The dream-like photography in the 2005 film "The Girl from Monday" is anchored in real-world locations in Manhattan and Jersey City.
The modern science-fiction film is synonymous with CGI wizardry, clever gadgets, and elaborate sets. While those are some of our favorite things, it's all too easy to lose sight of the human story among the whooshing, 'sploding, and transforming.
One way to focus on the people is to place them in an all-too-familiar future that looks a lot like now. There's a fascinating strand of sci-fi cinema that does just that, with auteurs such as Traffaut, Godard, and Kubrick creating the future by filming in real locations.
Science fiction has a slippery definition, but for this article Robert Heinlein's definition is spot on: "realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present." Architecture provides suitably futuristic locations for many sci-fi films: the famous Bradbury Building at 304 South Broadway, Los Angeles, is an atmospheric location for Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner," while the dramatic Dallas City Hall, at 1500 Marilla, acted as the headquarters of evil corporation OCP in RoboCop.
Some films use such locations more extensively, both to evoke an unfamiliar future and to connect the themes of the film with the world we live in. The effect is often disconcerting and lends itself to the dystopic. We've highlighted the films that deliberately make as much use of existing buildings as possible.
Read more of The future is now: Sci-fi films in real locations at Crave UK.
The maple seed device seen next to actual samara seeds.
(Credit: Eric Schurr/A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland)Remember as a kid being entertained by how maple tree seeds (or samara fruit) would spin like helicopters as they fell around you in the fall? I do, and that's why I love this prototype rotorcraft by graduate students at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering.
It's a remote-controlled monocopter with a design based heavily on the aerodynamic and geometric properties of maple seeds. Researchers have tried for years to create an unmanned aerial vehicle that could mimic maple seeds' spiraling fall. The results out of Maryland are awesome.
As you can see in the video after the jump, the patent-pending device uses just one blade to take off, as well as a stabilizer to keep it steady. It looks weird, but it works. This is a great example of nature influencing science.
The students say they've created he world's smallest controllable single-winged rotorcraft, with the most minuscule having a maximum dimension of about 3.7 inches and a wing equal in size to a natural samara. Graduate student Evan Ulrich says he thinks the 'copter could be mass produced as a toy for less than $100, which even sounds high to us given that one of the parts experimented with is a vibrating motor from a pager.
There could also be military or rescue applications: a flyer fitted with a small camera could easily be sent across an area looking for survivors--or targets.
But no matter what the flyer ends up being used for, one thing is sure: I want one badly.
... Read more
In the world of submicroscopic physics, things happen that really can't be observed. So when scientists at Johns Hopkins University need to see an example of interactions between various nanoparticles, they simply make blown-up versions of what they're studying--with Legos.
In the video above, Manuel Balvin demonstrates how different sized ball bearings move differently through a gravity-driven field of pegs. The same reaction can be assumed to work at the nano level, meaning the research can be done more practically.
And these aren't special science Legos, these are the same off-the-shelf toys that we've all loved for years. I'm imagining if we gave them a set of Robotix they could invent practical time travel.
Dell has partnered with Nickelodeon and Whyville.net to give life to its latest version of the Mini10v. According to Dell, the kids' Netbook has been designed with safe computing, education, and entertainment in mind. At a glance, Dell is only trying to reach another market (children), but if you look a little closer, the Netbook may represent a change in the way the next generation of preteens and children will learn to socialize and develop their decision-making skills.
(Credit:
Dell)
The Netbook comes with desktop animations which link to Whyville.net, a virtual world where kids of all ages chat, shop, and visit places in town that engage them in science, nutrition, art, and business activities.
One of the most interesting locations is the cafeteria, where Whyvillians can pick a food item, view its nutritional facts, and select a meal based on an educated decision. If their character eats more fattening, high-calorie items, the cartoon character will see the effects as it becomes fatter and unhealthy. Likewise, if the character doesn't eat enough, he will become frail and sickly. A lack of vitamin C will cause scurvy sores, and a lack of calcium will cause weak bones and a bandaged head. As a result, the child may be advised that his Whyvillian should see the Whyville nutritionist.
... Read moreI know science thinks it can do everything.
I know robots will soon be ordering us around like wait staff at the Ritz.
But I am gravely concerned about an experiment that has been going on up there in space.
Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who returned to earth Friday, had been on the International Space Station since March. And, well, I don't know quite how I am to put this, but he didn't change his underwear for a month.
