Popular Science News

Augmented Reality Medical Exam The Computer Assisted Medical Diagnosis and Surgery System, CAMDASS, is a wearable augmented reality prototype that could someday allow space travelers to diagnose and treat their own medical issues. ESA/Space Applications Service NV

Astronauts traveling to Mars or other distant destinations will face all kinds of medical problems, but rocket science isn't surgery. And vice versa. A new augmented reality system could help astronauts take care of each other, overlaying computer graphics over a real patient to guide diagnoses or even surgery. It could even improve telemedicine in developing countries or remote spots.

For now, the Computer Assisted Medical Diagnosis and Surgery System, CAMDASS, only works with ultrasound, which is already available on the International Space Station. But the goal is to use it for any biomedical procedures future astronauts might need, according to the European Space Agency.

CAMDASS users don a 3-D display headcam, which includes an infrared camera to track the ultrasound device. Markers placed on a patient's body denote sites of interest, and the system recognizes the patient and calibrates the display according to the CAMDASS wearer's vision, an ESA news release explains. The headset displays little floating cue cards in the wearer's field of vision, which match up with the markers on the real patient. Aligning the markers helps the user position the ultrasound probe, or whatever other device is needed. Then reference images show what the CAMDASS wearer should be seeing.

The ESA tested a prototype of this device with medical and nursing students, paramedics and Belgian Red Cross workers at Saint-Pierre University Hospital in Brussels. The CAMDASS testers could perform a "reasonably difficult" ultrasound procedure without any other help, the space agency said.

Augmented reality can be pretty fun to play with, but the practical applications of a real-life informational overlay are limitless. This is one reason why DARPA wants AR contact lenses that would require no bulky headgear. We've even seen an AR concept in which a would-be home mechanic can learn how to repair a car.

Similarly, this ESA device could be useful long before anyone takes it to Mars. It could help improve diagnostics in developing countries, for instance, or in remote locations like Antarctic research stations. Workers there have had to complete their fair share of self-diagnostics. The ESA now wants to conduct further tests.

Wall-Holla 2 Its exceptionally efficient design compresses a colorful 3-D climbing ribbon between two mesh walls, creating a unique experiential environment that, due to its compact size, can fit into even the most limited playground site. © Carve V.O.F. AmsterdamArchitecture and design firms are remaking the playground in ways you'd never expect

Playgrounds are competing for kids' time and losing. Nearly 25 percent of children ages 9 through 13 have no free time for physical activity, and a child is six times as likely to play a videogame as to ride a bike. The playgrounds of tomorrow must offer something that even the most enticing virtual offerings cannot: real spaces that look at least as amazing as anything virtual. Architects and design firms are remaking the playground by taking virtualization head on. These spaces are complex and engaging, and some even have buttons to push.

3-D Printed Jaw The 3-D printed lower jaw was coated with a biocompatible ceramic, and surgeons added a secondary structure to support false teeth. LayerWiseA titanium jaw, made to order

A European octogenarian is the recipient of the first-ever 3-D printed jawbone, made of titanium powder that was sintered together one layer at a time. The recipient regained her ability to speak a few hours after the surgery, Belgian doctors said Monday. It could pave the way for a new wave of 3-D printed body parts - maybe not full organs yet, but certainly bones or joints.

The 83-year-old patient who received the implant had developed a chronic bone infection in almost her entire lower mandible, and doctors removed it rather than risk reconstructive surgery, according to LayerWise, the Belgian company that built the new jawbone. Doctors and 3-D printing engineers designed an entirely new jawbone to fit the patient.

It is a pretty complex design, with dimples to increase the surface area, holes to promote muscle attachment and grooves to direct the regrowth of blood vessels and nerves.

