Hasta La Gadget!

MC10 might be best known for its wearable electronics aimed at athletes, but the company also makes a medical diagnostic sticker called a biostamp. Its creator (and MC10 co-founder), John Rogers has refined that design so that it’s no longer an elastomer sticker — now he can apply the biostamp’s thin, stretchy electronics directly on human skin, and bond it with commercially available spray-on bandage material. By losing the elastomer backing of the original biostamp and applying the circuits directly to the skin, Rogers and his team at the University of Illinois were able to shave the device’s thickness to 1/30th of the (already quite thin) biostamp. That super thin profile means it conforms even better to the contours of human hide and makes it shower- and swim-proof during the two weeks it lasts before being naturally exfoliated with your skin.

For those unfamiliar with what the biostamp does, it’s a mesh of circuits and sensors that can record electrophysiological data like skin temperature and hydration state of the wearer. The new biostamp won’t be in your doctor’s tool box any time soon, however, as Rogers and his team are still refining the wireless power and communication technologies it leverages. Of course, once those problems are solved, there’s a good chance we’ll see MC10 turning it into a commercial product.

Filed under: Science

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Via: The Verge

Source: MIT Technology Review

An astronomer from Pennsylvania State University has discovered the closest star system to the sun since 1916. The stars discovered are currently the third-closest star system to the sun, falling right behind the second-closest star system, Barnard’s star (which is 6 light years away from the sun), and the closest star system, composed of Alpha Centauri (4.4 light years away from the sun) and
Proxima Centauri (4.2 light-years away from the sun).

The closest star system is called WISE J104915.57-531906, or WISE J1049-5319 for short. It is 6.5 light years away from the sun and is composed of two stars. The two stars are called “Brown Dwarfs” because they’re stars that are “too small in mass to ever become hot enough to ignite hydrogen fusion.” They bear more resemblance to the planet Jupiter than they do to a star like the sun.

The discovery was made by Kevin Luhman, who is an associate professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State. He says that the Brown Dwarf stars are “so close that Earth’s television transmissions from 2006 are now arriving there.” Scientists are hoping to get a better look at these new stars by using the Gemini South telescope and the future James Webb Space Telescope.

The closest star system was named after the satellite that discovered it. The NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite created a map of the entire sky. Luhman studied the images provided by WISE in its 13-month expedition that ended in 2011. Through a lot of “detective work” and research, Luhman was able to find the distance of the stars, its orbiting patterns, and its temperature, confirming the stars were Brown Dwarfs, and that they were very close to our solar system.

Luhman has also stated that since this is the third-closest star system, and because it’s so close to Earth, it will be an “excellent hunting ground for planets”. He says that these Brown Dwarfs may be one of the “first destinations for manned expeditions outside of our solar system.” Of course those expeditions being far, far away into the future. We still have to take our first steps on Mars first, and we’re hoping that SpaceX’s reusable rockets will take us there.

[via NASA]

Astronomer discovers closest star system to Sun since 1916 is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sitting at your desk all day surfing the internet with a pile of unfinished TPS reports sitting in front of you probably isn’t a good sign, and even worse, you’re probably not doing yourself a favor and getting enough exercise, or aren’t you? According to a recent study, one mouse click burns approximately 1.42 calories.

An article title “Convert Anything to Calories,” which was published recently in PHP Science World, calculated the number of calories burned when clicking a mouse, and it’s said that the number is 1.42 calories burned per mouse click. The authors ended up calculating the “total volume of the muscles used to bend the index finger,” which is “10.8 cubic centimeters with a total weight of 11.7 grams.”

The authors note, however, that the calories burned per mouse click may vary, since the calculation used “assumes the muscle contracted completely, so the actual amount of calories used is a little less.” Either way, you can easily burn off that Burger King Whopper with just 450,000 mouse clicks, or a Big Mac with only 387,000 mouse clicks, since a calorie is more commonly referred to as a kilocalorie, or 1,000 calories.

The average male should burn around 2,000 calories per day, with the average female burning approximately 1,700 calories per day. Obviously with a strict exercise regiment, you would be able to burn even more, and while getting exercise purely through mouse clicks probably isn’t ideal, at least you know that you’re burning calories while making your way through your Facebook News Feed.

[via RocketNews24]

A mouse click burns 1.42 calories, according to researchers is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

One of the great mysteries in archaeology for decades has been exactly what Stonehenge was used for. Archaeologists and scientists have also attempted over the decades to figure out exactly how prehistoric humans could have constructed such an elaborate site using massive and incredibly heavy stones. Over the weekend, archaeologists offered up a new theory on what I Stonehenge might’ve been used for.

The archaeologists believe that centuries before the first massive sarsen stone was put in place at Stonehenge, the monument could’ve been a giant burial ground. The archaeologists report that they’ve discovered over 50,000 cremated bone fragments from 63 different individuals. These bone fragments were excavated and studied for the first time by a group of archaeologists headed by Professor Mike Parker Pearson.

Pearson has been working with Stonehenge and nearby monuments for decades. According to Pearson, he believes the earliest burials of the site are much older than the monument itself in its current form. According to Pearson, the smaller standing stones were carried to the site from Wales and placed as grave markers at approximately 3000 BC.

He believes that the site remained as a graveyard for at least 200 years with sporadic burials after that time. The archaeologists and his team used new techniques and were able to determine the first time that the burials at the location were not only of adult men. According to the new investigation there are almost equal numbers of men and women including children. The archaeologists discovered artifacts such as an incense bowl leading them to believe that the people buried at the site could’ve been religious and political leaders along with their immediate family.

[via Guardian]

Archaeologists believe Stonehenge may have been a burial site is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, took the stage yesterday at SXSW to discuss several things, including a couple of new projects SpaceX is working on. SpaceX is currently working on building rockets that are reusable. The rockets are what Musk says is one of the roadblocks that is holding back humanity from the future of space travel. The cost of making the one-time use rockets is what’s stopping many businesses from joining the industry.

Musk says that fuel and oxygen are hardly the biggest costs of space travel. They only amount to 0.9% of the total cost of the rocket. If SpaceX is able to create a reusable rocket, they would be able to provide a “massive hundred-fold derease in the cost of space flight.” Musk says that SpaceX’s goal has been to expand humanity beyond Earth and turn it into a “multi-planetary species.” He continues to say that all other forms of transportation that humans use are reusable, so why not rockets?

The idea of SpaceX came to Musk when he was trying to donate money to NASA. He wanted NASA to start a greenhouse on Mars that would show that life could exist on that planet. Musk hoped that the project would increase NASA’s federal budget. He had this idea where there’d be a greenhouse on Mars with “green plants on red background”, which would be the “money shot”. The project fell through, but because of it, SpaceX was born.

SpaceX is now very successful, with 1/4 of its launches being for NASA, and the other 3/4 being for commercial businesses. Musk says that the main goals of SpaceX was to get people “excited, and sending (things) to Mars, and increasing NASA’s budget. Today NASA’s our biggest customer.” SpaceX is also working on building a commercial space port in Brownsville Texas, making it the third launch site for the company. There are just some legislative barriers the company has to go through before it can begin working on the project.

[via VentureBeat]

Elon Musk says SpaceX is working on reusable rockets is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.