ESO's Newest Exoplanet-Seeking

The European Southern Observatory's newest telescope has collected its first images of the cosmos, capturing some stunning images of the Tarantula Nebula and making a good case for the virtues of telecommuting. Trappist, as the telescope is called, resides at the La Silla observatory on the edge of the Atacama Desert in Chile, but it is operated from a control room in Belgium, nearly 7,500 miles away.

Trappist (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetIsmals Small Telescope -- kind of a stretch for an acronym) is joining in the search for exoplanets, Earth-like rocky bodies orbiting distant stars that are quite en vogue in the astronomical community right now. Such planets are clearly the best place to start looking for extraterrestrial life, and in recent years astronomers and governments have been devoting increased resources to identifying them. Trappist will also employ special filters to study molecules ejected by comets orbiting the Sun in hopes of gaining a better understanding of how comets may have contributed to the advent of life on Earth.

The image above shows the Tarantula Nebula, so named for the bright wisps of gas and dust that have been likened to the legs of a tarantula. The nebula is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our closest galactic neighbors.

Laser Sensor Can See Explosives

An Ordnance Disposal Robot Digs Up a Simulated IED A new laser sensor could help bomb disposal robots like this one sniff out hidden or buried bombs by detecting explosives' vapor trails in the air even at concentrations below ten parts per billion.

Detecting explosives, whether they're tucked into the roadside rubbish on a narrow street in Helmand Province or stashed in someone's undergarments at the airport, can be difficult to do. But UK researchers have developed a potent new tool for sniffing out combustible contraband by creating a novel laser mechanism that can sense explosive molecules at concentrations below 10 parts per billion.

The new sensor tech relies on "pumping" a specific type of plastic called polyfluorene with photons. When polyfluorene is bombarded with light, it emits laser light. Molecules given off by TNT and similar explosives often present in improvised bombs react with that "plastic laser," interfering with the light it emits to a detectable degree. That interference suggests the presence of explosives in the very near vicinity.

Since the laser sensors have to be present more or less right on top of the explosives the tech is not ideal for human use, but it could help bomb disposal robots sniff out hidden threats when sweeping an area for explosives. The sensors could also be placed at security checkpoints and luggage screening areas in airports to seek out molecules that are the telltale signs of hidden combustibles.

The technology could also aid in the peaceful removal of land mines in regions like Southeast Asia that are still trying to remove ordnance left behind from decades-ago military conflicts. But perhaps best of all: the key ingredient in the sensors is plastic, so they should be relatively cheap to produce. Cheap is ideal, of course, for a product designed specifically to go where explosives are.

Sony Glasses Track Eye Movement for Lightweight Wearable Lifelogging

Lifelogging Goggles Sony's wearable eye-tracker records what the wearer is seeing. The little blue light indicates that the camera is recording. Tech-On

Have you been dying to capture your entire life on video, but worried you'll look like a weirdo with all those cameras and devices attached to you? Now you can just don your favorite pair of 120.nerd glasses and track everything you do.

Sony Computer Science Laboratories, in collaboration with the University of Tokyo, has developed a lightweight life logging device that tracks the user's eye movement, determining his or her objects of interest.

The glasses are outfitted with infrared LED lamps and receivers inside, and a camera on the outside that records what the user sees.

It works by directing an infrared light to the user's eyeball. Photoreceivers detect where the light bounces off, determining the position of the pupil. The system then tracks the user's gaze and films accordingly. A little blue light on the camera indicates that it's filming.

The system logs everything the user looks at, and it can even recognize English characters, so it can determine what a user is reading -- like a sign or a book title, for instance.

Anyone using the device would have to get used to a strip blocking part of his or her vision, but Sony plans to embed the system into the glasses' frame, making it even less obtrusive. A GPS function is also planned. So far, the biggest problem is determining how to supply it with power, Sony says.

Quadcopter UAV Careens Through Extremely Tight Spaces Autonomously

Fully embracing the notion that there’s no point in building a UAV if it doesn’t make other UAVs look completely lame by comparison, UPenn’s GRASP Lab has developed an autonomous quadcopter that does a lot more than hover. It flips, dives, twists and otherwise dazzles, executing aggressive aerial maneuvers like dashing through tight windows with just three inches clearance and zipping in between other hovering quadcopters with graceful ease. All by itself.