Once the team designed the jaw, it was just a matter of sintering it together, according to LayerWise. A high-precision laser heated titanium powder particles to melt them together in successive layers. It took 33 layers to build just one millimeter, so the whole jaw consists of thousands of layers, BBC reported. Doctors coated the jaw in a biocompatible ceramic layer and attached it to the woman's face in a four-hour surgery. That's one-fifth the time it would have taken to perform a reconstructive surgery using the patient's own mouthparts, BBC said. It weighs 107 grams, which is one-third heavier than her previous jaw, but doctors said she'll be able to get used to it.

Doctors performed the surgery last summer in the Netherlands but it was announced today. "Shortly after waking up from the anesthetics the patient spoke a few words, and the day after, the patient was able to speak and swallow normally again," said Dr. Jules Poukens of Hasselt University, who led the surgical team. The woman went home after just four days.

She has to have follow-up surgery to attach a dental bridge and some false teeth, the BBC said.

[via Engadget]

Pocket Arcade QuickHoneyAn emulated arcade in your pocket

Fans of classic video games have long been able to mimic old game systems on their computers using apps called emulators. Now, smartphones and tablets can also run them. With the right emulator and game files (downloaded separately), virtual versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis and other consoles-as well as dozens of vintage arcade titles that can't be found as standalone downloads-will be available anywhere.

1. FIND EMULATORS

The Android Market has several emulators, but some of the best ones exist in a separate app marketplace called SlideME or as a mobile app. Search for "yongzh" (the name of a software developer) on the site or app to get the emulator files. Apple generally doesn't allow emulators in the App Store, so you'll need to jailbreak your phone or tablet. Go to Lifehacker for instructions. Once the device is ready, the icon for a new app store called Cydia will appear on its home screen. Note that some emulators have confusing names [see table below].

2. GET ROMS

The next step is to find game files, called ROMs, and transfer them to the phone or tablet. Start by checking Emuparadise and CoolROM. If these sites don't have what you're looking for, Google the title of the game and the word "ROM."

On Android, ROMs can be stored on an SD card or internal storage. On iOS, many emulators have an integrated Web browser for downloading ROMs. For others, connect the iOS device to a computer and transfer them manually. An application such as iExplorer, (free) will let you access your device's file system and copy ROMs via drag-and-drop. The location to place ROMs varies depending on the emulator, so consult its Help files. Once the games have been transferred, open them in the emulator and start playing.

3. ADD A CONTROLLER

It's generally easier to play with an external controller than a touchscreen. Emulators for iOS let users pair (via Bluetooth) a Nintendo Wii Remote or a controller designed for mobile gaming such as the attachable iControlPad ($63). Simply turn on Wii Remote support in the emulator and follow the onscreen prompts to pair the controller. On Android, gamers can download Bluez IME to pair controllers to a phone. The free app tells Android that the controller is an input device and helps set up the buttons.

#emulators { font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; width:100%; border-collapse:collapse; } #emulators td, #emulators th { font-size:1.2em; border:1px solid #f37022; padding:3px 7px 2px 7px; } #emulators a { font-weight:normal; } #emulators th { font-size:1.4em; text-align:left; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:4px; background-color:#f37022; color:#fff; } #emulators tr.alt td { color:#000; background-color:#f79f6a; } THE BEST RETRO GAME EMULATORS Original System Android iOS Atari 2600 Ataroid 2600.emu NES NESoid NES SNES SNESoid SNES4iPhone Sega Genesis Gensoid Genesis A.D. Game Boy and Game Boy Color GBCoid Gameboy4iPhone Sega Game Gear/Master System Gearoid iMasterGear Nintendo 64 N64oid N64iPhone Sony PlayStation FPSe psx4iPhone

Note: all of the iPhone apps are available from the Cydia app store--just search for their names. All Android apps can be found through these links on SlideMe.

Lake Vostok's Location The location of Lake Vostok within Antarctica NASA

The Russian scientists drilling into ancient buried Antarctic Lake Vostok have reached their destination, the Russian news agency Ria Novosti reported today. The team is apparently alive and well despite a week of suspicious radio silence, but more details are to come about what they've found buried under two miles of ice.

"Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the sub-glacial lake," the source reportedly said in a story posted Monday, Feb. 6.

If true, this is a feat several decades in the making. Russian scientists have been attempting to drill into Antarctic ice since the 1970s, and they discovered Lake Vostok in 1996. In 1998, the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, which protects the frozen continent, forced them to stop drilling until environmental concerns could be addressed. They started up again last winter (the austral summer) but had to cut and run just 30 meters from the lake source, as the Antarctic winter bore down.

Last week we thought that might happen again - if anyone could even hail the scientists - because conditions are getting worse, but no one heard from the team in several days. Then on Monday, the Russian news agency announced the team's success.

Lake Vostok has been buried for 14 million years and contains high oxygen and nitrogen levels, which could cause the lake water to fizz like a shaken soda can when breached. But scientists want to reach it because it could hold weird forms of life that survive in deep cold and with no sun, which could have implications for alien life on Europa, Enceladus or other icy celestial bodies.

[via Slashdot]

Five web-based games-all playable right here-that are redefining the way we have fun with video games online

In our February issue, Popular Science explores the Future of Fun. Here on PopSci.com, we've teamed up with the video game experts at Kill Screen to bring you a week-long special feature exploring the unexpected ways we have fun with games today-and how what's even considered a "video game" is ever-changing.

In our first feature this week, Kill Screen's Filipe Salgado pulls together five web-based Flash games (all playable right here) that showcase this new creativity.

On November 8th, 2011, Activision released the latest entry in the popular Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare 3. It sold 6.5 million copies in its first day, and stands as the highest-grossing entertainment launch of all time. The game was well received, but in almost every review a lack of innovation is brought up. The game iterates instead of innovates. It still remains a military shooter set in a present-day conflict. Its look and the way you play it remain largely the same as its predecessors. Big explosions and big setpieces, like videogames Michael Bay would make. And why change? With a budget in the millions, there is little room for experimentation. Game makers have found a recipe that sells well. Deviating from it can only hurt.

While big-budget games get further entrenched in big returns and big budgets, a lot of innovation has shifted to the internet. Developers, by themselves or in small teams, have turned the small scale of the browser into an asset, creating little Flash-based distractions that don't have to worry about commercial viability, and that innovate excitingly, either through theme, subject matter, or game play. They work outside the system. And the best part? They're all free.

PoleRiders

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If you don't know Bennett Foddy by name, perhaps you've played his games, or at the very least, had an overzealous aunt forward you the link. The Oxford professor's first game, QWOP, has been played by millions. While walking is one of the most basic activities in a typical game, QWOP turns it into a daunting challenge. You play a track runner, and use four keys to control each of his calves and thighs separately so he can move down the track. It's even harder than it sounds.

His latest project, PoleRiders, is a two-player game involving competitive combat pole vaulting. A ball is suspended above the players' heads. The goal is to pole vault and hit it into the opponent's castle to score a point. Another case of easier said than done. The left and right keys control the players legs, but up and down control the pole. The fast and frantic play harkens back to competitive arcade game classics like Joust. The counter-intuitive controls create panic and chaos enough that newcomers can laugh with their friends when they accidentally land on each other's pole, and that seasoned players can enjoy as a genuine game of skill.

"It's definitely true that mainstream videogame publishers have made a radical, drastic push towards making games easier and less frustrating." But Bennett Foddy has been frustrating millions of players for years.

"I think of my games as being incredibly hostile to the player, but I hope they are also respectful of the player." says Foddy. "For me personally, frustration is part of what I want out of a game. Without that slowly building feeling of frustration, and subsequent relief, there would be no sense of mastery. And that sense of mastery is, I think, one of the most valuable things a skill-based videogame can offer the player."

Sweatshop

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Flash games have the ability to tax not only a player's skill, but also a player's principles. In Sweatshop, an educational game from Littleloud, you place workers on the assembly line to make clothes. Water coolers and repairmen are costly necessities to be placed sparingly. Your desire to save money and get a high score puts your workers at risk. As time goes on you start to realize that the urge to do well in the game is at odds with your compassion.

