Science

In the 1990s, a researcher named Kris Pister dreamed up a wild future in which people would sprinkle the Earth with countless tiny sensors, no larger than grains of rice.

These "smart dust" particles, as he called them, would monitor everything, acting like electronic nerve endings for the planet. Fitted with computing power, sensing equipment, wireless radios and long battery life, the smart dust would make observations and relay mountains of real-time data about people, cities and the natural environment.

LATE at night on a sultry evening, I watch intently as the predator senses its prey, gathers itself, and strikes. It could be a polecat, or even a mantis - but in fact it's a microbe. The microscopic world of the single, living cell mirrors our own in so many ways: cells are essentially autonomous, sentient and ingenious. In the lives of single cells we can perceive the roots of our own intelligence.

There is something strange in the cosmic neighbourhood. An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.

"We don't know what it is," says co-discoverer Tom Muxlow of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics near Macclesfield, UK.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are slated to get an interesting new roommate later this year.

A 300-pound humanoid robot, dubbed Robonaut 2 (R2), will be transported to the space station aboard the NASA space shuttle Discovery in September -- one of the final scheduled shuttle missions. Jointly developed by NASA and General Motors Corp., the robot will become a permanent resident on the orbiting station.

Robonaut 2, Courtesy General Motors and Wieck Media Services Inc.

A new technique allows medical records to be used for research on the genetics of disease while still protecting patients from prying eyes.

The Western Australian Government came under attack from hackers who defaced nine of its websites in two days, including the Government House and the City of Perth earlier this month.

The defacements were commonly SQL injection attacks, a kind of attack that is considered by many to be a low-level threat.

Yesterday I forgot four passwords, two book titles, and one pair of pants despite sticky notes reminding me of each. Since then, I've read HowStuffWorks' suggestions on improving memory. I forgot if they worked, but let's review 'em anyway.

Note that none of these methods are foolproof or ideal individually. What you really need to do is look at your lifestyle and figure out a combination that works best for you. That said, here are some suggestions...

Materials such as paper, paint, and biological tissue are opaque because the light that passes through them is scattered in complicated and seemingly random ways. A new experiment conducted by researchers at the City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI) has shown that it's possible to focus light through opaque materials and detect objects hidden behind them, provided you know enough about the material.

A moon probe has found millions of tons of water on the moon’s north pole, NASA reported Monday. The vast source of water could one day be used to generate oxygen or sustain a moon base.

A NASA radar aboard India’s Chandrayaan-I lunar orbiter found 40 craters, ranging in size from 1 to 9 miles across, with pockets of ice. Scientists estimate at least 600 million tons of ice could be entombed in these craters.

Instruments scanning outer space for cataclysmic explosions called gamma-ray bursts are detecting intense flashes of gamma-ray energy right here in the friendly skies of Earth. These terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, or TGFs, blast through thunderstorms close to the altitude where commercial airliners fly. In fact, they could be too close for comfort.