birth Of An Art Movement [Infographic]

2013-02-01T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

One of the strangest developments in the whole history of human art came in 1911, when famous painters began producing pieces that looked - to the untrained eye, at any rate - like the work of an industrious three-year-old. The paintings had colors and lines and sometimes shapes, but those weren't arranged in a way that resembled people or chairs or fruit or any other thing that exists in the real world. Or, as the curators at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) put it in the museum's exhibition Inventing Abstraction, the paintings "dispensed with recognizable subject matter."

Microsoft: Stop Making Us Pay For The Xbox's Video Apps

2013-02-01T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

Microsoft's Xbox 360 isn't just a game console - it's Microsoft's living room media streamer. It's one of the best on the market, too; it's got most of the major video apps (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, HBO Go, YouTube), it can stream from your computer, it can play DVDs, it has universal search, and you can control it with your voice by using the Kinect. It's a sneaky ploy, making a game system into Microsoft's all-purpose media machine, but it's worked out really well.

Controlled Evolution In A Test Tube Produces Artificial Enzymes

2013-02-01T08:14:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have just created an artificial enzyme in a test tube by following the rules of natural selection.

NASA Will Launch Solar Sail Next Year

2013-02-01T07:36:00.0000000+11:00

NASA's new heavy lift rocket isn't the only massive space propulsion system the agency has in the works. The largest solar sail the solar system has ever known is headed to the launchpad in 2014 on a mission that will eventually take it nearly 2 million miles from Earth. The demonstrator mission aims to show that the technology lessons learned from NASA's smaller NanoSail-D mission and JAXA's IKAROS solar sailing space vehicle can be leveraged into a large-scale space-traversing propellantless propulsion system.

Researchers Capture A Zebrafish's Thought Process On Video

2013-02-01T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

What's in a thought? When it comes to the zebrafish, now you can see for yourself. For the first time, Japanese researchers have captured video of thoughts moving through a zebrafish's brain.

"Twitching" Material Dislodges Bacteria From Ship Hulls

2013-02-01T06:05:00.0000000+11:00

When a horse is dislodging a pesky fly, it twitches a small portion of its skin to shake off the unwelcome visitor. Researchers from Duke University have developed a similar reaction in a paint-like material. The material could be applied to the hulls of ships to detach bacteria, which can in turn attract larger creatures like barnacles if left alone.

What Happens When You Give People Superpowers?

2013-02-01T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

In most superhero origin stories, there's the moment of doubt: How will Peter Parker use his radioactive-spider powers? Invariably, the heroes use them to help others. Turns out, that's pretty close to what happens in real life (or at least in the lab): When Stanford researchers endowed people with the power of flight in virtual reality, the subjects became more altruistic back in real reality.

Starchitect Norman Foster To Design A 3-D Printed Lunar Base

2013-02-01T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

The first real lunar base should look literally out-of-this-world cool. Maybe it will look as spacey as Apple's new campus, or Virgin's Spaceport America. Foster + Partners, the architectural firm to dream up those ideas, has a new lunar-base concept for the European Space Agency. (Let's hope it is better-executed than Las Vegas' beleaguered Harmon Hotel.)

How Chinese Hackers Infiltrated The New York Times

2013-02-01T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

The New York Times published an article this morning saying that the newspaper has been the victim of persistent and, it must be said, not entirely unsuccessful cyberattacks originating in China. The attacks apparently started shortly after the Times published a report about the relatives of Wen Jiabao, China's prime minister, who have accumulated a "hidden fortune" to the tune of billions of dollars.

Popular Science Q&A: How NASA Selected The 2013 Class Of Astronauts

2013-02-01T04:02:00.0000000+11:00

Want to be an astronaut? Well, NASA wrapped up its latest astronaut recruitment period last year, so you'll have to wait a few years until the agency posts the "Help Wanted" sign again. Over the two-and-a-half-month astronaut recruitment window, aspiring spacegoers deluged NASA with over 6,300 online applications through USAJobs.gov. That bumper crop - the second highest in NASA's history - is surprising given that NASA is without a space-capable vehicle since the retirement of the space shuttle.

Jackets Grown From Bacteria And 10 More Feats Of Bio-Engineering

2013-02-01T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

We can already store Shakespeare's sonnets in DNA. What if we could use trees as city lights, or turn pigeon poop into natural street cleaner?

GE's Hospital Robot Could Reduce Human Errors And Save Lives

2013-02-01T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

It may not seem like it, but a huge portion of a hospital's budget can get swallowed up by its surgical theaters - not in the operations themselves even, but in the prep and recovery of sterile operating environments. And, of course, in costs attributed to mistakes or oversights in the sterilization and prep of those operating environments (infections acquired during surgery reportedly kill tens of thousands of Americans needlessly each year). So GE Global Research is developing a robot that can sort, sterilize, and prep surgical tools automatically, minimizing mistakes and freeing skilled hospital personnel for other less-tedious jobs.

Issue #51 - February 2013

2013-01-31T15:06:00.0000000+11:00

Our February edition asks the important question: in an emergency, would you trust your life to a robot? More after the break!

Just Relax For A Minute And Watch This Incredible Moonrise [Video]

2013-01-31T10:01:00.0000000+11:00

This is an edited, single-shot (not time-lapse) video of the moon rising over Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand two days ago. It was filmed by Australian Astrophotographer Mark Gee, who was sweet enough to share it with NASA, who was awesome enough to post it as their Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).

Patting Mice Reveals Chemical Reason Why Massage Feels Good

2013-01-31T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

Do animals actually enjoy patting? Mice seem to, according to new research from the California Institute of Technology, where scientists picked out the neurons that fire when a mouse is stroked. There are hopes that identifying similar neurons in humans could help develop new pain or stress-relieving drugs.

Chinese Entrepreneur Offers Canned Designer Air To Citizens Suffering From Smog

2013-01-31T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

Here's a publicity stunt that we can unequivocally get behind: Chinese billionaire entrepreneur Chen Guangbiao has released a line of designer canned air in China to offer urban citizens something to breathe besides the fume-choked smog that blankets cities there, a problem particularly visible in Beijing. Guangbiao hopes his canned air will bring more attention to China's air quality problem and provoke citizens to push the government for change to pollution standards.

FYI: What Is Deer Antler Spray, And Why Would A Football Player Use It?

2013-01-31T08:31:00.0000000+11:00

A new report from Sports Illustrated connects Baltimore Ravens player Ray Lewis with deer antler spray, also known as deer antler velvet, one of the oddest-sounding performance enhancers we've ever heard of. (Lewis and the team, by the way, deny he did anything wrong.) So what is this stuff?

NASA's Newest Robot Is A Fun-Sized, Moon-Mining Tank

2013-01-31T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Meet RASSOR, NASA's newest mini-space explorer. What you're looking at is a prototype. But one day, NASA plans to send something similar to moon.

Study: Your Doctor Really Does Feel Your Pain

2013-01-31T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

They say good health is its own reward, but your good health may be a reward for your doctor, too. When doctors felt they were helping relieve a patient's pain, their brain activity mirrored that of a patient experiencing a placebo effect, according to a study published online yesterday in Molecular Psychiatry.

The Pentagon Plans To Test More Airborne Laser Weapons As Soon As Next Year

2013-01-31T06:36:00.0000000+11:00

The last time the Pentagon took an active interest in airborne laser weapons it resulted in a massive fail, literally. The hulking Boeing 747 housing the Missile Defense Agency's Airborne Laser Test Bed missile killer - a 1 megawatt laser designed to knock boosting ICBMs out of the sky - was killed after billions of dollars in development yielded an unreliable (at best) defensive capability. But now the DoD is looking into fielding much smaller airborne lasers aimed at shooting down much smaller missiles, and they could go into testing as soon as 2014.

Family's Pet Tortoise Found Alive, After 30 Years, In Locked Storeroom

2013-01-31T06:01:00.0000000+11:00

The Almeidas' story starts out a lot like the usual pet-disappearance saga: Someone left the front door open, and Manuela, the family tortoise, went missing. We can probably guess what happened next: a long, fruitless search, tears shed, possible fates guessed at, implausible but comforting legends born and clung to and perhaps retold for decades... But that's not where this tortoise's story ends. According to The Telegraph, this tortoise has been found, after 30 years, in a box in the Almeidas' storeroom. Alive.

The Human Race Will Come To An End. What's Next?

2013-01-31T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

Given evolution's trajectory, we will almost certainly transform into augmented versions of our current selves. The big question now is, can we survive long enough to become the next humans? What does the future have in store for the human race?

In his new book, Chip Walter analyses how modern humans evolved into today's dominant, and only surviving human, species. Here he speculates on humanity's next chapter...

South Korea Successfully Launches First Satellite Into Orbit

2013-01-31T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

In what might be considered a chemically-fueled middle finger aimed at its neighbors to the North, South Korea has successfully launched a rocket into space and placed a satellite into orbit, officially inaugurating itself into the global club of spacefaring nations with a satellite fielding capability. This of course follows on the heels of December's successful space launch and unsuccessful satellite deployment by North Korea, whose space program is largely viewed as a thinly-veiled ballistic missile test initiative.

5 Things You Need To Know About The New BlackBerry

2013-01-31T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

There's a big BlackBerry event going on this morning - maybe the biggest BlackBerry event ever - and it's the company's last-ditch effort to keep from being plowed over in the smartphone game by Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Here's what you need to know.

Is Dr. Oz Bad For Science?

2013-01-31T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Dr. Oz comes off almost - almost - charming at first in a New Yorker profile out this week. But of course he does: it's one of the reasons he has a gigantic US audience regularly tuning in to "The Dr. Oz Show." Michael Specter, the New Yorker writer, asks why someone like Oz, with Harvard credentials, would promote treatments that are flat-out wrong.

Google Taps 'Citizen Cartographers' To Map North Korea

2013-01-31T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

You can now see North Korea without ever leaving your living room. New data added to Google Maps has made it possible to virtually explore this notoriously isolated country.

BigPic: A Completely Insane Panorama From The Top Of The World's Tallest Building

2013-01-31T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

This is the view from the tallest man-made structure in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Photographer Gerald Donovan set up a tripod at the top (2,722 feet) and took 48 panoramic images, each with an 80-megapixel resolution. The images were stitched together to create one seamless image, and presto: arguably one of the most amazing views ever, in a full 360 degrees.

Watch: Taxidermied Robot Sparrow Flips The Bird To Real Sparrows

2013-01-30T08:03:00.0000000+11:00

Male sparrows do indeed get angry, especially when another male is intruding on his territory. Angry birds can fight to the death in whirling masses of feathers and beaks. But sometimes a bird would rather try to bluff and scare off a potential foe, using rude wing gestures to show it's ready to fight and welcomes the challenge (although it might not). To study this in more detail, scientists at Duke University stuffed some robotics equipment inside a dead bird.

Scientists Teach Bacteria To Eat Electricity

2013-01-30T07:26:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, have coaxed a species of bacteria into trading their usual diet of partially-oxidized iron for a small current of electricity - a trick that may eventually make the microorganisms useful producers of biofuels.

DARPA Wants To Recruit Smarter Service Dogs By Scanning The Brains of Canine Job Candidates

2013-01-30T06:01:00.0000000+11:00

It's hard enough to find good people for a given job. Harder still: finding the right dog. The U.S. military employs and deploys canines in a variety of roles throughout the armed services - bomb detection, search and rescue, post-traumatic stress disorder therapy - and each dog selected for those roles goes through a rigorous training regimen that can cost tens of thousands of dollars over the lifetime of the dog. Now, DARPA wants to test for pooch potential with brain scans, hoping to "optimize the selection of ideal service dogs."

New Fibre Changes Colour When It's Stretched

2013-01-30T05:01:00.0000000+11:00

Inspired by a tropical fruit, a team of materials scientists have created a new kind of fiber that changes color as it stretches. The multilayer fiber turns from reddish to blue as you put increasing strain on it.

Will the US Shut Off Its Last Big Collider?

2013-01-30T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

A group of scientists is reluctantly recommending that the U.S. shut off its last giant atom smasher, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in the face of declining federal funds. With the Tevatron at Fermilab dismantled, RHIC represented a last bastion of high-energy particle colliding in this country. It must be sacrificed so that other particle acceleration projects might live.

SpaceX Wants To Lend Boeing's Troubled 787 Some Batteries

2013-01-30T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Battery woes may have grounded Boeing's much-hyped 787 Dreamliner jets for now, but it's not necessarily the power supply's fault. Lithium ion battery packs can power rockets, spacecraft and dream cars - and Elon Musk, who builds all three, wants to help Boeing out. He's been talking to Boeing about SpaceX battery packs, he said this week on Twitter.

Mercedes' New Safety Tech Aims To End Wrong-Way Driving

2013-01-30T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

While it may seem like an unlikely occurrence, cars traveling in the wrong direction of traffic is becoming more and more prevalent. Just last year for example, even we reported on two such occurrences, one taking place in Mississippi and the other in Washington.

'Quantum Sense Of Smell' Theory Gains Traction

2013-01-30T02:54:00.0000000+11:00

Our olfactory power is pretty central to our sensory perception - our sense of taste relies heavily on it and as an evolutionary survival mechanism it has been and still is a powerful tool. Yet, there's a lot we don't understand about how it works, or at least a lot that, despite everything we know, we are not exactly sure about. And a new study that offers some backing to a controversial theory about a quantum effect that actually rules our olfactory sense has ginned up a renewed debate surrounding the science of smell.

FYI: Do Men Really Fall Apart When A Female Soldier Gets Killed?

2013-01-30T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Last Thursday, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta officially lifted the ban on women serving in ground combat, opening front line positions to the more than 200,000 women serving active duty. Women had been forbidden from serving on the front lines of combat with the US military since 1994.

DARPA Can See You From 17,500 Feet In The Air

2013-01-29T10:03:00.0000000+11:00

Curious as to how the US Defence Department could be spying on you next? PBS checked in with DARPA about the latest in drone camera technology for the NOVA special "Rise of the Drones," including the world's highest-resolution camera.

Science Confirms The Obvious: Americans Are Selfish

2013-01-29T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

If you need an American to do something, don't mention the common good, team work or caring for others. A new study in Psychological Science this month found that trying to get Americans to think and act interdependently failed - and may have even decreased motivation.

Bacteria In Earth's Atmosphere May Affect Cloud Formation And Climate

2013-01-29T08:57:00.0000000+11:00

Vast populations of microbes live between four and six miles above the Earth's surface in the upper troposphere, an atmospheric zone considered at best a pretty lousy location for life. They might be living at those altitudes and feasting on carbon compounds that are helping warm the planet, or perhaps they were lofted up there by air currents, according to a new study.

Gun Shoots Criminals With DNA Tags, Marking Them For Later Arrest

2013-01-29T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

Riots are a tough nut for law enforcement in part because of the sheer number of people involved - it's impossible to stop and arrest every person involved in a skirmish. That's why cops have some pretty high-tech methods for catching suspects, from facial recognition software to debilitating sonic cannons. But none is as bizarre as this new DNA gun from a UK security firm.

A Stark, 3-D Look At Carbon Emissions [Infographic]

2013-01-29T06:29:00.0000000+11:00

Rather than breaking down stats on carbon emissions and emptying the digits into something bland, interactive media designer Robbie Tilton made this striking globe, which looks like a view from a satellite after the apocalypse.

Wikipedia Is Getting Worse As It Gets Better

2013-01-29T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

A newly published study at the University of Minnesota suggests that Wikipedia is getting worse...as it gets better. Wikipedia's initial strength, it says, was due to the enormous breadth of contributors, millions strong. But as it got bigger, Wikipedia instituted systems to keep out vandalism and maintain structure.

Did Penicillin Kickstart The Sexual Revolution?

2013-01-29T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

In 1972, the US Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts law restricting the distribution of birth control to unmarried women, and by 1973, 10 million women were using the pill. This marked the apex of the sexual revolution, or so conventional scholarship tells us. Freed from the fear of getting pregnant, women begin engaging in more sex outside of the traditional confines of marriage.

Iran Has Successfully Launched A Monkey Into Space

2013-01-29T03:31:00.0000000+11:00

Iran has successfully launched a monkey into suborbital space - at least, so says Iranian state television. The reports have not been independently verified at this point and Iranian state TV has been known to, shall we say, embellish certain things in the past. But healthy skepticism aside, there's no readily apparent reason not to believe that Iran has actually launched a small primate 75 miles skyward, arcing it into suborbital space aboard a capsule before recovering both capsule and monkey intact.

Popular Science Is Building The Telepresent Robotic Boss Of The Future

2013-01-29T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Earth circa 1993 was a radically different place. In roughly two decades, technology has completely reorganised our lives, our workplaces, and our interpersonal interactions. We have more means and methods of communicating, of interacting, of collaborating and sharing information than we could have envisioned twenty years ago. It's easy to feel like there is no problem - especially where communication is concerned - that technology can't solve. At least until you run headlong into one that it can't.

Look At This Musician's Brain In An MRI Scanner [Video]

2013-01-26T10:15:00.0000000+11:00

It's been an exciting couple days for MRI aficionados. Earlier this week, we got to see what . Now we've got an entire MRI music video.

A Map Of The Internet Universe [Infographic]

2013-01-26T09:51:00.0000000+11:00

As of last year, there were something like 650 million active web sites on the Internet. That number is growing fast, but even if it weren't - even if it stopped dead in its tracks right now - you could spend the next 50 years surfing the web at a pace of five sites per minute, 12 hours a day, 365 days per year, and you'd still only visit (briefly) 10% of the Internet Universe.

Researchers Make Super-Realistic Artificial Lung Tissue By Levitating Cells

2013-01-26T07:59:00.0000000+11:00

Traditionally, cell cultures have been made in a 2-D petri dish. Problem is, cells cultured flat don't act quite the same as cells made in 3D cultures. So instead, researchers from Rice University and Nano3D Biosciences started using magnetic levitation to get a 3D culture. And now, using that tech, they've arranged four types of cells into super-realistic lung tissue.

BeerSci: What Is The Difference Between A Lager And An Ale?

2013-01-26T06:59:00.0000000+11:00

For the average beer drinker, the difference between an ale and a lager comes down to how the beer looks, smells, and tastes. Ales tend to be fruity-estery, while lagers are clean-tasting and frequently described as "crisp." But to a brewer, the difference is more fundamental than that. It's not color, or flavor, or aroma, or hop/grain/malt varietals or even water hardness that separates a lager from an ale. Simply put, lagers use an entirely different type of yeast during fermentation. All of the knock-on effects - from different flavors and aromas to decreased fermentation temperatures - arise from this difference. You'll hear some beer pedants describe the difference as "top-fermenting" (ale) vs. "bottom-fermenting" (lager) yeast, which is generally accurate, but useless to those who have no interest or experience with brewing.

FDA Approves First Robot For Hospital Use

2013-01-26T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Robots are taking over the world. Robo-nurses have been around for a while, but in the quest to make healthcare more efficient, another medical robot could soon be coming to a hospital near you.

GameSci: How To Preserve A Game You Can't Pick Up And Hold

2013-01-26T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

In March, the Museum of Modern Art will be showing off a new exhibit dedicated to videogames. You can check out the 14 games in the collection here - they've got picks from Pac-Man to Portal - but there's one in particular that caught my eye: Canabalt.

Dung Beetles Navigate By The Stars

2013-01-26T03:55:00.0000000+11:00

Celestial navigation has guided man around the world for several thousand years. A new study suggests it could also be guiding dung beetles.

Breakthrough Study That Found Consciousness In Vegetative Patients Was Flawed

2013-01-25T10:30:00.0000000+11:00

In late 2011, a University of Western Ontario study rocked the neuroscience community by reporting that inexpensive and portable handheld electroencephalogram (EEG) scanners had detected signs of consciousness in three people thought to be in persistent vegetative states. Now a team of researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College (that's Cornell University's medical school in NYC) is saying "not so fast." In this week's issue of the journal Lancet, the Weill Cornell team says the study suffers from statistical errors. More to the point, the Western Ontario researchers misinterpreted noise in the data.

Does Lightning Cause Headaches?

2013-01-25T09:28:00.0000000+11:00

Some people say they can feel storms coming. New research indicates chronic headache suffers might be able to sense lightning.

New Gene Therapy Braces T Cells Against HIV

2013-01-25T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and their collaborators elsewhere have opened up a new front in the war on HIV/AIDS. Using the tools of the geneticist to insert a series of HIV-resistant genes into T cells - the body's immune cells that are actively targeted by HIV and AIDS - researchers have a found a potent means of fending off HIV cells that would otherwise inhabit and destroy the cells.

Why Do We Want To Squeeze Cute Things?

2013-01-25T07:45:00.0000000+11:00

Seeing something cute actually does bring out aggression in us, according to a paper presented at Society for Personality and Social Psychology's annual meeting in New Orleans last Friday.

The Latest In Classroom Protection: A Handheld Bulletproof Whiteboard

2013-01-25T07:02:00.0000000+11:00

File this under things we're not quite sure how to feel about: A Maryland armor manufacturer has developed a bulletproof whiteboard for use in school classrooms. Created in direct response to December's tragic schoolhouse shooting in Newtown, Conn., the 18-by-20-inch whiteboards are fitted with rubberized handles and forearm straps on the back so teachers can wield them as shields capable of stopping a handgun round fired at close range.

Today On Mars: Opportunity Begins Its 10th Year Of Mars Roving

2013-01-25T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Today on Mars the robotic rover Opportunity (that's right, Opportunity - remember when we all used to care about Opportunity?) is hitting a major milestone. The rover touched down on the surface of Mars Jan. 24, 2004, just three weeks after its sister rover Spirit landed elsewhere on the planet. That makes today the beginning of Opportunity's tenth year of Mars exploration - not bad for a machine that was designed for a three-month mission.

Twitter Launches Vine: It's Like A Live-Editable GIF With Sound

2013-01-25T04:28:00.0000000+11:00

Twitter just launched Vine, a new standalone app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that also integrates into your Twitter timeline. It's the latest in a long line of "the next Instagram" attempts - not too different from Cinemagram, an app which had a mild and short-lived vogue last year and allowed you to make short GIFs.

Science Confirms The Obvious: Sex Is Still Fun With A Condom

2013-01-25T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Good news, everyone: safe sex is still fun sex. And now we have a published study to prove it. (In case you needed that confirmation, for some reason.)

Oddly Shaped DNA Structures Found In Human Cells

2013-01-24T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

The above is a digital model of DNA, but it's probably not the DNA you're familiar with. The double-helix structure of DNA and RNA - two strings of nucleic acids spiraling around each other and held together by complementary base pairs - is both nearly universally recognized and central to its role as the fundamental vehicles for cell function. But it turns out that a square shaped, four-strand DNA structure (like the one above) is likely more common in our genomes than we previously thought, and that could have important implications for biology.

DARPA Video Shows Off Satellite-Scavenging Space Robot Tech

2013-01-24T08:39:00.0000000+11:00

DARPA's vision for scavenging and salvaging dead satellites in orbit continues its trudge toward technologic feasibility. DARPA launched its Phoenix initiative in summer of last year hoping to cobble together a robot capable of intercepting, dismantling, and rebuilding defunct satellites even as they whip through space some 22,000 miles above the Earth. It's a tall order, requiring all kinds of capabilities that are less-than-fully mature, things like robotic autonomy/artificial intelligence, machine vision, and on-orbit satellite refueling. But if a new video released by DARPA is any indication, work on the Phoenix satellite scavenger is progressing.

A 3D Printed House With No Beginning Or End

2013-01-24T07:45:00.0000000+11:00

The architects at Amsterdam-based Universe Architecture have proposed some M.C. Escher-like buildings before. (See: this plan for a building that's "both small and big.") But architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars wants to go one step farther with a building that twists in on itself, never beginning or ending at all. To make that happen, he's enlisting the world's biggest 3-D printer.

Flu Researchers Say: Let Us Get Back To Work Studying Risky Mutations

2013-01-24T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

One year after voluntarily pausing their work on airborne bird flu, an international group of flu researchers wants to get back to it, promising safeguards that will protect lab workers and the public. The benefits of studying how avian flu can mutate to infect humans outweigh the risks, which the researchers say are minimal anyway. Now it's a matter of getting government funding agencies to restore funding.

"Privacy Visor" Protects You From Facial Recognition Machines

2013-01-24T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Worried about people stalking you on Facebook Graph Search? Soon you may be able to pose for every picture in a privacy visor that would prevent facial recognition software from identifying you in photographs.

Can I Have A Pet Fox?

2013-01-24T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Do a YouTube search for pretty much any smallish animal you can think of and there'll be several videos of a "tame" or "pet" version. Any feline, any canid, any mustelid (weasel), any procyonid (raccoon), any non-bonkers primate (baboons, which are completely terrifying, are exempt). Look at my pet kinkajou, my pet genet, my pet fennec fox, my pet ocelot. And then on the videos of cute furry animals in the wild, you'll see the comments: "omg i want it." When the internet sees a video of a red panda, the internet wants a red panda. Even though a red panda is endangered and a wild animal.

67 Years Of Classic Sci-Fi Covers In One Incredible Image [Infographic]

2013-01-24T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Science-fiction author Jules Verne (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth) has a birthday coming up on February 8. To wish him well for his 185th, Penguin has released this lovely print of classic sci-fi covers through the years, created by artist Arthur Buxton.

NIH Report Proposes Retiring Research Chimps

2013-01-24T04:03:00.0000000+11:00

The days of chimpanzees as test subjects for federally funded research may be drawing to a close. In a report released this week, a committee within the National Institutes of Health's Council of Councils has advised that the government limit the use of chimps in biomedical research.

What Beatboxing Looks Like In An MRI Scan

2013-01-24T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Because why not, a group of linguists and audio engineers at the University of Southern California put a 27-year-old MC in an MRI and watched him beatboxing. It explains some of the physiological mechanisms enabling beatboxers to sound like snare drums, bass lines and squeaking records, just by using their voices.

How An Elite Nerd Squad Dismantled The Unabomber's Last Deadly Device

2013-01-23T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

On January 22, 1998, Theodore Kaczynski pleaded guilty to a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23. The "Unabomber," now serving a life sentence in prison without parole, had been designing explosives in a one-room cabin deep in the Montana wilderness.

Check Out The Winning Design For The Tiny New York Apartments Of Tomorrow

2013-01-23T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

A lot of New Yorkers are accustomed to closet-like living quarters, which sounds awful and uncomfortable, right? Doesn't have to be. This winning design from an NYC architecture competition has some clever ideas for making the most of a bite-sized apartment.

Is That A UFO In This Timelapse Video Of A Meteor Shower?

2013-01-23T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

A few hardworking filmmakers from indie film company Sunchaser Pictures trekked out to Death Valley's remote Eureka Dunes during the Geminid Meteor Shower peak in mid-December, and the result is some truly wonderous starporn...

3D Sonar Map Reveals The Remains Of A Sunken Civil War Battleship

2013-01-23T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

One hundred and fifty years ago last week, the ironsided Union battleship USS Hatteras was embroiled in a blazing gun battle with the Confederate raider CSS Alabama. Cannon fire severed steam lines in the engine room, scalding the crew. Fires broke out around the ship, which quickly started to take on water. Thirteen minutes in, its hull riddled with holes on the port side, the Hatteras capsized. The giant paddlewheel shaft groaned as it bent in the churning water, and the ship sank to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

Engineer Builds A Robotic 'Space' Jellyfish

2013-01-23T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Yoichiro Kawaguchi, a professor at the University of Tokyo, created this robot based on the theme of "space jellyfish." That title might be a little misleading, though: It's not headed to space, it's just an artistic interpretation of what a jellyfish in space might look like.

Smoke Screen: The Perfect Defence Against School Shooters?

2013-01-23T05:58:00.0000000+11:00

While the debate over how to stop gun violence rages on, some business are trying to step up and take gun safety into their own hands, marketing bulletproof backpacks and calling for 3D printed safety designs.

Here's How Big A Problem Wolves Are For Cattle Ranchers [Infographic]

2013-01-23T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

We got a lot of heat for this essay about problematic wolf-hunting laws in Wyoming. Which, fine! Glad we could start a discussion. As a followup, here's a nice visual representation of all the threats facing cattle - if you'll notice, wolves are not exactly on the top of that list. Much of the motivation for the laws allowing wolf-hunting in states like Wyoming come from an assumption that wolves are a major problem for cattle ranchers - that wolves are responsible for significant so-called "unintended" cattle loss. "Unintended" cattle loss, by the way, is the term the USDA uses for cattle who die before they are killed in slaughterhouses.

Let's Breed Neanderthals!

2013-01-23T04:59:00.0000000+11:00

Maybe Neanderthals just get a bad rap. One well-credentialed Harvard scientist, at least, thinks they're more intelligent than they're portrayed, and he's willing test that theory out. He just needs an "adventurous" woman on board as a surrogate for a modern-day Neanderthal.

Dispatches From The Arctic: The Science And Geopolitics Of A Warming Arctic

2013-01-23T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

In this coastal Arctic city of Tromso, Norway, where sunrise and sunset merge into a multi-hour winter glow, and where twenty-something women proudly roam the ice-coated streets under the sub-freezing black sky wearing stiletto heels and little else, nothing seems too bizarre.

Obama's Inaugural Address: "We Will Respond To The Threat Of Climate Change"

2013-01-22T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

President Obama vowed to tackle climate change in his second inaugural address today.

Did Two Gunmen Target Martin Luther King Jr.? How A Single Slide Of Evidence Solved The Mystery

2013-01-22T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

When the House Select Committee on Assassinations reopened the case of the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1976, some investigators suspected a second shooter may have been involved. Autopsy photos showed specks of metal in King's scalp that seemed to have come from the brass railing in front of him. Because of the angle from which assassin James Earl Ray shot, his bullet could not have hit the railing. Had a second gunman targeted the civil rights leader on April 4, 1968?

A Huge Burst Of Gamma Rays Hit Earth--And No One Noticed

2013-01-21T20:00:00.0000000+11:00

Last year, Japanese scientists found evidence that, in 775 AD, Earth was hit with a sudden blast of high-intensity radiation - a blast carrying about 10,000 times the energy of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

FYI: Why Would Someone Create A Fake Internet Girlfriend?

2013-01-19T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

This week, Deadspin broke the news that Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o's dead girlfriend - one of the most heartbreaking sports stories of last year - was a hoax. The fake girlfriend was created by a 22-year-old guy named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo. Turns out, Tuiasosopo might've engineered other false personalities, too. We had to ask: What would make someone do that?

Study: Viagra Helps Mice Burn Fat Faster

2013-01-19T08:40:00.0000000+11:00

We've heard about athletes using Viagra to gain a (modest/debatable) competitive edge. Now, researchers are reporting another potential perk of the little blue pill, one that might appeal to people on the other end of the physical spectrum: the drug may help burn away excess fat.

BeerSci: Why You Should Never Drink Beer From A Clear Glass Bottle

2013-01-19T07:44:00.0000000+11:00

The subject of Beer Gone Bad came up at the office the other day, and I gave my colleagues an impromptu lesson in why "skunking" in beer is very different from a lot of the other ways a beer can turn on you. (And there are many, many ways. We'll cover some of those in a later column.) I wasn't initially going to write about this particular topic because I thought that pretty much everyone who drank beer and was science-minded knew about the correlation between sunlight and a skunky beer. But it turns out that I was wrong - it wasn't a well-known phenomenon, even among my colleagues - so I'm going to do my beer-nerdulent duty and replicate the explanation here.

Australian Firefighters Ingest Data-Transmitting Pills When They Go To Work

2013-01-19T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

A new data-delivering pill could help firefighters monitor their reactions to heat stress, a new trial in Australia shows.

Meet The 19-Year-Old Taking On Louisiana Creationists

2013-01-19T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

A 2008 Louisiana law that brought creationist texts into classrooms didn't sit well with Zack Kopplin. Now 19, Kopplin has been battling the Louisiana Science Education Act, becoming one of its harshest critics and, as our friends at io9 show in a great piece, a defender of science in schools. Definitely worth a read. [io9]

Skateboard Scraps Put the Party In Party Wall

2013-01-19T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Each year, New York's Museum of Modern Art and its contemporary art affiliate MoMA PS1 select an emerging architect to design a temporary, environmentally minded outdoor installation for MoMA PS1.

GameSci: What Makes A Mobile Game Great?

2013-01-19T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Two big games dropped for iOS Wednesday night: Temple Run 2 and Final Fantasy: All The Bravest. On my bus ride to work yesterday morning [Ed note: Colin lives in New Jersey for reasons unclear to any of the rest of us.], I played both. I quickly realized that of the two, I'll play the hell out of one and may never pop open the other again. You can tell almost immediately if a game will work on iOS: in many ways, it's about how the game deals with death.

Startup Wants To 3D Print Tomorrow's Gun-Safety Tech

2013-01-18T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

When it comes to guns, 3-D printing is usually seen as a harbinger of evil, not good. Last year, a plan to build open-source blueprints for a working 3-D printed firearm drew fierce criticism in a country plagued by shooting deaths.

How Extreme Weather Links The Fates Of Four Adorable Arctic Species

2013-01-18T09:02:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers are already learning how a changing climate can affect populations of individual species, from plants to animals. But they haven't been able to really pin down how entire communities of different species will respond to changing global patterns. Now a study that examines four super-hardy Arctic animals shows how climate change will bring the birth and death rates of each species into sync.

Temple Run 2, Sequel To The Super-Popular Mobile Game, Is Out

2013-01-18T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

This was the premise for the first Temple Run, a hit mobile game: Your character has stolen an idol from a temple, and has to outrun temple guardians (monkey-beast things) while avoiding obstacles and nabbing coins, for as long as possible. Now, just-released for iOS, is Temple Run 2, and that description pretty much sums it up, too.

Why is the 787 Dreamliner So Troubled?

2013-01-18T07:45:00.0000000+11:00

Q: What is the 787 Dreamliner and why do we care?
A: The Dreamliner is a massive jet from Boeing, the company's most fuel-efficient airliner and the first major airplane to be made with composite materials - specifically, carbon fiber reinforced plastic. It's made of 80% composite by volume, which makes it much lighter than typical planes without sacrificing strength, and has a lot of nice consumer-facing features - bigger windows, new noise reduction techniques, modular bathrooms, and more space for passengers. It'll hold up to 296 passengers, too - this is a big boy. It's not a revolutionary plane, but we all care about it because it's the next evolution of the planes we'll all take. You probably won't fly on an all-electric plane any time soon, but you probably will fly on a Dreamliner.

Should We Establish National Parks On Mars?

2013-01-18T07:01:00.0000000+11:00

There's an old proverb that states "We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." And if some in the scientific community have their way, that sentiment will extend to other planetary bodies as well. A movement among some in the spacefaring community believe that humans need to set up a kind of national parks system for planets prior to human and further robotic exploration to ensure that pristine environmental value - both scientific and intrinsic - is preserved beyond Earth orbit.

The Flu Virus Can Tell Time

2013-01-18T06:14:00.0000000+11:00

The insidious little virus making so many Americans sick this winter has a newly discovered potential weakness we might be able to exploit. Influenza can tell time, and it choreographs its actions according to a strict schedule. If new vaccines can reset flu's clock, the human immune system might be able to fight it more effectively.

FYI: Why Is There A Winter Flu Season?

2013-01-18T05:29:00.0000000+11:00

Flu season is in full swing across the US this week and our time will come around soon enough. Actually, our flu season could show up in June, or even in August - unlike the actual seasons, the timing of flu season is a little hard to predict. Except for one thing: it always happens in winter. In fact, everywhere on Earth where people have a winter season, they also have a flu season:

How To Get On The Front Page Of Reddit

2013-01-18T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Reddit, the sometimes-controversial "front page of the internet," is a powerhouse for traffic and prestige - within the Reddit community, having stories listed on the front page (meaning, what you see when you go to Reddit.com) is a major credibility boost, and for content creators (writers, photographers, artists), a front-page Reddit link can result in hundreds of thousands of hits.

Curiosity Is Blazing A Trail Across Mars That Is Visible From Orbit

2013-01-18T03:50:00.0000000+11:00

Just how far has Curiosity traveled since landing on Mars in August? We could tell you, but it turns out you can see for yourself. Curiosity's tracks are visible from Mars orbit, and new images from the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show the wending path of the rolling space lab from its touchdown site at "Bradbury Landing" almost all the way to its current position in "Yellowknife Bay."

A Snapshot Of Human Migration Around The World [Infographic]

2013-01-18T02:58:00.0000000+11:00

The dawn of agriculture is often cited as the beginning of modern civilization, since it allowed people to live for a long time in one place and build large societies, but one thing it didn't change was our species' propensity for migration: as of 2010, more than 215 million people - about 3 percent of the world's population - were living in countries outside of their own.

FAA Grounds All Boeing 787 Dreamliners Following Yet Another Failure

2013-01-17T10:42:00.0000000+11:00

After smoke was found pouring into one of its Boeing 787 "Dreamliner" planes yesterday, forcing an emergency landing, Japan's All Nippon Airways grounded its entire fleet of 787s. Japan's Transport Ministry referred to this as a "major incident."

Whoa What: All US iPhone Users Can Now Make Free Phone Calls Via Facebook

2013-01-17T09:32:00.0000000+11:00

Facebook just let loose with a new update to the Messenger app for iPhone, which until now was restricted to text messaging, sort of like AOL Instant Messenger or GChat. Now it's something totally different: it's a Skype competitor, except you know all of your friends already use it.

Anti-Surveillance Hoodie And Scarf Prevent Drones From Tracking You

2013-01-17T07:57:00.0000000+11:00

The increasingly vast suite of surveillance tools available to state authorities has certainly given privacy advocates something to bristle at. In an exhibition launching this week, NYC-based artist Adam Harvey and fashion designer Johanna Bloomfield are demonstrating fashion's potential to thwart surveillance by state actors via accessories like a heat-cloaking anti-drone hoodie and scarf.

Physicist Funds A Real Laser Weapon With Proceeds From Novel About Laser Weapons

2013-01-17T07:01:00.0000000+11:00

Call it an instance of science fiction begetting science fiction. Physicist Adam Weigold wants to build a laser weapon that he believes might change the face of warfare should the U.S. find itself tangling militarily with a certain people's republic across the Pacific at some point in the near future. And to fund the research for said weapon, Weigold is releasing a science fiction novel about - wait for it - the U.S. tangling militarily with a certain people's republic across the Pacific in the near future.

A Single Bout Of Exercise Can Make Your Flu Shot More Effective

2013-01-17T06:02:00.0000000+11:00

So, you've gotten yourself a flu shot. Good thinking, since this flu season is especially rough. A shot's not always going to save you - even the best batches are only about 70 percent effective - but there's a simple way to improve your odds: exercise.

Obama Calls For Research Into Causes Of Gun Violence

2013-01-17T05:40:00.0000000+11:00

President Obama issued 23 executive actions on gun control today, including provisions encouraging research into the causes and prevention of gun violence. He also challenged the private sector to develop innovations in gun safety.

Superomniphobic Material Repels Any Liquid You Can Think Of

2013-01-17T05:11:00.0000000+11:00

We've seen lots of hydrophobic materials before, but these water- and liquid-repelling materials often work within constraints. Some liquids bounce or wick away, while others - based on properties like viscosity or surface tension, or whether the substance in questions is organic or inorganic - are not affected by the hydrophobic qualities of the material. But a team of University of Michigan materials science is reporting a breakthrough that could have big implications for everything from stain-free clothing to protective surface coatings and chemical resistant protective suits: a superomniphobic coating that is resistant to pretty much any liquid we know of.

Video: Japanese Eco-Friendly Building Demolition Method Harvests Energy As It Destroys

2013-01-17T04:32:00.0000000+11:00

When it comes time for an aging skyscraper to be put out to pasture, it's best to do so slowly. For buildings higher than 100 meters tall, there's no easy path to demolition. Sure, you could blow it up, but the cleanup would be brutal. You could slam it with a wrecking ball, but that's a little heavy-handed, don't you think?

Herd Of Secret Drug Goats Discovered At Biotech Ranch

2013-01-17T03:57:00.0000000+11:00

Let's say you're a giant biotech company in sunny California, and you have a big ranch where you keep thousands of goats. You use the goats to produce all kinds of antibodies that you then extract and sell to biological researchers all over the world. You are, in fact, one of the world's biggest suppliers of these antibodies - a true industry leader.

Enormous Online Library Catalogues 150,000 Animal Sounds

2013-01-17T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology just released an online archive filled with thousands of animal noises. The archive doesn't have everything - it mostly focuses on birds - but you could still waste a whole afternoon or more sifting through the aural wonders of Earth's many species. To wit: Did you know that a singing walrus sounds like a Tommy gun followed by a tiny spaceship floating away?

How Particle Physics Can Improve Your Netflix Recommendations

2013-01-17T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

From OpenTable to Amazon to your Netflix queue, algorithms sift through what we seem to like and offer future suggestions tailored to fit those trends. But the problem is they do this for everybody. So if everyone gets the same recommendations on OpenTable, everyone will try to reserve a table, and there won't be any seats left. What's more, if everyone gets a movie recommendation and everyone decides to watch it, the movie gets more popular - creating biases in the system. To improve matters, some researchers in Switzerland took a cue from the master rules of physics.

DNA Test Finds Horse Meat In UK Hamburgers

2013-01-16T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

The Irish version of the FDA, called the FSAI, has found distinctly non-beef animal protein in ground meat labeled "beef," in some supermarkets. Meat from two Irish processing plants has been found to contain substantial portions of pig and, curiously, horse DNA. Of 27 samples analyzed, 23 were found to contain pork, and 10 were found to contain horsemeat. In one sample collected from Tesco - a major supermarket chain all over the UK - approximately 29% of the meat was found to be horsemeat. Looks like it's not just seafood that isn't quite what it claims to be.

Detroit Auto Show 2013: Nissan Leaf Is Now Cheaper, Made In The US

2013-01-16T09:04:00.0000000+11:00

Not that he's known for anything else, but Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn once again aggressively underscored his company's commitment to electric vehicles by dropping the MSRP on the 2013 Nissan Leaf by 18 percent. A newly added S trim level of the five-seat EV will now start at $28,800 which means a net price in the high teens in states that offer supplemental incentives to the $7500 federal tax credit. Nissan is also offering a 36-month lease on the Leaf at $199/mo, far below other vehicles in that price range.

This Is What Competing Sperm Looks Like

2013-01-16T08:07:00.0000000+11:00

The winners have just been announced in Nikon's Small World in Motion digital video competition, giving us the opportunity to look through the microscope from the comfort of our office chairs.

Curiosity Rover Gets Ready To Drill Into Mars For The First Time

2013-01-16T08:01:00.0000000+11:00

A flat rock with pale, veiny fissures could be the first thing the Mars rover Curiosity drills for a sample of the Red Planet, NASA scientists said Tuesday. It's the most challenging task yet for the intrepid car-sized rover (after its landing). No spacecraft has ever penetrated a rock on Mars.

Russia Will Launch Its First Moon Mission Since The 1970s

2013-01-16T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, will launch an unmanned mission to the moon in 2015, according to agency head Vladimir Popovkin.

Facebook's New "Graph Search" Is The Google Of People

2013-01-16T06:28:00.0000000+11:00

Facebook held a big announcement this morning in California, and though some had expected a Facebook-branded smartphone or some other gadgety item, what Facebook actually announced was "graph search," a new, Microsoft-Bing-powered search engine that'll live on Facebook.

Fake Snow Made From Sewage Comes Out Yellow

2013-01-16T06:15:00.0000000+11:00

There's been a longstanding battle in northern Arizona over the use of faux-snow engineered from sewage "effluent," or runoff. On one side: a ski resort that wanted to use the fake snow. On the other: opponents who worried about the snow's potential health and ecological hazards. The ski resort triumphed and recently covered its grounds in the sewage-y snow, but there was one little problem: the stuff came out yellow.

Detroit Auto Show 2013: The Followup To the Chevy Volt Is A Cadillac

2013-01-16T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

At long, long last, General Motors has revealed the follow-up vehicle to the plug-in Chevrolet Volt. Based on the original Converj concept, the Cadillac ELR had been an on-and-off again project for the automaker. Now it's not only a reality, it's frickin' gorgeous. A sleek two-door coupe, the ELR shares the Voltec powertrain technology employed on the Volt, delivering roughly 35 miles of all-electric range before a supplemental 1.4L gasoline engine kicks in for a total driving range of approximately 300 miles, all of which can be done in the carpool lane in certain states that provide the coveted incentive to plug-in cars.

Particle Accelerator Reveals That First Land Animals Walked Like Seals

2013-01-16T02:45:00.0000000+11:00

New 3D models of some of the earliest four-legged animals reveals a surprising find: We imagined their backbones backward. Our ancestors the tetrapods - the first animals to crawl out of the muck and onto land - have spines that are organized the opposite way from what everyone thought. The findings could change evolutionary biologists' understanding of how the vertebrae evolved - and therefore how all vertebrate animals evolved.

DARPA Wants "Upward Falling" Robots That Can Hide On The Seafloor For Years, Launch On Demand

2013-01-16T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

The US military spends a good deal of money and energy on delivery systems - capabilities that allow US forces to move assets to where they are needed around the globe as quickly as possible. But for the Navy, whose area of operation is the entirety of the world's oceans, DARPA is taking a different tack. Rather than trying to truck assets to where they need to be during a crisis, why not just plant them on the seafloor and activate them when you need them?

Detroit Auto Show 2013: The Sexiest Corvette We've Seen In Way Too Long

2013-01-15T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

If you didn't know better, you might think there were only one car at the Detroit Auto Show this year, because the spanking-new Chevrolet Corvette is the only car anyone's talking about here. Almost 60 years to the day after the very first Corvette debuted, General Motors has dusted off the Stingray name and attached it to the sexiest Corvette we've seen in far too long.

