Researchers have decided to get personal with Mona Lisa–by irradiating her face. In a study recently published in Angewandte Chemie, researchers trucked around the Louvre to look at nine faces painted by Leonardo Da Vinci with a portable X-ray machine.
Their particular technique, as reported by the BBC, is called X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and is a way to uncover the layers of paint without damaging the paintings. By looking at this layering, they learned more about Da Vinci’s brush strokes and a technique called sfumato, which he used to hide transitions between dark and light areas and to create realistic shading.
The Da Vinci researchers aren’t the only X-ray art historians. Another recently published study looked at “Mayan blue”–a long lasting pigment made by the civilization that lived in Central American from 2500 BC to the 1600s.
Sure, your GPS-enabled cellphone might tell you which way is north, but why settle for a mere compass when you can monitor the Earth’s entire magnetic field?
According to its developer, Tomasso, a Droid app called Solaris weaves together data from several satellites that monitor the Sun’s activity and its effects on our planet’s magnetic field.
NASA satellite team STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) provides information on “Earth-directed solar ejections.” NASA’s SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) also gives stats on what the Sun is sending our way in the forms of solar wind and energetic particles. Finally, the NOAA’s polar orbiter satellites provide information on the Earth’s weather.
Combining this information, the app allegedly can show (almost) real-time changes in the Earth’s magnetic field from solar activity and even indicate when trapped, Sun-spewed subatomic particles are making a spectacular show, in the form of the northern or southern lights.
The app can also tell you when to look up since, as reported by Gizmodo, the “Phone vibrates when geomagnetic storm level rises or aurora may be overhead at your location.”
When it comes to submarines, stealth is no longer an excuse for being anti-social. A 40-inch-long buoy may soon allow submarine captains to send text messages from under the sea.
After leaving the submarine’s trash chute, the buoy stays tethered to the vessel by miles of cables, LiveScience reports. Once sailors have texted to their hearts’ content, they can cut the buoy loose. Alternatively, Lockheed Martin, the system’s designer, also pictures buoys dropped from airplanes, which could receive submarine messages via an “acoustic messaging system” that resembles sonar and send them along in text message form.
By air or by garbage disposal, the buoys would improve current submarine communications, Rod Reints at Lockheed Martin toldLiveScience.
“Currently, they have to go up to near periscope depth to communicate . . . . They become more vulnerable to attack as they get closer to the surface. Ultimately, we’re trying to increase the communication availability of the sailors while increasing their safety.”
If successful, one could only imagine the buoy’s other applications. Underwater robots, for example, could text us live updates about sunken vessels or oil leaks. Also, given that we can now text in caves and tweet in space, the buoy, by allowing people to text from miles under water, means that there is nowhere lft 2 escape.
Facing enemy gunshots, which would you choose: the old stand-by Kevlar vest, or a new “liquid” suit? Ongoing research at BAE Systems suggests you might be wise to pick the latter. Recent tests, BAE researchers suggest, hint that a combination of liquid and Kevlar layers might stop bullets more quickly and keep them from going as deep.
BAE tested each material’s mettle by blasting them will ball bearings fired at over 600 miles per hour from a gas gun. The video, available on the BBC site, shows a side-by-side comparison of 31 layers of Kevlar and 10 layers of Kevlar combined with the liquid.
Apparently, the liquid has a secret recipe for how it sticks together to absorb the bullet’s force. Watching the video, it seems like non-Newtonian fluids are at work (everyday examples of non-Newtonians include ketchup and peanut-butter). Though a cornstarch and water mixture stiffens when you punch it, it’s hard to see cornstarch making strides on the battlefield.
Even if he can’t divulge the details, Stewart Penny, a business development manager at BAE, told the BBC that the material is seriously sticky.
“It’s very similar to custard in the sense that the molecules lock together when it’s struck.”
BAE also believes that the new liquid suit will be less cumbersome than traditional Kevlar suits–reducing soldiers’ fatigue and also, given that it’s liquid, improving their flexibility in the field.
Lightsabers have come a long way since the telescoping plastic toys of yesteryear. We’re not talking about realistic sound effects or iPhone apps. We’re talking flesh-burning, eye-blinding lasers.
Although this gadget is dangerous enough to require customers to fill out a “Class 4 Laser Hazard Acknowledgment Form,” the Spyder III Pro Arctic Laser looks like it might be found in a Toys-R-Us, next to rows of action figures and Yoda dolls.
At least George Lucas thinks so; Lucasfilm is now threatening to sue the manufacturer. As reported in DailyTech, where we first saw this story, Lucasfilm feels a great disturbance with the similarities.
