Like all the best ideas, this one was born in a pub. Nick Goldman and Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) near Cambridge, were pondering what they could do with the torrent of genomic data their research group generates, all of which has to be archived.

The volume of data is growing faster than the capacity of the hard drives used to hold it. “That means the cost of storage is rising, but our budgets are not,” says Dr Goldman. Over a few beers, the pair began wondering if artificially constructed DNA … Read More → "Storing information in DNA"

If you live anywhere within the northern two-thirds of the United States, you’ve probably noticed that it’s pretty chilly outside. The plunge in temperatures over the past few days comes courtesy of an invasion of Arctic air that has been captured in a mesmerizing new animation from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The animation, made with weather data from the NOAA/NCEP Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis, begins on Saturday (Jan. 19) with very cold air seen only over the Rockies, Montana, North Dakota, the northern half of Minnesota and the northern … Read More → "Arctic air invasion captured in animation"

Getting a car to move at respectable speeds with compressed air is hard. Very hard. Automakers have been grinding away at a car powered by compressed air for years. It’s so difficult that French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen is putting the green concept aside in favor of a hybrid, for now.

“Hybrid Air” is a concept … Read More → "Prototype hybrid cars running on compressed air expected by 2016"

DARPA’s idea is to start a sort of on-orbit recycling program, where robotic spacecraft are sent out to harvest valuable parts (like antennas) from otherwise derelict satellites, and then give them a new life by attaching new minisats to the old hardware.
via IEEE Spectrum

Read More → "DARPA robots learning how to bring satellites back from the dead"

Last November, BMW DesignworksUSA announced that it was in the process of designing a new state-of-the-art two-man bobsled for the US Bobsled Team. At the time, only a vague teaser sketch of the sled was available. Now that one of the prototypes has been raced, however, we get to see some actual photos – and the thing looks pretty sharp. Its performance is also promising.
via Read More → "BMW-designed bobsled runs its first race"

Black holes, being black holes, aren’t the easiest things to take pictures of. Not only are they black (absorbing nearly all the light that falls on them) , they also tend to be small, far away, and surrounded by things that are very very bright. The only way we’re going to get a good look at one from here is to use as large and sensitive a radio telescope as we … Read More → "Earth-sized radio telescope to take first pic of black hole"

Last month, we heard about how a team led by North Carolina State University’s Dr. Michael Dickey had created an electrical wire that could be stretched up to eight times its regular length … and still carry a current. This was possible thanks to a conductive liquid metal alloy of gallium and indium, contained inside the wire’s elastic polymer outer housing. Now, Dickey’s team has developed a … Read More → "Stretchable electrical wires heal back together after being severed"

At a training site in Arizona called Cinder Lake, NASA created a “simulated lunar environment” for the purpose of testing lunar rovers and other pieces of equipment.
via Kottke

More here

Yes, there’s a recession, writes Bernard Condon and Paul Wiseman at the Associated Press. “Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to two-thirds of all workers. They’re being obliterated by technology.”
via Boing Boing

AP Article here 

The iconic San Francisco Bay Bridge has not only been a part of some of our favorite movies over the years, but also serves as an enduring symbol of human engineering excellence. Now, as the epic structure reaches its 75th year, a tech-powered public art installation will commemorate that anniversary.
via DVICE