November 2010 Archives

Researchers at UT Austin's Human Centered Robotics Laboratory have created the Dreamer sociable head, a comforting alternative to the normal Cylon look of robots.

Built for the Meka humanoid robot they're developing, the head was modeled after the non-threatening appearance of female anime characters.

Most of the development efforts focused on eye and head movement to feign "kind expressions" and allow the robot to focus on tasks and people without a terrifyingly intense stare.

It's still kinda creepy if you ask me...

Some of the biggest scientific issues facing the world have been explored in a new report marking the foundation of the Royal Society 350 years ago.

Leading experts address 12 key areas that are expected to impact future generations, covering subjects such as health, the environment, technology and the universe.

Topics discussed in the report - Science Sees Further - include climate change, stem cell technology, the World Wide Web, the nature of consciousness, biodiversity, geoengineering and extraterrestrial life.

Weird Science Hero Neil deGrasse Tyson has a somewhat 'disturbing thought'.

The Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft with Expedition 25 Commander Doug Wheelock and Flight Engineers Shannon Walker and Fyodor Yurchikhin touches down near the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan on Friday.

Russian Cosmonaut Yurchikhin and NASA Astronauts Wheelock and Walker, are returning from six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 24 and 25 crews.

Over millions of years dogs have developed bigger brains than cats because highly social species of mammals need more brain power than solitary animals, according to a study by Oxford University.

For the first time researchers have attempted to chart the evolutionary history of the brain across different groups of mammals over 60 million years.

They have discovered that there are huge variations in how the brains of different groups of mammals have evolved over that time.

They also suggest that there is a link between the sociality of mammals and the size of their brains relative to body size, according to a study published in the PNAS journal.

A broadband satellite launched last Friday night will open a window to the internet for hundreds of thousands of cut-off consumers across Europe.

The £120 million Hylas-1 satellite will act as a relay station for broadband traffic, enabling isolated rural communities to connect with the world wide web for the first time.

Hylas is the first superfast broadband satellite to be launched outside the US.

It was carried into orbit by an Ariane 5 rocket launched from French Guiana.

Get up close and personal with the animal kingdom thanks to the 'Stefano Unterthiner Photography: Animals Face to Face' gallery.

Click on the images to embiggen. For even more, click here.

Bored at work? Counting down the hours to the weekend?

Then Weird Science can help (as long as the boss doesn't spot ya!).

Weird Science Friday Links give you a nudge towards stuff you'll hopefully find more diverting than the stack of papers in front of you!

The International Center for Bathroom Etiquette.

Geek-tastic... The Vintage Calculators Web Museum.

The face of age.

From tourist hot-spot to toxic wasteland... the Salton Sea.

The Plasma Tree.

Mammals grew in size 1000-fold after being left a food bonanza by the extinction of the dinosaurs, research has shown.

From their origins as small shrew-like animals, some became enormously large - and the same pattern was seen all over the world.

They included giants such as Indricotherium, a hornless rhinoceros relative from Eurasia that stood 18 feet high and would have dwarfed an African elephant.

Dr Jessica Theodor, from the University of Calgary in Canada, one of the study`s authors, said: "Basically, the dinosaurs disappear and all of a sudden there is nobody else eating the vegetation.

"That's an open food source and mammals start going for it, and it's more efficient to be a herbivore when you're big."

An Antarctic ice core containing bubbles of air from the year 1410 will take centre stage at a new gallery opening at the Science Museum next month.

The bubbles record atmospheric conditions as they were 600 years ago.

Climate scientists analyse air trapped in ice cores to look for changes in greenhouse gas levels.

The London museum's ice core was collected by a joint British and US team from the Dyer Plateau in Antarctica in 1989.