Mars rover Curiosity test fires the laser – pulverizes a rock just for fun (and science)

Johnny Five, aka the Mars rover Curiosity, continues its scientific journey. The nuclear-powered laboratory in-a-box pulled out it’s laser to blast a rock that got in its way. From NASA: The mission’s ChemCam instrument hit a fist-sized rock named “Coronation” with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than …

Scientists build first working quantum network – mind-bogglingly powerful

Scientists at the Quantum Dynamics division of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, Germany announced Wednesday that they have built the very first, elementary quantum network comprised of a pair of entangled atoms that transmit information to each other via single photons. That and a couple of bucks will get you …

MIT scientists prove that individual neurons store memories

MIT researchers have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing these neurons, the subject would lose that memory. As you can imagine, the trick here is …

Epic new posters for Star Wars Identities – Yoda, Darth Vader, and Boba Fett

Star War Identities was revealed a few months ago, and it was described as being a new interactive museum exhibit that is scheduled to debut at the Montreal Science Centre on April 19th. It will focus on the pivotal developments of Anakin and Luke Skywalker. Combining material from the Lucasfilm archives with a scientific approach to …

And the Oscar goes to…Researchers, computer scientists, and photographers

Just a few days ago the Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical Achievements were announced. The 8 awards go to a wide range of professionals in areas such as computer software, high-speed cameras, aerial cameras, and laser film preservation. In many ways these descriptions are beyond our understanding, but they do, at the very least, …