Whoever Kills The Most Burmese Pythons In Florida Wins A Cash Prize

2013-01-15T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

This weekend, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission kicked off the 2013 Python Challenge in Davie, Florida, a smallish city near Fort Lauderdale. The Python Challenge registers python hunters and gives cash prizes to those who can gather the most - or the biggest - pythons. As much as it's weird to award people for killing the most snakes, this is absolutely the right move for Florida - unlike Wyoming's stance on wolves.

Detroit Auto Show 2013: VW Shows Off A Plug-In SUV Concept

2013-01-15T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

"If it goes into production…" So begins the second sentence of the press release for the Volkswagen Crossblue, a midsize SUV with a diesel plug-in hybrid powertrain. It would certainly be cool if the Crossblue becomes reality. Specifically designed specifically for the American market, the six-seater would get 14 miles of all-electric driving range from its 9.8-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery; the rest of the time if would blend power from a TDI diesel engine and two electric motors (one in front and one in the rear). In electric mode, it would get 89 mpge. In hybrid mode, fuel economy is 35 mpg. Good numbers for a family-size people mover. We'll see if it happens.

Tribute To Open-Information Activist Aaron Swartz Collects Thousands Of Links To PDFs

2013-01-15T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

Aaron Swartz was an internet pioneer, a crucial part of the creation of RSS, Reddit, and Creative Commons. He was also, as of this past Friday, under investigation for allegedly taking millions of documents from JSTOR, an online directory of scholarly articles, with the presumed intention to publish them publicly and freely. But on Friday, Swartz was discovered dead in his Brooklyn apartment, having hanged himself.

A Cheeky Guide To Eating Like A Caveman

2013-01-15T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Keeping up with the eating habits of our cave-dwelling ancestors can be tough. Luckily someone has slapped together a handy flowchart for you to reference if you've hopped on the latest diet-craze bandwagon, the Paleo diet.

Mississippi River May Soon Be Unnavigable, Despite Army Geoengineers' Best Efforts

2013-01-15T06:59:00.0000000+11:00

Rain or shine, the battle of the Mississippi rages on. The vital shipping lane that supports middle-American economies from the Upper-Midwest to New Orleans is once again in dire straits as the Army Corps of Engineers struggles to control Big Muddy - this time by making it deeper. Wracked by the worst (and longest) droughts in memory, the Midwest and the river are critically short on water, so short that the shallowest stretch of the river between Cairo, Ill. and St. Louis could become unnavigable in the next month, and the Corps of Engineers is just about out of geoengineering options to mitigate the problem, NPR reports.

Inflatable Space Stations!

2013-01-15T06:16:00.0000000+11:00

Bigelow Aerospace has for years been trying to get the world to take its inflatable space habitats seriously, and while some have regarded the Vegas-based firm's grand visions for such things as an inflatable orbiting space hotels and manned moon bases with skepticism, NASA has always been willing to listen to Bigelow's big ideas. And now, the space agency is investing in them. NASA has awarded the private space contractor a $17.8 million contract to develop a new inflatable addition to the International Space Station.

Detroit Auto Show 2013: New Infiniti Augurs A Future Without Steering Wheels

2013-01-15T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

Meet the Infiniti Q50, formerly the G37. In case you haven't heard, Infiniti is renaming all the cars in its lineup with the letter Q. (We don't know. It must have focus-grouped well.)

The Next Crews With The Right Stuff Will Work For Private Companies, Not NASA

2013-01-15T04:43:00.0000000+11:00

Private companies are already sending cargo into space on their own, but no one is sending any people yet - for now, Americans can only get to space with help from the Russians. When commercial aerospace firms do start delivering Americans to space for the first time, they will not be wearing NASA meatball patches on their breast pockets.

Pacific Bluefin Tuna Population Has Dropped By 96 Per Cent

2013-01-15T04:01:00.0000000+11:00

For the Pacific bluefin tuna, sitting at the popular kids' table sure isn't paying off. The stock of the fish is at historically low levels and is being dangerously overfished, a new report shows.

NASA: Asteroid Apophis Won't Collide With Earth In 2036

2013-01-15T03:14:00.0000000+11:00

Good news from NASA: The asteroid Apophis, long thought to be on a potential collision course with Earth, isn't going to hit us when it goes screaming past in 2036. NASA scientists have effectively ruled out the possibility of an impact by Apophis based on an analysis of data collected over the past two years by a variety of ground- and space-based telescopes. The world can breathe a collective sigh of relief.

FYI: Could You Survive A Flight Strapped To The Wing Of A Plane?

2013-01-15T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

A python clinging to the wing of a commercial plane, which soared 30,000 feet in the air, died last week. The brave little guy held on from northern Australia to Papua New Guinea, but was apparently dead on arrival. Sad, but it got us thinking: Could a human in the same situation survive the trip?

Curing Gut Problems With Synthetic Pseudo-Poo

2013-01-12T08:58:00.0000000+11:00

Poop slinging isn't just for monkeys anymore - in this day and age, you can also pay a doctor to do it. Fecal transplants, which have been around since at least 1958, aim to correct an upset in the normal bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract by introducing someone else's waste into it, in the hopes that it will restore the balance of microbes necessary for normal digestion. With a 90 percent success rate, it's gross, but effective.

Is Climate Change Self-Correcting? Australia's Heatwave Stops Petrol Sales

2013-01-12T08:01:00.0000000+11:00

Continuing Australia's trend of being majorly unpleasant this week, it got so hot in the Outback town of Oodnadatta a few days ago that you couldn't even pump petrol.

Glowing Ice Cubes Warn You When You Drink Too Much

2013-01-12T07:29:00.0000000+11:00

In November, MIT grad student Dhairya Dand blacked out at a party and woke up in the hospital. Some people might use that as a wake-up call to lay off the tequila shots for a few weekends, but Dand, an engineer and former educational toy designer, did one better. Three weeks later, he had created a set of glowing ice cubes called Cheers that let you know when you're going too hard.

CES 2013: Perpetua Demos Watches Powered by Body Heat

2013-01-12T06:38:00.0000000+11:00

In the startup zone at CES, known as Eureka Park, prototype devices were in no short supply. One we wish would hurry on to the market is a miniature, wearable thermoelectric generator. The company responsible, Perpetua Power, gave us a closer look at the dime-sized TEG and a couple prototype devices.

2013 Prediction: Crowdfunding Pays Off

2013-01-12T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

On April 5, 2012, President Barack Obama sat at a small, wooden desk in the White House Rose Garden and signed the JOBS Act, one of the most transformative pieces of securities legislation written since the Great Depression. Among the 22 pages of dense legalese, one section stood out: the Crowdfund Act. Pending the creation of SEC regulations later this year, new businesses will be able to make their own IPOs, and small investors could act as venture capitalists.

More Evidence Emerges That "Hobbits" Were A Separate Species

2013-01-12T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

While film buffs have been arguing over the need to make The Hobbit into three different films, anthropologists have been busy debating the origins of real hobbits, whose remains were discovered in Indonesia only a decade ago.

Animal Grunts Are Structured Like Human Speech

2013-01-12T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

The evolution of speech is a complex story, but one key feature is we humans' ability to form intricate sounds using vowels and consonants. Animals have simpler anatomy, so they can't produce as many distinguishable sounds, instead combining their basic noises into more complicated patterns that become things like birdsong. But it turns out even the monosyllabic noises work like a sort of Morse code, with specific structures that contain different information.

Faraway Quasar Group Is The Largest Structure In The Universe

2013-01-12T00:59:00.0000000+11:00

Behold, the largest structure in the universe. An international team of astronomers has discovered a large quasar group (also known as an LQG) that is some 4 billion light years across. For comparison, that's something like 1600 times farther than the distance between the Milky Way and the "nearby" Andromeda Galaxy.That's huge.

Meet Diego-San, The Humanoid Robot Toddler

2013-01-11T08:31:00.0000000+11:00

Anyone who has witnessed the development of a newborn into a toddler knows that babies progress fairly quickly from making seemingly random, spastic body movements to interacting with the world in what seems a much more natural way - through touching and grabbing as well as through social cues, like smiling, grimacing, and other facial expressions. Now we're getting our first real glimpse of a multidisciplinary project mashing up robotics, neuroscience, computer vision, developmental psychology, and machine learning, a project led by University of California San Diego researchers has created Diego-san, a robotic one-year-old that learns to control its body and interact with others the same way a human baby does.

New $120 Million US Department Of Energy Centre Will Tackle Rare Earths Shortage

2013-01-11T07:15:00.0000000+11:00

The U.S. Department of Energy is fighting back against China's stranglehold on global rare earth mineral supplies - or at least throwing money at the problem - by awarding $120 million to Ames Laboratory to set up a new Energy Innovation Hub aimed at shoring up American energy security. Officially titled the Critical Materials Institute (CMI), the DOE lab will roll the resources of more than a dozen national labs, universities, and industry partners into one place in an effort to make rare earths less rare.

BeerSci: How To Make Strong Beer Stronger

2013-01-11T06:26:00.0000000+11:00

Team BeerSci was marooned in The Land of Always Winter (aka New Hampshire) for the Christmas holidays. I decided to take advantage of the absurd cold (it never got above freezing) and try an experiment in beer concentration: I would freeze some of the water out of a brew and decant the now-concentrated booze into a delicious stronger tipple, a practice called fractional freezing.

The 'Intelligent' Rifle, Now With iPad App, Wi-Fi, Infallible Accuracy

2013-01-11T05:28:00.0000000+11:00

CES isn't usually the venue for checking out the latest in firearm technologies, but this week the public got its first (as far as we know) really good look at Austin-based TrackingPoint's "Precision Guided Firearms." When we first heard about TrackingPoint back in November, details were pretty scarce; a YouTube clip offered a quick primer on how the computerized scope allows shooters to "tag" their targets and call their shot before they actually pull the trigger, ensuring that they hit the target right where it is marked. Now we're learning a lot more about the technology, and it turns out it's pretty deep.

For Mystery Novels With Accurate Scientific Detail, A Badge Of Authenticity

2013-01-11T03:59:00.0000000+11:00

The Washington Academy of Sciences is offering a different kind of peer review: they'll take a look at your mystery book, and if it's up to scientific snuff, give it a literal stamp of approval.

How To Rescue A Plane From Water

2013-01-11T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

It takes an almost surgical approach to retrieve a plane if it goes underwater...

The Self-Assembling, Self-Healing Material Of The Future Is... Blood

2013-01-11T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Somewhere inside of your body right now, a delicate membrane is tearing open. Now a leak is springing, and fluids that were not supposed to have gotten past the membrane are gushing through at the point of the tear.

Kinect Will Save The Indigenous Rock Art Of A Paraguayan Tribe

2013-01-11T01:01:00.0000000+11:00

Frank Weaver is a documentary filmmaker and native Paraguayan (now working from Florida) who has lived among and documented the culture of Paraguay's Panambi'y Indians for several years now, logging the traditions and lore of a very old culture threatened by encroaching progress, particularly deforestation and slash-and-burn farming. But when it came time to record and preserve the centuries-old traditions of the local Pai Tavytera Indians of the Amambay hills, Weaver turned to a decidedly modern tool: the much-hacked Microsoft Kinect.

CES 2013: Audi Demonstrates Its Self-Driving Car

2013-01-10T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

Move over, Google: Audi has demonstrated its own self-driving car here at CES 2013, although engineers involved with the project say its most likely a decade away from production.

Flexible, Paper-Like Tablet Computers

2013-01-10T09:29:00.0000000+11:00

There's a lot of consumer electronics news flooding out of CES in Las Vegas this week, but one of the more interesting technology stories we're seeing is trickling out of Ontario, Canada, where Queen's University researchers working with partners in the UK as well as at Intel Labs and Plastic Logic have developed a tablet computer that is both paper-thin and flexible. And while we've seen concept prototypes for flexible e-ink screens and the like previously, what's most intriguing about the so-called PaperTab is the user interface.

CES 2013: Oculus Rift's Virtual Reality Headset Is Freaking Amazing

2013-01-10T08:40:00.0000000+11:00

Virtual reality sounds almost quaint in these days of OLEDs and 4K and the Kinect and glasses-free 3D and all the other amazing ways we have now to experience and interact with games. But it's back in a very, very big way with the Oculus Rift, which I tested out today here at CES in Las Vegas.

Video: This Robotic Cardboard Cockroach Is The World's Second Fastest Legged Robot

2013-01-10T08:29:00.0000000+11:00

The world's fastest legged robot mimics the cheetah. The second fastest? The mighty cockroach. Not to be confused with a cyborg cockroach, VELOCIRoACH is a small, six-legged cardboard cockroach that can scramble across varying terrain and over obstacles at 3.2 metres per second.

Fomalhaut B: The Mote in Sauron's Eye

2013-01-10T08:09:00.0000000+11:00

In 2008, an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope showed the world one of the first directly imaged extrasolar planets, 25 light years away in a system resembling the all-seeing Eye of Sauron, in the giant disk of debris surrounding a young star called Fomalhaut. But the instrument used to see the purported planet, Fomalhaut b, broke in 2007, and the team involved in the discovery couldn't replicate their results.

Japan's 2011 Earthquake Happened In An Area Considered Low-Risk. Where's Next?

2013-01-10T07:39:00.0000000+11:00

The massive earthquake that walloped Japan nearly two years ago is still bringing some unfortunate news. The quake happened in an area where it was assumed it shouldn't - and a new model shows how the type of fault involved can turn destructive, seismologists say. The new findings could force governments and researchers to reevaluate seismic hazards in areas that were thought to be at low risk for earthquakes.

Segway Inventor Patents A Gadget That Sucks Food Directly Out Through A Port In Your Stomach

2013-01-10T07:01:00.0000000+11:00

This is the good news about a recently-patented gadget that sucks food out of the stomach: it could work as a last-ditch effort to get obese people to shed some weight. This is the bad news about said gadget: the method might be a little extreme.

Study Finds A Daily Dose Of Peanuts Under Your Tongue Helps Treat Peanut Allergies

2013-01-10T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

Peanut-fearers, rejoice - new research suggests that treatment may be possible for peanut allergies. A study sponsored by National Institutes of Health in the January issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found that by exposing people to small amounts of peanut powder every day, they could increase their tolerance.

Kickstarter Celebrates Its Greatest Hits Of 2012

2013-01-10T04:42:00.0000000+11:00

To help us understand just how big of a year 2012 was for Kickstarter, the folks over at the crowdfunding site put together a slideshow with some of their highlights.

Mysterious Hacker's Riddles Lead Japanese Police To Memory Card Hidden In A Cat's Collar

2013-01-10T03:50:00.0000000+11:00

If you're looking for worldwide press and Internet attention, there's really only one thing you need: a cat. At least that seems to be the lesson of the anonymous hacker that has led Japanese law enforcement on a wild goose chase for months.

Researchers Reverse Engineer Fireflies To Make More Efficient LEDs

2013-01-10T01:01:00.0000000+11:00

Sometimes, a trick gets pulled off better in nature than it does in a laboratory. That might be the case with new research claiming fireflies' unique lanterns can be reverse-engineered for LED lights, making the bulbs as much as 55 percent more efficient.

Issue #50 - January 2013

2013-01-09T15:52:00.0000000+11:00

It's the one with lots of groovy drones and planes and whatnot on the cover. Plus a cyborg cockroach! Find out what that's all about after the break...

CES 2013: Hands On With The Razer Edge Gaming Tablet

2013-01-09T12:12:00.0000000+11:00

We've known about the Razer Edge - a Windows 8 tablet designed top to bottom for gaming - for awhile, but today at CES was the first time we'd actually gotten a chance to play with it. And, despite my own reservations about Windows 8, small Windows 8 tablets, gaming tablets, and tablets with detachable joysticks, as soon as I started using it, I got it: this is probably the best Windows 8 tablet I've used, period, and it's a hell of a lot of fun.

#OverlyHonestMethods Hashtag Reveals How Science Is Really Done

2013-01-09T09:25:00.0000000+11:00

If an experiment is any good, the process needs to be replicated. That requires some details on the methods researchers used.

How To Watch Menacing Space Rock Apophis Fly Past Earth Tomorrow

2013-01-09T09:05:00.0000000+11:00

Although not nearly as threatening as it was first perceived to be upon its discovery, the asteroid 99942 Apophis still has a very slight chance of impacting our planet on Friday, April 13, 2036. It will get closer to Earth this year, giving astronomers a chance to refine its trajectory for good and know whether we're in trouble. And you can get a glimpse of it online tomorrow, courtesy of the Slooh Space Camera.

Lifting James' Giant Peach Would Have Required Way More Seagulls Than Roald Dahl Said

2013-01-09T08:21:00.0000000+11:00

Ah, physics: Taking the world's greatest mysteries and turning them into cold, hard facts. Even the mysteries in beloved children's stories. A group of physics students from Leicester University in the UK has subjected James and the Giant Peach, a classic tale by Roald Dahl, to aerodynamic modeling.

Ralph Steadman Depicts Over 100 Extinct Boids

2013-01-09T07:28:00.0000000+11:00

If you've read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, or quaffed a bottle of Flying Dog Brewing's beers, you will be familiar with the work of illustrator Ralph Steadman. The evocative ink splashes, seemingly haphazard lines, and splashes of color have always fascinated and horrified. Recently, he turned his talent to drawing birds.

Official Australian Weather Map Gets New Colours To Depict Extreme Heat

2013-01-09T06:29:00.0000000+11:00

It's going to be a rough week in Australia, where the weather service had to add new colours to their climate map in preparation for an extreme heat forecast. The Bureau of Meteorology recently added pink and purple areas to its maps to make room for higher temperatures.

Watch: Vela Pulsar Spews A Stream of High-Energy Particles

2013-01-09T05:19:00.0000000+11:00

NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory captured this awesome video of the Vela pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star, spewing a long stream of high-energy particles into space:

Discovered: Giant Dolphin-Like Sea Monster That Ate Dinosaurs

2013-01-09T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Dolphins are great! Intelligent, charming, cute. This newly-discovered dolphin-like predator: maybe not so great.

Today on Mars: When Curiosity Brushes Away The Red Dust, Mars Looks Pale

2013-01-09T03:44:00.0000000+11:00

The Mars rover Curiosity is not afraid of getting dirty - it swallowed some scoopfuls of dirt to clean itself out - but sometimes, it needs a clean work surface. To that end, the rover just used its special brush for the first time, clearing away the dust from a specific flat rock it plans to study in greater detail.

Captive Hyena Figures Out A Meat Puzzle Faster Than Its Wild Cousin

2013-01-09T03:01:00.0000000+11:00

When animal behaviorists want to study animal skills, they often work with animals living in the nation's zoos and aquariums, testing problem-solving and other traits. But a new study suggests this may not paint an accurate picture. Animals in captivity act much differently than animals in the wild, and their ability to face new problems is no exception.

Up Close With The 2012 Olympus Bioscapes Microscopic Photography Challenge

2013-01-09T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Perhaps it's a sign of just how far imaging technology has come in the last decade that the overall winner of the Olympus Bioscapes Digital Imaging competition - an annual microscopic photography contest now in its tenth year - wasn't a still photograph but a video. Amid a range of stunning visuals captured via dozens of imaging and microscopy techniques, Ralph Grimm's video of colonial rotifers - micrscopic beings that sustain themselves on dead bacteria and the like - took top prize, the first time a video has done so.

CES 2013: Lego Mindstorms EV3 Robots Add App Control, Speed, Sensors

2013-01-08T14:00:00.0000000+11:00

Fifteen CESes ago, Lego unveiled the Robotics Invention Kit, the system that would become Mindstorms. Since then, DIyers have machined 'bots to do everything from flush the toilet to solve a Rubik's cube - faster than a human being, no less. Today, the Danish company announced a near-gut refresh of the line, the Mindstorms EV3. The 594-piece kit will be the first Mindstorms system with app support, as well as a sensor suite that allows creations to navigate and react autonomously.

CES 2013: Ford Wants You To Design Its Next App

2013-01-08T12:55:00.0000000+11:00

Inching us ever closer to the connected car of the future, Ford today announced plans to crowdsource the next generation of driver-friendly apps. The 150-year-old company is opening its code libraries and other resources to developers worldwide. The idea? Consumers know what they want, so let them design the apps that'll keep them entertained - and safe - on the road.

CES 2013: Look At This Weird TV

2013-01-08T11:00:00.0000000+11:00

I just got out of Samsung's CES event, which was mostly not very exciting, unless there's something about the concept of a fridge with a touchscreen in it that excites you. And if there is that's fine, I hope you achieve all your life's goals and get yourself a fridge with a touchscreen in it. But what was weird was this gargantuan 4K TV. It's an 85-incher, which is absurd, and it's more absurd because the screen is encased in this metal frame and is not removable at all. So, unless you basically own a hotel or choose to build your home around your new TV, this is going to be tough to fit in most houses.

CES 2013: The Hideous Glitz Of My Favorite Event

2013-01-08T08:53:00.0000000+11:00

There is a long line of celebrities standing at the back of the stage. Noel Lee, the CEO of Monster Cable, wheels around in front of them on a Segway with gold-painted rims - the gold just a bit too orange - and flame decals. (Lee has a physical disability which impairs his ability to walk, and has turned his use of the Segway into a trademark.) Tyson Beckford, the supermodel, is a pro, encouraging, smiling, clapping. Xzibit, the rapper and sometime-actor, is chubbier than I remember him from Pimp My Ride. He looks alternately bored and confused. Drew Brees, of the New Orleans Saints, wears monochromatic navy blue dad-clothes, and stands awkwardly at the end of the line, his arms hanging at his sides.

CES 2013: Fitbit's New Flex Wristband Never Leaves Your Person

2013-01-08T07:32:00.0000000+11:00

We haven't been too thrilled with Fitbit's offerings in the past - not that they're not good at what they are, just that the fitness tracker in general is not what we'd like it to be right now. One of the bigger problems with the Fitbit is that you have to remember to take it with you, so we're glad to see that problem remedied with the new Fitbit Flex, announced today here at CES.

CES 2013: Lexus Unveils Autonomous 'Safety Research' Car

2013-01-08T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

At CES today, Lexus showcased an "Advanced Active Safety Research Vehicle," a souped-up LS being used as a testbed for autonomous car technology.

CES 2013: Nvidia Announces Ludicrous Portable Gaming System

2013-01-08T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

Nvidia isn't a company everyone necessarily knows; they've long been known for graphics hardware, but have recently branched out into mobile silicon with the Tegra line of combination CPU/GPU processors, which are used in some Android tablets and smartphones. Last night they combined those two specialties and added a hefty dose of wild, optimistic insanity, announcing a portable gaming system currently code-named "Project Shield."

Do Natural Disasters Breed Health Epidemics?

2013-01-08T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Few post-disaster myths have a stronger hold on our imaginations than the specter of a follow-on epidemic. Some imagine a killer virus will spread through the sudden glut of dead bodies. Others merely go by the notion that when it rains - or shakes, or erupts, or burns - it pours. But we can all take a deep, healthy breath: It's not true. There don't tend to be spontaneous epidemics in the wake of natural disasters. As a World Health Organization team explained in a 2007 study published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases: "The risk for outbreaks after natural disasters is low."

2013 Prediction: Asia Takes Two Routes To Space

2013-01-08T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Earth's two most populous nations have major space launches slated for 2013: China will send a lander to the moon and India will propel an orbiter toward Mars. On the surface, their goals appear similar-cement a toehold in a frontier dominated by the US, Russia, and Europe-but the ways in which they will achieve them are very different.

Politics Is Most Important Factor For Climate Future, Study Finds

2013-01-05T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

An analysis in Nature has confirmed what we already knew: politicians need to hurry up if we're going to stop climate change. What's more, the longer they wait, the more it'll cost them - and taxpayers - to fight the problem.

Skip Out On The Elks Lodge, Die In A Traffic Accident

2013-01-05T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Do you live around a cranky neighbour? Are you the cranky neighbour?

These are important questions because, according to a new study, areas with low "social capital" - lack of neighbourliness, I guess would be one way of putting it - are associated with higher rates of traffic fatalities. Love thy neighbour, or stay off the roads.

UK Police Launch Website Asking Public To Identify Over 1,000 Found Bodies

2013-01-05T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Over 350 of the individuals that have gone missing in the UK over the last few years have not been found, according to a UK Missing Persons list. Meanwhile, the nation's police have the opposite problem - records and photos of over 1,000 bodies that have been found, but never identified.

On DARPA's 2013 Wish List: Extreme Diving, Portable Brain Reading, And Gravity Vision

2013-01-05T04:27:00.0000000+11:00

DARPA solicitation days are like Christmas morning for technology nerds, occasions whose bounty defense tech geeks look forward to precisely because we have no idea what we are going to get. And in case you thought DARPA might scale back its far-out R&D ambitions in light of impending defense budget cuts, be advised: the DoD's blue-sky researchers fear no fiscal cliff (in fact, it has likely already developed a self-assembling hypersonic vehicle that will automatically scramjet the agency to safety should any cliff, fiscal or otherwise, be autonomously detected). So what does DARPA want in 2013? Read on.

Scientists Send A Cloud Of Atoms Plunging Below Absolute Zero

2013-01-05T02:31:00.0000000+11:00

Absolute zero - that's zero degrees Kelvin, or -273 degrees C - is understood by textbook definition to be the absolute coldest anything can be, a temperature threshold at which atoms actually lose all of their kinetic energy and stop moving completely (or at which entropy reaches its lowest value). There can be nothing stiller than completely still, and hence absolute zero is as low-energy as something can go. Right? But researchers have discovered that's not exactly the case. By messing with the distribution of high- and low-energy atoms within a system, a team of physicists at the University of Munich in Germany has created what it defines as a negative temperature system - one that has a temperature south of absolute zero.

Early Earth Should Have Been A Snowball, But Wasn't

2013-01-05T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

When our sun first got going, some 4.5 billion years ago, it wasn't the same blazing star we know today - its warmth and brightness grew gradually as more and more of its fuel ignited. So, for Earth's first two billion years, our planet was bathed in a light 25 per cent dimmer than it receives today.

Important Science Of The Season: Hot Chocolate Tastes Better In An Orange Cup

2013-01-04T09:09:00.0000000+11:00

A creamsicle-coloured set of mugs will make your hot chocolate taste and smell sweeter than it would taste served in plain white or stark red, according to European scientists. This adds to the growing set of studies that claim the vessel in which our food is served can have a dramatic effect on the way our senses perceive the food.

Meet San Francisco's Only Resident River Otter

2013-01-04T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

A young river otter has been christened Sutro Sam after he moved into the Sutro Baths, an abandoned ruin of a 19th-century spa complex on San Francisco's Pacific coast, just north of Golden Gate Park. Sutro Sam is San Francisco's only river otter; the theory is that he swam down south from Marin County, where there are larger populations of river otters, and stayed because the Sutro Baths are an excellent hangout spot for an otter. He's got fresh water in the baths, salt water in the ocean, and lots of giant goldfish people have placed into the Baths, which Sam apparently "eats like potato chips." He'll probably stay until the food's gone, or until he feels like leaving. [SFGate]

Sad Science Fiction Plot Becomes Reality: Space Radiation Could Cause Alzheimer's

2013-01-04T07:02:00.0000000+11:00

So much great science fiction takes place when Earth is either gone or forgotten. Having ruined the planet and other life on it, people have to leave and go elsewhere, only to return and encounter a changed place. Sometimes spacefaring people even "discover" a planet, only to find out it's actually Earth (see: Planet of the Apes, the forthcoming After Earth, etc.). Now a new study seems to fit this sad plot line exquisitely well: People traveling in space may be more likely to develop the memory-destroying scourge of Alzheimer's disease. We could leave Earth and then, late in life, forget it.

New Ground-Based Indoor Positioning Tech Is Accurate Down To Just A Few Inches

2013-01-04T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

Indoor navigation is most certainly the holy grail for positioning system makers right now. Satellite-based location technologies like GPS work wonderfully out under the open sky, where signals bounced from satellites to receivers on the ground are unhindered by man-made structures or natural obstructions. Take that same technology into the subway or a large shopping mall, and the signal goes dead. But a new ground-based positioning system called Locata could soon replace or augment satnav using radio signals that are a million times stronger than GPS signals, indoors or out.

Everything You Read About Health Is Wrong

2013-01-04T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

There's a major problem in health journalism: It's wildly unreliable. As David H. Freedman points out in an excellent critique in the January/ February issue of Columbia Journalism Review, the rate of "overall wrongness" in top medical journals is as much as two thirds - something even the most seasoned science reporters don't point out. The resulting information conveyed to lay readers, is, at best, confusing and, at worst, dead wrong.

Say Hello To Mobile Ubuntu, Coming To An Android Phone Near You

2013-01-04T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

It's not every day that we see a new mobile OS, even if it's not entirely new. Canonical, makers of Ubuntu, the largest distro of Linux, showed off a very-nearly-finished build of the Ubuntu mobile OS yesterday, and it actually looks pretty good!

Electrical Current Can Unlock The Seriously Good Drugs In Your Brain

2013-01-04T04:02:00.0000000+11:00

Trying to get high but don't want to go through the hassle of conducting monetary transactions with some friend of a friend who may or may not be giving you what you think you asked for? Try tapping the opiate-like painkillers that you already own. University of Michigan researchers have figured out how to use non-invasive transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to coax the brain into releasing its endogenous opioids - the most powerful natural painkillers that the human body keeps stashed onboard for only those worst-case scenarios.

2013 Prediction: Stem Cells Sidestep Controversy

2013-01-04T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

During 2012, two scientific teams announced, in separate studies, that they had transformed ordinary adult skin cells into neural cells, a breakthrough that could change the course of human stem cell research. Stem cells hold enormous potential for medicine because they can develop from undifferentiated cells into a variety of specialized ones. But their use has been stymied by ethical concerns; most are harvested from human embryos, which are destroyed in the process.

Babies Pick Up On Language Before They're Even Born

2013-01-03T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

Research suggests we pick up on the nuts and bolts of speech six months after birth. But a new study suggests newborns have already learned parts of a language, can distinguish between their native tongue and a foreign one, and even - in a really weird way - demonstrate that they know the difference, much earlier than we thought.

BigPic: What Is This 'Vital Equipment' On The International Space Station?

2013-01-03T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

International Space Station astronaut Chris Hadfield just tweeted this photo of... some sort of tank or something on board the International Space Station.

A Map Of Every Person In The US And Canada

2013-01-03T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Here's a pretty cool interactive map made by Brandon Martin-Anderson showing, according to census data, every single person in the United States and Canada. The map uses the 2010 US census and the 2011 Canadian census, for a total of 341,817,095. But interestingly, there are no other visual aids - no landmarks, no borders, no rivers or lakes. So if you want to find your Seppo friends or relatives, you'll have to go by population groups, which gets pretty difficult as you zoom further in. Unless you live in Nunavut or something.

This Robot Vomits So You Won't Have To

2013-01-03T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

Sometimes inventions, even the important ones, aren't pretty. Case in point: this vomiting robot. It could help us understand, and then battle, an illness that no one's found a cure for in 40 years. Even if it's not the cutest 'bot out there.

NASA Considers Tugging An Asteroid Into Orbit Around The Moon

2013-01-03T05:31:00.0000000+11:00

NASA's (and President Obama's) vision for sending a manned space mission to a distant asteroid by the 2020s doesn't seem to be gaining much steam, but a conceptual mission under development by the Keck Institute for Space Studies in California could bring an asteroid much closer to home in that timeframe. An estimated $2.6 billion could fund a mission that would send a robotic spacecraft out into interplanetary space and drag an asteroid into orbit around the moon where robots and even humans could explore it far more conveniently.

People Like Science, Says The New York Times

2013-01-03T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

The New York Times published a little trend piece that argues "social media and science found each other in 2012." Evidence cited: there were scientific or science-related events that broke through to become part of the general public conversation...

Neil Armstrong Planned 'Small Step For Man' Line Months Before The Moon Landing

2013-01-03T03:51:00.0000000+11:00

Neil Armstrong always maintained that he'd thought up possibly the most famous line in American history just after landing on the moon, but in an interview with The Telegraph, his brother says the origin story starts months before the landing, back on earth, and with a game of Risk.

How Birds Learn To Sing

2013-01-03T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Birds learn to sing in much the same way humans learn to talk: by listening to, and then imitating, the vocal sounds of their elders. Of course, those sounds rarely come out right the first time, but a fledgling's sense of hearing can tell her just how off the mark she is. If a note is too low, she'll know to whistle it higher next time, and that feedback helps birds (and us) learn how to communicate.

2013 Prediction: Hackers Attack Mobile Phones

2013-01-03T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

In 2009, the annual Pwn2Own cybersecurity competition provided hackers with a shot at cracking smartphones. They failed. In September, the event offered phones as targets again. This time, contestants seized control of them, successfully exploiting vulnerabilities in the two most popular operating systems, iOS and Android.

2013 Prediction: Physics Enters A New Era

2013-01-02T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

On July 4, 2012, a panel of scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva announced the discovery of a new particle, the long-anticipated Higgs boson (or something very much like it). The Higgs is the final piece of the Standard Model of particle physics, a theory that accounts for everything we experience in our lives, from rocks to puppies to stars and planets. After decades of searching and billions of dollars, the Higgs discovery marked the end of one era and the beginning of another, which scientists will embark upon in 2013.

New Technique To Study The Impact Of Cell Phone Radiation

2013-01-01T07:50:00.0000000+11:00

Concerns about the health risks associated with cell phones date back almost to the dawn of the industry. Over the last four decades, while cell phones shrunk and multiplied and worked their way into the very fabric of human existence, the vague threat of danger has slunk along behind like a faint but troubling and unshakeable odor: do what they could, scientists couldn't quite eliminate it, and they couldn't quite define it, either. The best they've been able to do is say that the radiation coming from cell phones may or may not cause cancer.

Next-Gen Space Rovers

2013-01-01T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

NASA's past few Mars rovers have been friendly robots with head-like masts and cameras for eyes, easily anthropomorphized and adored. The next generation might be decidedly less cute - they resemble a medieval battle mace.

Giant Panda Genome Holds Recipe For Powerful Antibiotic

2013-01-01T05:13:00.0000000+11:00

Scientists have found the code for a powerful antibiotic within the giant panda genome, according to a story in the Telegraph. Pandas' immune systems naturally produce the small anti-bacterial protein, but their critically low numbers and almost invariable failure to breed in captivity rule the animals out as a potential source for the compound.

How The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Made Kids Fat

2013-01-01T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

After a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in 2011, causing major meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, local schools restricted outdoor activities and parents (understandably) wanted to keep their children indoors. That's had an unexpected consequence. Fukushima children 5 to 9 and 14 to 17 are the fattest in the country.

People Mostly Ignore Smart TV Features, Because They Are Bad

2013-01-01T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

A new survey finds that most people with smart TVs aren't using the majority of the smart features.

Does Pot Use Cause Psychosis, Or Does Psychosis Cause Pot Use?

2013-01-01T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

The link between teenagers smoking pot and psychosis is ripe for a correlation-causation debacle. Studies have indicated there's a relationship between psychotic symptoms and above-average marijuana use, but the reasons behind that correlation are not clear. Does pot cause psychosis in teens, or are teens with mental health issues retreating into marijuana use to deal with those issues?

FYI: Why Do We Crave Greasy Food When We're Hung Over?

2013-01-01T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

The desire to eat high-fat foods after drinking too much is rooted in human's earliest, humblest beginnings, some scientists say.

What It's Like To Use The Beautiful, Futuristic Nest Thermostat

2012-12-29T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

The Nest thermostat is a test case for the proposition that better consumer products can save the world. It is indeed an excellent consumer product, but the early results on world-saving are inconclusive.

The Great Antarctic Search For Life Is Over (For Now)

2012-12-29T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

The British Antarctic Survey above Lake Ellsworth was a Great White Hope for discovering never-before-seen life. Scientists spent years planning an ambitious study of the lake, which sits two miles below the Antarctic surface, hoping to burrow through the ice with a hot-water drill. If they'd arrived at the bottom, the team might've found microbes with biology never observed by humans. Instead, the team's heading home.

Human Penis Size, Illuminati, And The Other Most Popular Wikipedia Pages Of 2012

2012-12-29T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

A barebones site has collected the 100 most popular Wikipedia stories from each major language. The different languages have different pages entirely, as they're more like localized versions of Wikipedia than translated versions of the original, English-language site. The view counts are public; anyone can check and see the popularity of any individual page. So what was the most popular?

Science Confirms The Obvious: Being Nice Helps You Make Friends

2012-12-28T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

After conducting a month-long study with several hundred Canadian tweens, researchers have arrived at the conclusion that permeates every after-school special you've ever been bored enough to watch: being nice makes people like you.

US Forensic Crime Labs Are A Mess. What Happened?

2012-12-28T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Earlier this month, we wrote about Annie Dookhan, a forensic chemist at a Massachusetts-based crime lab who stands accused of some pretty stark negligence. Turns out she's not the only one. Problems in crime labs have reached the top levels of government and spread out across the country, shining a spotlight on the troublesome role of science in criminal cases.

Stuffing Your Face With Holiday Bikkies Disrupts Your Body Clock

2012-12-28T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Blue-spectrum light and weird work schedules can easily interfere with our bodies' master clocks, but did you know that food can, too? All those cookies and pies you've been eating this week are going to mess with your sleep, especially when you're nibbling on them all day. Holiday travel will make it that much worse.

15 Science and Technology News Bytes From 2013

2012-12-28T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

And now! A collection of science nibbles you'll be hearing more about throughout 2013. Enjoy!

Global Warming Triggers Volcanic Eruptions, Scientists Say

2012-12-28T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Here's an idea you've probably heard before: volcanic eruptions - the big, explosive Pinatubo kind - spew millions of tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, and the sulfur dioxide stays there for a few years, reflecting sunlight and cooling down the planet for a few years. In other words, eruptions can affect climate.

FDA Says Giant, Genetically Modified Salmon Is Environmentally Safe

2012-12-27T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

The AquAdvantage salmon, a genetically modified fish that grows year round and much faster than a natural salmon, has been approved for human consumption for years now (at least in the US). But one consistent hurdle to getting the "FrankenFish" on supermarket shelves is the suspected environmental impact.

Science Confirms The Obvious: Kids With Allergies Get Bullied

2012-12-27T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

It's bad enough that they have to avoid milk and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A new study reveals that kids with allergies also get picked on at lunch.

GameSci: The Wii U's Unlikely Influence

2012-12-27T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

To most of the world, Sega's Visual Memory Unit has been been dead for the better part of a decade, forgotten as a footnote in the annals of videogame history. It was a memory card, shaped mostly like a Tamagotchi, that slipped into the giant controller of a Sega Dreamcast, with its tiny, 1.5-inch greyscale screen peeking through a little cut-out. If players wanted to, they could pull it out of the controller and, using two buttons and a control pad, play rudimentary mini-games. It was a smallish element of a failed console released 13 years ago from a company that no longer even makes hardware.

Robot Boy To Be 'Born' In 9 Months

2012-12-27T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Where are our mass-produced robot butlers already, the Rosies of our Jetsons families? Still a ways off, unfortunately, but here's the next best thing: 'Roboy,' a child-like service bot that researchers are billing as "one of the most advanced humanoid robots."

Asparagus Prevents Hangovers, Incredibly Useful Study Finds

2012-12-27T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

It's the holidays, so maybe you've been drinking too much. And maybe you've been dealing with a few too many hangovers. But no more. Just stuff some asparagus in your pocket and enjoy your New Year's Eve.

FYI: Which Computer Is Smarter, Watson Or Deep Blue?

2012-12-27T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Humans haven't fared well against IBM computers.Record-holding Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter lost to IBM's Watson last year on national television. Garry Kasparov, often considered history's greatest chess player, fell to IBM's Deep Blue in 1997.

FYI: What Causes Motion Sickness, And How Do You Cure It?

2012-12-25T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Motion sickness is a mismatch between what your body and your brain is experiencing, says Dr. Sujana Chandrasekhar, director of New York Otology and ENT surgeon at the New York Head and Neck Institute.

Q+A: Cody Wilson Of The Wiki Weapon Project On The 3-D Printed Future of Firearms

2012-12-22T08:50:00.0000000+11:00

The Wiki Weapon project is an initiative undertaken by Defense Distributed, a non-profit headed by University of Texas law student Cody Wilson aimed at generating a freely-distributed, open source design for a 3-D printed firearm - an idea that has come under serious fire from proponents of increased gun control in the U.S., particularly in light of last week's tragic shooting of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The idea behind the project - embraced by some, absolutely detested by others - is that technology will soon make regulating firearms virtually impossible. That is a very polarizing idea. But to say the very least Wiki Weapons is also a technologically intriguing project, one that forces us to examine some very relevant - some might say ominous - questions about new technological capabilities and where they are taking us, as well as what happens when technology gets way out in front of the law. We spoke with Wilson briefly this week hoping to address some of these questions. Below is an edited transcript of that conversation.

Study: Online User Reviews Influence Us In Ways We Don't Even Realise

2012-12-22T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Nowadays, many of us rely on online user reviews, instead of expert opinions or the advice of family and friends, for help making decisions both big and small. If we want to know about a restaurant, a hotel, a product - or even a neighborhood, a school district, a church, a donut shop or a barber - we tap the web and the massive database of reviews that populates it. Turns out those reviews are influencing us in ways we might not realize.

A Homemade Rocket Ship for the Masses

2012-12-22T04:01:00.0000000+11:00

Anyone with enough brains and balls can build their own rocket and fly it to space. Or at least that's what the non-profit, open source space project Copenhagen Suborbitals wants to prove.

Male Peacocks Try To Attract Females While Already Bonking Other Females

2012-12-22T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

A study at Duke University sought to uncover the meaning behind the peacock's so-called "hoot dash" display. The hoot dash is a peculiar courtship move in which a male peacock emits a loud noise, something like the honk of a clown's horn, right before copulation. The female peahen is already ready for mating; why does the male need to let out this powerful squawk?

How To Survive The Apocalypse, Cold War-Style

2012-12-22T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

The world is definitely not going to end today. So don't worry. But! If you enjoy worrying, or just really want to be prepared for future apocalypses, then the March 1951 issue of Popular Science is required reading. In the middle of the Cold War, we published an eerily-illustrated handbook for surviving an atomic bomb strike, from preparing your family's foxhole to what to do if you're caught outside during the blast. Unfortunately, none of these preparations were likely to do much good if your neighborhood was actually hit by a nuclear bomb, but some of the advice might come in handy against mysterious Mayan voodoo (or whatever.)

How Genetics Is Perfecting The Christmas Tree

2012-12-22T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

With just a few days left until Christmas, my tree is barely holding on - to its needles, to its stiffness, and to its dignity. It was an early tree this year, the result of the earliest possible Thanksgiving, but it was more than that. There was something about this tree that made it dry out quickly, and make it less likely to keep its thin needles. It is a Fraser fir, Abies fraseriis, so this was a surprise to John Frampton.

BeerSci: How Beer Gets Its Colour

2012-12-21T08:01:00.0000000+11:00

Before you read this column, I urge you to pop open a belated birthday beer. Pour that beer into a clear glass (pint or tulip, your choice), hold it up to the light, and take a good look at the color.

Inject Rhino Horns With Poison, That'll Stop Poachers

2012-12-21T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

In South Africa, conservationists have had to come up with new and more innovative ways to prevent poachers from killing the local rhinoceros for their horns. Enter the Rhino Rescue Project.

How To 3D Print A Record

2012-12-21T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Try to spin these 3D printed vinyl analogs at your next party, and the dance floor will likely grind to a halt. But the technique created by Instructables assistant tech editor Amanda Ghassaei for converting digital audio files into printable, playable 33 rpm records is actually pretty amazing, and as 3-D printer resolution continues ticking upward, the sound quality can only get better and better.

Study: We Can Spot Powerful Leaders In 2 Minutes

2012-12-21T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Thought experiment: What if you didn't know Barack Obama was president? Would you be able to spot him in a crowd - single him out as a leader? A new study suggests you might. Researchers at the University of British Columbia have found that people can identify leaders by sight - all it takes is about two minutes.

FYI: What Kind Of Dinosaur Meat Would Taste Best?

2012-12-21T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

An ostrich-like dinosaur known as an ornithomimid would probably yield the most consumer-friendly cut of meat, while still maintaining a unique dinosaur taste.

Scientists Engineer Algae To Produce New Targeted Cancer Therapy

2012-12-21T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

If traditional cancer therapies like chemotherapy are the WMDs of medicine - powerful, indiscriminate killers - targeted drug therapies are the assassins, trained to seek out and destroy enemy cancer cells, one at a time.

Paper Waste Makes World's Grossest-Looking Bricks

2012-12-21T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

We don't want to be unkind, because it's nice that people are working toward a future where we won't have to rely on traditional brick-making methods, which produce tons of carbon dioxide. But a new idea for "green" bricks is a little less, uh, aesthetically pleasing than other ones we've noticed.

Genetically-Engineered Stingray-Skin Sneakers Are A Hoax

2012-12-20T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Back in June, news sites began picking up the story of Rayfish Footwear, which claimed it could genetically engineer stingrays to have whatever skin pattern or color you want, and then make you some cool sneakers out of it. Just like we thought, that is not possible, and the company is fake. NextNature, the Dutch organization behind Rayfish (they've also done other pranks), just released a video documenting the prank, though it's not totally clear what point they were trying to make with the whole thing. Video after the jump.

We Want These "Ultrastretchable" Charging Cables Now, Please

2012-12-20T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

At some point soon, we'll have wireless everything - wireless charging, wireless syncing, wireless video, wireless audio. We've already got a lot of that stuff, in fact. But today, we still need wires and cables, and a new creation from researchers at North Carolina State University could make them much more usable - by making them stretchy.

