• Science

    Invisibility Cloak Swirls Closer to Reality

    By Posted on 8.14.2008 11 Comments

    Ever wished you could have Harry Potter's invisibility cloak? Science, not magic, could make that a reality. Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have created materials that have the potential to bend light and even redirect it around themselves, cloaking any object behind them. They are metamaterials, materials that gain unusual properties via their structures. While all materials found in nature have a positive refractive index, these man-made metamaterials have a negative one.

    3.24.2009 at 08:54pm - Comment by lexitoons13

    I think that the researchers at Berkeley have done an awesome job creating these two new metamaterials. Also, by using these, hopefully one day they could be used to camouflage war machines and the like. I just wonder if these researchers had thought of creating something like this before J.K. Rowling introduced the invisibility cloak in her Harry Potter series.

  • Science

    Creating Diamonds from Tequila

    By Jaya Jiwatram Posted on 11.11.2008 9 Comments

    Tequila may be just another drink to those out in the town, but to a team of scientists in Mexico their country's native alcohol turned out to be a gem; a diamond, to be precise. Javier Morales, Luis Apátiga and Victor Castaño at the National Autonomous University of Mexico made the alchemist-worthy discovery while experimenting turning various organic solutions, such as acetone and ethanol, into diamonds. The scientists noted that 80-proof tequila (40 percent alcohol) had the ideal proportion of ethanol to water to create diamond films.

    11.29.2008 at 08:33pm - Comment by lexitoons13

    I think this article is really an insight for what we can do in the future. I mean creating diamonds from an alcoholic beverage...that idea probably seemed insane ten years ago, but it actually happened! But I'm still curious as to if they'll use the diamonds they create for making jewelry and if they do, will it be more expensive than the "normal" diamonds? By the way, I think the title of this article should have been "Jose Cuervo Is A Girl's New Best Friend".

  • Technology

    The Flying Car Gets Real

    By Gregory Mone Posted on 10.8.2008 45 Comments

    The Transition is not a flying car. The vehicle, set to go on sale next year, will cruise smoothly on the road and through the sky. It will have four wheels, Formula One–style suspension, and a pair of 10-foot-wide wings that fold up when it switches from air to asphalt. And when the engineers at Terrafugia in Woburn, Massachusetts, let me sit inside their just-finished proof-of-concept vehicle and grab the steering wheel, it’s easy to imagine piloting this thing up and out of traffic, into the open skies.

    10.13.2008 at 07:34pm - Comment by lexitoons13

    Finally some one has actually had the nerve to manufacture one of these "flying cars" people have been talking about for ages. People have been building them for years, but never producing them, but Dietrich managed to change that. But, who knows if this plane/car will actually work since they haven't formally driven or flown it yet. This flying car will either be a historical success or an epic fail.



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December 2009: Best of What's New

In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.

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