4 April 2009
Robot discovers new science without human intervention. I welcome our new robot overlords.
Cold fusion rumors are circulating. If you believe it, I’ve got a time machine for sale. Cheap!
24 November 2008
At $1,200, water vaporators hope to enter our homes by opening our wallets. Time to visit Tosche Station for some power converters.
Raygun in Iraq used to detonate bombs from 300 meters.
10 October 2008
A new explosive found, solid at room temperature, can be melt-cast into the desired shape, and is a highly powerful explosive.
Washing hands more effective at preventing colds than taking vitamins.
8 October 2008
Hundreds of new marine species found. The Marginaster seastar looks like a delicious butter cookie. Yum.
Mass-produced nuclear power plants.
The 15-20 ton 27-30 MWe Hyperion nuclear reactor will be factory mass produced starting in about 2013. It uses ten to twenty times less material and less uranium fuel as current reactors which will allow society to scale this up a lot more. Goal of 12 month from order to finished factory product. Goal is to make hundreds to thousands each year.
4 October 2008
Uncertainty leads to superstition. If you don’t feel in control, you’ll start seeing things that aren’t there.
The Turing test to be challenged by artificial intelligence.
22 September 2008
Who else but the Japanese engaging resources to build the space elevator.
Being vegan shrinks your brain.
13 August 2008
WWII spies uncovered — Chef Julia Child, Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg, etc.
A robot with organic brain from rat neurons.
US Army promotes the right officers for future wars, building on the best creative minds for asymmetric warfare.
Russian ravers blinded by lasers. That’ll teach them to live in Russia!
Physicists find a way to reduce the Casmir force–a force that pulls close objects together–which doesn’t mean much to normal people, but it means smaller computers in the future.
Using the International Space Station as a space ship to the moon.
…the single most expensive thing ever built …as a scientific research platform, it still has virtually no purpose and is accomplishing nothing.
It’s missing a drive system and a steerage module, but those are technicalities. …In principle, we could fly it almost anywhere within the inner solar system — to any place where it could still receive enough solar power to keep all its systems running.
All the billions already spent on the space station would pay off — spectacularly — if this product of human ingenuity actually went somewhere and did something. But it would also serve as a compelling demonstration that we’re one species, living on one planet, and that we’re as capable of cooperating peacefully as we are at competing militaristically. Let’s begin the process of turning the ISS from an Earth-orbiting caterpillar into an interplanetary butterfly.
What are we waiting for?
10 July 2008
Google’s Lively is up as beta. It’s OK so far, but needs a lot of work. Not surprisingly porn has already found its way on therre. God bless the Internet.
First water on Mars, now water on the moon.
Using bacteria to fight cancer. First we learn how to kill them, then we make them our bitch.
Using bacteria proteins to fight bacteria. Take that, germs! We’re going to need it with antibiotics losing effectiveness due to people using waaay too much antibiotics and those “kills 99.9% of germs” products when they don’t need to.
Dog DNA being decoded, could pave way for canine eugenics.
The new study reveals locations in a dog’s DNA that contain genes that are believed to cause differences in body and skull shape, weight, fur colour and length – and possibly even behaviour, trainability and longevity.
This is a long way off, but poses an interesting ethical delimma: How is this any different from human-selected breeding?
20 June 2008
Ice on Mars? Discovery of water would mean more possibility for life (as if it needed better odds), but could also be a source of water for colonists.
19 June 2008
Bacteria moves via a flagellum that is stopped by the release of a protein. This can help nanobot movement design, but could also lead to new way of fighting bacteria (via paralysis).
Cell therapy cured advanced cancer.
17 June 2008
Deep space meteor contains genetic material. We’re made from star dust and space rocks.
16 June 2008
Three super-Earths found, total now over 270.
It is most probable that there are many other planets present: not only super-Earth and Neptune-like planets with longer periods, but also Earth-like planets that we cannot detect yet. Add to it the Jupiter-like planets already known, and you may well arrive at the conclusion that planets are ubiquitous
1 out of 14 stars have this kind of planet. With billions of known stars in the universe, what are the odds of at least one other having life? Enough for me to bet my life.
It’s the End of Days for cancer:
- Estrogen-dependent breast cancer cell inhibitors found.
- Viral antigens treat—and may prevent—many viral cancers.
- Stem cell therapy attacks cancer at the cellular level.
- Gene radiotherapy system fights chemo and radiation-resistant cancer.
- New PET/CT breast cancer scanner allows more-targeted treatment.
Research into turning old muscles young. Future possibilities include treating Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as possibly reversing the effects of tissue aging.
A good (and long) article on lifestyles and cancer.
