Sometime in the next few decades, humans may be able to regrow a finger here, a toe there – and maybe even fresh patches of beating heart tissue. Human hearts are among the most promising targets: “Fifteen years ago we would have said 50 years, but it could be as soon as 10 years from …
A research team from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Faculty of Engineering has created efficient artificial, or “robotic” muscles, which could carry a weight 80 times its own and able to extend to five times its original length when carrying the load – a first in robotics. The team’s invention will pave the way …
A team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering have solved a problem that previously presented a serious hurdle for the use of graphene in electronic devices. Graphene is a single-atom thick carbon crystal with unique properties beneficial for electronics including extremely high electron mobility and phonon thermal conductivity. However, …
Microsoft will pay EUR 3.79 billion to purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, and EUR 1.65 billion to license Nokia’s patents, for a total transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion in cash. Microsoft will draw upon its overseas cash resources to fund the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the …
China has far more ambitious near and mid term space program objectives than NASA does at this time. NASA is sending a robotic orbiter. China is sending a lunar rover. If China can keep to its timetable they plan to have a manned lunar mission in 2017. This would be 48 years after NASA. However, …
Frederik George Pohl was an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy-five years — from his first published work, the 1937 poem “Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna”, through the 2011 novel All the Lives He Led and articles and essays published in 2012. From about 1959 until 1969, …
Diana Nyad is a 64 year old swimmer. She completed a Cuba to Florida swim without a cage. One of the big problems with the swim are the jellyfish. She has been using a mask and a suit and a gel to protect her from the jellyfish. If you liked this article, please give it …
There is a new book that reviews The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and our gamble over Earth’s future. Ehrlich’s population bomb was first dropped in the pages of New Scientist on 14 December 1967. His article, entitled “Paying the Piper”, began: “The battle to feed humanity is over… Sometime between 1970 and 1985 the …
The Carnival of Space 317 is up at Urban Astronomer. Too Hot to Swallow: New Chandra results help explain why gas near the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole is so faint in X-rays. Nextbigfuture space submissions A ten thousand person colonization space ship design is proposed with a focus on how the community and living …
NASA partner Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) of Louisville, Colo., successfully completed a captive-carry test of the Dream Chaser spacecraft Thursday, Aug. 22, at the agency’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif. During the 2-hour test, an Erickson Air-Crane helicopter picked up a test version of the Dream Chaser flight vehicle and flew it a …
On Thursday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it “could be at the verge” of a breakthrough to allow vehicles to communicate with each other and “transform the nation’s surface transportation safety, mobility and environmental performance.” The NHTSA has just completed a yearlong test in Ann Arbor, Mich., with 3,000 cars, trucks, and buses …