Science and research

You'd think a ship designed after a baseball bat would go over like a foul ball when it comes to seaworthiness, but research ship FLIP has been a hit since its launch 50 years ago.

The bizarre research vessel can go from a horizontal to vertical position while staying afloat and stable in heavy seas, even in 80-foot waves. That allows it to perform oceanographic research measurements with great accuracy.

"A ship rolls with storm waves, but FLIP is so stable it is almost immobile," Scripps Institute of Oceanography engineer Eric Slater has said in recalling FLIP riding out a hurricane. "Waves hit it like a brick wall. We were literally thrown out of our chairs inside FLIP when the big waves hit."

Operated by Scripps and owned by the U.S. Navy, the 355-foot FLIP was designed by Phillip Rudnick, Fred H. Fisher, and Fred N. Spiess, and first tested in July 1962 as part of an anti-submarine rocket program. It was recently shown off in the Pacific for its birthday. … Read more

Vascular systems -- i.e., networks of blood vessels -- are like highways for the delivery of nutrients and removal of waste; without them, cells die quickly. The ability to bioengineer new vasculature is a crucial step toward creating new replacement organs such as livers or kidneys from a patient's own cells.

Bioengineers are already working on creating and assembling single layers of cells that have direct access to nutrients and oxygen -- a process known as "bioprinting." But creating a full-fledged array of new vessels remains a major hurdle. Fluidic pressure coursing through these tiny systems … Read more

Of all the cataclysmic threats facing humanity, the one that could really wipe us off the map -- a hit by a truly massive asteroid -- gets relatively little in terms of resources.

The B612 Foundation aims to change that with the launch of a space telescope that would try to track half a million asteroids in the inner solar system believed to be larger than the one that hit Russia's Tunguska in 1908, causing enormous damage.

The Tunguska object's size and nature remains a matter of debate. But only 1 percent of larger asteroids have been mapped so far, according to B612, which was named after the fictional asteroid home of the Little Prince. … Read more

Fireworks. Hot dogs. Beach blankets. Particle physics.

July 4 this year won't be just about Americans celebrating Independence Day and unofficially kicking off the the summer vacation season. It could also bring news of some significance from physicists in Europe who've been in hot pursuit of a mysterious subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson -- and a better glimpse at the nature of the universe.

The big-brain folks at CERN on Wednesday will be holding a seminar at which they plan to provide an update on the Higgs search, divulging the preliminary results of their 2012 data … Read more

Sergey Brin stormed on the stage in his Google Glasses like Iron Man Tony Stark, prepared to give the crowd of 5,500 developers what he called an "awesome" display of technology and daredevil live action.

He gave the play-by-play as a troop of skydivers, bikers, and rope rappellers converged on the Moscone convention center, in a scene that could have been the opening sequence of a "Mission: Impossible" movie (if it wasn't part of Brin's Google I/O Glass demo). 

The skydivers made jumping out of an airship look easy. But before … Read more

Brainiacs at Rice University today debuted a spray-on lithium ion battery that they say could be applied to nearly any surface. You read that right -- a paintable battery.

The paint contains layers, each representing a necessary component of a conventional battery -- current collectors made in part from purified single-wall carbon nanotubes, a cathode, an anode, and a polymer separator -- as described in a report published today in Nature authored by Rice graduate student Neelam Singh and her team. Spraying the painted battery is a multilayer process, but when you're done, you have a covered surface that stores energy and discharges it when needed -- that is, a battery. … Read more

Earlier this spring, the U.S. Army revealed the existence of a project underway to build a device that could shoot lightning bolts down laser beams to take out a target. Now the military's boffins report success in their first tests.

The technology -- known as laser-induced plasma channel -- is designed to seek out targets that conduct electricity better than the air or ground that surrounds them.

Although scientists and engineers working on the weapon's development expressed confidence in the physics behind their work, George Fischer, who is the lead scientist on the project, nonetheless cautioned about the technical challenges still ahead. … Read more

Two separate studies published this month indicate that it may be possible to use brain imaging techniques to reliably detect autism in children as young as 6 months of age.

In the first study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, researchers from across North America working on the larger and ongoing Infant Brain Imaging Study used a type of MRI called diffusion tensor imaging to study 92 6-month-olds deemed high risk because their older siblings had been diagnosed with autism.

What they found is that the organization of white matter in the brain plays a key role. Specifically, they … Read more

Who doesn't love hypothesizing about our future flying cars or robotic housemaids? Or better yet, seeing an actual demo.

Tuesday's Research@Intel event trotted out the technology we might be using in the next 15 years. Like headlights that adapt to weather conditions. Ever notice that when it's raining, you can't see for toffee? Smart headlights use a high-speed camera and processor to predict the raindrop's location and then turn off the light in that precise spot so instead of seeing a reflection, you can see through the rain. As a San Franciscan, I was … Read more