Sci-Tech

TOKYO - JAPANESE researchers say they have developed a rubber that is able to conduct electricity well, paving the way for robots with stretchable 'e-skin' that can feel heat and pressure like humans.

After a closer examination of a surviving marvel of ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism, scientists have found that the device not only predicted solar eclipses but also organized the calendar in the four-year cycles of the Olympiad, forerunner of the modern Olympic Games.

Prototype contact lenses that include LEDs and circuits could become a tiny personal display

Taiwanese inventor Peng Yu-Lun has an innovative idea to make train transportation even more efficient: get rid of the stops. No, he's not proposing that passengers are thrown on and off of fast-moving trains or that passengers are eliminated from the equation altogether. Instead, Yu-Lun envisions a small separated car perched atop the train. When the train enters a station, this car slides along on elevated rails that smoothly and gradually remove the car from the rest of the train and bring it to a stop.

Lockheed Martin is building a massive digital warehouse of criminal information, set to bring facial recognition and eye scans to local law enforcement within 10 years. The FBI may use biometric technology to bolster mug shots, fingerprints and DNA to catch crooks—but privacy advocates say there's reason for law-abiding citizens to worry.

BEIJING, June 23 (Xinhua) -- President Hu Jintao on Monday hailed the country's remarkable science and technology achievements since the launch of its 1978 Reform and Opening-up Drive, but he also admitted that there is "still a large gap" with the world's most advanced.

The late Celso R. Roque was one of my close friends. He used to say that, since more than 99 percent of all matter in the universe is in the form of plasma, God must be a plasma physicist. Celso was a plasma physicist, so one would expect such a statement from him. I disagree with him on this issue. To me, the epitome of perfection is a crystal. So, in my opinion, God must be a crystallographer. [You might expect this statement from me because I was trained as a (protein) crystallographer.]

In astronomy, size matters. And for decades radio astronomers have been able to boast that they had the largest telescopes on the planet.

In testament to a tried-and-true move in the human mating game, European scientists have noticed that young people in bars and nightclubs across the land are using alcohol and drugs to grease the wheels of foreplay.

We've got Google Earth and Google Sky. Next up will be a map of the world below sea level--Google Ocean. The company has assembled an advisory group of oceanography experts, and in December invited researchers from institutions around the world to the Mountain View, Calif., Googleplex. There, they discussed plans for creating a 3D oceanographic map, according to sources familiar with the matter.