This little robot (device) can hold in place in equilibrium a pendulum. When the guy gives the pendulum a nudge, the robot automatically adjusts for it so it doesn't fall. Really cool!

The latest video from the 'Will it blend?' series features the same kick-ass blender turning the new and popular Apple iPhone into dust. Literally. Enjoy!

No, this is not about the perpetual motion device that humans are searching for, yet is impossible to build. It's about a kitty who will not give up! Really funny Enjoy!

YouLickit!? Why? Why would you do that? Why would anyone want on his iPhone an application in which the main purpose is to likc stuff? The simple fact that someone has this application installed should drop the second hand price for that device in half. WTF?

According to wikipedia, the homopolar motor was the first ever device that managed to produce rotational movement from electromagnetism. It was first built and demonstrated by Michael Faraday in 1821. Here are a few examples of these types of motors, that you can do at home!

This is a revolutionary Electronic ink display from Philips. It's able to unfold, revealing a display, bigger than the actual device. This electronic ink display is amongst the most interesting technologies presented in 2006. Probably that the electronic ink display will arrive in devices similar to PDA as soon as 2007.

A gauss gun, works by sequentially accelerating a projectile to a desired speed by using either magnets or coils. The first video is a small demonstration of the principle behind the whole thing, by using magnets. The following videos are weapons which were homemade, and as you can see work remarkably well. So well in fact, that the US Navy will implement such weapons on its ships by 2020, after they succesfully tested an 8 Megajoule prototype.

The particles of cobalt-chromium can cause DNA damage even if they do not come physically into contact with the cells. The nano-particles manage to damage the DNA of cells protected by a barrier made up of cellular membranes, without physically entering into contact with the cell, but rather through a multitude of chemical signals. This was found in a study coordinated at the Bristol Implant Research Center, proving that it brings out a new risk associated with nanotechnology, but also the opportunity to exploit this behavior in an innovative way. Nano-particles are now widely used. In surgery, for example, are an integral part of prostheses and implants. The research conducted so far on the risks of nanoparticles, however, relates mainly to the effects of direct exposure, while very little is known about what can cause the indirect exposure. In the new study, researchers have wondered if a barrier device was able to protect cells from the effects of nano-particles consisting of chromium and cobalt in the tissues of the clothes and orthopedic implants. The researchers interposed a barrier between nanoparticles formed out of multilayer chromium-cobalt (in quantities thousands of times greater than those with whom we come in contact normally) and a culture of human fibroblasts (connective tissue cells). Although nano-particles have not managed to cross the membrane, the fibroblasts had DNA mutations which were ten times more than the control fibroblasts. According to scholars, the effect is due to chemical signals between the cell membrane and fibroblasts. If the lines of communication between them are broken, the rate of DNA damage returned to normal.

The use of an organic material has been put in place a structure capable of transmitting data at rates eight times higher than those of traditional devices . The study of materials capable of transmitting data at ever higher speeds is the constant challenge of the technology of optical communications. The use of a new organic material, tested by a team of U.S. and European research coordinated by Ivan Biaggi of Lehigh University (United States), has enabled to achieve data transfers much higher than that obtained so far with traditional devices. The novelty lies in the combination of structures in silicon with organic material, identified by the initials Ddmebt . This is essentially a kind of "nonlinear" device, able to change its molecular structure to the passage of light, making it propagate at high speed. To minimize interference with the passage of data, researchers have vaporized the organic material and the deposit left on the rails of silicon and in the spaces between them. In this way, explain the authors, the molecules are deposited "like snowflakes", forming a highly homogeneous plastic. It is precisely in the interstices between the rails of silicon, filled with new material, that the light passes at high speed, allowing you to transmit data up to 170 Gigabit per second (with the traditional structures, which consist only of silicon, you can reach a maximum speed around 20-30 Gigabit per second). Combining silicon with an architecture was needed to channel and confine the flow of light within very small spaces (the guide of silicon is separated by a few tens of nanometers).

