Scientists one more step closer to realising invisible technology.

A unique computer model designed by a mathematician at the University of Liverpool has shown that it is possible to make objects, such as aeroplanes and submarines, appear invisible at close range.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news97945163.html#jCp

Scientists have already created an ‘invisibility cloak’ made out of ‘metamaterial’ which can bend electromagnetic radiation – such as visible light, radar or microwaves – around a spherical space, making an object within this region appear invisible. Until now, scientists could only make objects appear invisible from far away. Liverpool mathematician Dr Sébastien Guenneau, together with Dr Frédéric Zolla and Professor André Nicolet from the University of Marseille, have proven - using a specially designed computer model called GETDP - that objects can also be made to appear invisible from close range when light travels in waves rather than beams. Scientists predict that metamaterials could be of use in military technology, such as in the construction of fighter jets and submarines, but it will be some years before invisibility cloaks can be developed for human beings. Dr Guenneau, at the University’s Department of Mathematical Science, explains: “The shape and structure of aeroplanes make them ideal objects for cloaking, as they have a fixed structure and movement pattern. Human beings and animals are more difficult as their movement is very flexible, so the cloak - as it is designed at the moment - would easily be seen when the person or animal made any sudden movement. “A cloak, such as the one worn by the Harry Potter character for example, is not yet possible but it is a good example of what we are trying to move towards. Using this new computer model we can prove that light can bend around an object under a cloak and is not diffracted by the object. This happens because the metamaterial that makes up the cloak stretches the metrics of space, in a similar way to what heavy planets and stars do for the metrics of space-time in Einstein’s general relativity theory. “In order for the cloaking device to work in the first place light has to separate into two or more waves resulting in a new wave pattern. Within this pattern we get light and dark regions which are needed in order for an object to appear invisible. “Until now, however, it was not clear whether photons – particles that make up all forms of light – can split and form new waves when the light source is close to the object. If we use ray optic techniques – where light travels in beams - photons break down at close range and the object does not appear invisible. If we study light as it travels in waves however, invisibility is maintained.” Scientists predict that invisibility will be possible for objects of any shape and size within the next decade.

Could Mars Rover Curiosity Come Home?

As soon as NASA's newest six-wheeled rover touched down on the Martian surface, the world was hooked. Those JPL geniuses not only managed to land a robot the size of a small SUV on another planet, they captured the imagination of millions.
But with all this love and fondness for a rover called 'Curiosity' came the inevitable question: Will she come home?
My answer has always been: Of course not! How the heck could that huge robot be shipped back to Earth? It didn't land on Mars with an open return ticket and it certainly didn't bring its own return rocket booster!
But it turns out that my "obvious" answer may have been a little hasty. NASA's Mars mission chief thinks a return trip might be an option for future explorers.
"It is my hope that humans will be sent to Mars in the 2030s, or 2040s, and they will be able to walk up to Curiosity and bring it back, as I am sure there is a museum out there that would love to have it," said Doug McCuistion, Director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program.

Unlike rovers sent before it, Curiosity is powered by a plutonium heat source. Tiny pellets of the radioactive material encased inside a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) provides an uninterrupted flow of electricity to the rover's instrumentation.
Previous rovers, like the currently operational Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, used solar panels to harvest sunlight for energy, but this form of electricity production is at the mercy of the day/night cycle, dust storms and dust deposits.
Although Curiosity's planned mission lifespan is 2 years, the RTG energy source could extend its lifespan by 20 years. In that case, could the first manned mission land on Mars while Curiosity is still operational?
McCuistion said that although he could imagine astronauts walking up to Curiosity, the rover's instrumentation would likely break down before the energy source ran out -- if humans did approach the robot, she'd likely be long dead.
For me, although it seems poetic to "bring the rover back" (or "leave no robot behind!") I'd prefer to leave Curiosity on Mars as a monument to the science she did in the "pioneering days" of Mars exploration.
Curiosity was "built" to be a Martian; she's right at home. It seems only right it should be her final resting place too. -- but not for a long while yet.

Mercedes-Benz attempts to make an invisible car.

 Automakers are engaged in a constant struggle to get their products noticed. From clever advertising to sneaky movie deals and wild stunts, putting a vehicle in front of the public is the first step toward wrangling better sales figures. Mercedes-Benz recently took a different approach for the upcoming hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the F-Cell. While the company rolled out a special version of the car in front of the public, it did its best to hide the hatchback behind a veil of special LED matting. The LEDs were paired to a Canon 5D Mark II on the other side of the car, which supplied video.

As a result, the LEDs project an image of what's on the other side of the vehicle, making the F-Cell effectively invisible. Why hide a new car behind a curtain of techno wizardry? Mercedes-Benz wants to underscore the fact that the F-Cell is a zero-emission vehicle, making it practically invisible in terms of pollution. We see what you did there, Mercedes-Benz.

Google driverless car.

 MAY GOOGLE RULE THE WORLD IN FUTURE.

