Giant towers that emit lightning are a sci-fi staple – and they’ve existed since the early 1920s, even factoring into video games. But a practical use for these “Tesla Coils” has been harder to find, despite their wow factor. Maker-Musicians ArcAttack have found a use for these towers – they have hooked them into a MIDI synthesizer, which controls the pulsing – creating musical notes that sound like the ragged soundwaves that they are. ArcAttack is based in Texas, but they take their Tesla Coil show on the road, each year improving the sound and size of the show. Currently (ha!), the ArcAttack tesla coils emit 600,000 volts and 10-foot long bolts of lightning. In between the tesla coils, the musicians either dance within a faraday cage – or wear a special faraday chainmail suit that directs the high voltage around their bodies. Recent shows have had audience members dancing in faraday cages too!

If you’ve ever looked at a webcam and wondered what it was capable of knowing about you, you’re not alone. Tech Startup IMRSV has developed a software suite it calls “Cara” that allows computers connected to webcams to analyze video footage, determining gender, age, and how much attention the people pay to the camera. The software is available for PCs at the moment, but the company hopes to expand into the mobile market too – which opens up all sorts of privacy concerns and business opportunities for the world we live in now. Imagine something like Minority Report, or Mass Effect where shops advertise just to you – this is now a possible reality.

Boston Dynamics has been designing high-tech robots for some time, but MIT’s redesign of their Cheetah robot is efficient enough to carry its own power supply. The new design uses kevlar “tendons” to conserve energy – allowing it to be powered by 7 pounds of Lithium-Ion batteries, though the robot has not yet been tested on its own power. The robot can run at 13.7 miles per hour – about 22 kph – and may be a prototype of a delivery system in the near future. Are you ready for self-powered robots? We truly are living in the future.

The world’s most advanced sun-powered plane, named the Solar Impulse, has completed its first USA test flight in preparation for a cross-country trip. The Solar Impulse is covered in solar panels, allowing it to store enough power to fly day and night without jet fuel. As it is as light as a standard car, it is more vulnerable to high winds than traditional aircraft, and has a lower flying speed – around 40 mph. This new aircraft won’t be replacing traditional planes, but does show the utility of solar-power – and brings back landmark achievements from the heyday of aviation, like crossing continents – and perhaps in the next two years, a flight around the world. For their cross-US tour, the Solar Impulse pilots plan to leave San Francisco, stopping in Phoenix, Dallas, Washington DC, and New York. One other stop will be determined by weather, either Atlanta, Nashville, or St. Louis.

Orbital Science’s first launch test of their NASA-backed Antares rocket was a success, launching a dummy satellite into orbit. Orbital’s Antares rocket is 13 stories tall, and launched from a new commercial spaceport on Wallops Islands, VA. One more test flight is scheduled in June, this time with a real capsule. After that test, it will be ready for the 8 planned cargo runs paid for by NASA. The Antares can carry a heavier payload than commercial spaceflight rival SpaceX’s Dragon, but the Dragon has been in flight for several deliveries already. The dummy payload on this test flight is expected to be pulled back to earth within two weeks, incinerating cleanly in the atmosphere.

Rockets and solar planes rely on relatively recent discoveries of flight – but what about ancient creatures that took to the skies? German manufacturing firm Festo, known for their robotic recreations of biological creatures, has created a robotic paleolithic dragonfly. Dragonflies are marvels of aviation, using relatively little power to hover, accelerate rapidly, stop on a dime, glide, and even fly backwards. This robotic recreation can do all of that, with an onboard power source and microcomputer to control its stability. Even more amazing is that it can be controlled from a standard smartphone interface, and even streams its “vision” through an on-board camera. The stability is due in part to an amazing tail structure that is controlled through simulated muscles. If larger versions of the dragonfly are possible, the science fiction classic of an ornithopter transport craft!

You hear a lot about invasive species on land and sea, and how, lacking competition and predators, they expand their numbers exponentially. For some, this presents an opportunity, rather than a drawback – a chance to acquire new foods for restaurants. One particular of this is the lionfish, a beautiful fish that is a pest in the caribbean sea. Instead of throwing up their hands, restaurants have for the past few years put this fish on the menu, calling the taste “a cross between lobster and Chilean Sea Bass”. This unique response to invasive species is working – lionfish have reduced in size and number due to fishing increases, especially in well-scuba’d areas, like coral reefs and shallow waters.