Oiche Mhaith

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Oiche Mhaith, by developers Terry Cavanagh and Stephen Lavelle, has you playing a young girl. Her mother is overbearing and abusive, her father ignores her, and her dog doesn't like her. When she retreats into her room, she takes out the abuse onto her pet doll. When her family dies, she tries to resurrect them using a computer program. Following the girl's wishes, we're complicit in her quest. Even if we think she's better off without her awful family, playing the game makes us accomplices in the cycle of abuse she's a part of.

Both Oiche Mhaith and Sweatshop ask the player to take an active part in something they might object to, just to progress and get some closure. These games aren't as disposable as simple games of desktop solitaire. Although they take as much or as little time, they cannot be shrugged off as casual diversions. They make you think about them long after you've finished playing.

One Chance

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One Chance, by the artist "Beans," also deals with mature subject matter, but allows for more freedom. Many games offer moral choices, but the choices themselves tend to feel simplistic and flatten morality into an easy and obvious good-and-evil pet-or-kick-the-puppy dichotomy. One Chance's choices are more ambiguous. You play as a scientist who ends up creating a lifesaving vaccine with an unforeseen deadly side effect. Each day you're given a choice of what to do. You can walk to your car and go to work. Try to work on a cure that might not come? Spend time with your family? Have an affair with a co-worker? All the choices are tinged with the underlying question: how would we spend our last days on earth?

Another problem with moral choices is that restarting a game can undermine their impact. Uniquely, One Chance doesn't allow players to restart. Try playing again after reaching an ending and you find that it's not possible. Whatever ending you received the first time is the ending you're stuck with, its static image lingering every time you try to restart the game.

Realm of the Mad God

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Years ago the thought of creating an independent massively multiplayer game would be laughable. It was a genre reserved for the big leagues. World of Warcraft, the most popular massively multiplayer game, has over 10 million subscribers, with each player paying a monthly fee, and has been the subject of a South Park episode.

When Rob Shillingsburg and Alex Carobus started Wild Shadow Studios after leaving Google in 2007, they decided to go big right away with Realm of the Mad God. Big studio games like World of Warcraft or Everquest demand large amounts of the players' time to learn all the nuances and methodically increase characters' power. Shillingburg and Carobus wanted to make their game as easy to get into as possible.

"We picked Flash as the client platform for two related reasons. First, it had the greatest reach: 99 percent of computers have Flash installed (compared to 73 percent for Java, for example). Second, it runs in the browser so players could simply navigate to a web page and start playing. There was no need for any software to be installed on the user's computer." Carobus says.

The game is also tremendously flexible. Anybody can play the game right away. It plays fast too, with arcade-like controls and less reliance on grinding, or repetitive gameplay, to advance a character. Characters die and stay dead. If World of Warcraft is a long marathon, Realm of the Mad God is a sprint. All of these features go against the conventional wisdom of the genre, which demands a slow and steady approach, yet they have been able to attract and keep an audience.

Carobus says, "WoW is like a Hollywood blockbuster. It has a huge budget and a huge number of people working on it and generally polishes and revises an established formula until it is very refined. RotMG is like an indie movie. We have a tiny budget and small number of people so it may not impress with its special effects, but competes instead by showing you something you haven't seen before. "

Like all of these developers, Wild Shadow works in the shadow of the big developers. But their small scale makes them agile, able to try new things and offer unique experiences. That, rather than following in the footsteps of Hollywood-style behemoths, may be the direction to the future.

Rhesus Monkey Whoever double-crosses me and leaves me alive, he understands nothing about Tuco. Nothing! Einar Fredriksen via Wikimedia

Scores of animals exist in scientific laboratories for the purpose of serving as our proxies, their cortices mapped and their flu responses studied so scientists can figure out how humans work. But in many cases, there's little agreement between their functions and ours, and scientists need to figure out how to draw useful comparisons. To get a better handle on this, brain researchers had humans and monkeys watch "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" inside an MRI machine.

