The Greatest Inventions Nikola Tesla Never Created

Inventor Nikola Tesla invented the radio, experimented with wireless electricity, and designed a death ray. In science fiction, his work goes even further. We list Tesla's greatest fictional inventions and the facts behind the fiction.

read more | digg story

Will Robots With Advanced Group Intelligence Evolve?

Researchers at the University of York have investigated large swarms of up to 10,000 miniature robots which can work together to form a single, artificial life form. The multi-robot approach to artificial intelligence is a relatively new one, and has developed from studies of the swarm behavior of social insects such as ants.

read more | digg story

Croplands May Wither as Global Warming Worsens

Climate models predict that the hottest seasons on record will become the norm by the end of the century--an outcome that bodes ill for feeding the world

read more | digg story

U.N. Says 'No,' Climate Hackers Say, 'Yes We Can'

A major Indian-German geoengineering expedition set sail this week for the Scotia Sea, flouting a U.N. ban on ocean iron fertilization experiments in hopes of garnering data about whether the process actually does take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sequester it in the deep ocean, an intriguing technique that may help reverse global warmi

read more | digg story

Smarter Men Have More Sperm

Women tend to like smart men because they're usually more successful and better providers. But here's another reason: Their sperm is better, a new study says. The smarter the men were, the more sperm they produced and the better their wee ones swam — and it didn't matter how old the men were or whether they smoked, drank or were obese.

read more | digg story

Ants Smell Cheaters and Assault Them, Study Finds

If a worker ant attempts to reproduce in the presence of the queen, the worker inadvertently produces a chemical that causes her sisters to attack.

read more | digg story

Differences between sexes 'may be determined after birth'

Some biological differences between male and female brains may be determined after birth, research suggests.

read more | digg story

Finger scanning to be lunch card of the future?

Fischer said NutriKids (aka Big Brother) would offer features parents had been requesting for years. One is the ability to see what students are ordering for meals, and another is a faster and easier payment method. Each students was asked to press his or her right index finger on the optical reader, which scanned the print. Each student scanned...

read more | digg story

Nature's Great Piece of Art/Geometry Lesson: The Snowflake

When physicist Kenneth Libbrecht looks out over a snowy landscape, he doesn't see a peaceful scene, he sees a laboratory. His microscopic photos show the intricate variety of snow crystals, and reveal the rigorous laws of nature that shape them.

read more | digg story

Self-Replicating Chemicals Evolve Into Life-Like Ecosystem

Chemists have created a group of synthetic enzymes that self-replicate, compete, and evolve like a natural ecosystem -- just minus the life (as we know it).

read more | digg story

Space Is Closer Than You Think

The border between Earth's atmosphere and outer space is closer to the ground than scientists once thought.

read more | digg story

Learning More About Levitation

The ability to levitate objects is not an entirely new thing in physics. Lower the temperature of certain metals and ceramics far enough (-459 degrees F is a good number to shoot for) and they carry electromagnetic charges far more efficiently and for a far longer time than they otherwise would.

read more | digg story

Garage Invention Could Turn Restaurants into Power Plants

A new garage-engineered generator burns the waste oil from restaurants' deep fryers to generate electricity and hot water. Put 80 gallons of grease into the Vegawatt and its creators promise that it will generate about five kilowatts of power.

read more | digg story

Translucent Concrete: 30% Lighter, Lets 80% of Light Through

And it's pink!

read more | digg story

Milky Way and Andromeda will collide sooner than expected

The Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies are on a collision course and will hit one another earlier than scientists had previously predicted.

read more | digg story

Scientists Discover Why People Better With Faces Than Names

The reason why some people are better with faces than names has been identified by scientists and it appears to be due to their higher levels of a special "socialising" hormone called Oxytocin.

read more | digg story

Amazing solar-powered fridge invented by British student

It's the kind of brilliant yet simple invention that would have the tycoons of the Dragon's Den salivating with excitement.

read more | digg story

860 Types of Sand from Around the World: Interactive Graphic

Rob Holman collects sand. A coastal oceanographer from Oregon State University, Holman has collected almost a thousand samples. They come from his travels and from geologists and amateurs all over the world...

read more | digg story

Motorola Renew is World’s First Carbon Neutral Mobile Phone

Motorola has announced plans to launch the world’s first completely carbon neutral mobile phone, at CES 2009 in Las Vegas. The shell of the W233 Renew is made entirely of recycled water bottles, and will be available via T-Mobile within the next three months.

read more | digg story

Single Strike... [PIC]

read more | digg story

Inside the mind of an autistic savant

Autistic savant Daniel Tammet shot to fame when he set a European record for the number of digits of pi he recited from memory (22,514). For afters, he learned Icelandic in a week. But unlike many savants, he's able to tell us how he does it. We could all unleash extraordinary mental abilities by getting inside the savant mind.

read more | digg story

Love spray being developed by scientists

Love really could be a drug, say scientists, who believe that one day the feelings may be induced by popping a pill or smelling perfume.

read more | digg story

Stem Cells Undo Birth Defects

By injecting stem cells directly into the brain, scientists have successfully reversed neural birth defects in mice whose mothers were given heroin during pregnancy.

read more | digg story

A device that mimics one of nature's key transport machines.

