Hasta La Gadget!

After nearly two decades of planning, the $270 million IceCube neutrino observatory is finally being built in the frozen desert of Antarctica. The observatory may finally be able to observe and study neutrinos, which until now have remained largely allusive.

Aside from light, neutrinos are the most abundant particles in the universe. And yet, the nature of the highly-energized particles remain one of physics’ great mysteries. Neutrinos have nearly no mass and react weakly with matter. So, despite their abundance, they are frustratingly difficult to observe. Everyday, trillions of neutrinos pass through your body and those of
everyone you know without any effect.

That’s where IceCube comes in.

Neutrinos can be measured on the rare occasions that they interact with the nucleus of an atom creating a new particle called a muon along with a faint amount of blue light. In order to detect these faint blue light events, physicists led by the University of Wisconsin decided to build an observatory with thousands of optical sensors in the clean, clear ice of Antarctica. The IceCube observatory, at almost 1km in length and with over 5,160 optical sensors, is FAR larger than any neutrino observatory that has been attempted before.

Francis Halzen, the IceCube Project’s principal investigator was quoted by Physorg commenting that observatory “has been totally optimized for size in order to be sensitive to the very
small neutrino fluxes that may reveal the sources of cosmic rays and
the particle nature of dark matter.”  Dark matter is the mysterious, unobservable stuff that makes up over a quarter of the known universe. It would be a revolution in our view of the cosmos if we can get a handle on all that stuff.

Trust me, it’s cool.

The finalists have been announced for the annual James Dyson Award, which honors the best inventions coming from the next generation of engineers. It’s kind of like that movie Revenge of the Nerds, but it has a £10,000 prize.

The Copenhagen Wheel is of the cooler finalists. Despite its name, it was created by a team at MIT’s SENSEable City Lab, which aims to use technology to foster modern, sustainable cities. The awards will be announced in early October, but as biker, geek, city-dweller, and American, I’m pulling for The Copenhagen Wheel.

The Wheel does a few different cool things. First, the Wheel is a sleek accessory that instantly turns a boring conventional bike into a hybrid electric power bike from the year 3000! The tech works much like a standard hybrid car does, by storing energy from breaking and pedaling which bicyclists can later use to climb hilly terrains with a built-in engine. 

Second, the Wheel does can sync with your smart phone to link in social media network built around biking. The Wheel includes location and environmental sensors that can be used to plot bike routes, achieve exercise goals, or share data with other linked-in bikers (traffic, pollution, road conditions, etc.)

The Copenhagen Wheel is a clean green technology that could end up bringing a lot more
urban-dwelling bikers into the fold. The Wheel is currently in production by Ducati Energia of Italy and will be available next year for $600 per wheel.

Video describing the whole shebang after the jump.

I’m sure if I entirely believe any post about the accuracy of sci-fi films that begins with the phrase, “I’m not aware of any intense rivalry between Star Trek and Star Wars fans.” Of course, it’s still morning, so it could be that my sarcasm detector is warming up.

That said, a new blog post over on Shadowlocked claims to lend some fodder for the Star Wars side of the fight over science realism (which, let’s face it, seems to afford itself a lot of liberties based on the whole “galaxy far, far away” thing). The post cites a book from 2002 by astronomer Phil Plait, which examined an explosion from Star Wars alongside one from Star Trek.

According to the book, the re-imagined explosion of the Death Star in the 1997 re-release of A New Hope is actually a bit more accurate than the explodiness (that’s a word, right?) of the Klingon moon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Says Shadowlocked,

Since explosions in space tend toward spherical shape unless impeded, Plait concludes that the blast pattern resulting from the explosion of the Klingon mining operation has no credible reason to resolve into a ring form, even if everyone thinks the effect is far cooler here than in 1997’s revised New Hope.

So, I guess that settles that. Now, does anyone know a good neurologist who wants to tackle Jar Jar Binks?

Interactive designer Graham Plumb has created a stunning 3D interface that projects beams of light beaming through a transparent cube filled with water and “a specially formulated emulsion.” The effect are three-dimensional structures constructed out of pure light that he dubs the Reactive Cube (click through for video of them in action).

Like music or fashion, new tech ideas often start as some high-minded proof-of-concept exercise. While not meant for the consumption of the masses, the ideas filter down into everyday use: think Apple’s transparent and translucent iMacs of the early aughts. While this particular interface may never find its way into personal computers or mobile phones anytime soon, it seems like it could be tweaked and fiddled to perform public display duties. Imagine a mall fountain with glowing ads swimming around, or a three-dimensional interactive map encased in a cube in a museum foyer.

via Make

Hey, have you heard of this thing called the “inter-net”? Me neither. But it seems like it might be just about the coolest thing since cellular phones, which I just learned about earlier this week for the very first time.

Let’s explore this brand new thing called the internetwebs!

First, here’s a news report that explains everything you need to know about internetting. Apparently the Internet is a new service that allows you to send letters to people in Greenland and Peru, which comes in handy. After giving a primer on how the Internet works, the reporter puts out a question to everyday interneters from around the world to find out what they like most about “the net.” Users from all corners of the globe sent back their takes, including “Patty” from Toronto who comments the web has more soul than any human she knows. Now, that sounds just plain sad. But perhaps as I learn more about this Internet, I too will come to understand Patty’s sad and horrible truth.