The goal was to monitor how both creatures' brains responded to the same stimulus, tracking correlated activity even if it was centered in different brain areas. The idea is that seeing hands and faces should spark similar activity patterns in both species, even if the neurons fire in anatomically different locations.

Dante Mantini and colleagues devised a method called interspecies activity correlation to contrast brain activity in four rhesus macaques and 24 human volunteers. First they compared brain activity in areas that are known to match up pretty well between the species, and then tried it in areas that are still unknown. Then they set out to monitor activity in the visual cortex.

All the study participants watched 30 minutes of the Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, listening to the dialogue through headphones. The humans watched it once and the monkeys saw it six times, during which the participants' eye movements were scanned and their neural activity monitored via functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The researchers found some similarities in brain activity locations among the species, but several differences, too. Monkey brain areas that fired up during movements on screen were quiescent in the humans, yet both species shared activity in other areas. This is a function of the species‘ separate evolutions - brain regions that may once have been very similar have adapted to focus on different tasks.

"The method may clarify whether specific functions are preserved in areas that anatomically correspond, are absent in one of the two species, or are shifted to other cortical locations," Mantini and colleagues wrote. This, in turn, could shed light on how human cognitive function evolved, as compared to cognitive function in our closest cousins.

As University of Colorado neuroscientist Tor Wager points out in a review of this paper, the ISAC method does have a few kinks to be smoothed out - namely the effect of a visual stimulus' narrative aspects. The human participants saw much more than cinematography and moving figures as they watched the film; there was a whole storyline, too, which can influence eye movements and fMRI activity throughout the whole brain. When Eastwood spoke, the humans reacted to much more than his facial movements, and so there may have been some false correlations (or the lack thereof) when comparing species.

But it could still be a valuable way to compare and contrast physiological activity in the brains of different species, Wager notes.

"This wealth of parallel information must be integrated to bring insights from animal models to bear on the human condition in increasingly precise ways," Wager wrote. The research was published online Sunday in Nature Methods.

This Week in the Future, January 30-February 3, 2012 Baarbarian

Whoa, you guys. This is one of our favorite Baarbarian illustrations ever. That weird story about the blue goo spheres dropping from the sky did seem like something dreamt up by a sheep.

Want to win this sleepy Baarbarian illustration on a T-shirt? It's easy! The rules: Follow us on Twitter (we're @PopSci) and retweet our This Week in the Future tweet. One of those lucky retweeters will be chosen to receive a custom T-shirt with this week's Baarbarian illustration on it, thus making the winner the envy of their friends, coworkers and everyone else with eyes. (Those who would rather not leave things to chance and just pony up some cash for the t-shirt can do that here.) The stories pictured herein:

• Mitt Romney: The Uncanny Candidate?
• FYI: Do Animals Dream?
• Video: People Flying, Superhero Style, Over New York City
• Translucent Blue Spheres Rain Down in the UK, Mystifying Meteorologists
• FYI: Will Listening to Mozart Really Make Me Smarter?

And don't forget to check out our other favorite stories of the week:

• The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, January 30-February 3, 2012
• Archive Gallery: PopSci Hunts For Mythical Beasts
• 10-Year-Old Accidentally Creates New Molecule in Science Class
• Russian Scientists Drilling into "Alien" Antarctic Lake Vostok Fall Silent
• Is This New Study the Nail in the Coffin of "Arsenic Life"?
• 2011 Visualization Challenge Winners Teach Science Through Art
• Hilarious "Theory of Everything" Paper Provokes Kerfuffle
• Translating Brain Waves to Reconstruct Sounds and Conversations You've Heard
• The Best Way to Unbuild a Dam
• Video: A New 'Smart Bullet' Deploys Fins and Guides Itself to a Laser-Designated Target

Where's the Pixel? wheresthepixel.com

Look at this video game. It's a great motivator to keep your monitor spotlessly clean -- go on, get your chemical-impregnated microfiber cloth and give it a wipedown right now -- but is it actually fun? I contend not.

