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In the movie “Enemy of State”, the character played by Will Smith is located by the NSA by an advanced satellite that could track his movements in real time, no matter where he would hide. While it’s not certain if intelligence agencies already have this capability, we’re already seeing an incipient concept as presented by University […]
Over ninety percent of all the world’s ice is in Antarctica, where it can run 4000-5000 meters deep. Yet, as a result of global warming, the ice sheet is melting at a rapid rate making it the most significant contributing factor to world sea level rise. It’s simple to throw in a label like global warming […]
Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, is looking to launch a massive fleet of micro-satellites into Earths’ low orbit to provide the world with internet and mobile data, according to a recent rumor reported by the WSJ. These satellites will be at least two times lighter than its current counterpart and when […]
Developing countries are catching up fast and there’s a lot the rich can learn, especially in terms of energy. A study of 55 nations found that developing countries like China, Brazil, South Africa, Uruguay and Kenya are installing renewable energy projects at almost twice the rate of developed nations. In many of these countries renewable energy […]
There’s an immense well of information humanity is currently sitting on and it’s only growing exponentially. To make sense of all the noise, whether we’re talking about apps like speech recognition, cosmic body identification or search engine results, highly complex algorithms that use less processing power by hitting the bull’s eye or as close as […]
3-D printing has taken the world by storm, and even though we’ve already discovered a myriad of potential applications, we’re just beginning to scratch the surface on what the technology can actually do. From cranium replacements to fossils, from artificial ears to artificial skin and from bacteria to livable rooms, 3-D printing has done it all, […]
An UK design firm is proposing a most daring idea: replace the windows in a plane with super-light smartscreen panel made from organic LEDs (OLED). These panels would cover most of the plane’s inner surface and display the view from outside, better and lovelier than any windows could. Of course, you could choose to watch […]
A team at MIT has developed a prediction algorithm that allows them to determine when the price of the infamous volatile cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, will drop or rise. Using this method, the researchers managed to double their initial investment in 50 days, all through an automated process that involved more than 2,800 transactions. Money forecast Since the […]
A team of scientists has managed to develop a tractor beam which can pull and push objects over 20 cm – 100 times more than previous records. There are a myriad of potential applications for this kind of research, including studying atmospheric pollutants or retrieving delicate particles of material for examination. “Recent advances in lightwave technology […]
There are over 4 billion IP addresses registered all over the globe and this number is constantly growing as developing countries get wired and more people use smartphones and tablets. The internet isn’t the same all over the world (yet) and activity heavily fluctuates from day to night. A new study mapped the world’s internet […]
A team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering demonstrated the latest advances in programmable DNA self-assembly by crystallizing 32 structures with precisely prescribed depths and complex 3D features. The DNA crystals could potentially be used as the basis of a programmable material platform that would allow scientists to build extremely precise and complex […]
Houses of the future might be built with bacteria – at least partially. It may sound like science fiction, but a Spanish company located in Madrid is working to make that a concrete reality. It all starts with a common type of soil bacterium being. Put it in some soil, provide it with nutrients, and keep the […]
A highly fascinating and, surprisingly for some, practical new line of research is concerned with programmable materials; composites designed to become highly dynamic in form and function. When subjected to certain environmental ques, like temperature or pressure, these smart materials can morph and adapt to new conditions. MIT, for instance, is working with self-transforming carbon fiber, […]
In Lewis Caroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), the sequel to the classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice again enters a fantastical world, this time by climbing through a mirror into the world that she can see beyond it. Though far from Alice’s spectacular feat, scientists at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, […]
