Science - SlashGear

‘Science’ Stories

Study finds that Russian Quasicrystals may have come from space

Shane McGlaun, Jan 4th 2012 Discuss [37]

Back in the 1980's, a scientist named Daniel Schechtman was the first to describe a quasicrystal and won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery. Some looked on the idea of the quasicrystals as impossible at the time they were first described. The reason is that the quasicrystal doesn't have the symmetry that goes with normal crystalline structures. Read The Full Story

Stephen Hawking starts wheelchair geek hunt

Chris Davies, Jan 3rd 2012 Discuss [3]

Professor Stephen Hawking needs help with his wheels, and he's looking for an assistant handy with a spanner, electronics and at fending off the press. The legendary theoretical physicist is advertising for a graduate assistant to offer technical support for his computer-equipped wheelchair, though it promises to be a challenging role: one of the key responsibilities is "maintenance of "black box" systems with no instruction manual or technical support." Read The Full Story

Yellow slime mold may hold the key to bio-computers

Shane McGlaun, Dec 29th 2011 Discuss [2]

A Japanese scientist named Toshiyuki Nakagaki, a professor at the Future University Hakodate, is working with amoeboid yellow slime mold. That sounds gross, but what he is saying about the slime mold is very interesting. Nakagaki says that the simple yellow slime mold might hold the key to designing bio-computers that are capable of solving very complex problems. Read The Full Story

Physicist builds Large Hadron Collider out of Lego

Shane McGlaun, Dec 28th 2011 Discuss [4]

I have seen plenty of photos of the Large Hadron Collider or LHC over the years and it is a very impressive piece of machinery. Apparently, a physicist named Sascha Mehlhase had some time not spent doing actual work to recreate the LHC using Lego bricks. It's a very accurate representation as well. Read The Full Story

SETI to check moon for signs of aliens

Shane McGlaun, Dec 28th 2011 Discuss [1]

It wasn’t that long ago that SETI went offline after funding was pulled. Thankfully, the funding was raised and the search for aliens began again. Apparently, in talks about where to start searching for signs of alien life, the SETI team decided to start close to home. Paul Davies and Robert Wagner from Arizona State University want a crowd-sourced effort to search for artificial structures on the moon. Read The Full Story

Near Earth-size rocky planets may be left over gas giant cores

Shane McGlaun, Dec 27th 2011 Discuss [6]

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has discovered two Earth-sized planets orbiting a very distant star. The two planets are 0.76 and 0.87 times the Earth's radius. The planets are thought to have once been much larger. The smaller rocky planets discovered are believed to be all that's left of once larger gas giant planets. The two planets are the smallest ever discovered orbiting around an active star. Read The Full Story

NASA offers best pics yet of Vesta asteroid

Shane McGlaun, Dec 23rd 2011 Discuss [3]

It has been a while since we talked about the Vesta asteroid and the NASA Dawn spacecraft that went into orbit around the asteroid. The last time we mentioned the Dawn was back in July when Dawn first started to orbit Vesta. NASA has now offered up some of the best photos of the surface of Vesta that have ever been seen. Read The Full Story

Founder of Xerox PARC Jacob Goldman dies at 90

Rue Liu, Dec 22nd 2011 Discuss [15]

Founder and chief scientist of Xerox's renowned Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) Jacob "Jack" Goldman has died at age 90. Goldman has been credited with spearheading many of the technological breakthroughs that are at the core of modern computing and that have been a huge influence on the success of Apple and Microsoft in personal computing. Read The Full Story

Hubble spies evidence of complex organic molecules on Pluto

Shane McGlaun, Dec 22nd 2011 Discuss [3]

When I was a kid Pluto was a planet. It was stripped of planet status and now is called a dwarf planet. The Hubble telescope has found evidence of complex organic molecules on the surface of Pluto. That would certainly give Pluto fans reason to celebrate Pluto again since it's not a planet any more. Read The Full Story

Self-healing electronics are possible thanks to liquid metal capsules

Shane McGlaun, Dec 22nd 2011 Discuss [3]

If you have some sort of circuit board that is bent enough to crack the wires inside that are hiding on the board, your day is over. Once a normal circuit has broken wires, the conduction of signals stops. In the future, that broken wire or connection may not mean the end of being able to use your gear. Scientists at the University of Illinois have developed a cool new self-healing electronic circuit. Read The Full Story

SlashGear Week in Review – Week 50 2011

Shane McGlaun, Dec 18th 2011 Discuss [0]

Welcome to the SlashGear Week in Review for week 50, which means we only have two weeks left in 2011! As usual, a lot has happened this week. HP had a fire sale for more TouchPads on eBay and sold out in minutes. The TouchPads sold for $99 for the 16GB versions and $149 for the 32GB with stock selling out in minutes. We learned early in the week that a pair of drunken RIM executives were placed in cuffs during a commercial flight after they got drunk and caused trouble. The pair of execs later escaped from those cuffs by chewing through them. Read The Full Story

Comet Lovejoy survives pass through sun’s corona

Shane McGlaun, Dec 16th 2011 Discuss [6]

A newly discovered comet dubbed Lovejoy has survived an unbelievably close pass by the sun. The comet actually survived a pass through the sun's corona on December 15. The comet came within 87,000 miles of the surface of the sun. The temperatures in the corna can reach 2 million degrees Fahrenheit according to Space.com. Read The Full Story