I know what you're thinking. We're both thinking the same thing.
Not even in the the darkest, most slovenly days of our student youth did we wear the same pair of knickers for 30 days. Around seven days was our limit. Then we'd at least manage a hand wash in a sink.
But here was the intrepid Wakata, prepared for the sake of all our futures to don anti-static, flame-resistant, odor-eating, bacteria-killing, water-absorbent underpants. Yes, water-absorbent.
I know that there was a lady astronaut a little while ago who wore diapers on a long car journey, but this is surely couture from another realm.
The London Times quoted Wakata as saying, pre-landing: "I haven't talked about this underwear to my crew members."
This is quite understandable. I rarely talk about my underwear to my clients. Not even my underwear clients. However, wasn't just the occasional merest stink caused by this novel eco-friendly fashion show?
"I wore it for about a month and my station crew members never complained, so I think the experiment went fine," he said.
Well, now, in polite society one doesn't normally comment when a fellow worker suffers something of a digestional malfunction, so how can Wakata be sure that his fellow astronauts weren't furtively making sniffy remarks about certain odors emanating from his person?
I know you'll be wondering what astronauts normally do with their soiled undies. Firstly, they take them off. Then they pack them up with the trash, which they shoot into outer space on human-less Russian cargo ships. On the way, the dirty undies are cremated.
But here's the thing with Wakata's undergarments: the Japanese space agency, Jaxa, which designed them, has no firm idea just how well they performed their task.
Which makes two pulsating thoughts thud around my cranium.
One: what if the anti-static, flame-resistant, odor-eating, bacteria-killing, water-absorbent qualities didn't work so well? Especially the last two. What effects might imperfect performance have on poor Mr. Wakata's inner well-being?
And two, I must do the washing.
"The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive" by John Graham-Cumming could be the answer to the yearly Father's Day gift dilemma.
(Although I know a lot of women who would love this book, too.)
Graham-Cumming's book is not of the tacky so-and-so-slept-here variety, but a compendium of locations of true worth in the history of science and tech breakthroughs.
(Credit:
O'Reilly Media)
The book, which is organized by country, includes latitudes and longitudes for GPS devices, and info like whether a historical site is free or available for a price. It's heavy on U.K. and U.S. sites (it lists the U.S. sites by state) but does attempt to cover the entire world.
Some of the recommendations are little-known science museums that happen to have one or two holdings of great worth, but many are a bit more unusual and creative. Graham-Cumming includes things like the descendant of Isaac Newton's apple tree at Trinity College in Cambridge, England, and the first bridge ever constructed from cast iron which visitors can still walk across at the Severn River in Ironbridge, England.
In addition to listing the historical sites, the author gives background and factoids on the inventor, or team of inventors, and the story behind each breakthrough.
For example, Isaac Newton's official position at the University of Cambridge was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, the title currently held by the British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.
Graham-Cumming discusses why Alan Turing's contribution to computer science was so significant and arguably more important than his role in breaking the Nazi Enigma code at Bletchley Park, England. He explains in detail the Turing Machine and Turing's Halting problem complete with formulas.
The thorough stories and science lessons make the book, which includes a lot of photos and illustrations, a fun summer read for the astute armchair traveler as well as a guide for those looking to explore more than the usual church, museum, and park routes of sightseeing vacations.
The author, a former programmer and computer scientist by degree, also used social-network creator Ning to build a companion social-networking site to his book, GeekAtlas.com, where readers and travelers can share their experiences, and post photos and videos of their travels.
While in this economy you may not be able to go to see Léon Foucault's Pendulum still swinging in the Pantheon in Paris, the U.S. list is so comprehensive, chances are you live within easy driving distance from at least two places and probably more.
The "The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive" will be available June 3 with a list price of $29.99 (some sites are also listing it for pre-order at $19.79).
The new cloak with the bump, left, and the prototype, right.
(Credit: Duke University)That cloaking device we've been dreaming of appears to be one step closer to actual cloakdom, so start pondering the mischievous possibilities.
Scientists from Duke University have improved on their earlier efforts at producing an invisibility cloak, coming up with a new type of device they say is significantly more sophisticated at cloaking an object (and eventually a person?) from visible light.
The device is made from a light-bending composite material that can detour electromagnetic waves around an object and reconnect them on the other side. That creates an effect similar to a distant mirage you'd see hovering above a road on a hot day.
