Video: What Would You See As You Plummet Into a Black Hole?
By definition, one can’t see a black hole itself, only its effect on the light of intervening stars. And without some serious equipment, even that’s a tall order. Luckily for all us amateur...
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Google Goggles Could Add Optical Character Recognition and Real-Time...
The Google Goggles Android app can already copy business cards directly into the address book and provide augmented reality overlays for restaurants. But now, Google has unveiled a prototype of a...
View ArticleVideo: Half-Kilometer-Long Explosive Whip Clears IEDs The Explode-y Way
Clearing battlefield obstacles has pitted trapper against sapper since Roman times. But whereas the minefields and dragon teeth of previous conflicts merely slowed advancing armies, the IEDs favored...
View ArticleNASA Tests Handy-Man Space Robots For Orbital Repairs
With cuts in the manned space program and the impending retirement of the Space Shuttle, NASA will soon face the need to repair satellites without the ability to send any astronauts to do it....
View ArticleAntarctic Collision Snaps Rhode-Island-Sized Iceberg Off Glacier
This month, an iceberg roughly the size of Luxembourg slammed into an Antarctic glacier known as the Mertz Ice Tongue. Then, last week, a Rhode Island-sized section of the Mertz Ice Tongue finally...
View ArticleAre Our Asteroid-Destroying Nukes Big Enough?
Pop quiz. An asteroid the size of Manhattan is hurtling towards Earth, its impact is sure to result in mass extinction and the destruction of humanity as we know it. What do you do? The traditional...
View ArticleDrug Treatment Could Sharpen Adult Brains
Anyone who’s tried to learn a second language knows that the earlier in life you start, the easier it is to learn. Now, a scientist at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center (SUNY)...
View ArticleUS District Court Says No To Patenting Human Genes
In a move that could significantly alter the future of genetic medicine and the industry around it, a US District Court judge invalidated seven patents for human genes linked to breast and ovarian...
View ArticlePARC Develops iPod-Sized HIV-Detection Device to Bring Affordable Testing To...
The monetary and energy expense of HIV testing machines prevent their deployment to remote or impoverished areas; the very places that need them the most. To rectify that inequity, Palo Alto Research...
View ArticleInkjet Cell Fabricator Prints Healing Flesh Directly Onto Wounds
As if fabricating a new heart from scratch wasn’t impressive enough, the doctors at the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine have come up with another astounding breakthrough. This time,...
View ArticleUS Troops In Afghanistan to Get Sensors That See Through Walls
As if aerial robots and bionic limbs didn’t make the Army seem futuristic enough, it looks like another hallmark of sci-fi, X-ray vision, will ship off to Afghanistan later this year. The device in...
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...
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 ArticleIon Engines Will Make Little CubeSats Steerable
The DIY miniature satellites known as CubeSats have a lot going for them. They’re cheap, they’re easy to program, and they’re small. That last benefit also adds a downside, in that the CubeSats are...
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...
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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...
View ArticleRobots To Clear Baltic Seabed Of WWII Mines
In a dangerous legacy of the world’s deadliest conflict, 150,000 World War Two-era sea mines litter the Baltic Sea. The danger these bombs pose to a proposed gas pipeline has prompted Russia to hire...
View ArticleVideo: Half-Kilometer-Long Explosive Whip Clears IEDs The Explode-y Way
Clearing battlefield obstacles has pitted trapper against sapper since Roman times. But whereas the minefields and dragon teeth of previous conflicts merely slowed advancing armies, the IEDs favored...
View ArticleNASA Tests Handy-Man Space Robots For Orbital Repairs
With cuts in the manned space program and the impending retirement of the Space Shuttle, NASA will soon face the need to repair satellites without the ability to send any astronauts to do it....
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