Science

He's got blood flowing through him, but he sure isn't human. Meet Rex, the world's first complete "bionic man."

Rex has the face of a man; prosthetic limbs; a functional artificial blood-circulatory system; and artificial organs including a pancreas, kidney, spleen, and trachea. At 6.5-feet tall, Rex is valued at a whopping $1 million.

Created for the TV documentary series "How to Build a Bionic Man," Rex was constructed by a team of roboticists. The researchers say they wanted to test scientific boundaries and demonstrate how modern science is beginning to catch up with sci-fi in the race to replace body parts with man-made alternatives. … Read more

Moths, despite munching on wool sweaters, are pretty innocuous for the most part. Scientists from the University of Tokyo decided to up the ante and put some moths in command of their very own robot vehicle.

The male silkmoths didn't have to pass driver's ed first, they just had to use their natural instincts for tracking down the female moth's sex pheromone. That's right, male moths do pretty much the same thing male humans do when they get their first car: go cruising for girls. … Read more

Is your doggy a dummy? Probably not. Most dogs are adept at simple problem solving and recognizing commands. But if you want more details on exactly how your pet's mind works, a new company has you covered. Dognition, started by a professor at Duke University, makes a product that lets you test your dog's cognitive skills and record the results.

Purchasing the $60 Web app allows you to fill out a personality questionnaire and run your dog through a series of simple experiments. The science-based tests playfully measure a dog's intellect on several fronts -- from empathy to memory to reasoning skills. … Read more

When asteroids attack, dinosaurs lose. Though there are still competing theories as to why we lost awesome animals like Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptors, many scientists look to a long-ago asteroid impact to explain the wipeout.

A study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters adds a new wrinkle to the asteroid assumption by suggesting that the dinos may have had to contend with not one, but two deadly balls of flying space rock. Titled "Morphology and population of binary asteroid impact craters," the study was lead by Katarina Miljkovic from the Institute of Earth Physics in Paris.

If you look out into space around Earth, you'll find that about 15 percent of asteroids are binary, meaning they're traveling in pairs. However, only 2 to 4 percent of craters on Earth have been labeled as binary impacts. Miljkovic believes this number is under-reported and that many binary asteroids have been overlooked because their craters overlap.… Read more

How well do you know the geography of the moon? This weekend brings a great chance for you to brush up on your lunar knowledge.

Starry Night Education points out that when the moon rises each night this weekend, we Earthlings can view a great angle of these jumbo lunar craters: Plato, Archimedes, Copernicus, Ptolemaeus, and Clavius. … Read more

It's a surprisingly dangerous world out there in the trees. Sparrows sing, flit about, and fight like they're auditioning for a role on "Game of Thrones." Male swamp sparrows will even take their battles to the death. Before they get that far, though, there's a whole lot of wing-waving going on to mark their territory and signal their aggression.

Duke University biologist Rindy Anderson wanted to learn more about how these birds communicate with each other, so she and engineering undergraduate student David Piech built a cyborg robo-battle-sparrow of doom.

The Frankensparrow consisted of a miniature computer and robotics gear stuffed into the body of a dead sparrow. This allowed the researchers to control the wings. They took the Frankenstein sparrow to a breeding ground, played swamp sparrow invasion songs, and made it wave its wings at other males, the sparrow equivalent of flipping them the bird.… Read more

Some see, not to mention make, art in unusual places. And so it is with U.K.-based musician Sivu, who is letting viewers peer inside his mind while he sings -- literally.

Reportedly inspired by the work being done on children born with cleft lips and palates at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, Sivu lay in an MRI scanner for almost three hours and sang his new single, "Better Man Than He," repeatedly. The resulting music video is an edit of that footage, relying on nothing but the relatively new real-time medical imaging technique often used … Read more

When the Country Fire Authority in Victoria, Australia, noticed that its firefighters were showing signs of heat stress even when their ear thermometer probes were reading normal temperatures, they decided it was time to find a better gauge in the hopes of preventing heat-related illnesses.

So they tested a smart pill on 50 firefighters evacuating 20 people from a burning medical center, and have already used the readings to change firefighter work patterns, including how long they're exposed to blazes, according to the Australian Associated Press.… Read more

Worried about all those security cameras tracking your every move? Try rocking one of these visors and enjoy anonymity once again.

At least that's what Isao Echizen from Japan's National Institute of Informatics is trying to achieve with the Privacy Visor (PDF).

Developed with Seiichi Gohshi of Kogakuin University, the visor has a near-infrared light source that messes up cameras but doesn't affect the wearer's vision, according to the institute. … Read more