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Materials. A Beginner's Guide to Supergravity - download here.

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Making Robots with Mass Appeal. Not so long ago, the idea of most people owning a robot seemed far-fetched.

Making Robots with Mass Appeal

But today, not only can consumers buy robots, but they can do so relatively cheaply. The world of consumer robotics is finally beginning to merge with the world of everyday people, and some products really stand out. But in this growing and cutting-edge field, what makes a robot commercially successful? TechNewsDaily spoke with two creators of successful consumer robots to find out how they make their products click with the masses.

NASA Telescope Makes Christmas Balloon Launch from Antarctica. A giant helium balloon is slowly drifting above Antarctica, about 22 miles (36 kilometers) up.

NASA Telescope Makes Christmas Balloon Launch from Antarctica

Launched on Tuesday (Dec. 25) from the National Science Foundation's Long Duration Balloon (LDB) facility on Earth's southernmost continent, it carries a sensitive telescope that measures submillimeter light waves from stellar nurseries in our Milky Way. "Christmas launch! " wrote officials with NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, which oversees the agency's balloon research program, in a Twitter post yesterday. Erratic Environment May Be Key to Human Evolution. At Olduvai Gorge, where excavations helped to confirm Africa was the cradle of humanity, scientists now find the landscape once fluctuated rapidly, likely guiding early human evolution.These findings suggest that key mental developments within the human lineage may have been linked with a highly variable environment, researchers added.

Erratic Environment May Be Key to Human Evolution

Olduvai Gorge is a ravine cut into the eastern margin of the Serengeti Plain in northern Tanzania that holds fossils of hominins — members of the human lineage. New Computer Bridges Classical and Quantum Computing. A new type of machine could rival quantum computers in exceeding the power of classical computers, researchers say.

New Computer Bridges Classical and Quantum Computing

Quantum computers rely on the bizarre properties of atoms and the other construction blocks of the universe. Experimental Private Rocket Makes Highest Test Hop Yet. A privately built rocket prototype that could lead to a completely reusable spaceflight system has passed its biggest test yet — a 12-story hop and smooth landing.

Experimental Private Rocket Makes Highest Test Hop Yet

The experimental reusable rocket, called the Grasshopper, made its highest and longest flight yet on Dec. 17, marking the prototype's third successful test by the private spaceflight company SpaceX. In the latest test at SpaceX's proving grounds in MacGregor, Texas, the Grasshopper rocket flew for 29 seconds and reached a height of more than 130 feet (40 meters). A video of the Grasshopper test flight shows the rocket soaring up into the Texas sky, then smoothly descending to land on four spindly legs.

In mid-November, the Grasshopper rocket flew nearly two stories (17.7 feet or 5.4 meters) up during its second test flight. The rocket's debut flight in September flew 6 feet (1.8 meters) into the air before landing. Bringing Sunlight to Light an Underground Garden. Imagine an inviting green park with tall, shady trees and wide swaths of grassy lawn where you can hear live music or see theater or simply sit quietly soaking up the noonday sun.

Bringing Sunlight to Light an Underground Garden

Now, imagine that all underground in an old disused parking garage … but still with trees and grass in the bright sunlight - a little less bright, of course, on cloudy days. This paradoxical vision is already halfway to becoming a reality in downtown Manhattan, a dream made possible partly by fiber-optic technology that can capture sunlight on high rooftops and literally pipe it down to shine further from big underground "skylights. " Dan Barasch and James Ramsey envisioned it all in 2008 when they teamed up with an idea to transform an abandoned trolley terminal, a 1.5-acre lot underneath the Williamsburg Bridge and next to the Delancey St. subway station.

PHOTOS: Lowline Park Project. Gyroscope physics. One of the evergreens of classical mechanics demonstrations is the behavior that can be elicited from a gyroscope.

Gyroscope physics

The word 'gyroscope' was coined by the french physicist Foucault. Foucault was active in optics, in the manufacturing and testing of lenses and mirrors, in the chemistry of photography, and he did research in electromagnetism. Today he is mainly known for the pendulum setup that is called 'Foucault pendulum'. Free spinning gyroscope. Spaced Out: Open Source Outer Space: How a Couple of Guys Are Building a Homemade Rocket Ship for the Masses. Anyone with enough brains and balls can build their own rocket and fly it to space. Or at least that’s what the non-profit, open source space project Copenhagen Suborbitals wants to prove. In September, Motherboard scuttled out to Denmark to meet the pioneers behind this new wave in do-it-yourself space exploration to find out how these backyard space rockets are made. Founded in 2008 by two amateur engineers and entrepreneurs, Kristian von Bengston and Peter Madsen, Copenhagen Suborbitals is now comprised of a coterie of 20-plus specialists determined to create the first homemade, manned spacecraft to go into suborbital flight.

