Missing Links
Plus, guess where solar is headed next

Isle of Skye Stinging Eyes (CC licensed)

Also, useful rats, accommodating corpses, and more, all in today's links.

  • How to set up a solar energy project where none of the residents will cry out "Not in my backyard"? Build it in a cemetery. (What the residents' kids will say is a different story.)
  • Researchers have found that prints left by dinosaurs on the Isle of Skye in Scotland are virtually indistinguishable from prints found in Wyoming. We are really hoping that researchers will next find signs of those little fairies that supposedly roam around Skye in Wyoming, too.
  • Scientists foresee a shift from computers that can calculate to computers that can cogitate, or at least more closely mimic the processes and circuitry of a human brain.
  • Just like your mom hollering "Yoo hoo!", anoles have a way of getting their comrades' attention -- only they do so silently.
  • Rats: They're not just for running around on subway tracks and spreading disease anymore. A species known for their "sunny disposition" is being trained to sniff out explosives, while others are being used to detect tuberculosis bacteria.
Want to learn more about breakthroughs in electronics, medicine, nanotech, and more?
Subscribe to Popular Science today, for less than $1 per issue!

1 Comment

President-elect Barack Obama's energy initiatives focus upon electric-powered vehicles, wind turbines and solar energy. The plans necessitate building a transmission grid capable of delivering renewable power generated in remote places to distant cities. Grid developers face uncertainties in cost allocations and returns on investments, environmental concerns, landowner objections and a variety of regulations in different states served by the same power lines.
Solar energy possibilities are discussed at http://www.onebiosphere.com
New electricity from wind and solar sources could increase the regularity of blackouts and reduce the reliability of the nation's electrical grid according to experts. Energy from these new sources will impose new demands on a transmission system that was not designed for large power transfers over extremely long distances.


138 years of Popular Science at your fingertips.

Innovation Challenges



Popular Science+ For iPad

Each issue has been completely reimagined for your iPad. See our amazing new vision for magazines that goes far beyond the printed page



Download Our App

Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone or Android phone with full articles, images and offline viewing



Follow Us On Twitter

Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed


February 2012: The Future of Fun

Science is reinventing play, from extreme sports to gamification to ridiculous roller coasters to the playgrounds of tomorrow, and this issue is chock full of fun. Also, on a less fun note: Did global warming destroy my hometown?


circ-top-header.gif
circ-cover.gif
bmxmag-ps