 The Google Driverless Car is a project by Google that involves developing technology for driverless cars. The project is currently being led by Google engineer Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-inventor of Google Street View. Thrun's team at Stanford created the robotic vehicle Stanley which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and its US$2 million prize from the United States Department of Defense. The team developing the system consisted of 15 engineers working for Google, including Chris Urmson, Mike Montemerlo, and Anthony Levandowski who had worked on the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges.

The system combines information gathered from Google Street View with artificial intelligence software that combines input from video cameras inside the car, a LIDAR sensor on top of the vehicle, radar sensors on the front of the vehicle and a position sensor attached to one of the rear wheels that helps locate the car's position on the map. In 2009, Google obtained 3,500 miles of Street View images from driverless cars with minor human intervention. As of 2010, Google has tested several vehicles equipped with the system, driving 1,609 kilometres (1,000 mi) without any human intervention, in addition to 225,308 kilometres (140,000 mi) with occasional human intervention. Google expects that the increased accuracy of its automated driving system could help reduce the number of traffic-related injuries and deaths, while using energy and space on roadways more efficiently.
The project team has equipped a test fleet of at least eight vehicles, consisting of six Toyota Prius, an Audi TT, and a Lexus RX450h, each accompanied in the driver's seat by one of a dozen drivers with unblemished driving records and in the passenger seat by one of Google's engineers. The car has traversed San Francisco's Lombard Street, famed for its steep hairpin turns and through city traffic. The vehicles have driven over the Golden Gate Bridge and on the Pacific Coast Highway, and have circled Lake Tahoe. The system drives at the speed limit it has stored on its maps and maintains its distance from other vehicles using its system of sensors. The system provides an override that allows a human driver to take control of the car by stepping on the brake or turning the wheel, similar to cruise control systems already in cars.

Google’s Project Glass and the future of augmented reality.

Bring the world just an inch far to your eye 
Google’s augmented reality eyewear will provide hands-free access to maps, weather information, message notifications and more, all displayed as a virtual layer on top of the user’s regular vision.

Science fiction has been predicting virtual or augmented reality for 50 years – just think of the Terminator films. But perhaps the predicted future has arrived in the shape of a ubiquitous fashion item.
Certainly in the next few years, our visual relationship with the world around us will come with additional layers of information.
Imagine the cityscape becoming the backdrop for 3D, location-specific advertising.
You could be walking down a city street, wearing your augmented reality (AR) glasses, and see someone wearing a pair of shoes you like. Using image recognition the glasses would pick up the brand and style of the shoe then send you to the online store.
To purchase you would only need focus your eyes on the “add to cart” button. And if you hesitated, the shoe retailer might send a virtual salesperson into the space in front of you to try to close the deal.
Advertising content could still be delivered through traditional television-style advertising but, with AR, your eyewear could create 3D models of products you could (virtually) rotate in your hand (in the case of, say, a new watch) or even walk around (in the case of a new car).
This will be the commercial reality of augmented technology and will allow companies such as Google or Facebook to expand the reach and depth of their advertising campaigns.

Building augmented reality

Here at the University of Western Australia, our architecture students have been developing other novel uses for this technology.
The study of past and present buildings is obviously a vital part of an architect’s education. Students currently study images of buildings and plans from history books or the internet.
As part of their course, our students constructed an array of virtual buildings in Perth and the surrounding area. The most outstanding project was a real-scale model of a 30-metre-tall cathedral.

This building was “placed” (in a virtual sense) on the UWA lawn using GPS positioning in Google Earth’s 3D Buildings feature.
After downloading an app to their iPhone or iPad, students could walk through and around the building and get a real feel for the space, rather than just seeing a drawing or computer model.
This works by projecting the real environment using the devices camera and the relative GPS co-ordinates. The latest devices can also track the motion of the device. This creates a simulated space in the real space, all experienced through the screen. The development of AR glasses would make this experience even more immersive.
(Sadly, Google Earth soon got wind of our new cathedral and “switched it off”, given it’s not a true building.)
The opportunity for using AR to teach architects is profound. Indeed, we are already planning an exhibition of architecture in a series of parks around Australia.
If you had the compatible eyeware you would merely turn up in your own time and the ghostly buildings would inhabit the park just as any other building inhabits a city.
No physical gallery space would be required for this exhibition.

Heritage potential

The rise of augmented reality and eyeware will also change the way tourists experience the history of our cities and other locations of historical and cultural significance.
Virtual stories could be played out within historical ruins, with AR layered on top of the existing structure.

Imagine arriving at the ancient Greek theatre at Taormina, Sicily (see above) to see the ruins in their present-day state.
You could then put on your AR eyeware and watch an ancient Greek play be enacted in front of you, with the smoking volcano of Mount Etna in the background.
And the language barrier wouldn’t be a problem. Your eyeware could display subtitles in your language of choice at the bottom of your field of vision.
This cultural theorists' dream would play out on the inside surface of your eyeware, adding virtual content to your vision of the real-world historical structure.