Forests are generally well studied, given our exposure to trees for many thousands of years. But one thing that has not been done is to study a forest’s growth over depleted cropland from initial planting to full growth – though that’s exactly what the Smithsonian has started doing in Edgewater, Maryland. Scientists and volunteers planted over 24,000 saplings into 120 different grid squares, beginning what is planned to be a 100 year study. Yes – 100 years, meaning those that are planting the trees do not plan to be around for the final results. That said, preliminary results are expected in just a few years, as part of the study is how the plants change the land around themselves as they grow!

Science fiction fans have seen their share of robotic transport – whether the giant mechs of Anime or smaller devices, like DocOc’s robotic arms in the Spiderman comics. Dreams of giant robots with human pilots are now realized, with the Mantis – a two-ton, six legged walker designed and built by Matt Denton. Denton is a hexapod enthusiast, and has scaled up his smaller models to make this human transporter a reality. Though the Mantis is slow, it can traverse uneven ground, and may be the starting point for rescue, supply, or bomb disposal missions in the future.

Science fairs since the 1960s have had their share of “ionic wind craft” – balsa wood creations that use electrohydrodynamics, or electrically produced thrust – to lift and move to the delight of teachers and kids. But scientists at MIT have discovered that the efficiency of this technique at producing low-level thrust is greater than 110 times than Jet engines, and are working on scaling up the design for use in ultralight craft. The ionic wind devices work by creating ionically charged air that pushes against other air molecules, creating thrust without “chopping” the air, as in propeller and jet designs. The biggest problem is the high voltages required – perhaps in the range of gigavolts for aircraft.

Cowboys in space may not be the first image that comes to mind for NASA, but a new proposal may be much closer to that reality. NASA plans to send a robotic spaceship to “lasso” an asteroid and bring it close enough for an Orion spacecraft – the new replacement for the Shuttle – to rendezvous with it and allow astronauts to practice spacewalk exploration. If this plan is implemented, it would be the first time humans had manipulated a space object on such a grand scale, and may prove the combination of human and robotic space travel is viable. For those worried about disaster-movie like collisions… the asteroid candidates are all in the 25-foot range, smaller than the space rocks that struck Russia last year.

In the 1970s, early microcomputers were sold as kits to build – and both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates got their start by constructing kits for others to use. Through the rise of the desktop PC and notebook, computers have gotten more and more complicated, with fewer people working to understand the basics of computer design and programming. To encourage more kids and adults to get involved with computer design, scientists at the University of Cambridge designed the Raspberry Pi, a new microcomputer with the processing power of desktop units from 15 years ago – and sold for less than forty dollars. The Raspberry Pi is a stripped down computer platform – it arrives without mice, keyboards, monitors, or even a case – but it does provide opportunities for tinkering with computers in a way that has long been lost. Projects have sprouted up across the internet for uses or builds of the Raspberry Pi, and its open-source nature encourages new projects all the time.

3D printers have made manufacturing prototypes easier, but a new way of using 3D printers has been developed – using edible stocks. The hope to develop new food shapes and textures appears to have value to gastronomists and astronauts alike – a way to make the same food different enough for varied menus and personalized foods. While artisinal and artistic usage is expected, the technology is already being used in the Netherlands on a mass production scale of microwaveable pancakes, to ensure that each pancake is… exactly the same.

Neurons. We have long thought that neurons are the source of intelligence in the brain, but new research suggests that human neurons may not be the advantage that humans have over animals – but instead, the astrocytes that were long thought to be mere helpers may instead hold the key to human intellect. Astrocytes, named because of their star-shaped projecting branches, were originally believed to be the “glue” that held the neurons together – and were called “glial cells”. But scientists injected newborn mice with human astrocytes, and compared their ability to learn to non-chimeric mice – “chimeric” meaning crossed species. To their surprise, the mice with human astrocytes learned new skills with many fewer repetitions – in many cases, after merely one trial run. Interesting side note: Einstein’s brain was examined after his death, and it was smaller than average, with fewer neurons. But the proportion of astrocytes was much, much higher.

