This diagram shows a simulation of four stages of a collision between the Moon and a companion moon.
There may have been a tiny second moon that had once orbited Earth before catastrophically slamming into the other one. The clash of the two moons could explain why the two sides of the surviving lunar satellite are so different from each other, according to a new study.
Continue reading… “Earth had two moons that collided to form one: study”
Powerful but oh so small!
Your watch battery isn’t small. This battery is small. At six times thinner than a bacterium, Rice University’s new battery is 60,000 times smaller than a AAA battery…
Continue reading… “The world’s smallest battery is six times thinner than a bacterium”
A chemical found in bear bile could help heart attack sufferers.
There may be a ray of hope for millions of heart patients worldwide. Scientists have claimed that a chemical, also found in bear bile, may help the recovery of people who have had a heart attack.
Continue reading… “Bear bile could aid heart attack patients”
Professor Manos Tentzeris displays an inkjet-printed rectifying antenna used to convert microwave energy to DC power.
Researchers have found a way to capture and harness energy transmitted by such sources as radio and television transmitters, cell phone networks and satellite communications systems. By getting this ambient energy from the air around us, the technique could provide a new way to power networks of wireless sensors, microprocessors and communications chips.
We all learned about the Fibonacci numbers in school. If you need a refresher course, the integers in the Fibonacci sequence start with 0 and 1. Each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two, so the third number in the sequence is 1, the fourth number, is 2, the fifth number is 3, and so on. The Fibonacci spiral is something we see every day in nature but never really pay much attention to. However, an amazing YouTube video called “Nature By Numbers” puts the mathematical sequence into perspective for us…
Continue reading… “Nature by the numbers: Fibonacci Sequence animated in mesmerizing video”
This winning photo of creatures of land and air colliding taken by Bence Máté.
The German Society of Nature Photographers — the trippingly named Gesellschaft Deutscher Tierfotografen — holds a contest every year for the best photographs. Featured in the Guardian are some of the winners with some truly stunning photographs. Check out this year’s winners on display at the Guardian’s website, including this wonderful example by Bence Máté taken in Hungary. Who do you think won this standoff? My bet’s on the bird…
Continue reading… “GDT Nature Photograph Winners”
Materials engineered to give off precisely tuned wavelengths of light when heated are key to new high-efficiency generating system.
MIT has developed a new photovoltaic energy-conversion system that can be powered solely by heat, generating electricity with no sunlight at all.
Continue reading… “MIT develops sun-free photovoltaics”
All blown up!
If you’d like to go out with a bang, Holy Smoke LLC offers to pack your cremated ashes (or those of your loved ones) into ammunition cartridges. You tell them the caliber or gauge, ship the remains to them, and they’ll load the cartridges…
Continue reading… “Cremated ashes packed into ammunition”
OK Go has done some neat stuff in the past 13 years, but this new music video makes “Here It Goes Again” look like amateur hour.
The guys that brought you music videos with Rube Goldbergs and trained dogs, OK Go has released a new music video that uses a glass stage and a whole bunch of unitards to create what can only be described as a human kaleidescope. A look behind the scenes shows how one glass pane captured all of the images which were then combined to create effects like a cascade of bodies or florid designs…
Continue reading… “OK Go’s new music video is high-tech and awesome. Typical.”
Gotta have a hit of Twitter!
You’re at an outing or a dinner table with friends but itching to check your email or Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or Google+ or whatever digital hit of serotonin you prefer. Have you ever ‘gone to the bathroom’ in order to check email or come up with a socially appropriate excuse to pull out your smartphone just so you can check your @ replies on Twitter?
Continue reading… “Technology is the new smoking”
To keep robes and towels from checking out, a small but growing number of hotels are starting to use new radio frequency chips to keep track of their inventory.
The RFID technology — which stands for radio frequency identification and requires an installed chip that can be read by an electronic reader — has been used by various industries for several years to organize product storage and tally shipments…
Continue reading… “Hotels use RFID chips to keep linens from travelling to new destinations”
Agave can be a fuel?
It fuels your party, your buzz and your hangover the next day, but believe it or not tequila may soon be fueling your car. That’s because the agave plant extract used to make liquor can also be used to make an ethanol like alcohol which can serve as vehicle fuel, won’t interfere with food crops, and can even be grown in the desert…
Someday, our cars may hit the bottle more often than we do, but at least it won’t be hitting our wallets very hard.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.
