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57% of workers use their smartphones in the bathroom. Also, 57% of workers are nasty.

Are you mysophobic? Oh, you don’t know what “mysophobic” is? It’s a fancy way of saying “germaphobe”, which, according to scientists or linguists or some other group of academics, isn’t actually a word. Go figure.

So — Are you mysophobic? No? Well, you might be after reading this. Because it’s naaasty.

CareerBuilders did a survey of 5,200 mobile workers (that is, people who primarily work on the road), and found that their cell phone habits are generally dangerous, a bit rude, and pretty friggin’ gross.

Bill Gates’ hurricane-busting tubeships are real, people

Last year, I wrote that Bill had this (let’s be honest) evil-genius style plan to weaken hurricanes before they make landfall. Sounded a bit fantastical at the time, but as it turns out, there are real scientists ready to rock and roll with these things. They’re so serious they even put together a video.

Combustible carbon nanotubes give off electricity, make really tiny fires (video)

Need a more efficient heat sink? Try a carbon nanotube. Artificial muscle? Nanotubes. Space Ladder? Self-cleaning windows? Incredibly small bowl of soup? You get the picture. What can’t carbon nanotubes do? We’re not sure just yet, but even power generation is not beyond their grasp. Apparently when you coat the wee straws in butane and light one end on fire it creates a thermal wave, propelling electrons along to create a current. It’s not a lot of current on a single smoldering tube, but scale things up and the potential is said to be 100 times greater than an equivalent weight lithium-ion battery. Of course, you don’t have to light a LiOn cell on fire to get the juice out of it (usually), but we’re guessing scientists will create a way to make that happen in a safe, controlled manner. Until then, check out one burning in super slow-motion after the break, and remember: only you can prevent nanofires.

Continue reading Combustible carbon nanotubes give off electricity, make really tiny fires (video)

Combustible carbon nanotubes give off electricity, make really tiny fires (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MIT gurus use polyethylene to suck heat away from your next CPU

Man, MIT is making all of these other places of higher learning look silly. For what seems like the fortieth time this month, scientists at the university have revealed yet another breakthrough that might just change the way we compute in the future. Polyethylene, which is about as common a polymer as they come, could very well become a vital part of the way your next processor is cooled, as MIT boffins have figured out how to cause said polymer to “conduct heat very efficiently in just one direction, unlike metals, which conduct equally well in all directions.” If you’re still struggling to figure out why this matters, have a listen at this: “this may make the new material especially useful for applications where it is important to draw heat away from an object, such as a computer processor chip.” In fact, even Intel is taking notice of the development, though no one’s saying outright when exactly this stuff will leave the lab and hit Dell’s supply chain. There’s no time like the present, guys.

[Thanks, Kevin]

MIT gurus use polyethylene to suck heat away from your next CPU originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Magnetic quantum dots

Scientist #1: “You got your manganese in my germanium!”
Scientist #2: “You got your germanium in my manganese!”
Both: “Wow! Magnetic quantum dots!”

The Road Train: taking drafting to a whole new level

So we all know that drafting increases fuel efficiency. Heck, I even saw an episode of MythBusters where they proved that following a semi suicidally close will increase your mileage dramatically. Of course, drafting is dangerous, stupid, and the risk vs. reward just isn’t there. Well, what if it was? Scientists in Europe are working on a system that would make drafting safe. Get ready to ride the road train.

Lego Arm Showcased

Considering that you can almost build anything with Lego, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see that someone has come up with a robotic limb, and is allowing some scientists to see what they can learn from or improve on it. Do you think that the creator of this would have enough time to make more like it, especially if we’re planning to get into a war of sorts. There isn’t any mention of the cost of setting all this up, but it doesn’t look like anything we’ll likely get as a Christmas present this year.

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Scientists to bring piezoelectrics and rubber together to form flexible, wearable energy harvester

Piezoelectrics are nothing new — though most applications, they’ve proven to be far more theoretically useful than practical. Still, the technology is starting to move in a direction that could prove more applicable to everyday situations — and a new piezo material recently developed could really get the ball moving. Called PZT, it’s made of nano-sized fibers of lead zirconate titanate, which are applied to thin (and we mean thin) ribbons of flexible silicone rubber. The material is super efficient, and has the ability to convert mechanical energy into electricity at a rate of about 80 percent, and, because it’s made of flexible rubber, it would be well-suited to converting electricity from the energy of body movements, meaning all sorts of wearable fun may be imminent. There’s no word on any practical application of this yet — so we’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled for you.

Scientists to bring piezoelectrics and rubber together to form flexible, wearable energy harvester originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Researchers trying to find out why baby cries

Ever wonder exactly why the baby is crying? Is he hungry? Is she tired? Does she have gas? Does he need changed? All these questions whirled about in my head whenever junior would wake in the middle of the night and start making noises. Researchers in Japan however, are working to find an answer to the first question, however they haven’t made any progress with the followup question, “why aren’t that baby’s parents making him be quiet?”

Plant-based plastics promise perkier peat

Do you know how hard that headline was to write? So hard!

Anyway, scientists at Imperial College London found a form of degradable polymer made of sugar which would, in theory, allow you to add your plastic bottles to your compost pile and watch them degrade into happy, healthy plant food.

Swarming helicopters create 3D display

If we’re going to be killed by swarming robots, they might as well look good doing it. Scientists at the MIT SENSEable City lab created a 3D display using tiny remote controlled helicopters that float in patterns in the air and light up, thereby creating a volumetric display.

Called the Flyfire, it seems that this is [...]

Quantum Clock Only Loses Track Of One Second Every 3.7 Billion Years

Are you always worried about the time? Then the news that scientists have come up with a clock that is 100,000 times more precise than the existing international standard should really get you hyped up. The quantum-logic clock which detects the energy state of a single aluminum ion, can keep time to within a second every 3.7 billion years, as opposed to the (current international standard) cesium clock, which loses one second every 100 million years. Considering that GPS devices have to rely on extremely precise atomic clocks, the theory is that if we can come up with better clocks, we’ll be able to tell our position to better precision. 1 second every 3.7 billion years? That certainly doesn’t sound like something we’d worry about, but hey, it’s your call.

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