October 21st, 2009 at 7:30 am
Snow, snow, go away…
Pigs still can’t fly, but this winter, the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing. For just a few million dollars, the mayor’s office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city. Authorities say this will be a boon for Moscow, which is typically covered with a blanket of snow from November to March. Road crews won’t need to constantly clear the streets, and traffic – and quality of life – will undoubtedly improve.
The idea came from Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who is no stranger to playing God. In 2002, he spearheaded a project to reverse the flow of the vast River Ob through Siberia to help irrigate the country’s parched Central Asian neighbors. Although that idea hasn’t exactly turned out as planned – scientists have said it’s not feasible – this time, Luzhkov says, there’s no way he can fail.
October 20th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
Inventing the Economic Engines to Create a Better Tomorrow
The DaVinci Institute’s will mark it’s 5th annual Colorado Inventor Showcase on November 3, 2009. The Colorado Inventor Showcase is one of the nation’s premier events focused on creating a link between inventors and world marketplace. By allowing inventors to take center stage and tell the world about their product, we are creating win-win situations for creators as well as the people.
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October 20th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Scientists use fiber-optic cables to control neural activity in mice
Molecular “light switches” can reveal exactly which neurons are involved in creating a memory, allowing scientists to trigger that memory using only light. The finding, presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this week, is just one example of how a novel technology called optogenetics is allowing scientists to tackle major unanswered questions about the brain, including the role of specific brain regions in the formation of memory, the process of addiction, and the transition from sleep to wakefulness.
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October 20th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
Inventing the Economic Engines to Create a Better Tomorrow
The Colorado Inventor Showcase is one of the nation’s premier events focused on creating a link between inventors and world marketplace. By allowing inventors to take center stage and tell the world about their product, we are creating win-win situations for creators as well as the people. The DaVinci Institute’s will mark it’s 5th annual Colorado Inventor Showcase on November 3, 2009. This year’s Showcase is quickly becoming a “can’t miss event.”
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October 20th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Use Foursquare to find friends when you want to meet
Twitter and Facebook ask users to answer the question: What are you doing right now? But for many urbanites in their 20s and 30s, two other questions are just as important: Where are you, and can I come join you?
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October 20th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
Inventing the Economic Engines to Create a Better Tomorrow
This year’s Colorado Inventor Showcase on Nov 3rd is quickly becoming a “can’t miss event.” The Colorado Inventor Showcase will mark it’s 5th annual event this year. Each year the Showcase attracts some of the nation’s finest inventors and their incredibly clever inventions. Inventions are judged by a cast of 72 celebrity judges, and will be on display throughout the afternoon and evening for all attendees.
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October 20th, 2009 at 7:47 am
What kind of critter flesh will you grow today?
The Cocoon Cooker isn’t just some fancy steamer or something like that. No, it’s a machine that actually grows meat and fish from heated animal cells. A-whaaa?
It’s a mere design concept, sadly, as we don’t have the science of growing animal proteins quite figured out yet. But Electrolux is serious about making it a reality, giving the designer a $7,347 prize and a six month paid internship at their design center.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Isn’t this what a computer was REALLY designed to do?
Tim Quax of ByteMods combined a PC with a coffeemaker to make this Coffee PC case mod. Best of all, the coffeemaker is controlled by software:
The relay gets it’s power from a molex connector on the power supply; a small amount however, just enough to not flip the relay. Second connection to the relay is a cable to the COM port on the PC. Thirdly, the relay is hooked up to the power cable to the PSU that powers the coffee maker. I wrote a script in Visual Basic Scripting, that uses a module to enable the COM port on the PC. The power on the COM connection is enough to flip over the relay, thus giving the coffee maker it’s much needed power, which makes the coffee maker do it’s thing. The script enables the PC to make coffee with the push of a button!
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October 19th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Last year, procrastinators were rewarded when they finally got around to booking flights for holiday travel. Back then, airlines were not prepared for the sharp falloff in travel and offered last-minute deals to fill up empty planes. This year? Dilly-dallying, even waiting just a few days, could carry a steep price. Fares, though still lower now than at this time last year, are rising each day, a trajectory that began more than a month ago.
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October 19th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Ad pricing down across the board
The first half of 2009 has drops in ad spending across all media—even online—but advertisers are more optimistic about the latter part of the year, according to JPMorgan.
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October 19th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Sanwei Bookshop in central Beijing
China has excelled in recent years at producing Olympic gold medalists, skilled factory workers and more billionaires than any country other than the United States. But authors are another story. The influence of China’s novelists and other writers has long been stunted by the country’s history of censorship and custom of detaining government critics. At the Frankfurt Book Fair, billed as the world’s largest gathering of publishers, government officials said they want to extend China’s cultural clout by persuading the West to read more of its books.
