Engineers in South Korea are working on a system that converts sound to energy, with one potential real-world application of the technology being cell phones that recharge themselves as people speak into them.
We won’t see a fully functioning solution like this in the near future, but the team demonstrated that “a prototype of the …
For humans, associating with video game characters is second-nature. I ducked. I jumped. I fell off a cliff and died.
As it turns out, chimpanzees are capable of similar associations. At Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute in Japan, scientists discovered that chimps become aware of their digital avatars when playing video …
You’d think that the trailer for Rise of The Planet of The Apes would be enough to remind people that screwing around with nature can lead to disasters even James Franco can’t endure. Apparently not, in light of news that researchers have bred a new species of all-female lizard under lab conditions.
The team, led by biologist Peter …
Being a super genius sure is hard. You have all these great theorems about how gravity works and whatnot without the proper means to prove if they’re viable or bunk. In Einstein’s case, it wasn’t until recently — 56 years after his death — that technology finally caught up to the inner machinations of his astounding …
Yesterday we mentioned recent predictions that solar power will be as cheap as coal by 2013; today, though, the word is that it will also be a helluva lot easier to generate too.
MIT scientists Vladimir Bulović and Richard Lunt have published a paper outlining a system of transparent photovoltaic cells which could be coated on to …
It only takes 2,500 oranges to power a neon billboard and two repairmen to change a light bulb in my apartment. I think it’s time to head to the produce market the next time I have an electrical shortage.
A recent Tropicana ad for the French market shows a team assembling thousands of oranges to power a neon sign. The project, which …
Jamie Hyneman — the thickly facial-haired, beret-adorned half of the hit TV show MythBusters — has landed himself a new side gig working on a special project for the US Military.
CNET is reporting that the Office of Naval Research is tapping into the special effects expert to develop an ultra-lightweight armor for use on vehicles …
We’re addicted to media and technology. News at 11.
What’s unnerving, and a touch depressing, is what we say about it when we’re forced to disconnect, even if it’s only for 24 hours.
In a global science study headed by the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda and the University of Maryland, students in nine countries …
Using techniques usually reserved for identifying epilepsy in patients, a team of scientists at Washington University were able to successfully have subjects move computer cursors using nothing but their thoughts.
To make it work, the scientists first utilized a temporary surgical implant attached to regions of the brain that pertain …
Not content with taking paying passengers to the edge of space, British business tycoon, adventurer, and self-publicist extraordinaire Richard Branson has just announced another adventure in the other direction: to the bottom of the ocean.
The tiny one-man submarine his team has developed has a maximum speed of 3 knots and life …
File this under: Things I wish existed when I was struggling for a C- in statistics. A team of researchers at University of Oxford and University College London may have found a way to unnaturally boost your arithmetic skills by hooking your brain up to – get this – electrodes.
From a study that appeared in the November 23 issue …
Do you remember the music video for This Too Shall Pass by OK Go? It’s basically three and a half minutes of an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine captured in a single shot—no small feat whatsoever.
The company behind the contraption, Syyn Labs, was recently approached by Google to devise a Rube Goldberg machine to kick off the opening …
