Sailrocket 2
The Sailrocket 2 isn’t designed for a casual afternoon on the lake. It’s engineered to set a new sailing speed record, and it’s in Namibia right now trying to do just that.
Continue reading… “Sailrocket 2 out to set new world speed sailing record”
Antarctic fur seal
The Antarctic fur seals’ remarkable homing instinct, which is thought to be the most accurate of any sea mammal, allows the creatures to return to within a single body length of the spot where they were born to give birth to their own pups.
CERN produces a breakthrough.
In September, physicists were scratching their heads at CERN when neutrinos were recorded as traveling faster than the speed of light. That shouldn’t happen unless Einstein turns out to be wrong.
The experiment is part of the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA) project, and saw neutrinos fired 732km from CERN to the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy. The issue was, some of those neutrinos arrived early by billionths of a second, and therefore faster than light speed. This obviously caused some concern that either something new had been discovered, or more likely, an error had been made with the measurements…
Continue reading… “Faster than light neutrinos recorded again in latest CERN experiment”
A model of an electromagnetic engine.
Inventors today have got it easy. If they want to patent something, all they have to do is file some paperwork. Before 1880, however, if you wanted to patent a better mousetrap, you actually had to build it – or at least a miniature version to help patent inspectors understand why you actually deserve the patent…
Growing skin at home has never been easier.
While skin grafts are an essential tool for treating severe burns, Avita Medical has developed a compact kit that grows replacement skin that can be sprayed on. Which has resulted in faster healing and better cosmetic results in patient testing.
Instead of growing patches of skin that can be draped over severely burned areas, the ReCell kit uses a small sample of the patient’s keratinocytes and melanocytes skin cells that quickly reproduce in a special suspension solution…
Gotham bee, is one of 11 newly identified bee species.
Eleven new species of sweat bees has been identified by one researcher, including a bug named in honor of Gotham City – but in a sense, these bees aren’t new at all. They’ve probably been right under our noses all this time.
The government wants to track you by your heartbeat.
You may be hiding on the other side of the wall but the U.S. military can see you breathing, they can even see your heartbeat racing. But you may be surprised if you think you can run farther away or hide in a crowd. The Defense Department’s sensors will find you. The Pentagon is looking to tweak their life-form finder that can spot your heartbeat no matter where you are.
Continue reading… “DARPA developing sensors to track you by your heartbeat”
Crouching Tiger and Turtle
The city of Duisburg in Germany is now home to Crouching Tiger and Turtle, which could easily be described as a roller coaster without a roller coaster! The newest feature of the German landscape has taken eight weeks of intensive work to assemble. (Pics)
Tiny parcels of light, or photons, are produced out of empty space.
Scientists prove space is not empty after they claim they have produced particles of light out of a vacuum.
Pizza a vegetable in schools.
The fight against childhood obesity has been dealt a blow. The U.S. House of Representatuves passed a bill that abandons proposals that threatened to end the reign of pizza and French fries on federally funded school lunch menus.
Continue reading… “Congress makes pizza a vegetable on school lunch menus”
A whole new way to look at things.
Chinavision’s “Complete Car Bluetooth Rearview Mirror Kit” is a replacement rear-view mirror that can play videos (including a video-feed from a rear-mounted parking camera), display status-messages from your phone, provide turn-by-turn GPS, and otherwise distract and delight drivers in ways ranging from useful to suicidal…
Continue reading… “Rear-view mirror with built-in GPS, hands-free phone, camera, and video screen”
Wikipedia just got a big financial shot in the arm.
We’re all used to hearing of über-rich gazillionaires donating to charitable causes like finding cures for diseases and feeding hungry children in Africa. But what about websites? Now you can say that you’ve heard that too, as Google co-founder Sergey Brin has forked over $500,000 to Wikipedia.
The donation is actually from Brin’s charity, the Brin Wojcicki Foundation, which he founded with his wife, Anne Wojcicki. Before these big bucks were sent to the Wikimedia Foundation (the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia), the couple had donated to Michael J. Fox’s fund for finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease…
Continue reading… “Sergey Brin donates half a million dollars to Wikipedia”