Science - SlashGear

Posts Tagged ‘Science’

NASA turns 50 today

By Brenda Stokes on Wednesday, Oct 1st 2008 No Comments

Can you believe it, folks? NASA started up for business 50 years ago today on October 1, 1958 when the first employees sat down to a day’s work. And even better yet, NASA is still doing what they do best: giving us permission to look to the sky in wonder with a tangible hope of knowing what lies beyond our world.

NASA has done many an impressive thing over the past 50 years. There were the moon landings, the space stations, satellite launches and more. And of course, they have been associated with a few tragedies as well including the Challenger, Columbia and a launchpad fire.

Continued »

X-Ray Message Plates for Airport Screeners are carry on communication

By Brenda Stokes on Monday, Sep 29th 2008 1 Comment

Tired of waiting in the security lines at the airport? Tired of having your laptop scanned? Well now, you can do more than use a checkpoint-friendly bag. In fact, you can send a little message to the scanner operators!

img 1554 480x320

Continued »

SpaceX Falcon 1 reaches orbit

By Brenda Stokes on Monday, Sep 29th 2008 No Comments

After many blunders, the SpaceX Falcon 1 has reached orbit successfully. The privately-funded rocket program, backed by Elon Musk, has finally been realized after three attempts that failed, resulting in the scattering of “Scotty,” actor James Montgomery Doohan from Star Trek fame’s ashes over the Pacific Ocean and a few explosions.

spacex 067 480x266

Continued »

Electric Field RAM memory could be faster, more energy efficient

By Chris Davies on Friday, Sep 26th 2008 No Comments

mram Japanese scientists have discovered a method of changing magnetic domains – such as those used in RAM and hard-drives – using magnetic fields rather than the current process of electromagnets, in a system that could see storage become faster and more energy efficient. Magnetic domains, tiny regions inside magnetic materials that behave as individual magnets and can be flipped from north to south, are currently manipulated by an electromagnet, encoding binary 1 or 0. With the new system that electromagnet is bypassed: applying voltage to a nearby electrode creates an electric field that shifts the domains.

Continued »

Hyperion Power’s portable nuclear reactors could ship by 2013

By Brenda Stokes on Friday, Sep 26th 2008 4 Comments

Late last year word first got around about the portable nuclear reactors Hyperion Power was planning on developing. But now in late 2008, the company is still committed to the idea and have even set a shipping date of June 2013. That’s pretty ambitious!

hyperion power generation 080925

Continued »

Near-infrared light could be used in future lie detectors

By Brenda Stokes on Wednesday, Sep 24th 2008 No Comments

liedetector Polygraph tests have been used for a long time to detect whether or not a person is lying. They rely on respiration rate, blood pressure, pulse and anxiety levels to determine when someone is lying.

But a new kind of polygraph will used near-infrared spectroscopy to determine lies from truths. A patent was recently filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization according to the New Scientist that would use this tech. It works by shining a light through the skull to the brain. And depending on how much light is then reflected back, scientists can then determine how active the brain is, and therefore whether or not you’re lying.

Continued »

Large Hadron Collider decommissioned until Spring

By Brenda Stokes on Wednesday, Sep 24th 2008 No Comments

As you most likely have already heard, the Large Hadron Collider was taken offline due to a problem with the device’s magnets. But then, we found out a full-on helium leak caused even more concern. And now we won’t see the good ‘ol LHC up and running again until the spring of next year.

0712017 02a4at144dpi 2 480x320

Continued »

Thought Helmets contracted by the Army

By Brenda Stokes on Monday, Sep 22nd 2008 No Comments

army brain wave 0912 Is anyone else a little scared? The U.S. military is apparently very interested in telepathy and the possibilities for its use in soldier communication, so they awarded a contract for the development of a thought helmet device that could potentially aid in this endeavor.

The idea is that sometimes soldiers are in situations where they cannot speak or make any sort of gesture for communication. In such situations, being able to think a command or relay information and have it received would be extremely helpful. Scientists at UC Irvine, Carnegie Mellon and University of Maryland are working on this project.

Continued »

Large Hadron Collider taken offline for now

By Brenda Stokes on Friday, Sep 19th 2008 1 Comment

Everyone in the science community must have uttered a sigh of disappointment today when word traveled that the Large Hadron Collider had been taken offline due to electrical problems. With all the talk of black hole creation and Higgs-Boson particle finding, it’s easy to forget this is a piece of technology, which can malfunction.

Continued »

Large Hadron Collider rap makes particle physics fun

By Brenda Stokes on Monday, Sep 15th 2008 1 Comment

There’s been a lot of talk about the Large Hadron Collider this past week since the device was switched on. And besides the scientists getting death threats and various debates about whether or not the power of the collisions produced could cause a black hole, one thing is for certain: not many people understand just what this 17-mile long machine is meant to do.

cern lhc t2030shigh 480x312