December News Technoligy & Science

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• FYI: What Would Happen If Every Element On The Periodic Table Came Into Contact Simultaneously?
• Russia Invests $2 Billion To Clean Up Space Debris
• IBM Unveils Nanophotonic Chips that Could Lead the Exascale Computing Revolution

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12.02.10

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Cars

This Sports Car Has Six Wheels

The six-wheeled Covini C6W is heading to production

By Dan Nosowitz  4 Comments

The Covini C6W, from Italian maker Covini Engineering, has been in the works for 32 years. It has lots of nice racing parts--a 4.2-liter Audi V8, a fiberglass/carbon fiber body over a tubular steel frame, 434 horsepower, a top speed of around 185 mph--and two very unusual additions that make it stand out. Don't bother rubbing your eyes: This thing really does have six wheels.

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read more about > cars, covini, covini c6w, six-wheeled cars, sports cars

Science

In New Study, MRI Scans First Provide Way To Diagnose Autism with Near Perfect Accuracy

By Clay Dillow  1 Comment

Autism disorders affect one in 110 children in the U.S.--or perhaps more--but the method of diagnosing the condition, which is characterized by difficulties socializing and communicating, among other behavioral and emotional problems, is largely subjective. Now, researchers may have finally found a way to objectively and scientifically diagnose the condition early, with 94 percent accuracy, using simple MRI brain scans.

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read more about > autism, diagnostic medicine, health, magnetic resonance imaging, medicine, MRI

Gadgets

Testing the Best: Sony's NEX-5, the Small Wonder

The compact camera to sell you on compact cameras

By Corinne Iozzio  1 Comment

Earlier this year, I bought my first DSLR, and took it (and its gigantic lens) everywhere. My vacation photos and day-to-day snaps never looked better. But I couldn't say the same for my left (A.K.A. my bag-carrying) shoulder. So slowly, day by day, I stopped lugging my camera around with me. Then along came Sony's NEX-5.

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read more about > cameras, compact cameras, micro four thirds, sony, Sony NEX-5, testing the best

Technology

Help Buy a Satellite from a Bankrupt Telecom to Beam Free Web to the Developing World

By Clay Dillow  1 Comment

Increasing web connectivity in the developing world has been a focus of philanthropists, international bodies like the U.N., and individual states alike. But, like most grand visions, wiring entire countries for the Web is expensive. So how does a philanthropist sidestep the massive expense of building and launching a satellite that can beam Internet to remote regions of the world? You wait for a company to go bankrupt, then you buy their brand new communications satellite already in orbit on the cheap.

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read more about > buy this satellite, connectivity, Internet, philanthropy, satellites, Space, terrastar-1

Science

NASA's Newly Discovered Arsenic-Loving Bacteria Are Fascinating, but Not Aliens [Updated + Video]

So everyone chill out. It does raise interesting questions for alien life-hunters, however

By Rebecca Boyle  10 Comments

Biologists have isolated a bacterium that can use a deadly chemical in place of one of life’s key building blocks, in a finding NASA says could have major implications for astrobiology and our understanding of life on Earth.
In the study, researchers examined a bacteria living in a very salty and arsenic-heavy lake in northeastern California, not far from Yosemite National Park. It is not a space alien, nor is it “new life” — it’s an existing bacteria that lives in a difficult environment and was deliberately manipulated in a lab.

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read more about > arsenic, astrobiology, bacteria, microbes, microbial life, phosphate, phosphorus

DIY

Video: Virtual Theremin for Microsoft Kinect Is Even Less Tactile Than Real Theramin

The real question: What took so long?

By Dan Nosowitz  0 Comments

Today in Microsoft Kinect hacks, we've got quite possibly the first musical instrument to be transformed into a gesture-controlled facsimile of itself. It's one of the only instruments that can really be brought over without losing either the method or the soul of the original, since the original instrument is played with gestures in the air as well. I'm talking, of course, about the theremin, the favorite instrument of nerds worldwide.

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read more about > gaming, hacking, hacks, kinect, kinect hacks, microsoft, Microsoft Kinect, theremins

Technology

Air Force Unveils Fastest Defense Supercomputer, Made of 1,760 PlayStation 3s

By Clay Dillow  20 Comments

The holidays may be driving video game console sales, but apparently so is the military. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has strung together 1,760 PlayStation 3 gaming systems to create what it’s calling the fastest interactive computer system in the entire DoD, capable of executing 500 trillion floating point operations per second.

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read more about > air force, air force research labs, COMPUTING, military, supercomputers

BEST OF WHAT'S NEW   

A New Way of Flying

How a record-breaking pilot made it through the night in a sun-powered plane

 3 Comments

Born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1952, the year the first commercial jet airliner took flight, André Borschberg grew up longing for the skyward frontier and the “freedom of three dimensions.” He absorbed his father’s tales of reconnaissance flights during World War II. He memorized the dips and dives of Night Flight, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novel about pioneering airmail carriers in Argentina. And at age 15, he joined a youth program offered by the Swiss Air Force, which taught him how to fly.
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Science

Blurry Nebula Image Marks Success for Flying Telescope, NASA Says

By Rebecca Boyle  6 Comments

After months of calibration and testing, NASA’s flying telescope made its first excursion this morning, and the space agency is looking forward to analyzing the results. But, um, isn’t this sort of blurry?

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read more about > astronomy, dlr, infrared, nasa, sofia, space telescope, Telescopes

Technology

IBM Unveils Nanophotonic Chips that Could Lead the Exascale Computing Revolution

By Clay Dillow  22 Comments

IBM is prepped to lead the way into the next era of exascale computing, at least if the technology they showed off at a convention today in Chiba, Japan can live up to expectations. Today IBM lifted the veil on its CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics (CISN) technology at Semicon Japan, saying its next-gen silicon chips that communicate via pulses of light, rather than electrical signals, will be commercially available starting next year.

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read more about > chip technology, electronics, exascale computing, microprocessers, nano-optics, nanophotonics

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