With the advent of commercial satellite imaging, it has become possible to track developments that were once exclusively the domain of space and spy agencies. Groups like the Federation of...
Cassini sheds light on Saturn’s 30- and 300-year mysteries
This week, data from NASA's Cassini probe has shed light on a couple of the stranger features of Saturn, providing answers to questions that were raised years ago. In terms...
Sharing a quantum key via the possibility of communication
Quantum key distribution is something of a white knight in shining armor at the moment. Press releases tend to breathlessly announce how the process is absolutely secure thanks to the laws...
Genes vs. environment and the role of genomic “dark matter”
The argument over the relative weight of nature and nurture—genes vs. the environment—has a history that predates anything that even resembles formal biology. With the advent of molecular biology and...
Awesome 3D achievement, not so awesome technology
3D is, as far as I am concerned, the next big step in display technology. But current-generation 3D technology need not apply—you can take your 100'' LCDs, plasma displays, and OMNIMAX...
MIT mobilized crowd with cash to win DARPA Network Challenge
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched a contest this month to celebrate the 40th anniversary of ARPANet, the first packet switching network. The contest, called the DARPA Network Challenge,...
Printed capacitors with carbon nanotube ink and Xerox paper
Graphene and carbon nanotubes have a combination of excellent electrical properties and light weight that may eventually revolutionize electronics and energy storage technologies. But for now, most of their applications...
Calculating how to tell atoms where to send their photons
If you had asked me yesterday morning if there was any room left to play with the theory that governs the spontaneous emission properties of simple atoms, I would have said...
Weird Science fails to locate a porn-free control group
The failure to identify a control group should probably tell us something: This is little more than a press release on some research in progress. Still, even before...
Internet-addicted youth engage in other forms of self-injury
The potential for some users to go overboard when it comes to being online has been obvious since the days when being online meant dialing in to a BBS. In...
Leaked climate docs: the schools involved investigate
The infamous trove of documents hacked from the University of East Anglia's Climactic Research Unit (CRU) has now prompted the head of the group to temporarily stand aside as university administrators...
