Canadian artists Marc Bohlen and J.T. Rinker want to change the way that you interact with your favorite electronic devices. Tired of tiny keyboards, poor speech recognition or incomprehensible interfaces? The Universal Whistling Machine is a step toward a non-verbal dialogue between man and machine. The device uses signal-processing to...

Building single molecule computers recently came one step closer to reality as scientists reported the discovery of the world's fastest transistor, a carbon fabric a single atom thick. The previously unknown structure of carbon, called graphene, is a strong, stable, and conductive sheet that could be a major contribution to...

You wouldn't think that humanity has been this busy in space - but there are over eight thousand satellites and other large objects in orbit around the Earth, along with many smaller objects. These objects include spent vehicle upper stages, separation bolts, lens caps, momentum flywheels, nuclear reactor cores, auxiliary...

Hawks and eagles glide on currents of rising warm air called thermals to extend their flight time without needing more fuel. NASA aerospace engineer Michael Allen and a team of engineers working on the Autonomous Soaring Project at Dryden Flight Research Center have succeeded in extending the range of small...

Using the parts inside a single molecule, scientists have constructed the world's smallest car. It has a chassis, axles and a pivoting suspension. The wheels are buckyballs, spheres of pure carbon containing 60 atoms apiece. It'd be a real squeeze to take it for a spin, however. The whole car...

Fully merging microbe and machine for the first time, scientists have created gold-plated bacteria that can sense humidity. The breakthrough is the first cellborg in what might become an array of devices that could sense dangerous gases or other hazardous substances. The bioelectronic device swells and contracts in response to...

DARPA's Walrus program to develop and evaluate a very large airlift vehicle has moved forward; DARPA announced the contractors for the first phase of the program. Despite detailed early descriptions of war-balloons in late nineteenth century science fiction, this isn't your father's (not to mention great-grandfather's) dirigible airship. According to...

The International Space Station and the fictional Venus Equilateral Station (from a 1942 story by George O. Smith) have a problem in common - a failure of the air plant. The ISS uses (among other components) the Elektron oxygen generation system. After several stoppages, the unit failed completely about a...

By mixing fiber in concrete scientists have created a bendable material that is lightweight, resists cracking, and lasts longer. The newfangled concrete, already in use in Japan, Korea, Switzerland and Australia, will find its first application in the United States this summer, researchers said this week. Fiber-reinforced concrete is not...

A new study of Nobel Prize winners and great inventors suggests top innovators are older today than they were a century ago. I find that the age at which noted innovations are produced has increased by approximately 6 years over the 20th Century, says Benjamin Jones of Northwestern University. Innovators...

Scientists recently unveiled the tiniest electric motor ever built. You could stuff hundreds of them into the period at the end of this sentence. One day a similar engine might power a tiny mechanical doctor that would travel through your body in the ultimate house call. The motor works by...

The nuclear reaction that powers the Sun has been reproduced in a pocket-sized device, scientists announced today. Researchers have for years tried to harness nuclear fusion to power the world. But its cousin, nuclear fission -- the breaking apart of atoms -- is the only method so far commercially viable....

Scientists have yoked bacteria to power rotary motors, the first microscopic mechanical devices to successfully incorporate living microbes together with inorganic parts. In far future plans, we would like to make micro-robots driven by biological motors, researcher Yuichi Hiratsuka, a nanobiotechnologist now at the University of Tokyo, told LiveScience. Hiratsuka,...

Multiple Gear Speed Reduction Unit (Image credit: Courtesy Sandia National Laboratories, SUMMiTTM Technologies, www.mems.sandia.gov)Microelectromechanical systems or MEMS are micro versions of electrical gears, motors, switches, etc. that are used to significantly reduce the size of many of today's and future devices from all kinds of industries. Common uses include defense/munitions...

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton today accused the Bush Administration of conducting a war on science and vowed to promote scientific discovery in research, medicine and space exploration if elected. For six and half years under this president, it's been open season on open inquiry, Clinton said in a wide-ranging science...