Science

The Wolf River Bridge in Crandon, Wisconsin, was once notorious for its treacherously slick pavement, which caused several accidents every winter. Workers routinely applied rock salt, but traffic quickly wore it away. So the city turned to civil engineer Russ Alger for help.

Armed with $2 million in federal grants, researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) are close to perfecting the first commercially viable "smart gun." The prototype pistol, unveiled last month, is designed to recognize specific people's grips. When seized by an unauthorized hand-say, that of a child or a criminal-the gun locks its shooting mechanism.

A few months AGO, when researchers analyzed the genome of the devastating 1918 influenza, they found it to be a direct descendant of a common bird-flu strain, with just a few disparate amino acids here and there. The finding cast a chilling new light on the most lethal modern bird flu, known as H5N1, which has already killed at least 70 people in Asia but isn't transmissible between humans-yet.

The squat, four-wheeled Robot driving itself through densely wooded terrain looks too macho to be cute, but it's too small to be threatening (picture a cross between R2-D2 and a Jeep). "You start to associate personalities with each of them," says Mark Del Giorno, of his 'bots. But still, Del Giorno, the vice president for engineering at General Dynamics Robotic Systems, which built this machine for the Army, insists that he doesn't anthropomorphize his robots: "You realize that the 'personality' comes from, say, the steering being a little loose.

Tired of flying coach?

Re-visit the life, accomplishments, and vision of Leonardo da Vinci with The History Channel special presentation.

DA VINCI & THE CODE HE LIVED BY, airing Sunday, December 4th at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT.

You heard right. It seems that unusual species names aren't limited to scientists' favorite rock stars or Star Wars figures—now Internet search engines are in the game. Entomologist Brian Fisher named a new species of ant, Proceratium google, in honor of the mapping program Google Earth. Fisher, who chairs the entomology department at the California Academy of

Dartmouth College researchers have created a robot so small that 200 of them could fit on the tip of your finger. The tiny machine crawls like an inchworm across a grid at the breakneck speed of 200 microns per second. Its goal: to fix really little things. Dartmouth engineer Bruce Donald says swarms of such devices could one day repair circuitry in computer chips.

Wind power is the world´s fastest-growing energy source. Existing capacity worldwide is approaching 50,000 megawatts-roughly equivalent to that of 50 nuclear power plants. But there are problems with this seemingly benign wellspring of pollution-free electricity. Aside from being noisy, the whirling turbines interfere with television reception and are generally considered terrestrial eyesores rendered useless when the wind stops.

The way Robert Liden sees it, his company is simply building an odd-looking car. It's made mostly of steel and glass, after all, and it has an engine with a radiator and a water pump. It just doesn't have wheels, seats or a Blaupunkt.

Tim Kehoe has stained the whites of his eyes deep blue. He's also stained his face, his car, several bathtubs and a few dozen children. He's had to evacuate his family because he filled the house with noxious fumes. He's ruined every kitchen he's ever had. Kehoe, a 35-year-old toy inventor from St. Paul, Minnesota, has done all this in an effort to make real an idea he had more than 10 years ago, one he's been told repeatedly cannot be realized: a colored bubble.

Addressing Climate Change
One of the greatest challenges for the 21st century is the increasing
temperature of the planet. In the last century,
the Earth's surface warmed 0.6C. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
estimates that temperatures could rise by between
1.4 and 5.8C by the end of this century. BP's
position on this issue is clear. Greenhouse gas
levels are rising and the balance of scientific
opinion links that rise to the increase in our
planet's surface temperatures. As a major provider
of energy, we believe we have a responsibility to

Carbon Challenge

It is increasingly accepted that rising levels of greenhouse gases are
contributing to changes in the world's climate. One of the main culprits is carbon dioxide. We exhale carbon dioxide when we breathe. Our cars, homes, factories, and the power plants that light our streets, all release carbon dioxide into the air. It's also emitted when fossil fuels are burned for energy. But that's about to change.

As a major supplier of energy, we believe we have a responsibility to be a leader in finding and implementing solutions to climate change. BP was the first major energy company to publicly acknowledge the need to take steps against climate change. We are now investing $350 million over five years to reduce our internal CO2 emissions by up to one million tonnes each year.