11.03.11

On Its Way to Ultradestructive Megawatt Power, Navy's Death Ray Laser Breaks Another Record

The Navy's death ray weapon keeps burning through laser records, on its way to the ultimate goal of searing through 2,000 feet of steel per second.
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Yale Scientists Create the World's First Anti-Laser

There are aspects of science that lend the subject its reputation, at least among schoolchildren, for being "boring" (Punnett squares come to mind). Then there are things like lasers that are completely awesome, regardless of whether you're eight years old or 80. Which
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Toshiba's Automated Checkout Cam Can Distinguish Different Varieties of Apple

Self-checkout kiosks at the grocery store can save time and space for quick shoppers, but if an item doesn't have a bar code--like, say, produce (hopefully)--you still have to search through the list of variations, which can lose any time you've gained by phasing
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Chip-Sized Particle Accelerators Could Lead to Cancer-Fighting Ray Guns

Forget the gigantic Large Hadron Collider - how about a particle-accelerator-on-a-chip? OK, so it can't reach the energies produced at
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Japan Teams Up With Fishing Net Maker To Haul In A Catch of Space Debris

The proliferation of space debris surrounding our planet isn't just a theoretical problem--flying extraterrestrial garbage can cause damage to satellites, manned and unmanned space missions, and even the International Space Station. So we've seen quite a few proposed
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Is the Developing World Poised for an Electric-Vehicle Boom?

That's what some experts here at the Lithium Supply and Markets conference believe, and if they're right, it could be good for everyone If you had to separate the speakers at this year's Lithium Supply and Markets conference into two camps, you could do it
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New Foaming Metal Could Form Lighter Hulls For Cargo Ships

Reducing cargo ships' weight would be a major step in reducing the carbon emissions of the worldwide freight industry. Fraunhofer Labs in Germany has one possible solution: ship hulls made from
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The Easy Way Up: An Escalator for Firemen

An escalator-like ladder for faster fire rescues Orville Douglas Denison spent much of his youth sketching out futuristic aircraft, but in retirement he has turned pragmatic. His "aerial fire truck," a cross between a conveyer belt and a ladder, could help firefighters
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A New Way of Flying

How a record-breaking pilot made it through the night in a sun-powered plane Born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1952, the year the first commercial jet airliner took flight, André Borschberg grew up longing for the skyward frontier and the "freedom of three dimensions."
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Taiwan To Build Tree-Like Skyscraper With Moving Exterior Observation Pods

This translucent tree of a building seems like something that might grace the cover of an old Popular
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Munich Deploys Custom Bacteria at Oktoberfest to Devour Ubiquitous Stink of Stale Beer

Bavarian beer purveyors concerned about a smelly Oktoberfest are hoping bacteria can make the experience more enjoyable. They plan to pour a solution of live bacteria on the
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Singapore's SkyPark infinity pool lets you swim to the edge of the world

You've got to admire an architect who can take an ordinary hotel pool and turn it into a genuinely terrifying attraction. The newly built Sands SkyPark in Singapore offers guests a place to cool off on the 55th floor, nearly 200
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Iran's Boat-Plane-Thing Would Strike Fear Into Other Flying Military Boats if Any Existed

Iran's Sacred Week of Defense (celebrating its eight-year resistance to the Iraqi invation of the 1980s) is never without a healthy dose of pomp and ceremony, but this week Iran's defense ministry took the usual military parade to the waterfront. Yesterday Iran unveiled
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Acoustic Fingerprinting Software Turns Any Cell Phone into a Touch-Sensitive Device

Cambridge, UK, firm Input Dynamics is trying to take the bite out of iPhone envy with a new software fix that turns any "dumbphone" into a touchscreen device.
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Affordable DIY MRI Shows How We Really Breathe

In 2002, Matthew Rosen won a NASA grant to study how gravity affects the lungs. He soon found out what lung specialists already know: An MRI scanner reveals how well a lung moves air, but it only works when the patient is lying on his back. What Rosen really wanted to
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Optical Speedbumps Create Illusion of Little Girl Darting Out In Front Of You

