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The kinds of drones making the headlines daily are the heavily armed CIA and U.S. Army vehicles which routinely strike targets in Pakistan - killing terrorists and innocents alike. But the real high-tech story of surveillance drones is going on at a much smaller level, as tiny remote controlled vehicles based on insects are already likely being deployed. Over recent years a range of miniature drones, or micro air vehicles (MAVs), based on the same physics used by flying insects, have been presented to the public. The fear kicked off in 2007 when reports of bizarre flying objects hovering above anti-war protests sparked accusations that the U.S. government was accused of secretly developing robotic insect spies.

As a child, I always looked up at the stars and wondered how I could make it into space. Hopefully, I will live to see that day, but for now, a homemade satellite will have to do. The Nanosatisfi team has made it their mission "to provide affordable space exploration for everyone!," and with ArduSat, they move one step closer to reality. ArduSat is a Arduino-controlled miniature 10cm cubic satellite, weighing 1 kg, which is roughly equivalent to half a store bought loaf of bread. Its size might not be impressive, but it packs over 25 sensors including: Myspectral's open source spectrometer, inertial measurement unit, magnetometer, along the standard set, and many others. This impressive little machine boasts a camera to take photographs, it could send messages back to earth, or it can run your space experiments. With the ability to upload code directly to the ArduSat while in space, the possibilities are virtually limitless.

Fresh from performing at Science Gallery in Dublin last night during the opening of Hack the City, an English group of urbanists, technologists and architects who created GPS-enabled quadcopter drones, were held at London Southend Airport on suspicion of terrorism and recorded under the UK's Terrorism Act.

Millions of people log on to Lumosity daily to flex their brain muscles--and hopefully improve memory, attention and general cognitive performance in the process.  But this brain training site has recently garnered attention for a large-scale survey which found that better brain performance was linked to 7 hours of sleep per night,  aerobic activity 2-3 times per week and a daily cocktail.  While the overall efficacy of brain training remains hotly debated, Michael Scanlon, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Lumos Labs (creator of Lumosity), discusses the findings from the study, what surprised him most and what we can take away from correlational data. 

So who are you? You might be a current scientist, a recovering scientist, a revolutionary, or just really into checking out neat innovations. Well, Marblar's a right-brained buffet - and we're about to open the kitchen.  Who says finding homes for inventions can´t be fun? Who says the process has to be closed to just a select few? Marblar.com is a democratic playground for creativity. You´ve got great ideas and we´ve got great inventions. As a Marblar you´ll be part of an artistic community and earn marbles for flexing your imagination in the service of science.  So there you have it. You´re a creative beast. The left brains sure aren´t starting the Fourth Industrial Revolution.  You are.  Join today.

If you miss those great 1990s movies in which cyberspace runs amok, you'll get a kick out of this video of a real-life system for monitoring cyber-attacks. The new DAEDALUS (Direct Alert Environment for Darknet And Livenet Unified Security) cyber-alert system has been in the making for several years, but now the developer has posted a cute video, to show you what it looks like.If you miss those great 1990s movies in which cyberspace runs amok, you'll get a kick out of this video of a real-life system for monitoring cyber-attacks. The new DAEDALUS (Direct Alert Environment for Darknet And Livenet Unified Security) cyber-alert system has been in the making for several years, but now the developer has posted a cute video, to show you what it looks like.

Industrialised world reductions in material throughput, energy use, and environmental degradation of over 90% will be required by 2040 to meet the needs of a growing world population fairly within the planet's ecological means, according to "Getting Eco-Efficient" by the Business Council for Sustainable Development.

From disrupting the peer-reviewed journal publishing tradition to utilizing a dispersed model to test code, the academy has been trying out new ways of innovating an overburdened scholarly apparatus using technology. One of the latest areas to see this sort of experimentation is that of IP, or intellectual property. Marblar, a startup launched by three British PhD students, is hoping to successfully crowdsource the resurrection of "dormant" IP, to flatten and widen the process of tech transfer. A major British venture capital firm, IP Group, has invested about $600,000 in the startup.

