wired.com: By Alexis Madrigal

Physics may be the furthest thing from the minds of the presidential candidates right now, but a solid grasp of the science behind some of the latest headlines will be critical for the winner.

Physics has a history of intersecting with politics in ways both large and small, from the creation of the atomic bomb to nuclear meltdowns to terrorist methods. And now, with more specialized, high-tech issues to tackle than ever before, it is increasingly important that world leaders have an understanding of the underlying scientific concepts. [ read more ]

washingtonpost.com: By David A. Fahrenthold

Carbon-Offset Sales Brisk Despite Financial Crisis

This is strange territory. The Dow is down. Wall Street needs a bailout. But in the Washington area and across the country, there is still a bull market in environmental guilt. Sales of carbon offsets — whose buyers pay hard cash to make amends for their sins against the climate — are up. Still. In some cases, the prices have actually been climbing. [ read more ]

technologyreview.com: By Kevin Bullis

A novel photovoltaic technology moves into large-scale production.

In a significant milestone in the deployment of flexible, printed photovoltaics, Konarka, a solar-cell startup based in Lowell, MA, has opened a commercial-scale factory, with the capacity to produce enough organic solar cells every year to generate one gigawatt of electricity, the equivalent of a large nuclear reactor. [ read more ]

technologyreview.com: By Kristina Grifantini

A clever flute-playing robot can teach beginners and play in a band.

One of the more whimsical robots presented at BioRob 2008 in Arizona last week, was the latest version of the Waseda Flutist Robot, a robot musician first created in the 1990s. Jorge Solis, a researcher at Waseda University, in Japan, has been working on the robot since 2003, and he and other researchers recently made some important improvements, including adding more than 40 degrees of freedom to its body to make its flute playing more lifelike, and giving it the ability to recognize and interact with other human players. It’s given several performances already. [ read more ]

bloomberg.com: By Adam Satariano

asmanian salmon farmers are trying to breed a new species that can flourish in warmer ponds. Along the coast in Britain the National Trust, a charity, is moving electricity sockets halfway up the wall in several buildings to safeguard against flooding from the sea.

Preparing for global warming also demands government action because temperature increase is unavoidable and will affect everyone, European scientists said in a study published today by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. [ read more ]

cnn.com: By Mike Steere

Space travel, security threats and increasing passenger numbers are forcing major changes in the way airports are designed.
Elegant space: the interior of the proposed Virgin Galactic spaceport in New Mexico

In fact, when discussing the future of the airport it is now appropriate to consider both conventional air travel hubs we are familiar with, as well as the imminent ’spaceports’. [ read more ]

cnn.com: By Mike Steere

Picture this: you’re sat down for the Football World Cup final, or a long-awaited sequel to the “Sex and the City” movie and you’re watching all the action unfold in 3-D on your coffee table.

It sounds a lot like a wacky dream, but don’t be surprised if within our lifetime you find yourself discarding your plasma and LCD sets in exchange for a holographic 3-D television that can put Cristiano Ronaldo in your living room or bring you face-to-face with life-sized versions of your gaming heroes.

The reason for renewed optimism in three-dimensional technology is a breakthrough in rewritable and erasable holographic systems made earlier this year by researchers at the University of Arizona. [ read more ]

technologyreview.com: By Kate Greene

Materials made from nanotubes could lead to conformable computers that stretch around any shape.

By adding carbon nanotubes to a stretchy polymer, researchers at the University of Tokyo made a conductive material that they used to connect organic transistors in a stretchable electronic circuit. The new material could be used to make displays, actuators, and simple computers that wrap around furniture, says Takao Someya, a professor of engineering at the University of Tokyo. The material could also lead to electronic skin for robots, he says, which could use pressure sensors to detect touch while accommodating the strain at the robots’ joints. Importantly, the process that the researchers developed for making long carbon nanotubes could work on the industrial scale. [ read more ]

nytimes.com: By JOHN MARKOFF

Invented by American computer scientists during the 1970s, the Internet has been embraced around the globe. During the network’s first three decades, most Internet traffic flowed through the United States. In many cases, data sent between two locations within a given country also passed through the United States.

Engineers who help run the Internet said that it would have been impossible for the United States to maintain its hegemony over the long run because of the very nature of the Internet; it has no central point of control. [ read more ]

mit.edu: by Anne Trafton

Research shows how insects use trapped oxygen to breathe underwater

Hundreds of insect species spend much of their time underwater, where food may be more plentiful. MIT mathematicians have now figured out exactly how those insects breathe underwater.

By virtue of their rough, water-repellent coat, when submerged these insects trap a thin layer of air on their bodies. These bubbles not only serve as a finite oxygen store, but also allow the insects to absorb oxygen from the surrounding water.

[ read more ]