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Submission + - Women don't talk more than men, study finds (pressesc.com) 1

Submitted by
Project Wonderful
Project Wonderful writes: "Women do not talk any more than men, according a new study published in Science refuting the popular stereotype that females talk more than men. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have found women and men both use an average of 16,000 words each day, debunking debunking the decades old research that repeatedly claimed that women use far more words each day than men."
Power

Submission + - Vibration Generation

Submitted by chocolateeater
chocolateeater writes: From a BBC article, scientists have developed a tiny generator that uses vibrations to power devices. This could come in handy where replacing batteries is difficult, such as in pace makers and wireless sensors. (My sore wrists only hope the weed whacker industry takes notice to this).
Robotics

Submission + - Rat-brained robot solves animal puzzles

Submitted by Galactic_grub
Galactic_grub writes: A robot controlled by software modeled on the neuronal pathways in a rat's brain has proven itself to be a remarkable rodent mimic in classic animal experiments. When the robot was placed inside a maze, it 'instinctively' used landmarks to explore. Just like a real rat, it identified familiar places and even distinguished between locations that looked alike, after a single training session. The robot's control software models "place cells" — neurons in the hippocampus that light up when an animal is in a familiar place.
Power

Submission + - Real Perpetual Motion: Stirling Engines

Submitted by Power Mad
Power Mad writes: With all this talk regarding perpetual motion, it is interesting to note that there actually is a device that comes close to being a perpetual motion machine: a stirling engine. These engines convert the heat differential between two points into mechanical work, and can even tap into the heat differential between your palm and the surrounding air to power a small motor.

Perpetual Energy Machine Getting Lots of Attention 965

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the swimming-in-snake-oil dept.
Many users have written to tell us about a magnetic machine promising "infinite clean energy". Engadget has the first picture of the device and is reporting that the announcement (along with a short video) of this supposed device will be released later tonight. "CEO Sean McCarthy tells SilconRepublic how it works. Namely, the time variance in magnetic fields allows the Orbo platform to 'consistently produce power, going against the law of conservation of energy which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed.' He goes on to say 'It's too good to be true but it is true. It will have such an impact on everything we do. The only analogy I can give is if you had absolute proof that God wasn't real.'" In my experience if something seems too good to be true it generally is. I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Biotech

Submission + - Table Top USP Lasers Slice, Dice, and So Much More

Submitted by UltravioletLED
UltravioletLED writes: A company in Petaluma, California has developed highly programmable desktop lasers. The same device that is used in a hospital could also be used to turn any metal surface black by simply changing the software. The technology once filled a large room at DARPA until Raydiance scientists made it into a compact, tabletop unit. Schuler (The CEO) said he hopes it will replace just about any cutting device you can think of, from a big metal saw to a precise surgical blade...Now that it's a little bigger than a breadbox, researchers want to use them to kill tumors, identify friend or foe during combat, and even remove tattoos.Femtosecond lasers for eye surgery have been around for years now, but these new lasers are far smaller and promise to have much greater versatility.
Robotics

Submission + - Researchers creates skinlike self-mending material (eebeat.com)

Submitted by eeJones
eeJones writes: This makes a lot of sense for airframes and other applications where structural continuity is of extreme importance and cracks from motion stresses are a risk. Depending on the speed of repair, it may even be useful in alternate-environment enclosures for vaccum, liquid, or other gases. The next generation of self-healing materials, invented by researchers at the University of Illinois, mimics human skin by healing itself time after time. The new materials rely upon embedded, three-dimensional microvascular networks that emulate biological circulatory systems. http://www.eebeat.com/?p=657
Handhelds

Submission + - Hitachi Develops New Brain-Scan Interface

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From Audioholics, Apparently, Hitachi is tired of the remote control and plans to replace it will brain scanning technology. Before you get out your aluminum foil hats, the technology seems to be less invasive than you would think. The "brain-machine interface" developed by Hitachi Inc. analyzes slight changes in the brain's blood flow and translates brain motion into electric signals. Now this is cool technology coming to a home theater near you not even envisioned by the likes of Star Trek.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - The first mixed reality experiment (physicscentral.com)

Submitted by
BuzzSkyline
BuzzSkyline writes: "The website PhysicsBuzz is reporting that researchers at the University of Illinois claim to have performed the first mixed reality experiment by coupling a real pendulum to its virtual twin. The researchers are exploring both the ways that the real world can affect virtual systems, and ways that virtual reality can affect the real world. Eventually, they hope to extend their studies to understand how virtual economies (such as those in the The World of Warcraft and Second Life) are coupled to real economies. The fact that virtual money and property can be purchased with real cash means that we can no longer think of online economies as separate from the real world. The researchers published their mixed reality paper in the May 2005 issue of the journal Physical Review E."
Power

Submission + - Pay-as-you-go electrical meters and conservation (theoildrum.com)

Submitted by rrwood
rrwood writes: This article details how the pay-as-you-go electrical meters that the Woodstock Ontario public utilities company has made available have resulted in a 15% reduction in power consumption on the part of the program participants. The original purpose of the program was to allow customers to pay in advance and avoid costly and annoying disconnection/reconnection charges, and the power company says that they did not expect that a reduction in power usage would result. The Oil Drum article neatly ties together some interesting ideas on interface design, human psychology, energy conservation, and more.
Microsoft

Submission + - Human-Aided Computing, Subconsciously (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by brunascle
brunascle writes: Microsoft Researchers are trying to harness untapped brain power for use in tasks where computers typically struggle, but humans find easy, such as facial recognition. While the concept of human-aided computing isnt new, this team's effort differs from previous projects in that it does not involve conscious feedback from the person. Instead, an EEG cap is worn, connected to a computer that examines brain activity. "In one scenario, he explains, pictures would be placed in people's peripheral vision, which doesn't require focused cognitive attention, so they could go about their daily tasks." The team reports 72.5% accuracy of facial recognition when using a single person to view an image once.
Space

Submission + - Space station's computers fail.

Submitted by
palewook
palewook writes: "A torn heat-resistant blanket on the orbiting shuttle, now the space station's oxygen and water computers failed. Russian engineers have yet to confirm what caused the computers failure, engineers suspect the computers' failure could be linked to a power source. The space station has a 56 day supply of oxygen left."
Enlightenment

Submission + - Giant Dinosaur Bird Discovered (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Cyclist110
Cyclist110 writes: The BBC has the story of the discovery, in Inner Mongolia, of a Dinosaur bird twice the size of a man and weighing in at over 3000 lbs. From the article: "Chinese researchers uncovered the fossilised remains of the flightless giant in the Erlian basin in Inner Mongolia. The researchers had originally thought they had found the bones of a tyrannosaur — the group of dinosaurs to which T. rex belongs — due to their large size."

Sure hope the Creation Museum has some PlayDough left over.
Space

Submission + - Footage of Sprites Shows Prior Art For Matrix

Submitted by
jd
jd writes: "The first slow-motion videos of Sprites have been released, the newest being recorded at 10,000 frames per second. (The make of camcorder is not given.) Sprites are gigantic electrical bursts that are intensely bright at their maximum and stretch from the very upper limits of the atmosphere, far above what is normally seen as the edge of space, down to the tops of storm clouds during a thunderstorm, along with equally mysterious Elves and Jets. Long believed to be the imagination of airline pilots, their nature and behaviour is still largely a mystery. But of all the mysteries, the greatest has to be that the video footage looks just like the monitors on The Matrix..."

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