What do 3D printing, jelly, liver transplants, chainmail, dental fillings, ferrofluids, and the Six Million Dollar man have to tell us about our future? Materials scientist and engineer Mark Miodownik lets us know in
this Royal Institution lecture.
posted by cthuljew
on Mar 22, 2013 -
8 comments
Why People Really Love Technology: An Interview with Genevieve Bell The thing I love about Intel researcher Genevieve Bell is that she finds surprising things by looking at what's left out of the dominant narratives about technology. She finds data that's ignored because it didn't fit into the paradigm of, say, how people adopt technology. The dominant narrative is that young men determine the popularity of phones, computers, websites, and the like. But when Bell looked at the data, the story we told ourselves about how the world worked was not reflected in the numbers.
That's why I wanted to talk to her about what gadgets people around the world might be using over the next decade. I figured she was someone who could look past the conventional wisdom and find the missing pieces of the future
posted by infini
on Nov 29, 2012 -
30 comments
So yesterday I posted
the story about how researchers had discovered that both sexes cared about appearance when selecting dates. Today
Stanford (!!) releases the startling discovery that cars get hot when parked in the sun. Meanwhile K State learns that
women feel better about their bodies when complemented, and the other shocker story is that problem gamblers share traits with
substance abusers. And how about that New Scientist story about the fact we're
entering a dark age? So what's up with science lately, particularly in America?
posted by Fozzie
on Jul 5, 2005 -
108 comments
Mobile-phone radiation damages lab DNA . Sure to be controversial and certainly not the last word, but it raises some interesting points of conversation. Government surveillance becomes much easier with wireless communications and there is a
huge corporate financial investment in the infrastructure. Could we really trust the government(s) to tell us if this particular technology
was harmful
? And at what point would
you give serious consideration to giving up a technology that had proved to be such an intrinsic part of your life
? Are you addicted beyond the point of no return
? Other media carrying the story via Google News.
posted by spock
on Dec 21, 2004 -
28 comments
Eyetracking for fun and profit. The Eyetrack III study observed 46 people for one hour as their eyes followed mock news websites and real multimedia content. This article summarizes their observations. Too impatient to read? Cool transparent heatmap overlay gizmo
here. Via the rather cool
creativebits.
posted by stonerose
on Sep 15, 2004 -
10 comments
Let there be light - Canadian researchers have devised a new polymer material by manipulating buckyballs (carbon atoms that look like soccer balls). The technology could be used to create optical (light based) switches to replace electronic network switches. It could lead to an Internet based entirely on light.
posted by paladin
on Aug 22, 2004 -
4 comments
MIT's Erotic Computation Group. "By developing advanced sexual appliances and techniques, we seek to broaden the range of human amative expression and heighten our potential for sexual gratification." Good to see that at least some people are doing research that will benefit all mankind.
posted by Eloquence
on Nov 25, 2001 -
22 comments
Lynn Conway is one of the major talents in the history of the development of computers, responsible for
major advances without which computers we buy now would be much different.
She's also a
transsexual, born physically male. While working for IBM she had her sex-change operation, and IBM immediately fired her for it.
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Dec 10, 2000 -
7 comments
Too Much Information? Heavy information overload: the world's total yearly production of print, film, optical, and magnetic content would require roughly 1.5 billion gigabytes of storage. This is the equivalent of 250 megabytes per person for each man, woman, and child on earth.
posted by faithnomore
on Oct 24, 2000 -
15 comments
