The molten aluminum being poured out onto the thin black fabric is bubbling at a scorching 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s hot. And yet, for all the heat and fire and flame power, the magic fabric easily withstands the burning liquid metal. The fabric doesn’t catch fire, it doesn’t get burned through and there’s not a single hole in it. What is this sorcery? Read more…
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Magic fabric doesn’t catch fire after being doused with molten aluminum
In some parts of the world a mosquito bite is a minor inconvenience that might result in a few days of uncomfortable itching. In other parts, though, the pests spread deadly diseases like malaria and dengue fever. So for the 2014 World Health Day, ad agency Leo Burnett created the world’s first mosquito-repelling newspaper in Sri Lanka. Read more…
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Citronella Ink Helps This Clever Newspaper Keep Mosquitoes At Bay
Windows: Free image editor Paint.NET has released its first major update in six years. The new version packs a better rendering engine and a bunch of other improvements that still rank it as an essential Windows download . Read more…
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Paint.NET 4.0 Updates with Better Performance, Selections, Shapes
The quadriplegia that comes as a result of a serious spinal cord injury cuts off the lines of communication between a person’s brain and their limbs. The condition is often irreparable, and those who suffer it do so for the rest of their lives, but surgeons at Ohio State University and researchers at Battelle might have just struck back at the condition. Using a technology called Neurobridge, the pair have been able to offer Ian Burkhart, a 23-year-old who was paralyzed after a diving accident, the ability to move his hand with his own thoughts for the first time in four years. Neurobridge works thanks to a chip that’s been implanted into the patient’s motor center, which relays those signals, via a muscle stimulation sleeve, directly to the subject’s muscles. That way, the technology bypasses the damaged nerves, essentially cutting out the middle man and restoring direct muscular control to the brain. The transmissions take less than a tenth of a second to be processed and sent, so while it won’t be as fast as the biological process, could still help people live relatively normal lives. Naturally, this first test isn’t going to mean an instant cure for people with spinal cord injuries, but the first moment of Burkhart twitching his fingers after four years, available in the video below, is a huge breakthrough. Filed under: Science Comments Via: Sky News Source: OSU , (2) , Battelle
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Brain implant restores control of paralyzed muscles
Space debris is a scary thing — tiny objects become missiles that can destroy whole spacecraft. If you need proof, just take a look at the results of the European Space Agency’s shield testing for its freighter, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). That gaping hole you see above is the result of shooting the ship’s multi-layer Kevlar-Nextel fabric armor with an aluminum bullet traveling at 15, 658MPH, a speed that’s entirely possible for debris caught in orbit. The good news? As bad as this looks, the test was a resounding success; while the bullet tore through the shielding, it only scorched the aluminum wall underneath. When the last ATV visits the International Space Station this summer, astronauts won’t have to worry that shrapnel from an ex-satellite will destroy their vital supplies. [Image credit: ESA-Stijn Laagland ] Filed under: Science Comments Via: Gizmodo Source: ESA
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The Big Picture: Punching a hole in a (simulated) spacecraft
Today, the Supreme Court has reversed the decision of the Second Circuit in ABC vs. Aereo. Translation? Aereo lost big. It’s now illegal. And that sucks. Read more…
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Aereo Down: Supreme Court Kills the Cord-Cutter’s Dream
In a precedent-setting decision , the United States Supreme Court ruled today that Aereo is in violation of US copyright law. The decision states that Aereo’s use of tiny antennas hooked up to cloud DVR technology violates the right of companies producing broadcast content. Specifically, the decision says that Aereo’s business violates the 1976 Copyright Act; the act states that individuals or businesses are violating copyright if: 1: perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or 2: to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work … to the public by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public are capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places at the same time or at different times In the case of Aereo, the Supreme Court says the company’s service is tantamount to “a performance or display of the work.” Developing … Comments Source: US Supreme Court (PDF)
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US Supreme Court rules against Aereo, deems streamed broadcast TV ‘public performance’
The Supreme Court’s Aereo decision may not have it earned many techie fans, but its decision on two other cases — Riley v. California and U.S. v. Wurie — may change that. The highest court in the land has just ruled that the police “generally” cannot search your cellphones without a warrant. As always, there’s room left for extenuating circumstances, but you won’t have to worry about the police rifling through the contents of your mobile devices if you get pulled over for speeding. Developing… Comments
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Supreme Court says cops can’t search your phones without a warrant
assertation (1255714) writes with this interesting tidbit from Reuters about the state of solar power in Germany: German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour — equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity — through the midday hours on Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank said. The German government decided to abandon nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, closing eight plants immediately and shutting down the remaining nine by 2022. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Half of Germany’s Power Supplied By Solar, Briefly
Vacuum tubes in a guitar amplifier. Shane Gorski The transistor revolutionized the world and made the abundant computing we now rely on a possibility, but before the transistor, there was the vacuum tube. Large, hot, power hungry, and prone to failure, vacuum tubes are a now-forgotten relic of the very earliest days of computing. But there’s a chance that vacuum tube technology could make its way back into computers—albeit without the vacuum—thanks to NASA research that has put together nanoscale “vacuum channel” transistors that can switch at more than 400GHz. Vacuum tubes have three important components: two electrodes—the negative, electron-emitting cathode, and the positive, electron-receiving anode—and a control grid placed between them. The flow of current between the cathode and the anode is controlled by the grid; the higher the voltage applied to the grid, the greater the amount of current that can flow between them. All three parts are housed in an evacuated glass tube or bulb and look somewhat like a kind of overcomplicated light bulb. The thing that made vacuum tubes so hot and power hungry was the cathode. Electrons can be encouraged to cross gaps by using very high voltages, but these tend to be difficult to work with. Instead, a phenomenon called thermionic emission is used—heat a piece of metal up enough, and the thermal energy lets the electrons escape the metal. Vacuum tubes have heating elements to make the cathode hot enough to emit electrons. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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NASA melds vacuum tube tech with silicon to fill the terahertz gap