May 2012
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Gary Kovacs: Tracking the trackers +video
As you surf the Web, information is being collected about you. Web tracking is not 100% evil personal data can make your browsing more efficient, cookies can help your favorite websites stay in business. But, says Gary Kovacs, it’s your right to know what data is being collected about you and how it affects your online life. He unveils a Firefox add-on to do just that.
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TAPPING ALGAE ENERGY
Sapphire Energy, the Sorrento Valley company that’s on a mission to turn algae into the fuel of the future for cars and jets, is on a roll.
And Cynthia “C.J.” Warner who joined the company in 2009 as president and was tapped as CEO this year should know.
Last month, the company completed $144 million in financing from Arrowpoint Partners and Monsanto. Original investors include Bill Gates...
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Sazima’s Tarantula
Brazil is a regular contendor on lists like these, with animals and flora regularly being discovered in the Amazon and other biologically diverse areas. The electric blue of Pterinopelma sazimai makes it stand out, even in a roster like that, and although it’s not the first blue tarantula, it might be the brightest ever seen.
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SpaceX Dragon Capsule
Just Beautiful
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Malayan tigers and her Cub
A young tiger cub gives his mother a hug. The cub is one of four male Malayan tigers born this year at the Cincinnati Zoo.
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Backpack Radar Can Detect Ambushers Within 150...
If you’re a soldier suspecting an ambush, you probably don’t have much time to spare, and you definitely can’t afford to be carrying any unnecessary weight. That’s why so much military tech involves shrinking whatever’s portable, and why, now, a company has thrown its radar in a backpack into the ring.
The SpotterRF M600C weighs four pounds, uses just 10 watts of energy, and looks like the...
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A New Way to Keep Deep-Sea Creatures Alive at the...
The problem: Although scientists have been studying deep-sea animals since the 1860s, they still don’t know much about them. That’s in large part because the fish, octopuses and other creatures that thrive at the bottom of the ocean die quickly at the surface. In some cases, the lower pressure and higher temperature melt the lipids in their cell membranes. Even hardier animals, such as crabs,...
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Reddit's Alexis Ohanian And Activists Aim To Build...
The “blackout” of Web sites to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in January was an unprecedented show of Internet solidarity against bad legislation. But with new net-threatening measures like ACTA and CISPA popping out of Congress on a practically monthly basis, one online entrepreneur and a group of net activists want to enable regular SOPA-style mass protests at the push of a...
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Who is Priscilla Chan?
The wedding of Mark Zuckerberg to Priscilla Chan last weekend here in the backyard of their $7 million home had all the staging of a carefully orchestrated celebrity event. A publicist for Facebook eagerly offered photos afterward of the beaming couple, who met at Harvard and have dated for much of the last nine years. Well placed anonymous sources leaked to reporters the dinner menu, which...
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Enter the Dragon: Astronauts open up first private...
Space station astronauts floated into the Dragon on Saturday, a day after its heralded arrival as the world’s first commercial supply ship.
NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, the first one inside the docked capsule, said the Dragon looks as if it carries about as much cargo as his pickup truck back home in Houston. It has the smell of a brand new car, he added.
“I spent quite a bit of...
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Space Chase Billionaires
Elon Musk is the founder, chief executive and chief designer of SpaceX. The company managed to overcome a series of technical and financial crises and made history Friday by attaching the first private spacecraft to the international space station.
Amazon.com Founder Jeff Bezos runs Blue Origin, a start-up targeting space station runs. An unnamed spaceship developed by Blue Origin...
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Subtropical Storm Beryl
Marking the first time in a century where two named storms have formed before the start of hurricane season on June 1, Subtropical Storm Beryl took aim at the ribbon of barrier islands along the Southeast as the Memorial Day holiday got underway, threatening to temper, if not squelch, the symbolic start of the American summer for tens of thousands of Southerners.
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SpaceX capsule
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World's most powerful radio telescope to be shared...
South African politicians and scientists were jubilant Friday after a decision was announced to locate the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
But their joy was tinged with disappointment that South Africa’s bid for the entire project did not succeed. The decision was nonetheless seen as a major boost for South African science.
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Jet Device Injects Drugs Without Needles
The prospect of less painful medicine shots without needles came a step closer this month, as US researchers revealed how they have developed a device that delivers a controlled, tiny, high-pressure jet into the skin without using a hyperdermic needle. While there are already several jet-devices on the market, they tend to be of an “all or nothing” design that delivers the same...