If successful--a manned launch is projected for sometime in the next few years--Denmark would be the fourth country in the world, after China, to successfully launch a manned rocket into space. Irony: small mouth may be product of soft, supersized meals. The Neolithic revolution occurred a number of times over the course of human prehistory.

Irony: small mouth may be product of soft, supersized meals

It involved the switch from nomadic hunting and gathering to an agricultural lifestyle, with all the economic, technological, societal, and architectural switches that went along with it. With agriculture came food processing and a softer, more homogenous diet than the one enjoyed by hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherers tend to have longer, narrower lower mandibles, or jawbones, than agriculturalists.

It has generally been assumed that the difference in chewing style accounts for the differently shaped mandibles, but this has never been tested. For Manned Deep-Space Missions, Radiation Is Biggest Hurdle. High radiation levels beyond Earth orbit pose the biggest challenge to human exploration of deep-space destinations, experts say.

For Manned Deep-Space Missions, Radiation Is Biggest Hurdle

With current spacecraft technology, astronauts can cruise through deep space for a maximum of one year or so before accumulating a dangerously high radiation dose, researchers say. As a result, many intriguing solar system targets remain off-limits to human exploration at the moment. 'Alien-Like' Skulls Excavated in Mexico. Human skulls deliberately warped into strange, alien-like shapes have been unearthed in a 1,000-year-old cemetery in Mexico, researchers say.

'Alien-Like' Skulls Excavated in Mexico

The practice of deforming skulls of children as they grew was common in Central America, and these findings suggest the tradition spread farther north than had been thought, scientists added. The cemetery was discovered by residents of the small Mexican village of Onavas in 1999 as they were building an irrigation canal. It is the first pre-Hispanic cemetery found in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. The site, referred to as El Cementerio, contained the remains of 25 human burials. A peek at what NASA's new rover packed for Mars.

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — If you were packing for Mars, what would you bring? NASA's latest tourist, the roving robot named Curiosity, will lug around a suite of gadgets to snap pictures, sniff, taste and even drill. It will study the environment to figure out whether the giant crater where it lands ever possessed a habitable environment for microbial life. The six-wheel, nuclear-powered rover is far more tech-savvy than anything that has landed before on the red planet.

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New Buckyball crystal formed that can cut through diamonds. Is there anything the Buckyball can't do? The Buckyball is truly an amazing thing. Seeing the future? First-ever video taken with Google's Project Glass techno-goggles shows a Googler on a trampoline. Glasses have built-in camera, GPS and offer email and web searches on surface of glassesPrototypes now being tested outside Google's officesPictures taken while running and on trampolineHi-tech Android glasses 'layer' computer information over the world By Rob Waugh Published: 17:46 GMT, 25 May 2012 | Updated: 19:58 GMT, 25 May 2012. Transparent TV: Sleek & Clean See-Through Screen Design. Televisions have a strange mixed roll in the modern household. Some say they have replaced the traditional hearth, around which we used to gather for warmth. Others suggest that TV sets are distracting and detract from interaction. Google’s self-driving car logs 300,000 miles without an accident.

Google's self-driving cars could show up in the next lane sooner than you think. Stompy: The Giant, Rideable Walking Robot by Project Hexapod. Nano-printer can put the Mona Lisa on a strand of hair. The process gives new meaning to the term "fine print" Astronaut Underwear Wins Students a Cool $5,000. An old NASA idea for keeping astronauts cool could finally become reality. U.S. high school students recently won $5,000 to make spacesuit undergarments using materials that can absorb heat without changing temperature. Wacky Physics: Why Do Particles Have Flavors? Powerless Illuminating Tubing. Product Details. Drnet. Nevermind the Apocalypse: Earliest Mayan Calendar Found. So you still think the internet is free... Donovan - Colours.1969. Source of Mysterious Pumice 'Raft' in Pacific Found, NASA Says.

The source of an enormous floating mass of pumice spotted this week in the South Pacific Ocean off the coast of New Zealand has been discovered: NASA satellite images and other sleuthing science have pinpointed an erupting undersea volcano called the Havre Seamount as the culprit. On Aug. 9, the HMNZS Canterbury ship observed the floating pumice "island" — measuring a whopping 300 miles (482 kilometers) in length and more than 30 miles (48 km) wide — along a voyage from Auckland to Raoul Island, New Zealand.

