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MarcusM

Technology

Dutch Scientists Grow First Pork Meat In Lab

By Paul Adams Posted on 11.30.2009 7 Comments
A Dutch project that launched in 2005 has finally borne fruit: cells from a delicious pig have been cultured in the laboratory to grow the first successful filet of in vitro pork, The Times reports.

11.30.2009 at 08:11pm - Comment by MarcusM

Most of us have eaten Spam, so eating food that is even more highly processed shouldn't be a problem. Think about it; once the taste/texture issues are resolved, not having to kill an actual animal means we wouldn't have to limit ourselves to the traditional meats. We could be eating cheetah, polar bear, wildebeest, orca, you name it, all guilt-free. And if you extend the logic even along, consumption of human tissue would also be technically, if not morally possible. That would be a whole new ethical debate altogether. Designer meats made from tissue that comes from diverse genetic sources (or engineered ones) that would not exist as real animals might also be a possibility. That's a whole new world for the likes of ConAgra and Hormel to explore...
Science

World's First Osmotic Power Plant Goes Live in Norway

By Clay Dillow Posted on 11.24.2009 10 Comments
When it comes to harnessing the energy potential of the oceans, the Norwegians have no problem starting small. The world's first osmotic power plant opened today in Tofte, Norway, utilizing the properties of salty seawater to generate a whopping 4 kilowatts of electricity for the grid, or about enough to power a coffee maker. But the Norwegian company running the project, Statkraft, is a glass-half-full kind of company, claiming that eventually osmotic plants could draw half of Europe's electricity from the saltiness of the sea.

11.25.2009 at 05:20am - Comment by MarcusM

Sounds like a wonderful idea! One more blow against Climate Change! This article should be expanded further, however. I would like to know how the present miniscule output can be scaled up to powerplant levels. Doesn't significant energy need to be expended to power the osmosis process in the first place? 4 kw is the net output?
Technology

NASA Robotic Rocket Plane To Survey Martian Surface

By Stuart Fox Posted on 11.24.2009 18 Comments
Since budget cuts and the inability to overcome problems like boredom and high radiation doses have ruled out any manned mission to Mars in the foreseeable future, NASA has shifted gears back towards a program of robotic exploration. To that end, NASA now wants a rocket-powered UAV to fly around the Red Planet, photographing the surface.

11.25.2009 at 03:34am - Comment by MarcusM

Huh? The article doesn't say what would be accomplished by that one-hour joyride? Wouldn't a satellite orbiting for years be a better idea? A satellite would image more of the surface over its lifespan, and a ground based probe would actually be able to analyze actual Martian material and go back to the more interesting stuff. A rocket plane whizzing through the thin Martian atmosphere for an hour doesn't prove much more than the fact that you can whizz through the thin Martian atmosphere for an hour. It doesn't bode well either that the project managers couldn't even be bothered to think of a different acronym from that of the ARES booster, which is a major NASA project. More information, please.
Technology

Boeing's Latest Mobile Laser Weapon Tracks and Shoots Down Drone

By Clay Dillow Posted on 11.18.2009 11 Comments
Boeing has just announced it successfully tracked and shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle with a laser weapon. Actually, it shot down five UAVs at various ranges with the trailer-mounted Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX).

11.18.2009 at 10:19pm - Comment by MarcusM

This anti-drone laser won't be much use unless America goes to war against another advanced nation, although small drones should be getting cheaper and more capable, which means Al-Qaeda and the Taliban should be getting their hands on these eventually, as what has already happened with night-vision goggle technology (i.e. from Iran). There's no mention in the article how mobile an operational laser system will be. As drones are very hard to detect, you will need to find and acquire a target before using the laser to shoot it down, and that's a lot of systems you will need to have and support in the field. A counter-laser capability might also be developed to hunt down the laser systems. Also, will mirror-shielding the bottom of a drone protect it from a laser long enough for it to launch a counterstrike? The battlespace is getting more complicated every day.
Science

USB 3.0: A Primer

By Dan Smith Posted on 7.2.2009 26 Comments
That Universal Serial Bus port in your computer is about to get an upgrade. You know, the one where you plug in all your external hard drives, digital cameras, MP3 players, thumb drives, and USB heated-slippers? If you bought your computer any time after the year 2000, it probably came equipped with a USB 2.0 port. However, later this year computers will start shipping that include USB 3.0 ports, which can transmit data up to ten times as fast. Here's what to expect.

