Pluto
Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft has made the first visit to Pluto, speeding past at 14km per second. Earlier, the space agency released the most detailed picture yet as it hurtled towards the dwarf planet on Tuesday. The probe was set to grab more images and other data as it passed just 12,500km from the little world at 11:50 GMT (12:50 BST). The spacecraft is currently out of contact with Earth as it continues its observations....
Transparent Aluminium
In 1986 the secret of transparent Aluminium was leaked to scientists by Montgomery Scott, well scientist have been busy and this is now a reality. While the U.S. Navy is busy with the development of a new bulletproof material called Spinel, Surmet Corporation is already commercially producing its own version called ALON®. Technically known as aluminum oxynitride, Star Trek fans may be more familiar with the term “transparent aluminum”...
Become a Starfleet Cadet
Star Trek: The Starfleet Academy Experience, a brand-new interactive exhibit which uses the Star Trek franchise as a springboard to teach visitors about science and technology, will make its world debut at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum (CASM) in Ottawa, Canada, on May 26, 2016. Visitors can become Starfleet cadets, attempt to beat the Kobayashi Maru test and pilot a starship from an active bridge. “We are very proud to be...
Scotty ‘Transporter’ created
Don’t you wish you could beat the rush hour traffic or be on time for meetings by merely beaming up from one place to another? Wouldn’t it be so much more convenient to order items online and receive them in one go? Though human teleportation is still far from reality, sending items from one place to another has become closer to our reach. The Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany has developed a computer-generated...
Kirk returns to space
Sci-fi and sci-fact will collided on Thursday, when the Orion — NASA’S next-generation spacecraft — blasted into space for a test flight. The unmanned craft will carry into space with it sci-fi collectibles/memorabilia, much of it provided by celebrities, as well as historic artifacts. So, in addition to a Marvel challenge coin (provided by Jon Favreau), Sesame Street’s Slimey the Worm, one of Cookie...
Enterprise in Space
The multi-pronged mission of the Enterprise In Space project is to design, build, fly, and eventually return to Earth an orbiter containing student experiments. This project will be a tribute to the many great visionaries of science and science fiction. It will demonstrate and pioneer new technologies while inspiring and encouraging space enterprise. It will promote the development of educational curricula and activities...
Holodeck coming soon?
Instead of measuring innovation in terms of new products or services, maybe it’s time to start measuring innovation in terms of how companies change our perceptions of reality. Before virtual reality and augmented reality, there was simulated reality, immersive virtual reality, mixed reality and artificial reality. All of these iterations of “reality” represented new ways of viewing the world. Now Microsoft Research has...
Scientists Transport Particles A Short Distance
Physicists in the Netherlands have, for the first time, demonstrated the feasibility of teleportation. An experiment at Delft University of Technology, under the supervision of Ronald Hanson, the scientists were able to send data from one quantum particle to another particle at a distance of roughly three meters. They were able to repeat this experiment with a 100% success rate on numerous other occasions. Now, before we all start...
Could Skype be the Universal Translator?
Microsoft has unveiled a new feature for Skype that’s almost straight out of Star Trek’s science fiction world — an app that translates conversations between speakers of different languages in real time. “It’s going to make sure you can communicate to anybody without language barriers,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella while introducing the new feature at the Code Conference in San Francisco. “In...
Scientists at Dundee University have created a working “tractor beam”
Something to make Mr Scott proud, physicists at the university used an ultrasound array to exert force on an object and pull it towards the energy source. They say it is the first time such a beam has been used to move anything bigger than microscopic targets. The technology could be put to use in medicine, helping to develop ultrasound-based clinical techniques. Dundee researchers worked alongside colleagues in Southampton and...