Technology

Arguably the most heated and oft-discussed topic in regard to the Internet and all that it has become is the one of copyright. DRM, the RIAA, Creative Commons—you likely cant go a day without reading about a cracked cipher or a new business model in the face of illegal file sharing.

Kids arent the only ones who think fake diamonds are hot. Engineers at Ohio State University are using zirconium dioxide (the ceramic from which we get synthetic diamonds) to protect jet engines from high-temperature corrosion.

In its raw form, d3o looks like slime and molds like Play-Doh, but take a hammer to a clump and it changes to a stiff rubber. This curious substance introduced itself in the 2006 Olympics as a safety lining for the Spyder skiing suits, and that same year, d3o's protective ski hat won PopSci's Best of What's New Award.

Wired recently reported on a newcomer to the street-level imagery map game. Theyre called MapJack, and if they can expand quickly enough to cover the ground Google has already claimed, theyll give them a good run for their money. The concept is the sameyou click around on a map and see photos of the streetbut beyond that, the two diverge. MapJacks imagery is many times sharper, larger, and more dynamic than Googles. The site offers a sophisticated array of controls, both in navigating the street and the view and in controlling the image display. I found it much more responsive and vibrant than Google Maps. Lining up a particular address or orientation is a snap, like it should be.

Everyone seems to be double-extra-cautiously optimistic about this finding, so dont go running out to your telescope tonight looking for greetings from friendly space creatures.

But in work reported today in Nature, astronomers say they used the Hubble Space Telescopes infrared imager to pick up signs of methane in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a star some 63 million light years from Earth. And methane, an organic molecule, is an indicator of the possible presence of life.

It was in the third hour of a bewildering odyssey into the iTunes rental wilderness (I and my crew were fiercely at arms with a six-foot DVI cable) when a quote I had read in the paper earlier that day came back to me with sudden, crystalline truthiness. It was in a brief New York Times piece recounting a staged talk between exmedia mogul Michael Eisner and polymath Mark Cuban at last weeks SXSW Interactive conference.

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You're unique. Aren't you? One of the more creative hypotheses surrounding quantum mechanics posits the exact opposite. Though we can readily see only one world, quantum mechanics says that when were not observing the particles that make up that world, those particles exist in multiple places at once. There are many theories that attempt to grasp what this means, but one of the most tantalizing is Hugh Everett's multiverse concept.

Over the years, researchers at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute (GSSI) have tested hundreds of elite and recreational athletes to better understand hydration. A few months back they stepped on court to analyze the sweat of the worlds fifth ranked womens tennis player, Maria Sharapova. Tiger Woods went through a similar regimen in creating his own custom Gatorade formula, with fancy flavors set to launch this month. Ongoing tests on NFL and NHL players offer similar personalized suggestions on what to drink and when.

Cocktail Party Science Episode 4:  iStockphoto

Plus: Should pollution be a sin? How 'bout genetic engineering?

Two years ago we showed you Boston Dynamics' incredible BigDog—one of the world's most ambitious legged robots—being developed for DARPA and the U.S. Army. With its advanced system of hyper-responsive hydraulic joints and a suite of sensors, accelerometers and gyroscopes, the BigDog's most stunning achievement is it's ability to walk, climb and maintain its balance on diverse terrain, even after slipping on ice or receiving a kick to one side. All while carrying several hundreds of pounds of supplies on its "back."

All reports suggest that the International Space Stations new robotic handyman will survive, and not freeze into a $209 million junk pile due to a power problem. Astronauts bypassed a faulty cable on Friday, and managed to get power to the robot arm, which will keep it warm, and ready for duty, in the deep cold of space.

Happy Pi Day! Todays date is 3.14, the first three digits of arguably the most famous mathematical constant (anyone remember e? Napiers constant? Didnt think so). School children and geeks everywhere are celebrating it today by, well, eating pies, as it turns out.

Your TV just came another step closer to your computer. TiVo has partnered with YouTube to bring its content to broadband-connected subscribers with the Series 3 and HD set-top boxes. This means youll no longer have to drag the laptop downstairs or force everybody to huddle around the tiny screen of your iPhone at parties to show your guests the latest pratfalls. Just flick on your TV and youre set.

The International Space Stations new robotic repairman, a $200 million Canadian robot called Dextre, should end up working just fine despite some early glitches, officials say. Dextre, an incredibly dexterous ‘bot with two flexible three-meter arms (hence, of course, the name), is designed to be a kind of maintenance machine on the outside of the ISS.

When the GeoEye-1 surveillance satellite comes online this spring, its advanced optics will produce more-detailed images than any commercial satellite, capturing objects as small as home plate on a baseball diamond and filling in the fuzzy spots on Google Earth.