The new devices can operate at 30 degrees above zero, rather than less than 70. This is the characteristic of the new generation of semiconductors, researched at the Italian Institute for the Physics of Matter (INFM-CNR), and in the Ludwig Maximilian University in Monaco of Bavaria and the ETH Zurich (the study). Today there are two ways to record information on a medium: the electronic format, in which the binary language is the passage of electrons (the transistors) and magnetic (MRAM memory), more recently, in which the binary language is given by state of magnetization. To communicate these two systems could boost significantly the computational schemes, pending the distant quantum computer. Doubling the processing power and memory of a chip while maintaining the size, without the need to go in nano-scale (a scale, that is, a billionth of a meter) are just two of the technology that promises magnetic semiconductors suggest a near future. These devices were made over ten years ago, but so far required temperatures far below zero to work. The problem now seems outdated as the known semiconductors gallium arsenide containing traces of manganese, a metal which has ferromagnetic properties at around 200 degrees below zero. To increase the temperature threshold, above which the ferromagnetic behavior disappears, the researchers deposited on a semiconductor film of iron - metal known for its magnetic properties - the thickness of a few nanometers. Iron and manganese interacted so effectively that the new material, has a ferromagnetic behavior up to 30 degrees above zero, a jump of over a hundred degrees above the starting temperature. This result is a technological response parallel to that of the race to miniaturization and the research was selected the American Physical Society as one of the most important published in Physical Review Letters

The switch that turns off and on to command the superconducting property of the new device is a trivial electric field. In practice, what has been done by Andrea Ankle and colleagues at the University of Geneva in the first superconducting transistors. The operation, represents a milestone of applied physics and paves the way for the development of a new generation of microchips - and therefore computers - much faster than at present. To understand how and why the device is considered so promising it must be from another discovery, made last year by the same group of university research in Switzerland and published in Science. In one study, physicists have created a single crystal in which two metal oxides (strontium titanate and lanthanum aluminate) are separated. Between these two materials, researchers have found a layer of free electrons (electronic cloud) and 0.3 Kelvin - that is just above absolute zero - traveling without any resistance. At that temperature, the crystal becomes a superconductor. Scientists have now discovered how to turn off and turn on the superconductivity of this crystal at will, or modules, simply by applying an electric field to the point of contact between the two oxides. The result is a version of superconductive field effect transistors (FET) devices known in applied physics, able to switch from one state to a semiconductor insulator, and basic digital information in electronics (the fact that the current can pass or not is used as a binary 1-0 to store information). As the field effect transistors is a semiconductor, however, it always has resistance to the passage of current. This means that the speed at which you can get the electrons when the device is "on" is limited which means heat develops beyond a certain limit. This side effect is damaging the transistor. A superconducting transistor, however, can pass electrons (and record information) much more quickly, as it does not oppose any resistance to the passage of current and, therefore, not heat. There remains the problem of extremely low temperatures required for superconductivity. A limit that research is a long time trying to overcome.

A highly resistant and self lubricating material has been discovered, thanks to the formation of an oxide surface that captures the water vapor Hard as diamond and slippery as a sheet of ice. The secret of the extraordinary characteristics of Bam, a special alloy-ceramics produced by blending a mix of boron, aluminum and magnesium (AlMgB14) with titanium boride (TiB2), was unveiled by researchers of Ames Laboratory, in Iowa (Usa ), who had accidentally discovered it a decade ago. In 1999, researchers tried to obtain a substance capable of generating electricity if overheated, when, unexpectedly, found in the hands a league owned by the exceptional and seemingly inexplicable. The Bam is tough, despite possessing a complex structure, asymmetrical and not compact. Moreover, says Alan Russel of Iowa University, it is inherently slippery. One characteristic that, according to researchers, could be due to the formation on the surface of boron oxide, which can attract water molecules present in the air.

