NASA 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...
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MIT Stumbles on a Way to Print Flexible Coatings Made of Micromachines
Microelectromechanical devices (MEMS) have the potential to enable a wide range of nanomachines. Unfortunately, MEMS suffer from the critical drawbacks of an expensive manufacturing process, a high...
View ArticleNoses Beat Eyes as a Biometric Identification Marker
While retina scans still give a James Bond feel to security, and finger prints have a bit of retro charm, the cutting edge of biometric identification has moved to a new body part: the nose. According...
View ArticlePhysics Student Petitions For “Hella” to Be Next SI Unit Prefix
Beloved by Bay Area natives and loathed by the rest of the country, the term “hella” has entered the general American lexicon thanks to the combined efforts of No Doubt and South Park. And now, if...
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 ArticleNew 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...
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...
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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 ArticleGoogle Teams Up With Dish Network For Android-Powered TV Experiment
No longer simply content to rule the world of computers, the Google juggernaut has teamed up with Dish Network to bring its targeted ads and search power to the world of television. The project,...
View ArticleGold Nanoparticles and Lasers Kill the Brain Parasite That Causes “Crazy Cat...
Toxoplasmosis, a common food- and pet-borne illness linked to hallucinations, personality alteration, and, since it’s often carried by house pets, the stereotype of the crazy cat lady, infects around...
View ArticleThe Undersea Hunt for Intraterrestrial Life
Despite the impact of mankind, the size of trees, and the sheer numbers of bugs, multicellular terrestrial life only makes up a small portion of the planet’s biomass. The majority of life on Earth...
View ArticleConcept Waterscraper Brings Monumental Architecture Into The Open Sea
For the last five years, eVolo Magazine has hosted a futuristic skyscraper design competition. Usually, the entrants imagine giant buildings taller than anything under construction today. However, the...
View ArticleNanoelectromechanical Sensor Can Instantly Detect Pathogens And Toxins
Tests for toxins or pathogens generally rely on chemical reactions. But a team of researchers at Cornell University have created a sensor that detects the presence of chemicals based on the mechanical...
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 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 ArticleNanoribbons Moved by Light: Could Propel Cell-Sized Submarines, Create...
The ability of matter to move light underpins such common phenomena as transparency, refraction, and reflection. But light moving matter? That’s a bit rarer. So rare, in fact, that University 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 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...
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