Robotic Butlers, Oily Wrecks And Avatars

From New Scientist:

This month on New Scientist TV, you can see a robotic butler being tested in the real world for the first time. Nick Hawes and his team from University of Birmingham, UK, are designing the robot to map a new house by exploring it and identifying objects typical to different types of room.

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New Tech Sees Dead People

Using hyperspectral imaging, scientists from McGill University have found unmarked animal graves with special cameras that measure changes in the light coming from soil and plants. (Getty Images)

From ABC News:

Technology Can Detect Chemicals Released by Decomposing Bodies

A spooky sounding technology is finding old, unmarked graves. Using hyperspectral imaging, scientists from McGill University have found unmarked animal graves with special cameras that measure changes in the light coming from soil and plants.

Hyperspectral imaging collects and processes light from across the electromagnetic spectrum, including visible light as well as ultraviolet and infrared light. The research could help police solve missing persons cases or reveal new mass graves from hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.

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X-ray Voted Most Important Modern Discovery By Public

Photo: X-rays can reveal broken bones and build up more detailed pictures of outer space.

From The Daily Mail:

The X-ray has been voted the most important modern discovery by the British public, in a Science Museum poll.

The antibiotic agent penicillin came second followed by the DNA double helix.

Nearly 50,000 visitors voted for the greatest achievements in science, engineering and technology from a shortlist drawn up by museum curators.

The poll, one of the events marking the museum's centenary year, singled out the X-ray machine as the scientific advance with the greatest impact.

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Recycled Plastic Bridges Can Support Tanks

Heavy Artillery: U.S. Marines clean an M1A1 Abrams main battle tank at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Bridges made from recycled plastic are not only about to support the weight of this tank, but also can provide a cost-effective alternative to steel and concrete construction. Lance Cpl. Kelsey J. Green/U.S. Marine Corps

From Discovery News:

The U.S. Army may soon be able to recycle today's trash to support tomorrow's soldiers. New bridges made from recycled detergent bottles and car bumpers are strong enough to hold up a 73-ton Abrams tank.

The recycled plastic bridge takes only a month to build, costs 25 percent less than an equivalent wooden bridge and requires no annual maintenance.

Rutgers University professor Tom Nosker began developing plastic bridges, lumber and railroads ties back in the 1980s.

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Facial Profiling

From Slate:

Can you tell if a man is dangerous by the shape of his mug?

On Nov. 27, 2008, Indian police interrogators came face to face with the only gunman captured alive in last year's bloody Mumbai terror attacks. They were surprised by what they saw. Ajmal Kasab, who had murdered dozens in the city's main railway station, stood barely 5 feet tall, with bright eyes and apple cheeks. His boyish looks earned him a nickname among Indians—"the baby-faced killer"—and further spooked a rattled public. "Who or what is he? Dangerous fanatic or exploited innocent?" wondered a horrified columnist in the Times of India. No one, it seems, had expected the face of terror to look so sweet.

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Computer Program Proves Shakespeare Didn't Work Alone, Researchers Claim

From Times Online:

The 400-year-old mystery of whether William Shakespeare was the author of an unattributed play about Edward III may have been solved by a computer program designed to detect plagiarism.

Sir Brian Vickers, an authority on Shakespeare at the Institute of English Studies at the University of London, believes that a comparison of phrases used in The Reign of King Edward III with Shakespeare’s early works proves conclusively that the Bard wrote the play in collaboration with Thomas Kyd, one of the most popular playwrights of his day.

The professor used software called Pl@giarism, developed by the University of Maastricht to detect cheating students, to compare language used in Edward III — published anonymously in 1596, when Shakespeare was 32 — with other plays of the period.

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Clever New Device Sees Through Walls

Researchers had a person walk around a square of 28 radio transceivers mounted on plastic pipes. The person creates shadows in the radio waves, resulting in the blob-like image (right). Credit: Sarang Joshi and Joey Wilson, University of Utah.

From Live Science:

A new contraption that essentially sees through walls using radio receivers to track moving objects could one day help police and others nab intruders and rescue hostages or fire victims.

Joey Wilson and Neal Patwari of the University of Utah used so-called radio tomographic imaging (RTI), which can detect and track moving people or other objects in an area surrounded by inexpensive radio transceivers that send and receive signals, they announced today.

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New Technology Detects Chemical Weapons In Seconds

Preparation of a solution of sensor nanoparticles. (Credit: Image courtesy of Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)

From Science Daily:

Scientists at Queen's University Belfast are developing new sensors to detect chemical agents and illegal drugs which will help in the fight against the threat of terrorist attacks.

The devices will use special gel pads to 'swipe' an individual or crime scene to gather a sample which is then analysed by a scanning instrument that can detect the presence of chemicals within seconds. This will allow better, faster decisions to be made in response to terrorist threats.

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In Search of Chinese Science

The New Atlantis:

One of my schoolmasters was fond of saying that there are only two worthwhile forms of worldly immortality: to get a poem in the Oxford Book of English Verse, or to have a mathematical theorem named after you. The British scholar Joseph Needham (1900–1995) was no better than a passable amateur poet, judging by the handful of verses in Simon Winchester’s biography of him. He did have a scientific training, but it was in biochemistry, not math, so there is no Needham’s Theorem, nor even a Needham Conjecture. He does, though, enjoy the rare distinction of having a Question named for him. Not a mere question, but a Question, one that has generated endless discussion and many theories.

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