October 10th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Dr. Ben Wang shows a model of an ‘unmanned aerial vehicle’
Nanotechnology has surprising applications in mundane materials like sunscreen and esoteric items like high-tech body armor for soldiers. But some fear scarier scenarios worthy of a science fiction novel. At Florida State University, engineers are creating new body armor for American troops. It’s more durable, more bulletproof and light enough that it can cover arms and legs as well as torsos.
October 10th, 2009 at 6:51 am
TXTBlocker
TXTBlocker is a software and online service combo which locks off a registered mobile phone from making or receiving text messages or calls while in a car. It uses cell and GPS data to determine location and speed and decide whether the phone is actually in a car, and once it thinks it is, boom, the service is automatically limited.
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October 10th, 2009 at 6:51 am
A blast from a heat gun has turned most of the black tile in this image white.
Anyone who has ever stepped barefoot onto blacktop pavement on a hot sunny day knows the phenomenon very well: Black surfaces absorb the sun’s heat very efficiently, producing a toe-scorching surface. In the wintertime, that can be a good thing: A dark roof heats up in the sun and helps reduce your heating bill. But in summertime, it’s definitely a bad thing: Your house gets even hotter, and your air conditioning has to work harder. In most places, the summertime penalty is greater than the wintertime gain, it turns out, so that’s why many people, including U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, strongly advocate switching to white roofs.
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October 10th, 2009 at 6:50 am
Featured Invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase
Sculpture Brick is the newest veneer application process on the market today. Over the past 30 years this product has been developed into what is now patented versatile mortar enhancement process that simulates the appearance and texture of brick, but at up to half the cost. It can provide you with a “value engineering ” option that can save thousands of dollars when compared to traditional brick.
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October 10th, 2009 at 6:49 am
Featured Product at the Colorado Inventor Showcase
WebRecept™ is a proactive, web-based, customer relations management service that provides live website chat interaction and site monitoring through trained, qualified agents that increase your company’s online sales conversions by engaging visitors and building personal relationships from your website.
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October 9th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Engineeer and cartoonist Tim Hunkin created an arcade game that at first appears to be an ATM or banking kiosk. When coins are inserted, the banking poster drops and reveals Wack-A-Banker, giving you an opportunity to take your aggressions out on a group of financially oppressive stereotypes.
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October 9th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Section of a butterfly wing under a microscope
A team of researchers from the State University of Pennsylvania (USA) and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) have developed a technique to replicate biological structures, such as butterfly wings, on a nano scale. The resulting biomaterial could be used to make optically active structures, such as optical diffusers for solar panels.
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October 9th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Baby rhesus macaque.
The intense exchanges that human mothers share with their newborn infants may have some pretty deep roots, suggests a study of rhesus macaques reported online on October 8th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Continue Reading »
October 9th, 2009 at 9:29 am
While we’ve all heard of diseases, seen someone with a disease, and had a disease personally, it’s unlikely that we’ve encountered a rare disease. In the non-medical world, people use and interchange disease to mean infection, sickness, illness, or something similar. In the medical world, a disease is an abnormal condition that impairs bodily functions and is often associated with certain signs and symptoms.
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October 9th, 2009 at 9:26 am
New studies show that alligators display the same loyalty to their mating partners as birds.
Alligators display the same loyalty to their mating partners as birds reveals a study published today in Molecular Ecology. The ten-year-study by scientists from the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory reveals that up to 70% of females chose to remain with their partner, often for many years.
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October 9th, 2009 at 7:56 am
A look at the happiness of Facebook’s members
Facebook is even more omniscient than you thought: it can now chart the world’s collective hopes and dreams and highs and lows–sort of, at least.
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October 9th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Featured Invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
The Rocky Mountain Imaging mobile scanner is a portable and versatile scanning solution that simply and quickly converts photos, images, and pages to digital. Battery power, SD card memory, and compact design enables scanning anywhere and anytime. The detachable lid allows one-of-a-kind heirloom photos to be safely and accurately captured by keeping them in their original position in the photo album. The mobile scanner includes creative projects software and links to online projects, how to guides, and social networking.
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October 9th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Featured at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
FunRide is a unique car sharing service that uses alternative fuel vehicles, offering members and visitors the opportunity to reduce their transportation costs.
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October 8th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Stonehenge offers many mysteries
This Canadian brainstorm actually makes sense. The town proposing the Stonehenge replica is in a compatible global location. The folks at The Vancouver Sun tell us more.
“The town of Barriere is hatching a plan to place a concrete replica of England’s Stonehenge at the centre of a major park development.
Barriere’s version would be a scaled-down model of the real 100-metre-wide Druidic temple that has stood on the Salisbury Plains for about 4,500 years. The circle of stone megaliths and lintels is aligned to record the passing of the seasons and stands at the centre of a huge complex of burial mounds.
Coun. Virginia Smith brought the idea to council about a month ago after she learned that the real Stonehenge is located at the exact same latitude – 51 degrees north – as the town’s new park, which is already slated for a makeover with a new field house, bandshell, playground and a system of trails…
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October 8th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Featured Invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
Kwik Kover is a year-round windshield cover that is utilized on the outside of the vehicle and secured inside.
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October 8th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Featured Invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
Utilize all of your pool playing skills but add a whole new set of strategies and fun with a set of Card Parlour Pool Balls including a joker ball.