Keeping your eye on the ball

There’s also a considerable overlap between 3D gaming technology and the capabilities of augmented reality.
If you could use your eyeware to play a game, the game space would no longer be confined to your living room or wherever your mobile gaming device might be.
Instead the game space becomes an overlay of your immediate environment and real-world objects become part of the game world. Indeed, with the Playstation Vita handheld console, such gaming is already possible.

While Google’s Project Glass is still undergoing testing, it’s clear that AR devices will be with us sooner or later. The advent of eyeware will change the way we communicate, just as smartphones such as the iPhone have.
Where smartphones have merged the internet and daily life in an accessible and often-addictive way, AR eyeware will take it once step further.
This technology will deliver the ability to inhabit a realistic 3D, internet-driven virtual reality while still experiencing reality a the same time.
This vision is both exciting and daunting.

Mystery of Ball Lightning Solved?

Ball lightning may be the accumulation of ions on the outside of non-conducting surfaces such as a window.

A team of Australian scientists believe they have uncovered the cause of one of nature's most bizarre phenomenon - ball lightning.
Ball lightning, typically the size of a grapefruit, is a rarely seen event that lasts up to 20 seconds.
"Ball lightning has been reported by hundreds of people ... for hundreds of years and it has been a mystery," says CSIRO scientist John Lowke, lead author of a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres.

Previous theories have suggested microwave radiation, oxidizing aerosols, nuclear energy, dark matter, antimatter, and even black holes as possible causes. One recent theory suggests it is burning silicon that has been vaporized by a lightning strike.
To unravel the mystery Lowke and colleagues at the CSIRO and the Australian National University turned their attention to reports of ball lightning forming near windows.
"There are many observations of ball lightning appearing from a glass window either in a house (or) ... in the cockpit of an aircraft," Lowke says. "If it's burning silicon, how did it come in?"
After hitting the ground and lighting the sky, lightning strikes leave behind a trail of charged particles, or ions. In most cases, these positive and negative ions recombine in a split seconds, says Lowke. Any remaining ions travel down to the ground.

Lowke's theory, is that some of these ions can accumulate on the outside of non-conducting surfaces such as a window.
"These ions pile up and produce an electrical field which penetrate the glass," he says.
Lowke says the field gives free electrons on the inside of the window enough energy to knock off electrons from surrounding air molecules, as well as release photons, creating a glowing ball.

Recreating it in the lab
"This is the first paper which gives a mathematical solution explaining the birth or initiation of ball lighting," says Lowke.
He says the next step is to use the theory to replicate ball lightning in the laboratory. That may still prove difficult, as it would require equipment capable of producing 100 million volts.
But a ball lightning event seen by a former US Air Force pilot suggests another approach.
While flying a C-133A cargo plane from California to Hawaii in the mid 1960s, former Lieutenant Don Smith saw two horns of Saint Elmo's fire appear on the plane's randome (radar cover), followed by ball lightning inside the cockpit.
"It looked as if the airplane had bull's horns...they were glowing with the blue of electricity," says Lowke. "(It) was driven by ions from the aircraft radar operated at maximum power during a dense fog."

One aspect of ball lightning that the study didn't tackle is the loud bang that can occur at the end of a display.
"About a third of the sightings end in a bang," says Lowke. "(It may be that) the electric field tends to heat the gas and the whole thing takes off getting hotter and hotter and hotter and the bang is caused by the expansion of the gas."

American researcher has discovered that while praying, the brain re-programs itself .

scientists who examined the impact of meditation on the minds of Buddhist monks found that there are active parts in the brain become inactive in the state of meditation, while other inactive parts before the start of the meditation become active. In an article published by the BBC News website, Andrew Nioberg, a radiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, United States, said: "I believe that we are about to experience a wonderful time in our history, when we become able to explore religions and spiritual matters through a way, none has thought of its possibility before."

Dr. Newberg and his team studied a group of Buddhist monks in the Tibet while practicing meditation for about an hour, using brain imaging techniques. He asked the monks to draw a thread with their hands when they reach the highest state of meditation, through this process a small amount of radioactive material is injected into their blood that can be traced in the brain. This radioactive material enables the scientists to see the tincture as it moves to the active areas in the brains. After the monks are done with the meditation, a re-imaging of the brains was conducted, and then comparing the situation of the normal state and the one of meditation were then possible.

Earth-Sized World Found Next Door.