Civil authorities around the world have tried all kinds of tricks to get drivers to slow down: speed bumps, rumble strips, flashing lights, the decoy police cruiser, and of course the good old-fashioned speed trap. The British Columbia Automobile Association Traffic
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Flight attendant meltdown recreated by Hong Kong TV station

Who needs cover shots and voiceover when you can digitally re-create the moment? That's what staff at a Hong Kong TV station must have thought when they heard about the US flight attendant who made a hasty exit from his aircraft following an incident with a passenger this week. Steven Slater,
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UK-designed smart house learns your desires and adjusts to make you happy

Smart house tech is about to go a step beyond your average energy-efficiency monitoring systems. What about a house that prepares a fresh pot of coffee when you wake up, plays your favorite music without being told to, and sets the thermostat to your ideal setting? Now that's
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A Dishless Future: New Flat Antennas Can Work As Satellite TV Signal Receivers

Satellite dishes as we know them - both the huge ones that require a corner of the backyard and the more modern, compact variety that mount on rooftops - could be on their way out. A grad student at the Netherlands' University of Twente has devised a new
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Google is Flying a Quadcopter Surveillance Robot, Says Drone Maker

There's no question that the future of warfare, espionage, and clandestine operations is moving rapidly toward reliance on drone aircraft. But should citizens grow restless when this technology moves into the private sector? A German drone maker claims Google is
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Iran's Boat-Plane-Thing Would Strike Fear Into Other Flying Military Boats if Any Existed

Iran's Sacred Week of Defense (celebrating its eight-year resistance to the Iraqi invation of the 1980s) is never without a healthy dose of pomp and ceremony, but this week Iran's defense ministry took the usual military parade to the waterfront. Yesterday Iran unveiled
Read more...


Intellitar's "Digital Clones" Creepily Preserve Your Legacy For Future Generations

What do you get when you cross a 1990s AIM-bot with the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks? Today, a company called Intellitar is set to release Virtual Eternity, a bit
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Giant Floating Crane Searching For Clues to Korean Maritime Disaster

A floating crane prepares to raise from the depths a South Korean navy combat corvette that mysteriously split in two and sank on March 26. To allow military and civilian investigators from South Korea, the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and Sweden to examine the 1,322-ton
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Optical Speedbumps Create Illusion of Little Girl Darting Out In Front Of You

Civil authorities around the world have tried all kinds of tricks to get drivers to slow down: speed bumps, rumble strips, flashing lights, the decoy police cruiser, and of course the good old-fashioned speed trap. The British Columbia Automobile Association Traffic
Read more...


High-pressure process yields a brand-new material that stores massive amounts of energy

With lackluster battery tech one of the biggest hurdles standing between existing energy economies and those of the green, renewable future, there's a lot of pressure on researchers to come up with the next big battery breakthrough. And pressure, it turns out, might
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Navy sending MZ-3A airship to gulf for cleanup effort

Big problems call for big responses, and while armchair pundits and denizens of the blogosphere pick apart the government response to the BP oil spill, the US Navy is bringing out the big guns to
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London Builds an Insect Hotel to Keep Helpful Bugs in Residence

Most architects design structures with the hope that bugs won't take up residence inside, but design house ARUP (the same architects who dreamed up Beijing's CCTV tower) is hoping
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To locate underground threats, Lockheed scans subterranean gravity signatures

Having had limited success catching America's enemies by "smoking them out of their holes," Lockheed Martin and the DoD are turning to an airborne sensor-based platform to map the subterranean world and
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Singapore's SkyPark infinity pool lets you swim to the edge of the world

You've got to admire an architect who can take an ordinary hotel pool and turn it into a genuinely terrifying attraction. The newly built Sands SkyPark in Singapore offers guests a place to cool off on the 55th floor, nearly 200
Read more...


UK-designed smart house learns your desires and adjusts to make you happy

Smart house tech is about to go a step beyond your average energy-efficiency monitoring systems. What about a house that prepares a fresh pot of coffee when you wake up, plays your favorite music without being told to, and sets the thermostat to your ideal setting? Now that's
Read more...