Diamond will always be a woman’s best friend but the gemstone is no longer the world’s hardest material. Instead, a rare natural substance, called lonsdaleite, which is made from carbon atoms just like diamond, has emerged as 58 per cent harder than the gemstone
A German entrepreneur, Hermann Ramke, has invented a James Bond-like jetpack powered by high-pressure water, called the JetLev-Flyer. Designer Ramke’s invention can power the rider to a height of 50 feet (15m), has a top speed of 30mph, and can travel almost 200 miles before it needs to be refuelled. A floating pump powered by a 150 horsepower four-stroke engine sends water through a 140ft-long (43m) hose to a pair of nozzles mounted on the jet pack. The jet leaving the nozzles is sufficiently powerful to push the rider off the ground. The nozzles can then be angled to propel the pilot forward in stable, controlled flight
. The web site advertising the jetpack, which retails at around £160,000, claims the device offers freedom, exhilaration, [and] adventure
Windows 7 allows application developers to write DRM that bypasses your firewall, refuses to let you modify or disable DLLs, and to block you from mixing your audio inputs (to prevent you from recapturing DRM’ed music, presumably) — via Boing Boing
One of the first attempts to use gene therapy to treat HIV has produced promising results in clinical trials. When the therapy was tested on 74 patients, it was shown to be safe and appeared to reduce the effect of the virus on the immune system. In theory, one treatment should be enough to replace the need for a lifetime of antiretroviral therapy
Global number two mobile phone maker Samsung launched five new phones on Monday including a model made from recycled plastic with a solar panel on the back for charging
Victorian police want to ban messages being posted on internet blogs about accused firebug Brendan Sokaluk. A court’s banned the publication of Sokaluk’s street address and his image but members of the public have been freely publishing details on the internet
The founders of a web site which carries links to copies of music, films and TV programmes have gone on trial in Sweden on charges of copyright theft. The Pirate Bay is the world’s most high-profile file-sharing site and is being taken to court by media firms including Sony and Warner Bros
A chemical from an ocean-dwelling sponge can reprogram antibiotic resistant bacteria to make them vulnerable to medicines again, new evidence suggests. Ineffective antibiotics become lethal once again for bacteria treated with the sponge compound, chemist Peter Moeller reported 13 February at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting
Long lost file formats could soon be resurrected by pan-European research. The 4.02m euro (£3.58m) project aims to create a universal emulator that can open and play obsolete file formats. Using the emulator, researchers hope to ensure that digital materials such as games, websites and multimedia documents are not lost for good. The emulator will also be regularly updated to ensure that formats that fall out of favour remain supported in the near and far future. Called Keeping Emulation Environments Portable (Keep), the project aims to create software that can recognise, play and open all types of computer file from the 1970s onwards. As well as basic text documents it will also let people load up and play old computer games that technology has left behind
Federal regulators tweaked recommendations for how web sites should collect, save and share information about users, extending them to internet service providers and mobile users. The US Federal Trade Commission issued new guidance for the self-regulated industry that urges web sites to tell consumers that data is being collected during their searches and to allow them to opt out. This guidance recommends that mobile companies and internet service providers also inform customers about data collection and allow users to decline
Almost 40 years ago, American scientists took their first steps in a quest to break the world’s dependence on plastics. But in those four decades, plastic products have become so cheap and durable that not even the forces of nature seem able to stop them. A soupy expanse of plastic waste — too tough for bacteria to break down — now covers an estimated 1 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean. Sensing a hazard, researchers started hunting for a substitute for plastic’s main ingredient, petroleum. They wanted something renewable, biodegradable, and abundant enough to be inexpensive. Though they stumbled upon a great candidate early on, many US chemists had given up on it by the end of the 1990s. The failed wonder material: lignin, the natural compound that lends strength to trees. A waste product from paper production, much of the lignin supply is simply burned as fuel. But while many scientists turned to other green options, a German company, Tecnaro, says it found the magic formula. Its liquid wood can be molded like plastic, yet biodegrades over time
Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning the brand name that has been tarnished by its work in Iraq, settling on Xe (pronounced zee) as the new name for its family of two dozen businesses. Blackwater Lodge and Training Center, the subsidiary that conducts much of the company’s overseas operations and domestic training, has been renamed US Training Center Inc
IBM has filed a patent (US 7484451) for Bionic Body Armour, that could essentially allow us to dodge bullets like Neo in The Matrix. The armour would scan areas for incoming projectiles and when one is detected the system would deliver a shock to the muscles causing a swift reflexive action away from the projectile
Jailbreaking an iPhone constitutes copyright infringement and a DMCA violation, says Apple in comments filed with the Copyright Office as part of the 2009 DMCA triennial rulemaking. This marks the first formal public statement by Apple about its legal stance on iPhone jailbreaking
Researchers from Australia, Denmark, and China have combined efforts to show the feasibility of terabit-per-second Ethernet over fiber-optic cables. The solution involves a photonic chip that uses laser light for switching signals, and a form of the exotic material type, chalcogenide, or arsenic trisulfide — via Slashdot
A special tattoo ink that changes colour based on glucose levels inside the skin is under development by Massachusetts-based Draper Laboratories. The injectable nanotech ink could eventually free diabetics from painful blood glucose tests
At least on the surface, most in the mainstream music industry agree: illicit file-sharing is evil. However, when you aren’t getting paid to have a certain opinion, things can change. No longer taking a salary from his former company, Ex-IFPI chairman and EMI director Per Eirik Johansen speaks freely
A special federal court ruled yesterday that vaccines do not cause autism and that thousands of families with autistic children are not entitled to compensation, delivering a major blow to an international movement that has tried for years to link childhood immunisations with the devastating disorder
Photovoltaics, which convert sunlight into electricity, have long been touted as one of the most promising solutions to our energy needs. Unfortunately, today’s devices reflect a lot of solar energy as heat, which means that solar power is currently not as cheap as other forms of energy. Now, however, researchers in the Netherlands have developed an anti-reflective coating based on the nanostructure of a moth’s eyes, which could reduce the reflection from photovoltaic cells and thereby make them more efficient
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy this afternoon announced the names of six ISPs that will participate in the Federal Government’s internet filter trial — but the nation’s largest ISPs are not on the list. Primus Telecommunications, Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Netforce and Highway 1 are set to take part in the six week live
ISP filtering tests
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