Ben Coxworth
Getting inside the mind of a terrorist to prevent attacks
Recently, students from Northwestern University in Illinois planned a terrorist attack. Researchers from the university were subsequently able to learn details of the attack, even though the students never admitted to anything. How was this possible? Well, essentially, the researchers read the students’ minds. More specifically, they monitored their P300 brain waves – brief electrical patterns in the cortex, which occur when meaningful information is presented to someone with “guilty knowledge.” In this case, it was a mock planned attack, but the research team believe their process could be used to prevent the real thing. Read More
A vegetarian diet, according to its proponents, has a lighter ecological footprint, reduced resource impacts, and lower carbon emissions than the non-vegetarian equivalent. A new fast-casual vegetarian restaurant chain, however, is taking “eating green” to a whole new level. Otarian, which already has locations in New York and opens in London this Friday, is the first global chain to carbon footprint all of its menu items according to the internationally recognized PAS 2050 standard. Not only can diners see the carbon figures for each item listed on the menu, but foods that generate too large of a footprint are simply not offered. The restaurant is also testing out the World Resources Institute's new product carbon foot printing standard, which Otarian claims “will help diners to understand the environmental impact of their food choices in a highly measurable and quantifiable way.” Read More
Augmented Reality, or AR, is currently one of the hot areas for mobile app development – for some reason, people seem quite smitten with the idea of being able to point their mobile device’s camera at a street, and having information about the buildings and businesses that appear on their screen superimposed over the images in real time. Now, a prototype mobile AR device is being tested, that concentrates more on topography than urban exploration. The Marmota mobile AR can tell you things like what the names of those mountain peaks over there are, what their elevation is, and how far away they are. Read More
Cleverly designed laptop stands save your back
Laptop computers are appropriately named, as they do sit nicely on your lap. If you’ve ever tried using one down there, however, you’ll know that it’s not the most ergonomic set-up imaginable – you have to bend your head down, keep your knees up, and feel your thighs getting toasty warm from the computer-generated heat that is evidently not able to disperse into the air. In order to position laptops in other ways, various companies have offered laptop stands to put on your desk, devices for turning your lap itself into a desk-like computer workspace, gizmos that allow you to swivel your laptop over from the passenger seat of your car, or that let you use it beside your bed. If only there was one that held your laptop in front of you while you were lying on your back... there is, of course, and Hong Kong-based company Omax has a variety of them to choose from. Read More
Last month, we told you about an experiment with air-purifying concrete that was recently conducted in the Netherlands. Researchers resurfaced 1,000 square meters of a busy road with concrete paving stones that contained titanium dioxide (TiO2), a photocatalytic material that removes automobile-produced nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the air and converts them into nitrate with the aid of sunlight. When the air was tested up to one-and-a-half meters above those stones, NOx levels were found to be 25 to 45 percent lower than above regular concrete on the same road. Now, a similar study is underway in Germany, and is already showing promising results. Read More
Traditionally, when someone wished to measure the total power delivered by a laser beam, they had to use something called a ball calorimeter. As the laser heated the interior of the ball, temperature readings would be taken. Now, however, a system has been created that utilizes reusable glass boards. It can measure a laser's total energy along with the total power and power density anywhere inside the beam more than one hundred times per second. It should be a boon to developers of high-energy laser weapons, as it will reduce the time required for testing, and get the weapons in the field faster. Read More
Imagine if all the windows of a building, and perhaps even all its exterior walls, could be put to use as solar collectors. Soon, you may not have to imagine it, as the Norweigan solar power company EnSol has patented a thin film solar cell technology designed to be sprayed on to just such surfaces. Unlike traditional silicon-based solar cells, the film is composed of metal nanoparticles embedded in a transparent composite matrix, and operates on a different principle. EnSol is now developing the product with help from the University of Leicester’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. Read More
This may be hard to believe, but driving a real race car is actually not all that much like sitting on the couch and watching your TV. It’s a lot louder, shakier, and just generally a lot more immersive - qualities that are emulated by the VRX iMotion racing simulator. This man-boy’s toy features an Italian Sparco racing seat, customizable Clubsport accelerator, brake and clutch pedals, a force feedback steering wheel, a Bose 5-speaker surround sound system designed for 5.1-encoded games, and three-screen-wide NVIDIA GeForce 3D Surround Vision. Best of all, it also utilizes the D-BOX Motion Code, that uses an actuator to tilt and shake the cockpit according to what’s happening in the game. Read More
The Honda Civic hybrid gets approximately 45 mpg on the highway, while the similarly-sized 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco gets 40 mpg. That's pretty decent on the Chevy’s part, considering it isn’t even a hybrid. Of course, because it isn’t a hybrid, that means it doesn’t sport a hybrid’s price tag - the Cruze Eco will start at $US18,895, as opposed to the Honda’s $23,800. So, how is it possible for a combustion-engined car to almost match a hybrid’s fuel efficiency? Well, lowering the weight and the ride height help a bit, but according to Chevrolet, the real reason lies in the car’s unique front air shutter system. Read More
Scientists create a multitool for working with nanoparticles
If you had to sort a bunch of nanoparticles by size, what would you use? A microscope, tweezers, and a very finely-calibrated caliper? Actually, you’d probably use the nanofluidic “multi-tool” created by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US. Before you start picturing a teeny-tiny Leatherman, which would admittedly be pretty cool, you should be aware that the NIST device is more like a coin separator, that sorts your nickels, dimes and quarters. In this case, however, they would be nickels, dimes and quarters that are smaller than a bacterium. Read More
