Category: Science
Teen suicide over LHC Apocalypse fears; let's rename the beast
Sadly, an 16-year-old Indian girl took the fears of an all-encompassing black hole being formed by the Large Hadron Collider, and took her life instead of carrying on as normal as the rest of us have.
On the scheme of things, if there was even the remotest possibility of being annihilated by a lethal black hole sucking, I’d rather die that way than fairly unpleasantly by drinking pesticide. I guess the girl believed that suicide is painless.
In related news, the Royal Society of Chemistry has launched a competition to find a new, more meaningful, name for the LHC. Dr Richard Pike said that it “fails to reflect the drama of its mission, or the inspiration it should be conveying to the wider public….
Shiny Video Preview: USB Microscope
While Lucy gets to play with nifty little camcorders, I get to fully geek-out with the previously-reported USB microscope. Ever wanted to see what the Queen’s nose looks like up close? Now you can. I don’t recommend, however, that you point it at a tower block and look into people’s rooms though. You could get in really big trouble doing that. Oh… I’ve, er.. got to go. The police have just showed up…
Reddit send a crowbar, headcrab and Half-Life strategy guide over to CERN
If the turning on of the Large Hadron Collider does trigger some sort of dimensional portal and alien invasion, at least the men and women of CERN will be prepared. Or they will if anyone on their team is as badass as Gordon Freeman…
OPINION: The Large Hadron Collider goes live tomorrow – fingers crossed
The end of the world is nigh! Tomorrow morning, before many of us will have had our first cups of tea, the Large Hadron Collider will be switched on at CERN. By the time we reach for the sugar, we may no longer exist; nor the sugar, nor any record of sugar ever having existed, nor records…
Raygun testing begins – 100kW electro-laser nearly ready for battlefield use
Military developer Northrop Grumman has a dream. A dream to create proper rayguns. A dream we would happily fund by paying extra tax and posting it off to the American government should it be able to pull it off.
But that’s not necessary – it has already done it. Northrop will soon start testing a 100 kilowatt model of its Joint High Power Solid State Laser, which chains together eight smaller 15kW models. It has already successfully tested a chain of two…
Making ice while the sun shines
This is quite nifty. A team of scientists from San Jose University have worked out a way to make ice with zero carbon footprint and no moving parts. There’s no electricity involved either. All you’ve got to do is keep the machine clean…
Using ultrasound to "feel" virtual objects
“Haptics” is what wer’e talking about here – the field which integrates computing and touch. It’s long been the preserve of robots, huge gloves, and virtual reality glasses, but now a team of Japanese researchers have worked out how to use ultrasound for the same purpose…
SHOCK: We get "stressed" when not near an internet connection
Worried that someone’s relationship status has just changed on Facebook and you’re in the middle of nowhere and won’t find out until 6.35pm at best? Concerned that someone’s just Twittered about an update to their Flickr page which contains a photo of you taken at 2.25am last Saturday, but you’re eight miles from the nearest wi-fi point?
You are not alone. 27% of Britons apparently suffer from “stress” when not able to go online. This leads to a feeling of uselessness…
The Dubai Ziggurat – environmentally sound housing for one million people
If the Egyptians required social housing, this would’ve been it. This staggering pyramid design is the latest in Dubai’s attempts to make it the playground – and architect lunatic asylum – of the world, a building capable of housing one million people.
The concept behind this “city of the future” is for the entire project to be off-grid and power itself, presumably by the methane emissions of one million people…
Intel demos wireless electricity – magnetism used to avoid frying human flesh
It’s another entry in our occasional Future Made Real series, this time concerning fantasy sci-fi invention #261 – wireless electricity.
For some reason it’s chip-maker Intel that’s the latest company to show off some wireless electric kit, managing to power a 60 Watt light bulb (how energy inefficient of it) from a distance of three feet. That’s 90cm, if you’re reading this in the Benelux regions or France…