To honor Alan Turing, we built a simple LEGO Turing Machine, to show everyone how simple a computer actually is. Primary goals were to make every operation as visible as possible and to make it using just a single LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT set. The LEGO Turing Machine is part of the exhibition  Turing's Erfenis  at CWI.

THE BURRITOBOT IS A 3-D PRINTER THAT LETS USERS FABRICATE A DELICIOUS BEAN BURRITO VIA AN IPHONE INTERFACE MECHANISM. WHILE THE PRINTER MIGHT BE HUMOROUS, THE PROOF OF CONCEPT IS VERY, VERY REAL.

Malware researchers investigating a Trojan linked in a gaming forum as a how-to video for Diablo III got a surprise when the hacker started chatting with them-through a feature in the malware. Franklin Zhao & Jason Zhou of antivirus company AVG were looking for keylogging code in the malware with a debugger after downloading it to a virtual machine when a chat box popped up. The hacker asked, in Chinese, "What are you doing? Why are you researching my Trojan?"

Please comment and rate, thanks. Youzhou Song (bus designer) presents a giant bus that drive over cars translated into English and with English caption subtitle. China will build some huge buses that will allow smaller cars to pass by under them in order to relief urban traffic. More images from Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment: http://i56.tinypic.com/1z3t5yu.jpg http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/1282309604-bus-528x275.jpg

Dan Siroker helps companies discover tiny truths, but his story begins with a lie. It was November 2007 and Barack Obama, then a Democratic candidate for president, was at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, to speak. Siroker-who today is CEO of the web-testing firm Optimizely, but then was a product manager on Google's browser team-tried to cut the enormous line by sneaking in a back entrance. "I walked up to the security guard and said, 'I have to get to a meeting in there,'" Siroker recalls. There was no meeting, but his bluff got him in.

I know where to find the future. It will show up, I predict, on Tuesday at London's Westminster Central Hall. Don't blink. It will arrive in the shape of Le Web, Europe's illustrious two-day Internet conference which, this year, is focusing on next-generation digital products that are "faster than realtime."

The company's social scientists are hunting for insights about human behavior. What they find could give Facebook new ways to cash in on our data-and remake our view of society.

UNU Media Centre head Brendan Barrett shares insights derived from a UNU Institute for Water, Environment and Health conference that focused on K* (K-Star) - a spectrum of ideas that covers research communication, science push, knowledge translation, adaptation, transfer and exchange, knowledge brokering and mobilization, and policy pull. * * * To sum up the underlying need for the recent K* Conference 2012, I borrow the words of a co-participant who explained that "as we are seeing with the climate debate and other 'wicked problems', it is not sufficient to assume that scientific consensus about the facts will be influential in policy or the wider community".

The goal of the workshop is to explore ways to become better providers and connectors of knowledge in a world where the sources of knowledge are increasingly diverse and dispersed. At the World Bank, for example, we are seeking ways to connect with new centers of research, emerging communities of practice, and tap the practical experience of development organizations and the policy makers in rapidly developing economies. Our goal is to find better ways to connect those that have the development knowledge with those that need it, when they need it.

Although there is an urban legend that the world will end this year based on a misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar, some researchers think a 40-year-old computer program that predicts a collapse of socioeconomic order and massive drop in human population in this century may be on target

DARPA is unveiling a portable laser weapons system, HELLADS, which seems like something out of a sci-fi movie. The new laser application, created by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems with a custom power system from Saft Batteries, will help change the way the American military fights future wars. Current military laser systems are bulky contraptions which are mainly the size of a passenger jet, while the proposed DARPA weapon can fit on the back of a flatbed truck. The 150-kilowatt, solid state laser weapon is strong enough to take down drones or other aerial targets; a prototype is expected to be available by the end of 2012.

When the founders of GitHub moved into their swank South-of-Market loft last year, the first thing they did was redecorate. They turned the floor's biggest office into a parody of an executive suite - complete with fake fireplace, plush leather chairs, and a wooden globe that slides open to reveal a bottle of single malt scotch. Hanging from the wall is a painting of a cat, dressed as Napoleon, with five octopus-like legs. They call it the Octocat.