We’ve seen some creative DIY projects over time, but this one could be moving to the top of the MacGyver leaderboard. Discovered by a Reddit exchange over some amazing space photos, it turns out the photos weren’t taken by some mountaintop observatory, but rather by a regular guy, with a not-so-regular telescope worth $20,000 he built in his back yard.
via Read More → "Guy builds off-the-hook $20,000 telescope in his yard"

The BBC’s Hugh Sykes tests out a new electric car that allows Israeli drivers to zip all over the country, without worrying about flat batteries.

I wish I’d thought of it. It’s so obvious.

One of the greatest mental barriers to buying an all-electric car is what is known as “range anxiety”.

When the battery runs down, it can take anything up to eight hours to re-charge it. So you’re stuck.

The Renault Fluence ZE (zero emissions) has a … Read More → "Has Israeli firm cracked electric car angst?"

Progress is lumpy. The future is attained in a series of epochal strides, each followed by a lot of relatively inconsequential shuffling forward. The invention of the internet (and especially the consumer-friendly web) was a rare giant step that motivated immense adoption of computers and digital lifestyles. A global marketplace of online citizens spawned gadgets, software apps, corporate gold-rushing and other feverish shuffling.

Even with the opulent gadgetry we admire and enjoy, the whole expanding tech bubble seems to be reaching for something beyond itself. The incremental improvements of personal technology don’t thrust into the … Read More → "Editorial: Physics and politics stand in the way of true mobile"

Making an electric car isn’t exactly easy, but the realm of things it’s not as difficult as space flight. Musk and his company has also recently made impressive strides in private spacecraft with the Dragon capsule docking with the ISS. Musk has recently made it known that he’s also planning a supersonic, electric powered hovering jet plane.
via Slash Gear

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A team that has created a supersonic jet design resembling a flying shuriken has been awarded a US$100, 000 grant from NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program to continue development of the aircraft. Aside from looking suitably futuristic, the concept plane’s four-pointed star design serves a practical purpose. By rotating in mid air, the plane can transition between broad-wing subsonic and shorter wingspan supersonic configurations.
via Read More → "Radical bi-directional flying wing design gets NASA funding"

How do you make an already-geeky game even geekier? By making it out of electronic components, of course. MAKE magazine is showing off this super-nerdy game of chess, where resistors become pawns, LEDs stand in as bishops and the king and queen are represented by electrolytic capacitors.
via Gizmodo

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Standard pen ink is the surprise component in a flexible carbon fibre supercapacitor which can be bent in a full circle with barely any loss of performance.

From The Doghouse Diaries, here’s a simple chart that shows things that blew your mind when you were a kid.

via Neatorama

When people have a difficult problem they often talk about “shining a light on it.” Creating and controlling high-temperature superconductors has been a problem for scientists and engineers for over two decades. Now, Yoram Dagan, a professor at Tel Aviv University’s (TAU) Department of Physics and Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, has made a breakthrough in superconductors by literally shining a light on them. By doing this, he is able to control their properties.

Superconductors are one of those seemingly magical materials. When a conducting material, such as copper or silver, is cooled, … Read More → "Scientists use light to alter properties of high temperature superconductors"