These Massive Extinct Eagles Could Have Carried Off That Toddler's Dad

2012-12-20T06:15:00.0000000+11:00

Last night, a video supposedly showing a golden eagle swooping down to pluck a toddler from a Montreal park - it was unsuccessful, luckily - hit the internet. Great video! This morning, avian experts both amateur and professional began weighing in, saying the video was doctored, that the bird in question was not actually a golden eagle, that the bird's behaviour is unusual and that, all in all, it's probably fake.

Nearby Star Tau Ceti Could Have A Habitable Planet

2012-12-20T06:04:00.0000000+11:00

It was really big news back in October when astronomers discovered an Earth-sized planet whipping around Alpha Centauri B, a star in the Alpha Centauri system, the closest star system to Earth. Now, it turns out the nearest single sun-like star to us is likely also harboring planets - five of them - and one looks to be orbiting in the so-called "goldilocks zone."

The Eagle-Snatching-Baby Video Is Insane, But It's Also Fake

2012-12-20T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

From Motherboard: I knew we were all in for an epic display of virality (sorry) last night when I saw about a dozen unrelated people share the same video last night, a video that features a toddler in Montreal, one turned into a tasty, immobile package of calories by its winter clothing, get snatched up by a golden eagle and dropped on its head. Whether or not you've seen it already, watch it again. Don't worry, I'll wait.

BigPic: A Rare And Spectacular View Of Saturn

2012-12-20T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Cassini, the NASA spacecraft that has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, captured this spectacular portrait on October 17. In the image, the sun is positioned behind Saturn, backlighting the fragments of ice that make up its rings, while the planet itself - the side we can see, anyway - remains in darkness.

Would Arming Teachers And Students Really Have Prevented A Tragedy?

2012-12-20T02:30:00.0000000+11:00

A recent bill sent from the Michigan House of Representatives to the Governor would make it easier to carry a concealed weapon in a school. After Friday's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, a spokesman for House Speaker Jase Bolger said the policy could have been "the difference between life and death for many innocent bystanders."

Scan Of Mummy Reveals Pharaoh Died With His Throat Slit

2012-12-19T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

The end of the Egyptian pharaoh Rameses III's reign was never meant to be a mystery for the ages. The Egyptians left behind a number of detailed historical documents that clearly lay out some basic details: In the year 1155 BC, members of the pharaoh's harem attempted to kill him as part of a coup. The plan was found out and the conspirators were tried in court, convicted, and punished.

Peter Thiel's Latest Pet Project: Tornado-Powered Energy

2012-12-19T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

Billionaire Peter Thiel is already trying to create all sorts of zany things: 3D printed meat, reconstructed brain tissue, antimatter-fuelled spaceships and more. Now he wants to harness tornadoes. To produce energy.

Smartphone-Controlled Japanese Toilet Keeps A Personal Poop Diary

2012-12-19T08:45:00.0000000+11:00

The day will come, and come soon, when we will control our entire domestic lives with a phone. We will turn the lights on and off, we will change the temperature to the precise level we desire, we will cook our dinners and make our beds and brew our coffee and close our blinds and feed our pets with a tap and a swipe. We can do most of that now, in fact, though it's kind of expensive and cobbled-together to implement.

A Spider Builds Fake Spiders To Psych Out Predators

2012-12-19T08:05:00.0000000+11:00

Don't be fooled: this isn't a real spider. It's a fabrication! A lie! It's a decoy spider built from twigs, leaves, debris, dead insects, and whatever stuff nightmares are made of.

Ping Pong Ball-Sized Robots Can Swarm Together To Form A Smart Liquid

2012-12-19T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Some of the best robot swarms we've seen can either fly in formation or swim in a group, and while these are certainly awesome, they represent somewhat singular abilities. A new swarm that looks like a bunch of ping pong balls is both simpler and more complex, with potentially much more flexibility.

Why Are Architects Deploying Drones?

2012-12-19T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Drones have been taking on more creative jobs lately. (Artsy skateboarding photographer? Check. Local news reporter? Check.) So it was just a matter of time before drones joined the construction game.

Stem Cell Surgery Led To Bones Growing In Patient's Eye

2012-12-19T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Stem cell surgery, in which stem cells from a patient's body are transplanted into some other part of the body, is gaining in popularity. One patient in Los Angeles found out the hard way that the surgery is largely untested and unregulated.

Revisiting Britain's Biggest Hoax: Who Faked The Bones Of The Piltdown Man?

2012-12-19T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

On December 18, 1912, Charles Dawson told The Geological Society of London that a workman had uncovered the remains of one of the earliest humans in a gravel pit in Piltdown, England. The skull fragments and lower jaw bone of the "Piltdown Man" showed that it had a brain two-thirds the size of a modern human's and a jaw remarkably similar to that of a young chimpanzee.

NASA's Twin Moon Probes Crash Successfully Into Moon!

2012-12-18T10:30:00.0000000+11:00

After 350 days in lunar orbit, the twin probes Ebb and Flow ended their mission today with a carefully planned dive into a mountain near the moon's north pole. The probes' crash site has been named in honor of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

IBM Predicts: Cognitive Computers That Feel And Smell, Within The Next Five Years

2012-12-18T09:01:00.0000000+11:00

At the end of each year, IBM releases its "5 in 5" - five technology predictions that IBM researchers foresee coming to fruition within the coming five years. These predictions are based on everything from emerging market trends to cultural and social behaviors to actual technologies IBM has incubating in its many labs. And if this year's predictions are to be believed, many computational systems - from your tablet and laptop to your smartphone - are about to get a lot more sensory, learning to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell in their own digital ways.

Asterank 3D: A Visual Guide To Getting Rich In Space

2012-12-18T08:01:00.0000000+11:00

Imagine it: trillions of dollars worth of precious metals, fossil fuels, and fresh water, just lying around waiting to be claimed by anybody with a little know-how and an adventurer's spirit - any lucky person willing to travel a few million km into the great black unknown, latch on to a big hunk of funny-shaped rock, and claim 'em!

Fitness Trackers Make Terrible Gifts

2012-12-18T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

Fitness trackers, little pedometer-type things that purport to measure your activity and help you get into shape, are on about a billion gift guides this year. But maybe they shouldn't be. Here are the two most pressing reasons not to buy someone a fitness tracker like a Fitbit, Nike+ Fuelband, or Jawbone Up as a gift.

North Korea's Satellite Is Still Tumbling And Likely Completely Dead

2012-12-18T06:47:00.0000000+11:00

More bad news for North Korea on the first anniversary of dearly departed leader Kim Jong-il's death: the satellite it launched into orbit last week is not only tumbling out of control, but is also likely completely dead, astronomers say.

Scientists Use A Virus To Reconstruct The Heart's Own Pacemaker

2012-12-18T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

A slight genetic tweak can restart the heart's own innate pacemaker system, according to new research. Someday, newly jumpstarted internal pacemakers could eliminate the need for electrical implants.

Paralysed Woman Can Eat A Chocolate Bar, With Graceful Mind-Controlled Prosthetic Arm

2012-12-18T05:04:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have created a prosthetic arm that is the most sophisticated mind-controlled prosthesis ever created. Using a mix of cutting edge hardware and complex programming, the team has enabled a 52-year-old woman paralyzed from the neck down by a degenerative neurological disorder to move a robotic arm and hand with a degree of nuance and fluidity never before seen.

5 Petitions For Things Less Important To US Prosperity Than A Death Star

2012-12-18T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

The people of the United States have spoken. A White House petition to begin construction of a Death Star by 2016 has reached the 25,000-signature threshold, meaning the White House now has to respond.

Google Hires Ray Kurzweil To Head Its Engineering Lab

2012-12-18T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

The singularity is nearer. Or, if you take the viewpoint of Technology Review, maybe the singularity is dead, now that Google has hired Ray Kurzweil to lead its engineering lab.

To Pinpoint Audio Evidence, UK Police Record 7 Years Of Background Noise

2012-12-18T00:58:00.0000000+11:00

Metropolitan police in London have been recording the hum of the nation's electrical grid for the last seven years, the BBC reports. And not just for fun: fluctuations in the sound enable audio forensic experts to pinpoint the time when any digital recording - of, say, a phone call - was made.

Watch: Asteroid Toutatis Twirling Through Space During Earth Flyby

2012-12-15T08:28:00.0000000+11:00

The three-mile-long chunk of space rock that swung past Earth early this week never got closer than a distance of about four million miles, but NASA scientists still managed to catch it on tape.

How Roald Amundsen Won The Race To The Bottom Of The World

2012-12-15T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

On December 14, 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen's five-man expedition arrived at the South Pole on skis and dogsleds, beating Robert F. Scott's ill-fated team by a month. Amundsen, who left medical school at age 21 for a life at sea, was also the first person to cross the North Pole by airship and the first to traverse Canada's Northwest Passage.

Who Were The First Organisms To Live On Land?

2012-12-15T07:02:00.0000000+11:00

A new paper out in the journal Nature this week has stirred up an old debate among geologists about when, exactly, life on Earth first colonised dry land.

Adorable Beagle Diagnoses Deadly Infections By Sniffing You

2012-12-15T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

In hospitals, a nasty little bacterium called Clostridium difficile causes problems for patients - it's highly infectious and can cause diarrhea among people who are already sick. Diagnosing whether a patient has C. diff, as it's called, requires a stool sample, which can take days to analyse. So scientists at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam trained a beagle named Cliff to sniff out the nasty bacterium. The craziest part? Cliff doesn't need to sniff stool samples - he can tell just by walking up to a patient as the patient lies in bed.

How Many Model Rockets Would You Need To Get To Space? [Infographic]

2012-12-15T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Today, the always-great web-comic XKCD gets Wile E. Coyote on everyone by explaining how many model rockets you'd need to shoot a rocket into space. (Spoiler: you will need several model rockets.)

Sculptures Reimagine Pasta And Bamboo As Bacteria And DNA

2012-12-15T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

We only know a few things about these sculptural interpretations of the microscopic world from artist Sinead Foley. 1) The bacteria and cells are made mostly from everyday objects, like pasta. 2) The results are surprisingly detailed (maybe done through 3-D modeling?). 3) Every photo is stunning.

Are You Healthy Enough To Fly To Space?

2012-12-15T01:56:00.0000000+11:00

In a sign of the times in which we now live, a paper published in the latest edition of medical journal BMJ advises clinicians that they will soon be asked to clear patients for the rigors of spaceflight, and they need to be ready to do so. With space tourism becoming more feasible for more and more people, it's inevitable that patients are going so start asking their doctors for such evaluations, just as they might ask if they are health enough to go scuba diving or mountain climbing.

NASA's Twin Orbiters Will Crash Into The Moon On Monday

2012-12-14T09:04:00.0000000+11:00

Just shy of a full year encircling the moon, NASA's twin lunar probes are bidding farewell on Monday, crashing in a controlled fashion into a small mountain-like formation at the moon's north pole. The GRAIL twins, nicknamed Ebb and Flow, are almost out of fuel and their lives would come to an end anyway - but rather than let them fall out of the lunar sky, as it were, NASA is performing a kind of spacecraft euthanasia.

New Venomous Primate Species Discovered In Borneo

2012-12-14T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

In the jungles of Borneo, an international team of researchers have discovered a new species of slow loris, and classified two previously known subspecies as distinct species in their own rights. That up there is the Kayan loris, the new species.

North Korea's Satellite Is Tumbling Out Of Control

2012-12-14T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Here's something troubling to start your afternoon: North Korea launched a new satellite into space earlier this week and now it's apparently tumbling out of control amid all the other satellites that the world relies on.

Thank You, Apple Maps. Now Go Away.

2012-12-14T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

The terrifying few months of what will be forever known as Apple Mapgate (no it won't) are over. Google just released Google Maps for the iPhone, so we can all stick Apple Maps in our "Utilities" folder on our homescreens where it can sit comfortably next to other useless apps like Compass and Stocks. But here's the weird thing: Google didn't just package up the old Google Maps for iOS app and re-release it. They spent the past few months actually making a better app, with features the iOS version of Google Maps never had before.

How To Make Beer [Infographic]

2012-12-14T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

When the United States ratified the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933, Popular Science celebrated the end of Prohibition by getting completely wasted (probably) and publishing this lovely infographic on how to make beer. "With the removal of national restrictions against the manufacture and sale of beer, American brewers are again in action," said our June 1933 issue. "Their operations represent one of the most extensive applications of modern industrial chemistry."

Could Scientists Have Found A Gay Switch?

2012-12-14T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Gayness may not be in our genes, but in the molecules that regulate them. New research suggests that epigenetic factors - chemical "switches" attached to genes that turn them on or off - are a more plausible heritable mechanism behind homosexuality than DNA itself.

North Korea's Rocket Launch - Imminent Doom? No.

2012-12-13T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

Late yesterday, North Korea joined the spacefaring nations club, when it successfully launched a rudimentary satellite that now appears to be in orbit. North Korea being North Korea, this was a troublesome development. The nation's insular, military leadership is widely regarded as a rogue regime. It has brazenly developed a nuclear weapons program in the face of international objection and regular economic sanctions. And its "peaceful" space program is largely (and by my most expert accounts, accurately) perceived as a front for intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

Digital Tool Ages Your Face To Scare You Into Saving Money

2012-12-13T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Did you know that if you see an age-enhanced version of yourself, you're more likely to save extra money for retirement? Stanford researchers know, because they studied that effect in 2011, and Bank of America division Merrill Edge knows, because they're pointing to the Stanford study as the rationale behind a newly released online digital-aging program that exists to remind you that you're going to get old and die.

For New Lamps, An Unlikely Energy Source: Gravity

2012-12-13T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

Kerosene lamps used in off-grid, rural areas are a major problem. They're bad for people's health and the environment's. One startup's solution is to tap another, greener resource, something we all have in abundance: gravity.

A Hauntingly Beautiful Skateboarding Video Shot With A Hexacopter Drone

2012-12-13T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Among those who appreciate the craft, the skateboarding video is a cherished art form that has long been associated with unconventional filmmaking methods. This beautifully executed Czech production is no exception, shot via the versatile perspective of a camera-equipped hexacopter drone that captures an underlit, Tron-like skateboard (and rider) traversing a barren cityscape at night.

PSY, Mars, and Gabby Douglas: Google Sums Up The Year That Was 2012

2012-12-13T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

You probably searched Gabby Douglas, Mars Curiosity, and PSY's names on Google or YouTube, because you want to be up to date on news, memes, and tiny gymnasts. What you didn't know was that you were voting with each search. Google assembled the data from search trends to figure out the most-searched things of the year - it's called Zeitgeist 2012.

Very Important Science Finding: Put Your Cask Wine In The Fridge

2012-12-13T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Today in Very Important Science: if you're drinking bagged or boxed wine - and we're not going to tell you not to, it's good for you - make sure to keep it at around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. You snooty oenophiles with your wines in bottles, who cares, do whatever you want with your single-varietal Monopoly Man swill.

These Terrifying Handcuffs Can Shock And Drug Prisoners

2012-12-13T05:15:00.0000000+11:00

An Arizona-based company recently filed a patent for high-tech futuristic handcuffs that are, in a word, terrifying. In addition to restraining prisoners, the cuffs can also deliver electric shocks and sedatives.

Mexican Drug Smugglers Are Launching Pot Into The US With A Huge Pneumatic Cannon

2012-12-13T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

When we last checked in on the DIY innovations of Mexican cartel drug smugglers, we found them lobbing four-pound bales of marijuana over the Mexico-Arizona border with a trailer-mounted catapult. But technology never stands still. US Customs and Border Patrol agents recently found 33 canisters of marijuana in a field on the US side near the point where the Colorado River crosses the US-Mexico border, and they think the pot got there after being launched from a huge pneumatic cannon.

RIP Pixels?

2012-12-13T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

The pixel isn't perfect. For most everything, lining up tiny blocks and displaying them on a screen works well enough. But those blocks have limitations. Now a team of researchers is saying there's a better way to present onscreen images - one that'll replace the pixel in five years.

What Does A Climate Scientist Think Of Glenn Beck's Environmental-Conspiracy Novel?

2012-12-13T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

When I was first asked to review Glenn Beck's new tome Agenda 21, I feared I could not accomplish the task objectively. After all, Beck - as recounted in my own book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars - once suggested that I, and indeed all of my fellow climate scientists, commit hara-kiri out of shame for promoting the purportedly bogus science of climate change. Hard not to harbor a bit of a grudge after that.

The Strangest Thing You'll See Today: Air Pollution Represented By Nostril-Hair Length

2012-12-12T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

The colored balloons on this map of Asia represent current levels of air pollution, namely particulate pollution, which are at harmful levels for nearly 70% of developing Asian cities, according to Clean Air Asia. But the brightly colored dots on the map probably weren't what caught your eye - maybe it was the giant pigtails sprouting from the lone nose on the right?

China Fires Officials Who Sanctioned Secret Feeding Of Genetically Modified Rice To Kids

2012-12-12T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

Chinese leaders have fired three government officials involved in a study of genetically modified rice, after complaints that the study's subjects weren't properly informed. The subjects were kids whose parents didn't know what their kids were eating.

BigPic: Two And A Half Years Of Computer Use In One Incredible Image

2012-12-12T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

For a project titled Every Day of My Life, artist/programmer/designer Marcin Ignac used software to track, measure, and visualize his computer use every day for 2.5 years. The result: This beautiful, simple look at one of the most prominent aspects of daily life in the 21st century. Each line is a single day, with colors representing which app was being used at the time of day. (So, for example, your line might be red during this time, signaling that you're using your browser.) The black sections are times when he had his computer off - meaning that blacked-out section in every day is probably night.

A Robot With Bones And Muscles

2012-12-12T05:57:00.0000000+11:00

We see a lot of robots here, including some that mimic human movement. But this one gets a special prize for having the most muscles - or the robot equivalent, pulley-like contraptions - of any robot based on a natural creature. The final muscle tally for the University of Tokyo's Kenshiro robot is 160, with 50 in the legs, 76 in the trunk, 12 in the shoulder, and 22 in the neck. And it also has a slightly unnerving pair of tennis shoes.

Genetic Researchers Grow A Fish That Has Legs

2012-12-12T05:02:00.0000000+11:00

The fossil record has a lot of strange stories to tell about the evolution of life on Earth, and one of the strangest is how life moved from sea to land. Though clues from the record give the rough outlines of the story - limbs grew from fins in a series of stages in which fins grew longer and narrower - scientists are still filling in the details, trying to determine what genetic changes might have allowed the limbs to grow.

Concept Of "Purity" Makes Conservatives Care About Environmental Issues

2012-12-12T04:01:00.0000000+11:00

It's not that political conservatives don't care about things like climate change, recycling and deforestation - it's that they don't care about it the same way liberals do. True, they tend to be less concerned about it at first, but when you give them the right messages, they do care. If environmental issues are couched as defending the Earth's purity and sanctity, that is.

White Nose Syndrome In Bats Could Yield Clues About AIDS

2012-12-12T03:02:00.0000000+11:00

The millions of bats succumbing to a deadly fungal infection across the US will leave massive ecological holes in their wake - prime predators of insects are disappearing, for one, and cave flora and fauna that depend on bats could be in danger of collapsing. But research on the animals' immune responses could have one silver lining: helping AIDS patients.

FYI: How Long Would It Take Santa To Deliver Presents To Every Kid On Earth?

2012-12-12T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

About six "Santa months," according to Larry Silverberg, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University. He's a Santa math specialist (really) whose students took on the problem.

How The Internet Has Spread Around The World [Infographic]

2012-12-12T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

When Tim Berner-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1991, it was a bit of a misnomer - at the time, virtually all of the world's five million internet users were concentrated in just 12 countries, and 70 percent were dialing up from within the United States alone.

3D Painting Visualises Earthquakes In Real Time

2012-12-11T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

Design student James Boock is turning Christchurch's seismology into something more than a record of natural disaster. Quakescape, a project conceived in the aftermath of last year's earthquakes, transforms seismological data into a work of art in realtime, splashing color across a 3D topographical model of Christchurch that corresponds to the magnitude of the earthquakes that occur there.

New Human-Powered Styrofoam Plane

2012-12-11T07:01:00.0000000+11:00

A team of Japanese motorcycle makers may soon remind the world that another type of bike - one with pedals - can be an incredibly efficient way to get around. Team Aeroscepsy is gunning for a new world record for distance flown in an aircraft under human power.

Take A Virtual Trip To The Moon With Patrick Moore's Handy Guide

2012-12-11T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

British astronomer and television show host Patrick Moore died Sunday at his home in Selsey, England. He was 89. The beloved xylophone-playing, monocle-wearing scientist published his first paper about the moon when he was just 13 and went on to author more than 60 books about astronomy.

Stop Shooting Wolves, You Maniacs

2012-12-11T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Last week, an alpha female grey wolf known as 832F, perhaps the most widely seen wolf at Yellowstone National Park, was shot and killed after straying just outside the boundaries of the park and into greater Wyoming. Wyoming is a lunatic state that has legalized the mass shooting of an animal that poses basically no threat to anyone and is, in fact, an essential part of the ecosystem as a whole.

Science Can Now Turn Human Urine Into Brain Cells

2012-12-11T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

It turns out urine isn't just human waste. Chinese researchers have managed to reprogram kidney cells harvested from urine samples into neural cell progenitors - immature brain cells that can develop into various types of glial cells and neurons. Reprogramming cells has been done before, of course, but not with cells gleaned from urine and not via a method this direct (more on that in a moment). The technique could prove extremely helpful to those pursuing treatments for neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Watch A 10-Story Building Go Up In Two Days

2012-12-11T04:01:00.0000000+11:00

Prefabricated structures are getting lots of media attention right now, notably after China's BroadGroup put up a 30-story pre-fab hotel in 15 days with plans to build the world's tallest building in three months using the same technique. Now we have another entry in the taller-than-usual prefab building category: a 10-story building in Mohali, India, that was built in two days. TWO DAYS.

Latest Apple Maps Glitch Strands Motorists In Australian Wilderness

2012-12-11T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

The Apple Maps saga continues! The latest chapter finds police in Victoria, Australia, issuing a formal warning to motorists not to use the app. The reason: Police there have had to rescue half a dozen motorists who were quite literally lost in the wilderness after using the app's directions to try to navigate between cities. Some were stranded in a national park for up to 24 hours.

Shapeshifting Metamaterial Could Revolutionize How We Treat Wounds

2012-12-11T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers at Cornell University have somewhat accidentally created a strange new kind of metamaterial that flows like a liquid metal but also remembers its shape. In the presence of water, the liquid metamaterial snaps back into the form of its original container - a property that could have significant applications in treating wounds and beyond.

Why The Only Secure Password Is One You Don't Even Know That You Know

2012-12-11T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Hristo Bojinov wants you to forget your password. More precisely, he wants you to never really know it in the first place. Bojinov, a computer scientist at Stanford, and his colleagues have developed a computer program that can implant passwords in a person's subconscious mind - and retrieve them subconsciously too. The technique could make it impossible for, say, a high-security government agent to reveal his password; the agent wouldn't actually know the secret code. Eventually, the use of subconscious passwords could even trickle down to the rest of us. And considering the precarious state of password protection, that probably can't happen soon enough.

Why Isn't the US Afraid Of A Tsunami Hitting San Francisco?

2012-12-08T08:07:00.0000000+11:00

(This report from the PopSci Mothership in the US - pertinent because our editor-in-chief lives in California...)

When news broke of a 7.3-magnitude earthquake off the eastern coast of Japan early this morning, our first reaction was to fear a tsunami. The devastating earthquake that hit Japan last March and left 15,000 dead was in large part so damaging because of the ensuing tsunami, massive waves of ocean water which crashed up to six miles inland and over a hundred feet high. Luckily, Japan today's earthquake and its aftershocks seem to have minimal adverse effect, and the waves are not high enough to be damaging.

AirHarp, The Instrument You Play Without Touching Anything

2012-12-08T07:04:00.0000000+11:00

It looks like magic, but it's just technology. For a casual weekend hack, developer Adam Somers used a Leap Motion USB motion sensor device to turn his computer into a musical instrument. By adjusting settings in the AirHarp app and waving his fingers around like a wizard casting a hex, Somers was able to recreate the sound of a harp, playing in different keys, melodies and timbres. Watch the video to see and hear what we're talking about.

New Microscopy Technique Gets Close Enough To See The Lengths Of Atomic Bonds

2012-12-08T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

For the first time, scientists have used an imaging technique that's so precise that it's possible to see the different lengths of individual atomic bonds.

The Secret Weapons Behind Pearl Harbour

2012-12-08T05:15:00.0000000+11:00

Today, the US marks 71 years since the attack on Pearl Harbour that catapulted the United States into World War II (it was yesterday for us, of course). The attack was devastating. More than 2,400 people died and more than 1,000 were wounded. It was also, in the cold language of military science, wildly successful.

How To Scrub GPS Data From Your Photos; Or, How To Be Smarter Than Vice

2012-12-08T04:01:00.0000000+11:00

John McAfee - anti-virus pioneer, "person of interest" in Belize murder investigation, and launcher of increasingly bizarre media stories - has been captured. It happened after journalists from Vice accidentally published an iPhone photo of McAfee with embedded GPS data.

Does Edible Deodorant Work?

2012-12-08T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

The makers of Deo Perfume Candy claim that if you eat a few of their pink lozenges, the odour compounds contained therein will travel through your body and start oozing out of your pores, giving you a vague and pleasant rose-smelling aura. That's right. It's edible deodorant. But don't throw out your Speed Stick just yet. I tried it for a week, and suffice it to say "pleasant" is a wild overstatement.

Moon Trips: Only $750 Million!

2012-12-07T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

On the heels of SpaceX's vision of a human colony on Mars, here's another idea for people who think of outer space the way the rest of us think of Hawaii: a space-tourism startup is selling trips to the moon at $750 million each.

Video: A Black Hawk Helicopter Goes Autonomous

2012-12-07T06:02:00.0000000+11:00

Our brand new drones aren't the only things becoming increasingly autonomous. This newly-released video of a November 5 flight over the Diablo Range in California shows a US Army Black Hawk helicopter autonomously navigating through hills and valleys at low altitude.

Samsung's Galaxy Camera Is The Camera Of The Future [Review]

2012-12-07T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

To review the Samsung Galaxy Camera, Popular Photography's Dan Bracaglia lends his photographic expertise to talk about the camera from a photog's perspective, while Popular Science's gadget reviewer, Dan Nosowitz, reviews the camera from a gadget-geek's perspective.

How Scientists Turn The Ocean Into A Controlled Laboratory

2012-12-07T03:01:00.0000000+11:00

When marine biologist David Kline, of Australia's University of Queensland, set out for Heron Island in the Great Barrier Reef, he and his team were determined to help answer a pressing question: How will rising acidity from climate change affect coral reefs? So they brought along their Coral Proto FOCE, the first device that lets scientists manipulate acidity in a reef's natural environment.

You Built What?!: A Remote-Controlled Robo-Arm

2012-12-07T01:59:00.0000000+11:00

Two summers ago, Easton LaChappelle thought it would be fun to build a robotic arm controlled wirelessly using a glove. LaChappelle, then 14, knew nothing about electronics, programming, or robots-but he was bored and desperate for a challenge. So over the next couple of years, the teen, now a high school junior, toiled in his cramped bedroom workshop in Mancos, Colorado, ironing out the details. In time, he emerged with a robo-arm operated by a gaming glove-and his mind.

Love Of Spicy Food Is Built Into Your Personality

2012-12-07T01:01:00.0000000+11:00

When I was a kid, I'd watch in awe as my dad ate dinner. It wasn't just the heaps of food piled on his plate that impressed me. (The words "portion control" had yet to enter the public lexicon.) What always made me shake my head in disbelief was his curious habit of alternating bites of his meal with bites off a jalapeno pepper. To save time, he'd simply hold the pepper in one hand and his utensil in the other. I should also mention that my heritage is Indian, and that my mom served up traditional spicy dishes on a nightly basis. But it was never spicy enough for Dad.

Remembering Dave Brubeck, The Mathematical Pianist (1920-2012)

2012-12-06T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

I saw Dave Brubeck play, once. That's not that unusual; he performed pretty much right up until he died, earlier today, the day before his 92nd birthday. I was in high school, playing piano, trying to figure out what I wanted out of the instrument. I had been classically trained, and got tired of the constraints, of the tamped emotion, the lack of freedom. I had a year or so of jazz training, but I didn't much like playing standards, and I didn't like playing with other jazz kids, who in high school tend to play anonymous and masturbatory jazz-funk, almost exclusively. Pop music was what I loved, but the piano parts were all boring.

Today On Mars: Where Curiosity's Cruise Stage Crashed Down

2012-12-06T09:02:00.0000000+11:00

When the Mars Rover Curiosity left Earth, it was carrying a cruise stage, whose parts included a sun sensor and star scanner, propellant tanks, and a couple of antennae. The craft released the cruise stage, along with two 165-pound blocks of tungsten ballast, to gain some aerodynamic lift right before it hit Mars' atmosphere, preparing for the "seven minutes of terror" it would take to reach the surface.

Readers! Help Astronomers Study The Galaxy That's Going To Collide With Ours

2012-12-06T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Sometimes, scientists need a hand. There's a lot of data to sift through, and now more than ever, the public can be part of that sifting. Take this fun new project: a crowdsourced hunt for star clusters in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Study Says Women Can Spot Cheaters At A Glance

2012-12-06T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

It seems like you can't throw a dart at a wall of research without hitting a "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" claim. Recently, we've seen some good studies along those lines (and some not so good studies). Now here's another one, out of Australia: women, researchers say, can tell if a person they've never seen before has a history of infidelity.

Grand Award Winner: The Sand Flea

2012-12-06T06:39:00.0000000+11:00

Reconnaissance robots have typically required elaborate engineering to overcome the challenges of urban surveillance; models based on hummingbirds, flies, and cockroaches are all in development.

Sperm Count Is Falling In France, And Globally, Too, Study Says

2012-12-06T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

A biggest-of-its-kind study suggests that sperm counts are falling. By a lot. Researchers studied French men from 1989 to 2005, measuring their sperm counts regularly, and found that counts fell about one third in that 16-year period, from 74 million per millilitre to about 50 million. A steady yearly decrease of about 2 percent took it that low.

Social Robot Designed To Befriend Lonely Astronauts

2012-12-06T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

NASA has already sent its own humanoid Robonaut into orbit aboard the International Space Station, and now Japan's JAXA is following suit. The small humanoid will travel to the station next summer to reside in Japan's Kibo module, where it will keep JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata and the rest of the crew company.

Modernisation and Discretionary Income Positions Africa On The Rise

2012-12-06T04:02:00.0000000+11:00

As the portfolio manager for the T. Rowe Price Africa and Middle East fund, I look for investment opportunities across two large regions - more than 60 countries in all. Since there's much less research than usual written about the companies and countries the fund covers, it's critical for us to visit the countries and meet with management. On average, I'm traveling once every four weeks.

Scientists Might've Discovered World's Oldest Dinosaur

2012-12-06T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Paleontologists have discovered what very well might be the oldest known dinosaur, if in fact Nyasasaurus parringtoni is a dinosaur at all. A study published in the journal Biology Letters is describing a new species of prehistoric reptile that appears to predate the previous earliest-known dinosaur by 10 to 15 million years. That not only stands as a new superlative in dinosaur classification, but if confirmed, it fills a gap in the evolutionary timeline that's been puzzling scholars for years.

Robot Boat Makes it to Australia!

2012-12-06T01:11:00.0000000+11:00

In November of last year, Liquid Robotics dropped four of its brand new Wave Glider robots in the water just off the coast of San Francisco with hopes of making history and learning a thing or two in the offing. Two of the robots would set a course for Japan and the other two for Australia, each destination roughly 16,500 km away. It was to be the longest journey ever taken by any autonomous vehicle, a slow but steady swim across the entire Pacific Ocean that would collect and relay high resolution oceanographic and atmospheric data all along the way, stopping only for a quick maintenance check-up in Hawaii - if they made it that far at all.

Video: A Timelapse View Of Earth From The ISS

2012-12-05T09:45:00.0000000+11:00

Happy holidays from the International Space Station! Film student Giacomo Sardelli created this timelapse video of the ISS to promote world connectedness and peace on Earth. 'Tis the season. Although this background music is way more epic than "Frosty The Snowman."

NASA's Newest Engineering Challenge: How To Change A Light Bulb

2012-12-05T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

Astronaut insomnia is somewhat legendary at NASA, with astronauts popping sleep pills with regularity and averaging only six hours of sleep a night, far less than the eight and a half hours they're technically allotted. This can cause serious problems as fatigue sets in. To help matters, NASA is embarking on a major mission to change all the light bulbs on the space station.

Researchers Can Tell A Liar By The Nose With The 'Pinocchio Effect'

2012-12-05T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

To tell if a person is lying, just measure his or her nose. No, not the length - the temperature. Researchers at the University of Grenada are calling it the "Pinocchio Effect," after - you guessed it! - the marionette who just couldn't seem to tell the truth and become a real boy. Thermograms show that the old fairytale isn't all that far off. Though the nose doesn't grow when you lie, its temperature (along with that of the muscles in the inner eye) rises.

Video: 3D Printed Assault Rifle Breaks After Just 6 Shots

2012-12-05T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

A field test of a 3D printed assault rifle ended quickly over the weekend, with the printed plastic parts breaking apart after six rounds. It was the first live test of the printed AR-15 assault rifle, the Wiki Weapons Project's target for the first blueprint of a fully 3D printed gun. There are still plenty of improvements to make before the team will recommend assembly, as the test shows.

Animal Bluffs Inspire A New Breed Of Deceptive Robots

2012-12-05T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Squirrels have a habit of storing acorns and other nuts in various spots, then patrolling those stashes. But what happens if another opportunistic squirrel shows up to steal the bounty? The stash-owning squirrel fakes out the would-be thief, "checking" fake cache sites to throw the invader off the trail. Now researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have endowed robots with the same ability.

Spider Astronaut Dies On Display At Smithsonian

2012-12-05T02:59:00.0000000+11:00

The "spidernaut" Nefertiti has died. It was 10 months old. A "Johnson Jumper" spider, it was sent on board the International Space Station in July as part of an experiment; researchers watched to see if the spider would adapt its feeding behavior to weightlessness (it did).

African Elephant's Cataract Operation Is The Biggest Eye Surgery Ever

2012-12-05T02:02:00.0000000+11:00

Duchess, a 4.4-ton, 45-year-old African elephant at the Paignton Zoo in Devon, England, had already lost her right eye to glaucoma, and cataracts threatened to blind the other. So in September, veterinarians put Duchess under the knife for the second cataract operation ever performed on an elephant.

Better Than A Condom? Discreet Nanofabric Protects Against Pregnancy and HIV

2012-12-05T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

University of Washington researchers have developed a new contraceptive that for the first time offers women a discreet way to protect against both sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. An electrically spun nanofabric, the technology is designed to dissolve in the body, releasing preventative drugs. The goal: to empower women to make their own reproductive choices safely and cheaply.

How Moon Dust Could Improve Weather Predictions On Earth

2012-12-04T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

When John Lane stood in his backyard and pointed his laser at the rain, he wasn't thinking about weather on Earth. He was trying to figure out the best way to track lunar dust, part of a project to protect NASA's Apollo landers from would-be moon visitors. But he ended up helping weather forecasters anyway, by finding a new way to measure the size of raindrops - something weather radar can't do.

This Is What Thinking About Nothing Looks Like

2012-12-04T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

What do empty thoughts look like? According to the artist Gustav Metzger, they look like the weird blobby object above. Metzger hooked up his brain to a robotic sculpting machine that carved away at a piece of Portland Stone based on the stimuli it received from Metzger's EEG readings as he tried to think of nothing at all. Titled "Null Object," the work is now on display at London's Work Gallery.

What Ancient Antarctic Microbes Reveal About The Hunt For Extraterrestrial Life

2012-12-04T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

In a frigid lake some 65 feet below Antarctica's icy surface, NASA scientists and their partners from the Desert Research Institute in Nevada and several other institutions have made an important discovery both for our understanding of life on Earth and for the search for extraterrestrial life. In the briny depths of Lake Vida, an oxygen-free, nitrous oxide-rich saltwater body buried underneath Antarctic ice for millennia, the researchers have found a thriving colony of bacteria. This, in an environment that would instantly extinguish most life.

Mmmmm? Scientists Make Bread Last 60 Days

2012-12-04T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Hard truth is, we waste 40 per cent of the food we buy, whether because we forget about it in the back of the fridge, fail to wrap it properly, or something else. It's equivalent to about nine kilos per person per month, according to one study. Now a new spinoff company claims it can preserve at least some of our food for longer, by zapping it with microwaves.

FIPEL Lighting Could Replace Fluorescents

2012-12-04T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Like the desktop printer and the fax machine, the fluorescent overhead light might soon see a diminished role around the office. Researchers at Wake Forest University have developed a field-induced polymer elecroluminescent (FIPEL) lighting technology that silently gives off a soft, white glow, sans the annoying hum and yellow tint of fluorescent bulbs or the sharp, bluish hue of LED light fixtures.

FYI: What Do Forensic Chemists Do, And Why Would They Cheat?

2012-12-04T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Earlier this fall, a forensic chemist at the Massachusetts-based crime lab William A. Hinton State Laboratory was charged with obstruction of justice. Annie Dookhan allegedly mixed drug samples, neglected to test them properly and forged colleagues' signatures throughout her nine-year career to drive up her productivity. She might not have even received the master's degree she claimed to have (University of Massachusetts officials are denying her credentials). Now a grand jury is investigating the case and is expected to return indictments against the disgraced chemist some time after today. The story is like something straight out of "Law & Order."

MIT Researchers Create The Swiss Army Knife Of The Robotics World

2012-12-01T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

MIT is calling this tiny device the Swiss army knife of the robotics world, though that doesn't really seem to do it justice. Developed at the university's Center for Bits and Atoms, the milli-motein is a caterpillar-sized robot that can be folded into assorted shapes, signaling a future in which devices shapeshift into almost anything imaginable.

As Kilauea Volcano Spews Lava Into The Ocean, Tourists Flock To The Scene

2012-12-01T08:44:00.0000000+11:00

Remember those plucky writers who were reckless enough to walk outside during Hurricane Sandy? Oh, right...that was us. But we at PopSci might not be the only ones who enjoy a good disaster despite the danger. A volcano pouring lava into the ocean, for example, might be pretty impossible to resist. Hawaii tourism officials are banking on that.

FYI: Can Viagra Make You A Better Athlete?

2012-12-01T07:17:00.0000000+11:00

Over in the US they take their sport seriously. VERY seriously. Boner-pill seriously. Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall caused a great engorgement in the wit of the sports commentariat when he admitted that he's "heard (of) guys using like Viagra, seriously" to gain a competitive edge on the field.

Carbomorph - The Key To 3D Printing

2012-12-01T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

For a long time now, the ability to print electronic circuitry and components on commercially available 3D printers has been viewed as the development that will thrust 3D printing out of its current nascent maker space and into the mainstream of both manufacturing and home fabrication. And while it's already been demonstrated on specialized printers in the lab, researcher at the University of Warwick in the UK have developed a low-cost material they've named "carbomorph" that is conductive, piezoresistive, and printable in currently available, consumer-affordable 3D printers.

In 2013, Free Schools In England Will Have To Teach Evolution In The Classroom

2012-12-01T04:21:00.0000000+11:00

Scientists were concerned that children in England's free schools - taxpayer-funded schools that aren't run by local authorities - might not learn about evolution in schools run by creationists.

BigPic: The Northern Lights Like You've Never Seen Them Before

2012-12-01T04:02:00.0000000+11:00

In pictures and in person, the Earth's aurora looks sorta like wispy clouds made of emerald fuzz. That's gorgeous and all, but we need a clearer picture for scientific study. Auroras, which happen when charged particles from the sun enter Earth's magnetic field, could reveal a lot to us about how the Earth and the Sun interact. Most cameras just swallow all the light into one image when you take a picture, so researchers would have to use filters to study specific bands of the spectrum.

Which Dates Matter Most To Us? A Weighted Calendar [Infographic]

2012-12-01T01:59:00.0000000+11:00

Which dates matter? All of them, of course. But there are some we talk about more than others, and this calendar from web comic xkcd gives those dates prime real estate.

Military Uniforms Of The Future Will Automatically Turn Into Chemical Suits In The Presence Of Threats

2012-12-01T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Soldiers on the battlefield may soon be getting a second skin. Researchers at UMass Amherst are developing a new nanotube-based fabric intended for use in military combat uniforms that protects grunts from chemical and biological agents. But unlike the cumbersome and (really, really) hot chemical suits the military currently issues to mitigate those kinds of threats, this material will automatically switch from a highly breathable state to a protective one, triggered by the presence of a chemical or biological threat. The uniform may well know the threat is present before the soldier does.

To Fight Winter Blahs, Sweden Offers Light Therapy At The Bus Stop

2012-11-30T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Days will keep getting shorter as we approach the winter solstice, which means fewer and fewer hours of sunlight. That can be depressing at normal mid-North American latitudes, so imagine how bad it gets in a place like Sweden. To fight the winter doldrums, a Swedish utility is installing UV lights at bus stations.

No Organics Yet For Mars Rover Curiosity, NASA Warns

2012-11-30T06:59:00.0000000+11:00

NASA's forthcoming news conference (scheduled for Monday) about the Mars rover Curiosity's latest findings may not be so "earth-shaking," it turns out. The busy rover has not found any evidence of organic material on Mars - at least not yet.

The Big-Boy Microsoft Surface Pro Comes at a Big-Boy Price

2012-11-30T06:09:00.0000000+11:00

In case you're still confused (because it is confusing): the Microsoft Surface we've been talking about lately is the Surface RT, which is basically like a tablet. The Surface Pro, though it looks pretty much like the Surface RT, has full laptop capabilities, just like any other Windows 8 computer.

'Intelligent' Rifle Pre-Tags Target

2012-11-30T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Taking the "sport" out of "sport shooting" and the "man" out of "marksman," a company called TrackingPoint has developed what it calls "Intelligent Digital Tracking Scopes" for use on its "Precision Guided Firearms." The latter is something of a misnomer, as neither the munition itself nor the firearm is guided, but the shooter is - sort of. TrackingPoint's technology allows a shaky shooter to digitally tag a target through the optic, which then won't let the firearm discharge until it is lined up perfectly on the target.

US Store Staples Will Offer On-Demand 3D Printing

2012-11-30T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

3D printing is at an awkward, prepubescent stage right now. The printers aren't exactly common, but a few early adopters have them. That leaves out the people who'd like to use them occasionally without investing in a printer of their own, and that seems like the market Staples is catering to by offering 3D printing to customers.

What Are Your Odds Of Winning The Lottery? [Infographic]

2012-11-30T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

People have just won that ridiculous, record-breaking US$579.9 million Powerball jackpot. Two people, even! But you know who didn't win the jackpot? A lot more people. Amazingly, this holds true in Australia as well as the US. Voluntary taxation you say? Well, this infographic shows exactly how crappy your chances are of winning the lottery - and how lucky today's winners really are.

Winged Robots Will Live In Cows' Stomachs To Monitor Their Methane Burps

2012-11-30T03:06:00.0000000+11:00

Cow burps are a problem. Also cow farts. Those are responsible for 28 per cent of all human-related methane emissions. When that methane is released into the atmosphere, they heat up the already warming planet. So some researchers are enlisting technology to help out.

Turn Your Favorite Mitts Into Gadget-Compatible Manipulators

2012-11-30T01:58:00.0000000+11:00

Winter gloves and gadgets don't mix. Most touchscreens use capacitive sensing to complete a weak electrical circuit through skin and locate our tapping. And while wool, cotton, and leather gloves insulate hands from the cold, they block the body's ability to shuttle electrons. Strategic stitching with conductive thread, however, can prevent essential electronics from becoming unresponsive bricks the moment you bundle up.

FYI: Why Are Mean People So Hot?

2012-11-30T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Mean people are attractive because of their meanness, not in spite of it. What I call meanness is more officially known as the "Dark Triad" of personality traits-narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. A recent study shows that people who exhibit these traits are better than people who score lower on the Dark Triad at making themselves appear more attractive.

Cadbury's Chocolate Of The Future Doesn't Melt Even At 40 Degrees

2012-11-29T09:04:00.0000000+11:00

We've known since the advent of the cream-filled Cadbury Egg that scientists at the confectionary company like to play fast and loose with the rules of chocolatiering. But the latest development out of Cadbury's R&D facility in Birmingham, UK, has us wondering if they've crossed that delicate line between genius and madness. They call it "temperature-tolerant chocolate." But let's call it what it is: chocolate that doesn't melt.

Largest Quasar Ever Discovered Burns 100 Times Brighter Than Entire Milky Way

2012-11-29T07:48:00.0000000+11:00

Astronomers have found a galaxy whose super-luminous nucleus - called a quasar - is burning 100 times as much energy as the entire Milky Way galaxy.

Skylon Spaceplane Engine Endorsed By European Space Agency

2012-11-29T06:57:00.0000000+11:00

The Skylon, a concept spaceplane that (theoretically) could go from a standing start to orbit and back without disposing of any rocket stages, took another big step forward today as tests independently audited by the European Space Agency confirmed that the Sabre engine underpinning it is conceptually sound. It's the second key endorsement from the ESA that Skylon and the Sabre engine have picked up in the past two years - giving Sabre-maker Reaction Engines cause to call its technology the biggest engine breakthrough since the jet.

