Darpa’s Cyborg Insect Spies, Now Nuclear-Powered
When you write for Popular Science, it’s easy to become desensitized to wild and crazy future tech. To wit: When I first heard that Darpa wanted to develop cyborg insects to carry surveillance...
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Robovie-II, the Robot That Helps You Buy Groceries
The ease and variety of online shopping enabled by the first dot-com explosion cast technology as the killer of in-store retail. But in Japan, with its aging population and unique consumer culture,...
View Article8 Percent of Human Genome Was Inserted By Virus, and May Cause Schizophrenia
The rise of psychopharmacology has led doctors to not only treat mental illnesses like regular diseases, but think of them as such as well. Turns out, schizophrenia may be more than just a disease in...
View ArticleInsulin Can Now Be Made Cheaply from Flowers
In 1922, Canadian scientists isolated insulin for the first time. Now, over 80 years later, our neighbors to the north are helping diabetics again by devising the cheapest way yet to produce insulin....
View ArticleCarbon Crystals Harder Than Diamond Found In Finnish Meteorite
Diamond may remain the preferred material for wedding rings, Lil’ Wayne’s birthday gifts, and Damien Hirst sculptures, but it looks like girls’ best friend will have to relinquish its title as the...
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Say Hello to Robonaut2, NASA’s Android Space Explorer of the Future
With the news that the White House has canceled the Constellation Program, NASA seems to be moving out of the human space flight business. However, the unveiling of a next-generation robot astronaut...
View ArticlePhysicists Prove Teleportation of Energy Is Possible
Over five years ago, scientists succeeded in teleporting information. Unfortunately, the advance failed to bring us any closer to the Star Trek future we all dream of. Now, researchers in Japan have...
View ArticleMarijuana Research Offers New Hope For Male Birth Control Pill
The male birth control pill has lingered for years tantalizingly just out of reach, in the realm where rumor meets science. Recently developed hormonal and mechanical contraceptives never found an...
View ArticleMiniature 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 ArticleMeat the iPhone Sausage Stylus
It’s easy to see how Apple might have overlooked this, what with their headquarters located in a place with 60 degree days in February, but anyone from colder climates knows that you can’t operate an...
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 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...
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With Artificial Photosynthesis, A Bottle of Water Could Produce Enough Energy...
One of the interesting side effects of last year’s stimulus bill was $400 million in funding for ARPA-E, the civilian, energy-focused cousin of DARPA. And in this week’s first ever ARPA-E conference,...
View ArticleSenate Bill Proposes Extending The Shuttle Program By Another Two Years
In an attempt to shorten the gap between the end of the Space Shuttle and the deployment of its replacement, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) has introduced a bill that would extend the life of...
View ArticleAutonomous Submarinebot Heads Down on Deepest-Ever Undersea Search For...
While some scientists resort to undersea drilling to find undiscovered forms of life, a new group of researchers has decided that piloting a robotic submarine into a submerged volcano was the way to...
View ArticleEvidence of First Virus That Infects Both Plants and Humans
From rabies to bird flu to HIV, diseases passing from animals to humans is a well-known phenomenon. But a virus jumping from plants to humans? Never. At least, that’s what doctors thought until Didier...
View ArticleChina Designs Indigenous UAV Stealth Fighter, and Bootlegs Some US Models
When I hear the phrase “knock-off Chinese products”, I usually think of either the bootleg DVDs I get on the subway or the cheap electronics I get in Midtown. But a new report in Defense Professionals...
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 ArticleMed Students Use P2P File Sharing To Get Restricted Access Papers
While some companies hope an iTunes-like approach to distributing scientific papers on the cheap will get journal articles into the hands of people who need them, a new study shows that many medical...
View ArticleVatican Ponders the Existence Of Alien Life
After years of lagging behind in the acceptance of scientific fact, the Vatican has not only caught up, but, with a conference this week, moved far past the boundaries of modern science. Yes, 376...
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