Miniature Sensor Perpetually Charges Self Using Environmental Energy
Scientistsu, engineers, and doctors yearn for tiny sensors to record a vast array of events in the world’s many hard-to-reach places. And so far, the tradeoff between battery life and size has...
View ArticleNanofiber Lamps Are More Efficient Than Incandescent Bulbs, Eco-Friendlier...
For those who want to start saving the planet at home, lighting presents a vexing paradox. While incandescent bulbs are wildly inefficient, compact fluorescent bulbs contain hazardous chemicals. With...
View ArticleWindows Phone Series 7 Takes Aim at iPhone, Android
Gadget lovers are nothing if not fickle, always ditching their older tech for pretty young things. And recently, all the attention on the iPhone and Google’s Android OS has made Microsoft seem a bit...
View ArticleBill Gates’s 2010 TED Talk Now Online
There are plenty of reasons to disagree with President Obama and Bill Gates, but there’s no denying that both men are profoundly smart. And when they start agreeing on something, lesser minds like us...
View ArticleVideo: In Attempt at True VTOL, F-35 Makes Shortest, Slowest Landing Yet
To perfect the vertical and short takeoff and landing ability of the F-35 Lightning II, test pilots have been taking off and landing at progressively shorter distances and slower speeds, building up...
View ArticleA New Breed of Medical Screws Dissolve In Body and Promote Bone Growth
The screws used by doctors to repair broken bones and torn ligaments enable recovery from a wide range of injuries. Unfortunately, they also leave holes in bones, require secondary surgery for...
View ArticleRussia Will End Space Tourism Flights When Shuttle Retires
Well, it looks like Charles Simonyi might have to wait a while for a third trip, because space tourism is going on hiatus. With the shuttle’s cancellation leaving Russia as the only country able to...
View ArticleFirst-Ever Full Sequencing of Unhealthy Genomes Illuminates Disease Roots
Despite coming from a range of different backgrounds, everyone whose genome has been fully sequenced has had one thing in common: they were all healthy. But now, two teams have decoded the first...
View ArticleTED Talk: Mark Roth Says Suspended Animation Could Soon Be a Reality
It used to be that suspended animation was only for people heading to Planet LV-426, and former Red Sox players. But Mark Roth, a researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle,...
View ArticleNew Evidence that Mysterious Dark Force From Outside Tugs at Our Universe
First came dark matter, the gravitational source from within our galaxy that astronomers couldn’t see. Then came dark energy, the undetectable force pushing the expansion of the universe. Now, NASA...
View ArticleVideo: Computer-Controlled Bacteria Build a Miniature Pyramid
While so many scientists spend their time trying to create nanobots the size of bacteria, researcher at the NanoRobotics Laboratory of the École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada, decided to simply...
View ArticleElectrical Nerve Hacking Restores Movement To Paralyzed Limbs
When Matthew Schiefer, a neural engineer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, first managed to stimulate the leg of an unconscious volunteer by wrapping an electrode around a nerve...
View ArticleTiny Titanium Origami Highlights New Method Of Micro-Construction
While three-dimensional printing has come a long way, engineers still struggle with fabricating objects smaller than a quarter. In those small structures, the upper layers crush and distort the weak...
View ArticleUS Special Forces Field-Testing Plasma Knife
Emergency medical care for soldiers wounded on the battlefield has come a long way since Hawkeye and Hot Lips. But for Special Forces troopers operating deep behind enemy lines, that care often...
View ArticleChinese Scientists Engineer the World’s Smartest Rat
In a development that gives Acme Labs and NIMH a run for their money, scientists in Georgia and China have collaborated to create the world’s smartest rat. The genetically engineered rat, Hobbie-J,...
View ArticleVideo: Improvising Jazzbot Jams With Humans, Really Swings
Advances in robotics have lead to automatons that can do everything from ski to open doors to help the elderly. Now, thanks to the Takanishi Laboratory at Waseda University in Japan, robots have...
View ArticleGlowing Prairie Rodents Teach Us the Genetics Of Monogamy
Man, those scientists just love their glowing lab subjects. First came mice, and then recently the first primates got some jellyfish genes implanted into their DNA. Now, scientists at Emory University...
View ArticlePaper-Thin Batteries To Juice Self-Powered OLEDs
Organig LEDs hold large promise for efficient, thin and flexible lighting elements (as well as razor-thin TVs), but low-tech power sources continue to constrain more creative uses of the lights. After...
View ArticleFirst Nanotube Circuit Created, Paves Way For Better Chips
A computer chip using nanotube circuitry can run much faster than a regular silicon chip, for a fraction of the cost, but no one has been able to effectively string together two nanotube transistors,...
View ArticleVideo: Simulation Renders Entire Known Universe
Everyone loves a good road movie, whether it’s Hope and Crosby or Fonda and Hopper. But the scope of those films pales in comparison to the ground covered by the Hayden Planetarium’s new video, The...
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