The Biggest Jolt to Power Since Franklin Flew His Kite
April 27, 2004
Companies say they are closing in on the goal of producing relatively inexpensive superconducting wire for power generators, transformers and transmission lines.
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The billionaire who is planning his 125th birthday
March 8, 2012
David Murdock, age 87, wants to reach 125, and sees no reason he can’t, provided that he continues eating the way he has for the last quarter century: with a methodical, messianic correctness that he believes can, and will, ward off major disease and minor ailment alike.
He has spent some $500 million of his fortune in recent years to construct the North Carolina Research Campus, a scientific center… read more
The Bionic Running Shoe
May 7, 2004
Adidas is developing the runnning shoe that adjusts in real time to changing conditions and the runner’s particular style while in use.
Each second, a sensor in the heel can take up to 20,000 readings and the embedded electronic brain can make 10,000 calculations, directing a tiny electric motor to optimize the shoe’s cushioning compression to minimize impacts on the knee.
The bioweapon is in the post
November 9, 2005
It would not be difficult for a terrorist to obtain complete genes for deadly biological weapon from several biotech firms online, and receive them by mail within weeks without customer screening or investigation, according to a New Scientist investigation.
It raises the frightening prospect of terrorists mail-ordering genes for key bioweapon agents such as smallpox, and using them to engineer new and deadly pathogens.
MIT bioengineer Drew Endy… read more
The ‘birdman’ is FAKE: Filmmaker behind wing suit flight video admits footage was a hoax and says it was ‘online storytelling’
March 22, 2012
The Dutch “bird man” who posted a video showing a successful “test flight” of a wing suit contraption has admitted that the amazing feat was a hoax all along.
Viewers became sceptical after it emerged that no scientists actually knew “Jarno Smeets,” who claimed to have created the technology.
Now Smeets has confessed that he is actually a “filmmaker and animator” named Floris Kaayk, and… read more
The BlackBerry Brain Trust
January 5, 2005
The futuristic new Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is a think tank where some of the smartest people in the world are contemplating the foundations of quantum physics.
Participants include Lee Smolin, who propounds a “fecund universe” theory holding that every black hole leads to another universe; Raymond Laflamme, the information theorist who changed Stephen Hawking’s mind on the direction of time in a contracting universe; and Fotini Markopoulou… read more
The Bleeding Edge of Computing
March 7, 2005
Tomorrow’s computing landscape may include trinary rather than binary coding, DNA computers, and wearable computers that act as a virtual assistant who helps us on a second-by-second basis.
The blurry lines of animated ‘news’
February 3, 2010
Taiwan-based Next Media has garnered millions of Web hits for its controversial animated news, using animators and actors in motion-capture suits to dramatize the day’s news events to supplement actual news footage.
The Body in Depth
April 22, 2008
The classic 25-volume “Stereoscopic Atlas of Human Anatomy” will soon be made available online by Stanford University’s school of medicine and eHuman, a company in Silicon Valley.
Eventually, it will be possible to see the images online in stereo.
The book beyond the book
December 28, 2011
Melville House has introduced a new series, HybridBooks, to meld the e-reading and traditional book cultures, New York Times Bits reports.
The Hybrids are “enhanced print books” with nothing inside but a short classic text. The last page directs readers to a Web site, where they will find, for example, an 1852 map of lower Manhattan, a recipe, excepts from Emerson and Thoreau, and similar material.
The bootless PC and terabytes on a dime
September 20, 2006
Imagine a PC with instantaneous boot up or storing 10TB of data on a device the size of a dime with data-transfer rates unhampered by any latency.
The Boss Is Robotic, and Rolling Up Behind You
September 7, 2010
Mobile robots are now being used in hundreds of hospitals nationwide as the eyes, ears and voices of doctors who cannot be there in person.
They are being rolled out in workplaces, allowing employees in disparate locales to communicate more easily and letting managers supervise employees from afar. And they are being tested as caregivers in assisted-living centers.
The Brain in Winter
January 2, 2002
Although some neural functioning is lost from aging, the biggest recent surprise in neuroscience is the discovery of neurogenesis: as the brain ages it creates new neurons.
The BRAIN Initiative: BAM or BUST?
April 9, 2013
What is the BRAIN* Project about? What are its goals?
“Well, nobody knows, actually. I certainly don’t know. But it appears that no one else knows either.” So says Scicurious, a PhD in Physiology and currently a postdoc in biomedical research, on her The Scicurious Brain blog on Scientific American.
“Basically, BRAIN is a very fancy initiative, with a fancy name … and so far,… read more