A maritime patrol aircraft, RNZAF Orion, had seen the weird mass and reported it to this Royal New Zealand Air Force ship. Soon after, the HMNZS crew saw the thick mass of porous rocks. "The rock looked to be sitting two feet above the surface of the waves, and lit up a brilliant white colour in the spotlight. It looked exactly like the edge of an ice shelf," said Lieutenant Tim Oscar, a Royal Australian Navy officer, in a statement. Mysterious Particle Found After Decades of Searching. An elusive particle that is its own antiparticle may have been found, and, if confirmed, would be the first time a phenomenon predicted decades ago has been seen in a real system.

Some researchers suggest that in the future, this mysterious particle called a Majorana fermion could be useful in carrying bits of information in quantum computers. In a paper published in the journal Science Thursday, Vincent Mourikand Leo P. Planet X? New Evidence of an Unseen Planet at Solar System's Edge. A planet four times the size of Earth may be skirting the edges of the solar system beyond Pluto, according to new research. Too distant to be easily spotted by Earth-based telescopes, the unseen planet could be gravitationally tugging on small icy objects past Neptune, helping explain the mystery of those objects' peculiar orbits.

Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled. SPACE.com: Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled - Inbox - Yahoo! Mail. Alien Super-Earth Light Seen for 1st Time. 6 Real Planets That Put Science Fiction to Shame. Solar Storms & Flares, Coronal Mass Ejections. Proposed Satellite Would Beam Solar Power to Earth. Asteroid nudged by sunlight: Most precise measurement of Yarkovsky effect. Killer-Flu Debate: Should Mutant H5N1 Have Been Created? New Hover Vehicle Recalls 'Star Wars' Bike. The Scale of the Universe 2. Dry and Dying: Images of Drought. Dust from Asia Fills North America's Atmosphere. Vanishing Dust Belt Around Star Baffles Scientists. Spacesettlers : Message: The Moon's Peculiar Dust Gets More Peculiar Still (a resource for nanoparticles) Gravity Waves Give Twin Stars Speed Boost, Scientists Say. Hunt Is On for Gravity Waves in Space-Time. Futurama-inspired vacuum tube travel could get you from NYC to London in an hour.

Crazy futuristic vortex gun can disperse smoke to aid firefighters. Reaching for the Stars: The future of human space travel. Humanity Responds to 'Alien' Wow Signal, 35 Years Later. Astronauts Heading Deep Underground for Spaceflight Training. Ghostly Night-Shining Clouds Get Their Glow from Meteor Smoke. Milky Way 'Haze' May Be Dark Matter Signature. Mystery of How Stars Shed Pounds May Be Solved. Scirus - for scientific information. TED: Ideas worth spreading. The Worlds of David Darling. The Learning Toolbox - Cornell Notes.

WARP 10 Light-Emitting Diode (LED) Device Now Commercially Available. How Tiny LunarCubes Could Explore Moon. Researchers create rewritable digital storage in DNA. Space Elevator Enthusiasts Push On despite Lengthy Time Frames and Long Odds. Space Elevator Project Shoots for the Moon. Final Frontier Design's 3G Space Suit by Ted Southern.

Space Sugar Discovered Around Sun-Like Star. World may be forced to go vegetarian by 2050, scientists say. Stonehenge Had Lecture Hall Acoustics. Astronomy 10: The Stellar Life Cycle. Does Sugar Make You Stupid? Researchers make carbon nanotubes without metal catalyst. Secrets of Molecule that Helped Make the Universe Exposed. New DNA Analysis Shows Ancient Humans Interbred with Denisovans. E. coli could convert sugar to biodiesel at 'an extraordinary rate,' say Stanford researchers. Scientists create Brainbows with colorful fruit fly neurons. Flexible, Color-Changing Robot Inspired by Octopus. Scientists Use Mathematical Shortcut to Create New Metals. Light-Trapping Bug Acts Like Plant.

Light-Spewing Shrimp & Crabs With UV Vision Found on Seafloor. Dinosaur Boom Linked to Rise of Rocky Mountains. Your Diet Affects Your Grandchildren's DNA, Scientists Say. Nanotech's Ill Effects on Small Sea Creatures Stir Concern. New robot lets friends hitch a ride on your shoulder. Robot Apocalypse. OpenROV - The Open Source Underwater Robot by OpenROV. Cosmic Rays: 100 Years Of Mystery : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture. Viruses May Someday Power Your Cellphone. Bacteria in Drinking Water is Healthy; Quasicrystal Came From Space. The Astonishing Genius America Ignored. Melting of Greenland Ice Sheet Breaks 30-Year Record. There’s More Water On Europa (Jupiter’s moon) Than On Earth. 5 Superpowers We All Had as Babies (According to Science) No Excuse List.

Fossils hint at distant cousins to our ancestors. New Flat-Faced Human Species Possibly Discovered. What Was Behind Mysterious Collapse of the Mayan Empire? Daniela Rus's Robotic Sand.