The X-Prize Foundation will be announcing the largest cash prize to date, in the ‘tens of millions’ of dollars, for a secret goal that will be announced on the 13th.
Bigelow Aerospace had a $10 million dollar prize for the first person to orbit, I’d be curious to see if this is something similar, or if Bigelow and X-Prize have teamed up.
When engineering and medicine meet, wonderful things can happen – for example, the collaborative project at the University of Washington that is researching ways of using ultrasound to treat punctured lungs without incisions or scalpels. Surgeons hope that the ability to deploy treatment before the patient arrives at hospital will lead to fewer deaths from this type of injury. [ColonyWorlds]
In a rare move of clear-eyed sanity, the British government has given scientists provisional permission to create non-viable human/animal hybrid embryos – for research purposes. Apparently surveys discovered that – once the actual limits and realities of the science were explained – most people were “at ease” with the idea. Perhaps once it’s seen to be safe, attitudes elsewhere may loosen up as well.
The advantage of space telescopes like the aging Hubble are their ability to image distant astronomical objects without the fuzziness that Earth’s atmosphere produces. Of course, the big disadvantage is the hideous price-tag of getting the thing to orbit, keeping it there … and keeping it working. Astronomers from the UK’s Cambridge University have developed a neat hack that sidesteps the problem; so-called ‘lucky imaging’ works by comparing thousands of images from two or more ground-based telescopes and using the results to filter out the noise, producing results that rival the Hubble at its best – at a hundredth of a percent of the cost. [Image by Argenberg]
As someone who started using computers back in the good old days when you had to bash every instruction into the keyboard at the command prompt, I still feel kind of grateful for the revolutionary interface change that the now-standard mouse brought with it. But after a few hours trawling the web, my right hand starts telling me that there has to be a better way. And there is, thanks to a bunch of boffins from Stanford University who’ve developed a system that allows you to replicate the functions of a mouse interface using a few keyboard hotkeys and the motion of your eyeballs.
What a great cover-up for hangovers in the workplace that will be – “Your eyes are bloodshot – heavy night out?” “Nah, stayed at home and read a Doctorow novel.” [Image by babygoldfish]