News
How the turtle got its shell
May 30, 2013 12:16 pm | by Yale UniversityYale University | CommentsNew research led by Tyler Lyson of Yale University and the Smithsonian Institution pushes back the origins of the turtle shell by about 40 million years, linking it to Eunotosaurus, a 260-million-year-old fossil reptile from South Africa. The work strengthens the fossil record and bolsters an existing theory about shell development while providing new details about its precise evolutionary pathway.
Company seeking money to build space telescope
May 30, 2013 12:05 pm | by DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press | CommentsA Washington company that wants to send robots into space to mine precious metals from asteroids has found another way to use the expensive technology it's developing for its space venture. Planetary Resources Inc. announced Wednesday it plans to launch an extra space telescope in early 2015 to be used by the general public...
Not LOL: Service allows bully reporting by text
May 30, 2013 12:01 pm | by PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press | CommentsA leading education technology company on Wednesday announced it would give schools a free and confidential way for students to tell school officials via text that they are being bullied or are witnessing bullying. Blackboard's TipTxt program could change the school climate — or reveal just how pervasive student-on-student harassment has become.
SKorea fosters startups as it seeks economic shift
May 30, 2013 11:58 am | by YOUKYUNG LEE, AP Technology Writer | CommentsAmong the policies aimed at nurturing a "creative economy," South Korea is pouring more than 3 trillion won ($2.7 billion) into funding startups, establishing a third stock market to help new ventures raise money, and changing laws to lower hurdles for crowd-funding.
Motorola: 1st US-assembled smartphones coming
May 30, 2013 11:57 am | by WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press | CommentsCellphone pioneer Motorola says it's opening a manufacturing facility that will produce the first smartphone ever assembled in the U.S. — its new flagship device, Moto X. The Texas site was once used by fellow phone manufacturer Nokia, meaning it was designed to produce mobile devices...
UN expert urges moratorium on 'killer robots'
May 30, 2013 11:50 am | by The Associated Press | CommentsNations should agree to a moratorium on developing robots for war that can function autonomously before it is too late to stop their use, a U.N. human rights expert warned Thursday. U.N. special rapporteur Christof Heyns urged a temporary freeze on producing or using so-called killer robots, saying it would give nations time to think through the implications...
China says US hacking claims faulty
May 30, 2013 11:44 am | by The Associated Press | CommentsRecent allegations of Chinese hacking of Pentagon defense programs are faulty and underestimate China's ability to produce its own defensive weaponry, the country's Defense Ministry said Thursday. Newly publicized claims allege that China employed cyberattacks to access data from nearly 40 Pentagon weapons programs...
Intelligent street lights adapt to conditions in Finland
May 30, 2013 11:33 am | CommentsVTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a dimmable LED street light that consumes significantly less energy than current lighting systems, while improving the lighting characteristics. The street lights were tested in Helsinki with user experiences collected.
Cold climate wind energy showing huge potential
May 30, 2013 11:30 am | by EurekAlert! | CommentsWind energy capacity is growing rapidly in the cold climates of the world. According to the latest forecasts, between 45 and 50 gigawatts of wind energy will be built in cold climates by 2017, which would mean an increase of as much as 72 per cent since the end of 2012 and investments amounting to approximately EUR 75 billion.
Einstein's 'spooky action' common in large quantum systems
May 30, 2013 11:28 am | by EurekAlert! | CommentsEntanglement is a property in quantum mechanics that seemed so unbelievable and so lacking in detail that, 66 years ago this spring, Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance." But a mathematician at Case Western Reserve University and two of his recent PhD graduates show entanglement is actually prevalent in large quantum systems and have identified the threshold at which it occurs.
Hip-hip-Hadoop: Data mining for science
May 30, 2013 11:25 am | by EurekAlert! | CommentsThe model of distributed calculations, where a problem is broken down into distinct parts that can be solved individually on a computer and then recombined, has been around for decades. Divide-and-conquer techniques allow scientists to predict complex phenomenon from tornado formation to the qualities of nanomaterials to tomorrow's weather forecast.
Locomotion in confined spaces could help future robot teams work underground
May 30, 2013 11:18 am | by John Toon, Georgia Tech | CommentsFuture teams of subterranean search and rescue robots may owe their success to the lowly fire ant, a much despised insect whose painful bites and extensive networks of underground tunnels are all-too-familiar to people living in the southern United States. By studying fire ants in the laboratory using video tracking equipment and X-ray computed tomography...
The solar duel: China vs. the United States
May 30, 2013 10:42 am | by Massachusetts Institute of Technology | CommentsIn the past decade, the massive expansion of China’s production and export of silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells and panels has cratered the price of those items globally, creating tension between China and the United States, and, more recently, China and the European Union. In a new study (see PDF), MIT researchers explain why these tensi...
Beer-pouring robot programmed to anticipate human actions
May 30, 2013 10:00 am | by EurekAlert! | CommentsA robot in Cornell's Personal Robotics Lab has learned to foresee human action in order to step in and offer a helping hand, or more accurately, roll in and offer a helping claw. Understanding when and where to pour a beer or knowing when to offer assistance opening a refrigerator door can be difficult for a robot because of the many variables it encounters while assessing the situation.
For pundits, it's better to be confident than correct
May 30, 2013 9:53 am | by EurekAlert! | CommentsIt would be nice to think the pundits we see yelling on TV and squawking on Twitter are right all the time. It turns out they're wrong more often than they are right. Now two Washington State University economics students have demonstrated that it simply doesn't pay as much for a pundit to be accurate as it does to be confident. It's one thing to be a good pundit, but another to be popular.
