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PLEASE ENJOY THIS SPECIAL TECHNOLOGY, SCIENCE ISSUE OF RAINBOW POSTS!!!

Researching Stress, Scientists May Have Accidentally Found Baldness Cure

By Rebecca BoylePosted 02.16.2011 at 5:20 pm0 Comments

Some of the greatest discoveries in science have been total accidents — Alexander Fleming’s use of penicillin, Wilson and Penzias’ discovery of the cosmic microwave background, etc. Today, scientists announced they’ve once again unintentionally made a monumental discovery: A cure for baldness. OK, only in mice.

Still, the finding — involving a chemical compound that blocks a stress hormone — could lead to human hair loss treatments, the scientists say. The researchers have applied for a patent on the use of the compound for hair growth.

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read more about > Bald, bald spot, gastrointestinal tracts, health, male pattern baldness, mice, mutant mice,peptides, stress, UCLA

TECHNOLOGY

New Device Uses Electromagnetic Pulses to Detonate IEDs From a Safe Distance

By Rebecca BoylePosted 02.16.2011 at 3:56 pm0 Comments

A new technique uses electromagnetic pulses todetonate improvised explosive devices from afar, potentially thwarting the roadside bombs that have been the scourge of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, lest anyone forget, the ongoing guerrilla conflicts in places like Colombia.

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read more about > afghanistan, bombs, FUTURE OF weapons, ieds, improvised explosive devices, iraq,military, premature detonation, roadside bombs, soldiers, U.S. Army

TECHNOLOGY

Convenient Home Recycler Turns Plastic Garbage Back Into Ready-To-Use Petroleum

By Rebecca BoylePosted 02.16.2011 at 2:57 pm4 Comments

A Japanese inventor has figured out a way toconvert plastic grocery bags, bottles and caps back into the petroleum from whence they came, providing a ready fuel source for individual homes that also diverts waste from landfills.

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read more about > clean energy, inventor, japan, oil, oil booms, plastics, recycled plastic, recycling

SCIENCE

Using X-Ray Laser, Researchers Image a Single Virus, Destroying It In The Process

By Clay DillowPosted 02.16.2011 at 2:04 pm0 Comments

Talk about upping your shutter speed. A new X-ray laser method is able to image a single mimivirus(that’s a large virus, sure, but it’s still really small) completely just before the energy of the X-ray beam cause the virus to explode in a burst of plasma.

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read more about > health, imaging, mimivirus, virus, x-ray imaging, x-rays

TECHNOLOGY

Stardust Mission's Close-Up Shots of Tempel 1 Depict a Comet in Flux

Revisiting "a bullet hit by a bullet"

By Clay DillowPosted 02.16.2011 at 12:55 pm2 Comments

Images from the Stardust-NExT mission’s Valentine’s Day rendezvous with comet Tempel 1 began hitting the Web yesterday--there are 72 total images, but each one took a dial-up-worthy 15 minutes to download--with most of them depicting a grainy rock at a distance.

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read more about > deep impact mission, nasa, Space, stardust mission, stardust-next, tempel 1

SCIENCE

Video: Creepy Madagascan Beasts Rub Their Back Hairs Together To Make Squeaks

Weird tenrecs caught on camera for the first time

By Rebecca BoylePosted 02.16.2011 at 11:57 am16 Comments

The only mammals in the world that chirp like crickets — by rubbing body parts together — are these strange shrew-like creatures called streaked tenrecs. A BBC film crew has captured theirstridulations on camera for the first time.

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read more about > Africa, animals, BBC, chirping crickets, david attenborough, EVOLUTION, lemur,mammals, sounds, Video

SCIENCE

New Wireless Tech Lets Radio Devices Send and Receive Simultaneously, Doubling Efficiency

By Clay DillowPosted 02.16.2011 at 10:57 am4 Comments

Radio communications devices can either send or receive wireless signals at a given moment, but they can’t do both at the same time (hence the regular use of the word “over” to signal the end of a transmission). But a team of electrical engineering grad students and professors at Stanford has done what researchers have long thought impossible by developing a new antenna setup that allows wireless signals to be sent and received at the same time.

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read more about > communications, communications networks, radio signals, radios, Wi-Fi, wireless networks

DIY

Google Engineer Builds an Affordable DIY Telepresence Robot To Keep In Touch With Remote Fiancee

By Clay DillowPosted 02.16.2011 at 9:54 am5 Comments

Johnny Lee wanted a telepresence robot, but he didn’t want to pay thousands of dollars for one. So he did what any good hacker would do: bought a netbook, bought a roomba-like iRobot, and built a simple one himself for about $500.

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read more about > anybots, DIY, hacks, irobot, projects, robotics, robots, telepresence, Video

ANNOUNCEMENTS

POPSCI.COM READER NOW AVAILABLE FOR ANDROID

Sharp-eyed Android-using PopSci fans may have already noticed that our reader app, previously only on iOS, is now available on Android. We're excited to offer this fast, easy and free way to stay up to date on all the PopSci.com action to our friendly Androids. Hope you enjoy! Grab it here in the Market.

[ Read Full Story ]

By John MahoneyPosted 02.15.2011 at 6:23 pm1 Comment

read more about > android, apps, popsci.com

TECHNOLOGY

Google Rolls Out a Browser-Based Content Farm Blocker, Helping Users Sort the Wheat from the Chaff

By Clay DillowPosted 02.15.2011 at 5:31 pm9 Comments

It seems like everyone in the twitterverse, the blogosphere, and tumblrdom is getting fed up with so-called content farms--those mostly-useless text generators that turn out articles based on the terms people most commonly search for.

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read more about > apps, content farms, extensions, google, search engine
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