…exercise regularly, avoid diets rich in red meat (substituting poultry, fish or vegetable sources of protein) and eat diets rich in fruits and vegetables, we would prevent 70 percent of all cancers.
Basically, stop eating fast food and get off our asses. Wii Fit, here I come!
15 June 2008
Genetically altered bacteria eats waste, poops gasoline. Poop is the scientific term. Read the entire article.
11 June 2008
And it starts: Life expectancy rises 4 more months in just 1 year. At that rate, we’ll have 13 more years by 2048.
Want to be a cop? Play dumb.
10 June 2008
You’ve got some nerve: New detergent wipes nerve grafts clean so immune systems accepts. Grafts couldn’t be done this way before as our bodies reject nerve grafts.
One small step to a cure for Alzheimer’s.
Paper stronger than iron.
Time before Big Bang:
…new universes could be created spontaneously from apparently empty space. From inside the parent universe, the event would be surprisingly unspectacular.
Basically, the universe we live in may have been farted out of another universe, and the second Law of Thermodynamics–that things become more disorderly over time–may be false. Interesting.
Predators attack suburbia. I’ve never even heard of this animal before.
3 June 2008
CYBORGS: artificial veins and arteries now a reality. Tomorrow, the universe!
Number Five is alive! …in all his lego glory. (via my amazing girlfriend)
Pills trigger brain growth by 20%, but the company’s graphic designer hasn’t been taking them: BrainCells Inc.
Anti-aging pill are a reality, soon available. They don’t make you 130 and decrepit, but slows/halts your aging process, prehaps even reversing it.
Seasteading to form independent city-states on the open ocean. Sign me up!
21 May 2008
A lost parrot tells a vet his name and address. It’s only a matter of time before he coughs up banking numbers.
DOCTOR WHO? Steven Moffat (writer of episodes “Blink,” “The Girl in the Fireplace,” and “The Empty Child”) to take over as lead writer starting season five. YES!!!
18 May 2008
MYSTERY: Two deep space probes have been pulled off course, explanation may challenge everything we know about gravity. (video)
5 May 2008
First algae, now fungus to produce fuel. A strain of fungus produces super-efficient enzymes that breaks down plants into sugars, eventually producing ethanol.
How water formed on Earth and forms around the universe. We’re all made of stardust.
$2 billion home. Interesting-but-ugly exterior, amazing interior.
Send your name to the moon. It’s not as good as a real trip, but it’s free, so why not?
1 May 2008
1 acre of algae produces 20,000 gallons of gas a year AND sucks up CO2.
1/10 size of New Mexico (barren desert) can produce 156 billion gallons of renewable gas, enough for the entire United States; all with current technology (and, again, while sucking up enormous quantities of carbon dioxide).
30 April 2008
30 micrometer origami. It’s for precise medicine delivery, but they look cool.
29 April 2008
Company promises to deliver personal tilt-rotor air vehicles, but can’t even deliver a professional website.
GOOD READ: Sweatshop inspector tell tales.
[Wal-Mart's] suppliers were among the worst I saw—dangerous, nasty, and poorly paid even by local (usually Chinese) measures. I noticed that Wal-Mart claimed to require factories to maintain decent labor standards—but why did it seem to think it could find them among the lowest bidders?
…
I learned from Wal-Mart’s latest report on sourcing that only 26 percent of its audits are unannounced. By contrast, of the inspections Target conducts, 100 percent are unannounced. That’s a revealing difference.
I’ll say. If it’s too long to read, skim it until the last two paragraphs.
Artificial spider silk is coming along, but not quite 5x steel strength like natural spider silk. Give it time.
Tiny penis? Use this excuse.
Real life cabbage patch kids! Stop them now before it’s too late!
28 April 2008
Research shows we don’t always act selfishly: Taking one for the team at our own expense.
17 April 2008
A picture of the Southern Pinwheel galaxy, showing infant stars 100,000 light-years from its center. (high resolution TIF 23MB)
The truth about good head – more than you ever wanted to read about the foamy stuff on top of beers.
Electronic patch monitors health with sweat, alerting you of over-exhaustion. Alternative solution: stop running when you’re tired.
Science provides another excuse to give up: being fat can make you fatter. Why fight it? Just eat that donut. mmm… donut.
16 April 2008
10 questions with Michio Kaku, author of Physics of the Impossible. Time travel, matter-replicators, robots, oh my!
New software separates individual notes in music. Ladies, my (pretend) DJ days are back!
World’s largest cruise ship at 220,000 tons (Titanic was ~50,000 tons) to have football field-sized tropical park. Sign me up!
15 April 2008
Tag banned at Virginia school for being a game “of intense aggression.” New uniforms issued. Tag, you’re it!
14 April 2008
More evidence that too many choices, whether good or bad just plain equals bad. (PDF of study)