In Duke's latest experiments, a beam of microwaves aimed through the cloaking device at a "bump" on a flat mirror surface bounced off the surface at the same angle, as if the bump wasn't there. Additionally, the device prevented the formation of scattered beams that would normally be expected from such a perturbation. (The team details its findings in far more technical terms than I ever could in the latest issue of Science magazine.)
... Read moreThree groups including Georgetown University teamed up Wednesday to develop a new way to measure the glucose levels of diabetes patients without a finger prick to draw their blood.
The technique involves the use of disposable skin patches (embedded with a wireless sensor chip) that can monitor glucose levels, and then transmit that information to a cell phone. With the data, the mobile phone could conceivably control an insulin pump remotely, according to the researchers.
The organizations involved in the project are Georgetown, Gentag, and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a technology development company. Also a tech research firm, Gentag has developed an RFID-sensor reader platform for cell phones. And with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, researchers from Georgetown and SAIC created the skin patch technology, initially to monitor soldiers on the battlefield.
As part of their agreement, the groups will combine their respective intellectual property to develop the new application for diabetes patients. The patches will be able to monitor patients' blood every hour for a 24-hour period, and transmit that data to a device that's already familiar to many diabetes patients. The phones also include geolocation technology in the case of an emergency.
"We expect that this new, painless, disposable, wireless glucose sensor technology will significantly improve diabetes monitoring worldwide," Gentag President John Peeters said in a statement.
The organizations did not set a specific launch time for the technology.
(Credit:
Discovery)
NEW YORK--On Tuesday night, the Discovery Channel hosted a few hundred guests at the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium for a preview of When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, filling the audience up with cocktails called "The Liftoff" (a tequila sunrise in a rocket-like champagne glass) and then packing us all into the planetarium's theater to watch some cool retro space visuals.
The miniseries got its start when Discovery embarked upon a project to archive old NASA footage in a high-definition format as a commemoration of the agency's 50th anniversary. It evolved, following in the footsteps of last year's successful Planet Earth, into an ambitious, high-profile HD miniseries. When We Left Earth is very watchable, especially for space junkies who will dig the never-before-seen clips of astronauts. But it's less visually impressive than its terrestrial predecessor. The problem with turning grainy 1960s-era footage into high-definition is that it's still grainy 1960s-era footage.
That said, in an age when space travel only seems to make headlines when Sir Richard Branson is talking about his lofty plans to jet millionaires around among the satellites, it was pretty cool to peek into an era when NASA wasn't always brought up in the same sentence as "budget cuts." The national enthusiasm over the quest to put humans on the moon is something that we could all learn from when it comes to current scientific challenges--alternative energy, I'm looking at you.
When We Left Earth is a six-part series; Tuesday night's screening featured episode two, about the Gemini missions of the mid-1960s. It was an apt pick for the big screen, because Project Gemini was the first U.S. spaceflight initiative to feature space walks, which are always good eye candy. It was also an upbeat chapter to screen, considering Project Gemini went relatively smoothly and disaster-free, minus a (SPOILER ALERT!) moderate nail-biter when Gemini VI initially failed to launch.
It'll premiere on the evening of June 8. "Liftoff" cocktails aren't included, but you can easily make your own with some orange juice, grenadine, and Cuervo.
(Credit:
IEEE)
It may look like one of those iPod hats or something worse, but this baseball cap is more sophisticated--in its technology, if not fashion sense.
The cap is designed to analyze the brain's electroencephalogram (EEG) waves, determining whether you're too fatigued to drive safely. It is just one use for a device developed by researchers at various Taiwan universities and the University of California at San Diego, who hope to expand the technology for applications in myrid other facets of everyday life.
There are other devices with similarly ambitious goals, but many of them require direct contact with the scalp, often needing constant application of gels to improve the conductivity of brain signals. The cap device aims to avoid that inconvenience in a more discreet and portable device, unlike more elaborate systems developed for 3D game equipment.
However, this latest version still requires "five embedded dry electrodes on the wearer's forehead and one electrode behind the left ear," according to PhysOrg, which transmit signals through a Bluetooth connection so they can be analyzed with a dual-core processor in real time. In any case, if gaming becomes one of its eventual uses, it will definitely be preferable to something like Toshiba's 3D helmet.
