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October 31, 2005
Space designs from ants and squirrels
Ideas that could further exploration in space are coming from a surprising source - animals such as ants, fish and squirrels.
The future of space exploration could lie in biomimetics, where engineering meets biology. In effect, it steals nature's evolutionary tricks to create revolutionary applications.
Engineers like Dr Alex Ellery, head of the Robotics Research Group at the University of Surrey, are trying to find out how natural systems might inspire human-made technology in space.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 29, 2005
Time Machine
Everything about this clock is deeply unusual. For example, while nearly every mechanical clock made in the last millennium consists of a series of propelled gears, this one uses a stack of mechanical binary computers capable of singling out one moment in 3.65 million days. Like other clocks, this one can track seconds, hours, days, and years. Unlike any other clock, this one is being constructed to keep track of leap centuries, the orbits of the six innermost planets in our solar system, even the ultraslow wobbles of Earth's axis.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 28, 2005
Waiting for the lights to go out
We've taken the past 200 years of prosperity for granted. Humanity's progress is stalling, we are facing a new era of decay, and nobody is clever enough to fix it. Is the future really that black, asks Bryan Appleyard
The greatest getting-and-spending spree in the history of the world is about to end. The 200-year boom that gave citizens of the industrial world levels of wealth, health and longevity beyond anything previously known to humanity is threatened on every side. Oil is running out; the climate is changing at a potentially catastrophic rate; wars over scarce resources are brewing; finally, most shocking of all, we don't seem to be having enough ideas about how to fix any of these things.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 06:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 26, 2005
NanoCar
Rice University scientists have constructed the world's smallest car -- a single molecule "nanocar" that contains a chassis, axles and four buckyball wheels.
The "nanocar" is described in a research paper that is available online and due to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters. The "nanocar" is described in a research paper that is available online and due to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 07:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 25, 2005
Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines
Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines, the most comprehensive review of the field, co-authored by Robert A. Freitas Jr. and Ralph C. Merkle, is now freeky available online.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 08:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 24, 2005
Making computer work like a brain
Artificial intelligence, long the stuff of science fiction tales such as "2001: A Space Odyssey," has frustrated computer scientists for decades.
Teaching computers to think, it turns out, is even harder than teaching people to do it. So the experts are going back to the source.
The Pentagon is funding a closer look at how the human brain works its magic, in hopes of programming machines to do it. This project aims to tap advances in neuroscience and cognitive psychology -- from imaging technologies that identify brain activity to emerging theories about the role of emotions.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 23, 2005
Robotic Jacket
A robotic jacket that helps stroke victims recover from partial paralysis could be ready to wear in the near future.
The device-essentially a mesh jacket in form-uses sensors to detect the muscle movements in the patient's healthy arm and wrist, then uses artificial muscles to stimulate that same movement on the damaged side of the body. Researchers hope repeated therapy will bring back the regular functioning of the damaged limb.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 04:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 22, 2005
An elevator to space?
Space is a long, long way up, but a dozen ambitious high-tech teams assembled in Mountain View on Friday, prepared to compete under NASA encouragement with far-out concepts for reaching the planets in ways no one has ever attempted.
The dozen teams are inventive entrants into the arcane world of untried ventures in aerospace engineering, and this weekend at NASA's Ames Research Center they will be vying for modest prizes -- the first in an annual series of competitions as creative and extreme as any space groupie could envision.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 08:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2005
Engineers turn to biology for inspiration
If we have Batman and Spider-Man, why don't we have any mussel superheroes?" asks biochemist of the , Santa Barbara. Mussels may not be the biggest or the flashiest of sea creatures. But they do one thing exceedingly well. They make a glue that lets them anchor themselves firmly to a rock and remain there—drenched by water, buffeted by the ocean's waves. "I don't know any other adhesive that can do that," says Waite.
Posted by Vishwakarma C. K. @ 03:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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