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Video: 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...

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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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Insurgents Hack Predator Video Feed With $26 Software

The use of drone aircraft for surveillance and bombing has transformed how the US wages war — a fact not lost on our cunning adversaries. Rather than just sit around, waiting for the next Predator...

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First 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,...

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Sophisticated New Computer Models Predict Details of Insurgent Attacks

Chaos, confusion, and uncertainty have pervaded battle since Homer first described the din of clashing hoplites. But new developments in computer modeling look to pierce the fog of modern war by...

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Congressional UAV Caucus Courts Robot Voters

The US Congress has well over 100 caucuses, or groups of common interests. They’re like the clubs in a high school that play chess or work on the year book, except they usually focus on a constituency...

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2,400-Foot-Tall Solar Turbines To Power Arizona

Today’s solar power plants work either through photovoltaics or heated steam. If Enviromission gets its way, tomorrow’s plants will combine wind and solar, with acre-sized mirrors and...

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UK Report On Future Jobs Predicts More Space Pilots and Organ Manufacturers,...

With the US unemployment rate hovering around 10 percent, and the UK unemployment rate stuck at about 8 percent, most people are worrying about what job they’ll have 20 days from now, not 20 years in...

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New Computer Program Studies Trees on TV to Simulate Their Movement

The same subtle, random movements, bouncing shadows, and immense complexity that make plants fascinating to observe in life also make them hell to animate. Like water and fire, a rustling tree is one...

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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...

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Physicists 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...

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Marine Corps’ Unmanned Programmable Copter Passes First Major Test

The difficulty of supplying remote outposts across rugged terrain has contributed to many of the deadliest moments in the Afghan War, by preventing the delivery of weapons and ammo to engaged...

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Nanofiber 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...

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Windows 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...

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Video: Easy Russian DIY Car-to-Tank Conversion Kit

As the Northeast and South brace for yet another day of record snow fall, thousands of Americans are struggling with ways to deal with treacherous road conditions. Thankfully, some intrepid Russian...

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New Brain Scan Quantifies The Formerly Subjective Feeling of Pain

The seemingly subjective nature of pain always proves problematic for doctors, who have to use a woefully imprecise chart to gauge a patient’s suffering. But by using a new interpretation of fMRI...

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2012 Military Wishlist Features Smart Wound-Diagnosing Uniforms and...

Even though giant companies like Lockheed and General Dynamics produce the majority of U.S. military hardware, the Department of Defense still turns to small businesses for some of its more...

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Baguette Dropped From Bird’s Beak Shuts Down The Large Hadron Collider (Really)

The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, just cannot catch a break. First, a coolant leak destroyed some of the magnets that guide the energy beam. Then LHC officials...

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Revitalized LHC Manages to Collide Protons

After 14 years of work and $5.5 billion, the LHC has survived faulty magnets, avian sabotage, and the threat of malevolent time travelers to finally collided its first particles. Three days after the...

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Has Dark Matter Finally Been Detected On Earth?

For the past six years, the CDMS, the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector, sat deep beneath the Minnesotan countryside, watching super-cooled Germanium crystals for evidence of material...

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