Pyroelectric Crystals Could Enable the First Truly Portable X-Ray Machine
Like many pieces of modern medical equipment, X-ray machines are as bulky and energy dependent as they are vital. Even “portable” X-ray machines remain too heavy to carry across rough terrain, and too...
View ArticleFirst Ever Multicellular Animals Found In Oxygen-Free Environment
In the 236 years since oxygen was identified as a life-giving necessity, no scientist anywhere has discovered a multicellular animal capable of living without the stuff. Until now. Researchers from...
View ArticleHewlett-Packard Unveils Real-World Memristor, Chip of the Future
In 1971, electrical engineering professor Leon Chua proposed a theoretical basic electronics component called a memristor. In 2008, Hewlett Packard brought the memristor out of theory and into the...
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 ArticleTogolese Student Builds Humanoid Robot From Old TV Parts
Most robots covered on this site push the envelope of technology, by working in space or eerily replicating flesh-and-blood humans. But for Sam Todo, a student in the Togolese Republic in Africa,...
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New LOFAR Telescope Network Probes Universe’s Low-Frequency Radiation to Look...
Until recently, radio astronomers have concentrated almost exclusively on the high-energy radiation streaming in towards Earth from exotic stellar bodies like pulsars, quasars, and super-massive black...
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 ArticleFrench City Plans To Harness Pedestrian Power for Street Lights
In the French city of Toulouse, the newest craze in sustainable energy is about to hit the streets. Literally. Inspired by a nightclub in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the city of Toulouse has begun...
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 ArticleScientists Observe Live Human Cells Communicating For the First Time
The basis of a human body’s cells’ ability to communicate with one another is the vesicle. That little ball packed with biological material is the medium through which all of our billions of cells...
View ArticleObama Puts the EPA to Work
Having spent his first week in office focusing on the global economic crisis and America’s many wars, Obama began his second week by tackling another looming problem: climate change. On Monday,...
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...
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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 ArticleMarine 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...
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 ArticleVideo: 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...
View ArticleGenetically Engineered Pig Lung Successfully Oxygenates Human Blood, Paving...
With the world facing an organ shortage so serious that the majority of potential transplant recipients die while on waiting lists, doctors have looked to similarly sized animal organs as a potential...
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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