The Economist predicts that 60-GHz range WiFi will quickly replace cables for transferring large amounts of data between home electronics. The obvious objection to using WiFi to connect your computer to monitors, keyboards, phones and printers is that others can eavesdrop on those signals and hack into them. Oddly enough, engineers have a solution for …
Category: astronomy
Monday Links: Space Edition
If someone tells you to get your head of out of the clouds, you have two options: plant your feet on the ground, or fly into space. This last Thursday, Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, posted a summary of the Planck mission data. Planck is a space telescope operated by the European Space Agency. Its …
Monday Links: Mannequins, Higgs, Meteors and Martian Water
A clothing store in Sweden now features mannequins which represent the curvier (and more common) spectrum of the female figure. The reception of their decision is overwhelmingly positive. While I must comment on how the picture in the article appears to obscure the largest of the three mannequins in its photograph, I do believe this …
Telling Time in the Renaissance, Part I: A Change in Calendars
Time is a slippery beast. You may believe otherwise, if you live in today’s West. Here, the moments march lockstep in time with the news ticker, Twitter feeds and the stock market bell—every event branded with a number. The precision of industry disguises the artifice that is our experience of time. In the world of …
Science Tidbits: Moon Colonies, Genetic Circuits, and Throwing Rocks at Earth
On Bad Astronomy, I found this video featuring Phil Plait and Dr. Karin Bondar. In the video, Phil speaks briefly on the possibility of applying 3-D printing technology to building settlements on the moon—an option actually under development by NASA. Karin follows up with an equally fascinating development: biologists are manipulating DNA in a manner …