Next week on PopSci.com we investigate, adumbrate, and celebrate the Future of Fun, including a tour of modern playgrounds, an online arcade of the most innovative games you can play in your browser, and yes, the contention that fun is becoming more and more quotidian and effortful as it gets repurposed for dubious utilitarian ends.

(After playing for an hour, my score is now averaging under 3 seconds on Where's the Pixel -- can you beat that?)

See you next week.

Moon-Printed Houses We've seen this idea before--Enrico Dini of D-Shape talked to us awhile back about a giant 3-D printer that'd print houses on the moon, out of moon-rocks and moon-dust. But a bunch of professors at USC created this futuristic mockup of their own version, and it looks great. Read more at FastCoDesign. Behrokh Khoshnevis, Anders Carlson, Neil Leach, and Madhu Thangavelu

This week's Images of the Week gallery includes a cocktail that looks, according to the person who made it, like an "alien brain hemorrhage," we've got the other side of that amazing "blue marble" picture of Earth, we've got a handmade net fort we are dying to play in, and we've got internal organs made out of elegantly rolled paper. It's a good week, is all we're saying.

Click to launch this week's Images of the Week gallery.

Modernist Cheese Puff Modernist CuisineHere's how to make your own, with just three kinds of food starch

The creators of Modernist Cuisine are getting ready to watch the big game just like anybody else: infusing water with cheddar cheese, blending an emulsified sauce with engineered tapioca starch, and deep-frying delicious snacks for all to enjoy.

Chris Young and team have made the Wylie Dufresne-inspired recipe available on their site, and it looks delicious. You mix the cheese-infused water with starches to make a paste, which you then dry and fry till puffy. ("The residual water expands 1,600 times in volume as it turns to steam, forming bubbles in the gel that harden when cooked.") Meanwhile you've made a cheese sauce, and turned it into a powder using a miraculous ingredient called N-Zorbit which turns oils into fluffy dust. The latter gets dusted on the puffs, and the game is on.

[Modernist Cuisine]

Searching for the Yeti Through the Years Abominable snowmen, sea serpents and dragons, oh my!

We don't see a lot of cryptozoology - the study of animals that have not yet been proven to exist - in the pages of PopSci these days, but that's what we have the archives for. Buried within the decades upon decades of "real" science, filled with "facts" and "research" are some gems of articles, where we chart the progress of believers searching for creatures we strongly suspect they may never find, but secretly hope they will.

Click here to launch the gallery

In this week's archive gallery, you'll see blurry photographs of the Loch Ness monster, examine various contraptions used to look for or catch sea serpents, read an offer for a free dragon egg that seems almost too good to be true, learn how to make silver bullets and hear all about Sir Edmund Hillary's expedition to find the Abominable Snowman (spoiler: his plan involves using compressed carbon dioxide to shoot a hypodermic needle at it).

Tetranitratoxycarbon Professor Robert Zoellner holds a model of tetranitratoxycarbon. He has a co-authorship on a paper about the new molecule--along with ten-year-old Clara Lazen. Humboldt State UniversityLittle Clara's tetranitratoxycarbon is brand new and explosive

Clara Lazen is the discoverer of tetranitratoxycarbon, a molecule constructed of, obviously, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. It's got some interesting possible properties, ranging from use as an explosive to energy storage. Lazen is listed as the co-author of a recent paper on the molecule. But that's not what's so interesting and inspiring about this story. What's so unusual here is that Clara Lazen is a ten-year-old fifth-grader in Kansas City, MO.

Kenneth Boehr, Clara's science teacher, handed out the usual ball-and-stick models used to visualize simple molecules to his fifth-grade class. But Clara put the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms together in a particular complex way and asked Boehr if she'd made a real molecule. Boehr, to his surprise, wasn't sure. So he photographed the model and sent it over to a chemist friend at Humboldt State University who identified it as a wholly new but also wholly viable chemical.