SpaceX Plans Mars Colony

2012-11-29T05:45:00.0000000+11:00

SpaceX founder/Tony Stark movie inspiration Elon Musk made some heads turn this week, as heads are wont to do when they hear someone plans to ship 80,000 people to Mars. In a talk at the Royal Aeronautical Society, Musk offered early ideas on how to start a colony on the Red Planet. Then, yesterday, he doubled down with a tweet.

Britain Is Testing An Amphibious House That Rises Along WIth Floodwaters

2012-11-29T04:58:00.0000000+11:00

When floodwaters rise there aren't a lot of places to hide, and in the oft-rainy UK that can spell big problems and major property damage. So in an attempt to mitigate the problem, British authorities have just built the country's first amphibious house on the banks of the River Thames. When the river rises, the house rises with it. Bring on the Biblical deluge.

Korean Government Will Intervene On Gadget Addiction, Starting With 3-Year-Olds

2012-11-29T03:28:00.0000000+11:00

Gadgets and the Internet are big in South Korea. Really big, as this Associated Press story points out.

Clues To Climate Of Historical Earth Lie In Ancient Human Feces

2012-11-29T02:42:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers studying past climates have a handy new tool for uncovering ancient human settlements: Human feces. Apparently biomarkers only found in the intestines of higher mammals can persist in lake sediment, serving as an indicator that humans were living, eating and, yes, excreting in a given area.

Awesome Color Wheels Made From Musician Names And Song Titles [Infographic]

2012-11-29T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

The designers of We Are Dorothy are masters at representing snippets of pop culture in fresh, visual ways. The British team has created maps for a musical town (Penny Lane, Highway 61) and a Los Angelesesque city atlas with cinematic landmarks (Reservoir Dogs, Jurassic Park). As a followup to those, and in that same vein, their newest project is pure pop Pantone: colour charts that feature only colours named for songs and musicians.

5 Of Physics's Greatest Sex Scandals

2012-11-28T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

We know it can be hard to resist the temptation of bikini models on the Internet, but physicist Paul Frampton was duped pretty bad. The University of North Carolina professor flew to Bolivia to meet up with model Denise Milani, but Milani never showed up. Instead, a man with a briefcase claiming to be Milani's intermediary sent Frampton on a drug smuggling mission. Frampton was arrested before he made it back the United States and convicted last week. We're all fools in love, huh?

Deep In The Earth's Core, Clues About Its Mysterious Birth

2012-11-28T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

We've known for over half a century that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, but for people like University of California, Davis geologist Qing-zhu Yin, that number just isn't good enough - they need to determine what digit comes after the '5'. Yin has spent the last fifteen years trying to figure out exactly how our solar system formed - how, over a span of some tens of millions of years, a large chaotic disc of dust and gas turned itself into eight planets in orderly orbit around a central star.

Which City Has The Most Nobel Prize Winners? [Infographic]

2012-11-28T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Courtesy of Italian design agency Accurat, here's a simple, attractive look at data from the Nobel Prizes. It's in Italian, but like most well-done infographics, it doesn't require too much reading to get the idea. At a glance, you can tell prize-winners in economics are older than the average age for all categories, and winners in chemistry and physics are older than they were in the early 20th century. (By contrast, the age for peace prize winners looks more erratic. Take a look at those orange circles.) There's also a look at winners by home city (New York takes the crown), and a space for university affiliation of the laureates. Check out a bigger version here.

LHC's Latest Particle Collisions Find What May Be A New Form Of Matter

2012-11-28T05:03:00.0000000+11:00

Some unusual new physics may be emerging at the Large Hadron Collider, where particles are behaving in a surprising way. Collisions between protons and lead nuclei might be forming a new type of matter that relies on quantum entanglement, according to particle physicists.

Students Learn Better With Star Trek-Style Touchscreen Desks

2012-11-28T04:09:00.0000000+11:00

Observe the criticisms of nearly any major public education system in the world, and a few of the many complaints are more or less universal. Technology moves faster than the education system. Teachers must teach at the pace of the slowest student rather than the fastest. And - particularly in the United States - grade school children as a group don't care much for, or excel at, mathematics. So it's heartening to learn that a new kind of "classroom of the future" shows promise at mitigating some of these problems, starting with that fundamental piece of classroom furniture: the desk.

Wii Mini Coming December 7 for $99

2012-11-28T02:31:00.0000000+11:00

Well, this was unexpected. Nintendo is trying the take-a-cool-thing-and-make-it-smaller business model. A Best Buy blog post gives the details on the Wii Mini.

Gray Matter: Finding Water Where It's Least Expected

2012-11-28T02:01:00.0000000+11:00

Water hides itself really well. Its molecules can form weak chemical bonds with many substances, allowing it to remain concealed within their crystal structures. There's no sign of water's presence-no dampness, no softness, no anything-until something triggers its release.

Boxee TV Review: Not Ready For Primetime

2012-11-28T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

When I spoke to Boxee CEO Avner Ronen in the run-up to the release of the Boxee TV, it was hard not to see the nascent set-top box as the best new tool for those wanting to ditch pay TV. It would have apps like Netflix and YouTube, sure, but it would also be a Boxee, so it'd play downloaded videos in that great, clean way Boxee always has, and then it'd have this cool new cloud DVR so it could record live TV shows and play them back on any device. That's everything! But Ronen repeatedly insisted that the Boxee TV was not a cure-all for cord-cutters. He said it was just a component, not a complete solution. I thought he was just trying to play nice with the content providers like Comcast and Viacom, feigning modesty so they wouldn't see Boxee as an enemy.

Samsung Thinks It'll Release Flexible OLED Displays Next Year

2012-11-27T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Samsung is "in the last stage of development" for flexible plastic OLED displays, and that the displays will be released in the first half of 2013.

What The Future Will Look Like, According To Famous Science Fiction [Infographic]

2012-11-27T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

Our science fiction isn't always on the nose. 1984 didn't look exactly like 1984, and 2001 didn't bring us the kind of Space Odysseys we envisioned. So forgive us for being skeptical about predictions pegged to dates that haven't been reached yet - the subject of this terrific visualization by Italian designer Giorgia Lupi.

How Kids (And Other Amateurs) Are Improving Science

2012-11-27T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Scientists often spread themselves too thin trying to gather and monitor vast amounts of data, so why not outsource some of that work to non-scientists? It's only getting easier to collaborate with citizen scientists. Volunteers can enlist through social media, gather field data through a smartphone app, then put all of that into an organized web database fresh for the analysing.

The Highway Patrol Of The Future Is A Robot

2012-11-27T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

Every year, the Design Challenge - formulated by and for the LA Auto Show - asks the automotive industry's most advanced design labs to speculate on possible futures as they pertain to the continuing evolution of the automobile. This year's theme: highway patrol 2025. Entries from the likes of GM, Subaru, BMW, and Honda naturally show a lot of imagination, but more than that they show a degree of agreement between the industry's brightest creatives that the future is going to be crowded, full of traffic jams, and above all very, very automated.

BigPic: Sun Gone Wild

2012-11-27T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Every time the sun lashes out with another beautiful but potentially threatening solar flare or coronal mass ejection, we are reminded that the naturally occurring solar cycle is approaching a "solar maximum" in 2013 and that solar activity is on the ascent. But what does that mean? If you're having a hard time picturing an active ball of flaming nuclear fusion versus a less-active ball of flaming nuclear fusion, simply see above.

With Electrodes Implanted In The Retina, Blind Patient Can Read

2012-11-27T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

A new eye prosthetic can download electrical data right into a blind person's retina, bypassing a camera and placing digital information right onto the nerve cells. A blind patient who used the device could read Braille patterns in less than a second, according to Swiss researchers.

Laser-Cut Scotch Tape Makes A Tiny Gripping Robotic Claw

2012-11-27T04:05:00.0000000+11:00

Scotch tape is indispensable this time of year, even for the least-skilled gift wrappers among us. Now it may have another use that lasts well beyond the wrapping paper frenzy: a shape-changing gripper.

Can Taking A Pill Before Bed Get Rid Of Bed Bugs?

2012-11-27T03:12:00.0000000+11:00

Can you cure a bed bug infestation just by downing drugs? While the idea has appeal, particularly for people afflicted with nightly bites and for scientists dealing with a pest that is increasingly difficult to kill, the short answer is probably no. But before we get to the long answer, some background.

Google Nexus 4 Review: A Phone You Should Buy

2012-11-22T06:15:00.0000000+11:00

The Nexus 4 is the first Android phone that combines all the disparate parts of a phone - interface, options, ease of use, speed and smoothness, depth of features, quality and number of apps - in the right way. It is the best Android phone I've ever used, sure, but it's the only Android phone I've ever used that feels as intentional as the iPhone. It feels like it was put together with a vision of how this phone should work as a whole - not just "add this feature, add this feature." It's probably the best smartphone on the market, period.

These Beautiful Nano-Rainbows Could Make Better TVs

2012-11-22T05:38:00.0000000+11:00

It's difficult to manage colour when you get to the nanoscale, but researchers from King's College London have found a way to trap light on nanostructures. Based on the shape of the structure, they can capture a rainbow created on gold film that's 100 times smaller than a human hair.

Watch This Awesome Robot Play Catch Better Than Your Dad

2012-11-22T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Fancy a round of catch? This Disney robot plays an eerily humanlike game. In a combination of engineering and sorcery, researchers created a robot that follows the ball in the air with its eyes, catches the ball in its hands, and reacts when it misses a catch. Also, it juggles.

To Make Steam Without Boiling Water, Just Add Sunlight And Nanoparticles

2012-11-22T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Today in mind-bendingly cool stuff that nanoparticles can do: A team of researchers at Rice University in Texas has demonstrated a mechanism by which they can create steam in just seconds by focusing sunlight on a mixture of water and nanoparticles. This isn't just some artificial means of lowering boiling point either; this solar powered "boiler" can produce steam before the water even gets warm to the touch, without ever bringing the aggregate water to a boil.

Scientists Discover An Exoplanet So Massive They're Not Even Sure It's A Planet

2012-11-21T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

You know we've found something new and interesting when scientists don't really know how to classify it. Using the Subaru Telescope an international team of astronomers has discovered a "super-Jupiter" so massive that it seems they're not quite sure whether to call it a planet or a low-mass brown dwarf (in other words, a star that failed to fire). Located roughly 170 light-years from Earth, the host star is roughly 2.5 times more massive than the sun and its planet is about 13 times larger than Jupiter, making this the highest-mass star to ever host a directly imaged orbital companion - especially one of this size.

Optical Camouflage Renders The Backseat Of A Car Transparent

2012-11-21T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

The problem with the backseat - really with the whole rear of the car - is that it's in your way when you're trying to reverse. So researchers at Keio University in Japan have applied optical camouflage technology to automobiles, making the back seat appear transparent so the driver can see straight through it when reversing.

DHS Is Experimenting With A Huge Inflatable Plug To Stop Future Flooding Of Transit Tunnels

2012-11-21T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

When Hurricane Sandy struck New York City a few weeks ago, seven of the 14 under-river subway tunnels flooded as a result of the storm surge, halting operation of some subway lines for more than a week.

FYI: Can You Make An Authentic Twinkie At Home?

2012-11-21T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Last week, Hostess Brands, Inc. announced it was going out of business, raising fears of an orphaned Twinkie the Kid, inciting Twinkie runs on eBay, and turning up home-made recipes for the snacks. (So many recipes.) It's since been reported that mediation will save the company, but we still need to know: Can you really make a homemade Twinkie taste the same as the version with the Hostess stamp of approval?

Could A Sonic Weapon Make Your Head Explode?

2012-11-21T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

There's an elevator in the Brown University Biomed building (hopefully fixed by now) that I've heard called "the elevator to hell," not because of destination but because there is a bent blade in the overhead fan. The elevator is typical of older models, a box 2 metrer by 2 metres by 3 metres with requisite buzzing fluorescent, making it a perfect resonator for low-frequency sounds. As soon as the doors close, you don't really hear anything different, but you can feel your ears (and body, if you're not wearing a coat) pulsing about four times per second. Even going only two floors can leave you pretty nauseated. The fan isn't particularly powerful, but the damage to one of the blades just happens to change the air flow at a rate that is matched by the dimensions of the car. This is the basis of what is called vibroacoustic syndrome-the effect of infrasonic output not on your hearing but on the various fluid-filled parts of your body.

Human Rights Watch Wants An International Ban On Autonomous Killer Robots

2012-11-20T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

The threat of autonomous killer robots is very real and we have to stop them before it's too late.

Great Apes Might Experience Mid-Life Crises Just Like Humans

2012-11-20T08:01:00.0000000+11:00

Across cultures and countries, humans experience a pretty well-defined U-shaped curve in our happiness. We're happy when we're young, and well-being descends into its nadir during midlife, only to rise again in old age. Midlife crises are a cliche, but they're real - and they're just as real in our primate cousins, apparently.

Watch Paralysed Dogs Walk Again After Nose Cell Transplants

2012-11-20T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

For the past few years, scientists at Cambridge University have been working with dogs who were paralysed in accidents to test therapies and new cell treatments that reverse the damage. A new study shows that their methods can work, restoring dogs' ability to walk by using cells grown from the lining of the animals' noses. In the study, 23 dogs with transplanted cells were able to walk again.

How Israel's ‘Iron Dome' Knocks Almost Every Incoming Missile Out Of The Sky

2012-11-20T06:01:00.0000000+11:00

The clash between Israel and Hamas-backed fighters in the Gaza Strip continued over the weekend and into today, with the death toll in Gaza inching toward 100 (there were 91 recorded deaths as of Tuesday morning). But amid the troubling images and stark numbers trickling out of the conflict there, one set of numbers represents a rare bright spot: the number of Hamas rockets that Israel's "Iron Dome" missile-defense shield is knocking out the sky.

How To Build An LED Lightsaber [Infographic]

2012-11-20T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

This infographic is a step-by-step guide for building a nerd's dream: grab some PVC, spray paint, LEDs, and a few other DIY trinkets, then make a lightsaber.

Are People Getting Dumber? One Geneticist Thinks So

2012-11-20T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

There's this great recurring "Saturday Night Live" skit from several years back where Phil Hartman plays an unfrozen caveman who goes to law school. He pontificates on the American judicial system while marveling at modern technology like "the tiny people in the magic box" (a TV). It fits a common stereotype: Human ancestors were, well, cavemen, and not as smart as we are today. A provocative new hypothesis from a Stanford geneticist tries to turn this stereotype upside down.

BigPic: From Above, These Saharan Mountains Look Like Abstract Art

2012-11-20T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

At ground level the Sahara desert often seems somewhat monochromatic, but from above that picture changes completely.

Researchers Achieve Quantum Teleportation Between Two Macroscopic Objects For The First Time

2012-11-20T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Sometimes it's tough to get excited about stuff happening in quantum technologies, not because it's anything less than fascinating but because it can be so hard to wrap your head around this stuff and anyhow the practical applications often seem very far away. But this is one of those milestones that you have to appreciate: Physicists have for the first time teleported quantum information from one macroscopic object to another.

Issue #49 - December 2012

2012-11-19T11:09:00.0000000+11:00

It's that time of year again! Time for the annual PopSci Best of What's New awards! We scrutinise, evaluate and occasionally subject to robo-showdown a massive collection of 100 innovations from fields such as entertainment, engineering, aerospace, automotive and more. But that's not all!

Nintendo Wii U: The PopSci Review

2012-11-18T05:32:00.0000000+11:00

The big criticism with Nintendo consoles is that they're engineered for kids. The original Wii was innovative and flat-out fun enough to make it all work - it seemed charming rather than simplistic. But the new Nintendo console, the Wii U, is careful not to seem too playful and innocent - launch titles, for example, have you playing as a brooding Batman and a space marine. And you'll be doing it with a goofy new controller, which looks like a PS3 controller with a 6.2-inch tablet between your two hands. And it usually feels really right, even if not every game makes the most of it.

FYI: What's The Most Porous Material On Earth?

2012-11-17T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

It goes without saying that climate change is one of the thorniest problems of our time. If only we had some kind of sponge to just soak up all that carbon dioxide! The Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) developed by UCLA researchers might not be a catchall solution. But as the most porous materials on earth, they can be used to store, separate or convert molecules - and could help absorb harmful gases before they reach the air.

From Google, A Breathtaking Interactive Journey Through The Stars

2012-11-17T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Here's a beautiful way to make yourself feel insignificant. A bunch of space-loving Google employees got together to make 100,000 Stars, a virtual tour through, well, 100,000 stars. You can zoom in and out, tumbling through our galaxy and beyond, while listening to a soundtrack from videogame score composer Sam Hulick.

The Latest From iRobot's Research Lab

2012-11-17T07:58:00.0000000+11:00

The nice folks at iRobot were kind enough to swing through our offices yesterday to demo some of the latest things coming out of their robotics research labs - which, from the look of things, must be a pretty amazing place to clock in every day. iRobot, if you're unfamiliar, makes everything from the adorable little Roomba robots that putter around cleaning floors to the Packbots and Warrior robots that have helped military EOD teams disable improvised explosives devices in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. They're out at the front of the so-called robotics revolution, and so when they hand us a thumb drive full of brand new videos of robots we've never seen before, well, we just have to share them with you.

Nokia Lumia 920 Review: A Fisher-Price Phone For A Giant

2012-11-17T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

The Lumia is a phone I want to like much more than I do. Each Nokia phone has all this weight on its shoulders: Nokia, the legendary company, is basically dead. Will the phone save Nokia? Windows Phone, the wild card third platform that could compete with Android and iOS, is totally underused. Will the phone save Windows Phone?

This Bug Has More Legs Than Anything Else

2012-11-17T06:01:00.0000000+11:00

Illacme plenipes, the "leggiest" (most-legged? legfullest?) animal in the world, hasn't been seen since 1928, when government scientists first spotted it. But it and its 750 legs were found again near Silicon Valley a few years ago, and it's now being described for the first time in the journal ZooKeys.

FYI: What Is Sea Foam? Where Does It Come From?

2012-11-17T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Just a few hours before a tornado touched down in Queens, New York this past September, I was hanging out on a beach in The Rockaways, a narrow peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic just southeast of Brooklyn (though it is technically a part of Queens). The storm hadn't rolled in yet, but the wind had - little white clouds raced across the sky, sand flew through the air above the beach, and, along the shoreline, huge globs of foam blew off the water and collected on the beach in thick, jiggling blankets of yellowish-white. Foam built up in big, shapeless piles behind rocks, and dollops of the stuff broke free and scampered up the beach like animate loogies.

3D Printing Will Turn Homes Into Mini Factories

2012-11-17T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

In 1984, inventor Charles Hull built the first rapid-prototyping machine, a massive device that turned digital blueprints into plastic models constructed layer by ultrathin layer. Since then, 3D printers have shrunk from room-filling behemoths to tabletop boxes just larger than a typical ink jet. They have also dropped in cost from hundreds of thousands of dollars to as little as $500. Home printing has flowered as a result, with amateurs "fabbing" anything in plastic, from cellphone cases to scale models of Rodin's Walking Man. Yet such tinkering, however nifty, is simply 3D printing's first act. Its real promise is much greater: to turn every home into a self-sustaining manufacturing and recycling center.

Reimagining Buildings Of The Past With The Materials Of The Future

2012-11-17T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Part of the reason we're enamored with our famous buildings is for the sense of history they impart. When you look at the White House you're not just looking at a building; you're looking at our shared presidential past. That's great. But if you coldly stare at those structures like they were just well-molded hunks of concrete and steel, you might fairly wonder: can't we do better?

Super Tractor Messes with our Eyes!

2012-11-16T13:40:00.0000000+11:00

Souping up a car is no big thing. Heck, there are shops you can go to and by shiny metallic blue parts right off the shelf.

Souping up a tractor on the other hand, that's something else entirely...

Utah Cops May Be Required To Wear Camera Glasses

2012-11-16T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

Memo to Salt Lake City Police Department: Lifeblogging was never cool. Neither, come to think of it, are the glasses you see above. But the chief of police of Salt Lake City is hoping to make the above accessory mandatory for his on-duty officers, as well as for every other officer in the state. Much like dashboard cameras currently log what's happening in front of a police officers car during a shift, this tiny glasses-mounted camera will record everything an officer sees - and does - while on patrol.

US Navy To Retire Mine-Sweeping Dolphins And Use Robots Instead

2012-11-16T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Soon, dolphins and sea lions won't be hunting mines any more. The US Navy is phasing out the Marine Mammal Program. Though trained sea mammals have been serving the Navy for 50 years, they're retiring to make way for cheaper, easier-to-manage robots.

BeerSci: What's The Connection Between Hops And Marijuana?

2012-11-16T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

"Are hops and marijuana related?" I've fielded that question many times, usually after someone has sampled an especially resinous IPA - although at least one PopSci editor asked me the same question when looking at a photo of the leaves of a hop plant.

The answer to that question is yes and no.

Today In Wallpapers: A Climate Model Spits Out A Beautiful Image Of Global Aerosols

2012-11-16T04:08:00.0000000+11:00

The climate is soon coming to destroy you, but in the meantime you can enjoy this beautiful piece of the modern body of climate science that unequivocally spells your eventual doom.

The Best Review of Halo 4

2012-11-16T03:46:00.0000000+11:00

Halo. Refreshing new take on a venerable series? Maybe not...

"The plot is hysterical in both senses of the word, at the same time. Things are always happening, and there is always a blast door that must be shut on penalty of galactic holocaust..."

Four Of The Greatest Polymers Of All Time

2012-11-16T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Here at PopSci, we usually focus on the newest innovations in science and technology. But many past innovations in polymer science - the study of plastics and other similar materials - are still relevant and deserve recognition. They've saved lives, kept babies dry and made huge shark observation tanks possible. Some have tradenames that have gone on to represent an entire class of product, such as Kevlar. Others lurk in obscurity. Here are some of the most important materials and a glimpse into how scientists designed them to work their magic.

New E-Textbooks Will Tattle To Lecturers About Students' Reading Habits

2012-11-16T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Digital textbooks seem like they should be a boon to students. They all fit on a single, thin device. They're (hopefully) cheaper. But dead-tree books beat them out on at least one thing: they won't tattle on you for not doing the assigned reading.

The Top 25 Innovations of the Last 25 Years

2012-11-16T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Ever since we inaugurated the Best of What's New (BOWN) awards 25 years ago, the bar we as editors set for our honorees has remained extremely high...

Metamaterial Focuses Radio Waves, Could Yield Up-Close Views Of Molecules

2012-11-15T09:01:00.0000000+11:00

When nature's materials can't do the job scientists want done, it's time to head into the lab and get creative. That means entering the impressive, strange genre of metamaterials - stuff with a designer molecular structure that gives it unique properties. The latest entry in that field: a metamaterial lens from MIT that can bend and focus radio waves, which could be used to bring us higher-resolution images - of outer space or of molecules on Earth.

Lonely Orphaned Planet Spotted Wandering Aimlessly Through Interstellar Space

2012-11-15T08:29:00.0000000+11:00

It's lonely way out there in interplanetary space, lonelier still if you don't have a star to call home. But this solitary life is all CFBDSIR2149 has ever known. Astronomers searching for the faint signatures of brown dwarf stars discovered this Jupiter-class giant hurtling through the cosmos with not star to orbit and nowhere in particular to be.

Israel Declares War On Hamas Via Twitter, Hamas Responds Via Twitter

2012-11-15T08:14:00.0000000+11:00

Israel launched an offensive this morning on "terror sites and operatives in the Gaza strip, chief among them Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets."

Nanotechnology Is Changing The World

2012-11-15T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

"Everything, when miniaturized to the sub-100-nanometre scale, has new properties, regardless of what it is," says Chad Mirkin, professor of chemistry (and materials science, engineering, medicine, biomedical engineering and chemical and biological engineering) at Northwestern University. This is what makes nanoparticles the materials of the future. They have strange chemical and physical properties compared to their larger-particle kin. The thing that matters about nanoparticles is their scale.

BigPic: The Science Of Lubricated Hamsters

2012-11-15T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Excellent Tumblr Thanks, Textbooks found this great one from a physics textbook involving a somewhat questionable activity.

[via Maggie Koerth-Baker and Popperfront]

The App Store Is Full Of Bogus Health Apps

2012-11-15T04:54:00.0000000+11:00

The App Store is filled with health apps and most of them are garbage. At least, that seems to be the overarching sentiment running throughout the Washington Post's extensive examination of bogus health-related apps now cluttering both the iTunes App Store and Google Play.

Still Hate Apple Maps? Nokia Is Here To Help

2012-11-15T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

Apple Maps has, as promised, come a long way since its disastrous beta days, but it's still not great, lacking public transit directions, bike directions, and offline maps, and still getting things wrong sometimes (or jeopardizing national security). We've been waiting for Google's replacement Google Maps app for iOS, but there might be a third competitor: Nokia.

How Lincoln Invented Modern War

2012-11-15T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

In between shots of soldiers meeting their brutal end and Sally Field being the most perfect Mary Todd Lincoln of all time (besides maybe MTL herself), the trailer for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, a war drama in theatres everywhere November 16, presents Honest Abe as an honest badass. "I am the President of the United States of America...clothed in immense power," he declares, because if you're going to abolish slavery you have to be the toughest dude in the room. In our 1957 issue, PopSci celebrated Lincoln as the awesome war scientist he was. We wrote about how the great emancipator tested out and helped create at least a rudimentary form of most of the weapons we knew in the mid-20th century.

The Darkest Material On Earth?

2012-11-15T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

The idea of dark materials might sound familiar to you if you read fantasy trilogies or like casually memorising lines from Paradise Lost. Unfortunately, this material isn't used to create more worlds - but it might help save this one. Vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNT), the darkest material known to man, was developed by researchers at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 2007. With the ability to absorb 99.970 per cent of light, VACNT has significant implications in solar energy research. For instance, it can be used to improve the efficiency of solar panels.

Watch A French Researcher Control A Robot With His Brain

2012-11-14T08:57:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers in Japan are using a brain-machine interface to control the actions of a humanoid robot. The goal is to allow people "to feel embodied in the body of a humanoid robot," in the words of one researcher.

Vets Want A Global Monitoring System To Track Sickness In Pets Before It Jumps To Humans

2012-11-14T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

The next pandemics will come from animals, in all likelihood, as zoonotic diseases jump into the human population. Global health authorities keep tabs on sick livestock and sick people for that reason. But nobody keeps tabs on your dog or cat - and an international group of veterinarians wants to change that.

iPad Mini Review: Tablet Small

2012-11-14T07:31:00.0000000+11:00

Whether you'll like the iPad Mini has a lot more to do with your physical health than you'd think it would. How healthy are your eyes? How big are your hands? How strong are your forearms? How acute are your ears?

Tesla Model S Named Motor Trend's First All-Electric Car Of The Year

2012-11-14T06:55:00.0000000+11:00

In a striking sign of the future to come, the car-kingmakers at Motor Trend magazine have for the first time named an all-electric vehicle their Car of the Year. The Tesla Model S is the first car without an internal combustion engine to win the coveted award. It's also much-loved by PopSci, FYI.

Watch Today's Total Solar Eclipse Live From The Middle Of Nowhere, Right Here

2012-11-14T06:06:00.0000000+11:00

The skies across northeastern Australia will go dark around 2:44pm EST today. That's when the moon will slide in front of the sun and cast a deep, circular shadow on the Earth.

How James Bond's Aston Martin Survived A Huge Explosion In 'Skyfall'

2012-11-14T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

In the new James Bond movie Skyfall, the Aston Martin DB5 - a rare but staple race car in the spy fiction series since 1964 - explodes into smithereens. We'll spare you the cinematic details, but take heart, auto aficionados. The real DB5 is safe.

Lenovo Yoga 13 Review: The Windows 8 Laptop You Should Buy

2012-11-14T05:11:00.0000000+11:00

The first crop of Windows 8 laptops are here, and they're much more interesting than, say, the first laptops to run Windows 7, or Windows Vista, or really any hardware that's ever accompanied a new version of Windows. That's because Windows 8 isn't really like any other version of Windows, and we'll get to that in a bit. I've been trying out a variety of Windows 8 laptops, and the Lenovo Yoga 13 is, so far, my favorite - the one I recommended to a roommate without hesitation (despite its flaws), and the one I grabbed whenever I needed to test something on Windows 8. Here's why.

FYI: Can Japan's Latest Soft Drink Really Help You Lose Weight?

2012-11-14T04:03:00.0000000+11:00

Soft drinks and weight loss don't usually go hand-in-hand. But Pepsi aims to change that with a new drink the company has just launched in Japan, called Pepsi Special. The soft drink has an added ingredient, dextrin, that the distributor, Suntory, says reduces your body's ability to absorb fat. So does that mean you can finally enjoy your soda with a slice of cheesy pizza, hold the guilt?

FYI: What's The Lightest Metal On Earth?

2012-11-14T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

The lighter a structure launching into air, the better. That's one of the reasons why ostriches can't fly - because their bones are solid instead of hollow. It's also one of the reasons why researchers at HRL Laboratories created the lightest metal known to man.

To Fight Bacteria, Coat Everything In Mucus

2012-11-13T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Bodily fluids are not the first thing that come to mind when you're looking for a disinfectant. But mucus is surprisingly good at preventing bacterial growth - never mind that it's a nasty side effect of infection on its own. A type of polymer found in mucus - known as mucin - can trap bacteria and prevent them from clumping together into a hard-to-remove biofilm, MIT scientists say.

17-Petaflop Titan Supercomputer Is Now Officially The World's Fastest

2012-11-13T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

The latest TOP500 rankings of the world's fastest supercomputers is out today, and as expected Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Titan has unseated Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Sequoia in for the number one seat. That means a couple of things. For one, it represents something of a proving out for co-processor technology (that's technology that uses graphics processors alongside conventional processors to accelerate a machine's performance), which drove Titan's performance over the top. Secondly, it means it's been a really good year for American supercomputing.

Seven Navy SEALs Disciplined For Divulging Secrets While Consulting On Video Game

2012-11-13T05:38:00.0000000+11:00

Proof that video games keep getting more and more realistic: Seven U.S. Navy SEALs, including one who participated in last year's raid that killed Osama bin Laden, have been disciplined by the Navy for divulging secrets while serving as consultants for the new Medal of Honor: Warfighter video game released by Electronic Arts

Samsung's Cool/Weird Android-Running Galaxy Camera Will Cost $500

2012-11-13T05:29:00.0000000+11:00

The goofy Samsung Galaxy Camera - a point-and-shoot with a 4.8-inch touchscreen and a full version of Android - came out of nowhere and actually impressed us.

Synthetic, Self-Healing Skin That's Sensitive To The Touch

2012-11-13T04:01:00.0000000+11:00

Before we can construct the realistic humanoid robots that populate our most vivid sci-fi-driven dreams, there are a lot of human systems that researchers are going to have to emulate synthetically. Not the least challenging is human skin; filled with nerve endings and able to heal itself over time, our skin serves as both a massive sensory system and a barrier between our innards and the outside world. Now, an interdisciplinary team of Stanford researchers has created the first synthetic material that is both self-healing at room temperature and sensitive to touch - a breakthrough that could be the beginnings of a new kind of robot skin (and in the meantime enjoy much more practical applications like enhanced prosthetics).

FYI: What's The Softest Material On Earth?

2012-11-13T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Everyone knows the hardest material on Earth is diamond, says George Pharr, director of the Joint Institute for Advanced Materials at the University of Tennessee. But when it comes to the softest stuff on the planet, "there's no one definition," he says.

Introducing Our Latest Theme Week!

2012-11-13T00:30:00.0000000+11:00

This week, as a companion to Popular Science's November issue, we're bringing you a bunch of stories about materials science - a field that touches on all aspects of the world around us, from the paint on our walls to the the drugs that treat our diseases. Swing by for an exploration of some of the most dangerous materials in your home; a taste of what famous buildings might've looked like had materials scientists known what they know today; and a snapshot of nanomaterials as you've never seen them before. All that and more can be read here on PopSci.com, starting today. Enjoy!

Carl Sagan Advocates For Life On Mars

2012-11-10T09:25:00.0000000+11:00

Carl Sagan, everyone's favourite late astronomer, would have been 78 today. We can't think of anyone who inspired so many people to love science and the universe than good old Sagan. This year, we're looking back to an interview with the scientist that appeared in our September 1972 issue. At the time, he was really stoked about Mars.

Your Scrambled Eggs Are Wrong, And Other Cooking Science Lessons From America's Test Kitchen

2012-11-10T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

I learned how to cook the day I opened my first issue of Cook's Illustrated. Phrases like Maillard reaction and gluten development and Best Blueberry Pancakes flowed across pages adorned with desaturated sketches, drawing me in with their simplicity and forthrightness. This is the best way to grill salmon or make pie crust, the articles said - and here are three pages of reasons why.

Ask a Geek: How Can I Permanently Delete My Computer Files?

2012-11-10T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

Before you sell, donate, or recycle your old computer, beware: You may be handing personal information to strangers. Simply restoring the operating system to factory settings does not delete all data and neither does formatting the hard drive before reinstalling the OS.

8 Of Stanley Kubrick's Greatest Technological Innovations

2012-11-10T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

As you wander through the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's sprawling new exhibit on Stanley Kubrick, it's hard not to marvel at how utterly distinct each of the legendary American film director's imagined worlds were: Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut, each a meticulously crafted cinematic cosmos unto itself.

I Will Destroy This Robot Sheet-Music Sight-Reader, I Swear I Will

2012-11-10T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Sight-reading complex musical notation takes years of training, hundreds or thousands of hours of practice, sitting in front of the piano, a metronome drilling its infernal clicks into your brain. Eventually you'll gain the ability to read and perform just about any piece of music that's set in front of you, without ever having seen it before. It does not come easily, and it is not a natural skill; you have to keep practicing to retain it. Each month you don't practice takes two months to earn back the power you've squandered. It is a human achievement, a way in which we force our brains and fingers and feet and eyes to perform a task we are not born able to do.

People Are Literally Allergic To BlackBerry Phones

2012-11-10T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

BlackBerry has been having a rough go of it lately, slowly sliding into irrelevance as Android and iPhone corner the market. Now add one more nail to that coffin: a study says that people are allergic to BlackBerry phones. As in, an actual itch-inducing allergy. As in, to a phone.

Political Strife Caused By Climate Change Doomed The Mayans

2012-11-10T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

Debilitating drought may have been a major factor in the fractious politics that ended the Maya civilisation, according to archaeologists. Maya culture thrived in wet seasons and fell apart when the rains ceased. "It's an example of a sophisticated civilisation failing to adapt successfully to climate change," said James Baldini, a professor at Durham University in the UK.

New Study Examines "Hookup Culture" In Awkward, Clinical Way

2012-11-09T09:30:00.0000000+11:00

A new study from The Miriam Hospital's Centres for Behavioural and Preventive Medicine takes a look at the noted alarmist old-people concept "hookup culture," which seems to mean "non-romantic sexual encounters" and which is obviously eroding the very foundation of the Free West.

Baby Birds Use Unique Passwords To Unlock Dinner

2012-11-09T07:01:00.0000000+11:00

In an interesting example of prenatal learning, a species of tiny Australian songbirds teach their embryonic young a special password, which the baby birds must chirp in order to get food after they're born. The password is a single unique note the mother wren teaches them from outside the egg, according to biologists.

This Is Why Nobody Will Use Credit Cards In A Few Years

2012-11-09T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Entertainment Weekly has twice now inserted an LCD screen into its paper magazine to show video ads. That's the growing pains that come when an entire medium is going through an upheaval - you get these little half-steps, a nod that, well, this thing we've used for a long time? It probably won't be around much longer. But that new things is maybe scary, or expensive, or not quite ready yet, so let's try combining the two.

The Universe Is Almost Done Making Stars

2012-11-09T03:56:00.0000000+11:00

In its youth, the universe was a roiling soup of star ingredients, with new stars forming rapidly. But now it's much quieter, and things are not expected to get more exciting anytime soon, astronomers say. For the first time, astronomers have figured out the universe's star-birth rate, and found that today, it's 30 times lower than its likely peak some 11 billion years ago. As a result, all of the future stars may be no more than a 5 percent increase above what we've got now.

Why Do Computer Scientists Want Election Day To Drag On For A Full Week?

2012-11-09T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

There's something so indescribably American about what millions of them did yesterday - standing in line at a polling place, exchanging hellos with neighbours, peacefully filling in circles or tapping touchscreens to record our future hopes. Thank God (in Whom they trust) all that's over!

Inside The Largest Simulation Of The Universe Ever Created

2012-11-09T01:02:00.0000000+11:00

Imagine being asked to solve a complex algebra problem that is roughly 95 percent variables and only five percent known values. This is a rough analogy perhaps, but it paints a fairly accurate picture of the task faced by modern cosmologists. The prevailing line of thinking says that the universe is mostly composed of dark matter and dark energy, two mysterious entities that have never been directly observed or measured even though the cosmological math insist that they are real. We can see their perceived effects, but we can't see them directly - and thus we can't seen the real structure of our own universe.

Fund A Tiny Robotic Dragonfly

2012-11-08T09:00:00.0000000+11:00

The Georgia Institute of Technology has plopped its robotic dragonfly drone up on Indiegogo to be crowdfunded. It's a pretty impressive device: a four-winged, superlight flier with the capability to hold a camera, plus GPS, Wi-Fi, and compatibility with smartphone apps.

Obama: Congratulations! But We Need To Talk.

2012-11-08T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

(The following is a post-US-election dispatch from the PopSci mothership in New York.)

Dear President Obama,

What a relief, many of us thought this morning. We re-elected a president who supports public funding for research (truthfully, public funding for anything). We re-elected a president who acknowledges the reality of climate change (at least you did in your victory speech if not during the campaign). We re-elected a president who so eloquently describes occupations like doctors, scientists and engineers as the definition of American aspiration.

The Pacific Island Chain of Tokelau Is The First Territory Powered Solely By Solar

2012-11-08T05:09:00.0000000+11:00

The remote island chain of Tokelau, positioned between New Zealand and Hawaii in the Pacific, suddenly has a significant claim to fame. Tokelau has become the first territory able to meet all of its electricity needs with solar power, officials say, completely weaning the string of atolls off of the diesel generators it has relied on for decades.

Researchers Turn Animal Ears Into Bio-Batteries

2012-11-08T03:39:00.0000000+11:00

The line between man and machine - or at least mammal and machine - grows blurrier still. It's not exactly the Singularity, but a collaboration between researchers at MIT and Harvard Medical School have tapped into the electrochemical gradient that exists naturally in the inner ear of mammals and used it to power electronics for the first time - like the Matrix, but with guinea pigs.

How Do You Find More Donor Organs? Pay People For Their Body Parts

2012-11-08T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

A Canadian study probing the modern feasibility of a relatively old idea has come to a somewhat unexpected conclusion: most people really don't have a problem with paying for human organs. Dr. Braden Manns of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta and Institute for Public Health sent a questionnaire around to more than 2.500 public health workers and people affected with kidney disease. The results: people seem to think it's okay to pay for body parts.

'Donuts Inc.' Accused Of Fueling Cybersquatting After Bidding $56 Million For New Domain Names

2012-11-08T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

When the so-called top-level domain names - with suffixes like .buy, .apple, or .book instead of .org or .com - went up for auction, it was compared to an Internet gold rush. Big companies hurried to snatch them up, despite the prohibitive $185,000 application fee. You might've heard about Google and Amazon going big on the new suffixes, but you probably didn't hear about Donuts Inc., a small, venture-backed company that's spent $56 million on more than 300 domains. For reference, that's about three times as many as Google is bidding for, and four times as many as Amazon.

Thank You, Bravo, For 'Start-Ups: Silicon Valley' [Review]

2012-11-07T10:00:00.0000000+11:00

In a spectacular Sufjan-Stevensesque gimmick, Bravo has quietly pledged to create a television series about every single pocket of horrible rich people in the entire country. That includes housewives made of the same soft-touch plastic as many smartphones, trust-fund art gallery interns in New York, bipedal snake-monster matchmakers, and now, in Start-Ups: Silicon Valley, soulless husks of Ruby code in Silicon Valley. It is a performance art project of horrific proportions, a mirror held up to the American dream. You want to be rich? Here's what rich looks like. This will be shown in the Guggenheim in 40 years, probably.

Let's Replace Annoying Billboards With Sky Forests of Bamboo

2012-11-07T09:32:00.0000000+11:00

In areas that allow unlimited billboard construction, the side of the road can look like a peeling, rusty forest. Signs that aren't hawking cellphone companies, fast food places or adult stores are adorned with horribly sketched toothy whales shouting YOUR AD HERE. But there is a better billboard future! Let's put plants on them instead, creating mini hanging gardens that can purify air and give us a break from a constant barrage of words and pictures.

DARPA Wants Cheap Head-Up Displays That Work In Any Kind Of Light

2012-11-07T08:27:00.0000000+11:00

Warfighters have a whole suite of cameras they can use to see in the dark, through fog or smoke, and in broad daylight - but that's actually a problem, according to DARPA. Nobody wants to carry a suite of things. It would be better to have just one item that can do everything your suite could do.

Your Kinect Will Count The Number Of People In The Room So It Can Charge You A Per-Person Rate

2012-11-07T07:26:00.0000000+11:00

You already knew your Kinect was watching you, but perhaps not like this. A US Patent and Trademark Office filing by Microsoft reveals that the company is devising a means for your Xbox peripheral to count the number of people in the room and even identify who they are in order to assess licensing fees for content based on the number of people in the room.

The West's First Gene Therapy Goes On Sale Mid-2013

2012-11-07T06:45:00.0000000+11:00

The first gene therapy to be approved in the West will hit the market by the middle of next year, opening the masses to a controversial treatment that directly alters a patient's own DNA. Dutch biotech uniQure's Glybera was approved for sale by the European Commission late last month.

Gamers Chipping Away At Digital Cube Are Promised 'Life-Changing' Secret

2012-11-07T06:15:00.0000000+11:00

This is how the just-released game Curiosity: What's Inside The Cube? works: Anyone with an iPhone or iPad can download the iOS app. With the app, the players connect on the Internet, furiously tapping on their screens to remove pixely chunks of a single, gigantic cube.

NASA Astronauts Cast Their Votes From Space

2012-11-07T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Proof that remote e-voting is possible, even if we haven't figured out how to make it happen on Earth: NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station are filling out digital versions of their ballots today, and beaming them back to Mission Control.

'We Wanted To Make A Robot That Could Squeeze Through Holes And Change Its Shape'

2012-11-07T03:03:00.0000000+11:00

"If you don't have legs, you can propel yourself by deforming your body. Earthworms do this through peristaltic locomotion: The muscles in one body segment contract while others relax, which creates a traveling wave that moves them forward. Our robot, Meshworm, moves this way, using wires for muscles. To make a muscle segment, we twist the wire into a long, narrow spring, and then wrap the spring into a tube shape. After that, we link up several segments and cover them with plastic braided mesh, like the screen on your window.

Scientist Wants To Fly A Blimp Over Mountains To Search For Bigfoot

2012-11-06T09:13:00.0000000+11:00

Jeffrey Meldrum, an anatomy and anthropology professor at Idaho State University, has spent significant time in his career searching for Bigfoot. That's gained him the ire of colleagues, but it hasn't stopped him from upping the stakes more and more. Now he's gotten the nod from the University to build a remote-controlled blimp and continue the chase.

Methane Is Scarce, But That Doesn't Mean There's No Life On Mars

2012-11-06T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Finding methane on another world is like finding breadcrumbs on a trail - it's a telling clue, a detail that gives reason to ask more questions and maybe find some answers, in this case related to extraterrestrial life. This is why news from the Mars rover Curiosity late last week is kind of disappointing - looking around for methane, Curiosity found a whole lot of nothing.

Science Predicts What Kinds Of Toys A Dog Will Enjoy

2012-11-06T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

Dog toy selection is more art than science. Maybe you think it's safe to just go for a classic. Something like a nice bone.

Amputee Climbs 103 Stories Using Mind-Controlled Bionic Leg

2012-11-06T04:01:00.0000000+11:00

A man with a mind-controlled bionic leg climbed to the top of Chicago's famous ~~Sears~~ Willis Tower Sunday, part of a charity stair-climbing event. Zac Vawter, 31, lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident and is the first person to climb that many floors wearing a bionic limb.

How I Hacked An Electronic Voting Machine

2012-11-06T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Roger Johnston is the head of the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory. Not long ago, he and his colleagues launched security attacks on electronic voting machines to demonstrate the startling ease with which one can steal votes. Even more startling: Versions of those machines will appear in polling places all over America on Tuesday. The touchscreen Diebold Accuvote-TSX will be used by more than 26 million voters in 20 states; the push-button Sequoia AVC Voting Machine will be used by almost 9 million voters in four US states. Here, Johnston reveals how he hacked the machines - and why anyone, from a high-school kid to an 80-year-old grandmother, could do the same.

Why Living Cells Are The Future Of Data Processing

2012-11-06T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Not all computers are made of silicon. By definition, a computer is anything that processes data, performs calculations, or uses so-called logic gates to turn inputs (for example, 1s and 0s in binary code) into outputs. And now, a small international community of scientists is working to expand the realm of computers to include cells, animals, and other living organisms. Some of their experiments are highly theoretical; others represent the first steps toward usable biological computers. All are attempts to make life perform work now done by chips and circuit boards.

Lonely Asian Elephant Learns To Speak 5 Words In Korean

2012-11-03T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

If you speak any Korean - or are familiar with Season 2 of Arrested Development - you know that the word for "hello" is "annyong." Koshik, an elephant who spent much of his youth at Everland Zoo in South Korea, can actually pronounce it. A beluga whale made the news just last week for being able to imitate human sounds, but this elephant can actually say words! The animal kingdom is constantly one-upping itself.

