Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Nanotechnology Turns Plants into Common Plastic
February 21st, 2012Via: Reuters: Dutch scientists have found a way of turning plant matter into the building blocks of common plastics using a nanotechnology process that offers an alternative to oil-based production. The team from Utrecht University and Dow Chemical Co produced ethylene and propylene – precursors of materials found in everything from CDs to carrier bags […]
Test Tube Hamburgers
February 20th, 2012Via: Telegraph: By generating strips of meat from stem cells researchers believe they can create a product that is identical to a real burger. The process of culturing the artificial meat in the lab is so laborious that the finished product, expected to arrive in eight months’ time, will cost about £220,000 (EUR250,000). But researchers […]
Laser ‘Dazzler’ Weapon Approved for Use by Police and Coast Guard
February 20th, 2012Via: New Scientist: THE US police and coastguard may soon start using laser “dazzlers” like those the American and British militaries have employed for years at checkpoints in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the SHOT Show last month in Las Vegas, Nevada, B.E. Meyers Electro-Optics of Redmond, Washington, unveiled the first laser dazzler that has been […]
Canada: Section 34 of the Online Surveillance Bill Would Give Orwellian Powers to Government-Appointed ‘Inspectors’
February 20th, 2012Via: CBC: Among other things, the bill requires ISPs to install surveillance technology and software to enable monitoring of phone and internet traffic. Section 34 is there to make sure ISPs comply. So what, exactly, does it say? Essentially, it says that government agents may enter an ISP when they wish, without a warrant, and […]
Britain: Details of Every Phone Call, Text Message, Email and Websites Visited Will Be Stored in Vast Corporate Databases for the Government to Access
February 20th, 2012Via: Telegraph: Landline and mobile phone companies and broadband providers will be ordered to store the data for a year and make it available to the security services under the scheme. The databases would not record the contents of calls, texts or emails but the numbers or email addresses of who they are sent and […]
DARPA Wants to Give Soldiers Robot Surrogates, Avatar Style
February 19th, 2012Via: IEEE: In the movie Avatar, humans hooked themselves up to brain-machine-interface pods with which they could control giant genetically engineered human-alien hybrids. It’s just a movie, but DARPA, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, doesn’t care: It wants this kind of system to be real, just replace “giant genetically engineered human-alien hybrids” with […]
The Boy Who Played with Fusion
February 19th, 2012One for your bulging Parents-of-Sons file folder… Via: Popular Science: One afternoon, Tiffany ducked her head out of the door to the garage and spotted Taylor, in his canary yellow nuclear-technician’s coveralls, watching a pool of liquid spreading across the concrete floor. “Tay, it’s time for supper.” “I think I’m going to have to clean […]
‘What will the millions of middle-age, unskilled workers do when they are displaced by technology?’
February 19th, 2012My guess is that something like this will be part of the answer: Engineered H5N1: A Rare Time for Restraint in Science: Two scientific teams have recently engineered the H5N1 virus to make it readily transmissible between ferrets. Given that ferrets are considered the most reliable animal surrogate for human influenza infection, the newly engineered […]
FOIA Request Shows Which Printer Companies Cooperated With U.S. Government
February 18th, 2012Via: Slashdot: Easy enough to avoid government dots; just don’t buy printers from Canon, Brother, Casio, HP, Konica, Minolta, Mita, Ricoh, Sharp, or Xerox.
Nevada Approves Regulations for Self-Driving Cars
February 18th, 2012Via: CBS: Nevada is envisioning a day when taxicabs might shuttle fares without a driver, or people with medical conditions that make them ineligible for a license could get around with a virtual chauffeur. The concept took a big step when Nevada became the first state to approve regulations that spell out requirements for companies […]
