A £1m prize – named after the Queen – is to be awarded for exceptional advances in engineering.

The prize, funded by an endowment from a number of engineering companies, will be awarded biannually to an individual or team of up to three people.

It is designed to raise the profile of engineering and the recipients can be of any nationality. via BBC

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It took over a year to construct at a cost of $2.7 million, but the world’s least thrilling roller coaster is now open in Duisburg, Germany, ready for tourists looking to avoid thrills or anything exciting during their travels.

Rising 66 feet into the air, the ‘Tiger & Turtle – Magic Mountain’ was designed by artists Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth to contrast the sense of speed usually associated with thrill rides ( … Read More → "This walkable roller coaster offers good exercise, but no thrill whatsoever"

Anyone willing to travel to remote places for the sake of science has to accept some health problems, be it frostbite in Antarctica or bone loss in space. To make matters worse, these people also have to accept self-diagnosing and self-treating these health problems, not to mention others that may arise in the course of their missions. Now the European Space Agency wants to make these types of tests somewhat simpler for the astronauts who … Read More → "To check astronaut health, ESA is developing a blood analysis lab-on-a-chip that works in space"

You know what your non-denominational winter holiday decorations are lacking? The ability to travel through time and the murderous desire to exterminate all life. Thankfully, the BBC store is here to help with these handsome ornaments of the Doctor’s iconic TARDIS and a malevolent Dalek. via Geekosystem

Read More → "These Doctor Who ornaments will transport your Christmas tree through time and space"

Gadget-stuffed watches have been a science fiction staple since the days of Dick Tracy. If you can miniaturize it and put it in a watch we’ve got it here for you, along with some other gadgetry/science fiction themes that are sure to please.

Here are 25 of the coolest things you can slap to your wrist, and they make great gifts, to boot. via Read More → "25 nerdy watches that tech geeks will love"

The icy crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa may contain a body of water the size of the Great Lakes sitting just 1.8 miles below the surface. If confirmed, the findings could heat up the prospects of finding alien life on the chilly moon.

Deep underneath its frozen exterior, Europa is known to house a vast ocean, with two to three times the volume of Earth’s oceans. And researchers have previously speculated … Read More → "Huge lake could increase chance of life on Jupiter moon"

Brown University Engineering and Visual Arts lecturer Ian Gonsher’s Generative Construction Toy is a set of snap together shapes that you can cut out on a laser cutter and use as building blocks to design and build compound three dimensional objects. It’s like an evolving desktop fab version of tinker toys or LEGO, but more organic. What’s most interesting about the GCT … Read More → "Generative construction toy"

We’ve had our eyes on contact lenses which aim to deliver medicine for several years. Now, a team of biomedical and chemical engineers from Alabama’s Auburn University (AU) claims to have designed the first disposable lenses capable of delivering controlled doses of medication for as long as they’re being worn. via gizmag

Read More → "Experimental contact lenses deliver eye medication in controlled doses"

Dual-cores, quad-cores, hexa-core and even octa-core processors are fairly common, but how many people can boast about their computer having over 50 cores packed tighter than sardines in a 22nm piece of silicon? You can if you’re Intel. via Dvice

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