Science and Technology Blog

Scientists have been looking to replace fuel guzzling aircrafts with solar powered variants, an innovation that, in addition to passing the green test, would also enable planes to remain in the sky for longer.

Darpa, the Pentagon’s advanced-research organization, recently developed an aircraft named Odysseus that could theoretically stay in the air for a decade. The aircraft is intended only for military purposes.

Solar Impulse, a new Swiss solar powered aircraft could have commercial uses. The aircraft, which doesn’t require a single drop of fuel, is designed to run on sunlight alone, as its four engines would be powered by electricity converted by solar cells mounted on the wings. Thanks to this design, the aircraft has the potential to stick around in the air for longer than your average airliner.

The Solar Impulse will be tested later this year, and if all goes well, the Swiss will build a second version that they expect to pilot first across the Atlantic, and then across the entire world in 2012.

Source: PopSci

Those enthusiasts who were downloaded and installed the new browser Google Chrome without read very carefully EULA could discover with surprise that it contains incredible clauses.

According to what you approved to, Google owns everything you create and publish while using Chrome (by example, using Chrome to post articles on your WordPress blog).

Here is a fragment from Chrome EULA that explains the question:

11. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

Liquid water and any forms of life if there are hidden deep below the surface of planet Mars.

Satellite radar mapping of North Pole of the planet Mars has revealed ice cap age that was formed with 5 million years ago.

Using deep radar scanning the ice cap in some areas having a depth of 3 km. Low temperatures and hardness of rocks under the ice layer indicates that if there is liquid water lies deep below the surface.

The ice cap is made of fine layers separate by dust. Besides these fine layers, the researchers have identified four main sections that correspond most likely the major processes of planetary level.

Each layer corresponds according to scientists end of a period of 100,000 years, and a major period of approximately one million years.

Source: National Geographic, Image: Nasa

Scientists utilize 3-D ultrasound machinery to drive a robotic arm to independently perform surgeries

Duke University engineers believe they’ve completed a major step towards developing robotic surgeons that operate autonomously. The robot they used in their experiments were not performed on real people, uses 3-D ultrasound as its eyes, and an artificial intelligence AI program that processes the 3-D information it gathers to decide the robot’s next steps.

The robot has successfully performed some replicated actions directing catheters inside synthetic blood vessels, carrying out needle biopsies and even removing a false cyst. A small 3-D ultrasound transducer gathers the images, effectively providing the robot’s arm with a map of where it needs to go.

And while the long-term goal is to have some future version of their robot perform more complex tasks in animal models, the engineers also say that the 3-D ultrasound tech they use could prove to be a valuable tool to today’s surgeons.

Source: Popular Science

A controversial theory first presented in May 2007 suggests huge comet impacts wiped out North America’s large mammals nearly 13,000 years ago.

The hypothesis proposes that a comet blasts caused the mass extinction known as the Younger Dryas event and triggered a period of climatic cooling.

The theory has been debated widely since it was introduced, but it drew new analysis in March at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver, Canada.

Stuart Fiedel from the Louis Berger Group, a private archaeological firm in Richmond, Virginia, argued that the theory fails to address some major questions like how comet blasts could have wiped out woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats in North America, while leaving humans unscathed.

Source: National Geographic, Image: Bradshaw Foundation