Science

A team called Puzzlebox are releasing a stunning looking gadget which they hope will teach children about neuroscience, open source coding and focus. Their helicopter toy is controlled by brainwaves. Puzzlebox have been creating code to turn EEG signals into instructions that a robot can understand. In the last 24 …

U.S. space agency officials are planning to announce a ‘major' discovery in December, and speculation is rife that some form of life may have been discovered on MARS. NASA's Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena spoke to the NPR on Tuesday. He said …

Having cemented its position as the dominant player at the top end of the processor market, Intel is looking to spread its wings over the coming years – to evolve and permeate every part of society – leaving no (st)one unturned. Now, it seams, the tech giant wants to get …

The most accepted modern theory of the existence of the moon states that a giant body struck the Earth and this subsequently created the Moon. A new paper published yesterday however by Sarah Stewart and Matija Cuk argues against this theory. The scientists claim that their theory better explains why …

We've all watched the Olympics. How many times have we seen a close-fought race end in a new world record? How many times have we seen one person completely dominate an event, only to pull up before the finishing line and miss smashing the old record by a big margin. …

They say that assume makes an ‘ass' of ‘me' and ‘u' and that assumption is the mother of all screw-ups. While millions have been poured into researching security and a multitude of threats from cyber hacking on PCs, far less is known about the networks that are developing around communications …

Fermilab has turned on their 570 Megapixel Dark Energy Camera to take some fascinating pictures of the universe accelerating. The camera takes a series of shots and they are all ‘stitched' together into one giant image. The DECam has 62 individual ‘cameras' which are all connected together to make one …

Here on Earth, we think that temperature extremes involve moving from summer in the Middle East (regularly up to 50 degrees) right through to winter in the Arctic (regularly down to -50 degrees). But when you move into space, the numbers change. Work by an Iranian scientist has pushed the …

Born from the radioactive dust of the Manhattan project, Sandia started life for real in 1948 as a focused laboratory whose prime area of interest was to support/create/develop the parts of nuclear weapons that were not nuclear. While other labs would focus on increasing the power of warheads etc, Sandia …

Black Eyed Peas front man Will.i.am has had his music beamed back to Earth by NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover. The song entitled ‘Reach For The Stars' is the first musical composition to be transmitted to Earth from another planet. While we would have opted for David Bowies ‘Life On Mars' …

Scientists have created a new ultrathin flat lens which doesn't suffer from distortions inherent with current designs. The new lens is made from silicon and gold which is said to deliver ‘perfect images'. The lens is 60 nanometers thick and was created by physicists at the Harvard School of Engineering …

The Curiosity Rover recently landed on Mars and has now fired its laser beam at Martian rock, with over 30 pulses across a 10 second period. NASA issued the statement from mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles. The pulses from the robotic science lab deliver more …

In an attempt to create the armed forces products of the future, the Pentagon has gone back to nature. Alongside a dog-like robot to carry a soldier's heavy equipment into the battlefield, they have also developed a tiny reconnaissance plane that emulates a hummingbird and another device that mimics a cheetah and …

While PC users are warm and fuzzy with the idea that they are tracked all over the web, pretty much all the time, Apple users seem to have a much higher expectation of privacy. Google circumvented the Apple users' choice to remain anonymous and, now, will pay the $22.5m price. KitGuru fixes …

At 06:32 this morning, the Mars Science Lab completed the second stage in its journey to discover if the Red Planet ever supported life. KitGuru breathes a sigh of relief. In a novel twist to space exploration, NASA scientists have programmed Curiosity to behave exactly like a human on holiday. …

At the time KitGuru sits down to write this story, NASA's Curiosity space rover is closer to Mars than the moon is to Earth. Around 6am UK time, the world's most expensive landing vehicle will try and nestle its 1 ton bulk on the surface of the Red Planet and …

One of the fundamental  issues with electric cars at the moment is the limitations of the batteries that power them.  There are a number of electric vehicles currently available on the UK market such as the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and none of them are capable of much more than 100 miles …

If you believe that competition is a good thing, then the US Department of Energy is going about the problem of ‘How best to construct tomorrow's super computers' in the right way. KitGuru dons flip-flops and heads off to consider the impact of PetaFlops. While PC labs across the world …

This is one of the more interesting stories today. Researchers at Rice University have developed a new spray on battery. They layer five coats of specially formulated paint, a thin coat of lithium ion storage is applied to multiple surfaces, including ceramics, glass and steel. The early tests seem positive, …

Quantum computers are still a work in progress, however researchers are indicating the potential these machines will have for important and complex calculations. Three theorists have made a video indicating that these machines would be powerful enough to study the inner workings of the universe in a manner beyond the …

Virgin Galactic have been working hard to offer members of the public the opportunity to travel into space onboard a rocket powered craft. Their partner Scaled Composites have been granted an experimental permit from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This is the first step in getting their dream a reality. …

One of the more fascinating mornings was had by the KitGuru team today, as we hunkered down around live-feed HD screens to watch/listen/experience the wonder of privatised space flight, with the launch of the Dragon C2+ space craft in the direction of the International Space Station. KitGuru dons an orange …

Those of you who are into photography will be blown away by an image released in the last week. It is the largest single shot photograph ever taken of Earth. This new image has surpassed NASA's updated ‘Blue Marble' shot which is actually a composite image of many satellite images. …

Visit any major city on the planet, roll through its development over the past 100 years and you’ll notice something about the height of the skyline. When you need to pack more people into a fixed area, X and Y are not enough. You MUST build upwards. KitGuru casts an …

Google are the first company to receive a license application to test their self driving car on public roads, according to the Nevada DMV. The license plate is red, which signifies that the vehicle is ‘autonomous'. There is also an infinity logo on the far left of the plate. Bruce …

Back in January 2008, Intel posed a question to scientists, “What would you do with a million quad core processors?”  While no one is offering to deliver and install a million chips to a single destination, the idea of a huge, distributed computing system has appeal. Folding@Home project is set …

Around 10 years ago, a bunch of threads kicked off on science forums around the world, with boffins (pro and amateur) discussing the idea of a computer-based Einstein in the future. A decade ago, most of the contributors thought that the answer was in some kind of amazing new layout …

One of the more interesting stories to emerge today focuses on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. He has been pumping his own money into rescuing the Apollo 11 Rocket engines from the Atlantic Ocean. The five F1 engines were discharged during the flight and they dropped into the Atlantic Ocean 40 …

Amazon announced last night that they have bought Kiva Systems for $775 million. Kiva Systems produce robots that can move through large warehouse environments to deal with stock, so we can see why Amazon would invest in such a takeover. Amazon have been dealing with staffing problems in their warehouses …

The Hubble telescope has found some disturbing images in space detailing a mass of ‘dark matter' which is said to have appeared after a huge galactic collision. This dark matter however isn't acting the way scientists would expect. This Dark Core has confused scientists as it is holding far fewer …