Science

Avoid Injuries With Smart Sneakers That Tell You How To Run Properly

A daily run can be great for your health and fitness, but it can actually be harmful too if not done properly. Of course the right shoes are an important part of the formula, especially this sensor-laden pair developed by the Fraunhofer Institute which provide real-time feedback on your running style, and how to improve…

Electronic Triage Bracelets Prioritize Who Needs Immediate Care

In a disaster situation, triage and rescue workers typically tag patients with a colored paper bracelet that correlates to the severity of their injury. But a patient’s situation can change after being tagged, making it difficult to keep track of who needs what care. So researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute have developed a cheap electronic…

The Pigeon-Guided Missiles and Bat Bombs of World War II

Today I found out about Project Pigeon andProject X-Ray, WWII plans to use pigeons to guide missiles and (literal) bat bombers. The man behind Project Pigeon was famed American behaviorist and Harvard professor B.F. Skinner, who teamed with the U.S. Army to develop such a system. Pigeons were trained using operant conditioning, a type of…

SpaceX celebrated a flawless launch of its Falcon 9 spacecraft from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Wednesday. It delivered an SES-8 satellite into orbit without a glitch bringing the Falcon 9 one flight away from being qualified to fly missions for the Air Force. [SpaceX via BoingBoing]

Polar Loop Activity Tracker Review: A Circle Behind the Curve

Everybody and their mother has brought an activity tracker to market in the last year, but it actually makes sense that Polar—a company with a long history making heart rate monitors—would get into the game. Unfortunately, their first stab at a fitness monitor feels more like a first-draft. What Is It? A new, wrist-worn fitness…

After China launched its first ever lunar rover earlier this week, debris from the rocket sending it up apparently fell and damaged several homes in the process. Oops.

The Fukushima Earthquake Actually Changed Earth’s Gravity

The 2011 Tohoku earthquake, which caused the tsunami behind the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown, disrupted more than man-made structures. The European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite, measured a significant change in Earth’s gravity after the earthquake before falling out of the skyon November 11th. The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer, launched in 2009, collected…

The First Artificial Hearts Were the Size of a Hot Dog Stand

It might look more like something a street vendor would serve up food from, but, believe it or not, this is one of the first ever artificial hearts. This monstrous lump of metal was designed to temporarily stand in for a human heart, pumping blood around the body until a patient’s actual ticker was once…

​The Sunlit Edge of Saturn’s Largest Moon Is Hauntingly Beautiful

This ghostly image shows the sunlit edge of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Captured by Cassini, it’s unilluminated atmosphere provides a hazy yet breathtaking view. Visible in the darkness is the south polar vortex of the moon, because its clouds are at a higher altitude than the rest of the atmosphere. Snapped from 808,000 miles away,…

There’s a Naturally Occurring Nuclear Fission Reactor in West Africa

In May 1972 in a uranium enrichment plant in France, scientists examining ore from a mine in Gabon, West Africa, discovered that a natural nuclear reactor had spontaneously manifested in that region in the Earth’s primordial past, churning out approximately 100 Kw worth of energy continuously for a few hundred thousand years about 1.7 billion…

Bang, Zoom, Straight to the Moon: China Launches Its First Lunar Rover

Just a decade after entering the space race, China is headed to the moon. With the successful launch of a Long March rocket carrying the Chang’e 3 lunar lander earlier this morning, China is attempting to become the third nation in history to land (rather than crash) a spacecraft on the lunar surface. Named for…

All the Habitable Planets Within 60 Light-Years of Earth, Visualized

There may well be more than 60 billion habitable planets littering the Milky Way, but it’s virtually impossible to make use of that figure. Instead, how about this picture, which shows you how many planets are within 60 light-years of Earth. In the image, the size of the circle represents the size of the planet,…

Exploding Dogs Were Used as Mobile Anti-Tank Mines During World War II

Today I found out about the use of exploding anti-tank dogs during World War II. These dogs, usually Alsatians, were also called “Hundminen” or “dog mines.” They were trained to carry explosives on their bodies to enemy tanks, where they would then be detonated. No, it did not end very well for the dogs in…

Russia’s Cosmobot Is Getting Ready to Walk in Space

Russia’s SAR-400 robotic cosmonaut—which bears some significant similarity to NASA’s Robonaut—is in practice for its first ever space walk. But don’t worry, because it will be controlled from afar, just like in this picture. SAR-401 has been designed to service the outside of the ISS, where its arms and fingers will be controlled by a…

Watch This Chain of Beads Dash Across the Room All On Its Own

When you put chains and physics together, you get results that are borderline magic, and this experiment from MIT proves it. No, this chain doesn’t seem to float in mid-air, but it does walk across the room. https://gizmodo.com/whoa-what-makes-this-chain-of-beads-magically-float-596577212 The weird phenomenon has to do with the physics of waves will spread through a chain if…

This Stealth Camera Captures Images in Almost Complete Darkness

If you thought low-light photography was coming on in leaps and bounds, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. This new camera, developed by researchers at MIT, can capture ultra-sharp images of objects even when they’re illuminated by just a handful of photons. The technology uses incredibly low-intensity pulses of visible laser light to scan an object…

A New and Aggressive Strain of HIV Is Spreading Across West Africa

A newly discovered strain of HIV is spreading across West Africa. What’s worse is that it’s particularly aggressive—and causes significantly faster progression to AIDS than other strains. Called A3/02, the strain of HIV was first observed in 2011. But now, reports Al Jazeera, researchers at Sweden’s Lund University have found that it’s spreading across the…

Comet Ison May Still Be Alive (Updated)

Yesterday, comet Ison flew close to the Sun, and many sources reported its death. Now, though, some scientists are claiming that it, or at least some part of it, may have survived its journey. https://gizmodo.com/watch-ison-edge-ever-closer-to-the-sun-1473126691 The comet was declared dead when it reappeared from behind the sun with massively decreased brightness; all that scientists could…

This Crazy Machine Let Astronauts Experiment With Fluids 30 Years Ago

It might look more like an engine from an aging car than a piece of engineering fit for space, but this machine was a pioneering piece of apparatus that allowed astronauts to experiment with fluids in space. The Fluid Physics Module was hand-built in Italy, and it flew on the first-ever mission of the European…

Watch a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Make Another Launch Attempt (Update)

The original launch of SpaceX’s redesigned Falcon 9 rocket was planned for just a few days ago on Monday—but that mission was scrubbed at the last minute due to a technical glitch. It was sad for those who tuned in at the beginning of the week to watch the livestream, but the good news is…