In October 2016, hackers hit a company called Dyn. Hackers are people who write computer programs that can break into other computer programs. And here, their target was an important one. Dyn makes sure the right website pops up when you type in a web address. After the hack, people around the world had trouble […]
When your stuff spies on you Read More »
Fifty years ago, the first episode of Star Trek aired. It started as a quirky science-fiction television show that lasted for a mere three seasons. But the out-of-this world series launched a long-running story that went on to capture the imaginations of generations of viewers. It has left its fingerprints not only on pop culture but
Star Trek technology becomes more science than fiction Read More »
For more than 200 years, physicists have wanted to understand why electricity flows through some materials and not others. In some of the first experiments aimed at understanding conductivity, at the start of the 18th century, British autodidact Stephen Gray observed that materials like metals (and some vegetables) conduct electricity, whereas others, like silk or
The wild weirdness of topological insulators Read More »
Back in Christmas 2013, the CineStar cinema in Mainz, Germany, became an impromptu, oversized laboratory. Over the course of 108 screenings of 16 films, it hosted an unprecedented experiment on about 9500 moviegoers. Not that most of them noticed, or even knew they were under scrutiny. Science was likely the last thing on their brains
Every breath we take Read More »
Kefir is a viscous, sour-tasting, slightly alcoholic, milk-based beverage that’s been consumed for centuries. It’s made by adding a starter mix of bacteria and yeast – called the kefir “grain” – to pasteurized cow milk, though brewers have reported success with milk from goats, sheep, buffalo, and soy. As fermented dairy products go, it still
Metagenomics for foodies Read More »
Physicist Matt Bellis attended his first Science Hack Day in the fall of 2010, in Palo Alto, California. Like many scientists attending the event for the first time, Bellis was skeptical. “Hacking,” after all, is usually left to computer programmers. However, Bellis, at the time a postdoctoral researcher at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, had
The value of a good science hack Read More »
The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, is the oldest photography museum in the world. The Victorian mansion that houses the museum was once home to Eastman himself – a pioneer in photography who in the 1880s helped bring photography to the masses after inventing roll film and designing the Kodak camera. Eastman’s passion
Preserving the Past Read More »
It was billed as the vindication of the quantum computer. Late last year, researchers at Google announced that a quantum machine called the D-Wave 2X had executed a task 100 million times faster than a classical computer. The claim implies that the machine can complete in one second a task that might take a classical
Computing’s Search for Quantum Questions Read More »
Imagine this. You wake up in the morning to the irritating buzz of your alarm. Instead of fumbling for a snooze button, you wave your hand in the air in the general direction of the clock. There, in mid-air, you find it: an invisible button. It’s an illusion you can feel, like a hologram for
Feeling Objects that Aren’t There Read More »
It’s no stretch to say that batteries won’t continue to be rigid and blocky forever. Engineers inspired by Japanese paper craft have designed a battery that can expand to 150 percent of its original length. The battery can power a computerized watch known as a smart watch even as it flexes. “Any kind
