The folks at PlanetSolar beat their own record for crossing the Atlantic in a solar-powered boat. TheMS Tûranor sailed 2,867 miles from Las Palmas, Spain to Marigot, St. Martin in 22 days, 12 hours and 32 minutes, cutting nearly four days from their previous record.

The last record — 26 days — was set by the Tûranor back in 2012, during its two-year-long round-the-world sail. It … Read More → "Research vessel sets record for solar-powered transatlantic voyage"

Earlier this year, we covered the 3Doodler, a pen that lets users sketch 3D objects with plastic filament, almost like a 3D printer. It’s a fun little gadget, but what if someone made a device that offers similar freedom, except it built objects over 10 times larger? It might look something like the Mataerial 3D printer, which uses a robotic arm and quick-solidifying material to form rigid, free-flowing structures on almost any surface, even … Read More → "Mataerial 3D printer builds gravity-defying structures directly onto walls"

The video was taken as supplemental material for a paper published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, which puts the fight in context as one more aspect of the complicated ecosystems that carnivorous plants host inside them. Researchers studying the pitcher plant Nepenthes bicalcarata — which leaves that resemble the fangs of a snake, lest you forget it is carnivorous & … Read More → "Diving ant fighting a mosquito larva inside a carnivorous plant is the battle of the century (video)"

The European Space Agency’s giant space telescope Herschel ran out of fuel last month and stopped working, as scientists had been expecting. But before then, the telescope was able to capture images of a rare cosmic event: the merger of two large, ancient galaxies into one super-sized galaxy. At first, astronomers thought that Herschel had accidentally captured … Read More → "Astronomers catch two giant galaxies merging in images from Europe’s Herschel space telescope (video)"

One of the great things about setting aside land as a sanctuary for one creature is that it helps to preserve a whole ecosystem full of plants and animals — some of which we may not even know exist yet. Take for example the two new species of spider — both among the world’s tiniest — that were just discovered on the grounds of a panda sanctuary in … Read More → "Sanctuary for giant pandas also home to newly discovered tiny spiders"

We’ve seen Pavegen’s energy-harvesting tiles turning up in a variety of places to harvest some of the kinetic energy generated while walking or running over them. But a team of students at Rice University has put the shoe on the other foot with PediPower – a prototype device that attaches to a shoe to harvest energy generated when the heel hits the ground.
via Read More → "PediPower device brings kinetic energy to heel (video)"

The Softstop Barrier System projects an enormous image of a stop sign across a roadway in an emergency. The system deploys in less than three seconds, releasing a curtain of water on which the stop sign is projected. It is currently used at Sydney Harbour Tunnel to prevent oversize trucks from entering and damaging the tunnel. As this video from Australian TV station Ten dramatically demonstrates, the Sydney installation … Read More → "Softstop barrier system projects giant stop sign on a curtain of water to stop motorists in emergency"

This camera rig uses a Raspberry Pi to send a camera down fifty meters in order to spy on sharks….

The project used a collection of camera units spread over a large area to monitor shark activity. Each is mounted on an anchored buoy, using solar panels and a lead acid gel battery for power. The RPi itself remains topside in a waterproof box. It connects to the camera using a 50 … Read More → "Submersible camera snaps pics of ocean going predators"

From Schneier on Security: a blog covering security and security technology

The Internet has turned into a massive surveillance tool. We’re constantly monitored on the Internet by hundreds of companies — both familiar and unfamiliar. Everything we do there is recorded, collected, and collated — sometimes by corporations wanting to sell us stuff and sometimes by governments wanting to keep an eye on us.

Ephemeral conversation is over. Wholesale surveillance is the … Read More → "Surveillance and the internet of things"

Slate interactives editor Chris Kirk created a very handy interactive guide for comparing the speeds of some of the most popular spaceships from science fiction television shows, films and the real world. You can select a destination (Alpha Centauri, Galactic Center, Andromeda Galaxy) and instantly view the visual race between each of the ships and then get … Read More → "The ultimate spaceship face-off, interactive guide for comparing the speeds of famed sci-fi ships"