The chemical has the same formula as one other in HSU's database, but the atoms are arranged differently, so it qualifies as a unique molecule. It doesn't exist in nature, so it'd have to be synthesized in a lab, which takes time and effort. So Boehr's friend, Robert Zoellner, wrote a paper on it instead, to be published in Computational and Theoretical Chemistry. Listed as a co-author: Clara Lazen.

Boehr says the discovery and subsequent publication has incited a new interest in science and chemistry at his school--and Clara seems particularly pleased, saying she's now much more interested in biology and medicine.

[The Mary Sue via Gizmodo]

Vostok Station Todd Sowers LDEO, Columbia University

At Lake Vostok, the coldest place on earth, a Russian team of scientists have been attempting to drill through a two-mile-thick ice layer into the subterranean lake, which has been isolated for some 20 million years. But the team has not been heard from for five days, according to a report by the Global Post.

The ancient, pristine cache of fresh water below the miles of ice is a unique environment. It may be supersaturated with dissolved gases and geyser up when the drill penetrates the last few feet. It may also hold unknown lifeforms, such as ancient extremophile bacteria. We anxiously await word.

[Global Post]

Plasma Versus Chicken Breast Dirks et al., Journal of Food Protection

We've seen the plasma beam toothbrush, where a blast of room-temperature plasma destroys plaque and bacteria in your mouth. Now researchers at Drexel University have applied the technology to raw chicken and found that the gentle blue blast of ionized matter effectively removes pathogens on the poultry's surface.

When raw chicken breasts had a normal amount of pathogens (Salmonella enterica and Campylobacter jejuni were the culprits that were tested), the plasma almost completely eliminated them. The technology is still too expensive to fit into the highly streamlined production lines that bring skinless, boneless, sanitized poultry to your table, but -- not least because it is equally effective on antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria -- the proof of concept is an intriguing one.

The researchers suggest that the treatment could significantly increase the shelf life of raw meat by removing microorganisms responsible for spoilage. They don't mention, though, the first idea that popped into my mind: delicious chicken sashimi.

2012 Porsche 911 Carrera Porsche

Since unveiling the 911 Carrera in 1963, Porsche has built many dozens of variations, ranging from convertibles to racing editions to subtly tweaked versions distinguishable only to board members of the Porsche Club of America. Full-blown generational revamps have been rarer. When the seventh Porsche 911 arrives this month, 90 percent of the vehicle's components will be new or redesigned. The result is a car that corners more evenly and consumes less gas, yet is substantially quicker than its predecessors.

LIGHTER BODY

Designers cut 100 pounds by using a higher proportion of lightweight aluminum- steel composite in the body. As the car travels faster, an adaptive rear spoiler shifts position, applying as much as 200 pounds of downforce to the rear wheels and increasing stability.

MORE-EFFICIENT ENGINE

The standard 3.4-liter, 350-horsepower flat-six boxer engine is 16 percent more efficient than the outgoing engine yet more powerful by five horsepower. The pricier 911 S comes with a 400-horsepower, 3.8-liter flat-six and runs from 0 to 60 in as little as 3.9 seconds.

FUEL-SAVING TRICKS

Both new 911s come with a stop-start system that powers down the engine at stoplights and fires it back up once the driver touches the accelerator. When coasting, the car's "sailing" mode automatically idles the engine for further fuel savings.

SEVEN-SPEED STICK

After years of pushing "automated manual" transmissions, Porsche does stick-shift fans a favor by offering the new 911 with the first seven-speed manual transmission. A shift lock prevents drivers from selecting the highway-speed overdrive gear prematurely.

COMPUTER ASSISTANCE

A torque-vectoring system slows down the inside rear wheel to pivot the 911 more quickly around corners. Anti-roll assist (Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control) senses cornering forces and adjusts the suspension to keep the body flat through turns.

