People wearing headphones could easily hunt down a virtual insect, using only the echolocation sounds, in what is apparently a very intuitive process. Dean Waters, a bat expert at the University of Leeds, hopes that a similar system in the cockpit of fighter planes could allow pilots to track some controls using their hearing, freeing up their eyes for other tasks
Those windows that allow glare onto your computer screen can be useful, soon they will provide power to your computer, air conditioning and other useful necessities
Ever wanted a ball of Silly Putty as big as your head? Now you can make it at home. The University of Minnesota‘s Chemistry Department has instructions on how to make it, as well as other fun things like Slime
A senior police officer has argued that every single person in the UK should be compelled to have their DNA on the national database in an effort to prevent crime
A report from Stanford University suggests that genetically-modified vaginal bacteria may be able to serve as a ‘living condom‘, secreting proteins that protect women against HIV
There’s a new test aircraft that can travel at supersonic speeds without triggering a sonic boom. The technology works by modifying the shape of the plane
A new line of corn-based plastics, called polylactides or PLA, has begun to land on US supermarket shelves. Its strongest selling points are that it fully degrades in 47 days, doesn’t emit toxic fumes when incinerated, and requires 20 to 50 percent less fossil fuel to manufacture than regular plastics
Toshiba and NEC will incorporate fuel cells into the laptops by 2004. Sony, Hitachi and Casio are expected to follow the suit. The tests show a fuel cell lasting 10 hours. With the form-factor of a Bic lighter, it allows the laptop user to carry a few extra cells in the laptop bag all the time. Battery prices are expected to run at about US$200
Poachers who have hunted some rhino species to the verge of extinction could soon be tracked down by genetic tests being developed in Britain and Taiwan
American doctor Geoffrey Chernoff has told a Queensland medical conference that small skin biopsies are taken from patients and stored until the patient uses it for reconstructive or cosmetic procedures
A Tufts team has figured out how spiders and silkworms spin such strong silk, which could have far-reaching implications for everything from hospital dressings to body armour.
US companies with the highest rates of pay for chief executives also have the greatest number of staff redundancies, according to the ‘Executive Excess 2003‘ report conducted by United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies. Is anyone really surprised?
Penelope Corcoran, a Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter, had a chance to try out a Bow-Lingual on Crema, her part-Chihuahua part-Dachshund beastie. The unit didn’t score too well, looking more like an expensive, battery hungry, canine version of a Magic 8-Ball than a true translation device
Scientists studying an unspoiled jungle river wilderness in Venezuela have announced the discovery of 10 new fish species, including a red-tailed tiddler, a ‘punk’ catfish with a spiky head and a piranha that eats fruit as well as flesh
The Fuelcell Propulsion Institute plans to convert a 120-ton diesel locomotive into a fuel cell-driven train, a project that could one day make fuel cells a reality for subways allowing trains to run independent of the electricity grid
When police find a skull and want to know what its owner looked like, they generally use artists who reconstruct the face by building up layers of clay over the skull. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science in Germany have advanced efforts to computerise the process. The method could speed forensic work and could also be used to reconstruct long-extinct animal species
Scientists from Bell Laboratories have identified an ocean sponge, living in the darkness of the deep sea, that grows thin glass fibres capable of transmitting light better than industrial fibre optic cables used for telecommunication. You can tie a knot in these natural biological fibres and they will not break
The Xenoturbella, an enigmatic worm that resides in the mud at the bottom of a Swedish fjord, is identified as mankind’s long-lost relative, after being written off for years as an obscure mollusc
Spray-on computers the size of a grain of sand are set to transform information technology. Scientists are already working with Edinburgh hospitals to spray nanocomputers on coronary patients to monitor their hearts unobtrusively and wirelessly. The technology should be ready within four years and these spray-on nanocomputers should be at work in hospitals, schools and shops in less than ten years
A growing amount of research supports the idea that DNA could be the basis of a staggeringly powerful new generation of computers. An initial foray into the field has produced the first game-playing DNA computer — an enzyme-powered tic-tac-toe machine that cannot be beaten. While the lads in the Physics department at Cambridge University believe that erasable electrostatic lithography could be used to make a quantum computer based on arrays of quantum dots
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