Scientists have found an Earth-sized planet circling a neighbor star just 4 light-years away.
No need to brush up on extraterrestrial etiquette quite yet, however. The planet, which flies around its parent star 10 times closer than Mercury orbits the sun, probably is inhospitable for life since its temperature would be more than 2,240 degrees Fahrenheit -- far too hot for liquid water to exist on the surface. Water is believed to be necessary for life.
But the newly found planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B, a sun-like star roughly 25 trillion miles away, could have better-positioned siblings.
“From statistical studies, low-mass planets are very frequently found in multiple systems,” lead researcher Xavier Dumusque, with the University of Geneva in Switzerland, wrote in an email to Discovery News.
So far, scientists have only ruled out the possibility of massive planets with orbital periods of 200 days or less around Alpha Centauri B, so that leaves plenty of room for the detection of low-mass planets in the star's so-called "habitable zone" -- the distance where water can exist on a planet's surface, Dumusque added.
 Planets positioned the same distance as Earth is to the sun would take 365 days to orbit a parent star of the same type and size as the sun. Alpha Centauri B’s newly found world circles in just 3.2 days, but the star is roughly half the size of sun, which puts its habitable zone about where Venus is in our solar system. Venus orbits in 225 days.
 Scientists already have found nearly 800 planets beyond the solar system, about 10 percent of which are considered low-mass worlds, meaning they are up to about 10 times the size of Earth or smaller.
“Most of the low-mass planets are in systems of two, three, up to six or seven planets, so finding in our closest neighbor one Earth-mass planet ... opens a really good prospect for detecting planets in the habitable zone in the system that is very close to us,” astronomer Stephane Udry, with Geneva University in Switzerland, told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday.
"In that sense, it is a landmark," Udry said.
 Scientists using Europe’s HARPS telescope spent four years trying to ferret out telltale signs of a small planet’s gravitational tug on light coming from Alpha Centauri B.
The measurement is difficult because of variations in the star's light caused by other phenomenon, such as flares and magnetic storms, similar to sunspots on the sun.
“Trying to extract a signal that you are interested in when it is in the presence of “noise” -- in this case the variability of the star -- is difficult. One has to apply special analysis methods and tricks. The real challenge, in this particular case, was in how to analyze the data,” astronomer Artie Hatzes, with Thuringian State Observatory in Tautenburg, Germany, wrote in an email to Discovery News.
“I still have my doubts,” Hatzes added. “Even though there is clearly a signal in the data at 3.26 days, the nature of this is still open to debate.”
More data -- and more sensitive instruments -- will nail down whether the planet actually exists or not, and if it has any siblings.
“Everything we know about this system so far is extremely tantalizing," said astronomer Greg Laughlin, with the University of California in Santa Cruz. “This is our backyard and to find out that planet formation did occur there is just extraordinarily exciting.” The research appears in this week’s Nature.

Researchers Disagree about How to Extend Human Life Span.

Two approaches to longevity research aim to extend the average life span out to a century or more
An American born a century ago would have been expected to live, on average, just 54 years. Many children died young, and giving birth was one of the most dangerous things a woman would do. But thanks to vaccinations, antibiotics, sanitation and better maternal care, we are now much more likely to die in old age than in our youth. An infant born today should live to see a 78th birthday.

The easy gains against the grim reaper have been won. Now as people live to ever older ages, they confront two broad sets of forces that conspire to impose the ultimate human limit. First, each extra year we live means another year of accumulated damage to the body's cells and organs—damage that slower cellular-repair systems cannot quite fix. In addition, age is the biggest risk factor for common deadly ailments that researchers have been relatively powerless against, such as cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's.

In Brief

* Researchers are exploring two main approaches to extending healthy human life span.
* One camp believes we should focus on curing disease and replacing damaged body parts via stem cell therapies.
* Another camp believes we must slow the aging process on the cellular and molecular levels.

  

High-Tech Kites Harvest the Power in Sea Breezes .

  

The powerful thrust of ocean-spawned winds can zip a kite surfer across the sea's surface at up to 55 miles per hour. Engineers are now trying to harvest the power in that wind to generate electricity. The Wing 7 airborne wind turbine pictured here is a prototype of a leading contender for the job. The autonomous, lightweight device is tethered to land or to a floating platform; when wind speeds pick up, four rotors fly it up above 820 feet in a circle perpendicular to the wind. As the air rushes across the carbon-fiber wing, the rotors generate electricity by spinning permanent magnets. “The rotors are both propellers and turbines,” notes mechanical engineer Corwin Hardham, CEO and co-founder of Makani Power, which created the Wing 7. An onboard computer makes constant adjustments.

The idea of generating power with kites, to avoid the fickleness of winds closer to the earth, is centuries old; modern iterations—including schemes for harvesting energy by flying into jet streams—date back to at least the 1970s. Makani intends to meet that challenge by designing its kite to work over the ocean, where the wind blows fairly constantly, and to cover a wide expanse of sky in its circular flight. Even relatively light winds that fail to stir traditional turbines can speed the light, tethered aircraft at more than 100 miles per hour and allow it to generate power.

ROTOR POWER: These rotors serve as both turbines and propellers. Each of the four rotors on the Wing 7 contains a permanent magnet that spins in the breeze to generate electricity. Those electrons travel back to the earth via a tether that connects the kite to land or to a floating platform.

AUTOPILOT: An onboard computer housed just behind the nose cone makes adjustments to allow the Wing 7 to generate the most power in flight. Carbon fiber throughout the kite makes it light but strong: the 120-pound device can pull more than three tons. “It can pull your car away,” says Makani Power's Corwin Hardham.

How Nerve Cells Communicate.

