Posted by admin in Hi-tech on 03. Feb, 2012 | 0 Comments
The augmented reality future we were long ago promised has been slow to come around, perhaps restrained most by the basic biology of our own eyes, which are unable to properly see detailed images placed very near the pupils. But via technology developed in part with a certain government agency, Washington-based Innovega has created a [...]
Precision guided weapons are usually the purview of larger weapons platforms, like naval vessels, combat aircraft, or assault vehicles. But a couple of Sandia National Labs engineers are bringing the guided munition down from the mountaintop and putting it into the hands of the average infantryman. The engineers have developed and patented a new breed [...]
The search for the perfect invisibility cloak lumbers onward, but that lumbering is starting to pick up speed. We’re hearing more and more these days about metamaterials, the possibilities of time cloaking, and other such future-stuff. And today, from deep in the heart of Texas, we get another tantalizing finding: UT researchers have, for the [...]
The coming year is going to be a big one in all kinds of areas, from space to supercomputing, research done both above and below the ocean, examinations into our distant past and into our future. And salmon. Expect to hear lots about salmon. Asteroid Fly-By On January 31, the 20-mile-long asteroid Eros makes its [...]
A group of researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, led by Bruce Spiegelman and Pontus Boström, have discovered a hormone that mimics some of the results of a workout by facilitating the transformation of white fat into brown fat. While the purpose of the former is to accumulate excess calories, the latter [...]
Posted by admin in Medicine, Science on 11. Jan, 2012 | No Comments
Bleeding out on the battlefield–far from the trauma wards and triage units that might save their lives–is a scenario that soldiers simply have to live with (and try like hell to avoid). But thanks to ananoscale breakthrough at MIT, the chances of it happening could be significantly reduced. Researchers there have created a nanoscale coating [...]
Posted by admin in Alternative energy, Design on 09. Jan, 2012 | No Comments
Research into developing insect cyborgs for use as first responders or super stealthy spies has been going on for a while now. Most research has focused on using batteries, tiny solar cells or piezoelectric generators to harvest kinetic energy from the movement of an insect’s wings to power the electronics attached to the insects. Now [...]
Posted by admin in Science on 08. Jan, 2012 | No Comments
Salmon … they’re good to eat, provide a livelihood for fishermen, are an important part of their ecosystem, and now it seems that they can store data. More specifically, their DNA can. Scientists from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany have created a "write-once-read-many-times" (WORM) memory device, [...]
Posted by admin in Wearable electronics on 19. Dec, 2011 | No Comments
Researchers from Keio University in Tokyo have created glasses designed to augment the wearer’s experience by providing additional audio and olfactory stimuli during social encounters. Fitted with speakers and scent emitters, the spectacles emit sound and smell signals unique to the person you meet. This eyewear is clearly more than just a fashion accessory. Rather, [...]
Posted by admin in Hi-tech on 16. Dec, 2011 | No Comments
Future shirts and socks could clean themselves using just sunlight, chemists report — all you’ll have to do is drape them over the balcony and voila, clean laundry. A coating of titanium dioxide makes this possible. Titanium dioxide is found in products like solar panels and sunscreen — it absorbs ultraviolet light — and in [...]