Urban noise can be quite a nuisance, but it can also provide a lot of valuable information about the city’s needs. A first of its kind project in the city of Santander will check if this data can actually be used to improve the lives of citizens and develop a better, smarter city. “The EAR-IT project is […]
With a simple phone app you can donate your idle phone time to science; and if researchers decide to use this data in a paper, you’ll also be credited as an author. The app is called Cosmic Rays Found in Smartphones, or CRAYFIS – and all you have to do is download it, it takes care of […]
Researchers from Denmark have synthesized crystalline materials that can bind and store oxygen in high concentrations, releasing them when needed. A single crystal about the size of a sponge can suck all the oxygen from a room. Naturally, there are many potential applications for this type of technology. The most obvious one would be breathing underwater […]
Researchers at MIT report they’ve developed a novel material that can absorb almost all incoming wavelengths of light and convert the energy into heat. The radiated heat emitted by the material can then be collected by photovoltaics for later conversion into electricity. The material is cheap to make using currently available manufacturing processes, can absorb […]
The Mantis Shrimp has some of the most amazing eyes in the animal kingdom. Researchers have shown that among others, it is able to detect a variety of cancers and visualize brain activity. Now, scientists from Queensland University have studied how the mantis shrimp’s eyes are superbly tuned to detect polarized light, and literally see cancers. Professor Justin […]
We’ve written a lot about Richard Branson’s company, Virgin Galactic. After working on the first commercial spaceport and helping NASA fly into orbit, now, they want to revolutionize commercial air flights. Namely, they want to fly people from L.A. to Tokyo in no more than one hour, through space. The shuttle concept would be pretty similar to […]
Taking inspiration from nature, scientists at MIT have engineered a new sort of glue that acts like a powerful adhesive even in underwater conditions and can cling on to virtually any surface, be it metal or organic. The glue might prove to be useful to repair ships or seal wounds and surgical incisions. The strongest […]
Audi announced that it will be the first auto manufacturer to receive an autonomous driving permit from the state of California. Driverless cars are big right now – so big that the University of Michigan is building a fake city just to test them out. But what’s even more interesting is California’s law about driverless […]
In today’s world, silicon has few materials which actually contest its status as the king of electronics. However, that may change in the not so distant future. A group of Harvard researchers have used a quantum material called correlated oxide to make better, more efficient transistors. The strategy for building better and more advanced processors is […]
A mixed team of scientists and engineers developed a thin, flexible 4-layer material that autonomously camouflages itself to the surroundings, constantly evaluating the optical surroundings and automatically adapting to them – much like a chameleon or an octopus does. It’s the first system of its kind; it takes it just 1-2 seconds mimic the characteristics of […]
Researchers at the University of Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley just presented a tiny radio, so small it’s the size of an ant, that could very well change the way we interact with technology in the future. What makes the device truly incredible is its ability to power itself without using an external power […]
According to the EPA, Americans waste some 30-40 percent of all the food they use. Even not considering the poorest areas such as Africa or SE Asia where food is almost a luxury, there are 50 million Americans who don’t have daily access to adequate food; reducing food waste could improve and save countless lives. Food […]
Researchers have developed a device which can clean the blood in the body of virtually all infections – even those which they don’t know about. The device, which was heavily inspired from the human spleen can clean the blood of everything from E. coli to Ebola. The spleen is an organ that appears in all vertebrates, acting basically […]
Since it was first introduced decades ago, mass spectrometry has proved to be an invaluable tool for analyzing the chemical makeup of foods, pharmaceuticals, forensic remains and so on. The equipment, however, is extremely bulky, expensive (in the hundreds of thousands range) and a sample might take days of back and forth analysis before results […]
There aren’t that many people who imagined that in only a couple of years we’d see smartphones with 40MGpx cameras. Amazingly as that may sound, manufacturers are nearing a stand-still as far as optics miniaturization is concerned and even so, high end camera phones don’t come near the quality of a dedicated optical hardware. A […]
Swiss scientists from the University of Bern demonstrated a new device that essentially generates electrical power from the mechanical energy of heartbeats.
Researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have created a thin metamaterial surface that is capable of absorbing nearly all of the acoustic energy (sound). Unlike conventional sound absorbing material that is sometimes only effective when meters thick, the metasurface is deeply “subwavelength” and therefore much thinner. There’s a catch though: the system has been demonstrated […]
Researchers from Stanford have found a way to split water into oxygen and hydrogen using very little energy; the hydrogen they obtain could be used to power fuel cells in zero-emissions vehicles. I’m quite excited for cars that run on hydrogen, which are set to hit the market in 2015; but while they are always presented as […]
A team of researchers from the Aarhus University in Denmark and CalTech has developed an origami-inspired method of organizing molecules on the nanoscale. The team has modeled RNA, DNA’s close cousin into complicated shapes using the technique. Together with DNA, RNA comprises the nucleic acids, which, along with proteins, constitute the three major macromolecules essential for […]
The physical properties of the ultra-white scales on certain species of beetle could inspire researchers to make better, whiter paper, plastics or paint, using far less material. The Cyphochilus beetle, native to South-East Asia, is whiter than paper or even milk teeth. The whiteness of its body is caused by a thin layer of a highly […]
Graphene, the wonder material shows its potential once again: now, using graphene and rubber bands, engineers have created a flexible sensor which has significant medical value and can be made cheaply. You really should know about graphene by now – we’ve written dozens of articles about it just in the past couple of years; but […]
Depending on where you live, bike stealing can be a distant threat or a constant worry, but in most parts of the world, people would rather be safe than sorry, tying their bikes to trees or fences or whatever they could find. But that may very well change in the near future: three engineers from […]
If you thought research in airplanes only applies to the military, you’re wrong. While most of the money spent for airplane research does go to the military, a smaller chunk of it goes to space research, and another part goes to private air travel. Now, a company from the UK has almost developed an engine […]
I just love it when technology can help solve social problems – especially in cases where you wouldn’t expect it to, like for example in Chicago, where a Twitter bot is helping authorities find dirty restaurants. If you’ve eaten out, and after that you feel a bit sick, like say you have an indigestion or […]
Canada’s most famous (and from what I can find, only) beer-cooler turned hitchhiking robot has finally completed its 6,000-kilometre journey across Canada, blazing rides from Halifax reaching Victoria late Saturday; and he did it with style: I’m on a boat. Well, a ferry to be exact. Victoria, I’m on my way. #hitchBOT @BCFerries pic.twitter.com/SPewf9rIq1 — hitchBOT (@hitchBOT) […]
A group of international researchers have demonstrated a novel technique for destroying cancer cells. By inserting a chloride payload that penetrates the cancer cell's sodium membrane, the cells become flushed with salt causing a self-destruction response.
Brown University researchers reported the development of a copper foam which could turn CO2 into useful chemicals such as formic acid – a preservative and antibacterial agent in livestock feed. As CO2 emissions continue to grow, scientists are trying to find potential uses to it. The problem with carbon dioxide is that it is extremely […]
The walking cane has helped the blind navigate obstacles for thousands of years, and its design has remained largely unchanged since - a sophisticated stick. What looks like a combination between a TV remote and a Star Trek tricorder, the Enactive Torch aims to help all the aging baby boomers, injured veterans, diabetics and white-cane-wielding pedestrians navigate their surroundings using 21st century tech.
The brain of complex organisms, such as humans but just as well other primates or even mice, is very difficult to emulate with today’s technology. IBM is moving things further in this direction after it announced the whooping features of its new brain-like chip: one million programmable neurons and 256 million programmable synapses across 4096 individual […]
In 1944, the Nazis caused widespread famine in Western Netherlands after they blocked food supplies. A group of pregnant women living in the Netherlands, labouring under starvation conditions imposed by a harsh winter and food embargo, gave birth to relatively small babies. When their children grew up, in relative prosperity, to have children of their own their babies were unexpectedly small.
This wasn't an easy tasks since the researchers identified hundreds of potential candidate compounds.
I remember when once upon a time, wi-fi could barely reach from one room to the other. It wasn’t even regarded as a serious technology by some back then – but oh my, how times have changed! Now, wi-fi is almost ubiquitous in the developed world, but the problem still remains the same – the […]
Computer games could be the key to treating elderly people who have been diagnosed with depression, but who aren’t responding to conventional treatment. A new study has shown that playing a certain type of computer games was more effective at reducing symptoms of depression than the “gold standard” – the antidepressant drug escitalopram. Recently, we’ve been bombarded about […]
Most University professors still rely on passive lectures to get their subject across. A meta-study which analyzed 225 studies found that active teaching – lectures that actively engage students and make the learning experience two-way – improves grades and significantly reduces fail rates. The findings add to an already body of literature that suggests the […]
Allan Savory's holistic management solution seems too good to be true. Hint: it's not.
If you’ve owned a smartphone or laptop for more than two years and use the gadgets frequently, then you’ve most likely noticed, to your exasperation, how short the battery life is compared to when the product was first shipped. Rechargeable batteries have been around for more than 100 years, but it’s only recently that scientists […]
