Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days.
This week's alternative roundup focuses on exploration, experimentation and discovery -- both on land and in space. Here on Earth, Cornell's stumbled upon a new glass that breaks records and researchers in Europe have discovered an insect with cob wheel-styled gear joints for movement. Meanwhile, above our atmosphere, NASA's Hubble telescope made a large discovery of its own. This is alt-week.
Darkmatter's portable open source Xbox 360 project may have hit Kickstarter with bad timing, but it looks to be drawing crowds all the same. The laptop-like console is available in fully finished or kit form for the Xbox 360, thanks to a 3D-printed, laser-cut casing, 15.6-inch 720P widescreen LED display, capacitive Arduino-based touch interface, a headphone jack and support for all native features, like WiFi, 4GB storage and DVD compatibility. Addressing concerns about the lame duck console it's working with, the group said in an update that it should be able to adapt the Xbox One's motherboard as well, though it's obviously never laid a hand on it yet. Any future-proofing concerns didn't dismay those who saw the device at Maker Faire, however, as most seemed enthusiastic about the project, including Ben Heck, who's been known to mod a device or two 75. You can pledge $499 for a full DIY kit (without the required Xbox 360 Slim 4GB), while a fully assembled and tested Darkmatter Xbox Laptop will run $999. Check the video after the jump or hit the Kickstarter page at the source link to ante up.
Source: Darkmatter (Kickstarter)
We've been waiting with bated breath all afternoon to find out what NASA, MIT and the Department of Energy has observed with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. Well, we still don't quite understand the exact nature of dark matter, but highly precise measurements of positron fraction (the ratio of positrons to electrons and protons) do bring us a small step closer to proving the existence of the theoretical material. The AMS found a small excess of positrons coming from all directions instead of a single source. That could indicate the presence of dark matter, which is believed to generate the antimatter particles when it collides and annihilates itself. As usual though, this is far from conclusive. The excess of positrons could be caused by a number of cosmic phenomenon, including pulsars, but researchers are hopeful that further testing will narrow down the possibilities. Those of you hoping for direct and obvious evidence of dark matter may be a little disappointed, but let's be honest -- you were being overly optimistic. Besides, don't you want some mysteries left to solve? For more information, check out the PR after the break.
The universe is thought to be composed of stuff, non-stuff and maybe some other stuff. We're referring, of course, to matter, anti-matter and as-yet illusive dark matter. While we know a fair amount about matter and its opposite, dark matter is still largely theoretical. That might change in around half an hour, though, as folks from NASA, MIT and the US Department of Energy hold a press conference to explain exactly what the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) strapped to the ISS has been seeing during almost two years of space-scanning. Samuel Ting from MIT, who will be on the panel, implied back in February that today's results will provide the first evidence of dark matter's existence -- if that's the right term. The press conference is due to start at 1:30PM EDT, so make sure to tune in to the NASA TV livestream embedded below for what could be the biggest scientific news since Higgs and his boson.
[Image Credit: NASA]
Filed under: Announcements, Science, Alt
Via: Space.com
Source: NASA
The stargazers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have released a huge three-dimensional map of outer space, a core part of its six-year survey of the skies. Encompassing four billion light-years cubed, the researchers hope to use the map to retrace the movements of the universe through the last six billion years. Using the latest Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III), the center says the data will help improve their estimates for the quantity of dark matter in space and the effect that dark energy has on the universe's expansion, "two of the greatest mysteries of our time" -- if you're an astrophysicist. Even if you're not, you'll still want to board the animated flight through over 400,000 charted galaxies -- it's embedded after the break.
Filed under: Science
Scientists release biggest ever 3D map of the universe, lacks turn-by-turn navigation (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics | Email this | Comments Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.
This week we swing by some superhero news, look at how solar panels might shape up in the future, explore a Lego forest and see how to grab dark matter just using some household gold and strands of DNA. Not only that, we discover how the sun likes to celebrate the fourth of July with its own firework display. This is alt / week
Continue reading Alt-week 7.8.2012: Solar flares, trapping dark matter, and life-sized Lego trees
Alt-week 7.8.2012: Solar flares, trapping dark matter, and life-sized Lego trees originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jul 2012 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |Technabob, Space, PhysOrg, Wired, Wired (2), Lego Festival | Email this | Comments