Science and research

LED lights could become network devices, too

Today, you've got wireless networks that use radio waves and you've got optical networks that use light traveling in tiny glass fibers. Tomorrow, if Fraunhofer Institute research comes to fruition, a combination of the two could turn living-room lights into network devices.

The German applied-research lab has developed wireless networking that uses rapidly blinking LEDs to transmit data through the air. The technology can send data at speeds up to 1 gigabit per second -- and by using three colors of light, triple that data rate is possible, Fraunhofer said.

The technology could be useful in crowded, interference-prone … Read more

Innovation and re-invention at the Stanford Cool Product Expo

STANFORD, Calif. -- Finding a new product idea is never easy. You have to understand your target audience and test the market. But not every new product comes from a new idea -- sometimes the best products are simply new ways of viewing the world, or new approaches to old problems.

At the Cool Product Expo held at Stanford University this week, a few of the designs on hand are re-imagining some classic products -- in ways you might never have thought possible.

One company, Impossible, is hoping to revive instant photography, and dozens of other companies -- 11 of … Read more

Scientists spot 'signature' of physical pain using fMRI

Pain has long been thought to be at least somewhat subjective, making it difficult to measure consistently from one person to the next. But in a new study out of the University of Colorado at Boulder, healthy volunteers subjected to a dose of intense heat all experienced a consistent pattern of neurological activity that scientists captured on function MRI, which tracks blood flow through the brain.

While this doesn't mean that people experience pain in exactly the same way, the findings -- published today in the New England Journal of Medicine -- suggest that there may be a better … Read more

See-through brain lets scientists spot the connections

Studying the brain can be a tricky business.

The interesting stuff, such as neurons and how they communicate, is obscured by things like fatty tissue. Usually, scientists just cut it up into paper-thin slices to study, like with Einstein's brain, but a team of scientists at Stanford University, led by Karl Deisseroth and Kwanghun Chung, have found what the director of the National Institute of Mental Health Thomas Insel is calling "one of the most important advances for doing neuroanatomy in decades."

The new technique lets researchers leave the brain intact, which puts an end to the damage that slicing can cause. It involves infusing the brain with acrylamide, which binds the proteins; once heated, it polymerizes, preserving the important molecules. Then, the brain is rinsed with sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) detergent, which strips the fatty lipids, leaving intact the proteins that the researchers wish to study. … Read more

Living side by side with robots

STANFORD, Calif.--When I walked onto the Stanford University campus this week and into the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab, I was greeted by a short, gray robot waving his two long arms -- he was looking for a high-five.

All around me robots of all sizes were roaming the floor. I was trapped -- in the future. … Read more

What did the Big Bang sound like? Take a listen

John Cramer, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Washington in Seattle, has created a high-fidelity rendition of the sound of the Big Bang and the noise generally believed to have accompanied the early development of the universe.

This is the second attempt for Cramer, who in 2003 generated a 100-second recording representing sound from between 380,000 years to 760,000 years after the Big Bang. Cramer updated his recordings with new, more detailed data produced last month from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite mission.

High-speed cam catches cool 3D shots of snowflakes

Now that winter has passed, those of us who live in cold climes can once again appreciate the beauty of snowflakes without feeling the urge to curse them for making us dig out the shovel. And if ever snowflakes looked lovely, it's in these images shot by a high-speed camera system developed specifically to photograph them in 3D as they fell.

"Until our device, there was no good instrument for automatically photographing the shapes and sizes of snowflakes in free fall," says Tim Garrett, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah and one of the developers of the cam known as MASC, or Multi-Angle Snowflake Camera. "We are photographing these snowflakes completely untouched by any device, as they exist naturally in the air."

MASC -- under development for three years -- takes 9- to 37-micron-resolution stereographic photographs of snowflakes from three angles while simultaneously measuring the speed of their fall, a highly influential factor in the location and lifetime of a storm. … Read more

Google 'Glass Collective' ropes in VC bigshots

Google Glass is winning the attention of the serious money crowd in Silicon Valley.

Wednesday afternoon Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, jointly announced plans to form an investment syndicate to supply seed money to startups developing products around Google's Glass and what it described as the "Glass ecosystem."

In comments the partners posted about the announcement on their respective websites, the participants gushed about the potential represented by Google Glass.

Marc Andreessen, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, described the "thesis" represented by Google Glass as truly transformational.

"Instead of … Read more

Astronauts don't cry: Chris Hadfield shows tears in space

There's no crying in baseball, and there's no crying in space.

While zero gravity doesn't have an impact on tears forming, it has an effect on if they fall -- and they don't. The water that builds up in your eyes from crying will stay there until the bubble gets so big it moves to another spot on your face, or it's removed. It's not very pretty or graceful.

Watch how Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield -- commander of the International Space Station and maker of all sorts of entertaining space videos -- demonstrates what … Read more