As we gear up for an era where space travel becomes more common thanks to the efforts of companies like Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, territory that was unchartered just a few decades ago could soon become commonplace. Even those of us with no interest in traveling to space have come to rely on The Final Frontier more so than ever before, thanks to an increasing number of services that rely on satellites orbiting the Earth. Cell phones and in-dash navigation systems rely on GPS satellites, Dish and DirecTV obviously use satellite feeds, and satellite communications systems offered by the likes of Inmarsat and Iridium continue to proliferate across various industries. Just how crowded is it getting up there above the Earth’s atmosphere?
The answer: Pretty crowded. More →
Believe it or not, one tiny fruit could change consumer technology forever — and no, fanboys, we’re not talking about Apple. It turns out that the pomegranate, which is quite trendy right now for everything from flavoring drinks to scenting shampoos and candles, is also the inspiration for new lithium-ion battery technology that may feature dramatically improved battery performance and longevity. More →
As amazing as the technology we typically cover here on BGR is, sometimes nature shows us things that are more incredible than anything man could ever imagine creating. Turkmenistan’s “Gates of Hell,” Madagascar’s “Stone Forest,” the Zhangye Danxia “rainbow mountains” in China… these are all remarkable natural occurrences that most of us rarely pause to appreciate. Do you know what a moonbow is? Have you ever seen a red tide? Did you know that thousands of frogs actually rained down from the skies over Serbia back in 2005? More →
Does Dexter Morgan spend his time submitting flamebait posts on 4Chan when he’s not murdering people? That’s the implication of a new study flagged by The Washington Post showing that people who frequently go online with sole purpose of antagonizing others just for the sake of starting conflicts are much more likely to exhibit sadistic and even psychopathic behavior in their offline lives. More →
In addition to strange-looking cars that drive around towns with huge cameras on top, Google relies on other imagery for its Google Maps and Google Earth products, with the former a prominent service accessed on millions of computers and smartphones. In fact, Apple and Microsoft also use the same company to get their imagery from space for their respective mapping products. Ball Aerospace is the maker of Maps- and Earth-related imagery satellites and it’s now started working on the Worldview-3 satellite for commercial satellite operator DigitalGlobe, BBC News reports. More →
Like it or not, Google is building a robot army. After acquiring eight different robotics firms over the past year, the company is putting a lot of resources into both robotics and artificial intelligence, although we don’t yet know what its endgame for robots is or even if there’s any endgame at all. The Wall Street Journal reports that longtime Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn is very interested in using Google’s robots to automate its assembly lines and has been “quietly working with Google” on its super-secret robotics project. More →
The FDA has approved a “bite-sized” camera-equipped smart pill for medical use in patients who aren’t able, for whatever reason, to have a complete colonoscopy, Mashable reports. The smart pill has a camera on both ends and will travel the human body in eight hours, taking high-speed pictures of intestines and sending them to a device worn by the patient. The doctor can then take a look at the pictures once the procedure is complete.
Do you find that reading on your smartphone late at night ruins your ability to sleep? Well you’re not alone. The Wall Street Journal reports that researchers from University of Florida, Michigan State University and University of Washington have found that reading on your smartphone and checking work email on your phone late at night will make you much more restless and will even make you less productive at work the next day. The researchers say that smartphone fatigue can be so bad that it might offset all the productivity benefits that smartphones have to our work lives. More →
OK, so it’s definitely an exaggeration to say that smoking a bowl is good for your heart but it turns out that pot’s major psychoactive component does have some benefits to keeping your heart safe during a major coronary blockage. According to a study published in Biochemical Pharmacology, administering a tiny dose of tetrahydrocannabinol (a.k.a., THC) can help reduce damage done to your heart if you’re suffering from myocardial ischemia, which is what happens when your heart’s arteries are partially or completely blocked. More →
We all know coffee is good for us and that it’s just a matter of time before scientific studies everywhere confirm this. Now, it looks like we’re one step closer to this glorious day because researchers have found coffee apparently improves one’s long-term memory. According to a study from the journal Nature Neuroscience, study participants who received caffeine were better at remembering images shown to them a day before. More →
While violent video games are often unfairly used as scapegoats for mass shootings, scientists have found that playing violent video games for several hours a day every day actually can do bad things to your sense of morality. BBC News reports that researchers at Brock University in Canada have found that “over-exposure” to violent games can weaken teenagers’ sense of right and wrong and can lower their ability to develop empathy for others. Lacking a sense of right and wrong and lacking empathy are, of course, two primary traits of sociopaths. More →
Imagine having millions of nanobots in your brain that constantly remind you to log into Google+. That seems to be the vision of Google engineering director Ray Kurzweil, who tells The Wall Street Journal that by the 2030s we’ll have “millions, billions of blood cell-sized computers in our bloodstream… keeping us healthy, augmenting our immune system, also going into the brain and putting our neocortex onto the cloud.” More →
