• NASA develops chemical-detection app for iPhone

    NASA’s Homeland Security Cell-All program has developed an intriguing application to Apple’s phone in the form of a stamp-sized chemical sniffing device; the prototype chemical sensor can sniff small amounts of chemicals like methane, ammonia, and chlorine gas

  • Interference-free radio from Cambridge Consultants

    Cambridge Consultants shows a novel “spectral sensing” cognitive radio technology that will allow any radio product to transmit without interference over the so-called “whitespace” frequencies recently vacated by the U.S. digital TV switchover

  • DARPA looking for methods to freeze soldiers with brain injuries

    Traumatic brain injuries are caused by repeated exposure to blasts, specifically the “supersonic wave” of highly-pressurized air they emit; within a fraction of a second after impact, brain cells, tissues, and blood vessels are stretched, torn, and distorted; over the hours, days, and months that follow, altered brain processes create a snowball effect of damage — which is why symptoms often don’t show up until troops come home; in its solicitation, DARPA notes that a portable brain-cooling unit, deployed in the field, could “extend the golden hour of patient survivability and increase the chances for full recovery”

  • E.coli helps mend cracked pipes

    Aberdeen University students show how specific strains of E. coli, which are not deadly or poisonous to humans, could be used automatically to mend cracks that occur in household water pipes, cooling pipes in laboratory experiments, or water pipes in power plants

  • Imperial College London awarded £4.9 million to research cloaking properties of metamaterials

    Metamaterials have properties that could lead to the development of invisibility “cloaking” devices, sensitive security sensors, and flat lenses that can be used to image objects much smaller than the wavelength of light; Imperial College London receives a £4.9 million grant to do research on metamaterials

  • Ricin antidote ready for production

    U.K. scientists develop the first antidote to ricin poisoning; security experts say ricin — roughly 1,000 times more toxic than cyanide — could be used in a bio-terror attack; what worries experts about ricin is not only its toxicity, but its ready availability: Ricin is extracted from castor beans, which are processed throughout the world to make castor oil; the toxin is part of the waste “mash” produced when castor oil is made

  • Downtown airport boasts a new runway safety system

    Safety barriers made of new type of absorbing concrete are installed at a Kansas City airport; the barriers are made of concrete blocks which collapse to absorb the energy of the airplane while minimizing the damage to the aircraft and allowing the aircraft to be slowed without hurting passengers

  • U.S. Congress holds hearings on geoengineering

    Geoengineering — the effort to design systems which would change the world’s climate — was once a fringe phenomenon; it has been moving into the mainstream, though, as more and more scientists are growing increasingly concerned that, even if we commit to cutting emissions drastically, we have already waited too long, and that by the time we actually reduce emissions, enough greenhouse gases will have accumulated to cause serious climate disasters

  • Day of Americans serving as mobile chemicals sensors nears

    NASA Ames scientists demonstrate cell phone chemical sensor; the prototype device, designed to be plugged in to an iPhone, collects sensor data and sends it to another phone or a computer via telephone communication network or Wi-Fi

  • Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design

    The “two-point implosion” is one of the most guarded secrets in nuclear weapons states; yet Iranian engineers, in what Western nuclear experts describe as a breakthrough, has tested such a design, which much be described as a giant leap in acquiring nuclear weapons

  • New communication system to help protect soldiers in the field

    The new technology will use arrays of highly specialized antennas that could be worn by combat troops to provide covert short-range person-to-person battleground communications; the technology will lead to advanced wireless systems that would enable small squads of soldiers to share real-time video, covert surveillance data and tactical information with each other via helmet-mounted visors

  • First winner in space elevator competition

    The contest requires their machines to climb 2,953 feet (nearly 1 kilometer) up a cable slung beneath a helicopter hovering nearly a mile high; the vehicle from the Kansas City-based LaserMotive zipped up to the top in just over four minutes and immediately repeated the feat, qualifying for at least a $900,000 second-place prize

  • First space hotel taking bookings for 2012 opening

    Space tourism is nearing, with the first space hotel set to open in 2012; the Barcelona-based company is already taking bookings; the cost of three nights (plus a two-month training course on a Caribbean island beforehand) will be $4.4 million per guest

  • Robot fish could monitor water quality

    Michigan State University researchers develop robots that use advanced materials to swim like fish to probe underwater environments; robotic fish — perhaps schools of them operating autonomously for months — could give researchers far more precise data on aquatic conditions, and the quality — and security — of the water supply

  • Space elevator competition to test alternatives to rocketry

    The space elevator idea envisions replacing rockets with electrically powered vehicles which would run up and down a cable anchored to a ground structure and extending thousands of miles up to a mass in geosynchronous orbit — the kind of orbit communications satellites are placed in to stay over a fixed spot on the Earth; space elevator competition being held this week in the the Mojave Desert