From Live Science: “…a team headed by Dr. Moshe Shoham of Haifa’s Technion has created a novel propulsion system for a miniature robot to travel through the spinal canal, powering through cerebrospinal fluid.”
Tag: science
Not just lemon juice
Two Michigan State University researchers have unlocked the secret invisible-ink formula used by the former East Germany secret police, the Stasi: The Stasi’s technique of transferring top-secret messages worked like a piece of carbon paper. An agent would place a piece of paper impregnated with the chemical cerium oxalate between two pieces of plain paper. …
The 2006 Ig Nobel Prizes
Scientists have a pop-culture reputation as either a) boring or b) mad. That they are not necessarily the former (although, based on the evidence, the jury is still out on the latter) was proven once again last month with the annual awarding of the Ig Nobel Prizes “for research which first makes you laugh, then …
The Biology of B-Movie Monsters
I can’t believe I hadn’t come across this until now (but then, the World Wide Web is a rather large place [if it’s a place at all (and how many paranthetical [like this] statements can one put in a single sentence, anyway?)]): Michael C. LaBarbera, a University of Chicago biologist, has taken a scientific look …
This sounds very promising:
From Scientific American: Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a new, carbon-neutral way to convert vegetable-based fuels to syngas, a breakthrough that could allow producers to power hydrogen fuel cells or create a replacement for America’s dwindling supplies of natural gas, all without relying on fossil fuels. Read the rest. (Via Transterrestrial Musings.)
Antimatter: not just for powering warp drives any more
Turns out it also kills cancer.
The Viking landers may have found life on Mars…
…but weren’t sensitive enough to detect it. Turns out the Viking instruments can’t even detect life on Earth!
Using science to disprove ghosts, vampires and zombies…
…as a University of Central Florida physics professor has done–is a silly game. As if people who believe in ghosts and vampires in the first place are going to be put off by scientific arguments to the contrary. It’s like saying magic can’t exist because it’s not science. Well, no, it’s not, but that’s the …
Unreal science
My wife and I spent the weekend at ConVersion, Calgary’s annual science fiction convention. Featured this year were David Weber as Guest of Honor, Larry Niven as Special Guest of Honor, and R. Scott Bakker as Canadian Guest of Honor and Jeremy Bulloch, who played Boba Fett in the original Star Wars trilogy, as Media …
The next X-Prize
Remember the X-Prize, the $10 million (U.S.) reward offered to any team that could create a privately funded-and-built spacecraft capable of lifting three humans to a sub-orbital altitude of 100 kilometres on two consecutive flights within two weeks? Of course you do. One of the 23 competing teams, the daVinci Project, was supposedly poised to …
Advances in apples
If “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” it’s rather surprising there’s still a need for doctors, considering Canadians consume around 11 kg of apples per person per year. They can choose from a bewildering array of apple cultivars, too (more than 7,500 are known), from the crisp and tart (Macintosh) to the soft …
Anti-fogging nanoparticles
Those of you who don’t wear glasses don’t know how lucky you are. I’ve been a contact-wearer now for many years, but from the time I was about five until I was almost thirty I wore glasses, and I the most annoying thing about them was their inclination to fog up the minute you came …
My latest live walk and vlog
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