The brain makes sense of our experiences by focusing closely on the timing of the impulses that flow through billions of nerve cellsOur brains are better than Google or the best robot from iRobot.
We can instantly search through a vast wealth of experiences and emotions. We can immediately recognize the face of a parent, spouse, friend or pet, whether in daylight, darkness, from above or sideways—a task that the computer vision system built into the most sophisticated robots can accomplish only haltingly. We can also multitask effortlessly when we extract a handkerchief from a pocket and mop our brow while striking up a conversation with an acquaintance. Yet designing an electronic brain that would allow a robot to perform this simple combination of behaviors remains a distant prospect.

In Brief

• Three pounds of nerve tissue underneath the skull are capable of perceiving, thinking and acting with a finesse that cannot be matched by any computer.
• The brain achieves this feat of cognition, in part, by carefully timing the signals that flash across the trillions of connections that link billions of brain cells.
• Seeing a flower pot causes groups of neurons to fire in a brief time interval to activate a part of the brain that registers that particular object at just that one moment.
• Understanding how this timing system works will both lead to better understanding of our behavior and enable the building of new computing and electronic equipment that, like the brain, functions more efficiently than conventional digital machines.

How do electric eels generate a voltage and why do they not get shocked in the process?

The electric eel generates large electric currents by way of a highly specialized nervous system that has the capacity to synchronize the activity of disc-shaped, electricity-producing cells packed into a specialized electric organ. The nervous system does this through a command nucleus that decides when the electric organ will fire. When the command is given, a complex array of nerves makes sure that the thousands of cells activate at once, no matter how far they are from the command nucleus.
Each electrogenic cell carries a negative charge of a little less than 100 millivolts on its outside compared to its inside. When the command signal arrives, the nerve terminal releases a minute puff of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter. This creates a transient path with low electrical resistance connecting the inside and the outside of one side of the cell. Thus, each cell behaves like a battery with the activated side carrying a negative charge and the opposite side a positive one.
Because the cells are oriented inside the electric organ like a series of batteries piled into a flashlight, the current generated by an activated cell "shocks" any inactive neighbor into action, setting off an avalanche of activation that runs its course in just two milliseconds or so. This practically simultaneous start-up creates a short-lived current flowing along the eel's body. If the eel lived in air, the current could be as high as one ampere, turning the creature's body into the equivalent of a 500-volt battery. But eels live in water, which provides additional outlets for the current. They thus generate a larger voltage, but a divided, and therefore diminished, current.
To my knowledge, there are no specific studies on why eels can shock other animals without shocking themselves but one possible explanation could be that the severity of an electric shock depends on the amount and duration of the current flowing through any given area of the body. For the purposes of comparison, an eel's body has roughly the same dimensions as an adult man's arm. To cause an arm to spasm, 200 milliamps of current must be flowing into it for 50 milliseconds. An eel generates much less energy than that because its current flows for only 2 milliseconds. Additionally, a large part of the current dissipates into the water through the skin. This probably reduces the current even more near internal structures like the central nervous system or heart.
Of course, the current received by any small prey is also only a small portion of the total current generated by the eel. Nevertheless, the current discharged into their smaller bodies is much larger proportionally. For example, a prey 10 times smaller in length than an eel is about 1,000 times smaller in volume. Therefore, the small animals close to the eel get shocked, rather than the discharging eel itself.

Dark Energy.

What really has everyone on the planet confused -- including scientists -- is dark energy.
To continue with the pie analogy, dark energy is a Garfield-sized portion at 73 percent of the known universe. It seems to pervade all of space and push galaxies farther and farther away from one another at increasingly faster speeds.
Some cosmologists think this expansion will leave the Milky Way galaxy as an "island universe" in a few trillion years with no other galaxies visible.
Others think the rate of expansion will become so great that it will result in a "Big Rip." In this scenario, the force of dark energy overcomes gravity to disassemble stars and planets, the forces keeping particles sticking together, the molecules in those particles, and eventually the atoms and subatomic particles. Thankfully, humankind probably won't be around to witness to cataclysm.

'Black' Silicon Grabs Infrared Sunlight.

German researchers say they've figured out how to grab infrared sunlight with solar cells. The advantage comes from a special black silicon and panels made from it produce twice the electricity of regular PV panels.
"Black silicon is produced by irradiating standard silicon with femtosecond laser pulses under a sulfur containing atmosphere," said Stefan Kontermann, researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications at the Heinrich-Hertz-Institut in Germany. "This structures the surface and integrates sulfur atoms into the silicon lattice, making the treated material appear black."
 The researchers said they were able to double the efficiency of black silicon solar cells by modifying the shape of the laser pulse used to irradiate the silicon.
In Colorado, scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory this month reported they, too, had figured out how to boost efficiency of their black solar cells. They said they have figured out how to grab more electricity by reducing reflectivity from sunlight.
 The NREL project is being licensed by New Jersey-based Natcoresolar Technology, which is hoping to commercialize the idea. "Consumers will benefit from both the low reflection and low cost of our solar cell," said NREL's Jihun Oh, who authored the recent study in Nature Nanotechnology. "So you'd pay less to put a black Silicon PV array on your house and get more electricity from it. This means shorter payback times for your investment."

Psychokinesis.

