Science

When evacuation is inappropriate, such as during a chemical or biological attack, occupants can congregate in protected spaces known as refuge areas. In Israel, refuge areas are mandated by law in all buildings erected since 1992, even private homes, and in Asia, entire floors of high-rises must be set aside for the purpose. Refuge areas vary widely in size, design and sophistication. The most advanced ones are independent units with their own ventilation systems and sprinklers, as well as extra fire-proofing, structural reinforcement and blast-resistant doors and windows.

Up to 85 percent of injuries in bomb attacks are caused by flying glass—“knives and daggers,” in the words of blast engineer Tod Rittenhouse. But thanks to commercial pressure for views and a graceful exterior, the Freedom Tower’s skin will be mostly glass. Designers will use safety glass, but have not provided details. There are two ways to pacify glass: tinker with it chemically or keep it from traveling.

High manufacturing temperatures make blast-resistant glass strong but too heavy for an entire building. Laminated glass consists of glass layers sandwiched around plastic; upon breaking, glass fragments stick to the plastic. A futuristic solution&58; glass that’s been chemically treated so that it cracks from below the surface into sand-like grains, not shards.

High-risk buildings should be situated far from streets to foil car bombings. The Freedom Tower will be set back at least 25 feet-10 strides-from crowded thoroughfares, with barriers for protection.

Experts suggest placing the main emergency-ops center on the ground floor, in a fortified room linked to fire-safe stairs. At least one other command center should be located off-site, in case the main one is destroyed.

You are dangling like bait at the end of a 22-foot-long robotic arm, and it looks and feels exactly like you're zooming through space. It's tempting to gaze at distant planets, except that an asteroid as big as a house is hurtling toward you. Just before impact, you blast it with a phaser cannon while executing a series of buttery barrel rolls to avoid the debris. The asteroid bits pelt your ship, rattling you to the marrow. Then, without warning, you're sucked through the blackness of a wormholeback into reality.

Kaleidoscopic holograms like the ones stamped on your credit cards could soon wind up in the eyes of diabetics. Researchers at Smart Holograms in Cambridge, England, have devised a contact lens that changes shape in response to glucose found in tears—a direct indicator of blood sugar.

1. Einstein showed that light travels in bundles called quanta, which are at
the heart of the light-emitting diode. When electrons in a semiconductor-based diode move from one side to another, they shift to a less excited state, releasing energy in the form of photons. Channel these, and you get a bright, long-lasting light source.

2. In 1917 Einstein demonstrated that when a photon comes into contact with an atom, it can trigger a chain-reaction release of additional photons from

At 1,200 pounds and 14 feet long, "Troy" is chunkier than the average great white shark. He might smell kind of funny too. But do the pods of sharp-toothed predators he swam among last winter know that, inside, there's just a man? Or that it was Fabien Cousteau, grandson of pioneering undersea explorer Jacques, surreptitiously recording their every movement?

The key to the thrill ride of the future is a robotic arm that replaces the traditional roller-coaster car. British engineer Gino De-Gol adapted the Kuka KR 500, a 5,000-pound aluminum robotic arm, by attaching a passenger seat to the free end. The arm has six joints that allow it to articulate acrobatics as wild as a programmer can dream up. To make his RoboCoaster a reality, De-Gol needs to build a track that can handle the cantilevered load of the KR 500. Here´s a video of the arm in action:

The penetrometer was the first thing to hit. The stick-like probe on the bottom of the Huygens lander punched aside a hard pebble made of water ice on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and sliced down through five inches of soft, muddy material. Scientists watching from Earth were ecstatic—the probe was not expected to survive the landing—but at the same time puzzled: If Titan really was, as they suspected, much like a young Earth, where were the liquid oceans predicted to cover the surface?

Ah, Friday nights parked in front of the tube: salty snacks, fake blood, mathematics. Indeed, the CBS crime drama Numb3rs has finally brought math into prime time, as the mathematician Charlie Eppes (played by David Krumholtz) helps his FBI-agent brother (Rob Morrow) track down outlaws by detecting patterns in criminal behavior. In recent episodes, the duo also localized a deadly virus and uncovered sinister engineering flaws. And unlike most

The power of thought just got a lot more powerful. Scientists have created a cranial implant that allows monkeys to control a robotic arm just by thinking about it. Using brain signals, the monkeys persuaded the arm to pick up and feed them chunks of zucchini, cucumbers and apples.

Last winter, neuroscientist Andrew Schwartz and his team at the University of Pittsburgh trained monkeys to think about reaching for food (the animals' arms had been temporarily restrained). Using almost 200 electrodes

Graham Hawkes is best known for his radical winged submarines that "fly" under the sea like spiraling fighter jets. But the British-born engineer is also the inventor of the military's first robotic machine gun. He hit upon the idea after reading about a disastrous police shootout in Philadelphia in 1985. Here's what Hawkes, 57, had to say about how he brought it to life.

A cross between a tank and a soldier, the latest feat of military husbandry makes Robocop look like Officer Friendly. Combining a lightweight robot built by military contractor Foster-Miller for reconnaissance in Bosnia with a remote-control machine-gun mount invented by Northern California engineer Graham Hawkes [see interview], this is the world's first land-based telepresent combat weapona deadly-accurate surrogate gunner that needs no sleep and will never come home in a casket.