Hasta La Gadget!

Tractor beams have been common in science fiction for decades. Fans of science fiction such as Star Trek or Star Wars will be familiar with the tractor beam. The tractor beam and popular science fiction is a beam of light able to reach out and grab a spaceship or other object and pull it towards the captors.

A group of scientists have created a real tractor beam that uses light to attract objects. Rather than using the tractor beam to capture rogue spaceships or large objects, the scientists hope that the tractor beam could have medical applications giving the ability to attract individual cells. The research team is from the University of St. Andrews and the beam they created is limited to attracting microscopic particles.

The lead researcher on the product is Doctor Thomas Cizmar, a research fellow in the school of medicine at the University of St. Andrews. The researcher admits that technique is very new, but it has huge potential. According to Cizmar, the tractor beam his team has invented is very selective in the properties of particles that it acts upon. This means that people using the tractor beam would be able to attract specific particles in a mixture.

The researchers on the project say that typically when microscopic objects are hit by a beam of light, they are pushed along in the direction of the beam by the photons of light. Cizmar says that the team was surprised to see this force reversed in their invention. According to the researchers, the fact that their tractor beam acts only on microscopic objects is okay. The scientists say that if the tractor beam was scaled up to work on things as large as spaceships that the beam would result in a massive amount of heating to the object targeted.

[via BBC]

Scientists create tractor beam that uses light to attract objects is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Android and iOS dominated 92-percent of smartphones shipping in Q4 2012, according to new statistics, though Google’s OS was the undeniable platform king in what “has effectively become a duopoly.” Sales in the smartphone industry were up 38-percent year on year, according to Strategy Analytics, but it’s primarily a win for Google and Apple, with near half a billion Android devices alone shipped in 2012 as a whole.

In Q4 specifically, Apple had 22-percent of the smartphone OS marketshare, though that was down 2-percent from the same period a year ago. Still, iOS was up 29-percent annually, having shipped nearly 50m smartphones worldwide. Android, in contrast, rose from 51-percent marketshare in Q4 2011, to 70-percent in Q4 2012.

That leaves slim pickings for the other smartphone platforms still out there, some waning – like BlackBerry 7 and Symbian – and some attempting growth – like Windows Phone and Tizen. Firefox OS and BlackBerry 10 will join the crowd in 2013, though it’s unclear how much more than the 7.9-percent OS marketshare non iOS and Android platforms held in Q4 2012 they can acquire.

“Consumer demand” Strategy Analytics’ Scott Bicheno suggests, has polarized around mass-market Android models and premium Apple designs” leaving other platforms in the cold. Just last week, the company claimed global phone shipments at a whopping 1.6bn.

Android and iOS “duopoly” monopolizes 92% of global smartphones in Q4 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Dung beetles are rather disgusting little bugs. They live off the excrement of other animals. Not only do they eat the poo, they also roll it into balls. While I’ve never considered how a dung beetle would actually go about creating its ball of feces, apparently the insects use a remarkable method.

According to a group of researchers, it’s critically important for the beetle to roll the balls in a straight line. For a small insect, rolling a significant ball of dung is a very energy intensive feat. The problem for these beetles is that many of their kind are also thieves ready to steal their ball of poo given any chance.

Apparently, the best way for the dung beetle to keep from getting their ball stolen is to roll it in a straight line away from the pile of poo. Scientists already knew that dung beetles were capable of moving in straight lines away from dung piles. The bugs were able to do this by detecting a symmetrical pattern of polarized light that appears around the sun during the day that humans are unable to see.

However, the question that remained for scientists was how exactly the beetles knew how to make a straight line at night. The moon produces a much weaker pattern of polarized light so the researchers set to work on a game farm in South Africa to see exactly what the dung beetle was doing. The scientists quickly discovered that the beetles were able to roll in a straight line even on nights with no moon in the sky. The scientists discovered that the bugs are able to align themselves in a straight line using the Milky Way. The scientists say this is the first time in the animal kingdom that a creature is known to use the Milky Way for navigation.

[via National Geographic]

Dung beetle rolls balls of poo by navigating via the Milky Way is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

My daughter has asked me several times why dogs are dogs and wolves are wolves. She’s trying to understand why wolves, which look like dogs, are wild and can be dangerous to humans. According to scientists, genetics played a part in turning wolves into the domesticated dogs that we know and love today.

A team of researchers from Sweden, Norway, and the United States compared genetic code of the domestic dog to genetic code of the wolf. The scientists say that their study findings show that the digestive system of dogs has adapted to live on a diet that is similar to the diet of humans. The scientists say that previous research suggested dogs began to be domesticated when ancient wolves began feeding and scavenging in waste dumps near human settlements.

The scientists say that dogs are estimated to have split from their wolf cousins somewhere between 7000 and 30,000 years ago. The scientists believe that only wolves that learned to better digest human leftovers survived to become the ancestors of modern dogs. In their study, the team compared sequenced genomes from 12 wolves from different areas of the world to the genomes of 60 dogs from 14 different breeds.

During their genomic study, the scientists found 36 genomic regions that are believed to have been modified through domestication. The specific genes play a role with the ability to digest starches. The scientists also say that the dog is likely the first animal that man domesticated, marking a key point of development for modern human civilization.

[via AFP]

Genetics allowing for a starchy diet turned wolves into man’s best friend is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Scientists have recently uncovered evidence that in the year 775 the Earth was pummeled with a giant burst of radiation. The radiation left evidence behind on the earth in tree rings that formed during the year, which show high levels of radioactive compounds. The scientists say that evidence suggests the gamma ray burst was very short.

The scientists investigating the phenomenon note that our sun didn’t cause the burst of radiation. Even if a strong burst of radiation occurred 1200 years ago in the form of a strong solar flare, the researchers say that there wouldn’t have been enough radiation produced to leave behind the sort of evidence discovered on Earth. Scientists also say that if the radioactive burst had occurred from the sun, it would’ve created very bright auroras and there is no historical record of that event happening.

Astronomer Phil Plait has another suggestion for what could have caused the massive burst of radiation – a supernova. The problem with that theory, according to the astronomer, is that in order to generate the levels of carbon and beryllium discovered, the supernova would have had to been less than 1000 light years away from the Earth. He notes that such a close occurring supernova would’ve been so bright it would have been seen during the daylight.

There are no historical records of such a supernova occurring. Another team of scientists believes that the most likely scenario for the gamma ray burst is that it was the result of a collision between a pair of neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole. The scientists say that such a collision would produce an extremely short gamma burst while producing no light. Researchers say that they know collisions of this sort have happened in distant galaxies in the past but such events are incredibly rare. Another member of the research team says that if the burst had been closer to the earth it could have caused significant harm to life on our planet.

[via Forbes]

Evidence suggests a gamma ray burst irradiated the earth 1200 years ago is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.