“It is apparent from the design of the Pro Arctic Laser that it was intended to resemble the hilts of our lightsaber swords, which are protected by copyright…”
These are no toys, counters the seriously-named manufacturer, WickedLasers. They have added several security measures, including “training lenses,” but don’t appear to be willing to change their Jedi-like hilts anytime soon. Cue Duel of the Fates.
At the end of Back to the Future, Doc Brown and Marty McFly use their time-traveling DeLorean to race off to the mysterious world of October 21, 2015. Unless things change drastically over the next five years, it doesn’t look like we’re headed for the neon-colored world portrayed in the second film (perhaps McFly messed up history) but it looks like we’ll at least have the awesome sneakers.
Looking for a midnight snack, you open a Tupperware container. Inside you find not your dinner leftovers, but a nasty cockroach. You stick your hand in.
Welcome to augmented reality psychology. The cockroach in the Tupperware is only in your mind–or your virtual reality goggles–and is part of an exposure therapy technique meant to treat those with extreme phobias.
Though traditional exposure therapy might require a person afraid of elevators to ride one repeatedly, or demand that a person afraid of cockroaches meet one face to bug-eyed face, the mere prospect of such experiences is enough to drive some patients out of therapy.
But perhaps, as described in a small study in Behavior Therapy, an augmented reality cockroach can provide all of the benefits without the ick.
A group of new drivers may never watch where they’re going. They won’t need to: Instead, they’ll listen and feel. The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech are developing a car for the blind, and hope to demonstrate a prototype in January of 2011.
Don’t be fooled: Unlike like the do-it-themselves cars that compete as part of the DARPA Urban Challenge, this car will actually let the blind driver take control and drive, and will require the same quick judgments needed by sighted drivers. The only difference will be how these drivers sense what’s around them.
Instead of looking at the car cutting them off or the pedestrian about to step into traffic, the blind drivers must feel them or hear them. Though the final design is still in the works, the car may communicate an obstacle’s presence by audio instructions, vibrating gloves (called DriveGrip), and puffs of compressed air (called AirPix). AirPix is sort of like a map of the road, a flat board with different air jets corresponding to different obstacles.
Believe me, there are many inconveniences that come with being left-handed: Your childhood art projects look like they were accomplished by jittery beavers on account of those damn right-handed safety scissors, and simple kitchen tools like can-openers and soup ladles can become the enemy. But now we lefties can add in a high-tech complaint: The iPhone 4′s antenna problems are particularly troublesome to the likes of us.
The iPhone 4′s sales have been spectacular since it debuted last week, but consumers immediately noticed a glaring problem with the metal band that wraps around the phone’s perimeter and acts as an antenna; holding the phone in certain ways interfered with the antenna and could lead to dropped calls. In response, Apple advised customers to “avoid gripping it in the lower left corner” when making or receiving a call. That’s when a U.K. group called the Left-Handers Club got irate.
According to The Telegraph, spokeswoman Lauren Milsom issued a blistering statement:
“It seems ludicrous to suggest that 10 per cent of potential users should be told they have to adopt a less natural hand hold to use this latest technology. I would strongly suggest that Steve Jobs employs left-handers in his design and testing team in future, and urgently address this issue to ensure the phone is fit for purpose.”
Lefties are reportedly not the only ones upset about the apparent design flaw. One couple that’s suing Apple says their phone’s faulty antenna has caused them “emotional distress,” and class-action lawsuits are starting to spring up.
After a presentation on “hydraulic leg extension” in large spiders and another on “aspects of octopedal locomotion,” researchers attending today’s Society for Experimental Biology annual meeting learned how to run like a three-legged dog.
Martin Gross of the University of Jena in Germany presented a project that could one day teach disabled planet-exploring robots how to keep trekking or damaged military robots how to survive the battlefield. Watching how his brother’s dog adapted to losing a leg, Gross was impressed with both the dog’s coping methods, and speed.
“The one with only three legs is still the fastest of all his dogs,” Gross told the BBC.
Discoblog is DISCOVER's compendium of quirky, funny, and surprising science news from the edge of the known universe. It's written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. Email tips and suggestions to vgreenwood [at] discovermagazine [dot] com.
Researchers have decided to get personal with Mona Lisa–by irradiating her face. In a study recently published in Angewandte Chemie, researchers trucked around the Louvre to look at nine faces painted by Leonardo Da Vinci with a portable X-ray machine.
Lightsabers have come a long way since the telescoping plastic toys of yesteryear. We’re not talking about realistic sound effects or 
Believe me, there are many inconveniences that come with being left-handed: Your childhood art projects look like they were accomplished by jittery beavers on account of those damn right-handed safety scissors, and simple kitchen tools like can-openers and soup ladles can become the enemy. But now we lefties can add in a high-tech complaint: The iPhone 4′s antenna problems are particularly troublesome to the likes of us.