Meet The Climate Change Denier Who Became The Voice Of Hurricane Sandy On Wikipedia

2012-11-03T06:30:00.0000000+11:00

"All I am is a contributor. I have no title, I'm just a Joe Blow," says Ken Mampel, a currently unemployed 56-year-old living in Ormond Beach, Florida. He's also largely responsible for the Wikipedia article about Hurricane Sandy. If it isn't already, that article will eventually become the single most-viewed document about the hurricane. On the entire internet.

BeerSci: Uncovering the Secrets Of Barley

2012-11-03T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Last month, scientists announced a big breakthrough in barley research: They had finally sequenced the entire barley genome. In response, some media outlets ran stories declaring that this will somehow result in better beer (barley being one of beer's key ingredients). Sure, on some level, understanding the barley genome is going to yield better - or more, or cheaper - beer, especially if climate change goes down the way scientists suspect it will and crops become more difficult to grow due to substandard environmental conditions. But those media stories are missing the point: That kind of better-beer hyperbole is a bit like taking some NASA results from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and saying that the data will help you get a better tan. The implications of the research are much more complex.

This Giant Stellar Bubble Looks Like A Dog's Head

2012-11-03T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Some 5,000 light years away, hovering in the constellation Canis Major, this massive 60-light-years-across bubble is lurking. Known as a Wolf-Rayet bubble (and thought by some to resemble a wolf- or dog-like head), it's a type of cosmic structure created by huge stars that generate equally colossal stellar winds. When imaged in X-ray, it gives us the shifting blues, greens, yellows, and reds seen above.

New Mission Will Explore Bizarre Gravitational Anomaly Around Earth

2012-11-02T23:56:00.0000000+11:00

Something strange happens to spacecraft swinging past Earth for a gravity boost - they suddenly speed up, and their trajectories change in unexpected ways. It's a tiny change, but enough that physicists have started to take notice. The European Space Agency is planning a new mission that could measure this gravity anomaly and figure out if a new, unknown physics is at work.

Humans Can't Be Empathetic And Logical At The Same Time

2012-11-02T07:57:00.0000000+11:00

Logic and emotion tend to be considered as polar opposites. Think about the analytic CEO-his actions make sense in the science of profit, but when it means using cheap human labor or firing a couple hundred employees, there's an apparent lack of concern for the human consequences of his actions. Many choices are a struggle to compromise the two systems - and that may have to do with how our brains are wired.

News Writers: Stop Trying To Scare People With Made-Up Storm Language

2012-11-02T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Here is a short list of major news organizations referring to Sandy as a "superstorm": The L.A. Times, CBS News, Time, The Guardian, Business Insider, the Toronto Star, and the Wall Street Journal.

Here's what Professor Alan Blumberg, professor of ocean engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology and director of its Center for Maritime Systems, says a "superstorm" is: "It's a media invention. There's no real meteorological term called 'superstorm.'"

Thinking About Maths Is As Painful As A Hot Stove Burn, If You're Anxious

2012-11-02T06:27:00.0000000+11:00

Are you the type of person who has a calculator app at the ready, helping figure out restaurant tips and sale discounts? Does the above image make you nervous? Are you actually scared of maths? It's OK! It's your brain playing tricks on you.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg, Citing Climate Change, Endorses Obama

2012-11-02T06:12:00.0000000+11:00

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has had Barack Obama and Mitt Romney trying to court him for some time now, both hoping the third-term independent could help move some swing staters to their respective corners. It wasn't clear either candidate would get the nod from Bloomberg, but the mayor just endorsed Obama.

News Now Brought To You By Drones?

2012-11-02T04:58:00.0000000+11:00

Over at the University of Nebraska, journalism students putting another tool in the reporter's toolbox: drones. The Drone Journalism Lab at U. of Nebraska Lincoln has filed its first drone-assisted story, a print/video story package (you can see the video below) on the ongoing drought in Nebraska's Platte River basin.

NOAA's New Storm-Chasing Robot Survives Sandy And Reports Back

2012-11-02T03:58:00.0000000+11:00

Back in August, as Tropical Storm Isaac was churning toward New Orleans, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration experienced a near-miss. One of its prototype wave-powered Wave Glider robots - a proof of concept storm tracking ‘bot that NOAA plans to evolve into an entire fleet - was in the water north of Puerto Rico on a routine science mission when Isaac skirted by, just missing the robot and robbing NOAA of a great opportunity to give its robotic storm chaser a real-world trial. This week, NOAA got its second chance.

FYI: Why Does Salt Water Make Hurricane Damage So Much Worse?

2012-11-02T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Sandy crippled the NYC subway system this week, knocking out power, damaging switches, and dumping gallons of storm water into the city's aging tunnel infrastructure. Officials estimated that it would take several days for the subway to return to normal (some lines have already resumed service), and a 2011 study on similar disasters suggested it could take even longer, up to several months. A big part of the problem? Salt.

The iPad Mini, Undressed

2012-11-02T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Our friends over at iFixit got their hands on the new iPad Mini and, as is their wont, tore it to pieces.

A Working Tetris Game Inside A Pumpkin

2012-11-01T08:37:00.0000000+11:00

Nathan Pryor at HaHa Bird has essentially won Halloween. Rather than carving a boring spooky face for trick-or-treaters to ignore, he made the gourd into a Tetris machine. There's a grid of holes on the facade and LED lights inside. Players can control the game using the stem of the pumpkin, which functions as a joystick. Waste not, want not.

Daily Infographic: A Family Tree Of Every Bird On Earth

2012-11-01T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

This gorgeous infographic is the first family tree linking every bird on Earth, revealing how birds have evolved since the dinosaur age.

A Laser To The Brain Eliminates Bad Habits In Rats

2012-11-01T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Neuroscientists at MIT have identified the region of the brain that switches between old and new habits. In the study, researchers trained rats to run in a T-shaped maze. They would receive chocolate milk for turning left or sugar water for turning right. When the researchers took away the rewards, the rats who had learned to turn left continued to do so, even though they weren't benefitting in any way.

Monsters Are People Too, Says Dungeons And Dragons Study

2012-11-01T06:28:00.0000000+11:00

A pair of eyes in front of us automatically lures our own gaze, even if they belong to an animal. But what about a monster with multiple eyes located not on the head, but on its hands or legs or torso? Where do we first look?

Large Hadron Collider Unleashes Rampaging Zombies

2012-11-01T05:28:00.0000000+11:00

At first I thought the zombie trend was kind of played out, but then I saw this trailer. It's another zombie film, but this one has the Large Hadron Collider! The Higgs field! "Decay" as one of the nerdiest plays-on-words ever! It's great.

Smartphone-Using Teens Have More Sex, New Study Says

2012-11-01T04:48:00.0000000+11:00

A new as-yet-unpublished study claims that teens who have smartphones are more likely to set up hookups. It may be because smartphones make it simpler.

Today On Mars: Curiosity's First X-Rays Determine Mars Soil Is Like Hawaii's

2012-11-01T03:20:00.0000000+11:00

Martian soil is a lot like the weathered volcanic soils of Hawaii, according to the latest from the Mars rover Curiosity. The minerals in Martian soil are a similar composition to basaltic material on Earth.

Here's Why The New Boxee TV Won't Have Amazon Instant Video

2012-11-01T01:40:00.0000000+11:00

Boxee, the underdog startup which emerged from the hacker world to create some of the best and most interesting streaming media gadgets on the market, is doing its best to go mainstream. And what's more mainstream in the US than Walmart?

What Not To Do In A Superstorm

2012-10-31T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

I wish I could blame the following stupidity on booze, but I don't even have that crutch. I'll blame it instead on being cooped up in the house for hours on end watching horrible things unfold on the internet and outside my window. See, right when that hurricane made landfall last night, my friends and I were wandering the streets of Brooklyn.

Disney Will Release A New Star Wars Movie In 2015

2012-10-31T08:15:00.0000000+11:00

Disney has bought Star Wars. In a just-announced deal for $4 billion, the company picked up Lucasfilm, the production company that made The Biggest Cultural Thing In Modern Times. And along with that, Disney's making Star Wars: Episode VII, to be released in 2015, with another film to be released every two to three years after.

Lebbeus Woods, Futuristic Architect, Dies

2012-10-31T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

Lebbeus Woods, an experimental architect, artist, and theoretician, has died. He passed away in his sleep this morning, New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman reported on Twitter.

Video: Steve Jobs's Yacht Unveiled At Last

2012-10-31T06:48:00.0000000+11:00

It's the yacht that Steve Jobs commissioned before his death, and it was just unveiled in the Netherlands this week.

Cheap New Nanoparticle HIV Test Gives Fast Results Visible To The Naked Eye

2012-10-31T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

Researchers at Imperial College London have created a simple and quick HIV test that is both more sensitive and 10 times cheaper than existing methods. The new test, which uses nanotechnology to produce results visible to the naked eye, could be invaluable in poorer countries that lack sophisticated laboratory equipment.

To Deflect Asteroids From Earth, Deploy Paintballs By The Tonne

2012-10-31T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

We can't do much to deflect a hurricane, but we may have a pretty good defense against asteroids. A particularly pale asteroid could reflect so much sunlight that the photons bouncing from it could create enough force to steer it away. All we'd need to do is ensure that any asteroids coming our way are bright white. MIT graduate student Sung Wook Paek's solution is to blast incoming offenders with pellets full of white paint.

Roku's New One-Stop Search Finds Your Video, Regardless Of App

2012-10-31T03:30:00.0000000+11:00

This morning, all newish Roku boxes - that's the Roku 2, Roku LT, and some older Roku HDs - got an update to support one-stop search. Right on the homescreen, there's a new search option that'll trawl through Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Crackle, HBO Go, and Vudu. It's one of those things that sounds small but that's actually pretty big - one-stop search is a major tool in unifying what used to be disparate standalone apps, which means it's a major tool towards making streaming media easier and less awkward to use.

The Fastest Science Machine In The World

2012-10-31T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

With the release of the next TOP500 ranking of the world's fastest supercomputers just weeks away, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has this week officially deployed Titan, a 20-petaflop machine. Titan is expected to edge out Sequoia, another Department of Energy machine housed at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, putting the U.S. confidently back atop the supercomputing pyramid (Sequoia is expected to hold the number-two spot) after spending the last few years often chasing China and Japan.

Daily Infographic: Gorgeous Wind Map Captures Sandy In Real-Time

2012-10-31T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Storms such as the one formerly-known-as-hurricane-Sandy are a font of scientific information. I am sure that many PhD dissertations will result from sifting through the reams of data the storm generated. But that data can also be visually captivating, as in the case of this nifty near-real-time info-vis module of the wind by infographic artists Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg.

IBM Transistors Made Of Nanotubes Could Replace Silicon, In Ever-Tinier Computer Chips

2012-10-31T01:40:00.0000000+11:00

As silicon microchips get smaller and manufacturers pack more and more transistors onto each individual chip, Moore's Law - the optimistic observation that the microchip industry doubles the number of transistors it can build on a single chip every 12 to 18 months - becomes a little more difficult to maintain. But IBM researchers are reporting a breakthrough in transistor technology that could allow them to further reduce the size of logic gates - the fundamental digital switches on the modern microchip - and therefore continue shrinking microchips for another decade or more, enabling our gadgets to continue growing faster, more powerful, and (hopefully) more efficient.

Behold: An Indoor Hurricane Simulator!

2012-10-31T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

About two years ago, Brian Haus, the chair of the Division of Applied Marine Physics at the University of Miami, was studying storms in the western Pacific ocean, off the coast of Taiwan. He and his team chase hurricanes. Sometimes the hurricanes completely miss the sensor-packed buoys placed in their path to track power and speed. Sometimes they don't.

5 Things Hurricane Sandy Reveals About Global Warming

2012-10-31T00:00:00.0000000+11:00

Hurricane Sandy pummeled the eastern United States with unprecedented storm surges, rainfall, and howling winds Monday. Making matters worse: A cold front strengthed the cyclone into a snowy "Frankenstorm," while an Arctic weather system trapped the storm over densely populated regions.

How The PopSci Staff Prepares For A Hurricane

2012-10-30T09:44:00.0000000+11:00

The PopSci Mothership is based in New York. And New York is in the process of being ground flat - or perhaps just gently dampened - by Hurricane Sandy. Here's how the team is (literally) weathering the storm...

The Dictionary Of Hurricane Sandy: Wind Shear

2012-10-30T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

Wind shear usually comes up when you talk about how a hurricane weakens. The term refers to changes in wind speed or direction over a short distance and can be measured either vertically or horizontally.

BeerSci: What To Drink During A Hurricane

2012-10-30T06:52:00.0000000+11:00

Team BeerSci is trapped at home with a few Zone A refugees and we're contemplating how to pass the time as Hurricane Sandy approaches. It's not a tough decision: we made sure to put plenty of homebrew in the fridge last night, and there is a high probability that one will make an appearance on my desk next to the computer in the next few minutes.

Major New Google Announcements!

2012-10-30T06:34:00.0000000+11:00

While the New York team cowers behind cans of overpriced and underflavoured Amy's Soup, those spoiled techies out in Mountain View, California - the location of Google headquarters - announced a whole mess of new Android stuff today. Here's what you need to know.

The Dictionary of Hurricane Sandy: Storm Surge

2012-10-30T06:00:00.0000000+11:00

During a hurricane, a storm surge is usually the greatest threat to life and property. The disaster associated with Hurricane Katrina, as most will recall, was pretty much all derived either directly or indirectly from the storm surge. And while most people probably have a pretty good idea of what storm surge is, there is some nuance here that is worth noting.

The Dictionary Of Hurricane Sandy: Baroclinic Energy

2012-10-30T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

One of the most striking features of Sandy is its source of energy. Most tropical cyclones get their energy from convection of warm tropical air up through the core of the storm to the upper atmosphere, as the storm moves across the warm waters of the Atlantic or Caribbean. Most storms are at their strongest when they are out to sea over warm water and lose energy once they come ashore.

The Dictionary of Hurricane Sandy: Spring Tide

2012-10-30T04:30:00.0000000+11:00

Most coastlines on Earth experience two low tides and two high tides every day, as the enormous mass of water is tugged upon by the gravity of the orbiting moon and sloshes in and out on its 12-hour cycle.

FYI: How Much Caffeine Would It Take To Kill You?

2012-10-30T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

A wrongful-death lawsuit filed last week against the makers of Monster energy drinks claims that 14-year-old Anais Fournier drank two 24-ounce cans of Monster in the day before she unexpectedly died late in 2011. The coroner's report described "caffeine toxicity" as contributing to her death. Just what does it take to ingest a lethal dose of caffeine?

The Dictionary Of Hurricane Sandy: Landfall

2012-10-30T02:38:00.0000000+11:00

Landfall is a simple but misleading term. The proper definition, for a tropical or subtropical storm like our new friend Hurricane Sandy, is that when the eye of the storm passes over land, it is classified as "making landfall."

A Look At Instagrams Of Hurricane Sandy In Real Time

2012-10-30T02:08:00.0000000+11:00

If you want to take the visual pulse of a major event, you can do a lot worse than checking out Instagram. Now, for Hurricane Sandy, we present Instacane, a site that updates with Instagram images of the storm in real time.

Scientists Looking For Volunteers To Snag Samples Of Hurricane Sandy

2012-10-30T01:29:00.0000000+11:00

If you're in a safe area (please, don't do this if you're not) scientists are looking for some help dissecting Hurricane Sandy. By collecting samples with the help of volunteers, researchers can learn a lot about an extreme weather event: where it came from, how it got to where it is, and more.

Updated Theory: Moon is Chunk of Earth

2012-10-29T06:02:00.0000000+11:00

New simulations of a crash between Earth and a protoplanetary sister long ago could have produced a moon that's chemically similar to our planet, according to a new analysis. It bolsters a theory that the moon is part of Earth, and it helps settle a question about how this could be physically possible.

Hurricane Sandy, The "Bride Of Frankenstorm," From Above

2012-10-27T07:54:00.0000000+11:00

Hurricane Sandy, nicknamed "Bride of Frankenstorm" because it's almost Halloween and because meteorologists are just the worst pun-makers ever, was photographed by NASA's TRIMM satellite while centered over the Bahamas this morning.

GameSci: Want to Dominate The Game? Set Your Morals Aside

2012-10-27T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

I've spent the week enjoying Dishonored, a Victorian-steampunk fever-dream of a game that came out earlier this month. In it you play Corvo, a bodyguard who's looking for revenge after being framed for a royal murder and kidnapping. So far, it's a lot more fun than I anticipated, in part because of its willingness to bite me in the ass for my choices. You can either carefully sneak by enemies or plunge right into the fray, slicing and dicing past. But if you choose the latter, you later have to confront the downed foes undead-style (a zombifying plague is a main plotpoint) and deal with a "darker" ending. Still, getting through is sometimes a lot faster with a weapon handy. Should I do the moral thing or the strategic thing? Is this even up to me?

A Bloody Seeping Hole In My Foot, And Other Memories From A Field Biologist

2012-10-27T03:40:00.0000000+11:00

"When your feet start to bleed - and boy, will they ever - don't panic. The hole that appears to be eating its way into the space between your 4th and 5th toes on your right foot won't go any deeper than a full centimeter (you know this because you stuck your finger inside of it and then measured the extent of the bloody seepage on your pinkie finger… the hole is that wide and deep)."

The Most Advanced Warship Ever Built

2012-10-27T02:02:00.0000000+11:00

When the USS Zumwalt rolls out of dry dock at Bath Iron Works in Maine next year, the Navy's newest warship will be 100 feet longer than the destroyers currently serving around the globe-and nearly twice as massive-yet it will have a radar signature 50 times smaller and will carry half the crew. Packed bow to stern with state-of-the-art radar, stealth, weapons, and propulsion systems, the USS Zumwalt, which will be operational in mid-2016, will be the most technologically sophisticated warship ever to hit the water.

How Designers Plan To Create 'The Route 66 Of The Future'

2012-10-27T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

The folks behind the Dutch design lab Studio Roosegaarde have come up with some outrageous ideas (a vanishing cocktail dress! A sustainable dance floor!). So you know when they partner with a construction company to conceptualize The Future Of The Highway, as they did at Dutch Design Week recently, it's going to be good. Also: weird.

Why Do Children Think Covering Their Eyes Makes Them Invisible?

2012-10-27T00:00:00.0000000+11:00

Anyone who has ever engaged in a round of peekaboo with a child has witnessed an adorable yet somewhat illogical behavior that is nearly universally shared among children: the attempt to hide from view by simply closing their eyes. This is cute and all, but it's also baffling. Why do children think they can render themselves invisible? And why have nearly all young children come to this same irrational conclusion?

How To Properly Butcher And Eat A Triceratops

2012-10-26T08:31:00.0000000+11:00

When it came to dining on Triceratops, the Tyrannosaurus had a problem. That nutrient-rich meat in the Triceratops neck was a Late Cretaceous delicacy, but with that huge bone and keratin frill in the way it was notoriously difficult to get to. Now, paleontologists at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont., have developed a new theory for how the T. Rex devoured the best part of his meal...

China Is Building A Brand New Green City From Scratch

2012-10-26T08:04:00.0000000+11:00

A tiny pocket city built from scratch next to a crowded urban center could alleviate some of China's crowding and pollution problems. A Chicago-based architectural firm designed a master plan for the city, which will be built within eight years and host 30,000 families, or roughly 80,000 people.

Today On Mars: Curiosity Entertains The Idea Of An Escorted Return Trip To Earth

2012-10-26T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

Mars Rover Curiosity's mission is slated to run for just two Earth years, but the directory of NASA's Mars Exploration Program thinks it could have enough power to run for two decades. In fact, he says, Curiosity may actually return to Earth someday.

Furry Racism At The Pound: Why Is It Harder For Black Cats To Find Homes?

2012-10-26T04:23:00.0000000+11:00

Are people spooked by black cats? Darker felines sure seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to adoption. Black cats stay in shelters longer and are more likely to be euthanised than their lighter-coloured counterparts. Researchers at University of California at Berkeley conducted a study to find a link between cat colour and people's perception of cat personality. The findings were surprising: People do judge feline personalities by colour, but don't assess black cats negatively relative to other cats.

NASA's New, Stunning Pics Of Solar Storms

2012-10-26T03:32:00.0000000+11:00

Scientists who study solar weather try to find patterns in the violent, chaotic motion of magnetic field lines above the sun's surface. Though the lines aren't actually visible, their patterns are illuminated by the streams of hot plasma that travel along them. But, while the giant coronal loops that form during major solar storms are easy to pick out, the field lines are generally so tangled up that it's hard to pick any one of them out.

5 Things You Need To Know About The Microsoft Surface

2012-10-26T02:15:00.0000000+11:00

Windows 8 is two OSes in one. The Surface has two models with two different versions of that OS. This is confusing! So here's the breakdown.

Science Confirms The Obvious: Strict Parents Raise Conservative Kids

2012-10-26T01:00:00.0000000+11:00

What makes a conservative? What makes a liberal? New research suggests that political socialization begins with parenting. Mothers and fathers who adopt an authoritarian parenting style (as opposed to an egalitarian style) tend to raise children who endorse conservative ideologies as adults.

NASA Is Building A Mocked-Up Deep-Space Habitat In Texas

2012-10-26T00:00:00.0000000+11:00

When it's done, the concept for a ship that'll take astronauts to deep space won't look like much. Actually, it kind of sounds like a mess: the "Deep Space Habitat" is being cobbled together from scrap parts of the International Space Station, and even a museum mockup. Obviously, it's not going to send anyone to deep space. But it does give us a tantalising look at what it'll look when NASA does take the next steps in space travel.

Here Is What 84 Million Stars Look Like. You're Welcome.

2012-10-25T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

In this picture, you are looking at a central concentration of ancient stars in the bulging part of our galaxy. The bulge is full of dust, gas and most of the stars in the Milky Way, which makes it hard to study - astronomers have to suss out stars from crowded, dusty zones and figure out how far they are from us. This new image catalogs 84 million of them, which is 10 times the number of stars cataloged in any previous study.

Double-Diamond Anvil Creates Pressures Greater Than Earth's Inner Core

2012-10-25T06:25:00.0000000+11:00

With a new megapressure environment, scientists will be able to replicate pressures one and a half times stronger than those found at the center of the Earth. The specialized anvil cell can create double the amount of pressure than anyone had previously demonstrated, an environment where new materials can be formed and where minerals behave very strangely.

Is This Tiny Sticker The Future of NFC?

2012-10-25T05:30:00.0000000+11:00

At any given time there are a whole mess of buzzwords and concepts floating around the tech world, evolving incrementally until eventually they become something we can all actually use and enjoy (or, alternately, until they are replaced or forgotten). "The cloud," meaningless as that term is, has already transitioned into "thing everyone uses all the time." Something like 3D printing, on the other hand, is still at a comparatively early stage - you can technically do it, but nobody knows quite why you would, given the current state of the tech, and nobody knows what the application will be that makes it useful for normal people.

Boeing Tests A Missile That Knocks Out A Building's Power

2012-10-25T05:07:00.0000000+11:00

In whatever sense that there's a "good" missile, this new one from Boeing seems like it. Rather than a missile that demolishes a target (along with everything nearby), countries have been clamoring for something more discreet: a weapon that knocks out the lights instead, crippling a target without collateral damage.

How The Sound Of Rain Helps Engineers Diagnose Unsafe Bridges

2012-10-25T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

To test the safety of a bridge, engineers rely on some pretty low-tech methods. One common way of doing it is to drag a chain across the bridge and listen in for the hollow-sounding spots. But, weirdly, an even-lower-tech method might speed things along: Have the rain do the work for you.

Electric Brain Stimulation Warps Your Perception Of Faces

2012-10-25T03:01:00.0000000+11:00

Two nerve clusters in the brain are crucial for perceiving faces, a finding that could help treat people who suffer from face blindness and that could inform why some people have such good facial recognition. Like many other neurological studies, the research team was able to benefit from a patient's desperate measures to treat his debilitating seizures. It wasn't quite the man who mistook his wife for a hat - more a man who mistook his doctor for some other guy.

Fruit Punched: What Is The Point Of Flavored Mouthguards?

2012-10-25T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

A mouthguard is the single most important piece of safety equipment in any fighting sport. Sure, the gloves are iconic, but they only protect the tiny bones of the hand. The headgear sure looks safe, but its actual value in protecting against brain damage has been called into question (and pro fighters don't get to wear one anyhow). It is the humble mouthguard that ultimately keeps a fighter's teeth intact, keeps him from biting off his tongue, wards off broken mandibles, and helps cushion the brain from blows to the jaw. In the heat of battle, under attack from a determined foe, a mouthguard may be a fighter's only real line of defence.

Video: Blue Origin Tests Its Rocket Crew Launchpad Escape System

2012-10-25T01:31:00.0000000+11:00

On Friday, private spaceflight venture Blue Origin conducted a successful test of its Pad Escape system, demonstrating that its pusher escape motor system can effectively put daylight between its crew capsule and an imperiled launch vehicle (read: out-of-control rocket booster) should anything go awry during a potential future crewed space launch aboard Blue Origin's technology. Today, we got our hands on the video.

Issue #48 - November 2012

2012-10-24T14:36:00.0000000+11:00

The November issue helps you live in a new material world. Specifically, a world of amazing new materials that will form the building-blocks of the next generation of tech. Also there's a jet-powered Aussie speedboat.

Infographic: Horses And Bayonets? Guns And Butter?

2012-10-24T07:52:00.0000000+11:00

"Horses and Bayonets" was a meme the instant it came out of President Obama's mouth during last night's debate. The phrase was part of a rebuttal against Governor Romney's claim that the US has the smallest number of ships since 1916 (the implication being that the US Navy is currently weak).

This piece is by our US correspondents, so they refer to "we" a lot. Oh well - given the ANZUS treaty, it's probably apt!

Listen to Your Intuition, Because Your Body Can Predict Future Events Without Conscious Clues

2012-10-24T07:05:00.0000000+11:00

Pre-cognition might really exist, at least in some limited fashion, according to a new study of studies. Humans can anticipate near-future events even without any evidence presaging the event - and apparently without realising it. One researcher even hints that quantum behavior might be involved.

Raw Food Diet Kept Primates Stupid

2012-10-24T06:28:00.0000000+11:00

Hey! We're still on that raw food thing. Humans differ from their primate ancestors in a few obvious ways (our conspicuous lack of body hair, our short arms), but evolutionary researchers all agree that what really sets us apart - what makes us social and creative and human - is our big brains. The question researchers are still trying to answer is: How did it happen? What conditions or changes or achievements made it possible for our ancestors' brains to grow to twice the relative size of monkeys, orangutans, and chimpanzees?

FYI: How Do Places On Mars Get Their Names?

2012-10-24T05:28:00.0000000+11:00

This week, the Mars rover Curiosity is humming its way across the pebbly surface of Yellowknife, leaving behind Peace Vallis and Hottah, and motoring through Gale Crater through a geologic region called Glenelg. Like every other major feature on Mars, all the names of all these places were carefully chosen, suggested to an international consortium of scientists, formally selected and then officially written into the gazetteer. Most places on Mars are named for geologic features on Earth, but sometimes there's a larger connection - like Glenelg.

Apple Goes Small At Today's Announcement With iPad Mini

2012-10-24T04:39:00.0000000+11:00

Alright folks, event over. Here's what we learned:

Puppies Only Pick Up Yawns When They're Old Enough To Understand Empathy

2012-10-24T03:34:00.0000000+11:00

Dogs catch contagious yawns just like people, baboons and chimps, which can be used as a measure of empathy. But this is a behavior they learn after they emerge from youngest puppyhood, a new study says. Like people, young dogs show a developmental trend in their likelihood of catching yawns. This is the first time anyone has studied young-organism yawning in a species other than people.

The iPad Mini Is For Snobs, The Kindle Fire Is For Dumb-Dumbs

2012-10-24T02:32:00.0000000+11:00

So today is the day of the iPad Mini announcement. I tried to do a story about what small tablets are better at than big tablets, aside from costing fewer dollars, but the only thing I could come up with was book-reading. And then I wondered: which would be better at book-reading, a 7-inch tablet like the Kindle Fire, or a 7.85-inch tablet like the iPad Mini?

Eating Cooked Food Made Us Human

2012-10-23T09:08:00.0000000+11:00

Gathered around a blazing fire, our ancient ancestors probably huddled to pass the archaic kebab, munching cooked meat and figuring out how they might share it and plan to get more of it. Eating cooked food allowed these early hominids to spend less time gnawing on raw material and digesting it, providing time - and energy - to do other things instead, like socialize. The strenuous cognitive demands of communicating and socializing forced human ancestors to develop more powerful brains, which required more calories - calories that cooked food provided. Cooking, in other words, allowed us to become human.

Science Says Sex Addiction Is For Real. Here's How To Diagnose It.

2012-10-23T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

Tiger Woods, Charlie Sheen and other celebrities with an admitted proclivity for prurient behavior could soon serve as diagnostic case studies: New research shows that sex addiction is indeed a mental health disorder - one that can be easily and accurately diagnosed.

Brand-New Vaccine Strategy Works Against Herpes, And Potentially HIV

2012-10-23T07:01:00.0000000+11:00

Yale researchers developing a new technique for vaccination against genital herpes have succeeded, but their research may have implications far beyond what they set out to accomplish. Employing a two-part immune-system-boosting strategy known as "prime and pull," the researchers have effectively coaxed the body's own antibodies into setting up a defensive blockade in tissues that formerly were not conducive to such immune responses. In doing so, they may have found a mechanism that is effective in preventing not only herpes, but other sexually transmitted infections as well - infections like the AIDS-causing HIV-1.

Dentists Could Soon Diagnose Cancer By Looking At Your Saliva

2012-10-23T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

Your dentist could soon be your new doctor. Don't cancel your annual physical just yet, but promising research coming out of UCLA's School of Dentistry suggests that salivary diagnostics - or "salivaomics" - could become a potent resource for early detection of a broad range of potential health problems like autoimmune diseases, diabetes and even life-threatening conditions like cancer.

Italian Quake Scientists Convicted

2012-10-23T03:58:00.0000000+11:00

After a 6.3 magnitude quake hit L'aquila, killing more than 300 people, Italian officials arrested six scientists and one former government official, saying they were falsely reassuring about the chances of the quake. Now they've just been sentenced to six years in prison.

New Telescope To Hunt For Earth's Twin

2012-10-23T03:03:00.0000000+11:00

The Kepler space telescope (and several observatories on the ground) have pinpointed a plenitude of planets around other stars, but astronomers' knowledge of them remains fuzzy. A new European mission launching in five years will bring them into focus, figuring out their size, density and internal structure.

iPod Nano And iPod Touch Review: Hey Guys, Remember iPods?

2012-10-23T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

Let's assume, before we go any further, that you have already decided you want a non-smartphone that can play media (or apps), so we can not waste any time by discussing under which probably weird circumstances you want one of these instead of a smartphone, which is of course much more capable and which you probably already have. No more discussion! Just reviews!

Turn An Android Device Into A Pocket-Size Media Centre

2012-10-23T01:27:00.0000000+11:00

The notion that a home entertainment centre must be in your actual home is antiquated. With an off-the-shelf adapter and a few apps loaded onto an Android phone or tablet, users can stream movies, TV shows, and videogames from remote computers or media services to a television. That means you can fully re-create the experience of being at home when you're at a friend's house, in a hotel room, or anywhere else with a good flat-screen.

They Said It Couldn't Be Done!

2012-10-23T00:01:00.0000000+11:00

Da Vinci sketched the oldest known plans for a human-powered aircraft in 1485. Yet it wasn't until 1977 that the first one truly flew. Flight requires lift, when the net air pressure pushing upward counteracts the craft's weight. For years, many assumed that flight required more lift and more power than the human body alone could provide (although the admonitions did little to stop myriad failed attempts). But inventors persisted. Aircraft fly using three basic configurations: fixed wing, flapping wing, and rotors. In the last 50 years, inventors have conquered fixed-wing and flapping flight. Now they are on the verge of overcoming the greatest challenge yet: vertical takeoff.

Will The City Of The Future Look As Insane As This?

2012-10-20T08:30:00.0000000+11:00

To create the exhibit "Under Tomorrows Sky" (yes, it's apostrophe-free), speculative architect Liam Young brought together a batch of like-minded folks to imagine a city of the future...

Today On Mars: Curiosity Arrives At 'The Promised Land'

2012-10-19T08:00:00.0000000+11:00

The Mars rover Curiosity has arrived at its long-sought destination: Glenelg, a region where three types of geologic formations converge into a potential bonanza for scientists.

Science Confirms The Obvious: Rejection Can Make You More Creative

2012-10-19T07:30:00.0000000+11:00

Don't let rejection get you down - it might be the ticket to creativity, science says. That's right: If regular rejection doesn't cause you to lose all self-confidence and withdraw from the world entirely, it just might boost your ability to think outside of the mainstream and draw upon a unique worldview, suggesting that the kind of people society considers "geniuses" might tend to have a go-it-alone, loner mentality.

How An Architectural Photographer Turned Google's Boring Server Warehouses Into Art

2012-10-19T05:50:00.0000000+11:00

Our friends at Pop Photo talked to Connie Zhou, who took absolutely stunning photos of what might seem horribly boring: Google's server centers.

Daily Infographic: Who's Been In The Most James Bond Movies?

2012-10-19T04:00:00.0000000+11:00

The 50th anniversary of James Bond - and the upcoming release of Skyfall, the newest film - have inspired a wealth of infographics over the last couple weeks, but this interactive visualization by Ramiro Gómez is arguably the coolest.

Exposing Kids To 10 Hours Of Science A Year Makes Them Smarter

2012-10-19T03:15:00.0000000+11:00

Low-income minority fourth-graders from south L.A. improved their test scores in math and language after they got just a handful of science lessons, a new study found. College students studying science presented 10 separate one-hour lessons, and the kids rose up whole percentile ranks in other subjects.

Check Out The Most Richly Detailed Image Ever Taken Of Uranus

2012-10-19T03:00:00.0000000+11:00

Uranus looks a lot like some of our solar system's other planets in these spectacular new images from the Keck Observatory. Rather than beholding a pale bluish orb (like how Voyager viewed the planet nearly three decades ago), you can see whorls of clouds at high and low altitudes, huge hurricanes and strange features at its south pole.

GameSci: LittleBigPlanet Karting Gives You Rules Hoping You'll Break Them

2012-10-19T02:00:00.0000000+11:00

The LittleBigPlanet series has always prided itself on creativity; the motto was, in short, build the game you want. So when I heard the newest game in the series would be called LittleBigPlanet Karting, I was wary.

Cruising Through The Throwback Game L.A. Noire With Someone Who Was There

2012-10-19T01:12:00.0000000+11:00

In L.A. Noire, you play a detective cracking cases on the mean streets of 1940s Los Angeles. One of the most heralded parts of the game was its historical accuracy: The landscapes and buildings are modelled on how they really were in the '40s. But what would someone who was actually there think of the game? At Eurogamer, Christian Donlan tackles that question. His father grew up in the '40s and, even better, his grandfather was a beat cop. Read what both Donlan and his dad think of the experience here.

Megapixels: The James Webb Space Telescope Gets Chilled to 400 Degrees Below Zero

2012-10-19T00:58:00.0000000+11:00

In 2018, NASA will launch the James Webb Space Telescope, which will boast mirrors approximately seven times larger than those on the Hubble. Once operational, the telescope will peer through interstellar dust and clearly image some of the youngest stars and galaxies in the universe.

Spontaneous Combustion Is Easier Than You Think

2012-10-19T00:00:00.0000000+11:00

The facts about spontaneous combustion are easily lost. Mostly this is because spontaneous human combustion is a favorite among conspiracy-theorist types. Reports of people suddenly going up in flames tend to omit an essential detail, such as a lit cigarette. Yet as with many phoney scientific concepts, the possibility is so intriguing that some people just want to believe.

V-Moda M-100 Review: The Headphones That Made Me Love Headphones

2012-10-18T07:00:00.0000000+11:00

The single best non-essential tech item - like, not a laptop or smartphone - that you can buy is a really good pair of headphones.

Video: The 'World's First High-Speed, Commercially Available Amphibious Vehicle'

2012-10-17T05:00:00.0000000+11:00

The first commercially available amphibious vehicle capable of decent speeds - 45 miles per hour on both land and water - is expected to go on sale in the US by the end of this year.

Meet Boxee, The Hacker Project Gone Mainstream That Could Get You To Ditch Cable

2012-10-17T01:05:00.0000000+11:00

In 1994, Avner Ronen was in the Israeli Defense Forces, stationed, he says, at the first place in the IDF with an internet-connected computer. Somebody there showed him some nudie pics, doubtlessly downloaded with painful slowness, but nudie pics. "I immediately saw the potential of the internet," Ronen told me, with about as much of a grin as I ever saw throughout our interviews. Which is not much.

Saturn's Moon Titan Has A Soft, Crusty Surface, Like Freshly Frozen Snow

2012-10-16T02:59:00.0000000+11:00

Walking on the surface of Titan would be like walking on a beach while the tide is going out, according to a new study. Or, if snow is your preferred outdoor surface, it's like breaking a snowshoe trail on a sunny day. The huge Saturnian moon's surface has the consistency of damp sand or crusty snow - you can walk gently on top, but push hard with your foot and you'll break through, sinking down at least a few inches.

Sensitive Structures

2012-10-09T10:54:00.0000000+11:00

In our September issue, we featured a story on a University of Technology, Sydney, building embedded with special sensors that tell engineers when the structure is under stress or being corroded. For a more in-depth view into this area, we spoke with Behnam Vakshouri, a PhD student whose research involves this sensitive structure, about the building, the future of sensors in Australia, and why he's enjoyed working on this project.

FYI: Is It Legal To 3-D Print A Handgun?

2012-10-05T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Earlier this week, the Wiki Weapons Project - an initiative to create a 3-D printed handgun and distribute the digital design file for free online - ran into a stumbling block when 3-D printer provider Stratasys pulled the lease on a printer it had provided the group. Stratasys cited a clause in the lease agreement that allows the company to rescind a lease for printers believed to be used for unlawful purposes. That raises the obvious (and thorny) question: Is the Wiki Weapons Project doing anything illegal?

Amazing Video: Timelapse View Of The Australian Outback's Giant Radio Dishes

2012-10-04T05:53:00.0000000+10:00

Australia's first portion of the enormous future Square Kilometer Array turns on this Friday, and will soon begin surveying the entire sky with a quickness. The array contains 36 12-meter antennas that spread across 4,000 meters but work as a single instrument, providing an enormous field of view.

Bats Combine Work And Dating

2012-10-04T05:07:00.0000000+10:00

Echolocation is a bat's prime method of finding food and orienting itself, but it also helps the animals find and keep their mates, according to a new study. Bat calls contain detailed information an individual's identity, which helps male bats avoid rivals and helps females find their partners.

Fake Toes Found In Ancient Egyptian Tombs Could Be The World's Oldest Prostheses

2012-10-04T04:52:00.0000000+10:00

There is a documented history of ancient Egyptians creating fake body parts to augment bodies headed for burial, but a new study suggests that two artificial toes recovered from tombs there may in fact be the oldest known prosthetic body parts. Researchers at the University of Manchester made replicas of the two items - both right big toes - and had volunteers missing those toes to wear them. The fake toes showed to be not only comfortable to wear, but to also vastly improve their walking while wearing traditional Egyptian sandals, suggesting these toes had more than an aesthetic, funerary purpose.

New Dinosaur Identified

2012-10-04T04:45:00.0000000+10:00

The newly identified Pegomastax africanus is a strange new anomaly in the dinosaur world. When it roamed the planet more than 200 million years ago, it was less than 2 feet long and didn't even weigh as much as a housecat - making it one of the smallest dinos ever - and it definitely wasn't as likable as a housecat: despite it probably being a herbivore, it had 1-inch-long fangs and porcupine-style quills.

The Bloodhound Supersonic Car Project Test Fires Its Rocket Engine

2012-10-04T01:35:00.0000000+10:00

The Bloodhound rocket car has another year of development ahead of it before Wing Commander Andy Green of Britain's Royal Air Force attempts to accelerate it to speeds upward of 1600 kilometers per hour (the current land speed record is 1220 kilomters per hour). In the meantime, the project is teasing us with glimpses of just how powerful this supersonic vehicle's power source will be. Earlier today at Newquay Airport in Cornwall, UK, the development team test fired the rocket engine that will power the Bloodhound across the flats of South Africa next year. Hold on tight.

Mythbusting: The Vampire Squid Is Not A Lethal Ocean Predator

2012-10-03T08:18:00.0000000+10:00

There's nothing particularly cuddly about the vampire squid, and on top of that, it's named the vampire squid. It's even known by the vaguely hellish Vampyroteuthis infernalis. But the little guy is catching a break, finally: it's not a vampire, just a slime-eating garbageman of the deep.

Today On Mars: Bathurst Signals

2012-10-03T08:06:00.0000000+10:00

Over the weekend, the Mars rover Curiosity rolled up to an angular rock on Mars and took some closeup images, as well as a sniff of the rock's chemical composition. This rock is called Bathurst Inlet.

Ambitious $1 Billion Project Aims to Drill A Hole All the Way to Earth's Mantle

2012-10-03T05:46:00.0000000+10:00

With enough money and enough moxie, scientists operating gigantic ocean-based drills could penetrate into the Earth's mantle by the early 2020s, returning samples that could hold clues to our planet's origins. The effort to reach into the heart of the Earth would be one of the most dramatic undertakings in science.

Genetically Engineered Cow Produces World's First Hypoallergenic Milk

2012-10-03T03:01:00.0000000+10:00

Cow genes could be modified to prevent the animals from producing proteins that cause allergic reactions, according to a new study. Scientists in New Zealand engineered a dairy cow to lack the milk protein beta-lactoglobulin, while other milk proteins were dramatically increased.

Boeing's New Space Junk Scheme Clears Debris With a Cloud Of Ballistic Gas

2012-10-03T02:39:00.0000000+10:00

Aerospace giant Boeing has developed a novel means of clearing space junk from low Earth orbit: A cloud of ballistic gas. Most space junk-clearing schemes involve launching something up there to physically de-orbit debris, but this means launching rocket stages into orbit that then become more orbital debris. Boeing's solution: Launch a rocket full of cryogenic inert gas right to the very edge of space, then forcibly eject tons of vaporised gas further upward into an orbiting debris cluster. The initial density of the cloud will create enough drag to slow the debris just enough to de-orbit it, and the launch rocket would remain low enough to fall harmlessly back to Earth.

Meet The 2012 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Scientists

2012-10-03T02:25:00.0000000+10:00

Every year, the MacArthur Foundation makes an investment - a $500,000 investment - in the future by handing out bags of money to people whose work shows promise. Of course that includes scientists doing world-changing research. The 2012 fellows were just announced, and here they are: Maria Chudnovsky and Melody Swartz.

3-D Printing Company Confiscates Wiki Weapon Project's Printer

2012-10-03T00:47:00.0000000+10:00

The Wiki Weapon Project - the attempt by University of Texas law school student Cody Wilson to develop a 3-D printable handgun and distribute its digital design file across the Web - is under fire. Stratasys, the maker of the 3-D printer the project's backers hoped to use to prototype its designs, has reclaimed the printer they originally sent to Wilson, citing Wilson's lack of a federal firearms manufacturing license and the company's right to rescind any lease if it believes its printers will be used for unlawful activity. This whole controversy exists in a huge legal gray area, but for now it looks like the Wiki Weapon is stalled.

A Map Of The World, According To Wikipedia Geotags [Infographic]

2012-10-03T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

The English version of Wikipedia of has more than four million articles, or 2.5 billion words-50 times the number of words in the next-largest English encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia Brittanica, according to Wikipedia. And in all 271 languages combined, the online encyclopedia holds some 23.6 million entries.

FYI: Could "Smiles," The Psychedelic Drug Implicated In An Actor's Death, Cause Violent Behavior?

2012-10-02T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

Johnny Lewis, an actor known for his role on the show Sons of Anarchy, died last week, suspected of killing his landlady and her cat, then killing himself. The word leaked quickly that Lewis had been on a relatively new designer drug: "Smiles," or 2C-I. Several publications jumped on it, ready to lay the blame on drug use, or at least casually suggesting a connection. 2C-I is dangerous, yes, linked to overdoses and other erratic behavior - but is it linked to violence? Not especially.

Today On Mars: Check Out Curiosity's Martian Roadmap

2012-10-02T07:31:00.0000000+10:00

Mars rover Curiosity has already made some neat discoveries on its still-short mission, and this roadside map plots those. But it still has a way to go: It's Glenelg or bust.

Adam Cohen Lights Up Neurons To See How They Fire

2012-10-02T06:00:00.0000000+10:00

Other 13-year-old boys want cash for their bar mitzvah. Adam Cohen asked for an oscilloscope. Shortly thereafter, he startled his parents by wandering into the living room with a home-built EKG machine taped to his chest. "They were a bit concerned that I was going to electrocute myself," Cohen recalls, "but apart from that, they were supportive."

We Are All Born Scientists, Study Finds

2012-10-02T03:04:00.0000000+10:00

Young kids think and learn about their surroundings much the way that scientists think and learn in advanced experiments, a new study says. They form hypotheses, test them, analyse their findings and learn from their actions and the actions of others - all in child's play.

Swiss Quadrotor Robots Throw and Catch

2012-10-02T01:58:00.0000000+10:00

We never get tired of writing about networked, swarm-like quadrotor drones, mostly because this field - though it currently lacks a killer application - continues to advance at such a rapid pace. We've previously seen quadrotors work collectively to build structures and play the James Bond theme, and now researchers at ETH Zurich are teaching them to play catch.

