Ben Coxworth
It’s a sad fact of life that as we age, our cognitive skills decline. In particular, the “executive function” of our mind diminishes – this function is a key aspect of our memory, attention, perception, and problem solving skills. There may be help, however. Scientists from the University of Iowa are now claiming that by playing a specific video game, test subjects aged 50 and over were able to stop and even reverse the trend. Read More
With the nasty tendency of its airborne fibers to cause lung cancer, the installation of asbestos building insulation has been banned in many countries for some time now. A lot of buildings still have the insulation, however, the fibers of which can get stirred up when work such as renovations or demolition are being performed. In order to help protect the people performing such work, scientists at the University of Hertfordshire have developed what they say is the world’s first portable, real-time detector of airborne asbestos. Read More
Well, our cyberpunk-weapons-making friend Patrick Priebe has been at it again. Having previously built things like a gauss rifle, a rotary-blade-shooting crossbow and an Iron Man laser gauntlet, he recently let us know about his latest creation – the video game-based Plasma Cutter. Read More
A lot of kids don’t like having to put on their pajamas, as doing so means that it’s time to go to bed. If those jammies had bedtime stories digitally hidden within them, though – well, maybe then the kiddies couldn’t wait to get them on. That’s the idea behind Smart PJs. Read More
If you went into a store without any cash, cards or mobile devices, would you be able to buy anything? Well, if both you and the store were using the new PayTouch service, the answer would be yes – all that you’d need to do is place two of your fingers on the fingerprint scanners of the PayTouch terminal. Read More
Contrary to what certain cartoons may have us believe, insects’ compound eyes don’t produce a grid of tiny identical images. Instead, each of their many optical facets supply one unique section of a single composite image – sort of like the individual pixels that make up one digital image. Now, a team of scientists has replicated that eye structure, to create an ultra-wide-angle camera. Read More
When someone is feeling sick, you take their temperature to see if they’re running a fever. That’s the way it’s been for decades. However, all that a regular thermometer will tell you is their body temperature – it won’t tell you what they might have, or what you should do. The Kinsa Smart Thermometer, while not quite a medical tricorder, is designed to do those things. Read More
We keep hearing about how smartwatches may replace – or at least augment – the smartphone, but how would you type on that tiny display? In some cases, where the watch is linked to a smartphone in your bag or pocket, you could just use the phone’s screen. For stand-alone smartwatches or quick messages, however, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created the ZoomBoard system. Read More
One of the things that makes heart disease so problematic is the fact that after a heart attack occurs, the scar tissue that replaces the damaged heart tissue isn’t capable of expanding and contracting – it doesn’t “beat,” in other words. This leaves the heart permanently weakened. Now, however, scientists from Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have developed artificial heart tissue that may ultimately provide a solution to that problem. Read More
People have come to expect “making-of” documentaries to be included when they watch a movie on DVD or Blu-ray. Thanks to research being conducted in the UK, similar expectations may soon be coming to the viewing of paintings. The experimental Repentir app is currently allowing users to digitally remove layers of British artist Nathan Walsh’s “Transamerica” painting, to see how he put it together. Read More
