A laptop running just a Web browser might sound a bit limited. But Google is betting you'll want one.
One way to summarize Google's week so far is to say that it picked fights with two of the biggest computing companies on the planet. On Monday it unveiled a bookstore that competes with Amazon's Kindle line. Today it took the wraps off an attempt to displace Microsoft from the...
Clouds sometimes form more quickly than the laws of physics seem to allow. Now atmospheric physicists think they know how
One of the biggest challenges in atmospheric physics is to explain how clouds form....
An adaptive learning algorithm that examines when emails are sent can deliver 90% of emails in real time even when a device is connected only 50% of the time....
A fight between two big Internet carriers, Comcast and Level 3, reveals how private business disputes might imperil the Internet.
It's easy to assume that the Internet is unbreakable: that it's a collection of overlapping networks so resilient that universal connectivity is simply a given. It's not—as a battle between two large carriers of Internet traffic could soon remind...
Researchers improved on a technique called stimulated Raman spectroscopy to capture real-time images in the skin of living mice. To observe the absorption of trans-retinol, a common skin-care product, into a mouse’s skin, the team tuned two lasers to the frequency of a lipid in the drug and trained the lasers on the application site, yielding images in real time of the drug traveling down a hair...
If you want to simulate the Earth, you'll need data on the climate, health, finance, economics, traffic and lots more. Here's where to find it
Back in April, we looked at an ambitious...
Roentgenium-111 shouldn't exist on Earth. Now a group of nuclear physicists claims to have found an ultra-stable version of it in gold
Take a look at the periodic table and you'll find that almost all the elements up to the atomic number 94 occur on Earth in relatively decent amounts. In addition, nuclear physicists can prepare samples of elements up to 104 because they form as...
The first analysis of data from shared bicycle networks in Europe, reveals some surprising urban cycling patterns
In 2005, the French city of Lyon introduced a shared bicycle system called Velo'v that has since inspired numerous other schemes around the world....
Astronomers fear that Earth-like planets around dwarf stars cannot be protected by magnetic fields. Now they may be forced to change their minds
Back in September, astronomers in the US announced the discovery of an Earth-like planet orbiting a red dwarf star in the constellation of Libra. This planet called Gliese 581 g is about 3 times the mass of Earth and makes an orbit around its star every...
The discovery that natural clay forms a protective shell around tiny air bubbles has profound implications for our theories about the origin of life on Earth
One of the great mysteries in biology is the origin of cell membranes, the protective layers that completely surround the complex chemical soup in which many of life's most delicate processes take place....
Designers turn a classic children's toy into a medium for nonverbal status updates.
Parents who want their children to succeed in life begin training them in the necessities of modern society at an early age. These include reading, socializing, and now, learning to use social media before they're even able to speak....
A magician's card trick has prompted a mathematical re-evaluation of the limits on data compression
Here's a card trick to impress your friends. Give a deck of cards to a pal and ask him or her to cut the deck, draw six cards and list their colours. You then immediately name the cards that have been drawn....
iRobot's CEO says robots will help the elderly and infirm live independently, for longer.
Colin Angle, CEO of iRobot, gave a keynote talk last month at the...
Mountain bikers who want to measure the total vertical distance they travel during a ride are in for a shock. A new experiment shows there is no unique answer to this problem
If you've ever tried mountain biking, you'll know that many factors influence the amount of work you do in the saddle, such as riding speed, terrain and weather. But perhaps most important is the size of the hills...
French scientists unveil a plan to site antineutrino detectors off the coast of rogue nations suspected of operating clandestine nuclear reactors.
One of the thornier problems facing the international community is to monitor the spread of nuclear technology and prevent it spreading to rogue regimes. This task falls to the International Atomic Energy Authority based in Vienna and it is by no...
The idea that life boils down to chemistry is being usurped by a much more ambitious idea, says two of the world's leading biophysicists
In the history of science, there are many examples of simple changes in perspective that lead to profound insights into the nature of the cosmos. The invention of the telescope is perhaps one example. Another is the realisation that chemical energy,...
Palladium can absorb vast quantities of hydrogen but materials scientists have now discovered that this process has an extraordinary effect on the metal
Here's a curious experiment involving palladium, the rare silvery metal well known for its ability to absorb hydrogen. When it is saturated, the ratio of hydrogen to palladium can be as high 0.6, which is why the metal is used to filter and...