For everything from family to computers…
This is a project that I’m backing right now. A LED light bulb that generates as much light as a traditional 60 Watt incandescent bulb, can be controlled wirelessly, lasts up to 25 years, and consumes less power than a fluocompact bulb (without all the nasty chemical), now how awesome is that? Sure, it’s a little on the expansive side, but have you seen what it can do? Check it out in the video below!
San Jose State University students have built a prototype chassis for an omnidirectional motorcycle — which will eventually allow them to not only move sideways and have the bike balance itself, but do total 360′s while driving!
The students hope to have their prototype complete and fully operational by the end of the year. You can follow their progress and concepts here.
[Via Geekologie]
The world’s researchers have yet to build a quantum computer of any significant size. But maybe they just need a little Scotch tape.
Researchers at the University of Toronto recently used some two-sided Scotch poster tape — yes, two-sided Scotch poster tape — to transfer superconducting properties to a semiconducting material. That semiconductor is similar …
from Wired Top Stories
American Airlines says it can save $1.2 million by replacing heavy flight manuals with iPads. What else could be eliminated to save even more on fuel? Physicist Rhett Allain has a suggestion that would reduce fuel as well as trips to the restroom.
from Wired Top Stories
We’ve seen DIY supercomputers before: take a few motherboards, give them all the same processor, give them all the same amount of RAM and couple them all together via LAN. It has been a cheap and effective way for educational institutions (and enthusiasts) to jump into supercomputing. The Iridus-Pi continues in the same vein, using a cluster of 64 Raspberry Pi computers and Lego.
University of Southampton Professor Simon Cox has done an outstanding job here, but I definitely think that the next step needs to be doing something to address the power supply issue. The Raspberry Pi runs off 5v micro-USB and can run off 4 x AA batteries, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out a system that significantly cuts down on the amount of adapters and power strips involved.
from The UberReview
Unfortunately, the very lab equipment that pharmaceutical researchers use to create new crystal-free drugs can cause the molecules to crystallize.
To get around this conundrum, science wizards at Argonne National Laboratory, a government-run facility southwest of Chicago, counteract gravity with two opposing speakers. Each speaker pumps out sound at 22,000 hertz–just beyond the upper range of human hearing–and form a standing sound wave that can trap blobs of dissolved experimental compounds.
The technique isn’t a way to mass-manufacture new drugs, at least yet. But the stuff floating in the video above can be moved in the X-ray beamline of Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source for detailed chemical analysis–and that might lift promising new drugs into the clinical trial pipeline faster.
from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now
The internet really does have everything, and it’s all available for download without lifting a finger. A series of helpful scripts, all installable in a few minutes, can transform your computer into an automatic media downloading machine. More »
from Lifehacker