Researchers at Melbourne University are growing diamond particles on optical fibres to transmit information they say will be impossible to hack. The diamonds, just 1/1000 of a millimetre in size, send information through a single photon of light instead of the billions of photons found in an ordinary light beam.

Here’s a nice video of the VeinViewer in action. Designed to allow doctors to see under the skin for injections et al, it’s quite a trip to see the sweet blood of the innocents pulsing only microns below the surface of their supple skin.

We already know that beer doesn’t actually make you fat but rather fights cancer while promoting world peace and understanding and a brighter future for all our children.
It’s no surprise then that we can now confirm what the super-intelligent if somehat wobbly hacks at Vulture Central have known for years: alcohol makes you cleverer.

NASA will pay Rice University $11 million over the next four years to develop an experimental power cable made from carbon nanotubes, the agency announced Tuesday.

Imagine being on a SWAT team charged with disarming violent crooks in a meth lab, and knowing that every year, more than 50,000 law enforcement officers are assaulted.

“Outsourcing” – which has become synonymous with sending American jobs to India or China – could soon mean foreign workers sleeping in ships just a few miles off America’s coasts.

A Norwegian court has sentenced a woman to nine months in jail for raping a man, the first such conviction in the Scandinavian country that prides itself for its egalitarianism.

Mice lacking a specific enzyme have a significantly reduced risk of artery blockages, providing a new target for preventing cardiovascular disease.

Dave Taylor:
I’ve been getting more involved with The DaVinci Institute (they’re a sponsor for my upcoming Blog Smart! Business Blogging Workshop) and last night I had dinner with Thomas Frey, the head of the Institute. We had a fascinating and quite compelling discussion about how what we do today can influence the future, […]

Twenty-four years after living like a boy, Raju has discovered to his shock that he is genetically a girl!

Automakers are developing next-generation electronic sensing systems that look for impending accidents and react to potential hazards, making the roads much safer for both drivers and pedestrians.

Tom Martin’s “Hollow” glass makes it difficult for drinks to be tampered with.

Researchers report in the journal Nature that they have identified a single gene in fruit flies that determines how much rest the creatures require.

A new fuel cell that uses microorganisms to break down organic matter could help provide additional fuel for a hydrogen economy, a new report suggests.

Life-size X-wing up for grabs on eBay

The Onion:
The soul of Pope John Paul, which entered heaven last week following a long illness, expressed confusion and disappointment Saturday, upon learning that the Celestial Kingdom of God to which the departed faithful ascend in the afterlife is significantly less luxurious than the Vatican’s Papal Palace, in which the pope spent the […]

Adam Penenberg:
We’ve been having a spirited discussion in the journalism department at New York University. With newspapers hemorrhaging readers and people migrating to the web for their daily news fix, should we consider changing the way we teach journalism?

Podcasting will soon break out of the “pod” and onto the public airwaves.
The world’s first all-podcast radio station will be launched on May 16 by Infinity Broadcasting, the radio division of Viacom.

Bacteria have been programmed like a computer to produce colored patterns by communicating with each other.

Police in Peru have launched a campaign to save frogs from being turned into an aphrodisiac drink.

More than half the old personal computers replaced by consumers last year were put to productive use instead of being dumped or stored away, according to a nationwide survey by MetaFacts, a San Diego research firm.

Venture capitalists are again embracing open-source technology companies. JBoss, which offers a layer of software for controlling Web applications, was one of 20 such businesses that raised $149 million in venture money in 2004.

Federal depository librarians remain frustrated by the Government Printing Office’s shift to electronic formats because it is a move that partly ignores their current roles, some experts and librarians say.

Thomas Sowell:
Where can you make $2,000 a day, with no real effort? In San Mateo County, California.
Before you start packing your bags to head there, you should know that the average homeowner in San Mateo County saw the value of his property increase by $2,000 a day over the past month.

Children in Europe and other parts of the world are entering puberty at an ever younger age. The reasons for this are unknown, and the EU is now financing a major three-year project called PIONEER in a determined effort to get to the root of the problem.