Who said going into science wasn’t a lucrative career move? In Forbes’ latest ranking of the highest earning dead celebrities, Albert Einstein beat out the likes of John Lennon, Andy Warhol and Marilyn Monroe to take the fourth spot behind Elvis Presley, Charles Schulz and Heath Ledger. Even though the father of relativity has been dead for 53 years, he remains one of the most recognizable faces in the world. He’s been a consistent appearance on Forbes’ list and raked in $18 million last year.
But where is all this money coming from? And who gets it?
As it turns out, Einstein doesn’t have any living heirs. He bequested all his personal papers, intellectual property rights and the right to use his image to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The university hires the company Greenlight to manage these rights and dole out permission for Einstein paraphernalia. (Greenlight also manages the rights to Steve McQueen and the Wright brothers.)
(more…)
Yesterday, we revealed the first half of our official Top Ten Science-Related Halloween Costumes. Now we bring you the Top Five.
5) RecycleBot: Today’s high-tech robots can walk, talk, and put away groceries. This one’s no Wall-E, but there’s a certain old fashioned charm to a giant robot made from recycled laundry detergent bottles. With a bit of tweaking, this could also work for either Ironman or Tin Man.
Image: Instructables / chaintool
4) Biohazard Suit: The sky is falling, and we don’t mean the stock market. Protect yourself from harmful radiation and slobbering-drunk partygoers with this outfit, complete with Geiger counter, gas mask, and Level B chem suit.
Image: Instructables / mada
(more…)
Ig Nobel Prize winners don’t get a photo-op with the King of Sweden, or their own petition for Obama, but their discoveries are worth a good laugh and some serious consideration. Here’s some of the wackiest science honored by this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes. The full list of winners, announced last week by the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), can be found here.
Biology: Fleas living on dogs jump higher than fleas living on cats. Three French scientists measured fleas jumping out of plastic pipes; the dog fleas outjumped the cat fleas by an average of 2.3 centimeters.
Physics: “String theory” agrees with Murphy’s Law. Two Americans tumbled string in a make-shift clothes dryer and identified all the different knots that came out by their Jones polynomial. They mathematically proved that if you shake up a bunch of loose strings (or hair or shoelaces or headphone cords) they will inevitably get tangled.
Chemistry: Coca-Cola may or may not be bad for your sperm. Three researchers at Harvard Medical School reported that Coke significantly reduces sperm motility and that Diet Coke just about wipes them out. Two years later, Taiwanese researchers reported that Coke has little effect on sperm motility. Both teams shared the prize.
(more…)
· The “Father of the internet” says the Web will run out of IP addresses in 2010.
· Chances are, if you’re reading this, you spend 25 percent of your time doing personal tasks online at work.
· Google’s Tenth Birthday contest: The five best ideas to help as many people around the world as possible will get a total of $10 million in funding. Hurry! Submissions are due by October 20th.
· Dear Sarah Palin: In case you hadn’t noticed, a village in Alaska is melting.
(more…)
Even P. Diddy hasn’t rapped about science. But that didn’t stop NASA from paying a post-grad student named Jonathan Chase to write a hip-hop song for the European edition of its Astrobiology Magazine. NASA wanted Chase to help make astrobiology reach out to the known life in the universe (us!), rather than unknown life in space.
We can’t help but wonder, did NASA really want a scientific hip-hop song so badly that they asked a British guy to rap? Still, on the science end, Chase is far from unqualified: He studied aerospace engineering and science fiction in college, and is currently studying science communication in graduate school. [Clarification: While folks at NASA's Astrobiology Magazine did invite Chase to contribute the rap, they did not actually pay him for it. In case you were worried about your hard-earned tax dollars going to rhyming limeys.]
(more…)
The collisions are coming! The collisions are coming!
Yes, CERN scientists opened the bubbly last Wednesday after their first successful tests of the Large Hadron Collider’s particle-firing parts. But none of those secrets-of-the-universe-revealing proton collisions have actually happened yet. Never fear, LHC chief Lyn Evans told The Telegraph—next week could be the week.
(more…)
The computer maestros tinkering with Yahoo’s code at their all-night hackathon weren’t the only hackers that have been busy lately.
Late last week, a group hacked into one of the Large Hadron Collider’s main computer systems. Calling themselves part of the “Greek Security Team,” the hackers said they wanted to expose the weaknesses in the particle smasher’s computer systems. The attack against the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment, one of the LHC’s four main experiments, did little direct harm, save some embarrassment for the LHC scientists, but they did bring down the CERN Web site.
(more…)
“The Ultra-Mega-Huge Proton Destroyer.”
“Yet Another Physics Experiment That Won’t Bring About the Apocalypse.”
“Old Smashy.”
Ah, forget it. I can’t think up a new name for the Large Hadron Collider, but maybe you can.
Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry, perhaps jaded that their experiment didn’t involve billion-dollar holes in the ground, have decided to get in on the fun of the LHC. They want people to submit suggestions for a new name, because let’s face it: While accurate enough, “Large Hadron Collider” as a name doesn’t exactly stir the emotions.
To send in your suggestion for a moniker that better captures the LHC’s potential to unveil secrets of the universe, go here. Good luck—the contest ends Wednesday.
Image: flickr/μμ
The talk about air pollution at the Beijing Olympics last month apparently didn’t bother Usain Bolt, the insanely fast Jamaican sprinter who broke his own world record in the hundred meters, 9.72 seconds, by running a cool 9.69. But scientists reviewing the tape now say that if Bolt hadn’t let up early when it was clear he had the race in the bag, his time could’ve been 9.55.
A research team led by Hans Eriksen at the University of Oslo studied footage of the race, concentrating on the positions of Bolt and the runner-up, Richard Thompson. Both runners slowed down at the end, and if Bolt had decelerated at the same rate that Thompson did, he would’ve finished at 9.61. However, Bolt slowed down even faster than Thompson as he pounded his chest in celebration. As a result, Eriksen says, Bolt’s hot-dogging cost him even more time; if he’d run all-out across the finish line, he could have finished in as fast as 9.55.
(more…)
If you ever thought driving the same bus route over and over would be a boring job, just imagine if you weren’t even steering.
University of California, Berkeley researchers ran the first public test of their magnetically-steered bus system last week on a public street in San Leandro, Calif. While a human driver controlled braking and acceleration, a series of magnets embedded in the road guided the bus along its route. With the driving out of human hands, the scientists say, the bus runs its route more efficiently than ever—effortlessly pulling up to within a finger’s width of the curb to allow passengers easy access.
(more…)