11.11.2009 at 04:05am - Comment by MarcusM

I wish the port and jack would be designed so that it's just not possible to insert the USB the wrong way. Believe it or not I've shorted out an external hard drive this way. It's not always easy to see which side to insert. The slots could be a sort of flattened T-shape instead. Anyway thats all moot.
Science

USB 3.0: A Primer

By Dan Smith Posted on 7.2.2009 26 Comments
That Universal Serial Bus port in your computer is about to get an upgrade. You know, the one where you plug in all your external hard drives, digital cameras, MP3 players, thumb drives, and USB heated-slippers? If you bought your computer any time after the year 2000, it probably came equipped with a USB 2.0 port. However, later this year computers will start shipping that include USB 3.0 ports, which can transmit data up to ten times as fast. Here's what to expect.

11.11.2009 at 04:05am - Comment by MarcusM

I wish the port and jack would be designed so that it's just not possible to insert the USB the wrong way. Believe it or not I've shorted out an external hard drive this way. It's not always easy to see which side to insert. The slots could be a sort of flattened T-shape instead. Anyway thats all moot.
Science

USB 3.0: A Primer

By Dan Smith Posted on 7.2.2009 26 Comments
That Universal Serial Bus port in your computer is about to get an upgrade. You know, the one where you plug in all your external hard drives, digital cameras, MP3 players, thumb drives, and USB heated-slippers? If you bought your computer any time after the year 2000, it probably came equipped with a USB 2.0 port. However, later this year computers will start shipping that include USB 3.0 ports, which can transmit data up to ten times as fast. Here's what to expect.

11.11.2009 at 04:05am - Comment by MarcusM

I wish the port and jack would be designed so that it's just not possible to insert the USB the wrong way. Believe it or not I've shorted out an external hard drive this way. It's not always easy to see which side to insert. The slots could be a sort of flattened T-shape instead. Anyway thats all moot.
DIY

What I've Learned from Vintage Military Surplus Gear

By Vin Marshall Posted on 11.2.2009 7 Comments
Military surplus equipment is more than just cheap, weird and green. For me, it's a design study in what happens when usability and ruggedness are given priority and production cost is forgotten. Check out the photo gallery for two of the coolest pieces in my collection—the AN-GRR-5 shortwave radio and the TA-1042 digital field telephones—and read on for more on military gear and my favorite sources.

11.11.2009 at 03:57am - Comment by MarcusM

When civilian gear dies, it's basically an inconvenience and a hassle. When military gear dies, people could die too. That's why they are built that way. The military has some of the coolest stuff too; just check out the helmet mounted displays used by Apache helicopter pilots and fast jet jocks. A study of Soviet military gear would be interesting too, such as their field telephones.
Technology

U.S. Deploys Reaper Drones Off Somalia Just in Time for Pirate Season

By Clay Dillow Posted on 11.11.2009 21 Comments
As this summer's Navy SEAL beatdown briefly brought to the world's attention, there's a festering piracy problem in the waters off the Horn of Africa. The pirates, in large part unchallenged, are growing bolder, striking in waters as far out as 1,000 nautical miles from Somali shores. Patrolling such large part swath of the Indian Ocean might be impossible if not for the tech the U.S. has recently rolled out to protect her maritime interests: unmanned Reaper drones armed with infrared eyes.

11.11.2009 at 03:46am - Comment by MarcusM

Boka, I'm not an American, but I am very thankful that the US and other countries are there in the Indian Ocean to help police the sea lanes and keep some semblance of order. Yes, mistakes have been made, but in general, the influence of the US and the West has been a positive one. When exorbitant shipping and insurance rates and mayhem on the high seas cause another collapse of the world economy I hope you and your family won't be among the billions affected. I'm against having to build up a slow and steady legal case against the pirates. Declare that any private vessel directly observed packing AK-47s, RPGs and other high-powered weapons is a legitimate Reaper target and the problem will largely be solved. Those that are merely suspicious will be approached. If enough raiding parties have to throw their weapons overboard to avoid arrest that's a pretty good business case against piracy too.
Science

How Your Body Packs Two Meters of DNA Into a Six-Micron Cell Nucleus

By Susannah F. Locke Posted on 10.8.2009 5 Comments
I can't seem to manage to keep my iPod in my bag for a day without creating an awful tangle of headphones, but my body's cells can work with two meters of stringy DNA into a tiny nucleus without making a knot. The secret is a structure called a fractal globule, according to a research paper to be published tomorrow in the journal Science.

10.8.2009 at 11:13pm - Comment by MarcusM

"It makes it easy to pull a location out, read it, and then crumble it back and push it back where you took it from," Excuse my ingnorance, but exactly how does all this pushing and pulling take place? What's the mechanism? How does a molecule, marvelous as it is, do all this moving around? How does it know what it's supposed to read? It's not at all clear how all this activity takes place. I wish the writer didn't assume that we had this incredible body of knowledge.