Psychokinesis (PK) is the ability to move or otherwise manipulate objects using the human mind. There are two types of psychokinesis, the "macro" and "micro" level. Many have claimed macro abilities — to be able to manipulate of large objects — throughout history. A 19th-century example was Eusapia Palladino who, in an 1892 photograph taken in Milan, and shown here, supposedly levitated a table while researcher Alexandr Aksakov checked for fraud.
The micro level involves the manipulation of random events using the human mind. Between 1979 and 2007 the PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research) lab in New Jersey studied this phenomenon running detailed statistical analysis. Its researchers found that the human mind has a very slight ability to manipulate random events, a finding that is controversial and debated among scientists.

Hidden in Einstein's Math: Faster-than-Light Travel?

Although Einstein's theories suggest nothing can move faster than the speed of light, two scientists have extended his equations to show what would happen if faster-than-light travel were possible.
Despite an apparent prohibition on such travel by Einstein’s theory of special relativity, the scientists said the theory actually lends itself easily to a description of velocities that exceed the speed of light.
"We started thinking about it, and we think this is a very natural extension of Einstein's equations," said applied mathematician James Hill, who co-authored the new paper with his University of Adelaide, Australia, colleague Barry Cox. The paper was published Oct. 3 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

Special relativity, proposed by Albert Einstein in 1905, showed how concepts like speed are all relative: A moving observer will measure the speed of an object to be different than a stationary observer will. Furthermore, relativity revealed the concept of time dilation, which says that the faster you go, the more time seems to slow down. Thus, the crew of a speeding spaceship might perceive their trip to another planet to take two weeks, while people left behind on Earth would observe their passage taking 20 years.
Yet special relativity breaks down if two people's relative velocity, the difference between their respective speeds, approaches the speed of light. Now, Hill and Cox have extended the theory to accommodate an infinite relative velocity. [Top 10 Implications of Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos]
Interestingly, neither the original Einstein equations, nor the new, extended theory can describe massive objects moving at the speed of light itself. Here, both sets of equations break down into mathematical singularities, where physical properties can't be defined.
"The actual business of going through the speed of light is not defined," Hill told LiveScience. "The theory we've come up with is simply for velocities greater than the speed of light."
In effect, the singularity divides the universe into two: a world where everything moves slower than the speed of light, and a world where everything moves faster. The laws of physics in these two realms could turn out to be quite different.
In some ways, the hidden world beyond the speed of light looks to be a strange one indeed. Hill and Cox's equations suggest, for example, that as a spaceship traveling at super-light speeds accelerated faster and faster, it would lose more and more mass, until at infinite velocity, its mass became zero.
"It's very suggestive that the whole game is different once you go faster than light," Hill said.
Despite the singularity, Hill is not ready to accept that the speed of light is an insurmountable wall. He compared it to crossing the sound barrier. Before Chuck Yeager became the first person to travel faster than the speed of sound in 1947, many experts questioned whether it could be done. Scientists worried that the plane would disintegrate, or the human body wouldn't survive. Neither turned out to be true.
Fears of crossing the light barrier may be similarly unfounded, Hill said.
"I think it's only a matter of time," he said. "Human ingenuity being what it is, it's going to happen, but maybe it will involve a transportation mechanism entirely different from anything presently envisaged."

The 9 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics.

Pandora's box

In 1900, the British physicist Lord Kelvin is said to have pronounced: "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." Within three decades, quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of relativity had revolutionized the field. Today, no physicist would dare assert that our physical knowledge of the universe is near completion. To the contrary, each new discovery seems to unlock a Pandora's box of even bigger, even deeper physics questions. These are our picks for the most profound open questions of all.

What is dark energy?

No matter how astrophysicists crunch the numbers, the universe simply doesn't add up. Even though gravity is pulling inward on space-time — the "fabric" of the cosmos — it keeps expanding outward faster and faster. To account for this, astrophysicists have proposed an invisible agent that counteracts gravity by pushing space-time apart. They call it dark energy. In the most widely accepted model of dark energy, it is a "cosmological constant": an inherent property of space itself, which has "negative pressure" driving space apart. As space expands, more space is created, and with it, more dark energy. Based on the observed rate of expansion, scientists know that the sum of all the dark energy must make up more than 70 percent of the total contents of the universe. But no one knows how to look for it.

What is dark matter?

Evidently, about 84 percent of the matter in the universe does not absorb or emit light. "Dark matter," as it is called, cannot be seen directly, and it hasn't yet been detected by indirect means, either. Instead, dark matter's existence and properties are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation and the structure of the universe. This shadowy substance is thought to pervade the outskirts of galaxies, and may be composed of "weakly interacting massive particles," or WIMPs. Worldwide, there are several detectors on the lookout for WIMPs, but so far, not one has been found. [If Not Dark Matter, then What?]

Why is there an arrow of time?

Time moves forward because a property of the universe called "entropy," roughly defined as the level of disorder, only increases, and so there is no way to reverse a rise in entropy after it has occurred. The fact that entropy increases is a matter of logic: There are more disordered arrangements of particles than there are ordered arrangements, and so as things change, they tend to fall into disarray. But the underlying question here is, why was entropy so low in the past? Put differently, why was the universe so ordered at its beginning, when a huge amount of energy was crammed together in a small amount of space? [What's the Total Energy in the Universe?]

