Those of you with recurring Terminator-esque nightmares of a not-so-distant future ruled by machines won’t have to worry much about one robot developed by a research team at the University of Tokyo. The group (which happens to be the same one that created a robot that’ll cheat its way to rock-paper-scissors victory every time) crafted a bipedal ‘bot called Achires that can run at speeds … Read More → "This tiny, bipedal robot can somersault and run faster than a toddler"

Mysterious “interceptor” cell towers in the USA are grabbing phone calls — but they’re not part of the phone networks. And, two experts told VentureBeat today, the towers don’t appear to be projects of the National Security Agency (NSA).

The towers were revealed by Les Goldsmith to Popular Science last week. He’s CEO of ESD America, which builds the super-secure Cryptophone 500 for clients that need … Read More → "Who is putting up ‘interceptor’ cell towers? The mystery deepens."

In what may be one of the most mind-bogglingly surreal experiments ever floated, scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) will attempt to discover if the universe is “real” or merely a holographic 3-D illusion that we just think is real. Using high-powered lasers, the scientists intend to determine if space-time is a quantum system made up … Read More → "Fermilab experiment will attempt to answer whether we actually live in “the Matrix”"

If you read the column, you know the drill: strangers on the Internet ask Munroe weird, extreme hypothetical questions, like what would happen if you could throw a baseball at the speed of light, or what it would take to make an astronomically plausible asteroid of the size and density of the one that The Little Prince lives on. Then Munroe — a former NASA roboticist who trained as a … Read More → "XKCD’s What If: “Dear Abby for Mad Scientists” in book form"

If you’re on the road, there’s a good chance that you’ve fired off at least one text message while behind the wheel. Distracted driving is a perilous activity for all involved, but that hasn’t stopped many drivers from updating statuses, responding to snapchats, and other similar activities while behind the wheel. Various “nanny” systems have been proposed that will take action against this, and it seems GM … Read More → "GM to install distraction-tracking gadgets in 500k cars"

via Inhabitat

Originally spotted by NPR, a paper appearing in the Journal of Food Science titled “Quantification of Pizza Baking Properties of Different Cheeses, and Their Correlation with Cheese Functionality,” aims to answer the century-long culinary quandary and is also the most delicious-sounding scientific study I’ve ever heard. The study focused specifically on the interplay between cheeses on a … Read More → "Scientists empirically discover the best cheese for pizza"

This was the call center of Freshwater Software, a now defunct company based in Boulder, Colorado. In 2000, the company commissioned this unique office design. The cubicles were not divided by fabric walls, but glass aquariums. The custom desks were built by a local carpenter, then the fish tanks by Jesse Damman, a professional aquarium maker.

Occasionally a fish jumped out of the tank, but workers reported that it was an enjoyable experience. The … Read More → "Office aquarium doubles as a desk divider"

If WiFi can track a heartbeat through walls, why can’t I get internet in my corner bathroom? Jason Cole was trying to figure that out too, but unlike me, he’s a PhD student in physics. So he mapped his own apartment and assigned refraction values to the walls (shown above), then applied so-called Hemholtz equations to model the electromagnetic waves. As detailed in his (math-drenched)& … Read More → "Physicist shows why your WiFi sucks in that one room"

An increasing frequency of computer resets on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has prompted the rover team to make plans to reformat the rover’s flash memory. The resets, including a dozen this month, interfere with the rover’s planned science activities, even though recovery from each incident is completed within a day or two.

Flash memory retains data even when power is off. It is the type … Read More → "Memory reformat planned for Opportunity Mars rover"