Large-scale cousin of elusive 'magnetic monopoles' found at NIST

Scientists have spent the better part of the last eight decades trying to find, in essence, a magnet with only one pole. A team working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has found one.

In 1931, Paul Dirac, one of the rock stars of the physics world, made the somewhat startling prediction that "magnetic monopoles," or particles possessing only a single pole—either north or south—should exist. His conclusion stemmed from examining a famous set of equations that explains the relationship between electricity and magnetism

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Dow to sell solar shingle, sees huge market

Dow Chemical Co said on Monday it would begin selling a new rooftop shingle next year that converts sunlight into electricity -- and could generate $5 billion in revenue by 2015 for the company.

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Drivers of convertibles may be at risk for noise-induced hearing loss

Drivers who frequently take to the road with the top down may be risking serious damage to their hearing, according to research presented at the 2009 American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO, in San Diego, CA.

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Brain Waves Surge Moments Before Death

A study of seven terminally ill patients found identical surges in brain activity moments before death, providing what may be physiological evidence of "out of body" experiences reported by people who survivenear-death ordeals.

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Airmen use space to develop warfighting technology

A group of Airmen at NASA's Johnson Space Center here is using space to help develop technology for the warfighter.

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How 3-D Television Works

TV manufacturers want to bring that experience to your living room with 3-D displays that work much like the ones in the theaters. Major consumer-electronics companies, including Panasonic, Mitsubishi and Sony, are betting on 3-D, with compatible TV sets planned for the market in 2010.

To understand why, here’s a short primer on how our vision works.

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New Vaccine May Immunize Addicts from Cocaine's Pleasurable Effects

Unlike opiates such as heroin or prescription painkillers, there is no medication specifically approved to help curb cocaine consumption. Now, an experimental vaccine offers hope for a new approach, researchers say, that spurs on antibodies, which bind with cocaine molecules and apparently helps some addicts stop feeling the pleasurable effects of the drug—thus deconditioning them out of their dependency.

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Deep Space Plasma Thruster

Chemical rockets are ponderous. The space shuttle, for instance, carries more than 3.8 million pounds of expensive propellant—even empty, its two solid boosters weigh 193,000 pounds apiece. Oleg Batishchev, principal research scientist at MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, appreciates such rockets for their raw, Earth-escaping punch. But once a craft hits orbit, he says, his new invention makes more sense: The Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster is designed to be a lighter, cheaper way to move through space.

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Telepathy on the Horizon: New Interface Allows Brain-to-Brain Communication

Brain-computer interfacing, or BCI, isn't new. Researchers have used computers to read signals from the brain before -- DARPA is sponsoring initiatives to use such technology to develop prosthetic limbs that respond to neural commands -- but Dr. Christopher James at the University of Southampton has taken BCI a step further, showing that person-to-person communication is possible through true brain-to-brain interfacing.

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Threat of next world war may be in cyberspace: UN

"Cyber war!" flashes on the screen at an Internet security conference. The next world war could take place in cyberspace, the UN telecommunications agency chief warned Tuesday as experts called for action to stamp out cyber attacks.

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First LTE Networks Will Deliver 20 Mbps of Download Speed

When the first LTE (Long Term Evolution) networks and devices are launched next year, users can expect to see a download speed of about 20 Mbps, according to Motorola and ZTE.

On the show floor at ITU World, ZTE and Fujitsu are showing upcoming modems that support download speeds of up to 100 Mbps (bits per second) and upload speeds of up to 50 Mbps when connected to an LTE network, according to their respective spec sheets.

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Servers With Cellphone Chips? Yep, Here They Come

The vast majority of servers sold today run on Intel’s Xeon chip, which is the company’s top-of-the-line mainstream product. Such chips are great for demanding software that manages databases or renders special effects in a movie. But they’re overkill for things like feeding up a Facebook profile page or displaying a Google search box.

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Physicists win Nobel for high-tech wonders

Three Americans whose 1960s research laid the foundation for today’s world of computerized images and lightning-fast communication shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for their work developing fiber-optic cable and the sensor at the heart of digital cameras.

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‘Cleantech’ could be economy’s next boom

The U.S. economy sure could use the Next Big Thing. Something on the scale of railroads, automobiles or the Internet — the kind of breakthrough that emerges every so often and builds industries, generates jobs and mints fortunes.

Silicon Valley investors are pointing to something called cleantech — alternative energy, more efficient power distribution and new ways to store electricity, all with minimal impact to the environment — as a candidate for the next boom.

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After 55 years, a whole new look for the C-130?

Lockheed Martin has displayed a fuzzy image of a whole new version of the 55-year-old C-130 Hercules family tailored to support the needs of special operations forces.

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US Navy creates command to maintain cyber supremacy

The US Navy announced Thursday it was consolidating intelligence gathering and other data capabilities under a single command in a bid to maintain an increasingly challenged US military supremacy in cyberspace.

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Galileo GPS Project Faces More Certain Future

Across the Atlantic, the European Union is cooperating with China and other outside investors to replace the USA’s free Global Positioning System service with an alternative under their own control.

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