Are there parallel universes?

Astrophysical data suggests space-time might be "flat," rather than curved, and thus that it goes on forever. If so, then the region we can see (which we think of as "the universe") is just one patch in an infinitely large "quilted multiverse." At the same time, the laws of quantum mechanics dictate that there are only a finite number of possible particle configurations within each cosmic patch (10^10^122 distinct possibilities). So, with an infinite number of cosmic patches, the particle arrangements within them are forced to repeat — infinitely many times over.  This means there are infinitely many parallel universes: cosmic patches exactly the same as ours (containing someone exactly like you), as well as patches that differ by just one particle's position, patches that differ by two particles' positions, and so on down to patches that are totally different from ours.
Is there something wrong with that logic, or is its bizarre outcome true? And if it is true, how might we ever detect the presence of parallel universes?

Why is there more matter than antimatter?

The question of why there is so much more matter than its oppositely-charged and oppositely-spinning twin, antimatter, is actually a question of why anything exists at all. One assumes the universe would treat matter and antimatter symmetrically, and thus that, at the moment of the Big Bang, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been produced. But if that had happened, there would have been a total annihilation of both: Protons would have canceled with antiprotons, electrons with anti-electrons (positrons), neutrons with antineutrons, and so on, leaving behind a dull sea of photons in a matterless expanse. For some reason, there was excess matter that didn't get annihilated, and here we are. For this, there is no accepted explanation.

What is the fate of the universe?

The fate of the universe strongly depends on a factor of unknown value: Ω, a measure of the density of matter and energy in the universe. If Ω is greater than 1, then space-time would be "closed" like the surface of an enormous sphere. If there is no dark energy, such a universe would eventually stop expanding and would instead start contracting, eventually collapsing in on itself in an event dubbed the "Big Crunch." If the universe is closed but there is dark energy, the spherical universe would expand forever.
Alternatively, if Ω is less than 1, then the geometry of space would be "open" like the surface of a saddle. In this case, its ultimate fate is the "Big Freeze" followed by the "Big Rip": first, the universe's outward acceleration would tear galaxies and stars apart, leaving all matter frigid and alone. Next, the acceleration would grow so strong that it would overwhelm the effects of the forces that hold atoms together, and everything would be wrenched apart.
If Ω = 1, the universe would be flat, extending like an infinite plane in all directions. If there is no dark energy, such a planar universe would expand forever but at a continually decelerating rate, approaching a standstill. If there is dark energy, the flat universe ultimately would experience runaway expansion leading to the Big Rip.

How do measurements collapse quantum wavefunctions?

In the strange realm of electrons, photons and the other fundamental particles, quantum mechanics is law. Particles don't behave like tiny balls, but rather like waves that are spread over a large area. Each particle is described by a "wavefunction," or probability distribution, which tells what its location, velocity, and other properties are more likely to be, but not what those properties are. The particle actually has a range of values for all the properties, until you experimentally measure one of them — its location, for example — at which point the particle's wavefunction "collapses" and it adopts just one location. [Newborn Babies Understand Quantum Mechanics]
But how and why does measuring a particle make its wavefunction collapse, producing the concrete reality that we perceive to exist? The issue, known as the measurement problem, may seem esoteric, but our understanding of what reality is, or if it exists at all, hinges upon the answer.

Is string theory correct?

When physicists assume all the elementary particles are actually one-dimensional loops, or "strings," each of which vibrates at a different frequency, physics gets much easier. String theory allows physicists to reconcile the laws governing particles, called quantum mechanics, with the laws governing space-time, called general relativity, and to unify the four fundamental forces of nature into a single framework. But the problem is, string theory can only work in a universe with 10 or 11 dimensions: three large spatial ones, six or seven compacted spatial ones, and a time dimension. The compacted spatial dimensions — as well as the vibrating strings themselves — are about a billionth of a trillionth of the size of an atomic nucleus. There's no conceivable way to detect anything that small, and so there's no known way to experimentally validate or invalidate string theory.

Is there order in chaos?

Physicists can't exactly solve the set of equations that describes the behavior of fluids, from water to air to all other liquids and gases. In fact, it isn't known whether a general solution of the so-called Navier-Stokes equations even exists, or, if there is a solution, whether it describes fluids everywhere, or contains inherently unknowable points called singularities. As a consequence, the nature of chaos is not well understood. Physicists and mathematicians wonder, is the weather merely difficult to predict, or inherently unpredictable? Does turbulence transcend mathematical description, or does it all make sense when you tackle it with the right math?

MIT Pencil Draws Sensors Directly onto Paper.

