jessica cheng

If you started just before the first dinosaurs appeared, you’d probably be finishing your hike just about now.

So it looks like it's not all gloom and doom after all. A few recent studies have managed to find the slim silver lining of climate change. Below, a look at the three small positive outcomes of global warming.

It’s not necessarily laziness that makes people hit the “snooze” button in the morning. Most likely, your body clock is mismatched with the demands of your life.

Your clock is controlled by the suprachiasmatic nucleus, a part of the brain that controls the body’s biological rhythms. But, says Jean Matheson, a sleep-disorders specialist at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, these preset natural rhythms often don’t align with daily realities—work or school start times cannot be adjusted to fit a person’s sleep schedule.

Nautical engineers have long dreamed of a craft that could race across wave tops like a speedboat and seconds later dive beneath them like a submarine. But crossing the two breeds presents a catch-22: Subs need heft to sink, but speedboats need to be lightweight to go fast. With an investment of nearly $2 million and years of research, former auto-shop owner Reynolds Marion of Lake City, Florida, has finally hit on a solution, a machine he’s dubbed the Hyper-Submersible Powerboat. When complete, it will reach speeds of up to 45 mph and dive down to 1,200 feet.

Swimming around in their tank, these autonomous robotic jellyfish move alone or in a swarm and communicate with their brethren to avoid underwater collisions. Developed by German industrial-automation company Festo as an attention-grabbing experiment in cooperative robotics, each AquaJelly uses eight bendable “tentacles” to propel itself forward.

At this moment, in the constellation Taurus, a planet is forming in the dust and debris surrounding the star HL Tau. The protoplanet, named HL Tau b, may be the youngest yet discovered.

Photo printing just got faster and easier. Instead of waiting until you get home, you can use Polaroid’s pocket-sized PoGo to print on the spot. Using Zink’s "zero-ink" technology—paper that contains layers of heat-activated color dye crystals a few microns thick—PoGo eliminates the clunky ink cartridges of traditional printers. The device—weighing just eight ounces and measuring 4.7 by 2.8 by 0.9 inches—goes on sale July 6 for $150.

If the thought of planning a trip to the happiest place on Earth on a flat map online (let alone on paper) seems too dull—Disney World now offers visitors a 3-D interactive map on Google Earth.

The program allows for a more interactive (and fun) way to check out the park, letting you view photos, videos, and write-ups and better judge if Space Mountain is really worth the lines. It even shows the location of park benches; plan the ideal spot to rest your feet.

Worried that embalming fluids or emissions from cremation will pollute the earth after your death? There may be a more eco-friendly albeit somewhat grisly alternative—dissolving the body in lye. The process, which has been used to dispose of animals and lab specimens for many years, is now being considered more seriously for human use. Called alkaline hydrolysis, the method uses a steel cylinder that dissolves the body in lye with 300-degree heat and 60 pounds of pressure per square inch. The result is a sterile, coffee-colored liquid with the consistency of motor oil that can be safely poured down the drain. A small amount of bone residue that can be scattered like cementation ashes is the only solid byproduct.

Just in time for this years growing season, farmers have new equipment to help keep tabs on their crops while away. With SmartCrop, a system developed by Accent Engineering, farmers get text messages when their plants need water. The system uses infrared thermometers to measure leaf temperature and data is then transferred to a computerized base station. A cellphone modem hooked up to the base station allows farmers to receive SMS alerts when their plants are too hot. Research has shown that each plant species has a range of temperatures that is best for its growth.

Post-its are great to jot down quick notes and messages; and important phone numbers; and meeting locations; and the zillions of passwords. Great that is, until they lose their stick and end up buried in piles of work or behind the desk. Now, researchers at MIT have solved that pressing problem with the demoed Quickies, a new application to digitize handwritten sticky notes and allow you not only to browse through an archive of notes, but set up to-do lists, send reminders, and even find that sticky note you lost in the middle of a textbook.

Tomorrow is a special day for spam—its turning 30. Even those despised emails about enlarging certain body parts, discounts on health products, Rolex watches, enhancing your love life have to have an origin.

In fact, spam began inoffensively enough with an email sent May 3, 1978 to about 400 users of Arpanet, (the government-run network that later became in the Internet) from a marketer at the (now defunct) computer company Digital Equipment Company. The first one wasnt the scam- and virus-filled message familiar to todays Internet users—just a friendly email inviting all to a showing of a new computer system.

Road signs have been a blessing to many drivers, acting as a quick guide away from danger or to the nearest gas stations. Now researchers in France have come up with an iconic language of their own to help lead doctors to the right drug prescription. Jean-Baptiste Lamy and his colleagues at the University of Paris hope the VCM (Visulaisation des Connaissances Médicales) icon system will help lessen prescribing errors. Something often traced to restraints on physicians' time and resources that prevent them from easily looking up or remembering drug properties. With VCM, doctors can see the risks associated with any given drug at a glance.