To help protect its genes, a cell is highly selective about what it allows to move in and out of its nucleus. Yet that choosiness is regulated by just a thin barrier, perforated with tiny transport machines called nuclear pore complexes: protein-coated holes surrounded by flimsy, unfolded protein strands.

read more | digg story

Strange,Weird And Mysterious Sounds That Come From The Earth

The earth is full of sounds ... Here is a list of weird “sonic mysteries” that come from our Earth.(includes some audio)

read more | digg story

Is It Possible For DNA To Have Telepathic Properties?

Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA.

read more | digg story

Faster than the Speed of Light? A New Theory Says, "Yes"

Magueijo, a 40-year old native of Portugal, puts forth the heretical idea that in the very early days of the universe light traveled faster—an idea that if proven could dethrone Einstein and forever change our understanding of the universe.

read more | digg story

Dead People Will Provide Heat to Crematorium Facilities

If you’re dead and worried about the carbon emissions created from your cremation, relax. The Swedish town of Halmstad has a solution. After an environmental review showed that Halmstad’s crematorium was pumping too much smoke into the air, the facility’s director decided to re-use heat from the cremations to warm up the crematorium’s buildings.

read more | digg story

Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2008

Scientists had plenty of reasons to celebrate in 2008. After decades of work, researchers made rat stem cells, built the first memristor, and watched a language evolve like an organism. But none of those accomplishments impressed us as much as the breakthroughs on this list. From stem cell therapy to finding ice on Mars.

read more | digg story

Habitable Exoplanets Could be Common in Our Galaxy

By observing the remains of smashed up asteroids around dead stars, astronomers were able to deduce their chemical composition. They found that the dust of many chewed-up asteroids resembles the materials inside Earth and the other small, rocky inner planets of our solar system.

read more | digg story

Inventor: Geo-Engineer a Worldwide Refrigerator Using Oceans

Bailing out the entire human race might turn out to be cheaper than bailing out Wall Street: Spray gigatons of seawater into the air, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, and let Mother Nature do the rest, suggests inventor Ron Acer in a patent petition for “a colossal refrigeration system with a 100,000-fold performance multiplier.”

read more | digg story

Architectural Wind: A Cleaner Way to Keep the City Running

A new building with affordable rents in the Bronx will be powered partly by 10 wind turbines, which should cut its utility bills for common areas in half.

read more | digg story

Scientists Unlock Secrets Of Australia's Giant 30kg Koalas

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, giant versions of Australia's unique wildlife stalked the continent. There were kangaroos up to 3m tall and enormous wallabies, wombats and echidnas. There were also koalas: larger and weightier than the creatures sometimes seen today in eucalyptus trees.

read more | digg story

Quite Possibly the Best Panoramic Shot of the Milky Way

New backgrounds in 3...2..

read more | digg story

60 Minutes: Mind Reading No Longer Science Fiction

Neuroscience has learned much about the brain's activity and its link to certain thoughts. As Lesley Stahl reports, it may now be possible, on a basic level, to read a person's mind.

read more | digg story

Lead for car batteries poisons an African town

First, it took the animals. Goats fell silent and refused to stand up. Chickens died in handfuls, then en masse. Street dogs disappeared. Then it took the children.

read more | digg story

How Hunting is Driving Evolution in Reverse

When hunting is severe enough to outstrip other threats to survival, the unsought, middling individuals make out better than the stronger alpha animals, and the species changes. "Survival of the fittest" is still the rule, but the "fit" begin to look unlike what you might expect.

read more | digg story

The Carbon Footprint of Nuclear War

A recent US study that compares the environmental costs of developing various power sources found that almost 700m tonnes of CO2 would be released into the Earth's atmosphere by even the smallest nuclear conflict.

read more | digg story

Green Algae Bloom Process Could Stop Global Warming

A team of UK scientists have discovered a natural process that could delay, or even end, the threat of global warming.

read more | digg story

APOD:Breaking Distant Light

read more | digg story