A few scribbled lines on paper can instantly create a sensor for detecting dangerous gases. Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemists pulled off that neat trick by using a pencil in which the graphite "lead" was replaced by a special material called carbon nanotubes.
Lines of carbon nanotubes are drawn on specially treated paper. When an electrical current is then run through the paper, a change in resistance is a sign that gas molecules have bound to the nanotubes.
MIT's test sensor successfully detected small traces of ammonia gas. But the same idea could work for almost any type of gas, said Timothy Swager, a chemist at MIT.
Best of all, the special pencil lead is fairly cheap and easy to use, according to the MIT researchers. The new method of compressing powdered nanotubes into pencil lead is also safer than the usual sensor-manufacturing method of dissolving the nanotubes in hazardous chemicals.
"You can't imagine a more stable formulation," Swager said. "The molecules are immobilized."
The carbon nanotubes are tiny cylinders of rolled-up carbon sheets — thousands of times thinner than a human hair.
Simplification of such sensor manufacturing has huge implications ranging from battlefield scenarios to modern medicine. For that reason, MIT's research received funding from both the Army Research Office and a National Institutes of Health fellowship.
The MIT team hopes to create "drawn" sensors that can detect ethylene levels, for monitoring the ripeness of fruits being shipped or stored, and sulfur compounds, which could warn of natural gas leaks in homes or businesses.

8 Shocking Things We Learned From Stephen Hawking's Book.

Wacky Physics

From the idea that our universe is one among many, to the revelation that mathematician Pythagoras didn't actually invent the Pythagorean theorem, here are eight shocking things we learned from reading physicist Stephen Hawking's new book, "The Grand Design," written with fellow physicist Leonard Mlodinow of Caltech.
The book, covering major questions about the nature and origin of the universe, was released Sept. 7, 2010, by its publisher, Bantam.

The power of light

This fun fact: A 1-watt night-light emits a billion billion photons each second.

Photons are the little packets that light comes in. Confusingly, they, like all particles, behave as both a particle and a wave.



The past is possibility

According to Hawking and Mlodinow, one consequence of the theory of quantum mechanics is that events in the past that were not directly observed did not happen in a definite way. Instead they happened in all possible ways. This is related to the probabilistic nature of matter and energy revealed by quantum mechanics: Unless forced to choose a particular state by direct interference from an outside observation, things will hover in a state of uncertainty.

For example, if all we know is that a particle traveled from point A to point B, then it is not true that the particle took a definite path and we just don't know what it is. Rather, that particle simultaneously took every possible path connecting the two points.

Yeah, we're still trying to wrap our brains around this.

The authors sum up: "No matter how thorough our observation of the present, the (unobserved) past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities."
Theory of everything

If there is any "theory of everything" that can describe the whole universe, it is M theory, according to Hawking and Mlodinow. This model is a version of string theory, which posits that at the tiniest levels all particles are fundamentally little loops of string that vibrate at different frequencies. And, if true, all matter and energy would follow rules derived from the nature of these strings.

"M theory is the only model that has all the properties we think the final theory ought to have," the authors write.

One consequence of this theory is that our universe is not the only one – untold numbers of cousin universes exist with different physical laws and properties.
General relativity

If most people think of general relativity at all, they assume this high-minded idea of Einstein's applies only to super-large objects completely outside the realm of normal life, such as galaxies and black holes.

But actually, the warping of space-time does affect things we know and use, the authors point out.

"If general relativity were not taken into account in GPS satellite navigation systems, errors in global positions would accumulate at a rate of about ten kilometers each day," the book states. That's because general relativity describes how time flows slower the closer an object is to a large mass. Thus, depending on satellites' distances from Earth, their onboard clocks will run at slightly different speeds, which could offset position calculations unless this effect is taken into account."
Oppressed fish

A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls. This law was meant to protect the poor fish from a distorted nature of reality, since bent light might show them an odd portrayal of their surroundings.

Hawking and Mlodinow bring up the incident to make the point that it is impossible to know the true nature of reality. We think we have an accurate picture of what's going on, but how would we know if we were metaphorically living in a giant fishbowl of our own, since we would never be able to see outside our own point of view to compare?
Pythagoras stole the credit

In passing, the authors casually assert that the famous Greek mathematician Pythagoras did not actually discover the Pythagorean theorem.

A little digging suggests the formula (a^2 + b^2 = c^2, which describes the relationship between the three sides of a right triangle) was actually known earlier. The Babylonians, for example, seem to have documented the basic idea in ancient mathematical tablets before Pythagoras came on the scene in 570 B.C.

Quarks are never lonely

Quarks, the adorably named building blocks of protons and neutrons, come only in groups, never alone. Apparently, the force that binds quarks together increases with distance, so the farther one tries to pry a lone quark away, the harder it will pull back. Therefore, free quarks never exist in nature.

Protons and neutrons are both made of three quarks. (Protons contain two "up"-flavored quarks and one "down," while neutrons have two downs and one up.)



The universe is its own creator

One of the most talked-about assertions in the whole book is that we don't need the idea of God to explain what sparked the creation of the universe.

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going," Hawking and Mlodinow write.

Instead, the laws of science alone can explain why the universe began. Our modern understanding of time suggests that it is just another dimension, like space. Thus it doesn't have a beginning.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," they write. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist."