Comments

guruuswa

Science

How Much Can You Really Learn With a Free Online Education?

By Posted on 9.2.2009 12 Comments
I was not screwing around. When I took the first physics class of my life, at age 35, it was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and my professor was Walter Lewin, one of that institution's most respected instructors. Lewin is a man so comfortable with his vectors that he diagrams them in front of a classroom audience while wearing Teva sandals. OK, I wasn't really "at" MIT. And "took" the class may be a stretch. I was watching the video of one of Lewin's lectures from the comfort of my backyard in Brooklyn, and I too was wearing sandals (but not Tevas; I have standards).

9.6.2009 at 03:40am - Comment by guruuswa

i hate school. why couldnt they think of something else
Gadgets

As Your Children Grow, So Does Kilobike

By Adrian Covert Posted on 9.4.2009 17 Comments
The tricky thing about buying a bike (or anything else) for a kid is that there's a 99.9-percent certainty they'll outgrow it. The genius behind the Kilobike is that while they're between the ages of 6 and 12, the bike will grow with them.

9.6.2009 at 03:20am - Comment by guruuswa

hey moron you have a problem with zimbabwe? ever been there? don't make stupid comments about people you don't know.
Science

A Photon-Powered Nanomotor Made Out of DNA

By Posted on 6.5.2009 5 Comments
Nanomotors hold the promise of one day powering tiny robots that could do everything from fighting viruses to cleaning up toxic waste. Thanks to some scientists at the University of Florida, that day is getting rapidly closer; and some of these robots might end up solar-powered. A new paper published in the journal Nano Letters details how the researchers created the first light-powered nanomotor out of a photoreactive chemical and a short length -- only 31 base pairs -- of DNA.

6.8.2009 at 01:33am - Comment by guruuswa

nope. you'll just have a robot made out of DNA and proteins...
Cars

New BMW's Drive Themselves (Almost)

By Mike Spinelli Posted on 6.4.2009 6 Comments
A new autonomous vehicle-control system on the BMW drawing board could prolong drivers' lives behind the wheel, without sacrificing their own and others' safety. That's good news for elderly drivers. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports crash fatalities among drivers over the age of 70 fell 21 percent between 1997 and 2006, despite a 10 percent increase in that population. The decline is likely due to elderly drivers self-limiting their driving. But hanging up their keys means a loss of independence and lower quality of life for older drivers -- especially in rural areas.

6.5.2009 at 02:33am - Comment by guruuswa

very few people can afford a beemer, even one without all the fancy stuff. so this invention is pretty useless for now. as for the drunk driving, why not just put the alcohol detector on the steering wheel, make sure whoever is driving isn't drunk by testing their sweat or something...
Science

20 Years After Tiananmen, China Is Now Undemocratic 2.0

By Anna Maria Jakubek Posted on 6.3.2009 7 Comments
This Thursday marks twenty years since China's military ended the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democratic demonstrations by killing off hundreds of students, workers, and ordinary civilians. It's fitting, then, that in celebration of the anniversary, the government is once again curbing free speech. Censors have been at it for weeks, but now they've even begun cutting citizens off from Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, and Microsoft's live.com.

6.4.2009 at 07:50am - Comment by guruuswa

imfamous you're spot on. people who go on social sites the whole day are actually losers. no wonder companies end up blocking that rubbish. i'm sure those are the same people who watch Jerry Springer and Oprah...
Science

Drop that Sock! Masturbation May Cause Cancer

By Stuart Fox Posted on 1.26.2009 12 Comments
The hairy palms don’t sound so bad, and the blindness seems manageable. But cancer! It’s bad news for both Don Juans and subscribers to Swank Magazine, as a new paper in the British Journal of Urology International (BJU) reports a statistically significant correlation between the frequency of sex and masturbation to the early onset of prostate cancer.

1.27.2009 at 03:18am - Comment by guruuswa

dumbest article i've read so far on this site. congrats, you've outdone yourselves with this really stupid article. now let me go have a nice wank
Science

Finer Wine

By Lisa Katayama Posted on 1.26.2009 5 Comments
Robot Sommelier
Is your $30,000 bottle of Chateau Petrus Bordeaux truly a rare vintage, or is it just $30 merlot? Counterfeits plague rare-wine auctions, but researchers in Spain have built a handheld "electronic tongue" that detects them instantly. It measures the signature chemicals, acidity and sugar content in a drop of wine (typically one bottle from a case) and runs those against a database of certified vintage wines to catch fakes that might fool human tasters.

1.27.2009 at 03:16am - Comment by guruuswa

good point...there's really no need to buy a 30 000 dollar bottle which tastes like a 30 buck one. these wine people are just snooty
Science

PopSci Readers Want to Know: How Can We Get Superpowers?

By Posted on 8.11.2008 13 Comments
How can we get our own superpowers? Is exposure to radioactivity a reliable way to go, or cosmic rays, or toxic waste? Perhaps gadget-assisted powers are more within reach. Discuss your theories, successes, and near-successes in the comments. Also: what power do you most want, and what do you plan to use it for? Submit your science and technology questions to fyi@popsci.com.

8.12.2008 at 01:57am - Comment by guruuswa

how about the ability to score with any chick you want? now that would be cool. add that the ability to shit hundred dollar bills
Technology

Dark Matter Hits Close to Home

By Posted on 8.7.2008 5 Comments
A new simulation has mapped out the way dark matter—the invisible heft of the universe—could be distributed in a galaxy like our own Milky Way; showing that dark matter could be much more present in our neighborhood than previously thought, and suggesting that we may soon be able to detect it (and understand it) close to home.

8.8.2008 at 02:18am - Comment by guruuswa

dark matter is really cool. if it hits you you can become super powerful like hancock
Science

Say I'm Inside the Large Hadron Collider and It's Revving Up. Should I Be Concerned?

By Posted on 8.1.2008 12 Comments
Well, it's never a great idea to stand next to a machine that could create black holes, but the magnets that steer the proton beams around the planet's most powerful particle accelerator would probably spare you from excess radiation. Then again, there is the off chance that some 300 trillion protons could erupt from the device and kill you on the spot.

8.4.2008 at 02:01am - Comment by guruuswa

i'm sure those particle beams might cause mutations that will probably make you into the incredible hulk, or hancock, or maybe even bill clinton