Watch Cyberattacks Spread Across The Globe In Real Time [Infographic]

2012-10-02T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

A beautiful, hard-to-look-away-from graphic from the Honeynet Project shows cyberattacks as they happen, and where they happen. The red dots represent attacks; the yellow dots are "honeypots," or sensors, which monitor and publish the flow of cyberattacks. You can watch it all flow across the bottom, too. Almost every second, a new attack is reported and pushed through.

Snow On Venus? Upper Atmospheric Layer On Normally Scorching Planet Might Be Cold Enough

2012-10-02T00:39:00.0000000+10:00

Venus is known for its scorching, Earth-lander-melting, inhospitable surface - but don't judge a planet by its cover. Venus has a cold streak high in the atmosphere, where it might even be cool enough for snow to form.

After The LHC: The Next Really Big Experiments In Particle Physics

2012-10-02T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

It took the Large Hadron Collider just three years to find the Higgs boson - but it took nearly 20 years to create the Large Hadron Collider. High energy physics happens at the speed of light, but the underlying practicalities move at the speed of bureaucracy, funding requests, and setting concrete. So to keep things moving forward, the global physics community is constantly envisioning and re-envisioning the next big things in high energy particle physics - things big enough to dwarf even the largest and most expensive science experiment mankind has ever created.

Today On Mars: Curiosity Chemically Examines Its First Rock

2012-09-29T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

Yesterday heralded news that Mars rover Curiosity had discovered evidence of water once flowing on Mars, but this image of Curiosity reaching out its robotic arm to examine its first rock, taken on an earlier Martian day, is more bittersweet. The rock was named Jake Matijevic, for the rover engineer who died this year. Matijevic helped engineer Curiosity, Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity.

A Guide For "Human Expansion Into The Cosmos" [Infographic]

2012-09-29T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Sean Ragan at MAKE magazine spent some time hunting down this 1980s infographic, and it's a beaut. Rockwell International was a major company in its time, and here it presents its "Integrated Space Plan" - basically, how we're all going to get off this rock we call home. It's (not surprisingly) overwhelming and slightly dated, but there's a lot of interesting ideas in it, too.

Artificially Intelligent Gamer Bots Convince Judges They're More Human Than Humans

2012-09-29T02:08:00.0000000+10:00

Two virtual gamers have convinced a panel of judges they were more human than the humans they competed with in a first-person shooter game, winning the five-year-old BotPrize and beating the Turing test of machine awareness. The game bots were video game characters controlled by artificially intelligent algorithms.

Where Do You Have To Work The Hardest For A Beer? [Infographic]

2012-09-29T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

The post-work beer is always satisfying, but as a chart from The Economist shows, residents of some nations have to work harder for it. Sometimes a lot harder.

Awesome New Electronics Can Dissolve and Disappear When They're No Longer Needed

2012-09-29T00:19:00.0000000+10:00

A new class of electronics can dissolve and disappear on a pre-set schedule, within a few minutes or a few years, depending on when you want them to go away. They could live in the body and deliver drugs, they could stick on the exterior of buildings or tanks, and they can become compost instead of metal scrap - in other words, they turn the common conception of electronics completely upside down.

Using 'Fractal Kitties,' We Could Avoid A Critical Shortage Of Cat Photos

2012-09-28T23:07:00.0000000+10:00

Threatened by the idea that we may someday run out of cat photos, a couple of Cornell mathematicians have set about using their skills to approximate the shape of a cat using a mathematic device known as the Julia sets of polynomials. The Julia sets of degree two polynomials is closely related to the more familiar Mandelbrot set, one of the most famous fractals.

Issue #47 - October 2012

2012-09-28T10:45:00.0000000+10:00

Our October issue is ON SALE FROM SEPTEMBER 26, and is about three of the greatest things in science and tech: guns, robots and boats! It's a future of defence special, where we look at stealth destroyers, smart guns and haptic battlefield robots.

Today On Mars: First Physical Evidence Of A Once-Flowing Stream

2012-09-28T06:22:00.0000000+10:00

Scientists have known that water flowed on Mars at one point, but until now, what that flow looked like has remained educated speculation. Now a discovery changes that. Mars rover Curiosity has found gravel that was once part of an ancient stream. This image shows the Martian rock outcrop where that gravel is.

After Pregnancy, Many Women Have Bits Of Male DNA In Their Brains

2012-09-28T04:01:00.0000000+10:00

Mothers aren't just emotionally connected to their sons. A new study shows how genetic material can be passed on from fetuses during pregnancy, traveling through the human blood-brain barrier and settling in - and it might be relatively normal, too.

"Looper" And The Real Science Of Time Travel

2012-09-28T03:05:00.0000000+10:00

This week, Looper, a gritty time-travel thriller from writer/director Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom) arrives in movie theaters across Australia. The story: Powerful crime organizations in the late 21st century can't off their foes without getting caught, so they illegally send victims back in time to the year 2044 to be disposed of by hitmen called "loopers." Looper's time travel, in short, is a futuristic version of the concrete boots.

Your Clothes Could Soon Scrub Pollution Directly From The Air

2012-09-28T02:02:00.0000000+10:00

Your washing machine and dryer are both energy intensive machines, but soon your rinse cycle could start giving something back. A liquid laundry additive called "CatClo" (for "catalytic clothing") developed by researchers at the University of Sheffield and London College of Fashion in the UK could imbue clothing with titanium dioxice nanoparticles that scrub nitrogen oxides from the air and oxidise them in the fabric. On the next wash, these nitrogen oxides are simply washed away.

Brilliant 10: Anže Slosar Maps Matter At The Edge Of The Universe

2012-09-28T00:06:00.0000000+10:00

The oldest part of the universe, more than 10 billion light years away, bursts with super-luminous quasars and diffuse aggregations of hydrogen gas. Anže Slosar, a cosmologist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, wants to map that expanse in 3-D.

Invisibility, No Brake Lights, Ads Everywhere: The Future Of Self-Driving Cars

2012-09-27T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

Car designer Chris Bangle has spent years designing forward-thinking vehicles, so now, with self-driving cars just legalised in California, we decided to pick his brain on what's next for the automobile that no longer needs its master.

Google Maps Launches 3-D Snorkel View Of The World's Greatest Reefs

2012-09-27T05:02:00.0000000+10:00

Google Maps just unveiled a new ocean-level street view, which we'll call Snorkel View, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to virtually dive with sea turtles other creatures in some of the world's most pristine coral reefs. You can use the Street View tool in several tropical locales to zoom in and swim with the fishes.

Carbon Nanotubes Generate The Smallest 3-D Hologram Pixels Ever

2012-09-27T03:19:00.0000000+10:00

Holography is one of those "it's-2012-where-is-my-holodeck" kind of sciences - long promised by science fiction, still far from a practical communications tool. But the field is moving forward in fits and starts, even if a complete technology package that will beam moving holograms onto our tabletops, Princess Leia-style, is still on some far horizon. Example: Researchers at Cambridge in the U.K. have recently generated holograms with carbon nanotubes for the first time, generating the smallest hologram pixels ever.

5 Ways The Brand New Dark Energy Camera Will Utterly Change Our Understanding Of The Universe

2012-09-27T02:24:00.0000000+10:00

For something that we know absolutely nothing about, dark energy owns a prominent place in astrophysics. Its discovery won the Nobel Prize even though the very term "dark energy" is a placeholder for a phenomenon we don't really understand, and though its effects are observable dark energy itself - which supposedly makes up three-quarters of the universe - has never been seen and remains unobservable. That's why the Dark Energy Camera - which achieved first light just last week - is such a big deal. With it, we might finally give the term "dark energy" some meaning.

Next Big Mars Goal: Bringing Samples Home From the Red Planet

2012-09-27T00:45:00.0000000+10:00

NASA's next Mars moves should focus on bringing chunks of Mars back to Earth, possibly in a hand-off between a robot and an astronaut, according to a new planning document. Involving humans in a space-based rock swap would ensure the sample is protected and Earth is protected - and it would probably make sense anyway, given the timing and budget constraints for NASA's Mars plans.

New Brain Upgrade To Let Mars Rover Curiosity Decide For Itself Which Rocks To Zap

2012-09-26T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

As the Mars rover Curiosity rolls through pebbly Gale Crater, it snaps a multitude of photographs and sends them to Earth, where humans pore over them and decide where to send the rover next. But within a few months, the rover will be able to find salient rocks on its own, speeding the process of exploring Mars.

PopSci Recommends: What I Learned About Einstein In 4.5 Hours Of Opera

2012-09-26T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

I went into the production of Philip Glass's "Einstein on the Beach" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Friday, curious to see if this famous 1976 work would tell me anything about science.

From Hubble, The Deepest-Ever View Of The Universe

2012-09-26T06:42:00.0000000+10:00

Take a deep breath, stargazers: this is the farthest we've seen into the heart of the universe. The eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, as the photo's called, shows about 5,500 galaxies, although some are as much are only one ten-billionth of the brightness needed to be seen by human eyes.

Parking Software Lets Drivers Buy And Sell Info About Available Spaces

2012-09-26T05:05:00.0000000+10:00

Rather than hunting for an empty parking spot, or even getting out and letting your empty car hunt for you, a new system relies on good old-fashioned capitalism to find open spaces. With TruCentive, drivers can buy and sell information about available spots.

Today On Mars: Curiosity Records Hurricane-Like Air Pressure Swings

2012-09-26T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Mars Rover Curiosity is above all a robot geologist, but that's not stopping it from tracking weather on the Red Planet as well. And what strange weather it is. The latest exciting result from Curiosity: atmospheric pressures at some places on Mars swing wildly throughout the day.

Brilliant 10: Deva Ramanan Trains Computers To Identify People

2012-09-26T00:01:00.0000000+10:00

Deva Ramanan clicks a button on his MacBook Air and a video begins to play: Michelle Kwan skating in the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Next to it, a computer program renders what it "sees" in the footage: Kwan's head, legs, torso, upper arms, and forearms, all distinguished by different colors. Ramanan, a computer scientist at University of California at Irvine, trains computers to recognise three-dimensional humans in flat photography.

How Better Typography Could Reduce Car Crashes

2012-09-25T22:23:00.0000000+10:00

The basic interior of the automobile changed little in the latter half of the 20th century. "You had the steering wheel, the gas pedal, the brakes. And the display in there might have been providing a digital readout of the radio station," says Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at the MIT AgeLab.

Why Not To Keep Your Liquid Nitrogen In A Sealed Container

2012-09-25T07:18:00.0000000+10:00

Here at PopSci we use a lot of liquid nitrogen; we use it to crack locks, to mix drinks, and even just to cool off. But we're careful.

Brilliant 10: Greg Nielson Shrinks Solar Cells To The Size Of Glitter

2012-09-25T04:54:00.0000000+10:00

Greg Nielson pushes a small jar full of rubbing alcohol across his desk at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. In the jar float shiny solar cells the size of glitter. "If you have panels of these on top of Walmart, you get twice as much power [as conventional photovoltaics] and your costs go down by half," he says. For the past six years, Nielson has worked to dramatically reduce the size of solar cells in order to make them more durable, efficient, and cost-effective.

Today On Mars: The President's Signature

2012-09-25T03:05:00.0000000+10:00

Starting with Nixon and the Apollo missions, we've been blasting presidential signatures into space for more than four decades. This one's the latest: Barack Obama's signature is on Mars rover Curiosity, with Joe Biden's right below it. This shot, of the left side of the rover's deck, was taken by the ever-flexible Curiosity on a recent Martian "sol," or Mars day. Also attached - on the neat, anodised aluminum plaque, which is the material of choice for this sort of thing - are the John Hancocks of various science advisers and NASA officials.

MIT's Wearable Sensor Pack Turns First Responders Into Digital Mapmakers

2012-09-25T02:07:00.0000000+10:00

Robots have seemingly unlimited potential when it comes to search and rescue operations - they can enter hazardous environments, quickly map dangerous areas for first responders, and help establish communication links and a game plan for larger recovery and triage efforts. But in these scenarios, humans aren't going anywhere. We still need breathing, thinking bodies on the ground. So a team at MIT has built a wearable sensor pack that can "roboticise" human first responders, allowing the first person into a dangerous environment to digitally map it in realtime, just like a robot.

Science Of Theft: Freeze A Bike Lock Then Smash It

2012-09-25T00:09:00.0000000+10:00

Strong, hard, tough. These sound like different ways of saying the same thing, perhaps describing a really good suitcase. But when applied to the physical properties of materials, each of these words has a very specific technical meaning that distinguishes it from the others. And those definitions explain why it's so difficult to make a bicycle lock that can foil thieves.

A New Artificial Heart Pump That Mimics the Real Thing

2012-09-22T03:15:00.0000000+10:00

Today's artificial hearts contain pumps whose spinning rotors can damage blood cells, causing clotting that can lead to strokes. A new pump design could prevent that damage by mimicking the natural movement of human tissue.

Project Of The Month: The Soldering Gun

2012-09-22T02:15:00.0000000+10:00

Mike Warren, an editor at DIY website instructables.com, wanted a tool that was fun and unusual for projects that require soldering electronics. His solution? Disassemble a 15-watt soldering iron and install it in the gutted body of an air-pellet gun.

The Statistical Physics Of Ponytails And Other Ig Nobel Winners

2012-09-22T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

Science is our key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and also occasionally the key to unlocking the brain waves of dead salmon. Thus: another year, another announcement of the Ig Nobel prize winners, the men and women behind the most unlikely, hilarious, thought-provoking science of the year.

What Countries Are The Worst At Protecting Endangered Animals? [Infographic]

2012-09-22T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

The demand for ivory and other illegal animal parts is on the rise in China and other Asian markets, and in Africa, tens of thousands of elephants are being slaughtered each year to meet it. Rhinos and tigers - whose horns and various other parts are also popular in China and Vietnam - are aggressively poached as well.

Science Confirms The Obvious: Science Faculty Think Female Students Are Less Competent

2012-09-21T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

There's a canyon-sized gender gap in the academic science world. Officials keep pushing to move women into the field, and the number of degrees granted to them has increased, but those degrees don't necessarily result in more women working in the sciences. A new study shows that science faculty see female students as less competent than their male counterparts, and it could cost them jobs, a fair salary, and mentoring opportunities.

One Gene Lays The Blueprint for A Cheetah's Spots And A Tabby Cat's Stripes

2012-09-21T05:46:00.0000000+10:00

Anyone who's ever seen a cat knows how distinct he or she looks compared to every other cat - stripes and whorls cover their coats in seemingly endless variation. It turns out that one gene is responsible for regulating these patterns, and it's true for all of the domestic cat's larger cousins. Different mutations on a shared gene produce the blotchy patterns of pet tabbies as well as the stripes on a rare type of wild cheetahs. What's more, one geneticist thinks there could be an immunological reason for all these unique designs.

Harvard Business Review: Data Scientist Is The 'Sexiest Job Of The 21st Century'

2012-09-21T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

What is the sexiest job of the 21st century? If you said "data scientist," you're probably an editor at Harvard Business Review and probably not anyone else.

Nestle Embeds GPS Trackers In Candy Bars To Hunt Down Eaters

2012-09-21T03:56:00.0000000+10:00

Customers buying Kit-Kat bars in the United Kingdom could be unwrapping a 21st-century version of Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket - a GPS unit the candy-maker will use to find them, apprehend them and give them a prize. Nestlé claims to be the first to market its chocolatey wares with a GPS-based promotion.

Your Next Leather Wallet Could Be Grown In A Petri Dish

2012-09-21T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Science has been trying for years to grow the perfect sirloin in a petri dish, but animal hides, rather than animal meat, might be a simpler, easier-to-sell product you can harvest in the lab. A company called Modern Meadow could have a full-scale leather production facility up and running within five years, CEO and cofounder Andras Forgacs says.

The Fastest Way To Crack A 4-Digit PIN Number [Infographic]

2012-09-21T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

We know people default to bad passwords, whether for their computers or banking PINs. But, we have to stress this here, people are really bad at picking passwords. This infographic visualizes that idea by taking all of the possible combinations and mapping them based on frequency of use.

German Art Laser Turns Random Desktop Crap Into Exotic Musical Instruments

2012-09-21T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

An Instrument for the Sonification of Everday Things from Dennis P Paul on Vimeo.

First 3-D Printing Store in U.S. Opens

2012-09-20T08:20:00.0000000+10:00

The 3-D printing world just took another big leap into the consumer market. Next stop: world domination?

Video: The Popinator Tracks Where Your Voice Is Coming From And Shoots Popcorn Into Your Mouth

2012-09-20T07:27:00.0000000+10:00

If you're tired of relying on your merely-mortal hands to catapult popcorn into your maw during snack time, there's a better way. The Popinator will do it for you, do it better, and do it from wherever you are in the room. Just say "pop."

How Bats Can Help Scientists Design Better Robots

2012-09-20T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

Bats are great at hunting down prey via echolocation, in which their ultrasonic chirps bounce off anything in the air. Specialised ear designs and other features detect the returning sounds, helping the bats determine the location of a moving target. But what about when the target is still?

The U.S. Conducted Atomic Weapons Tests On Beer

2012-09-20T02:29:00.0000000+10:00

The atomic bomb reached deep into the world's collective consciousness, changing everything forever. Testing something like that meant serious research into how a nuclear explosion would affect every part of life, including: "Will this bomb irradiate my beer?"

How An Underfunded Team Of Spanish Astronomers Could Help Solve The Mystery Of Dark Energy

2012-09-20T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

Since 1998, when astronomers discovered that a mysterious force known as dark energy is blowing the universe apart, scientists have launched at least a dozen multimillion-dollar projects to figure out what, exactly, dark energy is. These range from the $71-million BigBOSS project to the $900-million Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is scheduled to see first light in 2019. But in an era of shrinking research funding, the advantage might go to scientists who can work on a shoestring budget-people such as Basque cosmologist Narciso "Txitxo" Benítez, who says he can scoop every one of those projects for less than $10 million.

This Escape Pod Could Save Lives In A Tsunami

2012-09-19T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

Australian business owner Matt Duncan usually builds steel-hulled houseboats, but he was so affected by last year's devastating tsunami in Japan that he's turned his focus to seaworthy survival craft. His bright orange Tsunami Survival Pod can accommodate four people for two and a half hours.

Write Your Name In The Stars With This New Font

2012-09-19T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

When you spend lots of free time categorizing images of galaxies, you start to see recognizable shapes - including the letters of the alphabet. Over the past couple of years, the volunteer galaxy hunters over at the Zooniverse compiled a list, and now it's available on a whole new section of the site. You can write your name in the stars!

Sperm Can't Turn Left, Or Don't Want To

2012-09-19T04:29:00.0000000+10:00

Sperm are small, but they're quick-an individual sperm can wiggle through a space 25 times the length of its body in a single second. (For comparison, a human would have to run 869 000 kilometers per hour to achieve the same relative speed.)

"There Is No Such Thing As Time"

2012-09-19T03:30:00.0000000+10:00

The "rebels" who fight the Big Bang theory are mostly attempting to grapple with the concept of time. They are philosophers as much as cosmologists, unsatisfied with the Big Bang, unimpressed with string theory and unconvinced of the multiverse. Julian Barbour, British physicist, author, and major proponent of the idea of timeless physics, is one of those rebels - so thoroughly a rebel that he has spurned the world of academics.

FYI: Why Do Girls Throw Like A Girl?

2012-09-19T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

You don't need to look any further than last week's news cycle to see proof that a girl can throw a ball: Erin DiMeglio, the first female quarterback to play high school football in Florida, made a splash by taking a spot on her team. But some research indicates it's an uphill battle.

NASA Astronaut Suni Williams Completes First Triathlon In Space

2012-09-19T01:19:00.0000000+10:00

Astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams, who just took command of the International Space Station over the weekend, likes to break records. (She is only the second woman ever to command the ISS, by the way.) She holds the record for the longest continuous spaceflight by a woman, spending 195 consecutive days on the ISS. Now she's finished the first-ever ~~space triathlon~~ spaceathlon.

Popular Neuroscience Is "Neurobollocks"

2012-09-19T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

Steven Poole over at the New Statesman has a great piece up bashing the populist, not-so-scientific writings of folks like Malcolm Gladwell and Jonah Lehrer. It's an angry, thoughtful discussion of the complexities of the brain and why catchy headlines and simplistic conclusions might be doing us a disservice.

The Last Dinosaur Died In 1927: The Fossil Record According To Creationism [Infographic]

2012-09-19T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

In the mid-1700s-about a century before the birth of geology and the first scientific attempts to determine Earth's age-an archbishop of the Church of Ireland named James Ussher mapped out the genealogies and chronologies of Biblical characters all the way back to Adam and Eve, and concluded that the world was created in the year 4004 B.C.

India Aims To Take The "World's Fastest Supercomputer" Crown By 2017

2012-09-18T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

India's government-backed computing agency has submitted a plan to the government there that calls for a massive investment in next-generation supercomputing power. The proposal, which calls for an investment of more than $870 million over five years, claims that it can rocket India to the very peak of the TOP500 list, the twice-a-year tallying of the fastest computing platforms in the world. In fact, the proposal says that these exaflop-range machines will be a full 61 times faster than the fastest existing machine.

Upcoming Space Station Cameras Will Give All Humans Live Imagery of Their Houses From Space

2012-09-18T05:38:00.0000000+10:00

An ambitious effort to broadcast real-time streaming video of Earth from space is closer to reality, after a new influx of cash and some new partnerships. By spring 2013, everyone on Earth will be able to watch the planet from the most unique vantage point ever built, the International Space Station.

Make Your Own Mars Watch, To Keep Time With The Rovers

2012-09-18T02:04:00.0000000+10:00

Keeping time on Mars is a challenge not only because of the time slip - you jump forward 39 Earth minutes and 35 Earth seconds a day - but because of the actual mechanics. A Mars day is longer than an Earth day, which means an hour is longer, and so is a minute and a second. So, synchronising your watch with the Mars rover Curiosity's clock is all but impossible. Until now!

Full-Frame Compacts, Android Cameras, and More From Photokina 2012

2012-09-18T01:44:00.0000000+10:00

Our good friends at Popular Photography are out in Cologne, Germany, eating sausage and getting their sausage-grease-covered fingers all over the next generation of camera gear at Photokina 2012, the world's biggest camera convention.

Today On Mars: Opportunity Discovers Mysterious Martian Spheres

2012-09-18T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

More than eight years into its mission, Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is still sending back data and images that consistently fill us with wonder and periodically leave scientists scratching their heads. Consider the image above. Taken by Opportunity at an outcropping on the rim of Endeavour Crater known as Kirkwood, it reveals a small stretch of ground littered with tiny spheres, and geologists have no idea what they are or how they got there.

Today on Mars: Roving and Photo-Snapping

2012-09-15T07:54:00.0000000+10:00

Mars Rover Curiosity got a move on during its 38th sol hanging out on the red planet. After taking a few more self-portraits, and testing the robotic arm the rover will use to collect samples, it set off on one of its longest drives yet.

Video: Government Wizards Levitate Drugs With Ultrasonic Sound

2012-09-15T05:23:00.0000000+10:00

Good drugs dissolve easily in the body. Bad pharmaceutical molecules, meanwhile, lock themselves into hard-to-absorb crystals that require strong doses to work, and this overcompensation often leads to crummy side effects.

An Accessory That Replaces Mouse Movements With Hand Waves

2012-09-15T03:35:00.0000000+10:00

It's been nearly 50 years since Douglas Engelbart, an engineer at the Stanford Research Institute, invented the first computer mouse. Since then, his basic point-and-click input scheme has remained fundamentally unchanged; even trackpads and touchscreens, which recognize multiple points at once, work on the same guiding principle. Now Leap Motion, a San Francisco company, is aiming to reinvent human-computer interaction. Its three-inch-long motion-capture device, known simply as the Leap, lets users control computers and manipulate onscreen objects by just waving their fingers.

The Labs That Go Boom: The Propulsion Research Center Builds A Better Rocket

2012-09-15T02:25:00.0000000+10:00

This month PopSci presents 10 labs where students do serious research (and career training) by blowing stuff up.

Marshall's Plans: Advanced Testing For DIY Projects

2012-09-14T23:55:00.0000000+10:00

I'm always tinkering with cars and building strange machines, so it's crucial that I have the right electronic test and measurement equipment handy. Last month I showed off the gear I use the most often in my shop. But at times, I need more specialised gadgets to make sure my projects are the right length, speed or voltage. This is the gear I turn to when the basics aren't enough.

20 Facts About the iPhone 5

2012-09-14T07:35:00.0000000+10:00

Have you pre-ordered one already?

Computer Learns to Recognise Badly Drawn Animals

2012-09-14T06:23:00.0000000+10:00

At a party a few weeks ago, I had the unenviable task of trying to pictorially represent "Sesame Street." The most ridiculous-looking blob, which was supposed to be Big Bird, flowed from my dry erase marker. But as soon as I put a curly-haired face-thing on top of what appeared to be a garbage can, someone shouted the answer. We humans are pretty good at guessing each other's badly rendered line drawings.

Video: The First Film Shot With Google Glass

2012-09-14T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

We've seen Google Glass, the project responsible for the filming, augmented-reality-providing glasses, jumping out of planes, but this is the first actual, edited film made with them. Diane Von Furstenberg's show at New York Fashion Week featured models wearing the glasses, and the designer herself wore them as well. The footage was edited into a pretty amazing insider look at how a runway show feels. Watch it below:

New Monkey Discovered, Looks Like Man In Monkey Suit

2012-09-14T01:28:00.0000000+10:00

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, scientists have discovered a new species of monkey - only the second in the last 28 years. The lesula is a guenon, a genus of Old World monkeys found exclusively in sub-Saharan Africa, and while guenons are very common, the lesula was unknown to western science until a chance meeting in 2007. A scientific team happened to find one being kept as a pet, leashed to a fencepost. It was known quite well to hunters of the area, but the scientists had never seen it before, hence discovery. Like the other guenons, it's a smallish, forest-dwelling monkey, preyed upon by leopards, humans, and chimpanzees.

Vintage PopSci: 7 Phone Ideas That Are More Innovative Than The iPhone 5

2012-09-14T00:56:00.0000000+10:00

"Everyone takes the telephone for granted," PopSci lamented in December 1965. Everyone except the inventors at Bell Telephone Laboratories, who had recently unveiled seven crazy-futuristic ideas to revolutionize telephones in homes, offices and even the wilderness.

The First Watch That Automatically Can Set Itself Anywhere

2012-09-14T00:15:00.0000000+10:00

Even watches that sync with an atomic clock aren't accurate everywhere. They contain a radio that picks up a signal from a long-range tower connected to atomic clocks around the world. But the towers have a range of only about 1000 kilometers, leaving large regions, including South America and Canada, uncovered. The Seiko Astron is the first watch that uses GPS, so it can automatically set the time anywhere.

Today on Mars: It's Snowing Dry Ice At The Martian South Pole

2012-09-13T07:22:00.0000000+10:00

Curiosity may be roving the Martian frontier to find out just how similar the Red Planet is to Earth, but meanwhile NASA's other Martian explorers are turning up evidence of just how different our neighboring planet can be. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has returned data suggesting that it snows on Mars just like it snows on Earth, with one key difference: On Mars, it snows dry ice.

Most Convoluted Crystal Ever Made Has Enough Surface Area To Cover A Desk

2012-09-13T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

Today in cool stuff happening in university labs: Northwestern researchers have created two new record-setting synthetic materials with the greatest internal surface areas ever seen. There are a lot of potential applications for these metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), named NU-109 and NU-110, but first the mind-bending fact: if you were to unfold a crystal of NU-110 the size of a grain of salt, the surface area would cover a desktop.

Is Homeopathy Really As Implausible As It Sounds?

2012-09-13T05:32:00.0000000+10:00

The new British minister of health has recently become the target of scorn and mockery, after a science writer with The Telegraph noted that he supports homeopathy, a branch of alternative medicine most health experts view as quackery. But just how quackish is it?

Alzheimer's May Be Caused By Poor Diet

2012-09-13T04:15:00.0000000+10:00

The root causes of Alzheimer's disease are still a scientific uncertainty, though there's no lack of suggestions and opinions circulating in the biomedical community. But here's one we hadn't yet heard that is gaining traction amid increasing evidence: Alzheimer's is primarily a metabolic disease much like diabetes. At its root, a poor diet can be the instigator of this degenerative neurological condition. The evidence is so stark that some scientists have even taken to referring to Alzheimer's as type 3 diabetes.

Russia is Building the World's Largest Nuclear-Powered Icebreaker

2012-09-13T01:31:00.0000000+10:00

Russia already has a huge fleet of both diesel-powered and even nuclear icebreakers, but it recently penned an order for something the world has never seen before: a massive new 170 meter long, dual-reactor nuclear icebreaker that will be 14 meters longer and at least4 meters wider than any other icebreaker in its fleet. Powered by two 60-megawatt compact pressurized water reactors, it will be the world's largest "universal" nuclear icebreaker.

The Labs That Go Boom: The Shock Compression Laboratory Smashes Planets

2012-09-13T00:08:00.0000000+10:00

This month PopSci presents 10 labs where students do serious research (and career training) by blowing stuff up.

Video: Take a Spin Through the Pencil Nebula

2012-09-12T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

When it comes to enduring legacies, supernovae have little competition in the universe. What you are looking at above is the Pencil Nebula (though its appearance is sometimes compared to a witch's broomstick) as captured in a new image by the Wide Field Imager at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile. From our vantage point on Earth, it is still noticeably moving across the night sky even though it is something like 8,000 light-years away. All this from a star that exploded 11,000 years ago.

Scientists Plant False Short-Term Memories Directly In Rodent Brains

2012-09-12T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

For the first time, scientists have implanted false memories directly into pieces of cut-out rodent brain tissue, storing different types of short-term memory and proving the brain cells can store information about specific contexts. The memories lasted 10 seconds inside in vitro brain tissue, meaning brain tissue stored in a test tube was able to remember - albeit very briefly.

Valve Wants to Move PC Gaming to the Living Room

2012-09-12T03:35:00.0000000+10:00

Our friends at Kotaku have a preview of Big Picture mode, a new experiment for Valve's Steam platform. Steam is sort of like the iTunes Store of PC gaming - it's a one-stop shop for games, and it has basically complete control of that market. Big Picture mode gives Steam an interface specifically designed for the living room - you're supposed to sit 3 meters away from the screen, on your couch, controller in hand, which makes it very different from the way PC gaming is normally done.

Video: Harvard's Robotic Tentacle Can Lift a Flower Without Crushing It

2012-09-12T03:16:00.0000000+10:00

We've written about a few soft robotic tentacles here before, but researchers from Harvard working with the Department of Energy and DARPA have come up with one that they claim is sensitive and nuanced enough to grip and manipulate a flower without breaking it. Their work is detailed in the latest issue of the journal Advanced Materials.

Astronaut Frank Culbertson Watched the 9/11 Attacks From Space

2012-09-12T02:02:00.0000000+10:00

On September 11th, 2001, there was only one American on the International Space Station: Expedition Three Commander Frank L. Culbertson. That morning, after a physical examination of the other astronauts, command on the ground told Culbertson what had happened.

Brilliant 10: Christy Haynes Reveals the Secrets of the Body's Blood-Clotting System

2012-09-11T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

Human blood cells are fairly well understood. That's not true of platelets, the tiny nucleus-free discs that circulate in the blood and play a key role in regulating clotting. Platelets are less than a fifth of the size of a typical red blood cell, and until University of Minnesota chemist Christy Haynes started studying them, scientists had no way to see what was happening inside.

Video: Big Dog Is Back

2012-09-11T06:08:00.0000000+10:00

DARPA's terrifying Big Dog is back, this time a little less terrifying (but still pretty terrifying).

Science Confirms the Obvious: Literature is Good for Your Brain

2012-09-11T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

In news that probably isn't going to blow your mind, researchers have found that reading is good for your brain. But it's not as straightforward as "book learnin' is good for you." By asking a test group of literary PhD candidates to read a Jane Austin novel inside of a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, a Stanford researcher has found that critical, literary reading and leisure reading provide different kinds of neurological workouts, both of which constitute "truly valuable exercise of people's brains."

A New Tack for HIV Vaccines, and Why This Problem Is So Hard to Solve

2012-09-11T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Attempts to create a vaccine for HIV have failed time and again partly because no one has been able to achieve the right vaccine balance - one that can spur the body into action, but not make a person sick. A new study in monkeys suggests a new solution: Vaccines could be more effective if they can be made to linger in the body.

Researchers Drill World's Deepest Hole in the Ocean Floor

2012-09-11T02:00:00.0000000+10:00

Japanese researchers have toppled a 19-year-old record for the deepest passage into the floor of the world, reaching 2,466 meters as of today. That's about 600+ meters deeper than the lowest part of the Grand Canyon, from rim to floor. The old record, 2,111 meters, fell Friday.

Mars Rover Curiosity Snaps a Self Portrait, Records Some Lolz on the Red Planet

2012-09-11T01:06:00.0000000+10:00

Since Mars Curiosity Rover's landing in the Red Planet's Gale Crater last month, we've seen pictures from just about every imaging instrument aboard the robotic geology lab. But today, we're seeing a different kind of image: a self-portrait of Curiosity snapped by the Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI, the camera fixed to the end of the rover's seven-foot robotic arm. Everything you snapped on Instagram over the weekend suddenly pales in comparison, no?

How Engineers Can Help Prevent Water Wars

2012-09-11T00:12:00.0000000+10:00

Somewhere around 2014, if all goes according to plan, Turkey will complete the Ilisu Dam, a major component of one of the world's most ambitious - and controversial - hydro-engineering projects. The dam is the latest addition to the $32-billion Southeastern Anatolia Project (known by its Turkish acronym, GAP). Along with 21 other dams, Ilisu will lock up the entire Tigris and Euphrates watershed, creating 7,476 megawatts of hydroelectric capacity and irrigating a parched farm region nearly the size of New Jersey. Ilisu's reservoir, however, will also flood the ancient city of Hasankeyf, uproot as many as 70,000 members of Turkey's struggling Kurdish minority, and give Turkish engineers an alarming degree of control over the fate of their downstream neighbors in Iraq.

The Labs That Go Boom: The DHS Center of Excellence Destroys IEDs

2012-09-08T03:45:00.0000000+10:00

This month PopSci presents 10 labs where students do serious research (and career training) by blowing stuff up.

FYI: Why Is Bill Clinton So Good at Speaking to a Crowd?

2012-09-08T00:57:00.0000000+10:00

There is a reason why so many of you were enthralled by former President Clinton the other night. It's the same reason why Barack Obama had a tough act to follow last night at his own convention. The art of speechwriting and speech-giving - and it is an art, no doubt - is also, in many ways, a science. A good speech flows sort of like a backward scientific method; it starts with a preconceived idea, and is supported by evidence reinforcing the idea. And politics aside, there may be no one better at doing this than William Jefferson Clinton.

Megapixels: A Monkey Controls a Robot Hand With its Mind

2012-09-07T23:34:00.0000000+10:00

The first direct brain-machine interface, developed in the 1990s, connected a computer to a rat. By 2003, scientists had mostly replaced rats with nonhuman primates. One of which is Jianhui, an eight-year-old rhesus macaque at Zhejiang University in eastern China.

The Labs That Go Boom: The Plasma Physics Laboratory Makes Miniature Suns

2012-09-07T07:47:00.0000000+10:00

This month PopSci presents 10 labs where students do serious research (and career training) by blowing stuff up.

Video: Cyborg Cockroach Scurries Along a Precise, Curved Path

2012-09-07T06:53:00.0000000+10:00

We've seen schemes for remotely-controlled cyborg insects before, including at least one DIY kit for building your own robotically-enhanced cockroach, but researchers at NC State are really moving this discipline forward (literally). A team there has developed an electronic interface that allows them to remotely control cockroaches along fairly precise paths, and they have the video to prove it.

Inside the Mysterious Dark Matter of the Human Genome

2012-09-07T04:59:00.0000000+10:00

When scientists sequenced the human genome a decade ago, it was somewhat like looking at a blueprint in a foreign language - everything was marked in its proper location, but no one could tell what it all meant. Only about 1 percent of our genome codes for proteins that actually do anything, so the rest of our DNA has been like biology's dark matter, acting in mysterious ways. Now, after years of monumental effort, scientists think they have some answers.

Astronauts Repair $150 Billion Space Station with a Toothbrush and Some Bent Wire

2012-09-07T03:47:00.0000000+10:00

It was both a high drama rescue and a defining moment for implements of oral hygiene. During a hastily scheduled six-and-a-half hour spacewalk yesterday, a NASA astronaut and her Japanese counterpart fixed the broken $150 billion dollar International Space Station. Key to their success: a toothbrush.

Science Has Discovered the 'Pigtail' Molecular Cloud and it is Beautiful

2012-09-07T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

Some 30,000 light-years away near the chaotic, gaseous region near our galactic center, a team of Japanese researchers has found the strange cosmic feature you see above: a helical molecular cloud twisting across some 60 light years. This kind of structure is not the kind of thing astronomers expect to find here, but in observing the "pigtail" molecular cloud, as they are calling it, they have figured out some interesting things about the goings-on there at the heart of the galaxy and the magnetic characteristics that exist there.

Global Warming Could Be Linked to the Number of Exploding Stars in the Sky

2012-09-06T23:00:00.0000000+10:00

An astrophysicist working on one of the cosmos greatest mysteries has a new theory on global warming theory that might sound implausible on its face, but actually makes some sense: that we can measure future global warming based on the number of exploding stars we see in the sky.

Dr. Charles Wang of the University of Aberdeen has put forth a new theory concerning supernova that involves a Higgs Boson-like mystery particle that is scheduled to be tested at CERN. That's interesting, but perhaps more intriguing is the idea that his theory could aid in our understanding of where global warming originates and where it is going.

Video: A Ball of Metal Bounces Off a Thin Sheet of Super-Tough Hydrogel

2012-09-06T07:28:00.0000000+10:00

We've seen hydrogels - the squishy material of the future - do some neat tricks before. Researchers, for example, have already tried to make them autonomous self-healers, ready to repair themselves when they break. But what if they just didn't break at all under strain? Then you'd get something like this video, which shows a new, super-strong hydrogel shrugging off a ball of metal.

Video: Cheetah Robot Sets a New Land Speed Record

2012-09-06T06:25:00.0000000+10:00

Last we heard from Boston Dynamics' Cheetah, it was coursing along at 28 kilometers per hour, the fastest a robot had ever run. Now, inspired perhaps by Olympic sprinters, it's cranked that up to a frightening 45.5 kilometers per hour.

Mars Rover Curiosity Snaps a New 360-Degree Panoramic on its Way to Glenelg

2012-09-06T03:07:00.0000000+10:00

A new image released by NASA this week shows the Mars Rover Curiosity's view of the red planet in a sweeping 360 degrees. The rover, which is en route toward a location known as Glenelg since last week, has been prodigiously snapping photos with its navigation camera, and mission handlers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory stitched together this panorama that shows both where Curiosity has been and where it is going.

Classic Knot Designs Tie Down Mars Rover Curiosity's Cables, to Knot Fans' Delight

2012-09-06T01:43:00.0000000+10:00

The Mars rover Curiosity is chock full of the most advanced technology humans can build, from its miniaturized X-ray machine to its awesomely powerful laser. And then there are these knots.

The Labs That Go Boom: The Center for Defense Chemistry Fingerprints Explosions

2012-09-06T00:52:00.0000000+10:00

This month PopSci presents 10 labs where students do serious research (and career training) by blowing stuff up.

Haptic "Ghost" Armband Teaches Your Muscles To Behave Like Athletes' Muscles

2012-09-05T23:57:00.0000000+10:00

Training for the highest levels of a sport requires fine-tuning of muscle memory, but this is often a visual game, with athletes watching high-speed video of themselves and their competitors to nail down the right moves. So impaired vision can be a major obstacle. A new device developed for the Paralympics gives physical feedback instead - and it could even be used to help athletes emulate the movements of star athletes.

You Can Give the Kinect the Power of Image Recognition

2012-09-05T07:09:00.0000000+10:00

The Kinect can see, but the ability to see objects is different from the ability to recognise objects. You and I, with our eyes and brains that work so effectively, can see a water bottle of pretty much any size, shape, color, or material, and recognise what it's for. But a Kinect is not as smart as we are, and needs a hand to get to our level. That's where you come in.

The Labs That Go Boom: Lightning Research Lab

2012-09-05T05:11:00.0000000+10:00

A lucky few engineering students at the University of Florida get to do something vaguely magical: conjure their own lightning...

Researchers Manipulate the Dreams of Rats, Opening the Door to 'Dream Engineering'

2012-09-05T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

MIT researchers have successfully reached inside the brains of rats and manipulated their dreams using an audio cue conditioned into them during the previous day. It's a development that lends insight into the whole sleep/memory consolidation relationship. But it's also worth reiterating that this is dream control, external manipulation of the mind during sleep. And it could one day lead to the controlled engineering of dreams.

Nuclear-Powered LEDs Will Light Up Future Space Farms Far From the Sun

2012-09-05T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Robots don't need a whole lot to survive, and even thrive, on the surface of Mars (once they get there, anyway). But meeting even the most basic needs of humans will be a huge challenge - we'll need some kind of bioregenerative system to grow food, produce oxygen, clean our water and recycle nutrients. Still, that doesn't mean we can't take a page from the Mars rover Curiosity and go nuclear.

Viral Gene Therapy Gives Non-Smelling Mice the Ability to Smell

2012-09-05T02:09:00.0000000+10:00

Science can make blind mice see again and deaf mice hear - now scent-deprived mice can sniff their surroundings and smell for the first time, after a new gene therapy. It may be a while before this treatment percolates up to humans, but it's a sign that gene therapy could restore smell in this rare but disorder.

Smart Carpet Detects Your Gait, Knows if You've Fallen

2012-09-05T01:02:00.0000000+10:00

Packed with smart meters, smart appliances, smart windows and doors, smart lighting, smart HVAC and other smart what-have-you, the smart home of the future is purportedly going to be overflowing with sensors that make life more efficient and convenient. Now, it could be packed with sensors that make sure you're not splayed on the floor alone in the living with a busted hip, unable to reach the phone. A research group at the U.K.‘s University of Manchester has developed smart carpeting that can tell when someone has stumbled or fallen, and even analyse people's gaits for signs of oncoming mobility problems.

The Labs That Go Boom: The Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic Deploys Photon Torpedoes

2012-09-05T00:06:00.0000000+10:00

This month PopSci presents 10 labs where students do serious research (and career training) by blowing stuff up.

Light-Activated Muscle Could Make Robots Move Like Real Creatures

2012-09-03T01:15:00.0000000+10:00

New generations of bio-inspired robots will be more than just inspired by nature - they may use actual biological components. Bioengineers at MIT have genetically modified muscle cells to respond to light, which could be used to make easily controllable robot muscles that look and act like the animals on which they're based.

In World First, Scientists Surgically Implant a Working Bionic Eye In a Blind Patient

2012-09-01T04:40:00.0000000+10:00

We've been waiting on the prospect of a bionic eye for a while now; being able to surgically give sight to the sightless would be a medical breakthrough, and we're right on the cusp. Exhibit A: In a world first, scientists have successfully implanted a prototype bionic eye that has helped a woman see shapes.

Russia Wants a New Long-Range Bomber That Cracks Mach 5

2012-09-01T01:59:00.0000000+10:00

There's a new arms race brewing, and this one is destined to be very, very fast. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin is calling for the development of a hypersonic long-range bomber to ensure Russia is not "falling behind the Americans." He doesn't want some subsonic or even supersonic analog to the American B-2, he says. Russia's next bomber - slated for delivery by decade's end - will move faster than Mach 5.

For Some Reason Apple Doesn't Want iPhone Users Keeping Tabs on the Drone Wars

2012-09-01T01:10:00.0000000+10:00

We've covered the technology aspects of the ongoing drone wars thoroughly here at PopSci. The geopolitical and legal ramifications have been fodder for an endlessly cycling debate in the blogosphere. Esquire's Tom Junod recently termed it the "Lethal Presidency" while examining the moral ramifications. The bottom line is, the U.S. is engaged in several shadow wars around the globe in which unmanned aircraft are lethally striking at a list of individuals in places like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. And Apple's App Store, for its part, seems to want nothing to do with it.

After Embryo is Washed of Disease, Healthy Purebred Baby Buffalo Born in the Bronx

2012-09-01T00:09:00.0000000+10:00

The first "genetically pure" bison produced from a cleansed and transplanted embryo was born in June, officials at the Bronx Zoo announced today. Now the zoo can expand its bison herd with only the purest samples of prairie cows.

Video: Maryland Student Hovers 8 Feet High in Human-Powered Helicopter, Smashing Previous Records

2012-08-31T07:38:00.0000000+10:00

Records are made to be broken, and a bunch of students at the University of Maryland are smashing the ones they just set earlier this summer. They're so close to winning the crazy-hard American Helicopter Society's Igor I. Sikorsky Human-Powered Helicopter competition - watch an amazing almost 3 meter flight past the jump.

Henry Enerson, a freshman at UMD, is one of a handful of pilots taking turns furiously pedaling in the cockpit of the Gamera II, a human-powered quadcopter. The team has already met one major requirement of the Sikorsky Prize this week, hovering for 65 seconds. Now if they can hit one minute and get a little higher to exactly 3 meters they'll win the $250,000 32-year-old prize.

Video: A Body-Cooling Glove Could Give Athletes a Better Boost Than Steroids

2012-08-31T07:15:00.0000000+10:00

Almost all mammals have a network of veins near a hairless part of their skin that controls rapid temperature management - and it's no different for people. For us it's the palms (as opposed to, say, a dog's dangling tongue). But like some other biological processes, the technique can be gamed, with engineering topping physiology. That's the case with a body-cooling glove out of Stanford that researchers say might be more potent - and obviously much more legal - than steroids.

