…literally, if the walls are part of an installation using neural software that can pick out suspicious sounds–gun shots, say, or breaking glass–from a noisy environment.
Category: Blog
Giant structures could point way to ET
Maybe listening for radio signals is the wrong way to find extra-terrestrials; a better method might be to look for giant artificial structures–and new telescopes will give us the ability to do it.
“Musseling” in on the glue industry
Since all of my science columns are online, I frequently get questions out of the blue about past column topics. This week, for example, I received an e-mail from a mother whose nine-year-old had decided to do a third-grade science project on glue. They’d found my column on the topic from a decade ago, and …
This satellite makes house calls
A new U.S. Air Force satellite has been launched to do something no one has ever tried before: seek out and inspect other satellites in orbit. It may visit as many as eight satellites during its mission, maneuvering around them and taking pictures. This could lead to a new breed of service satellites that can …
Let’s see, in 25 years I’ll only be 70…
According to Aubrey de Grey, if you can hang on for another 25 years, you have a decent chance of living to be 1,000–or more. I’m not holding my breath. (Well, obviously, because if I hold my breath, I definitely won’t make it another 25 years, will I?)
Not a B movie
“Science’s Doomsday Team vs. the Asteroids” is a fascinating–and slightly frightening–tale about the discovery of the asteroid that’s going to miss us–but only by a little bit–in 2029, but may still have an explosive rendezvous with the planet sometime after that.
Paging Lee Majors…
A bionic suit has been developed that could help older or disabled people walk or lift heavy objects. It’s called HAL, for hybrid assistive limb. They’re up to HAL 3, so far. Gee, I wonder what the HAL 9000 will look like? (If you get that reference, I’m afraid you’re a fellow geek. Or possibly …
Jazz treasures unearthed
Long-forgotten recordings by jazz superstars Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Ray Charles and the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra, never before heard in the U.S., have been unearthed in the Library or Congress. Cool.
Japanese scientists plan to resurrect woolly mammoths
Scientists in Japan want to find sperm DNA in a frozen woolly mammoth carcass, use it to fertilize an elephant egg, and thus bring back a version of an animal that went extinct 10,000 years ago. Critics are, to say the least, dubious.
Lots of earthlike planets possible
A new study suggests that half of the known planetary systems outside our own could have Earth-sized planets in habitable orbits–which certainly bodes well for the possibility the galaxy is teeming with them.
Computing textual emotion
When you read or hear a piece of text–say, a science column–you automatically analyze it for its tone: positive, negative, happy, excited, etc. Increasingly, computers are being programmed to do exactly the same thing. Large organizations of all kinds like to keep track of what the media are saying about them, but it’s a time-consuming, …
Light blogging alert
Blogging will continue to be light to non-existant over the next few days as Globe Theatre rehearsals and ridiculously overlapping writing deadlines combine. But don’t worry, I haven’t gone away. I’m sure that’s a relief.
My latest live walk and vlog
Buy Autographed Books
