Play Station 3 coming in November?

Launch date set for 11/17 but which model should you buy?

Sony Entertainment has said that a scaled down 20 Gb model of the new Playstation will run you $499 and the fully featured, deluxe 60Gb model will go for $599.

November 17th is the target date but could get pushed back if there are more snags.  The online service will offered for free to help gain some market share, but will that be enough?.  Probably not.

Key to making stronger metal discovered

“3" is the magic number for stronger metal

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered that the number three is the key to creating a strong piece of metal.  It’s common knowledge that metals such as steel are strengthened when they’re hammered.  What wasn’t known was the full reason behind it.

Metal dislocation was discovered in the 1930’s and research has been focused on discovering what this affect had on metal.  It appears now that 3 dislocations in a piece of metal is the key to strength.  This knowledege will prove useful in engineering stronger structures such as high rises, bridges and other key structures.  This once again proves the old biblical adage that “a three strand chord is not easily broken.”

Here is some good metallurgical reading at Science Daily with links to the full story.

Have your Hike and Suburbia too

Power generating backpack gives the best of both worlds.

Professor Larry Rome of the University of Pennsylvania has designed a backpack that may help the borderline nature walker have their cake and eat it too. 

The professor has come up with a backpack that generates and stores electricity while you walk.  The kinetic energy put out by hikers moves coils in the backpack through magnetic fields, which in turn creates about 7.4 watts of electrical power.  This electricity can then be stored and used later to operate small electronic devices such as cell phones, laptops, GPS devices or water purification equipment. 

Cellulose could prove to be Energy Rich

Plant research is revealing some interesting facts

Researchers at the Carnagie Institution’s Department of Plant Biology and Stanford University are discovering some interesting things about cellulose fibers. The research is centered on finding out how these fibers are made and what controls their formation and growth and they believe the have pinpointed the “root” (pun intended) of this development. 

The hope is that this study, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, will lead to the future ability to grow food rich in fiber and other plants from which biofuels may be harvested. 

Read the original publication at Science Express.
An easier to read version of the publication at the Carnagie Institution

My brand new OrganJet Printer

I’ve always wanted to print my own skin grafts and muscle tissues, I just hope I can buy replacement cartridges at my local OfficeMax

Need a skin graft? A new trachea? A heart patch? Turn on your printer, and let it spit one out. Scientists and researches have been teaming up to create a printer that is capable of printing human organs and tissue three dimensionally on demand.

Through the use of bio-ink and bio-paper, they are already churning out sheets of heart muscle tissue and blood vessels. I just hope my heart tissue doesn’t come out with a bunch of missing lines because the head needed cleaned; or, God forbid, a paper jam. Talk about a mess. While I ponder the uncertainties regarding scooping blood vessels out of my feed tray, you can visit Wired News to learn more about Printing Organs on demand.

Robo-Roaches Plagued by Spammers

It seems that even robotic cockroaches in Japan are not immune to harassment

Assistant Professor Isao Shimoyama, head of the bio-robot research team at Tokyo University, has invented a robo-roach surgically implanted with a micro-robotic backpack that allows researchers to control its movements. Unfortunately, this robotic bug has a few bug of its own.

The cybernetic Cyprinidae has been receiving email spam wirelessly that was originally intended for mobile phones and devices.

Read more about the Robo Roach and its problems with spam

Great Science Myths of the Past Decade

10 amazingly mythical stories that passed as fact

Author Steven Milloy is entering his eleventh year of running a website called ”junkscience.com” and is commemorating the occasion with his Top 10 Junkscience stories of the past ten years. He has chronicled some of the most over hyped melodramatic science claims of the last decade.  It might surprise you to see what myths have been busted and still manage to remain claims of fact by some with an agenda to advance.  Most of these agendas have more to do with money and notoriety than anything else, mostly money.

The taxpayers of many countries have been the dupes for these claims.  Mass hysteria, pushed by a willing media to make a fast buck selling their rags and TV shows have added fuel to the very small flame.  If we spent as much time and effort on studying and reporting science claims we could PROVE we sure would be alot better off.

Read Mr. Milloys column on Foxnews.com

Squidoo is all about You

A great new tool allows everyone to see the world through your eyes

You are an expert. Everyone is an expert at something and you are no different. No matter how insignificant you may feel the topic to be, there is a good chance that you know everything there is to know about something.

Squidoo is an online community that gives you the tools to quickly and easily build a page all about a particular topic. Anyone can squidoo, you don’t need any programming skill whatsoever. All you need to bring to the table is enthusiasm and Squidoo will do the rest.

Carry a cage in your back pocket

You need to protect your RFID identity

DIFRWear has come out with a line of wallets designed to protect against someone stealing the information on any RFID card you may carry.. From credit cards, insurance cards, and passports many companies are going to RFID because of their durability and ease of use.  The only problem is that any hacker within 10 feet of you could steal that information with a home-made RFID antenna. 

The idea behind this companies line of wallets is to put a farday cage around your cards that may carry RFID.  It’s simple really make a farday cage out of a light flexible metal that can be put into a leather wallet.  The only time your cards can then be read is when you open your wallet.  If you live in an urban area in close proximity to a lot of people you may want to invest in one of these babies, it will be as common as a household shredder one day.  Here is a link to the difrwear site so you can see it for yourself.