Brooke Borel

The Trend: Internet-connected energy monitors. They grab details on electric use from your wiring and send them to a Web site where you can analyze the data—and figure out how to save both watts and cash.

Why Now: Utilities keep promising “smart” electric meters that automatically provide real-time, online info, but most Americans still don’t have them. Now millions of stimulus dollars are inspiring companies to create and sell kits that add smart features to any ordinary meter.

Head Tilt Mouse

Ever since Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans, and Oliver Smithies created the first knockout mouse in 1989, genetically engineered animals have steadily increased in popularity for all kinds of biology research: simply pick a gene, turn it off in the mouse, and see what happens.

Flexcrete

Researchers have known for decades that concrete fixes itself as cement particles near a small crack mix with air and water to form calcium carbonate. But some fractures are too big to heal on their own. Now engineers at the University of Michigan have mixed a new concrete formula with reinforcing glue-like fibers that hold it together under pressure, allowing only hair-width cracks that can mend after a rainy day. Available in a few years, the remixed concrete will cost more than the standard stuff, but less maintenance could make it cheaper in the long run.

Among the hot new ideas afloat in the world of geoengineering is biochar, a form of charcoal that some say could significantly help in carbon sequestration in the future. Re:char, a fledgling company working out of a corner of a cluttered warehouse in a shared artist loft in Brooklyn, New York, is experimenting with biochar production on a very small scale.

Neuroscientists are already able to read some basic thoughts, like whether an individual test subject is looking at a picture of a cat or an image with a specific left or right orientation. They can even read pictures that you're simply imagining in your mind's eye. Even leaders in the field are shocked by how far we've come in our ability to peer into people's minds. Will brain scans of the future be able to tell if a person is lying or telling the truth?

Google Earth in its current form went live in June 2005. In addition to allowing users to fly to their childhood homes, zoom in on potential vacation spots, and explore under the sea and atop the world's highest peaks, the virtual mapping software has proven instrumental in a number of scientific discoveries -- several in 2009 alone. Here's a look back at some of the highlights.

Any guesses on future Google Earth discoveries? Will Google Earth be an ever-more-important scientific tool in the future? Post in the comments.

Previously, it was believed that dancing was unique to humans. Now, two separate studies have shown that parrots have the ability to bob their heads and tap their feet to a number of different beats, proving that humans aren't the only ones with rhythm. One of the birds studied even has a favorite song: "Everybody" by the Backstreet Boys.

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully converted sound waves to light radiation by reversing a process that transforms electricity to sound, which is commonly used in cell phones. This is the first time that sound has been converted to light. The findings, which were published this week in Nature Physics, could improve how computer chips, LEDs, and transistors are made, and also have applications in ultrafast materials science and terahertz radiation (T-ray) generation.

The research team initially predicted that the conversion was possible around a year ago, using computer modeling, and has been trying to confirm it in the lab ever since.

When your favorite band rocks out on stage, they're coordinating more than their jams and their dance moves. A new study suggests that pairs of guitarists playing the same melody simultaneously have significantly similar brain waves. The research, published today in the online journal BMC Neuroscience, is the first to measure the brain activity of more than one musician playing at the same time, and may have broader implications regarding how our brains interact when we coordinate actions with other people, like matching our walking speed with another person, playing in a band, playing sports, and dancing. The findings may also apply to social bonding behaviors, like coordinated gazes between a mother and child or between partners.

This iniopterygian fossil, discovered in Kansas, is an extinct relative of modern chimaeras, a distant relative of sharks and rays. Iniopterygians have unusual features, including large skulls and eye sockets, rows of shark-like teeth, clubbed tails, and fins tipped with spikes and hooks. Previously, only flattened fossils of this relatively small fish -- which averages around six inches in length -- were known to exist. The new finding, the first three-dimensional iniopterygian fossil, is remarkable for having the oldest fossilized brain ever found.

Ever since the fish's discovery in 1939, scientists have believed that the tube-shaped eyes of Macropinna microstoma, commonly called the "barreleye," were fixed in place, limiting its vision to whatever was directly overhead. Recent research from Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) proves this theory wrong: in reality, this crazy fish can rotate its eyes from an overhead view, which helps it locate prey swimming above, to the front of its face. This helps explain how the fish is able to actually capture the prey with its tiny mouth.

Microsaccades are tiny involuntary eye movements that are instrumental in vision, because they prevent the fading of stationary objects from the visual field. Without the tiny movements, objects could become invisible to the retina. Researchers at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix previously showed that these eye movements occur when the gaze is fixed on a specific point, like a dot or a cross projected on a screen. But it was unproven whether or not these findings could be generalized to more complicated, natural visual tasks, like freely looking at objects in a scene, or picking a face out of a crowd.

Charles Simonyi, a computer software executive most famous for leading the development of Microsoft Word and Excel in the 1980s, announced in September 2008 that he had booked a second flight with Space Adventures, currently the only company providing orbital space tourist flights to the International Space Station (ISS). Simonyi is currently training for the upcoming flight, which is scheduled to launch on March 25, 2009. He will join Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and NASA astronaut Mike Barratt, both members of Expedition 19 to the space station. The crew will ride to the ISS in the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-14.

I caught up with Charles in between his training for a little chat about his upcoming trip.

Science has come a long way in the last century. Advances in communication, changes in who funds scientific research and how, and who actually conducts the research have all changed the scientific community. Shifts in views and an increasing acceptance of people from various cultures and demographics have also propelled science into a new era.

Bacterial infections are the number one killer in hospitals, and while most can be treated with antibiotics, there are many strains that have developed resistance to the drugs. New research from Tel Aviv University and Texas University suggests that bacteria can be outsmarted by turning their natural defense mechanisms against them, which can completely wipe them out without using antibiotics.