“A group from MIT lead by Karen Gleason and Vladimir Bulovic have developed a process thatprints solar cells onto a fabric or paper substrate, thus creating a flexible array capable of withstanding forces applied to objects that are bent or folded without loss of conductivity.” via Make
The new book Field Notes on Science & Nature, edited by Harvard University biologist Michael Canfield, makes a compelling case for the value of scientific journals and field notebooks and contains some beautiful and impressive examples of the craft. via Wired
Not content to leave well enough alone with their first humorous video promo for the MachXO2, the people at Lattice Semi released the above video for their Lattice ECP3 family of FPGA devices.
“In the two years since its launch, people are still figuring what Wolfram Alpha can do. This latest revelation came from a Redditor, who discovered that Wolfram Alpha knows the words to the “Theme From Shaft” by Isaac Hayes.” via Geekosystem
“Few inventors contributed more to advances in science and engineering in the early 20th century than Nikola Tesla. As one of the Fathers of Electricity, Tesla did groundbreaking work on alternating current (AC) power system, electromagnetism, hydroelectric power, radio, and radar to name a few. Many of his inventions (Tesla obtained some 300 patents in his lifetime) became the stuff we take for granted today: when we flip a switch to turn on the light, we owe a lot of that electrical magic to Tesla.
As fate would have it, Tesla, one of the world’s … Read More → "Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla!"
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a movie of a comet streaking directly in front of the sun and creating what looks like a splash upon impact.
Check out the (very cool) video here!
NASA via Read More → "On July 5, a comet appears to have run smack dab into the sun"
“Want to build a device that takes video in 360 degrees? That can communicate with a car’s onboard computer, or connect to sensors that can measure your heart rate or blood pressure? It used to be that to build a self-designed gadget, you had to know how to make it entirely from scratch. And if, after testing it, you wanted to sell a few, you had to build each one by hand—large manufacturing companies generally wouldn’t pick up the phone to take orders that numbered fewer than hundreds of thousands.” via Read More → "Mass customization makes it far more practical to fabricate products in small quantities"
eeek, really?
“Scientists from Queen Mary, Hertfordshire and Heriot-Watt universities are part of the EU-funded LIREC project to develop software that enables robots to respond to human emotions and change their behaviour accordingly.
They hope that by understanding how humans recognise emotions, they will be able to create mathematical models that robots can use to read social situations. This could then allow robots to be used more commonly in homes, schools and offices.” via Read More → "UK researchers are helping create robots that recognize emotions, in order to encourage people to accept them as part of everyday life"
Wired has a good roundup of high-tech golf gear to further distract you from help you with your game.
… Read More → "Wired’s gallery of high-tech golf gear"Space Shuttle Atlantis launched successfully this morning, the final flight of the Space Shuttle program, on mission STS-135 to the International Space Station.
via SlashGear
… Read More → "Space Shuttle’s final launch a success"
