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Science
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Japanese Parliamentary Panel: “Fukushima A Man Made Disaster”
05 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
A Japanese parliamentary panel has said in a report that the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant was “a profoundly man-made disaster”, and that the disaster “could and should have been foreseen and prevented”. The report also blamed cultural conventions and a reluctance to question authority.
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Local National Geographic Documentary Lures Baboons With Food [VIDEO]
03 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 5 Comments
The seaside town of Pringle Bay in the Western Cape is outraged at a National Geographic documentary that used food to lure baboons to a specially modified and fully furnished cottage in the area. The cottage is part of the Cape Hangklip Hotel, and the television series, Big Baboon House, raises ethical questions.
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Scientists Say Rise In Sea Level Can’t Be Stopped
02 Jul 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
More worrying news from the climate change front. Scientists have said that even if deep emissions cuts lower global average temperatures, sea levels will continue to rise over the next couple of hundred years.
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The US Army Has A Laser-Guided Lightning Gun
29 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
In more news to terrify you, the US Army has released photographs depicting their new laser-guided lightning gun blowing up a car. They’re calling it the Laser-Induced Plasma Channel (LIPC) because it’s important to make the ability to call down lightning with a laser pointer sound safe.
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China’s First Female Astronaut Does Tai Chi In Space [VIDEO]
29 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Liu Yang, China’s first-ever female astronaut, had a night shift on Shenzhou 9 a couple of days ago – which is apparently sort of dull in space too, because she entertained herself by going through some Tai Chi exercises. In space. And since the spacecraft returned to earth today, we get to see what that looks like.
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Google’s I/O Keynote Pimps Nexus, Jelly Bean, & Project Glass [VIDEO]
28 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
So hey, we’ve had a pretty cool look at the future thanks to Google’s I/O Keynote yesterday – where they covered the new Nexus 7 tablet, the Nexus Q media orb, and the awesome, skydiving-filled Project Glass demonstration that you’re really, really going to want to watch, after the jump.
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Mars Landing In 40 Days. NASA’s 7 Minutes Of Terror [Video]
27 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
In my opinion this is a far more exciting countdown than the Olympics; in 40 days, NASA’s nuclear powered Curiosity rover will enter the Martian atmosphere, and the landing is the most nerve-racking part for the engineers.
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SA Government Receives R25 Million Donation For Wildlife Crime Fighting
27 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The Department of Environmental Affairs (read: the South African government) has welcomed (obviously?) the Council of the Global Environment Facility’s approval of R25 million worth of funding aimed at strengthening the current wildlife forensic capabilities in South Africa. The donation will help combat wildlife crimes like rhino poaching.
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Infinite-Capacity Wireless Vortex Beams Could Transfer 60 DVD’s A Second
26 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
I don’t really care how fast it is, I just want to own something that uses an infinite-capacity wireless vortex beam. Though it sounds like a death-ray, it describes what American and Israeli researchers have used to create the fastest ever wireless network: twisted beams of light that transfer data at 2,56 terabits per second.
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Google Creates A Computer that Learns (About Cats)
26 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
The internet is obsessed with cats. Completely and utterly obsessed. In Google’s secretive X labratory, scientists have developed one of the largest neural networks for machine learning by connecting 16,000 computer processors. What did it do? Watched Youtube, and worked out what a cat is.
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European Commission Draws Flack For “Sexy Female Scientist” Video
25 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The European Commission is drawing pretty widespread condemnation for releasing a video — ostensibly aimed at getting girls into science — which pretty much depicts female scientists as sexy models in short skirts who hang around bunsen burners, giggling. Take a look at what lady scientists apparently look like in Europe after the jump.
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Chad Meihuizen: Extreme Endurance Running In Aid Of Alzheimer’s
22 Jun 2012 by Seth Rotherham / 4 Comments
Chad’s father passed away last year. He had suffered from Alzheimer’s, and his deterioration into dementia was quick and incredibly painful. Chad’s father spent the last six weeks of his life in hospital, and Chad spent every one of those days at his side. In the end, he suffered more than any person deserved. Chad’s […]
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The Crazy Dutch Want A Reality Show On Mars By 2023
11 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
In recent years we have seen reality television sink from the lows of Big Brother down through teen pregnancy, to the dregs of Jersey Shore. Earth, it would seem has little left to offer in terms of reality TV. Enter Dutch team, Mars One, who are looking to raise an initial $6 billion to send a team to mars by 2023, and make a reality show out of it.
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Are You A Lucid Dreamer?
01 Jun 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
By definition, lucid dreaming refers to any occasion when a sleeping person is aware that they are dreaming. But, it’s also used to describe the idea of being able to control those dreams. Think: Inception. Today, lucid dreaming has evolved into an industry worthy of a discussion.
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Vodacom Office To Get Largest Array Of Solar Panels On A Building In Africa
29 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Vodacom announced a short while ago that their Century City office would from August boast the largest array of solar panels on a single building in Africa. Nearly 2 000 mono crystalline solar panels will cover the 3 600m² roof of the building, it said.