A new advanced thermometer, based on noise Johnson, increased by five times the accuracy of current systems After seven years of work, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Nist), the U.S. organization for the development of technologies, have managed to build a new type of thermometer, Johnson Noise Thermometer (Jnt), defined by the same scientists a goal of thermometry, which advances to five times the current state of the art. The new device will in fact take measurements of extreme precision, never obtained so far, fundamental for basic research and for the definition of units of measurement. At the head of the project is Sam Benz, the Quantum Devices Group, which officially presented it on June 9th at a conference on measures of accuracy in Broomfield, Colorado. The new thermometer provides the temperature starting from noise Johnson (hence the name), generated by the random motion of electrons inside a resistance. This measure is directly proportional to the temperature, and the system makes it possible to reduce the error without any additional calibrations. "All measurements are electrical, and do not require volumes of gas or mechanical systems that sometimes, depending on environmental conditions, could give approximate results." says Benz, " beauty is that the measurement is also very simple to perform. "

The transfer of data will be hundred of times faster than that by radio waves. The promise is made by the first tests conducted by a German institute. Receiving images in Google Earth or photos of the Hubble telescope in real time may soon be reality. A German institute has experienced a communication system based on lasers which will transfer data at a rate one hundred times higher than that possible with radio waves. The technology was developed by researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology in Aachen on the company's Tesat GmbH & Co. under a project funded by the German Aerospace Center (Dlr).

Thanks to special steel plates, the University of Utah is implementing a computer that makes use of terahertz radiation instead of electricity It will be the first computer powered by infrared rays rather than electricity, a super-computer capable of operating at terahertz radiation (far-infrared), the only still unexplored frontier in the electromagnetic spectrum. It is being developed by a group of scientists at the University of Utah. It will probably require ten years of work to be completed. Currently, the group of scientists are making waveguides, the appropriate "channels" that will convey radiation and transmit it from one point to another. To mark a decisive step forward in research, the good results obtained by the use of special sheets of perforated stainless steel which are proving able to lead effectively terahertz radiation (the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is between microwaves and infrared, and whose wavelength is between 1 mm and 100 micrometers). As described in the study of Ajay Nahata (which will be published in Optics Express Friday April 18), these sheets will be "the matrix" on which to build the future of computer circuits. According to the surveys conducted so far, in fact, the number of perforations - arranged on a semi-regular on laminate - would maintain control over radiation, not disperse them over the surface of the material. There is still much to be found, for example, the way to drive rays, making them bend, split and reunited later.

A survey published on PloS Medicine considers the effects of "the happiness pill clinically nonexistent". And in Great Britain this survey resulted in an outbreak of controversy. Prozac, the antidepressant Seroxat and in general antidepressants do not produce clinically significant benefits. It had the effect of an earthquake relationship. Irving Kirsch, director of the psychology department of Hull University, which - published in the online journal PloS Medicine - assess the outcomes of total 47 studies (known and unpublished) of British and American experts on the real effects of "happiness pill", Prozac. Printed immediately on the front pages of major British newspapers, The Guardian and The Independent Times immediately attacked by the pharmaceutical companies concerned. The study argues that this type of medicines - given annually by more than 40 million people around the world -- found minimal improvements compared to the simple placebo, amounting to just two points on the Hamilton depression scale (comprising 51 points total). Findings for fluoxetine (Prozac), venlafaxine (Efexor), paroxetine (Seroxat) and similar molecules have been put on the market, but which do not reach the three points needed by the British National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) to recognize their significant clinical differences .

No more black and white images: a new electronic tool will observe the chemical species to the wavelengths of visible The color images provided by an ordinary microscope can not make a resolution at the level of individual atoms, while the electronic microscopes, capable of atomic resolution, providing black and white images. In these images different atoms appear as different shades of grey. Now, an electron microscope of a new generation, recently designed and installed at Cornell University and the subject of a study published in Science, will obtain color images at atomic resolution.

Infm-Cnr and Federico II University have developed a technique ultra-miniaturized to study the behavior of red blood cells. In the film "Fantastic Journey" of 1966, to study the physiology of the human body some scientists were miniaturized and were injected with their micro-bus, in the bloodstream. Today is, in a sense, the opposite: to understand the behavior of red blood cells reproduces the circulatory network on a device the size of a chip. The device has been developed by researchers of the center Coherentia at the National Institute for Physics of Matter (Infm-Cnr) and the Department of Chemical Engineering University Federico II of Naples. Their results were presented today at the conference "The research ideas to work" in the Corsican town.