Team at Cornell Mucks With Space-Time

 

By: Kareem 

A team of science-types over at that fancy Cornell University have successfully created a device that allows them to create an “event cloak” something that has been theorized for quite some time now.

So what exactly is an “event cloak”? Basically it’s a point in space-time where a gap has been created in order to allow a photon to travel in between, pretty much making it entirely invisible. The idea is that you use time-lenses, which are special lenses designed to compress and decompress light in time. The lenses are able to do this by using something known as an electro-optic modulator. The modulators are used in tandem to slow down (compress) and speed up (decompress) incoming photons. So you shine a light through one side, the photons slow down, you crank the other side and the photons speed up again creating a gap in-between which allows photons to sneak through.

Like a chicken crossing the highway:

Although the team can only trap light for 110 nanoseconds and their best hope is 120 nanoseconds this is still a pretty damned amazing leap for physics. Not only because it can and will make people completely optically invisible, but also because if it’s given enough power the device can ‘disappear’ entire events.

Lets just hope our ass-backwards childish stupid couldn’t-even-pass-a-2nd-grade-science-class military leaders don’t get there hands on it…what they already have? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!

Related stuffs:

• Source: Popular Science
• Article: Metamaterial 'Space-Time Cloak' Conceals Not Just Objects, But Entire Events

Quick Hit: Scientists Grow Brains In Petri Dish

By: Syeed 

Yup you read it right. Brains in a petri dish, pretty crazy ish right? Not only are the brain cells working, they’re capable of storing memories for a short time as well.

The study, carried out at the University of Pittsburg involved taking brains cells from a hippo and a rat and fusing them together with proteins. After being fused the team shut down any inhibitor cells and ran an electrical current through the network of brain cells and successfully replicate some normal brain functions that are akin to memory, albeit to a much lesser extent.

The team, headed up by Henry Zeringue, who is a bioengineering professor at the University’s Swanson School of Engineering, was able to sustain the bust of neural-network activity on the cells for 12 seconds. That’s a pretty long time considering that the natural duration of .25 seconds. Sustaining that activity for such a long time allows researchers to make more extensive observations of how the transmitted neurons held their electrical charge.

Somehow this makes me much less worried about the impeding zombie apocalypse.

Source:

Endeavour Launch Pushed Back To At Least May 10

 

According to NASA,  Shuttle Endeavour might launch May 10th but there is no guarantee.

The shuttle was supposed to launch on Friday April 29th but the launch was cancelled due to a the failure of heaters on a fuel line that was feeding some of the shuttle’s hydraulic power system, according to reports the failure could have caused a fire if it had not been caught before launch.

The problem now seems to be an electronic switch box in one of the shuttle’s engines. The crew at Kennedy Space Center expect to have the box replaced today, but it’s going to take a lot more testing, which will require building and then removing the scaffolding necessary to make the repairs.

NASA says they hope to launch Endeavour on May 10th, but that’s under the assumption there won’t be any problems found during the next few days tests.

Related Stuffs:

• Source: USA Today
• Article: NASA Plans To Launce Endeavour Shuttle April 29th

Scientist Teleport Light

Scientist at the University of Tokyo, led by Noriyuki Lee announced Wednesday that they made the first successful attempt at transporting light.

The teleportation of a light particle is a pretty tough process, the particle has to be destroyed in one place and then re-created in another, which up to this point had only been a theoretical possibility.

The whole process involves a trick known in quantum physics as entanglement. Quantum entanglement in theory, suggests that two particles can be bonded together and communicate they’re properties despite being  separated by large distances of ‘normal’ space.

According to Fox News:

“Lee and his team accomplished this by linking a packet of light to one half of a pair of entangled particles. They then destroyed the light and the particle it was linked to, leaving only the lone particle of the entangled pair. The remaining particle retains the link with its entangled partner, though, including information about the light, which enabled the researchers to rebuild the light in the exact configuration at the other location.”

