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• Quantum Trapping Could Give Us a Really Expensive and Impractical Hoverboard (but probably won’t)

  In Science

  

  In this video, scientists from Tel Aviv University demonstrate an interesting phenomenon called “quantum trapping”. The system that they use is comprised of two parts: a superconductor and a permanent magnet. If you put them both together and you get nothing special, but if you cool the superconductor with liquid nitrogen, things get really interesting. The cold distorts the magnetic field to such an extent that the superconductor is trapped in space. While it would, [...]

   

• The Earth Might Have Nearly Been Destroyed in 1883

  In Science

  

  It seems that way back in the pre-Internet days of 1883, life as we know it almost came to an abrupt end. An astronomer in Mexico named José Bonilla spotted hundreds of objects passing in front of the sun – they appeared fuzzy and not just because he was staring at the sun through a telescope. It turns out what he saw might have been a comet that weighed somewhere between a billion and a [...]

   

• Cell Phones Reveal Shameful Truth About British Personal Hygiene

  In Phones, Science

  

  It shouldn’t be news that phones are filthy, there have been reports that have demonstrated that most stuff that people handle ends up with an invisible sheen of Escherichia coli, or E coli as it is commonly known. What is interesting is that the same study demonstrated that British people tend to lie about their personal hygiene habits – the proof: the crud that was scraped off their phones. Researchers said that 16% of the [...]

   

• Tiny white dot in the sky to be slightly visible with binoculars

  In Outdoors, Science

  

  But only for two days. A dying star that exploded 21 million years ago (not Ke$ha) has sent its light across space and will be visible from Earth under good weather conditions and with some decent binoculars or at least a 3″ aperture telescope. The supernova, cryptically named “PTF11kly” by people who know how to name supernovas better than we do (I’d have called it George, Barry or Antoine…) is a type 1a and is [...]

   

• The Best Picture of Saturn You Will See All Day [Space]

  In Science

  

  The picture that you see above is real, taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft – Saturn eclipsing the Sun and making our puny (but habitable) Earth look totally insignificant. Enjoy, and if you want a bigger picture, NASA has you covered. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn drifted in giant planet’s shadow for about 12 hours in 2006 and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night [...]

   

• Your View of the Perseid Meteor Shower Sucked Compared to This One [NASA]

  In Science

  

  Annual meteor showers are cool and everything, but with a full moon and a cloudy night sky (at least over here) going outside late at night to look up would have been a fruitless exercise. The astronauts in the ISS, on the other hand, look to have had an enviable view. [Discovery]

   

• After cold fusion, Italy brings us antimatter from space

  In Breaking News, Science

  

    OK, maybe not actually bring antimatter back from space. Last year, Italian scientists brought us cold fusion. Although we’ve yet to see a cold fusion reactor powered Suzuki Sidekick, there are high hopes that eventually, cold fusion could be used to power everything from electric razors, to Maseratis, to live decapitated squid. Now, for their next trick, Italian scientists find antimatter trapped in space within the Earth’s magnetic field. Physicists long theorized that there [...]

   

• Date Rape Drug Detector Works Well and May Be Getting Better

  In Science, Security

  

  A pair of Israeli scientists from Tel Aviv University’s school of chemistry has created a device that can test a drink to detect whether it has been spiked with common date rape drugs. The device, which looks like a straw or swizzle stick, sucks up a small sample of the drink, mixes it wit ha testing solution – a positive hit causes the stick to change color and a red light to go on (in [...]

   

• Possible saltwater on Mars

  In Science

  

  Scientists with NASA have announced this morning, that they may have found evidence of saltwater on Mars. At a news conference, they explained that the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has taken some photos of white traces, which suggest such water exists, the traces seem to appear in the spring and fade in the winter. These water flows are near the equator where warmer temperatures favor the formation of liquid water. They [...]

   

• Predator-style Cloaking Devices Possibly Coming Really Soon

  In Science, Technology

  

  Martin McCall and Paul Kinsler, two physicists at Imperial College London published an article in this month’s issue of Physics World in which they discussed the physics involved in the creation of a predator–style cloaking device. Now, a group of researchers at Cornell University have started experimenting with a different means of achieving the same results. Alexander Gaeta and colleagues use a technique that involves the use of two “split time lenses” (STL’s). How it [...]

   

• Jell-O, The Next Soylent Green?

  In Science

  

  Gelatin is some pretty cool stuff: it gives us Jell-O, which is pretty cool and is a crucial ingredient in some cheesecakes, which is even better. For the most part the gelatin that we use comes from animals but now some people are concerned that using animal gelatin could be an infection vector and that the human variety would be a little bit safer. How are they going to make it? Not the good old [...]

   

• Scientists Predict Another Solar Maunder Minimum.

  In Op-Ed, Science

  

  According to three separate studies released in the United States earlier this week, the sun might be sputtering up its last few flares for a while. The studies show that the absence of a jet stream, fading spots and some missing solar activity, might point towards a longer period of calmness than the usual 11 year solar minimum. In fact, the last (and only recorded) Maunder Minimum, lasted 70 years, between 1645 and 1715 when only [...]