Imagine, if instead of pulling oil from the ground and refining it into fuel, we could just grow our own fuel directly. That’s no longer a dream – a company called Joule Fuels has opened a plant in sunny New Mexico that turns sunlight and carbon dioxide into fuel, using heavily biomodified cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria, which used to be called “blue-green algae” before it was realized that it was bacteria and not algae, only needs brackish water and some trace minerals to grow and multiply. The New Mexico plant, called Sunsprings, expects to produce both ethanol, which can be added to gasoline in most modern engines to reduce the price of the fuel, and sulfur-clean diesel, which could be used directly or mixed with oil-derived diesel. After the capital investment, Joule Fuels claims to be able to produce 15,000 gallons of diesel fuel per acre per year, at less than $50 a barrel. This technology, then, could upset the entire oil market, and provide a way forward after peak oil, while not competing with agricultural land or resources.

Scientists in Japan set a new world record for number of clones from a single cell, having cloned 581 full mice. If their techniques can be used in other places, science may have the tools to make perfect genetic tests – a single genome for testing that reveals only natural variables. The biggest setback to extended cloning in the past appears to have been some genetic abnormalities in the starter cell, which are magnified when cloned. With a few genetic tweaks, the mice were cloned in 25 rounds, and each mouse was healthy, and also able to reproduce normally.

Today’s touch screens treat each touch as the same, but detect differences in current flow based on individual differences. That capability may be exploited in future touchscreen devices so that the screen itself can differentiate between users, potentially reducing the need for password protection. Considered a biometric, this “capacitive fingerprinting” could be applied beyond tablets to other things that could use identification, such as doorknobs and furniture, though these uses are still theoretical.

Electricity flows along wires like cars along roadways – but unlike roadways, we can paint conductive material onto other surfaces. This hasn’t led to much efficiency, until recently – when scientists at the University of Michigan developed a technique that aligns semiconducting polymers using a liquid that is brushed onto a surface. The brushing allows the polymers to follow the brush stroke, creating a small network of material across the surface. Using this technique, they were able to make a simple transistor, showing that such polymers may be a replacement for silicon, which is expensive and requires high temps and energy expenditure to work. Because the polymer is a liquid at room temps, it may also be possible to print using ink-jet techniques, improving the speed and accuracy of electronics prototyping.

“All we have is today
This morning, this sunrise
Our breath is a sign that this day has entered us
It has chosen us
In our waking may we receive it with an open and gracious heart
As God receives God”
-Jud Hendrix

One of the challenges of Archaeology has traditionally been that in order to access ancient artifacts, one must dig through layers that disturbs the placement of those artifacts, losing valuable data in the process. Today, using underground sensing technology, 3D models can be developed of archaeological sites… and of specific artifacts. Using 3D imaging along with 3D printing, archaeologists have recreated the shape of ancient artifacts long thought unretrievable, offering greater insight – and doing so without touching the fragile artifacts themselves.

Tired of waiting for fiberoptic cable to reach your community? So were rural farmers in the UK, who were frustrated time and time again by company’s lack of desire to bring high-speed internet to them. So instead, they banded together and bought the cable, digging the trenches across their own land, and saved a great deal of money in the process. The network ended up costing about $1,500, not including the physical labor, and the community offers Gigabit internet speeds for less than $50 a month. Other communities in Britain and the US are looking carefully at this model of Community Supported Internet – possibly the first steps to reducing the stranglehold of ISPs over who gets high-speed internet service, and when.

Scientists in Japan have designed a device that organizes soundwaves into coherent waveforms – doing with sound what Lasers do with light. Playing off of sciencefiction terminology, they’ve chosen the name “phaser” for this device, as it forces coherency across “phonons” instead of “photons”. Because of the limitations of sound, the phaser works within one medium at a time – which offers possible uses of the technology as a measuring device. Phasers have been developed before, but usually by bootstrapping sound to a laser – this device is the first to use sound alone. This first design runs at 170 KHz, well above human hearing, but it is possible that it might be designed later to ultrasound frequencies for efficient medical imaging. Just as lasers were invented before uses for them – other uses for the phaser will come as time passes.

-Joseph Campbell, Hero with a Thousand Faces, 1949

“Anyone too busy to say ‘thank-you’ will get fewer and fewer chances to say it”
-Harvey Mackay, “How to Say It”