The UPenn quadcopter certainly isn’t the first of its kind. MIT has one that navigates with tiny onboard laser scanners, while the the University of Tübingen's AscTec Hummingbird gets around autonomously using the same infrared camera as the Wiimote. For its part, the UPenn UAV keeps track of itself in space using 20 external Vicon cameras that digitally map its surroundings as well as an inertial measurement unit – basically a series of gyros and accelerometers like the ones in the iPhone.

Because it requires such a setup, the tiny quadcopter won’t be flying any missions outside of a predefined space anytime soon. But given the UAVs extreme agility, if researchers can figure out a way to untether the machine from the lab, it could have myriad applications in everything from search and rescue to intelligence to military operations. That’s not even taking into account how much civilian fun the thing could provide if it packed a camera and a little AR.

Wind power car

Wind-Powered Car This wind-powered car traveled directly downwind faster than the wind, according to its creator.Faster than the wind.

A California team recently tested a wind-powered car that can actually outrun the wind, adding more fuel to a lingering physics debate.

In a test two weeks ago, the car hit a top speed 2.86 times faster than the wind, according to its creators. Some physicists say this should be impossible, but car-builder Rick Cavallaro says that's exactly what happened on May 16. What gives?

Cars, Rebecca Boyle,car of the future, concept cars, propeller car, turbine cars,wind energy,

Cavallaro had funding from Google and Joby Energy to build the car, basically an aerodynamic foam chassis attached to a wind turbine, with the San Jose State University aerodynamics department.
Wired's Autopia blog features the car and Cavallaro’s quest to prove it is possible to travel directly downwind faster than the wind.

The wheels turn the car’s propeller, and the prop thrust pushes the car, which turns the wheels, Cavallaro says. It's not a perpetual motion machine, because the prop is also using wind energy as an external power source.

He says the toughest part was designing a transmission system to transfer power from the wheels to the propeller. Design and construction took almost a year, and Cavallaro has detailed photos and schematics on his blog.

His team made eight test runs May 16 at New Jerusalem Airport in Tracy, Calif. The next step is a land-sailing record certified by the North American Land Sailing Association, Cavallaro says.

South Africa's Soundproof Stadium For the World Cup

South Africa's Sturdy Stadium The 4,700-ton glass roof is supported by 72 radial steel cables arranged symmetrically around the arena to steady the structure against high winds. City of Cape Town

When the World Cup kicks off in South Africa this month, the 69,070 soccer fans inside the new Cape Town Stadium will scream at the top of their lungs to urge on their favorite team. But thanks to some clever engineering, the people living nearby will hear hardly a peep.

The open-air stadium sits in Cape Town’s tony Green Point neighborhood, where residents had raised concerns about crowd noise. To keep fans’ cheers to a minimum outside the building, a design team from the German engineering firm Schlaich Bergermann topped the structure with the world’s largest glass ceiling. The 398,265-square-foot roof consists of 9,000 half-inch-thick glass panels, arranged in a ring above the stands, and a Teflon and fiberglass mesh suspended below the glass. Together they reflect the crowd’s roar back onto the field and stands (potentially handing an advantage to the team with the loudest cheering section) to prevent noise from escaping through the roof’s central hole.

Cape Town Stadium: City of Cape Town

The roof will also protect fans from the Cape’s notoriously fickle weather. Locals joke that you can experience all four seasons in a day because of wind kicked up by the nearby convergence of two major ocean currents: warm from the Indian Ocean and cold from the Atlantic. Combined with turbulent winds spilling off the city’s Table Mountain, gusts can reach more than 50 miles an hour. The roof’s concave shape deflects the wind and redirects it around the stadium. Let the games begin.

Hoverboard Replica Would Make Future-Marty Proud

The closer we get to the year 2015, the louder people lament that our world hardly resembles the one depicted in Back to the Future II. Although it will be awhile before any of us coast around in a flying Delorean, we've piped down our complaints, as a young French artist named Nils Guadagnin has built an exact, actually-hovering replica of Marty McFly's pink hoverboard.

Guadagnin began the project in 2008 for an exhibition titled -- drum roll -- "Back to the Future." Electromagnets allow the board to levitate, while a laser system stabilizes it mid-hover. Although you can't actually ride the board, it does hold up remarkably well when poked and prodded. Check out the video below to see Guadagnin demonstrate: