New Computer Graphics Systems Give Reality a Convincing Makeover

Whether they know it or not, the National Football League faithful who root for their teams every weekend have also become big fans of "augmented reality". If you're not sure what this is, take a look at your television on Sunday afternoon and notice the yellow "first down" stripe running the width of the field (as well as a blue one that delineates the line of scrimmage). That's augmented reality--technology that merges computer-generated images with real-world sights and sounds. [More]



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Gaming Tech Aids Scientists Building Virtual Synthetic Chromatophore

The study of processes that make life possible is hardly a leisurely pursuit, but that doesn't preclude researchers from taking advantage of the most advanced video gaming technology available to aid in their work. A team of University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (U.I.U.C.) physicists has assembled a supercomputer consisting of several hundred superfast graphics processing units (GPUs) --typically used for rendering highly sophisticated video game graphics--that they think will help them build a simulation depicting how chromatophore proteins turn light energy into chemical energy, a process called photosynthesis.

"Ninety-five percent of the energy that life on Earth requires are fueled by photosynthetic processes," says Klaus Schulten , a (U.I.U.C.) physics professor leading the simulation-building effort and director of the school's Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group . To better understand how these processes work, Schulten's team is assembling a computer-based, virtual photosynthetic chromatophore . [More]



Sponsored Topics: University of Illinois - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign - Physics - Technology - United States Read more »

Carmakers and Utilities Charge Ahead on Making Electric Cars "Smart"

It will take years before there are enough electric cars and gas–electric hybrids on the road to put much of a dent in the output of the electrical grid . But once they do roll out en masse, these vehicles (and their drivers) will have to be smart about when they recharge so that utilities can avoid spikes in grid demand and drivers can avoid spikes in their electric bills. This puts carmakers and utility companies on the spot to develop a uniform technology that lets cars communicate with the grid, and vice versa. [More]



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Why We Really Want to Go Back to the Moon

This year marked the 40th anniversary of two momentous events related to space exploration. One, the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969, was a hallmark technological achievement. The other, the complete first run of Stanley Kubrick’s remarkable movie 2001: A Space Odyssey , vividly depicted author Arthur C. Clarke’s vision of humans traveling the solar system with abandon.

Much of the related flurry of reporting noted the stark differences between reality--people have not been back to the lunar surface since the December 1972 visit--and Clarke’s idea. Articles also asked whether the nation is sufficiently committed to devoting the $200 billion or so to returning to the moon 10 years from now and perhaps, after that, spending even more money to send humans to Mars.

Clean Energy Contest; and Counting Crickets and Katydids

The transcript of this podcast wil be posted in two to three weeks.

Scientific American podcast correspondent Cynthia Graber talks about the MIT Clean Energy Prize Competition. [More]



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Could a microchip help to diagnose cancer in minutes?

Current cancer screening often requires painful procedures and weeks of waiting to obtain results. But what if doctors could read a biological sample with a small hand-held device and come back with an answer in less than an hour? [More]



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Software mimics ant behavior by swarming against cyber threats

Looking to create computer defenses that adapt well to the cat-and-mouse game played between computer users and cyber attackers, a team of researchers has turned to one of nature's most effective militias--ants. Computer scientists at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Wash., are studying whether software written to behave like an army of "digital ants" can successfully find and flag malicious software (or malware). [More]



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Privacy and the Quantum Internet (preview)

Privacy is hard to come by these days, particularly on the Internet, where every time you Google something your desires are recorded for posterity--or at any rate, for advertisers.

Internet search companies say they protect their clients’ privacy by encrypting personal information and by using numbers instead of names to give their users anonymity. The problem is that anonymization is not always effective. AOL user number 4417749 found this out the hard way in 2006 when AOL decided to publish online a list of 20 million Web searches, including hers and those of 657,000 other users. Reporters were able to track down the 62-year-old widow in Lilburn, Ga., by analyzing the content of her searches. Luckily, Thelma Arnold was relatively unembarrassed by the revelation of her identity and intimate interests. How many of us could say the same?