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Finally – The Stuck Ketchup Problem, Solved [VIDEO]
28 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
It’s taken months of research and some of America’s brightest minds to figure it out, but now it seems the end of tomato sauce frustration is nigh. A new bottle coating developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) doctoral candidate Dave Smith, together with a team of mechanical engineers and nanotechnology researchers, has ketchup flowing like milk.
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Germany Eclipses Solar Power World Record
28 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
This will surprise you. On Friday and Saturday, German solar power plants produced a record 22 gigawatts of energy – the equivalent output of 20 nuclear plants running at full capacity. The country is already a world-leader in solar power, and hopes to be free of nuclear energy by 2022. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, Germany decided to abandon nuclear power, and immediately closed eight plants.
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Finally – Plane Seats For Fat People!
25 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Fat people take up a lot of space on the plane. I mean, how many times have you had to fold your arms so they can merely fit into their space, and yours. For a long time, we’ve all wanted them to have their own fat seats when they fly. Finally! This is a reality. Thank you, Airbus.
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Paralysed Woman Controls Prosthesis, With Her Mind
17 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Science! Technology! In a worldwide medical first, researchers have successfully implanted a computer-mind interface into the motor cortex of a 58-year-old, quadriplegic woman which allowed her to control a robotic limb using only the power of her mind. The future is now.
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NASA Planning Manned Asteroid Mission
16 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
NASA will start training a team astronauts to land on an asteroid in the next month, in preparation for a mission that will take humans farther from Earth than ever before. They’ll be collecting mineral samples and determining how to destroy an asteroid in the event that it might collide with the Earth. Seriously.
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Billion-Dollar Ghost Town Being Built For Science
14 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Hey there, science fiction. Defence contractor, Pegasus Global Holdings is building a replica of Rock Hill, a South Carolina city, in the middle of the New Mexico desert as a testing ground for futuristic infrastructures – self-driving cars, green buildings and next-generation Wi-Fi. It’ll be an uninhabited laboratory – they’re calling it “an amusement park for scientists.”
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Hello, Future: Move Files Across Devices With A Swipe [VIDEO]
08 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
People over at MIT have developed a piece of open-source software that lets you drag files from your phone to your computer or tablet or whatever with a swipe of a finger. It’s simple and clever and looks like the future – and it works. They’re calling it Swÿp. Take a look at the demo after the jump.
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Salome The Cheetah Gives Birth To Three Cubs
03 May 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Late yesterday afternoon, you may have been alerted to the fact that we had found out that Salome the cheetah from the Hoedpsruit Endangered Species Centre was due to give birth to her first litter of cubs at some point during the following 24 hours. Her first cub was born at approximately 19h20 last night. Click through for more.
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Coming Soon: Live-Stream Of Planet Earth From ISS [VIDEO]
25 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
A new startup called Urthecast is in the process of putting together HD cameras to be fitted to the International Space Station, so that people can watch real-time video of the planet from space. Which is at once really cool, and sort of pointless. The footage is looking impressive, though – take a look.
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Launch Your Own Satellite For R60 000
23 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Interorbital Systems, an American aerospace company that constructs rocket and spacecraft, has announced an exciting product development: you can now very cost-effectively buy, and launch your own satellite into orbit.
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Fatal Shark Attack: City Of Cape Town Releases Official Report And Review
23 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 3 Comments
The City of Cape Town has released its official report on the fatal shark attack that claimed the life of bodyboarder, David Lilienfeld, 20, on Thursday at Kogel Bay, “Caves”, near Gordons Bay. In it, the City concluded that the tagging of False Bay sharks for a documentary could not be directly linked to the attack.
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13-Year-Old Kenyan Boy Saves Cattle From Lions With Invention
20 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 3 Comments
Wherever humans and wild animals come into close contact with one another, there will likely be negative consequences for one or the other, or both. 13-year-old Richard Turere, who lives in Empakasi, on the edge of the Nairobi National Park, just south of Nairobi, has invented a system that keeps his family’s cattle safe from lions that had previously sought an easy meal from their herd.
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Brilliant Solar Flares Exploded From The Sun Yesterday [VIDEO]
18 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Yesterday NASA managed to capture the clearest-yet footage of a solar flare in process after magnetic fields on the Sun’s northeastern curve exploded in huge streams of plasma and sun stuff. The footage only accounts for about five seconds of explosion, but it’s very, very cool, both in and out of time-lapse.
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Physicist Uses Mathematics To Get Out Of Traffic Fine, Publishes Findings
18 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
UC San Diego physicist, Dmitri Krioukov got ticketed recently for running a stop sign – which isn’t unusual. What is unusual is the fact that, rather than pay the $400 fine and move on, Krioukov wrote a mathematical paper proving that the cop who ticketed him had a “perception of reality that did not properly reflect reality.”
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Despite Two Fracking Earthquakes, UK Expected To Adopt New Widespread Fracking
17 Apr 2012 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Advice from the first official British government report into fracking has been published today. In it, British ministers have been informed that they should allow the controversial process of fracking for shale gas to be extended there, this despite the process having been blamed for causing two earthquakes.
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