NMDHS Marauders

iRobot's soft, shape-shifting robot blob can roll around and change shape, and it will be able to squeeze through tiny cracks in a wall when the project is finished. Video presented at IEEE IROS 2009. Read more robot news at http://spectrum.ieee.org

"Red Bull Stratos has enlisted the most advanced engineering and technology of our time. Advancements under development in each aspect of the mission aim toward an unprecedented achievement, and hold promise for future aerospace endeavors."

"A space suit and pressure helmet designed to protect Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner in his record-breaking 120,000ft (36,576m) free-fall attempt have been revealed to the public."

"Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner wants to attempt a record-breaking free fall from 120,000 feet above the Earth. It's not the kind of jump a person can do with a conventional sky-diving suit and helmet. After all, Baumgartner will break the speed of sound during his fall. He will need life-support."

Science comedian Brian Malow jokes that a virus is "the ultimate David and Goliath" when compared with humans. He then rattles off a series of science-related jokes. "Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and doesn't."

"This simulation shows a simple pendulum operating under gravity. For small oscillations the pendulum is linear, but it is non-linear for larger oscillations. You can change parameters in the simulation such as mass, gravity, and friction (damping). You can drag the pendulum with your mouse to change the starting position."

"NTNUJAVA Virtual Physics Laboratory Physics Simulations to help you enjoy the fun of physics!"

"One transport truck-sized asteroid passed the Earth Wednesday morning and another will soar by in the afternoon, with both far closer to the planet than the moon. There is no danger of the Earth being hit and both should be visible with moderate-sized amateur telescopes, NASA reported."

"The two developed a technique that uses bacteria to break down the foam plastic used in many disposable cups, fast-food containers and packing materials."

"This is a collection of resources on this and other sites"

"If you send in a sample of something and a form, they'll run it through their scanning electron microscope for free, and post the images online. Their site explaining the process outlines the 5 steps to make it happen: find a sample, fill out a form, send them to ASPEX, wait for them to scan it (usually about 2 weeks), and look at it online."

To give everybody an opportunity to make his own "hands on" experience with the Nanoworld we provide all information to build up and use some of the standard equipment of this fascinating field of science, starting with the Nobel-Prize-Winner of 1986: the Scanning-Tunneling-Microscope (STM).

"Extremely simple concept with stunning results. The illusion may look complicated but it was really very easy to make."

"Learn how to safely open a D cell, and remove its sweet, sweet chemical innards. D cells are favorable as their large size facilitates investigation, and they contain the greatest magnitude of useable chemicals."

PhysOrg.com™ is a leading web-based science, research and technology news service which covers a full range of topics. These include physics, earth science, medicine, nanotechnology, electronics, space, biology, chemistry, computer sciences, engineering, mathematics and other sciences and technologies. Launched in 2004, PhysOrg's readership has grown steadily to include 1.75 million scientists, researchers, and engineers every month. PhysOrg publishes approximately 100 quality articles every day, offering some of the most comprehensive coverage of sci-tech developments world-wide. Quancast 2009 includes PhysOrg in its list of the Global Top 2,000 Websites. PhysOrg community members enjoy access to many personalized features such as social networking, a personal home page set-up, RSS/XML feeds, article comments and ranking, the ability to save favourite articles, a daily newsletter, and other options.

"Graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of graphitic carbon, has great potential to make electronic devices such as radios, computers and phones faster and smaller. But its unique properties have also led to difficulties in integrating the material into such devices."

"Graphene - a clean, safe future alternative to silicon in CPUs - has been used to make a transistor which runs at a whopping 300GHz."

"A collaborative research project has brought the world a step closer to producing a new material on which future nanotechnology could be based. Researchers across Europe, including the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL), have demonstrated how an incredible material, graphene, could hold the key to the future of high-speed electronics, such as micro-chips and touchscreen technology."

"A lonely island in the middle of the South Atlantic conceals Charles Darwin's best-kept secret. Two hundred years ago, Ascension Island was a barren volcanic edifice. Today, its peaks are covered by lush tropical "cloud forest". What happened in the interim is the amazing story of how the architect of evolution, Kew Gardens and the Royal Navy conspired to build a fully functioning, but totally artificial ecosystem."

"View of the solar system showing the locations of all the asteroids starting in 1980, as asteroids are discovered they are added to the map and highlighted white so you can pick out the new ones. The final colour of an asteroids indicates how closely it comes to the inner solar system. Earth Crossers are Red Earth Approachers (Perihelion less than 1.3AU) are Yellow All Others are Green Notice now the pattern of discovery follows the Earth around its orbit, most discoveries are made in the region directly opposite the Sun. You'll also notice some clusters of discoveries on the line between Earth and Jupiter, these are the result of surveys looking for Jovian moons. Similar clusters of discoveries can be tied to the other outer planets, but those are not visible in this video. As the video moves into the mid 1990's we see much higher discovery rates as automated sky scanning systems come online. Most of the surveys are imaging the sky directly opposite the sun and you'll see a region of high discovery rates aligned in this manner. At the beginning of 2010 a new discovery pattern becomes evident, with discovery zones in a line perpendicular to the Sun-Earth vector. These new observations are the result of the WISE (Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer) which is a space mission that's tasked with imaging the entire sky in infrared wavelengths. Currently we have observed over half a million minor planets, and the discovery rates snow no sign that we're running out of undiscovered objects. Orbital elements were taken from the 'astorb.dat' data created by Ted Bowell and associates at http://www.naic.edu/~nolan/astorb.html"