Jeremy Hsu

That economic recession has hardly slowed down the growing swarm of robots designed for almost every task imaginable.

Many of them showcased their skills at Japan's International Robot Exhibition 2009, along with a host of human handlers. Consumers in the market for a pair of robot skates need not hold their breath for much longer.

Launch the gallery for a selection of our favorite 'bots.

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Time to shake off that post-Thanksgiving tryptophan daze and see what the other Turkey has been doing. Turns out those Turkish officials have begun working on two Internet projects: a Turkish search engine that aims to address Muslim sensitivities, and government-controlled e-mail accounts for all 70 million Turkish citizens.

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Those Care Bears can step off, because now humans have control over rainbows too. Scientists have created a rainbow trap with a lens and a plate of glass, and could apply the technique to information storage in the not-so-distant future.

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Californian sea lions have become U.S. Navy recruits alongside dolphins and human divers, as seen in this amazing picture. The Daily Telegraph reports that this particular fellow put on a display for officials at the NATO Underwater Research Center in La Spezia Bay, Italy.

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Imagine playing a frantic session of the video game Modern Warfare 2 in the virtual ruins of suburban USA, and suddenly seeing a scrolling message that announces a real manmade or natural disaster appear on the TV. Such a meta-experience may soon arrive via your Xbox, PlayStation or Wii, because New York State officials have begun testing a plan for emergency alert broadcasts over online gaming networks.

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Energy shields haven't arrived just yet, but this magnetic heat shield could do nicely in the meantime. European researchers have created a magnetic field technology that can protect spacecraft from fiery atmospheric temperatures during reentry, and perhaps cut back on the need for traditional heat shields.

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Martians may have already landed on Earth, at least in ancient microbial form. The same NASA team that discovered the controversial Allen Hills meteorite has shared new data that points to a biological origin for structures within the Martian rock, Spaceflight Now reports. NASA headquarters plans to officially address the new findings within days.

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Who you gonna call when a normally placid pachyderm decides to act out? Enter Zachariah Matthew, a Mumbai engineer who created a remote-controlled immobilizing device to handle elephants on a rampage.

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Science under pressure can produce marvelous results, such as an entirely new way to store hydrogen fuel. Researchers combined the noble gas xenon with molecular hydrogen (H2) to make a never-before-seen solid that opens the doors to an entire new family of materials for hydrogen storage.

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IBM's claim of simulating a cat cortex generated quite a buzz last week, but now the head researcher from the Blue Brain project, a team that is working to simulate its own animal brain (a rat's), has gone incandescent with fury over the what

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Plentiful fat seems more reviled than revered in today's society, even when it has uses for the medical and cosmetic industries. But today police announced the arrest of a Peruvian gang accused of murdering people and selling their fat to the cosmetics industry, according to The Associated Press.

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Dark energy may not have much in common with aliens, unless there's a flotilla of freaky monoliths out there with really weird physical properties. But astrophysicists hope to build a two-in-one space telescope that can search for signs of dark energy along with exoplanets.

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Glove designers walked away with a total of $400,000 in prize money at NASA's second Astronaut Glove Challenge yesterday. The U.S. space agency awarded the money because the private glove designs beat the in-house version, and NASA may incorporate the designs into the Constellation spacesuit intended for next-gen astronauts returning to the moon.

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Drivers who want to know energy tradeoffs between gas guzzlers and electric cars may find some help at the ChargeCar project, where researchers have begun investigating how to customize electric vehicles to meet individual commuting needs. A smart power management system could even boost electric vehicle efficiency and extend battery life.

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A bird dropping a baguette temporarily shut down the $5 billion Large Hadron Collider earlier this month. But scientists have a good feeling about the restart, which is slated for Friday, the The Guardian reports.

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