As great as modern mobile device apps may be, they hardly compare to what one man in Britain did with a handheld device last week: he performed heart surgery. Andre Ng became the first doctor to use a remote controlled robot for the surgery to correct an irregular heartbeat: and he also felt the medical […]
Stephen Hawking has partnered with the Discovery Channel to present a new documentary series called “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking” covering some pretty wonderfully geeky subjects including alien visitors and time travel. But don’t get all excited. Mr. Hawking, as ever, is measured in his approach—though his comments on time travel will likely cause […]
If you’ve ever wondered why some people are left-handed, the answers may lie in the rest of the animal kingdom. Nora Schultz has explored the issue in a fascinating article in the latest edition of NewScientist. The starting point of Schultz’s piece is the idea that having a dominant side is a feature of most […]
Vaccine-autism claims, “Frankenfood” bans, the herbal cure craze: All point to the public’s growing fear (and, often, outright denial) of science and reason, says Michael Specter. In the following video, he warns that the trend may spell disaster for human progress.
This clip is raw from Camera E-8 on the launch umbilical tower/mobile launch program of Apollo 11, July 16, 1969. This is an HD transfer from the 16mm original. The camera is running at 500 fps, making the total clip of over 8 minutes represent just 30 seconds of actual time. Narration is provided by […]
What you see above is the first picture of Earth as taken from the surface of Mars by one of NASA’s rovers back in March 2004.
You may have heard that there’s one heck of an oil leak right now in the Gulf of Mexico, which is currently oozing out some 42,000 gallons a day. But what you may not know is that robots are working overtime to help control the situation before it gets even more out of hand. According […]
As part of an icebreaking event at the latest meeting of my local social media enthusiasts group Brrism, the 30 or so people on hand were asked to compare birthdays. It turned out that three pairs of people each shared a birthday. As unlikely as that may sound, nobody is calling Ripley’s Believe It Or […]
What you’re about to see, which starts at 1:20 in the video and lasts for only 60 seconds, took 2 years, 96 layers and 15 tracks to create. Since this video is in HD, I strongly suggest that you put the player in full screen mode before hitting the play button. Enjoy! [Via Reddit]
Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner wants to do something dead crazy next summer: He wants to break Joseph Kittinger’s free falling record, jumping from an altitude of 120,000 feet up in the air. As you can expect, doing this isn’t exactly what we could call “safe”, so Baumgartner will need a special suit, giving him life […]