Although this isn’t anywhere near close to teleporting anything even as large as a flea, whatever the team learns about controlling the quantum world could lead to all sorts of benefits in quantum computing, and energy.

• Source: Fox News
• By : kareem@techsual.com

Virgin Oceanic Plans to Explore the Oceans Depths

 

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Oceanic company announced their plans to go down to the furthest depths of the world oceans for, y’know, science and stuff.

Virgin is using a sub that was originally commissioned by Sir Richard’s friend and fellow adventurer Steve Fossett. Fossett had wanted to complete the first solo dive to the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, which has only been visited by humans once before when two co-pilots (Don Walsh and Jacques Picard) made a brief touchdown in 1960.

Virgin Oceanic is not only planning to dive to the bottom of the Marians trench and call it a day. The company is planning dives over the next 2 years to the deepest parts of all the worlds oceans in an attempt to learn more about the ocean, which has always taken a second seat to space travel in the hearts, minds and pockets of most people and governments. Even Sir Richard conquered the challenge of space travel before going down this path.

The submarine itself is a pretty unique craft, designed by Graham Hawkes its made of 8,000 pounds of carbon fiber and titanium and ‘flies’ through the ocean with a style more akin to a dolphin or a whale than a deep diving vessel, which allows it to be cheaper and easier to pilot than the current submarines in the ocean. It has enough power to to stay out on missions for up to 24 hours unaided, which is good because the dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench alone is estimated to take 5 hours traveling at the subs 350ft per minuet dive speed.

The catamaran that houses the crew and submarine is gigantic, it’s sail is only 24 feet shorter than the top of the Statue of Liberty, it houses a 12 man crew (each has their own room), a small kitchen, a 8,000 pound crane (to lift the sub), the sub itself and the generators to power all it’s computer systems, lights and other electronic equipment.

I personally cant wait to see what they find on these dives, not just to the Mariana Trench but to all the other places as well, with all the capabilities in todays sensors, monitors and cameras, the mission will, at the very least give us pictures of new fish and other ocean fairing creatures we would otherwise never be able to see.

Source: Virgin Oceanic.com

NASA Leaves Network at Risk

According to a report by Paul K, Martin, the inspector general for NASA. The agency has gaping flaws in their security that could potentially put lives at risk.

The report is dated March 28, 2011 and points out flaws found in their servers during a security audit. According to the report it was easy to gain access encrypted passwords, encryption keys and user account information from the internet that potential attackers could use to degrade or cripple NASA’s operations.

The audit also states that NASA had been warned to upgrade their security by implementing an IT oversight program after last years audit, and that even though they agreed with the request, the had failed to implement new security as of FEB 2011.

Source: PC world

Report

First Practical Artificial Leaf Released

A research team at MIT lead by Dr. Daniel Nocera released the worlds first practical artificial leaf today at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, California.

This is not the first artificial leaf however, but it is the first practical one. A man named John Turner, of the U.S National Renewable Energy Laboratory made an artificial leaf over ten years ago, it was not however, the least bit practical. It used costly metals and could only last one day.

The leaf being developed at MIT is reportedly capable of supplying a house in a developing country with enough energy to last a day, but unlike the previous effort by Turner, Nocera’s leaf is made of silicon. with nickel and cobalt catalysts. Which are pretty common and very cheap materials to mass produce. Using the leaf, according to Nocera is as easy as placing it in a gallon of water in bright sunlight. All one would need to do after that is connect it to a fuel cell on the top of, or beside their home and just like that cheap power.

The MIT team is reporting 45 hours of battery life in lab conditions without a single drop in activity. According to Nocera it’s the new discovery of Nickel and Cobalt catalysts that allow his leaves to be 10 times more efficient than a natural leaf.

According to Nocera "A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades" so this is no small accomplishment. Nocera has started a company called Sun Catalytix to further develop the technology.

Source: Gizmag

New Tech Allows Border Agents to Detect Lying Liars

 

 

A group of researchers from the University of Arizona are working on a new system that would allow border agents to detect possible threats with more accuracy.

The machine is called AVATAR, which is an acronym for Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments. It’s about the size of an ATM and is apparently pretty good at judging whether people are lying or not by staring into their soul.

I kid of course, AVATAR uses HD cameras with infrared sensors and a microphone to capture and measure a persons facial expressions. According to it’s designers AVATAR uses the eyes as it’s main focal point for judging truthfulness, apparently eye dilation and movement are the two most common signs of a lying liar.

The scans aren’t expected to be totally accurate, results can be skewed from medical conditions or medication. Meaning it will have to be used in conjunction with a human agent in order to prevent false positives.

AVATAR is currently in it’s testing phase, it’s part of the Department of Homeland Security Center for Excellence in Border Security and Immigration project.

I can’t wait, it makes perfect sense to be this paranoid about foreign terrorism in a country that gets attacked by them about once every 5-10 years. It’s not like we could have used that money for say…I don’t know… better education or something.

Source: physorg

University of Illinois Working on Improving Mobile Battery Life

 

A team of engineers at the university of Illinois have are developing a new form of memory that could increase battery life in cell phones and laptops by 100x.

The group is led by electrical and computer engineering professor Eric Pop, and  plan to release their findings in an upcoming issue of Science magazine and online in the Science Express.

The new technology uses carbon nanotubes to make a devices flash memory so small that it draws 100 times less energy than current tech.

Check the link for an article over at Nanotechnology Now.

Article: New Technology Would Dramatically Extend Battery Life for Mobile Devices

President Meets With Technology Leaders

President Obama met with the heads of Google, Facebook, Oracle, Twitter, Yahoo and others today.

The president said he wants to encourage businesses to be more innovative, and hopes meeting top innovators such as Steve Jobs and Mark Zukerberg is a food place to start.

The meeting took place in California and comes after the presidents visit to an Intel chip fabrication plant.

I hope the president continues this push for more Americans to take interest in science and innovation. It’s pretty much the only way we can fix our economy in my opinion.

Biggest Solar Blast in Four Years Heading to Earth

A solar blast erupted late on Monday is heading toward earth. The flare is the largest to erupt since 2006.

NOAA forecasters estimate that there is a 45% chance of activity when the effects of the flare hit Earth’s magnetic field this Thursday. That means there’s a pretty good chance we can see some pretty interesting colors in the sky that night.

Watson Whoops A$$ in Jeopardy

 

 

I just finished watching IBM’s supercomputer Watson dominated the best of the best Jeopardy champions tonight.

Watson one last nights round hands down and tonight was no different, I don’t recall the exact numbers but Watson correctly answered 24 out of 30 questions and only got one wrong. Tomorrow is the final round, but it seems like Watson is just getting smarter as the games continue so I’ll be surprised if either Ken Jennings or Brad Rutter get a chance to buzz in tomorrow night.

Here’s a video of last nights game.

Car Train Gets First Road Test

The BBC ran a report today about a new technology that link vehicles into "road trains" had it's first tests on Volvo's test track in Sweden.

The technology is allows for a train of cars to be under the control of a single lead driver in order to cut fuel use, boost safety and hopefully cut congestion.

Researchers hope to have platoons of car trains cruising around Europe within the decade.

Hit the link for the full article.
Article: 'Road Train' Technology Trials Get Rolling

Tiny Silicon Chip Uses Quantum Physics to Slow Light Down

Scientist have built an optical device smaller than a dime that slows light down to 155 miles per second, the slowest ever imagined on a chip.
The tiny chip works by using some sort of scientific wizardry I could never hope to understand.
Check the article by Sandeep Ravindran over at wired science.

Tiny Silicon Chip Uses Quantum Physics to Slow Light Down