Snake Robot Roundup: Part Two
More snake robots - the Polybot-Based snakebot locomotion study and the OmniTread snakebot (most recent of its kind). (re: Various)

Hypersonic Sound (HSS) - Loudspeaker Just For You
Hypersonic Sound (HSS) technology does for sound what lasers did for light - provide a far more focused stream of energy over a greater distance with less dispersion. (re: E.E. 'Doc' Smith)

First Asteroid Belt Found Around Star Like Our Sun
An asteroid belt may have been found surrounding a star much like our own Sun, according to Dr. Charles Beichman of CIT. His team used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to make the discovery. (re: Niven/Pournelle)

Minority Report Glove Interface From Raytheon
Defence contractor Raytheon is working on a computer interface taken from the movie Minority Report, which starred Tom Cruise. (re: Stephen Spielberg)

Find Extraterrestrial Civilizations By Their Works
Should we be looking for extraterrestrial civilizations, rather than just listening for them, as we do in the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project? That is the suggestion of a French astronomer, Luc Arnold (re: Larry Niven)

'Pleistocene Park' For Woolly Mammoths?
Scientists with the Mammoth Creation Project hope to find a frozen woolly mammoth specimen with sperm DNA. The sperm DNA would then be injected into a female elephant; by repeating the procedure with offspring, a creature 88% mammoth could be produce (re: David Brin)

Reduce Global Warming By Blocking Sunlight
At a conference last year on global warming, distinguished astrophysicist and sf author Gregory Benford pointed out that the various measures proposed to stop global warming will not do the job soon enough. (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

Nanostructured Thermoelectric Devices (And John W. Campbell, Jr.)
Nanostructured thermoelectric devices may have a wide variety of practical applications, generating electricity from heat; sounds a lot like John W. Campbell's thermelectrium from a 1935 story. (re: John W. Campbell, Jr.)

Sony Patents Ultrasound Brain Beam Matrix
Now entertainment giant Sony has patented a method of beaming an artificial world of experience - The Matrix - directly into your brain using ultrasound. (re: Vernor Vinge)

Chemical Guidebook To Extraterrestrial Life Sought
Would you know extraterrestrial life if you found it? US scientists are working on a chemical guidebook to create a definitive method to determine whether extraterrestrial rocks have ever harbored life. (re: Michael Crichton)

Trauma Pod Battlefield Medical Treatment System
DARPA has awarded a $12 million contract to develop an automated medical treatment system that can recieve, assess and stabilize wounded soldiers immediately following injury. The trauma pod is used to treat soldiers on the battlefield using advanced (re: Frank Herbert)

Philip K. Dick's Bubblehead Brainiacs
Over-expressing the protein CPG-15 in rats gives them bigger brains; these enlarged brains have grooves and furrows like evolved mammalian brains with larger surface areas. (re: Philip K. Dick)

Lunar Dust Fountains Due To Electrostatic Charges
A great article on NASA's website points out how science fiction author Hal Clement predicted in a 1956 short story that electrostatically charged lunar dust particles might actually suspend themselves above the surface: (re: Hal Clement)

TETWalker: Shape-Shifting Robot Swarm
A tetrahedral walker, or TETWalker robot, was demonstrated recently at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. This bot is a prototype member of an autonomous nanotechnology swarm that can alter their shape to flow smoothly over rocky terrain, or combine (re: Neal Stephenson)

Dying Stars And Planets To Live On
Astronomers and astrophysicists have long thought that the best place for life as we know it is a planet in the "habitable zone" - the range of orbits that leads to planets with liquid water - surrounding a main sequence star like our sun. Science fi (re: Arthur C. Clarke)

RepRap: Self-Replicating Rapid Prototyping
A self-replicating, rapid prototyping machine developed at the University of Bath in England could transform the nature of manufacturing. People could produce everyday household objects in their own homes and put them together. (re: Philip K. Dick)