inQuBIT.com

Identifying Habitable Planets by Studying Earth’s Weather

superdr — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:18:53 +0000

During the past two decades, astronomers have found more than 240 planets, none likely to support Earth-like life. In a follow up to our recent post “MIT Asks: Could Extraterrestrial Astronomers Detect Life on Earth,” Eric Ford, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Florida asks: what if aliens were hunting life outside their [...]

Craig Venter and Jeff Han demonstrate revolutionary touch screen

superdr — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:17:13 +0000

Updates from TED speakers: After a whirlwind of media speculation over the weekend following a story by The Guardian, biologist Craig Venter (watch his TED2005 speech) will announce today at the annual meeting of his institute in San Diego that his team has built a synthetic chromosome, using lab chemicals. “A giant leap forward in the [...]

Dazzling Event from an Extinct Constellation

superdr — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:10:55 +0000

NASA and SETI researchers will fly in a Gulfstream V aircraft that will take off from San Jose, Calif., and fly 14 scientists and their instruments for 10 continuous hours at 47,000ft., over the Arctic and back to San Jose.

Telescope in Chile’s Atacama Desert Compliments of Bill Gates

superdr — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:08:19 +0000

LSST is truly an Internet telescope, which will put terabytes of data each night into the hands of any person that wants to explore it. The 8.4-metre LSST telescope and the 3-gigapixel camera are thus a shared resource for all humanity — the ultimate network peripheral device to explore the world.

New Way to Make Water?

superdr — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:04:53 +0000

Scientists have found a radical new way of making water that could substantially lower costs for green technology. The University of Illinois researchers have unlocked the trick to making water from unlikely starting materials, such as alcohols. They are expecting their discovery to lead to better catalysts and less expensive fuel cells.