ENGINE: 3.4-liter flat-six (3.8-liter flat-six in 911 S)
TOP SPEED: 178 mph (187 mph for 911 S)
PRICE: From $83,050

Geminoid-F at the Mall via DigInfo NewsAdd 'mannequin' to the list of jobs being replaced by robots

In this economy, a job is a job. And while we await the day that we can hire our robot companions to handle our household duties, humanoid semi-celeb Geminoid-F is exploring other possibilities at a Takashimaya department store in Tokyo. Here, Geminoid is blazing a trail for androids everywhere by taking a job in a storefront window to see how the humans passing by respond.

The idea, according to Geminoid-F's creator, is to see how people respond to an android in the window rather than the usual mannequin. Mannequins, after all, are static and don't show off clothing in a real-world, kinetic way. Ideally a store would have live models in their displays, but that's simply impractical. But he thinks androids can fill that role admirably, interacting with passersby while showing off clothing worn by a real human analog.

So Geminoid-F sits there coyly, acting as though she's waiting for a friend. She's programmed with emotions and 65 different actions triggered by her sensor data. She doesn't speak to anyone, but occasionally she will look up at viewers, and perhaps return a friendly smile. But mostly she just ignores you and stares at her mobile device. These robots are getting more and more realistic all the time.

[DigInfo News]

Perito Moreno Glacier This Patagonian glacier has not been harvested for bar use yet. Martin St-Amant

Police in Capitán Prat Province, Chile, have stopped a refrigerated truck carrying nearly 6 tons of ice bound for cocktail bars in Santiago, and arrested the driver on suspicion of having thieved the ice from a glacier in a Patagonian national park.

We've seen polar-chilled liquor before, as well as elaborately frozen cocktails; but I don't know that glacial ice cubes add anything particularly special to a beverage that makes them worth the hauling.

The Jorge Montt glacier, from which the ice was harvested, is one of the fastest-shrinking glaciers on record; now we may know why.

[The Guardian]

Pentax K-01 Pentax

Pentax just announced their cheerfully-colored K-01, an interchangeable-lens compact camera. It's sort of in the same category as the Sony NEX-7, which we love: it's the size of a point-and-shoot, but it has an APS-C sensor and the ability to swap lenses like a DSLR. Compared to the NEX-7, it's quite a bit cheaper, and you get access to Pentax's roughly 25 bajillion (science.) available lenses, but it's also larger and does not have a viewfinder. On the other hand, yellow. Read more at PopPhoto.

An Inspiring Dinner The inventors of a crab-like surgical robot were inspired to build their device after a chili crab dinner in Singapore. Dr. Rosenrosen via Flickr

Who ever doubted an amazing meal could change your life? Researchers in Singapore have developed a robotic surgery device inspired by the country's famous national dish, chili crab. The mini crab robot crawls down your throat and into the stomach, where its pincers grab onto a cancerous mass and a hook slices it away.

It could help patients with early-stage gastrointestinal cancer and is far less invasive than other surgical options - since it enters through your mouth, it leaves no visible scars.

Enterologist Lawrence Ho of Singapore's National University Hospital co-designed the robot and said it has already been used to remove early-stage stomach cancers in five patients in India and Hong Kong, according to Reuters. Other existing methods to excise these types of cancers require cutting a patient open, either through a large-scale invasive surgery or a keyhole surgery, in which smaller incisions can still enable surgical access. But those methods are both quite painful and invasive.

Instead, this device enters through a patient's mouth and is attached to an endoscope, through which a surgeon can watch and control the robot's actions. A hook attached to the crab bot is used to remove the cancerous tissue, and it also coagulates the blood to stop internal bleeding.

Ho and Louis Phee, associate professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological Institute, decided to build the robot after a 2004 chili crab dinner with a well-known Hong Kong surgeon named Sydney Chung. Chung apparently suggested the crab as a prototype. "The crab can pick up sand and its pincers are very strong," Ho noted.

The team formed a company in October and hopes to commercialize the crab bot within three years, Reuters reported.

[International Business Times]