Maybe! Scientists have discovered where the missing half of “normal matter” in the universe may be hiding. Of course, “normal” matter only makes up four percent of the universe’s entire matter-energy budget. Twenty-three percent comes from “dark” matter–we still don’t know what that is–and the rest from “dark energy”–which we have even less of a …
Well, this is good news for those of us whose pictures can no longer be filed under the heading “Chicken, Spring”: The long-held belief that older people perform slower and worse than younger people has been proven wrong. In a study published today in Neuron, psychologists from McMaster University discovered that the ageing process actually …
Here’s another story on the new method of adding computer-generated images to video in real time. It includes a link to an 80MB AVI video showing the system in action…and now so have I.
Scientists have created an obedient measles virus that targets cancer cells, and not healthy cells. Sounds promising, though a human therapy is still years away…
This sounds promising: a new approach to battling viral infections that could eliminate (or at least lessen) the problem of viruses adapting to the drug over time. The focus is on smallpox, but it sounds like it could work with any virus.
Oh, yeah, this is going to be a BIG seller: a nagging computer that keeps track of your daily activities and then alters a five-years-in-the-future digital image of yourself to show you how fat/flabby/wrinkled/stooped your current lifestyle is likely to make you. Yeah, people are going to LOVE that.
A new technology could make it possible to combine computer-generated images with live TV images on the fly.
Paradoxically enough, sometimes “big science” involves very small objects. Particle accelerators are one good example. Another is the burgeoning field of nanotechnology: the technology of very small things. January was a very big month for very small things at the University of Toronto, with two related announcements about a new breakthrough that could give us …
I like musical theatre. I enjoyed The Phantom of the Opera on stage (not as much as, say, Chicago, but I enjoyed it). I was kind of thinking of going to see the movie version if I got the chance. Suzy McKee Charnas has some good reasons why I needn’t bother.
OK, I’ve definitely been watching too much Star Trek, but still, you gotta admit that a body-scanning holographic imager sounds like something that belongs in a Federation starship, not a clothing store!
An idea whose time has come (?): caffeinated beer. (May require registration.)
A while back I noted the similarity to Star Trek‘s tricorders of devices that could read DNA “bar codes” to identify different species; here’s another invention that has a definite tricorder feel to it. Alternatively, it could be I’ve simply watched too much Star Trek…
