In this episode of Crave we have self-cleaning clothes, a poop-powered motorcycle, and an olde-tyme accessory for your iPhone. Plus, we introduce a new How To segment with CNET guru Rafe Needleman, and Eric rounds out the show by unraveling the influences of "The Matrix."
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Papers on sexually confused beetles, why people sigh, and a patent for a wasabi emergency alarm were among the scientific research projects receiving Ig Nobel prizes last night in a ceremony at Harvard University.
Presented by the science humor magazine "Annals of Improbable Research," the awards have been given out for the past two decades to honor achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think," according to a statement from the organizers.
The biology prize was given to a team or researchers for discovering that certain types of beetles try to mate with … Read more
Smartphones may offer a smarter way to gather data in cognitive research, according to a paper in this week's journal PLoS ONE.
Until recently, when studying human behavior cognitive psychologists--who examine such things as how people think, remember, and perceive the world around them--have relied on volunteers who come to research facilities.
Collecting data solely from this sort of cohort could highly skew resulting data; for one, the number of people who volunteer their time tends to be smaller in scale, and by studying only the types of people who volunteer for this kind of research, cognitive psychologists … Read more
Robots are slowly taking over the world, and a startup in Illinois called Narrative Science is targeting journalism as the next profession to go extinct. Well, maybe just the journalists covering local youth sports and number-crunching quarterly earning reports, so we're safe for now, but let us know if they come out with a robot that can podcast and tell dirty jokes.
Not all robots are out to drive humans to obsolescence, though. We'll also report on a Japanese pet robot named Evolta training for the Hawaii triathlon. The little guy is only 20 inches tall and runs on two AA batteries, so officials are giving him 10 days to complete the 140-mile race.
After the break and a couple voice mails quizzing Wilson on high-school chemistry, we'll offer a couple pro tips on how to handle business in the office, inspired by this helpful article on Gawker. Can't give out too many details here, so check out the show today!
The 404 Digest for Episode 904 Journalism is the next victim of AI-assisted robotics. Tiny Japanese robot to tackle Ironman triathlon. Everything is new in Windows 8, including the Blue Screen of Death. Gawker tells us how to poop at work. The 404's daily bathroom break: Longboard fail like a boss. Episode 904 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read moreLighting manufacturer Lighting Science Group today unveiled a new LED light for ceilings.
The 15-watt Glimpse LED light is intended to replace 65-watt BR30 lights, and can be retrofit into most preexisting 5- to 6-inch recessed lighting cans or a J-Box. The light is dimmable down to 5 percent lighting capacity, according to the company.
The Energy Star-qualifying bulb is also "fully recyclable" and free of toxic chemicals, according to Lighting Science Group. Like almost all LEDs, it is also free of mercury.
The Glimpse LED is currently available via HomeDepot.com for $37. For a full list … Read more
A lot goes on behind the scenes in the nonstop effort to bring produce to our plates. Before we even lay eyes on our dinner as we hunt it among the grocery store aisles, it must be picked, sorted, transported, weighed, and priced. But before even that, before the myriad middlemen have had their say about it, the food in question must first be grown. In the case of vegetables, specifically root vegetables, rarely is this process seen. Everybody knows that the magic of restocked shelves has to start from a seed, but that growing period that occurs immediately after … Read more
Lighting Science Group and Dixon Technologies India today touted an LED light bulb equivalent to a 60-watt incandescent that they say will hit store shelves with a price below $15.
The omnidirectional LED bulb, in the traditional A19 shape of household incandescent light bulbs, will become available in India by the end of the year and worldwide, including in the U.S., early in 2012, the companies said. It's the first in an expected series of products, including streetlights and industrial fixtures, that Lighting Science and Dixon plan to jointly manufacture and distribute.
Prices for LED bulbs meant to … Read more
Want to boost NASA, inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers, and help humanity explore space? Write a science fiction novel.
That's the idea behind a collaboration between the U.S. space agency and publisher Tor-Forge Books: NASA scientists and engineers will work with Tor-Forge writers to produce NASA-inspired works of fiction that tap concepts from the space agency's missions and operations.
Giving science fiction writers access to NASA brainiacs seems good. But I'm a little queasy about a government agency influencing popular culture to promote itself. And exactly how science fiction-worthy are NASA operations? Still, it could be worthwhile. Many a scientist, engineer, and astronaut credits science fiction with sparking their career.
And it may go further than that. In my case, science fiction was inspiration for writing about science and technology. (Not all of us are called to do the heavy lifting.) I wonder whether science fiction has produced more hacker-coders, wannabe space travelers, or aeronautical engineers. … Read more
Who decided solar panels should be flat?
A seventh-grader from New York has worked out that solar panels arranged more like tree branches may capture more light than flat panels.
For real, kind of. Aidan Dwyer, 13, noticed that tree branch patterns are Fibonacci numbers, postulated that it had to do with photosynthesis, took some pretty involved measurements of an oak tree, built a PVC-pipe solar array in the same shape, built a flat solar panel, compared how much light each captured over time, and voila, he had an award-winning science experiment and a great-sounding theory: trees evolved with these patterns for good reason. He found that tree-shaped pattern is as much as 50 percent more efficient than the flat panel, depending on the time of year.
The seventh-grader's explanation was that the Fibonacci pattern keeps branches out of each others' shadows in full light and at the same time allows the tree to garner as much light as possible when some branches are in shadow and others in light.… Read more
It's not just the threat of another recession that tells us we're destroying ourselves. We express it in every alien movie ever made.
Save the Earth. Save the Earth. A question that, increasingly, offers the question: "Why?"
Still we, cranially deficient as we are, prefer to muse about "when?" and "how?" Well, the earthy Guardian points me to a new report, written by three researchers from Penn State, and published in the journal Acta Astronautica (PDF).
The report suggests that it's just remotely, theoretically possible that the green, blue, and orange … Read more
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