Uncharted waters: Blown fuses and other troubles send the New Clermont back to the docks as the team regroups

Editor's Note: A team of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students was traveling up New York's Hudson River this week on the New Clermont , a 6.7-meter boat outfitted with a pair of 2.2-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cells to power the boat's motors. Their journey began September 21 from Manhattan's Pier 84 and was to cover 240 kilometers (at a projected speed of 8 kilometers per hour). After making several stops along the way, the crew originally expected to arrive back at Rensselaer Polytech's campus in Troy, N.Y., on September 25. This is the fourth of Scientific American.com's blogs chronicling this expedition, called the New Clermont Project . [More]



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50 Years Ago: Kidney Transplantation

OCTOBER 1959 FOUNDER OF KIDNEY TRANSPLANTS -- “Identical-twin grafts have demonstrated that where an immunological barrier does not exist kidneys can be successfully transplanted to cure otherwise incurable kid­-ney and vascular disease. We transplanted a kidney from a healthy man to his criti­cally uremic brother. Though the men were probably not identical twins, we hoped that their relationship might make for some immunologic compatibility. The recipient was given a total dose of X-rays large enough to depress his reticuloendothelial tissues severely. As the patient’s reticuloendothelial system recovers from the radiation, it may be forced to become familiarized with the antigens and the transplanted kidney. It is as yet too early to evaluate the results of this transplant, but initially it appears to be successful. -- John P. Merrill ”

Steven Chu to greenhouse gases: we will bury you

The U.S. Secretary of Energy-- channeling former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev perhaps?--has one thing to say in this week's Science to the greenhouse gases emitted by coal-fired power plants: we will bury you. Nobel Laureate Steven Chu's department has funneled $3.4 billion in stimulus dollars to research and develop the technology known as carbon capture and storage (CCS). [More]



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Surrogates: A little too true to life

When l was an astronomy teaching assistant in grad school, some of my students would look through the telescope eyepiece at Saturn, pull back as if they didn't know what to make of it, look again, and ask: “That’s really Saturn? It’s not a picture? A projection?” Some insisted on looking down the telescope tube from the other end to convince themselves they really were peering across millions of miles of open space. I had sympathy for them. Eight hours a day of staring at a computer screen makes it harder to apprehend the world when we see it for real.

We all complain about our ambivalence with modern technology. I’ve think I’ve given myself acquired attention deficit disorder by staying connected all the time. But it’s hard to scale back without giving up many of my relationships (not to mention my job). “You can easily find yourself sucked into the vortex of spending hours a day starting at a computer screen,” says Jonathan Mostow, the director of the film Surrogates , which opens tomorrow.

Uncharted waters: Hydrogen and the "law of unintended consequences"

Editor's Note: A team of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students are traveling up New York's Hudson River this week on the New Clermont , a 6.7-meter boat outfitted with a pair of 2.2-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cells to power the boat's motor. Their journey began September 21 from Manhattan's Pier 84 and will cover 240 kilometers (at a projected speed of 8 kilometers per hour). After making several stops along the way, the crew expects to arrive back at Rensselaer Polytech's campus in Troy, N.Y., on September 25. This is the third of Scientific American.com's blogs chronicling this expedition, called the New Clermont Project. [More]



Sponsored Topics: New York - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Hydrogen - Manhattan - Fuel cell Read more »

LSD Returns--For Psychotherapeutics

Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD, lambasted the countercultural movement for marginalizing a chemical that he asserted had potential benefits as an invaluable supplement to psychotherapy and spiritual practices such as meditation. “This joy at having fathered LSD was tarnished after more than ten years of uninterrupted scientific research and medicinal use when LSD was swept up in the huge wave of an inebriant mania that began to spread over the Western world, above all the United States, at the end of the 1950s,” Hofmann groused in his 1979 memoir LSD: My Problem Child.

For just that reason, Hofmann was jubilant in the months before his death last year, at the age of 102, when he learned that the first scientific research on LSD in decades was just beginning in his native Switzerland. “He was very happy that, as he said, ‘a long wish finally became true,’ ” remarks Peter Gasser, the physician leading the clinical trial. “He said that the substance must be in the hands of medical doctors again.”

