Well, no, not exactly; just good old-fashioned gravity, of the kind exerted by a spacecraft with a goodly supply of mass. But on an incoming asteroid, the effect would be the same…given enough time.

It’s in the works, and could one day lead to superfast robots–or superstrong artificial limbs.

A team at Stanford has figured out a way to focus blurry digital photographs—after they’ve been taken.

It has to be if this amazing new energy source* works as advertised. But that’s a big “if.” But then again, “What if…?” We’ll know soon enough. *…a new source of near-limitless power that costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of water as its fuel and produces next to no waste…

The weekend before last my wife and I attended the International Wine and Food Festival at the Banff Springs Hotel. (A dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.) At the event, top wine makers from around the world led 250 attendees through tastings of some of their offerings. Among the guests on hand was …

Continue reading

Sounds science-fictional (which is why I noticed it, of course)–but they’re coming.

French diving archeologists have discovered the foundation of the ancient lighthouse of Pharos in Alexandria, the seventh wonder of the world. (Via Archaeoblog.)

…are better than men, a University of Bradford study suggests. “Women seem to realise that they are being asked to do something new much more quickly than men. Men tend to blindly carry on with the original task.” Which presumably translates into women being less likely than men to plough into things.

Gigantic Apes Coexisted with Early Humans, Study Finds.

Thanks to recent discoveries using multispectral imaging, you can now take a trip to the black hole at the center of our galaxy, courtesy of Andrew J. Hanson of the University of Indiana. It’s one of several examples of virtual astronomy on his website. (Via The Corner).

Maybe we actually have a taste sensor for fat.

This ought to be interesting: Almost four decades ago, Stanley Kubrick gathered the world’s scientific minds and asked them to predict the future. Their thoughts would then form the opening sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, his epic about a mission to Jupiter which becomes a life or death battle between the space crew and …

Continue reading