San Diego Zoo Wants Inventors to Design New Robots and Devices Inspired By Its Animals

2012-08-31T06:23:00.0000000+10:00

The San Diego Zoo, one of the best-regarded zoos in the world, has spent several years promoting biomimicry and its potential benefits to the economy and various research fields. Now the zoo is really ramping up its inspired-by-nature kick, launching an entire Centre for Bioinspiration, complete with the British spelling. Come look at the amazing animals, get excited and then design a cheetahbot!

South African Scientists Claim Breakthrough Drug Cures All Strains of Malaria

2012-08-31T05:20:00.0000000+10:00

Malaria is the scourge of tropical nations, crippling its victims with symptoms like debilitating fever, convulsions and nausea, and killing half a million people annually. Now researchers in South Africa say they may have a one-size-fits-all solution, in the form of a new drug that could work with just one dose.

Video: Controlling a Drone With Nothing But Your Thoughts

2012-08-31T04:20:00.0000000+10:00

We recently gave the Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 a pretty solid review here on PopSci for improvements made to the recreational quadcopter's smartphone- or tablet-based control interface, which we found to be very intuitive. But a team of researchers at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, has gone a long step further. Using an off-the-shelf Emotiv EEG headset, they've devised a brain-machine interface that lets users control an AR.Drone with their thoughts alone.

PopSci Recommends: Steven Millhauser, Short Fiction's Greatest Historical Futurist

2012-08-31T03:20:00.0000000+10:00

Many of Steven Millhauser's best stories are wonders of historical futurism. He is interested in the road not taken, in what might have been, whether it's a frighteningly interactive form of painting ("A Precursor of the Cinema") or a bodysuit that simulates any tactile experience ("The Wizard of West Orange"). If you like steampunk or sci-fi, if you like Christopher Nolan or Rian Johnson - really, if you like PopSci - you owe it to yourself to check out Millhauser.

Cassini Beams Back Stunning Images of Seasons Changing on Saturn

2012-08-31T02:19:00.0000000+10:00

Curiosity, you are such an amazing space mission that we will sacrifice a thousand blog posts, a million gallons of newsprint even, in your honor. But can you do this? NASA's Cassini probe, not content to be forgotten in its faraway orbit around Saturn and its moons, has beamed back new natural-color images of the ringed planet that are absolutely breathtaking. Released yesterday, they show a very different planet than the one Cassini arrived at eight years ago.

FYI: How Long Can a Brain Live in a Dish?

2012-08-30T07:08:00.0000000+10:00

Scientists have isolated the brains of dogs, cats and monkeys and kept them alive for short periods in one way or another. But the most successful "whole-brain preparation" of a mammal was developed in the mid-1980s. A neuroscientist at NYU Langone Medical Center named Rodolfo Llinás came up with a way to keep the brain of a young guinea pig alive in a fluid-filled tank for the length of a standard workday.

Hurricane Isaac Captured in Eerily Beautiful Images from Orbit

2012-08-30T06:45:00.0000000+10:00

Hurricane Isaac has now made two landfalls in southern Louisiana, and the Gulf Coast region is no doubt in for a long Wednesday. The slow-moving storm carries an increased risk for flooding in the affected regions, as rainfall totals will be higher. And then there's that storm surge, and those Category One, 130 kilometer per hour winds. Kind of makes you wonder how something so violent and destructive on the underside can look so tranquil from above. This is a major test of the world's largest water pump system, which was installed in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina.

Photo of the Day: NASA Tests Gigantic Parachutes for the Next Manned Space Capsule

2012-08-30T05:00:00.0000000+10:00

Even the space shuttle, which glided through the atmosphere and landed like an airplane, had parachutes to help slow it down - they're the most effective drag-inducers out there. But you'd better be sure they work. NASA is testing the giant heavyweight parachutes being developed for the next space capsule that will ferry humans into orbit, Orion.

The U.S. Air Force is Officially Seeking Cyber Weapons

2012-08-30T04:05:00.0000000+10:00

Look, we all know the Pentagon is seeking cyber weapons. For defensive purposes only, of course, not for playing dirty cyber tricks on enemies of the state (Stuxnet, anyone?). But it's a bit strange when the military does it so openly. For instance, when it submits a request into the public domain saying "please build us cyber weapons." Which is what the Air Force just did.

IBM Is Bringing Its Mega-Intelligence Watson to Your Smartphone

2012-08-30T03:04:00.0000000+10:00

Siri is helpful when you want to schedule a reminder or look at the forecast, but wouldn't it be better to have a bona fide Jeopardy! champ in your pocket? IBM is trying to figure out how to bring the power of its superbrainy Watson to smartphones, helping people answer far more complex questions.

Can't Define "The Cloud"? Who Cares?

2012-08-29T06:07:00.0000000+10:00

"The cloud" is nothing and everything at once, so it's not surprising that pretty much nobody (no normal people, I mean) can define or even identify it. But tech terms like this soak through our cultural consciousness until it seems like you're supposed to know what it is. Which is where this unexpectedly enlightening survey comes in. It found that most people have no idea what the cloud is, have pretended to know what it means on first dates, and yet effectively all respondents are active cloud computing users. And that's the way this stuff should work. When you can use technology without using jargon, that's a triumph of technology, not a reason to ridicule users.

Robo-Grading Programs Judge Student Essays Better Than Humans Do

2012-08-29T05:21:00.0000000+10:00

Since 2009, Utah has used computers to grade essays on a state student-assessment test. And testing companies use essay-evaluating software as one of two graders on graduate-school admissions exams such as the GRE. But how well, really, can a computer grade an essay?

AIDS Virus Could Be Harnessed to Fight Cancer

2012-08-29T04:23:00.0000000+10:00

Viruses are skillful mutants, changing their structures or outer proteins to evade the shifting natural defenses of their targets. (This is why you have to get a flu shot every year.) Now researchers in France report using one of the most proficient mutants, HIV, to fight another intractable disease: Cancer.

Mars Rover Curiosity Photographs Its Destination, Enormous Mount Sharp

2012-08-29T02:58:00.0000000+10:00

Since we don't have the usual landmarks on Mars that we enjoy on Earth, it can be tough to get a sense of scale for the great shots we've seen from Mars rover Curiosity. In this photo of Mount Sharp - Curiosity's scientific destination - the mound in the center of the image is about 300 meters across and 100 meters high. Curiosity, relative to that, looks like a speck of dirt, as you can see after the jump.

A Mechanical Scale Capable of Weighing a Single Molecule

2012-08-28T23:50:00.0000000+10:00

Researchers at Caltech, working with French colleagues, have figured out a mechanical means to weigh the previously un-weigh-able - things like individual molecules, viruses, proteins, and other particles - at the individual level, one by one. Such a scale should lead to huge leaps in understanding of molecular processes within biological cells, as well as advances in nanotechnology and other sciences of the very small.

Now on Kickstarter: The First Steps Toward a Lunar Space Elevator

2012-08-28T07:44:00.0000000+10:00

There's only one it's-the-future-why-don't-we-have-x trope that rivals the flying car, and that's the space elevator. (First proposed in 1895, it might even predate it.) The idea of a giant tower that can carry us from Earth to outer space is legend, and it probably will be for a long time. But a company has successfully Kickstarted what they say is their first step to building one on the Moon.

Stealing Data From Your Brain, With a $300 Scanner

2012-08-28T06:44:00.0000000+10:00

The Emotiv brain-computer interface was designed to let users control their computers with their thoughts alone, opening up a new avenue for hands-free computing as well as a potential means for those with disabilities to communicate through machines. So much for good intentions. Scientists at the University of California and the University of Oxford in Geneva have devised a way to steal a user's sensitive information - account numbers, PIN numbers, etc. - via Emotiv's off-the-shelf brain signal-reading technology.

Video: Learn to Cook a Steak by Cooking Bizarre Imaginary Steaks

2012-08-28T05:38:00.0000000+10:00

How do you learn to cook a steak? Some people might say "attempt to cook a steak." Those people are living in the past! What you should do is rig a system of wires and pulleys and augmented reality cameras and projectors so you can toss and turn a digital projection of a steak and onions with a digital projection of a spatula while feeling simulated resistance that mimics the weight of a steak. Duh. Video after the jump.

Swarms of Scottish Robots Will Find and Heal Damaged Coral

2012-08-28T04:54:00.0000000+10:00

Swarms of caretaker robots will soon buzz around the damaged coral reefs of Scotland, re-cementing broken sections with utmost precision. Researchers at Scotland's Heriot-Watt University are programming autonomous underwater vehicles to follow a set of simple rules, like bees in a swarm, to keep corals healthy.

NASA's Next Nanosatellites Will Carry HTC Smartphones

2012-08-28T03:55:00.0000000+10:00

"The smartphone in your pocket has more computing power than the spacecraft that took the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon," says anyone trying to impress anyone else with the massive scaling of computing power over the last few decades. Perhaps taking a clue from this cocktail party trivia, NASA is now developing spacecraft powered by commercial smartphones. The space agency's PhoneSat program (not sure if that's an official name, but that's what people are calling it) aims to develop prototype nanosatellites built around HTC handsets.

Biocompatible Transistors Wired Into Living Human Tissue

2012-08-28T01:58:00.0000000+10:00

A new material developed at Harvard and MIT adds a distinctly cybernetic element to the science of tissue engineering. The 3-D mesh of transistors and cells, which can support tissue growth while monitoring its health and progress, could even be a step toward prosthetic devices that connect directly to the nervous system.

Artificial Intelligence Predicts and Combats Crop-Destroying Fruit Flies

2012-08-28T01:16:00.0000000+10:00

Oriental fruit flies are one of the biggest scourges to farmers around the globe, often forcing officials to put crops into quarantine just to keep Bactrocera dorsalis shut out. In Taiwan, where the situation is especially dire, scientists are using artificial intelligence tech that can determine, with uncanny accuracy, where and when an outbreak is about to happen.

Neil Armstrong, First Man on the Moon, Dies at 82

2012-08-26T13:50:00.0000000+10:00

Neil Armstrong's one small step, indelible in the minds of generations, will live far beyond his last day on Earth today, Aug. 25. The reclusive 82-year-old former astronaut and the first man on the moon may not have wanted such a legacy, preferring to focus on his role as a professor and pilot. But he will remain as as reluctantly famous in death as he was throughout the past 43 years of his life.

Mars Rover Curiosity's Tracks Are More Than Just Skid Marks in the Martian Dirt

2012-08-25T06:00:00.0000000+10:00

The Mars rover Curiosity's first roll was more than a cause for celebration - it will help pinpoint where the rover set down, and emblazon the name of its maker into the Martian soil. Curiosity's wheels have holes arranged in the Morse code pattern for "JPL."

Electronic Sutures Can Check For Infections and Even Help Wounds Heal

2012-08-25T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

Stitches deserve a makeover. We've been using them in some form for thousands of years. So while they've stood the test of time, a researcher from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is wrestling surgical sutures into the future by creating "smart" electronic versions. They can monitor sutured sites for infection, and even help in the healing process.

Paralympic Athletes Try to Get a Performance Boost By Hurting Themselves

2012-08-25T02:04:00.0000000+10:00

We've heard of odd rules put in place (marijuana use comes to mind) to keep Olympians and Paralympians from gaining an unfair advantage, but this is odd and more than a little scary: Against regulations, some Paralympians may physically hurt themselves - maybe to the point of breaking a bone - in order to get an edge in competition.

Scientists Turn Adult Red Blood Cells Into Embryonic Stem Cells

2012-08-25T00:57:00.0000000+10:00

Despite the ethical and political differences they incite, stem cells are still a miraculous medicine, potentially able to change into whatever a sick body needs them to be. The only way to get them, though, is from actual embryos. If we could get around that, theoretically, the problems would be gone. Johns Hopkins scientists are making progress there, creating them from a non-controversial supply of something we have in bulk: adult red blood cells.

Video: Squid Skin Dances When You Blast Cypress Hill At It

2012-08-24T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

Animals use electricity to move, and so electricity can be used to make them move, as the scientists at Backyard Brains show in a neat DIY experiment that can be done with a cockroach's leg. For a larger scale version, they connected the device to a squid, which produce pigmented cells called chromatophores to reflect light. By using an iPod blasting Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Membrane" as the stimulant, they discovered a lovely, abstract look at the process.

Pop Review: The Nintendo 3DS XL Proves Bigger Is Sometimes Better

2012-08-24T06:28:00.0000000+10:00

We've said it before, but our favorite application for 3-D - really, the only venue in which we don't hate it - is gaming. Nintendo just released the 3DS XL, basically a bigger version of the glasses-free 3DS, and it's great. Here's why.

Amazing Video: Mars Rover Curiosity's Descent and Landing in High Res

2012-08-24T05:45:00.0000000+10:00

As promised, NASA has stitched together high-resolution imagery of the descent and landing of the Mars rover Curiosity, captured from the rover's own bellycam. The full-color four-frame-per-second video is below, with synchronised narration from Allen Chen and the other scientists in the control room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Sea Chair Project Collects Ocean Plastic Garbage to Make Stylish Sitting Stools

2012-08-24T05:05:00.0000000+10:00

Of all the ideas for dealing with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, this one may be closest to home - turn it into furniture. Until sea drones can be built to hoover it all up, this is as good a solution as any.

The Future of Electronics is Just One Single Molecule Thick

2012-08-24T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Where electronics are concerned, the future is two-dimensional and very, very thin. One molecule thin, to be exact. That's not quite as thin as a sheet of graphene, but new research from MIT shows that while one-atom-thick graphene shows exceptional strength and other novel properties, the future of electronics lies with materials like molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) that are a couple of atoms thicker but much, much easier to work with.

A Blueprint to Let Anyone 3-D Print an Open-Source Gun At Home

2012-08-24T03:03:00.0000000+10:00

We've already seen that it's possible to print parts of a gun - and have it work - using a 3-D printer. The project was highly controversial, but now a group wants to make sure that anyone can print a working gun at home.

Video: A Real Working Hoverbike Zooms Across the Desert

2012-08-24T02:06:00.0000000+10:00

Future tech doesn't always look the way the '70s might've predicted, but sometimes it does. Case in point: this beautiful, fully functional hoverbike that could've been torn out of our archives. It's going to be a while before you see one zipping down the street, but if the public does get a chance to ride one, the bike is rideable right out of the box - no training required.

Tomorrow, NASA's Twin Radiation Belt Probes Launch for the Most Hostile Regions in Nearby Space

2012-08-24T01:06:00.0000000+10:00

In the wake of Curiosity's landing on Mars, a return to regular science missions in Earth orbit may seem a bit pedestrian. But tomorrow morning just after 4 a.m. EDT, an Atlas V rocket is launching from Cape Canaveral carrying a unique mission aimed at doing some pretty critical science much closer to home. The twin Radiation Belt Storm Probes are bound straight for the Van Allen radiation belts that ring Earth, mysterious and hazardous regions of nearby space that we've known about for decades without truly understanding them.

Video: Inside NASA's Spectacular Undersea Mission to Save Earth from a Deadly Collision

2012-08-24T00:20:00.0000000+10:00

PopSci is pleased to present videos created by Motherboard, Vice Media's guide to future culture. Motherboard's original videos that run the gamut from in-depth, investigative reports to profiles of the offbeat forward-thinking characters who are sculpting our bizarre present.

Audio: Gibbons On Helium Sing Soprano

2012-08-23T23:18:00.0000000+10:00

Researchers have just discovered that gibbons not only compete with our top ranks of singers - they have the technique down pat with almost no effort. How did we find this out? By gassing them with helium and listening in on the results, of course.

Mars Rover Curiosity Successfully Makes Its First Test-Drive

2012-08-23T05:57:00.0000000+10:00

Two weeks after being expertly parked in Mars's Gale Crater by NASA's sky crane apparatus, Mars rover Curiosity has made its first test-drive. It wasn't a particularly long journey; it moved just 3 meters from its landing site - a half-hour trip - so to re-park itself in an area where the rover has visually confirmed there are no obstacles.

The play-by-play: Curiosity successfully tested its wheel turning capability yesterday, performing what NASA is aptly calling a "wheel wiggle." Today, it took those skills on a real test. The rover moved 5 meters away, turned 90 degrees, and reversed a meter. Fin.

FYI: Is There Any Way to Prevent Toe Cramps?

2012-08-23T05:09:00.0000000+10:00

Short answer: Not really.

New Camouflage Face Paint Could Shield Soldiers From Bomb Blasts' Heat

2012-08-23T04:08:00.0000000+10:00

When a roadside bomb or other explosive device goes off, it hits everything nearby with an extreme blast of pressure. Almost simultaneously comes a heat - more than 1,000 degrees - that's hot enough to cook skin. Presented today at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, a new invention will try to counteract that, and do it through a technology that's already been used for hundreds of years: camouflage paint.

Keep Your Bananas Ripe by Spraying Them With Recycled Shrimp Shells

2012-08-23T03:11:00.0000000+10:00

Science spends a lot of time taking care of bananas - inventing refrigerated ships, crushing acres' worth of them to come up with enough seeds to breed, and so on. Now a group of Chinese researchers are proposing a secondary banana coat, spraying Andrew W.K.'s favorite fruits with a hydrogel made from discarded shrimp shells.

Video: New Dad Builds a Baby Monitor Out of Lasers and a Wiimote

2012-08-23T02:02:00.0000000+10:00

Preparing for a newborn baby is a lot of work, from buying the bassinet to arranging the diapers. And soldering apart the Wiimote, installing the crib lasers and turning on the camera.

Video: DARPA's New Amphibious Tank Prototype Drives On Water

2012-08-23T01:15:00.0000000+10:00

DARPA's Tactically Expandable Maritime Platform (TEMP) program is a wide-ranging effort to pack standard ISO shipping containers with technologies that can assist during humanitarian disasters or aid military in solving other unconventional, international problems (like piracy). Essentially DARPA wants a modular means to quickly turn any ship into a technology-laden base of operations that can quickly execute ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore operations. We've seen the ship-based portion of this before. We're now seeing the ship-to-shore piece.

Meet CAAT (for Captive Air Amphibious Transporter). The prototype vehicle is basically like a tank with treads made out of air-filled pontoons, enabling it to roll over water (and obstacles in the water) with Abrams-like efficiency and continue its forward march once it hits shore. Perhaps the coolest thing about the video below: this is a 1/5 scale demonstrator.

Nikon's New Point-and-Shoot Comes With a Full Version of Android

2012-08-23T00:40:00.0000000+10:00

Connected cameras aren't new - hell, there have been connected SD cards for like five years - but this is a bit of a departure for Nikon. The Coolpix S800c is a 16MP point-and-shoot with a big 3.5-inch touchscreen, which will be used to navigate a full copy of Android Gingerbread, with Wi-Fi and GPS and apps and all that.

The Army's Quick Fix for Soldier Suicides: Anti-Depressive Nasal Spray

2012-08-23T00:08:00.0000000+10:00

The U.S. Army tallied 38 confirmed or suspected suicides among its ranks last month - that's among both active- and non-active-duty members including the Army National Guard and Army Reserve - the highest rate of suicide within the branch yet observed, further underscoring a mental health crisis that the services have yet to get a handle on. But help may be coming in an unlikely form: nasal spray.

Solving Age-Old Mysteries By Going Beyond the Spectrum of Visible Light

2012-08-22T07:49:00.0000000+10:00

Our friends at American Photo have a great feature up today about hyperspectral photography, a technique that takes advantage of the fact that photographs often capture light beyond the visible spectrum. Using the technique, you can peel back history - and see what lies underneath pages that have been blacked out, erased, or written over.

Autotransfusion Device Collects Stray Blood During Surgery and Pumps it Back Into the Patient

2012-08-22T06:33:00.0000000+10:00

Massive blood loss, known as MBL in the medical world, is a major cause of death during cardiac surgery - and an accepted one, because it's the best option we have. Blood transfusions help, but those aren't without complications, either. A new device could cut that step out of the process for some patients by collecting the blood from a surgery, concentrating the blood cells, and routing it intravenously right back to the person on the table.

Video: DARPA's Lightweight, Inflatable Robotic Arm Lifts Four Times its Own Weight

2012-08-22T05:31:00.0000000+10:00

The future of military robotics isn't all heavy metal and humanoid soldier-bots. If DARPA's newest warbot implement is any indication, the future is soft, lightweight, and inflatable. The Pentagon's blue-sky research wing is about to award $625,000 to iRobot to develop an inflatable robotic arm that can lift four times its own weight.

Distant Red Giant Caught Devouring One of Its Planets

2012-08-22T04:28:00.0000000+10:00

Astronomers have glimpsed the first evidence of a dying star devouring one of its planets, a fate that may await the inner planets - including Earth - in our own solar system. The star in the new study swallowed its planet as it mushroomed into a red giant.

Rape Results In More Pregnancies Than Consensual Sex, Not Fewer

2012-08-22T02:29:00.0000000+10:00

If you follow American politics you have probably already heard that in an interview Sunday, Missouri Representative and Republican Senate nominee Todd Akin said he believed that rape-related pregnancy was "really rare." He continued by saying that, "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

NASA Engineer Switches His Entire Family to Mars Time

2012-08-22T02:09:00.0000000+10:00

Since the moment the Mars rover Curiosity landed in Gale Crater two weeks ago, NASA engineers have been living on Mars time, rolling their clocks forward 40 minutes every day to keep time with the rover. One engineer brought his entire family along for the ride.

Army Sends Mobile 3-D Printing Labs to Afghanistan For On-Demand Gear

2012-08-22T01:14:00.0000000+10:00

3-D printing has yielded items both fascinating and potentially troubling. Now we can add one more to the list of printed achievements: The U.S. Army has had a rapid prototyping wing for some time, and now they've deployed full teams - complete with scientists and 3-D printers - to Afghanistan.

PopSci #46 - September 2012

2012-08-21T15:54:00.0000000+10:00

The September edition will hit shops on the 29th of August. And it's all about cars. Find out more after the jump!

SWITCH60 Review: The First Liquid-Cooled LED Bulb Will Light Up Your House Like Edison

2012-08-21T07:50:00.0000000+10:00

The ice cream cone-shaped fluorescent light bulb was supposed to be the lamp of the future, producing just as much light as the century-old Edison incandescent at a fraction of the energy. But CFLs look terrible, enveloping rooms in an unfriendly bluish hue. LED lamps are the next future of lighting, but they have their own obstacles to overcome, including sensitive electronics that can burn out when they get warm. SWITCH, the first liquid-cooled light bulb, aims to solve that issue and light up your house with the comfortable yellow glow of the incandescent.

A Robot Drill For Mars Will Be NASA's Next Interplanetary Mission

2012-08-21T07:12:00.0000000+10:00

NASA's next interplanetary mission won't be a space boat or a comet-hopper, but another mission to Mars, this time with a stationary probe to drill into the planet. The InSight lander could rival the Mars rover Curiosity's amazing laser in terms of Martian instrument-penetration, drilling 30 feet into the planet's crust.

Giant Cave Spider Discovered in Oregon

2012-08-21T06:07:00.0000000+10:00

Oregon is not a safe place for arachnophobes, with at least 500 species of spiders known to inhabit forests, rotten logs and other dwellings. And now there's a new spider on the block.

Synaptics Introduces Pressure-SensitiveTrackpad

2012-08-21T04:01:00.0000000+10:00

Trackpads have been a remarkably simple solution to what could've been a complicated problem: translating the mouse to a laptop. But pushing that technology any further requires some lateral thinking, and the next dimension laptops might venture into is detecting pressure from your fingers, which would open the door for a larger set of commands. It would change how we navigate, and we might be almost there.

Video: Affordable Robot Hand Made with Cellphone Parts Can Replace Its Own Fingers

2012-08-21T02:59:00.0000000+10:00

The human hand is incredibly complex, and no matter how many attempts we see to replicate it, none seem to get it perfectly right. So a DARPA-funded project is throwing the idea of completely mimicking it out the window and going with an impressive four-fingered plastic machine that can move objects, replace the batteries in a flashlight, and even help detect IEDs.

In Hong Kong, Starbucks Biorefinery Turns Stale Pastry and Coffee Grounds Into Plastic

2012-08-21T02:11:00.0000000+10:00

Instead of burning it, composting it or just dumping it in landfills, food waste from your area coffee shop could be upcycled into new plastic or laundry detergent. Starbucks Hong Kong is trying out a new biorefinery, breaking down stale bakery products and coffee grounds into a sugary mixture that can be used for manufacturing.

Innocent Martian Rock Tweets As It's Zapped by Curiosity

2012-08-21T00:57:00.0000000+10:00

The Martian rock recently named N165 found itself thrust into the limelight this week as it received a new neighbor from Earth - the Mars rover Curiosity. Some genius made a Twitter account from the perspective of N165 as it meets Curiosity, attempts to make friends - and is ruthlessly attacked.

Video: Penny-Sized Thrusters Could Turn Tiny Satellites Into Orbiting Garbagemen

2012-08-18T04:05:00.0000000+10:00

The big rockets of our day get all of the fanfare during a launch, but often they're accompanied by tiny stowaways known as CubeSats, which hitch a ride and drop into orbit. They're convenient and able to get us into space cheaply, roughly the size of a Rubik's Cube and weigh only three pounds. A potential problem with them, though, is there's no way to control them once they're gone, and when we keep sending them farther from terra firma, they could pile up in space. To nip that problem in the bud early, an MIT professor has developed penny-sized thrusters that could help us take them down ourselves.

A New Robot Dismantles Pipe Bombs While Leaving Forensic Evidence Intact

2012-08-18T02:59:00.0000000+10:00

The first priority in a bomb-related emergency is, of course, to safely dismantle the bomb. If it's a pipe bomb - the basement-built explosive device - a robot could be sent in to do the job. But enlisting one could hurt officials' secondary objective: obtaining evidence to determine who built the bomb. SAPBER, a new robot, can safely disarm it and turn over the forensics needed to track down its maker.

Visualised: Worldwide Shark Attacks Since 2000

2012-08-18T01:58:00.0000000+10:00

At the Florida Museum of Natural History, filling up two five-drawer file cabinets are 2700 detailed accounts of shark attacks that collectively make up what's called the International Shark Attack File. The name of the database might be somewhat misleading-two recent stories suggest that shark-human interactions should be referred to as "incidents" rather than "attacks." But whether we think of them as vicious, violent killers or big, curious fish navigating cloudy waters, one thing is clear from the Shark Attack File: Sharks bite more people in U.S. waters than anywhere else in the world.

Rough Sketch: "This Squishy Arm is Cheap--Good For Search and Rescue"

2012-08-18T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

Our 35 centimeter long robotic elephant trunk has five segments, each made of a silicone membrane with an embedded metal spring that acts like an exoskeleton. The segments are filled with dry coffee grounds and each is vacuum-controlled separately. When coffee grounds are loosely packed, they're in a liquid-like state. When they're vacuum-packed, they transition into a solid-like state.

Rough Sketch: The Camera That Takes Photos 100 Times Bigger Than the Average Point-and-Shoot

2012-08-17T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

"Our Aware-2 camera combines 98 small cameras with a spherical lens to take black-and-white gigapixel photographs. It set the record for the largest digital snapshot by a terrestrial camera. One image from the camera, printed at 300 dots per inch, is 8 feet high by 16 feet long.

The Sun Is the Most Perfect Naturally-Occurring Sphere in the Universe

2012-08-17T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

After 50 years of research, we've discovered a strange, beautiful fact about our Sun: it's more perfectly round than anything else in the natural world. It's not the roundest in a certain category; it's just the roundest sphere there is. If it were a beach ball, The Guardian writes, it would be a hair's width away from complete perfection.

New Stretchy, Soft Chameleon Robot Can Change Colors and Hide In Any Environment

2012-08-17T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

Soft robots are coming a long way, with strong yet stretchy bodies that can survive all kinds of assaults. But it would be even better if they didn't have to survive smashing attempts at all, instead blending into their environments so neither animals nor people would even know they were there. Researchers at Harvard designed new chameleon-bots that can do exactly that.

Dream Kitchens of the Future: Augmented Reality Countertops, Ingredient Sensors and Sous Chef Bots

2012-08-17T03:12:00.0000000+10:00

Modern kitchens already contain multitudes of cooking-related gadgets, from iPads slicked with EVOO to excellet multitasking tools. But it would be nice if the appliances themselves helped you cook, letting you know it's time to stir the risotto, that you should add salt to your soup or how to debone a chicken. Researchers in Japan (where else?) have some ideas about how to do that.

5.5-Meter-Wide Rideable Robot Named Stompy Gets Funded on Kickstarter

2012-08-17T02:12:00.0000000+10:00

Project Hexapod, based in Somerville, MA (just outside Cambridge), just passed their requested $65,000 funding on Kickstarter, which is great, because Project Hexapod is building a 1800 kilogram, 5.5 meter wide, two-seat rideable six-legged robot. Its name will be Stompy. We love this project.

A Mechanical Road Crew for Filling Potholes Quickly and Cheaply

2012-08-17T01:15:00.0000000+10:00

A quarter of America's major metropolitan roads have stretches in substandard condition, and drivers pay the consequences-potholes alone cost car owners an average of $335 a year in tires, repair and maintenance. The standard method for fixing potholes is to send three workers and a hotbed truck to toss in an asphalt mix and give it a few thumps with a shovel or boot. The process can take as little as two minutes, but the fix is only temporary. One study found that about half of repaired potholes had returned four years later.

Billionaire Investor Peter Thiel Backs New Venture Aimed at Producing 3-D Printed Meat

2012-08-16T07:30:00.0000000+10:00

Billionaire Peter Thiel would like to introduce you to the other, other white meat. The investor's philanthropic Thiel Foundation's Breakout Labs is offering up a six-figure grant (between $250,00 and $350,000, though representatives wouldn't say exactly) to a Missouri-based startup called Modern Meadow that is flipping 3-D bio-printing technology originally aimed at the regenerative medicine market into a means to produce 3-D printed meat.

Diagnostic Eyedrops Could Make Patients' Eyes Light Up With Signs of Neurological Disease

2012-08-16T06:30:00.0000000+10:00

Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, or Creutzfeld-Jacobs are tough to diagnose. Outward symptoms can obviously be an indicator, but symptoms for many neuro-disorders overlap while protein biomarkers for each illness, called amyloids, are difficult to distinguish between. But researchers at UCSD are developing a new diagnostic tool that could soon let doctors diagnose a patient's neuro-degenerative condition simply by gazing into his or her eyes.

Video: Fly Through A Billion Light Years of the Universe, Past Galaxy Clusters and Dark Matter

2012-08-16T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

A massive cosmic cataloguing effort released a new crop of star and galaxy data last week, noting the locations and brightnesses of hundreds of thousands of objects. Now you can fly through some of them in this new video - click past the jump for a "flight through the universe."

Strong Hands and Voice Pitch Really Are Signs of Fertility

2012-08-16T04:30:00.0000000+10:00

Recent research tells us that the sound of our voices betrays clues about our age, whether we're menstruating (if we're female), our sexual behavior and our physical strength. All of these factors, evolutionary psychologists say, are indicators of her reproductive potential. Voice pitch, in particular, has been associated with indirect measures of reproductive fitness in both men and women-men with "masculine" low-pitched voices and women with "feminine" high-pitched voices tend to be rated more attractive and have more sexual partners, for example, and they have higher levels of sex hormones (testosterone in men and estrogen in women).

Karate Experts' Superhuman Punch Comes From a Unique Brain Structure

2012-08-16T03:30:00.0000000+10:00

If you've seen the board-breaking power of a professional martial artist and thought it looked superhuman, don't worry: for a while now science couldn't fully explain it, either. The punches delivered by a top-notch fighter are so tough that muscle strength alone can't account for them. But researchers from Imperial College London and University College London have discovered that a unique brain structure could be what gives experts fists of fury.

How Tablets Will Remake Television

2012-08-16T02:30:00.0000000+10:00

The days of leaning back to watch TV have ended. Eighty-eight percent of tablet owners say they use the device in front of the tube; they find tweets, news, video and other information related to the program they're watching. Afraid of losing eyeballs, networks have released dozens of one-off apps with additional programming content. But that means that viewers must hop from app to app, distracting themselves even further from the TV-viewing experience. Now app developers are starting to take a new approach, one that allows tablets to communicate directly with Wi-Fi-enabled TVs and set-top boxes. The result could fundamentally change how viewers experience TV.

Museum Relics Prove Pacific Sharks Died Out Before We Knew They Were There

2012-08-15T07:34:00.0000000+10:00

Dusky sharks do not live in the Pacific waters near the Republic of Kiribati. Neither do spottail sharks, nor the aptly named bignose sharks. But they used to live there at one point in the past - right by the Gilbert Islands, according to anthropological evidence. Ancient shark-tooth weapons can serve as a record of past biodiversity, according to new ecological research.

With New Programming, Autonomous Airplanes Can Navigate on the Fly With No GPS

2012-08-15T06:29:00.0000000+10:00

Self-piloted drones may be able to land or fly almost anywhere - even aircraft carriers - but they need some complex navigation skills to do it, including the somewhat existential ability to know where they are in the world. But this is difficult without some type of onboard relative positioning system. A new algorithmic project at MIT straps netbook computer parts to a specially designed, laser-equipped airplane that can find itself and navigate tight spaces safely.

Video: Disney's 3-D Facial Scruff Technology Reconstructs Beards Down to the Individual Hair

2012-08-15T05:25:00.0000000+10:00

Face capture technology has come a long way, especially as 3-D stereoscopic imaging and the like have made leaps forward in recent years. It's now relatively easy to capture a face in 3-D and reconstruct it digitally for applications such as the amazing CGI you see in movies like The Avengers (Ruffalo-Hulk was pretty visually awesome, no?). But facial hair is another story altogether. Current face capture systems don't capture it well, and the skin that it obscures on the face then becomes an issue as well. Disney Research is changing that.

Mutant Butterflies are Turning Up in Japan's Nuclear Disaster Zone

2012-08-15T03:20:00.0000000+10:00

The first serious indications of the ecosystem impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan are in, and they're troubling. Researchers there collected 144 common pale grass blue butterflies from the region a couple of months after the catastrophic nuclear meltdowns leaked radiation into the environment last year. After studying them for a few generations, those researchers are finding signs of genetic mutations that are leading to physical abnormalities.

Interactive Infographic: How Do Olympic Gold Medalists Compare?

2012-08-15T02:21:00.0000000+10:00

Now that the Olympics are done, we can reflect on the big moments. (Usain Bolt's lightspeed 100-meter win and Michael Phelps's sunken-pirate-ship levels of gold come to mind.) But if we pull the historical camera back even farther, we can look at the big picture, seeing exactly how much of a blip on the timeline this year made. With that in mind, we've created an interactive graph that shows every gold-medal time for several events and annotations for years that were outliers, or that were just especially interesting (including tech like the Speedo LZR suit, or less-known developments like the official roughening of the javelin to handicap the competitors). It's a look at how technology, smarts, and super-human ability brought the Games to where they are now.

Researchers Smash Quantum Teleportation Distance Record, Beaming a Photon Over 143 Kilometers

2012-08-15T01:40:00.0000000+10:00

The Olympics are over but international competition is still hot and records continue to fall. Just eight short days after a Chinese physics group posted a paper claiming to have achieved quantum teleportation across a record-setting 97 kilometers, a joint Canadian/European team posted another claiming to have teleported a single photon across 143 kilometers. That second paper hasn't been peer-reviewed yet (the Chinese paper just came out in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on August 9), but should it stand up to scrutiny, we've got yet another new distance record in the quantum teleportation event.

New Algorithm Predicts Your Future Movements Within 20 Meter Accuracy

2012-08-14T07:33:00.0000000+10:00

Plenty of hay has been made over which apps and cell phones track our movements, but so far it has been difficult to accurately determine where we're going next - people can be unpredictable, after all, and make dinner plans at random new places on a whim. In that case, what's a prediction algorithm to do? Track all your friends, too, it turns out.

Spotting Cancer Cells in Blood With a 27-Picosecond Camera

2012-08-14T06:45:00.0000000+10:00

A simple blood test that offers early detection of cancer in the human body has long eluded medical researchers, but a team at UCLA is getting closer. By blending an ultra-fast camera and a powerful optical microscope with software that can process the data they produce at extremely high speeds, the team hopes it can spot circulating tumor cells (CTCs) that have broken away from cancerous tumors in blood samples, potentially making early cancer detection as simple as taking a blood draw.

Researchers Reach the 'Highest Possible' Resolution for Color Laser Printing at 100,000 dpi

2012-08-14T05:30:00.0000000+10:00

A lot has been written about the perceived benefits and non-benefits of higher-than-the-human-eye-can-perceive resolutions, things like displays that go beyond HD and retina or cameras and scanners that capture imagery in pixel counts that go so far beyond the threshold of what we can see as to be meaningless, at least visually speaking. Undaunted, researchers in Singapore claim they have achieved the highest resolution possible for color laser printing by recreating the classic Lena test image at 100,000dpi.

Video: Indestructible Military Inchworm-Bot Survives Attack By Bootheels and Hammers

2012-08-14T04:20:00.0000000+10:00

Soft, bendy robots could have a wide variety of benefits, from squishing into tight spaces to conduct surveillance, to crawling through a person's body to deliver drugs or take medical images. But it's hard to build entirely soft objects containing soft bodies, soft batteries and soft motors. A new version developed at MIT and Harvard is both soft and tough, inching around like an earthworm yet surviving multiple cruel blows from a rubber mallet.

Electronic 'Smart Fingertips' Could Give Robots and Doctors Virtual Touch

2012-08-14T03:19:00.0000000+10:00

The same touchy engineers who gave us the first peelable epidermal electronics last year have a new virtual tactile system: Smart fingers, which could someday bring a real sense of touch to telepresence applications. Surgical robots or human doctors could virtually feel surfaces, temperatures and other characteristics, through special smart gloves designed to trick the brain into thinking it's feeling.

Video: NASA's Experimental Morpheus Lander Fails Flight Test by Exploding

2012-08-14T02:15:00.0000000+10:00

Space exploration doesn't always go smoothly. For instance, the triumph of Apollo 11 was followed by the failed mission and near-disaster of Apollo 13. Prior to launching Alan Shepard into space in 1961, NASA blew countless space rockets to pieces on the launchpad. Russia still crashes its spaceships periodically. And lest last week's euphoria over the Mars rover Curiosity landing have you thinking NASA's got this spaceflight thing down to a pure science, please see the video below. Late last week, NASA's experimental unmanned Morpheus lander failed spectacularly during vehicle tests. Really spectacularly. With fire and explosions and whatnot.

Jailbreak Your iPhone For New Functions in the Notification Center

2012-08-14T00:14:00.0000000+10:00

Jailbreaking-altering an iPhone or iPad's firmware to access unlicensed apps-became less useful as Apple released more feature-rich iOS updates. But now developers have come up with a new reason to jailbreak iDevices: They've enabled users to add settings, music controls and more to Notification Center, iOS 5's drop-down information panel. That puts a huge amount of functionality in one convenient location, with only a five-minute tweak. Here's a look at the best new features and how to get them.

New York Bookstore Brings SF Back From the Dead

2012-08-11T07:40:00.0000000+10:00

Much of the oldest and best science fiction stories and novels are, sadly, long out of print. The only way to read them is to dig through second-hand bookshops, rummage sales, or dusty attics, or hope that the local library still keeps their old paperbacks around. A group in Brooklyn called Singularity&Co. wants to change that. The attack is two-fold: raise some of these long-lost stories from their graves and release them as e-books, and showcase some really killer hardcovers and paperbacks at an honest-to-god brick-and-mortar bookstore near the East River. Being a dedicated sci-fi nerd, I felt obligated check it all out for myself at their grand opening last night.

The Test Olympians Use to Improve Their Performance--On the Inside

2012-08-11T06:14:00.0000000+10:00

To help prepare for track meets, competitive 5K races and especially the Olympics, Boston-based runner Ruben Sanca runs 185 kilometers per week, takes vitamins and mostly watches his diet. But he would still feel fatigued after training runs. Then a blood analysis and a special software program revealed his internal chemistry needed some adjusting.

What Curiosity Means for the Future of Space

2012-08-11T05:04:00.0000000+10:00

Mars rover Curiosity has landed. You know this because you have an Internet connection and because the hair-raising landing was a huge media spectacle, and justifiably so. NASA just delivered the most sophisticated suite of science instruments ever packaged on a planetary rover onto the surface of Mars via an untested landing maneuver, instruments that should provide us with two uninterrupted years of unrivaled geological science on another planet. That in itself is a truly incredible story. But it's not the whole story.

F=ma: Prosperity Isn't How Much You Move--It's How You Move It

2012-08-11T03:35:00.0000000+10:00

Science is how people attempt to see the world as it truly is. That's why I'm drawing the title of this new column from the wisdom of the greatest of scientists. Since Isaac Newton first stated his Second Law of Motion, we have understood that "force" is really a product of mass and acceleration: F = ma. Move more things faster, and they will exert more force.

Lockheed Martin's 'Flying Humvee' Concept Gets a Lift from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

2012-08-10T23:40:00.0000000+10:00

When DARPA launched its Transformer (TX) program back in early 2010, PopSci responded as most media did by applauding the ambition while simultaneously harboring serious skepticism. In essence the DoD was asking for a flying car, a "1- to 4-person transportation vehicle that can drive and fly," capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), for troops looking to avoid rough terrain and IEDs. The very idea simply feels impossible - at least until you have a sober conversation with the guy building it.

Giant 3-D Printer to Make An Entire House in 20 Hours

2012-08-10T06:23:00.0000000+10:00

3-D printers can make airplanes and their parts, food and more - why not entire buildings? A professor at the University of Southern California aims to print out whole houses, using layers of concrete and adding plumbing, electrical wiring and other guts as it moves upward.

Protein With Liquid Built In Could Be Key to Life Without Water

2012-08-10T05:23:00.0000000+10:00

For all our attempts to find it on other worlds, water may not be the most essential molecule for life, a new study suggests. A protein that brings oxygen to muscle can function without it, using a synthetic polymer in its place.

MIT's Smart Handheld Woodworking Tool Makes Precise Cuts Automatically

2012-08-10T03:39:00.0000000+10:00

It can be satisfying to build something yourself, making careful measurements and ensuring your carefully routed wood slats fit together perfectly. Except when your measurements are off by a few microns and nothing fits. Some MIT students decided that a smart machine could help matters, and designed a re-routing router that automatically cuts the right shape.

FYI: Does Training at High Altitudes Help Olympians Win?

2012-08-10T02:50:00.0000000+10:00

It's widely assumed that training on top of a mountain will give an athlete a major leg-up when competing closer to sea level. But it turns out it's not quite that simple, and in fact, athletes are discouraged from conducting training exclusively at high altitudes. How much altitude training helps, and how to tweak the finer points of a high-altitude training regimen are questions still under consideration. It's not nearly as simple as running on a mountain, coming down, and feeling prepped for your marathon. Today's altitude training cycle comes from decades of trial and error - and it doesn't work the way you'd think.

Video: A Japanese Company Will Scan and Print You a Statue of Your Gestating Fetus

2012-08-10T00:52:00.0000000+10:00

What you might not expect when you're expecting: a company that wants to 3-D print a statuette of your unborn child. Japanese engineering outfit Fasotec will gladly take an MRI scan of an expecting mother's fetus and using its BioTexture modeling software to capture 3-D data related to human tissues convert that scan into a CAD file, then print it up in resin. It's called the "Shape of Angel" service (what else?), and it will only set you back roughly $1,250.

Video: The Army's Massive LEMV Airship Makes its Maiden Flight (Finally)

2012-08-10T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

LAS VEGAS - Military personnel and defense contractors attending the year's largest unmanned systems convention here awoke this morning to a bit of breaking robotics news unraveling thousands of kilometers away from their briefing rooms and exhibition booths. First lighting up Twitter and later acknowledged by the Army, the first flight of Northrop Grumman's robotic Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) took place this morning in New Jersey, marking the first flight of one of the DoD's next generation military airships.

How A Sundial Lets Curiosity See Mars in Living Color

2012-08-09T06:15:00.0000000+10:00

PASADENA, Calif. - We've seen a brief sample of the full-color environment at Gale Crater on Mars, but before the Mars rover Curiosity can beam back full-size versions, its cameras need a checkup. Scientists want to be sure they're seeing Mars as it really looks, in real ochre - so the cameras have to be calibrated. To do it, Curiosity will call upon one of the most ancient tools of astronomy: A sundial.

Performing Self-Surgery to Become a Handmade Cyborg

2012-08-09T02:45:00.0000000+10:00

Today in great reads: The Verge's Ben Popper has a killer story up about the world of underground body hackers - those souls brave and crazy enough to perform surgery on themselves to give themselves new powers and strengths. It goes beyond regular cyborg ideas, partly because the guys are doing it themselves, with no safety net.

What Our Eyes Say About Our Sexual Preferences

2012-08-08T23:56:00.0000000+10:00

Cornell University researchers used porn and measures of pupil dilation to study arousal in straight-, gay- and bisexual-identifying men and women, reports a study published April 3 in PLoS ONE. The results, which point to surprising differences in arousal based on a person's sex and sexual orientation, corroborate previous research using measures of genital response, opening up a less-invasive method of studying arousal and orientation.

Human development experts Gerulf Rieger and Ritch Savin-Williams measured pupil dilation in 325 people as they watched two 30-second videos - one of a woman masturbating and one of a man - as well as a 1-minute clip of a neutral landscape that served as a palate-cleanser and a control between the porn clips. Participants in a pilot study chose the clips based on the attractiveness of the models, and the order they were shown in (man first versus woman first) was selected randomly during the dilation study.

Olympics FYI: Why Is Cannabis Considered a Performance-Enhancing Drug?

