Science and research

Triple planetary conjunctions are relatively rare in the night sky, but astronomers are about to be in for a real treat.

The three brightest planets in our solar system as seen from Earth -- Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus -- will be coming together in the sky, "dancing" around each other over the course of several nights, starting Friday, May 24.

If we're lucky, we see a triple conjunction once every two years or so. The most recent was in May 2011; the next won't be until October 2015.

Because the planets in this conjunction are so bright, the dance will be visible to the naked eye, even in densely populated areas. But if you have access to a telescope or binoculars, so much the better. … Read more

In the wake of the colossal tornado that rampaged through 17 miles of central Oklahoma, plans for storm-chasing UAVs are taking on new significance.

Students at Oklahoma State University have been working on "storm-penetrating air vehicles" that could help cope with deadly tornadoes.

The aircraft are "designed to penetrate thunderstorms, including the supercells that spawn tornadoes" to gather data used to predict storms and warn people about them, the university said in a release. … Read more

When you think of the word "crystal," you think, perhaps, of wedges of quartz stone, ice crystals, and salt -- not organic flowing forms or flowers. But by manipulating chemical gradients in a beaker of fluid, Harvard postdoctoral fellow Wim L. Noorduin has managed to control the growth of barium carbonate crystals to form very controlled sculptures of flowers, with petals, stems, and leaves.

How the crystal forms depends on the mixture of chemicals in a solution. As the chemical gradients react, the pH can change, causing the crystals to grow away from or toward the gradient, enabling Noorduin to coax the forms into leaves radiating outward, a ling, thin stem, or the petals of the flower head. … Read more

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -- Collaborate.org wants to bring geospatial data to the masses, beyond where Google Earth has gone. The company, which launched Wednesday at the Future in Review conference here, is built around a geospatial visualizer, with more than 2 million data layers that can be overlaid on maps, and a broad set of collaboration tools.

"We want to harness the collective knowledge of the online global community, sharing expertise and enthusiasm," said company CEO Kevin Montgomery. "We are providing worldwide geospatial infrastructure to empower people." Collaborate.org grew out of Intelesense, a company … Read more

Biomedical engineers are unveiling a new type of fabric that, much like human skin, can turn excess sweat into droplets that simply fall away on their own accord.

"We intentionally did not use any fancy microfabrication techniques so it is compatible with the textile manufacturing process and very easy to scale up," said Siyuan Xing in a school news release. Xing is the lead biomedical engineering student on the project at the University of California, Davis.

An article in the journal Lab on a Chip describes the fabric's microfluidic platform. Multiple woven threads suck droplets of water … Read more

Windows users, rejoice! Leap Motion is coming to a PC near you, and for the first time, you can see what it will be like.

Today, Leap Motion released a video showing what its 3D gesture-control system will be like on a Windows computer. That's important, given that it has struck partnerships with Asus and Hewlett-Packard.

With Leap and Windows, the company said in a blog post, "You'll be able to browse the Web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can … Read more

After researching a device that draws energy from knee movement, some mechanical engineering students at Rice University decided to see if they could get the same result from another, less intrusive wearable item: a shoe.

With help from the Movement Analysis Laboratory at Shriners Hospital for Children in Houston, the resulting PediPower shoes harness energy from the force of the heel hitting the ground. The prototype -- while admittedly big, unattractive, and impractical to wear 100 percent of the time (think sleeping, showering, etc.) -- demonstrates that the simple act of walking may one day power a wide range of … Read more

It has long been understand that right-handed people -- who make up about 90 percent of the population -- have left-hemisphere dominant brains, and left-handed people the reverse. But the division of labor isn't actually that simple. For some 95 percent of righties, the left hemisphere almost exclusively handles language and the right emotion and image processing, while for lefties, only 20 percent experience such strict division.

Now there may be a new way, apart from handedness, to determine one's cerebral dominance: the cell phone.

In a new study out of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, … Read more

For diabetics who have to constantly manage their blood-sugar levels, insulin works. The problem is, many people with Type 1 diabetes have to prick their fingers multiple times a day to monitor their levels, and inject themselves with insulin when those levels are too high. And they don't always administer the right amount at the right time.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston Children's Hospital hope to automate insulin delivery with a novel nanotech approach that involves injecting a gel that detects blood-sugar levels and secretes insulin when needed -- with a single injection doing do the trick for as many as 10 days.… Read more