• New portal to serve as a forum for the Arab world's scientific community

    The Arab world has a rich and impressive history of scientific inquiry, and during the Golden Age of science Arab scientists contributed great discoveries and inventions such as algebra, optics, medicine, and many others; indeed, for more than 500 years Arabic was the language of science; for a variety of historical and political reasons, the Arab world lost the position of scientific preeminence it had enjoyed, but the potential of the Arab world’s contribution to science has not disappeared, and the prestigious journal Nature has recognized this fact by launching a new portal, Nature Middle East

  • DARPA awards additional $11 million for video search technology

    As a result of advancements in intelligence gathering technologies (think UAVs), the U.S. military and intelligence community have been accumulating video archives over the past decade which make YouTube look puny; it is not only the number of pictures, but their quality: mere HD movies and TV are small and tightly compressed compared to the high resolution, full-motion imagery which pours in like an avalanche from every Predator or Reaper drone — and dozens of these surveillance drones are airborne above southwest Asia every minute of every day; DARPA is looking for an effective, automated video search technology

  • New smell sensor uses genetically engineered frog eggs

    Researchers use genetically engineered frog cells to develop a sensor that detects gasses; the researchers embedded the sensor into a mannequin, so that it could shake its head when a gas was detected, making it easier to observe

  • Shape-shifting UAV for maritime search and rescue missions

    Use of morphing flight surfaces has enabled the development of a shape-shifting UAV that can operate in extreme weather conditions; cutting-edge avionics ensure a smooth flight for extended rescue and surveillance missions, while reducing risks to material and crews

  • Flying robotic arm can pick up bombs, packages

    A helicopter equipped with a robotic hand picks up small objects; the robotic arm could be used in spots that are difficult for ground robots to get to, such as high or roughly terrained places; it could also be used to pick up bombs or packages

  • Earthquake-proof bed patented

    A Chinese inventor patented a design for an earthquake-proof bed; if your house collapses on top of you, the bed’s thick frame can support a roof — and the extra space inside its thick boards can store essential foodstuffs like canned goods and life sustaining water

  • End-of-world anti-Hadron Collider case thrown out on appeal

    Walter L Wagner, a cantankerous botanist from Hawaii, has been waging a battle against the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for more than two years now, claiming that the continuing operation of the powerful particle accelerator risks bringing about doomsday by creating a large black hole which would swallow Earth; he sued to have the LHC operation stopped, but a court says that Wagner is basing his motion on “speculative fear of future harm,” and that such fear “does not constitute an injury in fact sufficient to confer standing”; moreover, “— the alleged injury, destruction of the earth, is in no way attributable to the U.S. government’s failure to draft an environmental impact statement”

  • Elevated super bus to solve Beijing's traffic woes

    Beijing and Mexico City vie for the title of the city with the worst traffic jams in the world; Beijing is now looking at an elevated “super bus” as a possible solution; the bus travels on rails and straddles two lanes of traffic, allowing cars to drive under its passenger compartment, which holds up to 1,400 people

  • "Smart Potty": medical check ups, automatic seat-lowering

    Japanese “intelligent” toilets offer users an array of functions — heated seats, water jets with pressure and temperature controls, hot-air bottom dryers, perfume bursts, ambient background music, and noise-masking audio effects for the easily embarrassed; the latest model also offers instant health check-up every time a user answers the call of nature

  • Testing rayguns

    Technologies for using laser energy to destroy threats at a distance — these weapons known as directed energy weapons — have been in development for many years; before these weapons can be used in the field, the lasers must be tested and evaluated at test ranges, and the power and energy distribution of the high-energy laser beam must be accurately measured on a target board, with high spatial and temporal resolution

  • Tracking algorithms for multiple targets win Australia's prestigious Eureka Prize

    A University of Western Australia team — including two borthers who are professors at the school — have won the Eureka Prizes, Australia’s “science Oscars,” for a tracking system that has revolutionized the surveillance and monitoring of potential threats in the vast air, sea, and land space of Australia — and of other countries

  • DARPA looking for VTOL UAV to plant covert spy devices

    The Pentagon is looking for a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) UAV/UASs - or V-Bat - which will autonomously plant such surveillance devices as remote cameras/bugs, communications relays, marker beacons, small battery powered ground-crawler, or inside-buildings flying robots

  • DARPA funds giant space nets to scoop up space trash

    One legacy of the space age is the growing amount of debris — defunct satellites, fragments of rockets, and any unused object originally built and launched by humans — accumulating in space; currently there are 2,465 identified objects of more than two kilograms in low Earth orbit, and these objects threaten projects such as the space elevator; a futuristic company proposes collecting the debris with a dozen space vehicles, each equipped with 200 nets, which would scoop up the debris and then either fling them into the South Pacific, send them closer to Earth where they would eventually decay, or recycle the materials

  • Small bridge sensors will give early warnings of anomalies, weaknesses

    University of Maryland researchers devised a lightweight, low-power, wireless, credit card-sized sensor that will detect weaknesses in bridges and other infrastructure before they can turn into calamities; the sensors would detect anomalies in the structure of even the most inaccessible parts of bridges and send alerts via cellular frequencies to its human masters. Among the things it would measure would be stress loads, vibration, temperature and the creation and growth of cracks

  • Scanning for oil from the air

    A Scottish firm develops technology to scan for underground oil deposits from the air; the technique called atomic dielectric resonance (ADR), detects and measures onshore oil reservoirs using radio and microwaves, reducing the need to drill test wells