Say hello to your dream house if you have ever wanted to live inside the retro-futuristic world of a Jules Verne novel. This $1.75 million New York apartment is packed with giant gears, blimps, and a working porthole.(Pics)
Continue reading… “A steampunk loft with a retro-futuristic look”
A geiger counter is placed in front of sunflowers in full bloom in Fukushima.
Burning strips of paper swirled into the hot summer sky as they carry the names of the dead above a temple in Fukushima where thousands of sunflowers have been planted to help fight the omnipresent radiation.
Continue reading… “Fukushima grows sunflowers to clean up radiation contamination”
Would you believe this could be the new look of solar power?
7th grader Aidan Dwyer was walking in the woods during the winter, and looking up, he noticed something about the bare branches above him. They didn’t appear to be growing randomly. So he took some measurements of the angles of the branches, crunched some numbers, and wouldn’t you know it, he found that the ubiquitous Fibonacci Sequence was behind it all. He suspected there was a reason behind this. That trees were using this pattern to gather more light.
So he did an experiment. Using the same number of solar cells, he built two working models. One was a traditional, flat array will all of the panels on a single plane. The other used the Fibonacci Sequence to create the same spiraled pattern he observed in the trees. The results? The little man himself reports…
Continue reading… “Genius 13-Year-Old has a solar power breakthrough”
In the U.S. there is one vehicle for every 1.3 people.
Worldwide, the number of vehicles in operation surpassed the 1 billion-unit mark in 2010 for the first time ever.
Continue reading… “World vehicle population surpasses 1 billion mark”
Virtual boarding agent
Virtual boarding agents could be the next “upgrade” at airports wherever you go. If you are at Orly airport in Paris, France, then do keep a lookout for these virtual boarding agents that have a perpetual smile on them, and best of all is, they won’t head off for unusually long toilet breaks or head a strike.
Continue reading… “Paris airport gets virtual boarding agents”
How cool is your partner?
Having a stressed-out partner may affect your life expectancy, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Glasgow found that birds who were paired off with anxious partners were at a high risk of dying young.
Continue reading… “Having a stressed-out partner may affect your life expectancy”
Alpha Centauri or bust.
Darpa, the government agency that helped invent the Internet, now wants to do the same for travel to the stars.
Continue reading… “Darpa seeks plan to send humans to the stars”
Alligator fat meets nearly all of the official standards for high-quality biodiesel.
Alligators, in addition to being a novelty food, could also provide a feedstock for biodiesel. The alligator meat industry disposes of about 15 million pounds of alligator fat in landfills every year. Scientists discover the that oil can be extracted from the fat and used to make a high-quality biodiesel.
Continue reading… “Alligator fat could be a new source of biodiesel”
Altering the DNA of chicken embryos can give them qualities they lost millions of years ago.
Chickens and other birds are thought to have descended from dinosaurs through a series of genetic changes. Scientists have rewound 65 million years of evolutionary history by tweaking chicken DNA to create embryos that grow alligator-like snouts rather than beaks.
As if a candlelit dinner wasn’t romantic enough.
Scientists have shown that each flickering candle flame contains ‘millions of tiny diamonds that are created and disappear in the blink of an eye’.
Continue reading… “Candle flames contain millions of tiny diamonds”
USPTO issues 8,000,000th patent on August 17, 2011.
The first patent granted by the USPTO was in 1836 and 175 years later, the government body now has a database that is eight million strong.
Continue reading… “USPTO’s major milestones from one to eight million patents”
Pharmaceutical price gouging isn’t illegal, it is sleazy — and potentially dangerous.
You can be arrested for scalping tickets to a rock concert. But reselling lifesaving medications at a hefty markup is a thriving business.
Continue reading… “Prescription drug shortages lead to price gouging, patient safety”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.