Do you know where you are? Your cell phone does

A team of Duke University researchers in Durham, N.C., is studying new ways to use the abundance of sensors contained in most smart phones (including the camera, accelerometer, microphone, GPS and Wi-Fi radio) to determine mobile users' precise locations and thereby deliver hyper-localized services. This could enable a business such as Starbuck's to text-message a coupon to a person's phone as he or she enters the coffee shop, or it could allow Wal-Mart to send shoppers a listing of sales items as soon as the store's doors slide open. Another option could be to provide blind mobile subscribers with information about where they are as they move from store to store within a mall. [More]



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Uncharted waters: When hydrogen fails, the students turn to that old standby--gasoline

Editor's Note: A team of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students are traveling up New York's Hudson River this week on the New Clermont , a 6.7-meter boat outfitted with a pair of 2.2-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cells to power the boat's motor. Their journey began September 21 from Manhattan's Pier 84 and will cover 240 kilometers (at a projected speed of 8 kilometers per hour). After making several stops along the way, the crew expects to arrive back at Rensselaer Polytech's campus in Troy, N.Y., on September 25. This is the second of Scientific American.com's blogs chronicling this expedition, called the New Clermont Project. [More]



Sponsored Topics: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - New York - Fuel cell - Hydrogen - Manhattan Read more »

New Cooling Technology Uses Air "Bullets" to Shoot Down Overheated LEDs

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) really shine as an energy-efficient, long-lasting source of illumination in sensors, flashlights and video screens. For larger and more powerful LEDs to succeed in replacing incandescent and fluorescent bulbs in home and industrial lighting, however, they must be designed to better keep their cool. [More]



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Swine Flu Vaccine--Too Little, Too Late

As health care workers in the U.S. gear up for the flu season, they facea paradox: on the one hand, they will have too little vaccine against the novel influenza A (H1N1) strain to protect the entire population; on the other, some people will resist the shots that are offered to them. Sadly, both problems can be traced, at least in part, to the last time “swine flu” loomed. The 1976 national vaccination campaign against a pandemic that never materialized left the public with lingering doubts about whether the inoculations harmed some recipients and spawned lawsuits that cost the federal government nearly $100 million.

Since that episode, both public mistrust of vaccines and vaccine makers’ mistrust of a litigious public have only grown--hampering the nation’s ability to respond to the current, very real, pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expect the virus to sicken up to a third of the population this fall. But the nation will have barely enough vaccine for a third of its residents because methods used to make U.S. flu vaccines have changed little in half a century. Health officials decided early in the summer to stick with slow, egg-based production techniques and to eschew dose-sparing additives that might have tripled the vaccine supply.

Boosting Vaccines: The Power of Adjuvants (preview)

The thought of birth defects caused by rubella, rows of iron lungs housing children crippled by polio, or the horrific sound of a baby struggling with whooping cough can still evoke dread among people who have seen firsthand the damage inflicted by these and other vaccine-preventable diseases. Fortunately, those scourges are virtually unknown to modern generations that have had access to vaccines all their lives.

For more than 200 years vaccines have proved to be one of the most successful, lifesaving and economical methods of preventing infectious disease, second only to the sanitization of water. Vaccines have spared millions of people from early death or crippling illnesses and made the global eradication of smallpox in 1979 possible. Health experts now pledge to eliminate polio, measles and perhaps one day even malaria--although, as we shall see, a malaria vaccine will require novel approaches to immunization to be successful.

Wasted Space: U.S. Military Looking for Ideas on How to Curb the Threat of Orbiting Junk

Gazing up into the sky on a clear night, the heavens can appear as pristine as a mountain stream. But in truth, at least in Earth's vicinity, the trash factor in space may be more akin to what is found in New York City's East River. The region known as low Earth orbit (extending from 160 to 2,000 kilometers above Earth's surface), which is where many satellites spend their lives and "afterlives," has a litter problem caused by decades of neglect, and it's one that currently lacks an expedient solution. [More]



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