Infotainment

Monaco has always been known for its annual Formula 1 Grand Prix, in which racers whip around the hairpin turns of the principality's narrow streets, and its annual yacht show, in which some of the world's largest and most luxurious boats dock in Port Hercule. This summer, Solar1Races, the Monaco Yacht Club, and Dutch design firm Vripack are combining the two to launch the first solar-powered-yacht Grand Prix at the Solar1 race, set to take place July 10 to 12 in Monaco. The solar-powered race began as the Dong Energy Solar Challenge in Holland eight years ago, with two divisions: the hobby-level cruising class and a professional yachting class that was prohibitively expensive to most entrants. After competing for three years in the hobby class, the engineers at Vripack wanted to introduce a uniform racing division, where the boats would be more uniform but less expensive than the professional ones. For the new division, the design team developed the V20

Researchers at Penn State and Shinshu University in Japan have developed a simple, scalable method of making graphene oxide (GO) fibers that are strong, stretchable and can be easily scrolled into yarns with strengths approaching that of Kevlar. The researchers made a thin film of graphene oxide by chemically exfoliating graphite into graphene flakes, which were then mixed with water and concentrated by centrifugation into a thick slurry. The slurry was then spread by bar coating -- something like a squeegee -- across a large plate. When the slurry dries, it becomes a large-area transparent film that can be carefully lifted off without tearing. The film is then cut into narrow strips and wound on itself with an automatic fiber scroller, resulting in a fiber that can be knotted and stretched without fracturing. "We found this graphene oxide fiber was very strong, much better than other carbon fibers. We believe that pockets of air inside the fiber keep it from be

  PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY , RUTH BARSHIR ET A Genes that cause hereditary diseases are often expressed across a wide range of cells in the human body, but the diseases they cause can be specific to a few tissues or organs. Many of these genes are expressed at higher levels in diseased tissues, and their proteins have a significantly greater tendency for tissue-specific protein interactions, according to a study published last week (June 12) in PLOS Computational Biology . “Together the two factors we identified are relevant for as many as two thirds of the tissue-specific hereditary diseases [studied here],” Esti Yeger-Lotem from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and her colleagues wrote in their paper. The researchers suggested that these tissue-specific interactions, known as an interactome, highlight disease mechanisms, and can provide an efficient filter to identify causal genes within diseased tissues. To identify these interactomes,

The SteamBoy is an exciting new prospect that was announced on the last day of E3 2014 . Developed by SteamBoy Machine Team, a third party not affiliated with Valve, the SteamBoy is a handheld gaming console that lets you play Steam games on the go.  A teaser video for the device gives us a first peek at the portable Steam Machine with close-up shots showing the Steam Controller’s signature round track pads and Xbox One -like A, B, X, and Y buttons.  Similar to Sony’s PS Vita , the screen is positioned between the track pads in the middle.  According to The Escapist, the SteamBoy should feature a Quad-Core CPU, 4GB RAM, a 32GB built-in memory card, and a 5-inch 16:9 touchscreen. It will also connect to the Internet via WiFi and 3G, and will be able to play “the majority of current games in Steam.” “I think people will get shocked by SteamBoy potential and possibilities,” SteamBoy Machine Team said in a press release. “SteamBoy is the first device that allows [you] to

Tourists taking photos in the glass ledges of Chicago's Willis Tower, which hang 103 stories above the street below, got a hell of scare this week when it looked like the transparent floor beneath them was about to collapse. A protective coating covering the 1.5-inch-thick, 1500-pound glass panel cracked, leading those standing on the The Ledge at the time to believe the entire glass structure was breaking. The visitors to the observation deck were in no danger. Fortunately for them, the web of cracking extended only through the 1/8-inch-thick protective coating, not the glass itself. But the playful fear of heights people experience on the 103rd floor momentarily turned to real terror for a few people, and made us wonder: Just how much stress can glass support when it's hovering 1353 feet above the city? Turns out, unless a pair of white rhinos decide to take a Windy City vacation, The Ledge is going to be fine—it's even back open for business