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October 19th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Students use digital materials instead of traditional textbooks
The dread of high school algebra is lost here amid the blue glow of computer screens and the clickety-clack of keyboards. A fanfare plays from a speaker as a student passes a chapter test. Nearby, a classmate watches a video lecture on ratios. Another works out an equation in her notebook before clicking on a multiple-choice answer on her screen.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Sheri West lost her home in Cleveland last year and had to sleep in her car
The first night after she surrendered her house to foreclosure, Sheri West endured the darkness in her Hyundai sedan. She parked in her old driveway, with her flower-print dresses and hats piled in boxes on the back seat, and three cherished houseplants on the floor. She used her backyard as a restroom.
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October 19th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Aspergillus sp. of mold on bread. Mycelium and conidia (spores) visible. Live specimen. Wet mount, 40X objective, transmitted brightfield illumination.
The fact that they eat a lot – and often – may explain why most people and other mammals are protected from the majority of fungal pathogens, according to research from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
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October 19th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Scientists have developed new technique that is 200 times more efficient and twice as fast as conventional methods for transforming adult human cells into induced pluripotent stem cells.
A team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute has developed a method that dramatically improves the efficiency of creating stem cells from human adult tissue, without the use of embryonic cells. The research makes great strides in addressing a major practical challenge in the development of stem-cell-based medicine.
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October 19th, 2009 at 9:12 am
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Man juggling several small balls.
Learning to juggle leads to changes in the white matter of the brain, an Oxford University study has shown.
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October 19th, 2009 at 9:07 am
This three grew from 1334-1513.
Norwegian scientists have found “mummified” pine trees, dead for nearly 500 years yet without decomposition.
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October 19th, 2009 at 9:04 am
One of the 32 new exoplanets recently discovered using the HARPS spectrograph is surrounding the star Gliese 667 C, which belongs to a triple system. The 6 Earth-mass exoplanet circulates around its low-mass host star at a distance equal to only 1/20th of the Earth-Sun distance. The host star is a companion to two other low-mass stars, which are seen here in the distance.
Today, at an international ESO/CAUP exoplanet conference in Porto, the team who built the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for ESO’s 3.6-metre telescope, reports on the incredible discovery of some 32 new exoplanets, cementing HARPS’s position as the world’s foremost exoplanet hunter. This result also increases the number of known low-mass planets by an impressive 30%. Over the past five years HARPS has spotted more than 75 of the roughly 400 or so exoplanets now known.
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October 19th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Guess what? Times are changing and money isn’t what it used to be. Our faith in money isn’t what it used to be and virtual currencies are skewing our financial views even further in addition to gaining credibility…
Money. The stuff that makes the world go round. Every day we earn it, spend it, exchange it and lose it. But you won’t find any Linden dollars, Eve ISK or Facebook credits down the back of the couch.
Virtual currencies like these are used for transactions in online worlds and social networking sites. While real-world currencies are on the slide, many virtual ones are going from strength to strength. In the second quarter of the year the equivalent of $144m (£91m) was traded on the LindeX, the official currency exchange of Second Life, where residents buy and sell Linden dollars for their US counterpart – a 20% increase on the previous quarter, while the US economy shrank by 1%. Trading activity increased by 6% in the last quarter of 2008…
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October 18th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Humans have long and hard strived to be run faster and jump higher. Now that can be achieved for a little over $300! Welcome the Powerizers:
Strap Powerizers on and you will be able to jump 2m (7ft) in the air, leap 3m (10ft) for every stride and run at speeds of 20mph. Powerizers work like a super-muscle, enhancing your natural strength. Curved springs attach to the bottom of the Powerizers and harness the gravitational energy that is created when your weight is forced down. The super-charged springs then push back with extreme force causing you to walk, run and jump like never before. (Video)
October 18th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
A bright ribbon of hydrogen atoms marks the edge of the solar system
A bright ribbon of hydrogen atoms marks the edge of the solar system, where the Sun’s wind meets emissions from the rest of the galaxy, researchers reported. They used telescopes aboard the orbiting Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft or IBEX to look toward the heliopause, which is the boundary where solar wind meets galactic wind at the edge of the solar system beyond Pluto.
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October 18th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
The magnetic equivalent of electricity in a ‘spin ice’ material
A magnetic charge can behave and interact just like an electric charge in some materials, according to new research led by the London Centre for Nanotechnology. The findings could lead to a reassessment of current magnetism theories, as well as significant technological advances.
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October 18th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Lighthouse in a storm
Some of these photos are facinating, some are disturbing, but all tell a story. (pics)
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October 18th, 2009 at 11:02 am
The Audi Calamaro Concept was developed by a designer Tibor for a design competition, organized by Porsche Hungary. This futuristic flying concept car looks like a cross between a speed boat and a plane. According to the designer, the shape is inspired by “the bone of the cuttlefish”.
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October 18th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Cows are both the cause and the victims of today’s obesity problem
Last week we started down a different path, but somehow we ended up on the path we were meant to be on anyway. So we’ve concluded that there are no different paths. Every “new” path is merely our destiny wrapped in new clothing, secretly disguised as something we decided to do. Free will is only free if you pay the toll, and even then, the toys you get in a box of Crackerjacks aren’t worth crap. (Pics)
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