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October 8th, 2009 at 9:25 am
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A new study finds high rates of childhood exposure to violence and abuse in United States.
A new study from the University of New Hampshire finds that U.S. children are routinely exposed to even more violence and abuse than has been previously recognized, with nearly half experiencing a physical assault in the study year.
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October 8th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Map of major geological features and tracks at the Moyeni tracksite.
A new investigation of a fossilized tracksite in southern Africa shows how early dinosaurs made on-the-fly adjustments to their movements to cope with slippery and sloping terrain. Differences in how early dinosaurs made these adjustments provide insight into the later evolution of the group.
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October 8th, 2009 at 9:14 am
World-first sustainable Formula 3 racing car.
Can the idea of ‘green motorsport’ actually work? Yes, according to EPSRC funded researcher, Dr Kerry Kirwan at the University of Warwick, who led the research team which designed and built the worldfirst fully sustainable Formula 3 racing car.
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October 8th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission warned Wednesday of “a looming spectrum crisis” if the government fails to find ways to come up with more bandwidth for mobile devices.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:05 am
In the coming year’s military spending bill, members of a House panel continue to steer lucrative defense contracts to companies represented by their former staffers, who in turn steer generous campaign donations to those lawmakers, a new analysis has found.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Breathe, Wheeze and Measure.
An asthma sufferer myself, I’ve long known the ghostly sensation of an invisible hand reaching through my breastplate to ethereally squeeze my lungs until I turn into a purple faced goblin. In the manner of many asthma sufferers, I like bragging about my attacks, and comparing them to the supposed attacks of my asthmatic peers.
But how best to quantify the severity of my asthma, so best to dismiss the discomfort of others? KarmelSonix Ltd, a medical device company consisting of a joint partnership between Israel and Australia, have designed a device for just such a purpose: a wheeze detector for quantifying asthma, allergy and emphysema symptoms.
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October 8th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Windmills have opened many doors for William!
William Kamkwamba, a teenage boy in Malawi, saw a photo of a windmill in a textbook at the library and decided that if he could build one it would be useful to his village.
Mr Kamkwamba, who is now 22 years old, knocked together a turbine from spare bicycle parts, a tractor fan blade and an old shock absorber, and fashioned blades from plastic pipes, flattened by being held over a fire…
Soon the whiz kid’s 12-watt wonder was pumping power into his family’s mud brick compound…
UPDATE: William Kamkwambo was the featured guest on THE DAILY SHOW on Oct 7!
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October 8th, 2009 at 7:26 am
These micro piglets may be tiny enough to fit in a teacup, but at $1100 their price tag is anything but small. The pets, which grow to be just 14in tall, have become so popular that they are now almost impossible to get hold of in Britain.
“Demand for micro pigs is soaring and we are inundated with enquiries every day,” said Jane Croft, 42, who breeds them. “It’s amazing how popular they have suddenly become and just how many people want pigs as pets.”
Micro pigs are much smaller than a standard farm pig and weigh 9oz, about the size of a tea cup when they are born. At two years old they are fully grown and weigh in around 40-65 lb and are around knee height at 12-16in tall. They can live for up to 18 years, but make popular pets as they are low maintenance, quiet and surprisingly clean.
October 8th, 2009 at 4:35 am
An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ’s burial cloth is a medieval fake.
The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ.
“We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud,” Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy, said on Monday.
A professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia, Garlaschelli made available to Reuters the paper he will deliver and the accompanying comparative photographs.
The Shroud of Turin shows the back and front of a bearded man with long hair, his arms crossed on his chest, while the entire cloth is marked by what appears to be rivulets of blood from wounds in the wrists, feet and side.
Carbon dating tests by laboratories in Oxford, Zurich and Tucson, Arizona in 1988 caused a sensation by dating it from between 1260 and 1390. Sceptics said it was a hoax, possibly made to attract the profitable medieval pilgrimage business.
But scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain how the image was left on the cloth.
Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.
They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid. A mask was used for the face.
PIGMENT, BLOODSTAINS AND SCORCHES
The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.
They then added blood stains, burn holes, scorches and water stains to achieve the final effect.
The Catholic Church does not claim the Shroud is authentic nor that it is a matter of faith, but says it should be a powerful reminder of Christ’s passion.
One of Christianity’s most disputed relics, it is locked away at Turin Cathedral in Italy and rarely exhibited. It was last on display in 2000 and is due to be shown again next year.
Garlaschelli expects people to contest his findings.
“If they don’t want to believe carbon dating done by some of the world’s best laboratories they certainly won’t believe me,” he said.
The accuracy of the 1988 tests was challenged by some hard-core believers who said restorations of the Shroud in past centuries had contaminated the results.
The history of the Shroud is long and controversial.
After surfacing in the Middle East and France, it was brought by Italy’s former royal family, the Savoys, to their seat in Turin in 1578. In 1983 ex-King Umberto II bequeathed it to the late Pope John Paul.
The Shroud narrowly escaped destruction in 1997 when a fire ravaged the Guarini Chapel of the Turin cathedral where it is held. The cloth was saved by a fireman who risked his life.
Garlaschelli received funding for his work by an Italian association of atheists and agnostics but said it had no effect on his results.
“Money has no odor,” he said. “This was done scientifically. If the Church wants to fund me in the future, here I am.”
An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ’s burial cloth is a medieval fake.
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