  Human blood suitable for transfusion is always in short supply despite over 100 million donations every year. Even if the supply of blood was vastly increased, there would still be many places in the world that lacked the proper facilities to store and manage it all. Scientists have been looking at blood substitutes to solve these issues for years, but a variety of concerns have prevented any of them from reaching patients. The HaemO2 project from the University of Essex in England might be the first real success after designing a safer oxygen carrier molecule that can be stored at room temperature for long periods, while also avoiding the toxic effects seen with other blood substitutes. Human blood is brimming with immune cells and a plethora of proteins, and the researchers are interested in the red blood cell for transfusion. These donut-shaped, non-nucleated cells are the main solid constituent of blood , giving it that distinctive red color. The red actually

  MIT’s rather fabulous Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory ( CSAIL ), after using humble WiFi waves to sense movement behind a wall, has now improved its technology to the point that it can remotely — from behind a wall in another room — can detect heart rate and respiration. MIT has successfully used this technology to non-invasively check a sleeping baby’s breathing and pulse, and even to track the breathing of two adults simultaneously. Yes, there are videos of both feats embedded below. This time last year it was Wi-Vi — and now, with some further refinements, MIT is now calling it WiZ (which might be a play on “Wi-See,” but it isn’t clear). While Wi-Vi and other similar technologies could detect movement in general, WiZ can use radio waves to accurately (within a few centimeters) locate up to four people in a room. WiZ can also locate static people by detecting the motions caused by breathing — and yes, from these minute movements, they ca

Scientists have created a sonic tractor beam . And it's not simply an amazing proof of concept: This beam pulls with a billion times more force and can tow objects a million times larger than previous schemes for tractor beams. Tractor beams are staples of science fiction, projected from the Death Star in Star Wars and the Enterprise in Star Trek . The term was coined by sci-fi author and chemical engineer E.E. "Doc" Smith in 1931. In reality, scientists have previously succeeded in using light and sound waves to push and pull objects around on the microscopic level. For example, take laser-based optical tweezers , in which light imparts a slight push or pull on an item. Since the forces involved are small, these devices are used for moving things of correspondingly tiny size, including cells. Now acoustical engineers, led by Christine Démoré and Patrick Dahl at the University of Dundee in Scotland, have developed an acoustic tractor beam that can reel in

C leopatra’s Needle is an ancient Egyptian obelisk , but right now it looks like a construction project. Scaffolding snakes up the 69-foot spire as conservancy crews clear away 3500 years of soot and grime. Originally built in honor of Pharaoh Thutmose III, the obelisk has black streaks that mark its time spent buried near the Nile, its travel across the Atlantic, and near 130 years facing the pollution-filled elements in New York City. Now it’s getting a long overdue cleaning—using high-powered lasers. The Central Park Conservancy, the organization tasked with the upkeep of all monuments and works of art in Central Park, has had the needle’s cleaning on its to-do list since 2011. The Conservancy and personnel at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s photo studio began documenting the obelisk and assessing exactly what the monument needed. Soon conservators came in to test different types of cleaning techniques. “The typical ways of cleaning are using chemicals or micro-ab

It’s been more than three years since the Fukushima Daiichi power plant melted down, and despite nearly unlimited interest from the public we still have virtually no idea what’s going on in there. Detailed findings report the conditions immediately  around the plant, beneath it in the soil, and above it in the atmosphere — but the core of the nuclear power station is so heavily shielded that its status remains largely unknown to this day. Experimental rad-shielded robots inch a bit further in every month, but their progress is slow. Scientists are desperate enough that they’re trying to make use of passing cosmic rays, which are occasionally powerful enough to pass through the core and ferry out some precious intel. But why are we just figuring this out  now ? A new technology developed by academics and the Westinghouse nuclear company could keep this from being a problem in the future. When temperatures or pressures start to fluctuate, their new thermo-acoustic devic