2012-08-08T07:29:00.0000000+10:00

On Monday, American judo competitor Nick Delpopolo was expelled from the Olympics for doping with cannabis. (He says he accidentally ate a pot brownie.) The key word here is "doping" - if the situation were different, Delpopolo might just have been "using." Cannabis is on the Prohibited List, a catalogue of banned drugs maintained by the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA. Test positive for a drug on WADA's list? You're doping, and face dismissal from the Games. Test positive for anything else, even if it's illegal? No worries - you're free to compete. This is one powerful list. But why is cannabis, the users of which are not necessarily renowned for their athletic ability, on it?

NASA Satellite Photo Shows Aftermath of Mars Rover Curiosity's Landing

2012-08-08T06:33:00.0000000+10:00

Getting Mars rover Curiosity onto the surface of the planet had to be coordinated between many mechanical parts: a heat shield to protect it, a supersonic parachute to soften the landing, and a sky crane to set it down on Mars. It went smoothly for the rover, and now NASA has released another photo, which they've nicknamed a "crime scene" shot, showing what happened to the bit players in the landing, too.

Use Your Body's Electrical Field To Uniquely Identify Yourself

2012-08-08T05:46:00.0000000+10:00

You are unique. This is one of the more obscure ways you're unique: An alternating current of different frequencies running through you causes a reaction that's noticeably different from anyone else's. Researchers from Dartmouth University are trying to put this difference to use by creating wearable electronics that respond to - and only to - their intended user.

Video: Software That Can Tell What City It's In By Looking At The Architecture

2012-08-08T05:08:00.0000000+10:00

Generations of sweating architects and designers have been at work for hundreds of years, pulling inspiration from different sources, to give the biggest, most iconic cities in the world their unique looks. The result is a Paris that isn't the same as New York and a Barcelona that isn't the same as Tokyo. We can pick up on the subtle differences, and now new software can, too.

Are Recent Extreme Weather Events Caused By Global Warming? NASA Scientist Says Yes

2012-08-08T02:02:00.0000000+10:00

It's not in doubt that global warming is changing the planet for the worse, but it's difficult to identify which, if any, specific weather events we can definitively link to it. But a new (and divisive) paper from senior NASA climate scientist James E. Hansen suggests that global warming is almost definitely the cause of heat waves and other events observed in the last decade.

The Fully Electronic, Futuristic Starting Gun That Eliminates Advantages in Races

2012-08-08T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

It's easy to take for granted just how insanely close some Olympic races are, and how much the minutiae of it all can matter. The perfect example is the traditional starting gun. Seems easy. You pull a trigger and the race starts. Boom. What people don't consider: When a conventional gun goes off, the sound travels to the ears of the closest runner a fraction of a second sooner than the others. That's just enough to matter, and why the latest starting pistol has traded in the mechanical boom for orchestrated, electronic noise.

First Color Image of Mars Beamed Back to Earth by Curiosity Rover

2012-08-08T00:32:00.0000000+10:00

That didn't take long: early yesterday we received the earliest images from Mars rover Curiosity's descent and landing zone, and now we've received the first color image from the Mars mission. It shows the Gale Crater in the background - Curiosity's home for now - and the next images will only be getting better from here.

How NFC Radios Will Help the Visually Impaired to See

2012-08-08T00:08:00.0000000+10:00

The day I entered public school, I was classified as visually impaired. I have a rare genetic syndrome known as achromatopsia. I'm color blind and light sensitive, and my distance vision is flat-out awful. Even corrected, it's closer to 20/100 than 20/20. I can't see street signs until I'm a meter away from them and I don't even bother trying to read most posters, plaques or museum cards.

Megapixels: Space Shuttle Enterprise Gets Grabbed By a Crane

2012-08-07T07:29:00.0000000+10:00

Space Shuttle Enterprise was the property of the Smithsonian Institution for 27 years. The shuttle never went to space; instead, NASA used it for landing and launch-pad vibration tests. The end of the space shuttle program last year gave the Smithsonian the opportunity to get Discovery, a shuttle that actually earned its "space" moniker. Thus Enterprise came to its new home, New York City, in April, where 50 employees from NASA and aerospace company United Space Alliance spent eight hours separating the 75,000 kilogram shuttle from its modified Boeing 747 transport.

These Are The Cameras Currently Shooting On Mars

2012-08-07T06:38:00.0000000+10:00

We've taken a look at some of the instruments Mars rover Curiosity will be using now that it's arrived at its destination, and our friends at PopPhoto have a look at the cameras that are documenting its journey.

Mars Rover Curiosity Sends First High-Resolution Photo

2012-08-07T03:20:00.0000000+10:00

NASA has just released the best-looking photo (above) we have of the Gale Crater, the piece of the Red Planet where Mars rover Curiosity landed last night. The photo shows the rim of the crater on the horizon and a gravel field in the foreground, as seen through a fisheye lens, a part of the many cameras Curiosity has on board.

You Don't Want the New U.S. Customs Robot to Find You Suspicious

2012-08-07T02:45:00.0000000+10:00

U.S Customs and Border Protection has a new hire on hand at its Nogales, Ariz., border crossing between the United States and Mexico. CBP has installed an avatar kiosk at the checkpoint to help quickly move persons enrolled in CBP's Trusted Traveler program through the border crossing quickly, analysing what they say - both their words and the way they say them - for suspicious signals.

Video: Make Your Houseplant a Touchscreen? Or Theremin? What Is Going On Here

2012-08-07T01:38:00.0000000+10:00

For people who like the Microsoft Kinect but also the simple joys of nature, the dream makers at Disney Research have just smashed together that particular peanut butter and chocolate into a magical (and very, deeply strange) new technology: plants that can register movements like a touchscreen, then display those movements, or use them to interact with an electronic device.

Building Artificial Islands That Rise With the Sea

2012-08-07T00:50:00.0000000+10:00

With an average elevation of just 1.5 meters above sea level, the Maldives-a nation comprising 1,192 islands in the Indian Ocean-is the lowest country in the world. Sea level, meanwhile, has risen by about 18 centimeters since 1900, and scientists predict that it will rise as much as 60 centimeters more by 2100, pushing much of the population (about 390,000 and growing) out of their homes. In the past, engineers have used sand and rubble to create islands elsewhere, but these structures can disturb the sea and seafloor ecosystems.

NASA Has Plenty to Celebrate Now Curiosity is Down

2012-08-06T18:08:00.0000000+10:00

PASADENA, Calif. - Long minutes of thunderous applause greeted the managers and engineers who paraded into an auditorium here Sunday night, triumphant after a perfect landing on another world. The Mars rover Curiosity sent a picture from the Martian surface just moments after its self-piloted descent and airdrop, and everyone assembled at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory could not help but cheer. It's a huge moment for NASA, which delivered the rover over budget and two years late - but delivered it, and beautifully.

The Scene at NASA's Mars Rover Landing Watch: Peanuts, Playoff Beards and Other Curiosities

2012-08-06T11:47:00.0000000+10:00

PASADENA, Calif. - The mood is increasingly electric here at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where worldwide media, dignitaries and hordes of scientists and engineers are gathered to watch the new Mars rover's landing attempt. The Mars rover Curiosity is three and a half hours from touchdown - scheduled for 10:31 p.m. Pacific time, 3:31 p.m. Monday Australian time - and it's almost time to break out the peanuts.

Why the Mars Rover Curiosity's Crazy, Complicated Landing Isn't So Crazy After All

2012-08-06T06:21:00.0000000+10:00

PASADENA - Later tonight, a white-and-orange spacecraft, shaped roughly like a chicken pot pie, will come screaming into the Martian atmosphere at 21,120 kilometers per hour. The fireball surrounding the Mars Science Laboratory craft will reach 2100 degrees Celsius as it descends, like a controlled meteor on a ballistic path. By 10:31 p.m. Pacific time/3:31 a.m. Australian time, NASA hopes to hear that it safely slowed to zero KPH in seven minutes of terror, and is ready to explore Mars.

Watch This Spot: Mars Rover Curiosity Touches Down Monday

2012-08-04T08:29:00.0000000+10:00

No doubt you have heard that the new rover Curiosity is preparing to make an edge of the seat landing on Mars. Stay tuned and watch for updates on PopSci about the landing (or resulting crater) from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory!

NASA Invests $1.1 Billion in Manned Commercial Trips to Space

2012-08-04T02:16:00.0000000+10:00

The dust has settled on the final round of NASA's Commercial Crew integrated Capability program project, and three winners have been given funding for the next round of American-made space taxis: Boeing, who received $460 million; SpaceX with $440 million; and the Sierra Nevada Corporation, with a paltry $212.5. The companies will use it as seed money to create commercial spacecraft that U.S. astronauts will fly aboard.

Physicists Demonstrate Working Quantum Router, a Step Toward a Quantum Internet

2012-08-04T02:12:00.0000000+10:00

As much as we love our silicon semiconductors, quantum computers are very much a technology of the future. Instead of the usual string of 1s and 0s, they'll be able to send both types of information at the same time, dwarfing their traditional counterparts. But one major problem is that they can only move through one optical fiber. To push more information through, they need a router, and Chinese physicists have unveiled the first one.

Fiendish Creator of Browser Game QWOP Releases CLOP

2012-08-04T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

We're big fans of innovative gameplay here at PopSci, and the web browser can provide the perfect, simple canvas for that. For example: You may be familiar with the game QWOP, created by Oxford professor Bennett Foddy, whom we featured in our PopSci Arcade earlier this year. In QWOP, you frustratingly try to direct a person through a race by moving their limbs using the Q-W-O-P keys. It's almost impossible to beat and almost impossible to put down. Now, from the same productivity vampire comes CLOP. This time you're a unicorn.

Stock Trading Robot Makes Decisions Based on Superstitious Algorithms

2012-08-04T00:57:00.0000000+10:00

When we feel there's a situation out of our control, we often fall back on superstition to account for it. ("Nothing else is working, why not blame it on that black cat?") But when enough of us rely on superstition, it's not just an individual comfort; it starts to have real repercussions. Now a designer has created an algorithm trades stock superstitiously, and it's going to see if gambling based on full moons and thirteens can pay off.

How The Largest Health Surveillance System Ever Created Is Preventing An Olympic-Size Pandemic

2012-08-04T00:09:00.0000000+10:00

Right now in London and various sites around the UK, more than half a million international travelers are sharing stories, beers, doner kebabs, close living quarters and - let's be frank - the occasional mattress. Roughly 17,000 athletes and officials from hundreds of countries are packed into the Olympic Village alone, and that doesn't take into account the spectators - more than 8 million tickets will be punched at the Games - who have piled on top of greater London's nearly 8 million inhabitants. Culturally speaking, it's a marvel that we can do this and all get well enough along. Epidemiologically speaking, it's a nightmare scenario.

Russian Robotic Spacecraft Completes First Same-Day Docking at ISS, Just Six Hours After Launch

2012-08-03T07:01:00.0000000+10:00

Russia just set a speed record for a sprint that took place a long way from London. An unmanned Russian Progress cargo ship launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan yesterday and docked with the International Space Station just six hours later, marking the first same-day docking ever performed at the ISS.

Navy Experimental Rail Gun to Fire GPS-Guided Projectiles

2012-08-03T06:03:00.0000000+10:00

The U.S. military has been looking for ways to smarten up its dumb projectiles for years - look no further than this GPS guided mortar round recently fielded by the army - hoping to increase lethality while reducing collateral damage. The Navy is no exception to this trend, and the seaborne branch is looking for precision beyond its current arsenal. The Office of Naval Research wants a guided munition for its experimental electromagnetic rail gun that can alter the course of a 9000 kilometer per hour projectile in flight.

Why Is It So Hard to Land On Mars?

2012-08-03T04:51:00.0000000+10:00

Mars is not a friendly place. It's freezing, windy, barren, and quiet except for howling dust storms that can threaten hopeful visitors. The planet is kind of a jerk, really, presenting vindictive obstacles to thwart the robotic explorers sent toward it for the past 47 years. And Mars usually wins.

India Will Launch Probe to Mars Next Year

2012-08-03T04:00:00.0000000+10:00

While we in the U.S. wait with bated breath for Mars Rover Curiosity's August 5 landing on the red planet, India's space program, the Indian Space Research Organisation, has confirmed that it plans to send an orbiter to Mars in 2013. It's one small step in a program that's been making giant leaps in recent years, including multiple satellite launch missions.

New LHC Results: We Were Sure We Found the Higgs Boson, and Now We're Even Surer

2012-08-03T03:08:00.0000000+10:00

Researchers at CERN and the world over were already sure they had found the Higgs Boson - five-sigma sure - but in case there were any lingering doubts a new round of results coming out of Geneva further backs the earlier findings. One team there now reports a 5.9 sigma level of certainty that the Higgs exists. That equates to a one-in-550 million chance that the results are incorrect reflections of statistical errors.

The Best Way to Measure Intelligence Could Be Brain Imaging

2012-08-03T02:08:00.0000000+10:00

There are a lot of hurdles to accurately predicting intelligence, from the difficulty of defining exactly what it is to accurately understanding the complexities of the human brain. Some techniques are surprisingly simple, like measuring the size of the brain. But others, like a new study that suggests brain imaging could crack the IQ code, require a little more finesse.

The Next Generation of Mars Rovers Could Be Smaller Than Grains of Sand

2012-08-03T01:22:00.0000000+10:00

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, scheduled to reach the red planet this Sunday, is the size of an SUV for good reason: It's built to carry 75 kilograms of scientific instruments over boulders and into gullies. But putting Hummer-size robots on other planets is not altogether practical. For one, it's expensive. (Getting a Curiosity-weight rover to Mars takes more than a 450,000 kilograms of fuel.) Large rovers are also power-hungry and limited in range. For future missions, some researchers, eager to do more science with fewer resources, have begun looking to nanobots-each one about one-one-billionth as big as Curiosity.

Video: Google Street View Adds Space Shuttles, Launch Pads and More At Kennedy Space Center

2012-08-03T00:09:00.0000000+10:00

America's space shuttles may be settling into their retirement roles as national artifacts, but for space fans who miss their presence at Kennedy Space Center, Google has a new offering - Street View images of the entire complex, shuttles and all. The web giant unveiled the new images this morning, and we have a preview.

The First Shirt That Lowers Your Body Temperature

2012-08-02T06:36:00.0000000+10:00

The human body already has a highly efficient cooling system: As perspiration evaporates, it draws heat away from the body. Wicking fabrics facilitate this process by distributing sweat evenly over the fabric, so that it dries more quickly. Despite devising cheats, such as menthol-like chemical coatings added to fabrics, companies have never actually improved upon the body's natural cooling process. Designers at Columbia Sportswear have now made a fabric that does.

Seeing Through Walls With a Wireless Router

2012-08-02T05:28:00.0000000+10:00

In the 1930s, U.S. Navy researchers stumbled upon the concept of radar when they noticed that a plane flying past a radio tower reflected radio waves. Scientists have now applied that same principle to make the first device that tracks existing Wi-Fi signals to spy on people through walls.

Europe Will Require New Vehicles to Include Autonomous Self-Braking System

2012-08-02T04:25:00.0000000+10:00

Cars in Europe may soon become very much more robotic whether drivers want them to or not. New rules coming down from the European Commission will require all commercial vehicles to be fitted with autonomous emergency braking (AEB) technology by November 2013, and passenger vehicles could soon follow suit. These cars will go beyond simply sending a signal to the driver when they detect an impending collision via radar, lidar (that's like radar but with light), or video sensors and apply the brakes themselves.

Aussie Tycoon Wants to Clone Dinosaurs for His Real Life, Resort-Based Jurassic Park

2012-08-02T04:15:00.0000000+10:00

In other billionaire news today, a controversial and ostentatious Australian is supposedly planning a real-life Jurassic Park, complete with cloned dinosaurs. Clive Palmer, who also wants to build a modern-day Titanic replica, has held talks with the scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep, reports Australia's Sunshine Coast Daily.

Video: Ride On a Seabird's Back as It Dives Toward the Ocean Floor

2012-08-02T03:30:00.0000000+10:00

Giving video cameras to animals can yield some awesome results, especially underwater - remember the octopus guerrilla filmmaker? In a new video, ride on the back of a South American seabird as it captures footage of its 45 meter deep dive.

Video: Autonomous X-47B Warplane Test Flight

2012-08-02T02:46:00.0000000+10:00

PopSci's favorite autonomous warplane is having a big week at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. The first of the two aircraft has been reassembled, run through a battery of tests, and is officially back in the air, this time on the East Coast.

Panasonic's Artificial Photosynthesis Turns Water, Sunlight, and CO2 into Useful Chemicals

2012-08-02T02:16:00.0000000+10:00

Artificial photosynthesis - the idea that we might be able to create energy and other useful thing from sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide, as plants do - is something of a holy grail for energy and green chemistry researchers. And while some efforts have shown modest potential - MIT's Nocera Lab, for instance, claims to have created an artificial leaf from stable materials - efficiency is still a problem. That hasn't stopped consumer electronics giant Panasonic; the company yesterday revealed that it is investing in artificial photosynthesis technology that turns carbon dioxide and sunlight into industrial chemicals. Just add water.

Nine Unsuspecting Scientists Win $27 Million in Suddenly Announced Largest-Ever Annual Physics Prize

2012-08-02T01:11:00.0000000+10:00

A Russian physics student turned social media billionaire just made theoretical physics the most lucrative thing in science, heaping $3 million apiece on nine researchers. The new Fundamental Physics Prize is worth more than double the Nobel, at least monetarily speaking.

Scientists Engineer "Chimera" Primates to Combat Human Ailments

2012-08-01T07:29:00.0000000+10:00

Roku, Hex and Chimero are the world's first primate chimeras-individual monkeys made from multiple fertilised eggs of the same species. Each animal has six different sets of genes instead of one. To produce each monkey, biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov and his team at the Oregon Health and Science University placed six separate four-celled embryos into a petri dish and, using a micropipette, nudged them into a single aggregation. After a few days, the researchers implanted the aggregation into an adult female macaque. The resulting young have cells descended from each of six embryos evenly distributed throughout their bodies.

Turn Animated Characters From Games Into Movable 3-D Printed Beasts

2012-08-01T06:32:00.0000000+10:00

Imaginary creatures rule the universes of various video games, maybe none more notably than the fantastical beasts you can create all by yourself in "Spore." Ever wonder if your two-headed, seven-eyed four-legged dinosaur-thing would be able to stand up? New software developed at Harvard will make it real for you, making a new computer model and constructing a physical animal-thing with a 3-D printer.

Approved: The First Swallowable Electronic Devices

2012-08-01T05:37:00.0000000+10:00

No matter how fast pharmaceutical companies can churn out drugs to prevent or cure illnesses, health insurance doesn't cover the cost of hiring a person to follow you around and remind you to take your meds. So the FDA has approved a pill that can do it on its own by monitoring your insides and relaying the information back to a healthcare provider.

Video: 'Roadable Airplane' Shows Up at Experimental Aircraft Show

2012-08-01T04:59:00.0000000+10:00

There was an unusual visitor at the Oshkosh airshow this year: a roadable aircraft manufactured by PlaneDriven. The PD2 takes a Glasair Sportsman amateur-built airplane and adds a separate 50-hp "drive unit" to the rear of the craft to provide ground power. To put the vehicle into drive mode, the pilot folds the wings, starts the drive unit, and away we go.

Twitter (the Company) Has Been Behaving Very Strangely This Olympics

2012-08-01T01:49:00.0000000+10:00

In the short time since the opening ceremonies of the London Games, we've seen the usual kind of Twitter-related stories - a Swiss soccer player banned for a racist tweet, everybody everywhere voicing their complaints about NBC's mostly abysmal coverage, that kind of thing. But there's some weirder, darker undercurrents going on, with journalists blocked, kids arrested, and free speech on Twitter seeming a much more questionable right than it might have seemed during the Arab Spring.

Video: A Retro-Sci-Fi Tour of Mars Rover Curiosity's Awesome Chemistry Lab

2012-08-01T00:56:00.0000000+10:00

As we approach the Mars rover Curiosity's landing Sunday night, we're having a lot of fun seeing all the promotions - there are all kinds of videos, museum exhibits and road shows to help explain what the newest interplanetary explorer will do. Below is a great new one from the American Chemical Society.

Summer Olympics: 2020

2012-08-01T00:01:00.0000000+10:00

The modern Olympics have been running for 116 years, but many events remain unsafe and difficult to score. We propose ideas that might help solve some of the toughest problems.

Nike's New Strobing Glasses Enhance Athletes' Visual Acuity and Sensory Skills

2012-07-31T07:35:00.0000000+10:00

Nike has developed a means of increasing visual short-term memory retention and physical reaction time via a set of strobing goggles that rob athletes in training of some of their vision. The SPARQ Sensory Performance system evaluates an athlete for 10 visual performance skills and creates a training program specifically for him or her that involves wearing Nike's SPARQ Vapor Strobe Eyewear, which basically fog over to block the wearer's vision for short periods of time, forcing the athlete to anticipate what's coming next.

Video: William Shatner and Wil Wheaton Narrate Mars Rover Curiosity's Landing

2012-07-31T06:25:00.0000000+10:00

NASA is enlisting Hollywood to help promote its blockbuster new Mars rover, Curiosity, in a couple of new videos. Below you can watch both William Shatner and Will Wheaton describe Curiosity's "seven minutes of terror" as it touches down on Mars.

Video: Four-Ton Japanese Mega Bot Fires BBs At Smiling Humans

2012-07-31T05:34:00.0000000+10:00

This boxy guy is called Kuratas, otherwise known as Vaudeville, and he stands 12 feet 5 inches tall. He weighs about 4.5 tons and is diesel-powered. Do not smile at him. He will shoot that grin right off your face.

Just A Week From Landing, Mars Rover Curiosity Makes Final Course Corrections

2012-07-31T04:36:00.0000000+10:00

A week before its scheduled landing, the spacecraft carrying the Mars rover Curiosity is just about done arranging itself in space. There's time for two more trajectory correction maneuvers, but the one the Mars Science Laboratory pulled off over the weekend should be the last nudge the spacecraft needs before entering the Martian atmosphere.

Civilian Drones to Search for Downed Power Lines During Blackouts

2012-07-31T02:20:00.0000000+10:00

Today in ways the impending domestic drone explosion is going to change your life: a number of utilities are testing new technologies that will allow them to quickly diagnose grid problems and rapidly restore electricity to areas stricken by blackouts - technologies that include augmented reality apps and aerial drones. These prototype systems could go a long way toward streamlining the grid repair process, quickly returning households and local economies to normal after sever weather events or other power-related calamities.

PopSci Q&A: The U.S. Olympic Team's Chief Technologist Tells Us How Olympians Train

2012-07-31T01:43:00.0000000+10:00

By almost any account, the 2012 Olympics will be the most high-tech ever, from the actual starting guns to the microsecond camera finishes. But the pre-Olympics are even more high-tech, as athletes increasingly turn to advanced video and biomechanical data analysis to track their performances and train more efficiently.

FYI: Will Athletes Ever Stop Breaking Records?

2012-07-31T00:02:00.0000000+10:00

Even if athletes never got any stronger or faster, and if their techniques and training never changed, they would still break records from time to time. That's because the ability of each person who decides to compete, and the outcome of each competition, are affected by random processes. What happened on the way to the track that might affect the athletes' performance? What's the weather like? And so on. Every sporting event is a matter of chance as well as of achievement, and chance always offers the possibility of a breakthrough.

South Korean Artist Prepares to Launch His Homemade Satellite Into Orbit

2012-07-28T07:14:00.0000000+10:00

South Korean artist Song Ho-jun has spent years working on his very own DIY sputnik, a homemade satellite cobbled together from electronics store parts. It might be the first satellite completely built by an individual. Now, later this year, it'll launch.

NASA Releases Satellite Photos of Olympic Host Cities

2012-07-28T04:09:00.0000000+10:00

As is the case every four years, only a lucky few will be able to see the summer Olympics live and in-person. The rest of us peasants will settle for watching and streaming the games from our homes. But if you want something that feels a little grander, maybe even cosmic, NASA has just released a series of satellite photos depicting past Olympic host cities from space. The earliest comes from 1997 and shows Atlanta, and the series goes all the way up to London 2012.

How Science Predicts Which Olympic Events Will Be the Most Exciting to Watch

2012-07-28T03:23:00.0000000+10:00

The Olympics represent something very special in the culture of sport, but from a viewing perspective they are a logistical nightmare. Multiple events play out at the same time, forcing you to pick and choose between your favorite events. Where will the next dazzling, record-breaking performance take place? Will someone rob Usain Bolt of his 100-meter record? Will there be a Kerri Strug moment in the gym? There's no way to to tune into the Games with absolute certainty that you'll see something historic, but Steve Haake thinks you can increase your chances. Science can tell us where we're most likely to see the closest competitions or record-breaking performances, and where we're least likely to see anything exciting at all.

What Photo Gear Do You Bring to Shoot the Olympics?

2012-07-28T02:04:00.0000000+10:00

For a photographer, the Olympics are a goldmine - there are stories big and small, athletes in prime physical condition, the drama of the sports and the Games itself. But it's also a challenge to shoot all that stuff. Our friends over at Pop Photo talked to veteran Getty photographer and awesome name-haver Streeter Lecka about what gear he's bringing to London. It's especially interesting to hear how a Getty photographer does this kind of thing - it's not exactly how you or I would work. Read the story over at Pop Photo.

Epidemiological Algorithm Scans Your Tweets, Can Predict You'll Get The Flu Next Week

2012-07-28T01:00:00.0000000+10:00

In a crowded urban areas present in thousands of cities around the world, it's impossible to keep your distance from people who may be sick. If you've left your apartment - and maybe even if you haven't - there's a decent chance you've been around someone who is under the weather and there's really no way you could know it.

Smartphone Clocks Could Keep Precise Time By Syncing With Fluorescent Lights' Flicker

2012-07-28T00:02:00.0000000+10:00

Your smartphone is probably losing track of time. Most electronics with internal clocks keep them regulated via vibrating crystals (much like a quartz clock) that keep their timekeeping precise. But while far better timekeepers than mechanical clocks, even these crystals can be thrown off their regular frequencies by external factors like humidity or temperature. Which is why scientists at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology think you're better off syncing your clock to your overhead lights.

A Working Assault Rifle Made With a 3D Printer

2012-07-27T07:29:00.0000000+10:00

Get ready. It's now possible to print weapons at home.

Video: In Nail-Biting Flight, Holder of Electric Bike Speed Record Sets Electric Plane Speed Record

2012-07-27T06:07:00.0000000+10:00

Test pilot and speed freak Chip Yates, already a record-holder for the world's fastest electric motorcycle, broke another one last week in his all-electric airplane. In only its second flight, his Flight of the Century Long-EZ took to the skies over Inyokern Airport in California and reached a top speed of 325 KPH.

Video: Automatic Pastry Identifier Can Tell a Croissant From a Baguette in One Second

2012-07-27T04:03:00.0000000+10:00

"I will have that curly thing," as I once put it to the pastry-selling woman across the counter. There was no sign, so how was I supposed to know it was called a pecan braid? This new food recognizer could have helped!

With A Chemical Injection, Blind Mice Can See

2012-07-27T03:07:00.0000000+10:00

An injection of a specific chemical directly into the eyes can temporarily restore sight in blind mice, suggesting a new therapy for people with vision loss, a new study says. The researchers who discovered the chemical capability are working on an improved version that could someday work in humans.

The Totally Custom, Absurdly Light 3-D Printed Shoe That Could Win Olympic Gold

2012-07-27T01:20:00.0000000+10:00

Luc Fusaro, a French engineering and design student who does not work for Nike or any other shoe company, is creating a 3-D-printed running shoe. It's revolutionary, but he's hoping it barely affects runners at all. To be precise (and maybe optimistic), the shoes - branded "Designed to Win" - could shave 3.5 percent off a runner's time. That's it. But in the professional running world, that's the difference between Olympic glory and heading home in defeat.

Can Bridgestone's Airless Tire End the Inner Tube Era?

2012-07-27T00:18:00.0000000+10:00

Since the Scottish inventor Robert Thomson patented pneumatic tires in 1845, they have become standard on every vehicle with two, four or 18 wheels. Pneumatic tires are now so durable that many drivers never even bother to check their air pressure. But the tires still have weaknesses, not least of which is the tendency to go flat.

Skydiver Makes Successful Leap From The Stratosphere

2012-07-26T11:15:00.0000000+10:00

The free-fall at Questacon is about the biggest drop most of us will experience in our lifetime. Even skydivers only fall for a minute or two - unless your name is Felix Baumgartner and you’re jumping from 29 kilometres above the Earth.

Absorbent Paint Could Soak Up Chemical Weapons, Protecting Vehicle Occupants From Deadly Gas

2012-07-26T07:48:00.0000000+10:00

Syria's regime announced for the first time this week that it has chemical weapons, and stands ready to use them if attacked. A new type of paint could potentially guard against it, protecting tanks and armored vehicles with a special chemical-absorbing topcoat.

Digital Iris Fakes Made with Evolving Algorithm Fool Biometric Scanners

2012-07-26T07:04:00.0000000+10:00

There's more to iris scans than meets the eye, and that could end up being their undoing. New academic research coming out at the Black Hat Security conference this week shows a way to recreate iris images from the digital codes underlying iris-scanning security protocols - images that are so good that they can trick commercial-grade iris-scanning security devices into thinking they're the real thing.

In Record Summer Heat, 97 Percent of Greenland's Surface Ice Turns to Slush

2012-07-26T03:00:00.0000000+10:00

While we enjoy the cold weather this winter, it has been a sensationally hot summer for many other parts of the world, with records breaking daily. But Greenland seems to have just claimed the heat-related phenomenon crown, with 97 percent of its ice sheet turning to slush. The even stranger part? It might be completely normal - at least for now.

Video: Japanese Trashcan Bot Frantically Drives Around to Catch Your Tossed Litter

2012-07-26T02:08:00.0000000+10:00

This Japanese trashbot is custom-built with a fairly complex-looking control board, power system and operating code. Three wheels at the base have 360 degrees of motion, so the robot can spin in any direction.

Mac OS X Mountain Lion Is Here

2012-07-26T01:35:00.0000000+10:00

Apple's newest desktop/laptop operating system, Mac OS X 10.8 (otherwise known as Mountain Lion) was released this morning. You can only get it via download in the Mac App Store, for an impulse-worthy $20. We're still playing with ours; it's a minor update, especially compared to the complete overhaul that is the next version of Windows, though there are some new features here we're excited about, like AirPlay mirroring, a great new version of Safari, and a notifications bar. If you've got, like, a full day, check out Ars Technica's review - it's a 26,000-word, 24-page behemoth of a piece that covers all the ins, outs, and other prepositions related to the new update.

With Orbiter Glitch Repaired, Mars Rover Curiosity Landing Will Now Be Broadcast Live

2012-07-26T00:58:00.0000000+10:00

NASA has some good news from Mars two weeks before its newest rover is set to land on the planet - they'll be able to listen to the landing after all. The aging Odyssey orbiter is now properly in place and will relay landing data immediately, as originally planned.

The First Phone That's Audible Anywhere

2012-07-26T00:19:00.0000000+10:00

All phones have a fatal flaw: In noisy environments, it can be nearly impossible to hear someone on the other end of the line. As a remedy, some separate Bluetooth headsets use bone conduction to supplement the phone's speaker. Actuators in the earpiece translate audio signals into vibrations, which travel through the jawbone and skull and into the bones in the ear and on to the auditory nerve. Though helpful, those systems produce muffled sound because the vibrations bypass the eardrum, the flap of soft tissue responsible for increasing clarity and producing tone.

Video: How Mars Rover Curiosity Will Search for the Ingredients of Life

2012-07-25T05:59:00.0000000+10:00

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently released the much-watched "Seven Minutes of Terror" video, which describes the harrowing descent to the Red Planet that the Mars rover Curiosity will undergo on August 5. Now, from the same lab, comes a look at the chemical tools Curiosity will use to search for signs that Mars could have once sustained life.

FYI: Did Prehistoric Birds Evolve Flight By Falling Out of Trees?

2012-07-25T05:02:00.0000000+10:00

Possibly. The trees-down (or "arboreal") hypothesis has been around for many years, says evolutionary biologist Richard O. Prum of Yale University. Researchers guessed that the scales of tree-dwelling Triassic reptiles elongated into feathers, which helped them leap away from predators. Once the proto-birds could glide, they were en route to avian flight. "It was like one big, crazy hairball of ideas all stuck together," Prum says.

Using Neuroscience to Find an Activity Gamers Like as Much as Shooting People

2012-07-25T02:11:00.0000000+10:00

A few years ago, given an Xbox 360 for testing purposes, I went to the EB Games to get a new game. I like games, but I don't like games with guns or sports, because I don't particularly like guns or sports in real life, either. The guy at the EB was absolutely flummoxed by my request for an Xbox game with neither. He ended up recommending the game version of the movie G-Force, which is a movie for children featuring talking CGI guinea pigs.

India to Predict Monsoon Rains With Supercomputer Accuracy

2012-07-25T01:59:00.0000000+10:00

In an effort to stay one step ahead of the summer monsoon season, Indian scientists are embarking on an ambitious and unprecedented project to build computer models that will allow them to predict the movements of erratic monsoons weeks in advance. If successful, the Indian government thinks it can drastically alter economic outcomes for hundreds of millions of people whose lives depend directly on India's agriculture sector.

Plastic-Eating Underwater Drone Could Swallow the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

2012-07-25T00:07:00.0000000+10:00

A new underwater drone concept could seek and destroy one of the ocean's most insidious enemies, while earning a profit for plastics recyclers. This marine drone can siphon plastic garbage, swallowing bits of trash in a gaping maw rivaling that of a whale shark.

IBM Will Power the Murchison Widefield Array

2012-07-24T11:03:00.0000000+10:00

As we move through the Information Age, it’s become increasingly apparent obstacles to future scientific discovery might not be in the collection of data, as has been the case in the past. Instead, we’ve got so much data we can’t manage it - which is why IBM has partnered with the Murchison Widefield Array radio system to help manage the data it collects about the origin of the universe.

Sally Ride, America's First Female Astronaut, Has Died

2012-07-24T07:41:00.0000000+10:00

Sally Ride, America's first female astronaut, died today in La Jolla, Calif., after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Ride was a doctoral candidate in physics at Stanford University in 1977 when she answered an ad placed by NASA seeking astronauts. She flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1983, becoming not only America's first woman in space, but at 32 years of age, also the youngest American to have traveled in space at that time. She left NASA in 1987, spending much of her time thereafter encouraging students - especially young women - to pursue careers in science and engineering. She was 61.

Don't Look to the Paleolithic for Diet Tips--Look to Apes

2012-07-24T07:00:00.0000000+10:00

Paleo diets, in which people attempt to eat like they imagine cavemen ate (mostly meats, supplemented with occasional wild fruits), were trendy a few years back, and still have their adherents. The idea is that modern humans are healthier when eating what our bodies evolved to eat. And that's a fine idea, but Rob Dunn over at Scientific American has a correction: to find out what our bodies evolved to eat, why stop at the Paleolithic period? Why not go back further - to apes and monkeys? It's a great piece about how arbitrary diets can be. Read it here.

Unique Chemical Bond Only Seen In Dwarf Stars Could Make Better Computers

2012-07-24T06:20:00.0000000+10:00

Stars are responsible for forging every heavy element in the universe when they fuse hydrogen and when they explode at the ends of their lives. But they also create a strange third type of chemical bond between atoms, caused by their incredible magnetic fields. This previously unknown type of bond could lead to new research in quantum science, perhaps even quantum computing.

Speedo's Super-Fast, Shark-Skin-Inspired Fastskin Swimsuit Is Actually Nothing Like a Shark's Skin

2012-07-24T05:21:00.0000000+10:00

Speedo's Fastskin line (including the banned-as-of-2009 LZR suit) of high-tech, high-performance swimsuits were inspired by the skin of a shark - shark skin's sandpaper-like texture is thought to reduce drag, hence its usefulness in swimming gear. But an ichthyologist at Harvard performed a study and found that Fastskin is "nothing like shark skin at all," and that its surface properties do not reduce drag one bit.

Sequenced for the First Time: the Genome of Human Sperm

2012-07-24T04:24:00.0000000+10:00

Scientists have sequenced the full genomes of 91 sperm from one man, the first complete sequencing of a human gamete cell. It demonstrates the vast genetic variation in one person, according to genetic researchers at Stanford.

Scientists Read Monkeys' Minds, See What They're Planning to Do Before They Do it

2012-07-24T03:30:00.0000000+10:00

Neurologists working with monkeys at Washington University in St. Louis to decode brain activity have stumbled upon a rather surprising result. While working to demonstrate that multiple parameters can be seen in the firing rate of a single neuron (and that certain parameters are embedded in neurons only if they are needed to solve the immediate task), they also found that they could read their monkeys' minds.

Canon Announces First Mirrorless Compact Camera, the EOS M

2012-07-24T02:54:00.0000000+10:00

Big news in the camera world, courtesy of our friends at PopPhoto: Canon just announced its first mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera (ILC). ILCs are great because they take, largely, the core features and image quality of a DSLR and shrink them to near-point-and-shoot size - plus, you retain the ability to swap lenses. Sony has owned the category lately, but Canon's EOS M has most of the internals of its currently excellent Rebel line of entry-level DSLRs, including the same sensor as the T4i. It will retail for $800 when released in the US in October, but no word yet on an Australian release or price. Read more at PopPhoto.

NASA Successfully Tests its Inflatable Heat Shield in Reentry

2012-07-24T02:51:00.0000000+10:00

NASA's inflatable heat shield took another big step forward early this morning when its Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) came screaming through the atmosphere and splashed down in the Atlantic after spending 15 minutes undergoing the intense heat and pressure of atmospheric reentry. Launched from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the IRVE-3 mission further demonstrated that an inflatable heat shield can protect a space capsule as it enters the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.

Video: Jellyfish Made From Silicone and Rat's Heart Cells Swims and Beats Like a Heart

2012-07-24T01:59:00.0000000+10:00

Despite being one of the most alien-looking things on Earth, the mechanism jellyfish use to swim is similar in some ways to the beating human heart. That inspired researchers to build a sort of cyborg jellyfish from the ground up, using heart muscle cells from a rat and silicone polymer. And it's actually only a little more odd-looking than a regular jelly.

Researchers Trying to Give First Supersonic Biplane Some Lift

2012-07-24T00:04:00.0000000+10:00

In the 1930s engineer Adolf Busemann conceived of a supersonic biplane that produced no sonic boom-the shock waves would bounce off the plane's two wings at opposing angles, nullifying each other. But the design created so much drag that the plane wouldn't have been able to fly. Now two groups are trying to improve the concept with computer simulations. Engineers at Japan's Tohoku University devised wings with shifting flaps that adjust for drag at different speeds. And researchers from MIT and Stanford University widened the air channel between the wings and tilted their leading and trailing edges. If either design gets built, it could be the first supersonic biplane to take off.

You Built What?!: A 14-Ton Pizzeria on Wheels

2012-07-23T12:25:00.0000000+10:00

Jon Darsky spent years in San Francisco restaurants baking Neapolitan-style pizzas-thin crusts topped with fresh salted tomatoes and milky fior di latte mozzarella-in old-school specialty wood-fired ovens. In 2010 he began looking around for a place of his own but couldn't find the right piece of real estate. After a trip to Austin, Texas, a hotbed of mobile street vendors, he scrapped the idea of a bricks-and-mortar pizzeria and decided to put his oven on wheels.

Rough Sketch: Self-Guided Bullet

2012-07-23T12:08:00.0000000+10:00

For years, people have tried to come up with ways to steer bullets, and everyone has consistently said you can't do it. And you couldn't-if the bullet was spinning. A spinning bullet is too stable; you can't apply enough force to turn it off its axis of revolution. The secret sauce is that our bullet doesn't spin. It's kind of like a musket ball, which doesn't rotate, but with technology added to let us control where it goes.

You Built What?!: A Portable X-Ray Machine

2012-07-23T10:00:00.0000000+10:00

Late one night two years ago, Adam Munich found himself talking with two new acquaintances in a chatroom. One, a Pakistani guy, was complaining about rolling electricity blackouts in his country. The other had broken his leg in a motocross accident in Mexico and said his local hospital couldn't find a working x-ray machine. The two situations fused in Munich's mind; he wondered if a cheap, reliable, battery-powered x-ray machine existed-something that could be used in remote areas and function without being plugged in during blackouts. After discovering that the answer was no, he spent two years building one himself out of Nixie tubes, old art suitcases, chainsaw oil, and electronics from across the globe. It was an incredibly ambitious project for anyone, let alone a 15-year-old.

Riding Along With the Mars Rover Drivers

2012-07-21T07:18:00.0000000+10:00

Scott Maxwell stared at his bedroom ceiling in the hours after his first drive, restless with excitement. All systems were go, and he'd sent the commands by the time he left the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Now he was supposed to sleep before his next shift on Mars time. But he knew that on the fourth planet from the sun, the Spirit rover's wheels had started to move.

Google Nexus Q Review: An Unfinished Orb of Mystery

2012-07-21T04:53:00.0000000+10:00

The Nexus Q is Google's first media streamer, a sphere that streams audio and video to speakers and/or TVs, using an Android device as a remote. It's also horribly restrictive and limited in functionality - but it has potential, providing either Google or industrious hackers put in some hard work.

Unfortunately there is no word yet on when the Australian launch is scheduled or what local prices may be. Until we can personally get some hands on time, check out our US coverage of the Q.

A Brainwave-Controlled Version of "Pong"

2012-07-21T03:13:00.0000000+10:00

Few video games are more basic than Pong, but Charles Moyes and Mengxiang Jiang's version is incredibly complex. The two Cornell University students built a custom electroencephalography (EEG) device so they could control the game's onscreen paddle with their minds.

Researchers Build First Complete Computer Model of an Entire Organism

2012-07-21T01:10:00.0000000+10:00

To conduct experiments, researchers can change a variable in an organism and watch the results unfold. But life is messy, and it's difficult to understand the underlying processes that explain the data. Digitising the process could help, and now we're starting small: researchers have successfully made a computer model of Mycoplasma genitalium, the world's tiniest free-living bacterium.

Neurosecurity Lets You Store a Password In Your Brain Without Remembering It

2012-07-21T00:00:00.0000000+10:00

Usually it's a problem when you can't remember a password. But in this particular case, it's by design. A new security technique mashes up cryptography with neuroscience to create passwords that are stored in users' brains but cannot be recalled, recited, or otherwise extracted by another party.

Blackberry Adds Heightened Emotion to Cell Phone Messages

2012-07-20T07:20:00.0000000+10:00

Most cell phones are pretty good at auto-correcting the errant spelling and punctuation that can ensue when you're typing while furious, or sad, or gleeful. But what if the messages you're sending could also convey those emotions embedded in your words? RIM filed a patent for just such a messaging system, which can determine the emotional context of a text in a way that goes beyond the little :-) we all know.

Video: NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity Has Traveled A Marathon on Mars

2012-07-20T05:56:00.0000000+10:00

All eyes will be on the new Mars rover Curiosity when it lands in just over two weeks, but lest we forget, NASA's indefatigable Mars rover Opportunity is still rolling along, too. The rover has driven about 35 kilometers, which prompted some Olympic-minded NASA people to realize the rover is nearing marathon distance. It will be the first interplanetary marathon.

Compact Fluorescent Bulbs Could Cause Ultraviolet Damage to Skin

2012-07-20T05:42:00.0000000+10:00

We know CFL bulbs are world-changingly efficient, producing the same level of light as their incandescent parents while using a quarter of the energy. But they're still a relatively new device, and few long-term studies have been carried out on them. One of the most recent, a new report from a team at Stony Brook, suggests CFLs might cause damage to skin by releasing UV rays.

Billionaires: Russian Mogul Wants to Upload Your Brains Into Immortality

2012-07-20T03:29:00.0000000+10:00

Earlier this year, a Russian media mogul named Dmitry Itskov formally announced his intention to disembody our conscious minds and upload them to a hologram - an avatar - by 2045. In other words he outlined a plan to achieve immortality, removing the human mind from the physical constraints presented by the biological human body. He was serious. And now, in a letter to the members of the Forbes World's Billionaire's List, he's offering up that immortality to the world's 1,266 richest people.

Video: Kissenger Kissing Robot Transmits Your Signature Smooch

2012-07-20T01:20:00.0000000+10:00

Last time PopSci checked in on Singapore-based Lovotics, roboticists there were trying to create an interface for human-robot love by imbuing robots with all the biological and emotional nuances that characterize human relationships. Now, the team there is trying to enhance long-distance human-human relationships via a robotic medium with Kissenger (or Kiss Me, both short for Kiss Messenger we presume).

A New Blood Test Could Spot Concussions Within Hours

2012-07-20T00:05:00.0000000+10:00

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people with traumatic brain injuries go undiagnosed, often because they brush off their symptoms or because nothing unusual appears on CT scans of their brains. Without a diagnosis, people risk getting another concussion on top of the one they already have, increasing the chance of complications such as coma and death. But a new blood test could spot a brain injury within a few hours, enabling people to take time off to recover properly.

Victoria's Secret Designer is Giving Private Spaceflight a Makeover

2012-07-19T07:33:00.0000000+10:00

An unlikely duo has launched an unlikely commercial space company in an unlikely place. A former Roscosmos (that's the Russian space agency) employee and the designer famous for crafting the Victoria's Secret angel wings are teaming to create next-generation space suits for the commercial spaceflight industry in Brooklyn. Final Frontier Design yesterday cleared its funding goal on Kickstarter by more than $7,000, and is on its way to developing a new breed of intra-vehicular space suit.