ANBARASUASOKAN

Here’s good news for all you philatelists out there – scientists have discovered an easier new way of detecting counterfeit rare stamps. Unlike some existing methods, it doesn’t require the destruction of any part of the stamp, and can be done quickly by anyone who has access to the necessary equipment. First of all, it’s probably news to some people that there even  are  such thing as counterfeit stamps. Considering that some of the world’s most valuable stamps are worth several million dollars, however, it becomes easy to see why some unscrupulous folks would look into cranking out their own convincing copies. Traditionally, the authenticity of rare stamps has been verified by destructively analyzing individual components of them (such as a sample of the ink), or through inspections performed by highly sought-after experts. A team from Italy’s Università del Salento instead tried using a technique known as  infrared spectroscopy . Putting it simply, IR spectroscopy involves

Magnesium alloys are very attractive for a range of weight-sensitive applications. They have the largest strength-to-weight ratio of the common structural metals, are lighter than aluminum and are particularly favored for being easy to machine and for their ability to be die cast to net shape. Unfortunately, magnesium alloys tend to corrode too easily. A team at Monash University in Australia has now discovered a novel and potentially game-changing approach to the problem: poisoning the chemical reactions leading to corrosion of magnesium alloys by adding a dash of arsenic to the recipe. Magnesium alloys are of great interest as lightweight replacements for aluminum, titanium, and steel components in a range of transportation and aerospace applications. However, such alloys corrode easily, and this often prevents their use as replacements for noncorroding metals, particularly in applications requiring high reliability over a range of environments. As a result, the use of magnesiu

Celebrated Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has selected and is using NeoSpeech's Text-to-Speech engine, VoiceText, as his new voice. VoiceText is integrated into Dr. Hawking's communicator, E Z Keys, enabling him to clearly communicate with the outside world. 'As a scientist and lecturer, it is imperative that Professor Hawking presents his findings in a clear and concise manner,' said Tom Pelly, Dr. Hawking's technical assistant. 'Professor Hawking was very impressed by  NeoSpeech 's speech synthesiser, as it was by far the most natural-sounding and realistic of all of the off-the-shelf software voices that he has heard. This technology can help ensure that his vocals match his research in terms of credibility and believability.' Dr. Hawking, a renowned scientist, professor and author, suffers from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative motor neuron illness. While the disease has not affected Dr. Hawking's intellectual capacity,

Anyone who plays video games will know that few things protect an area like a well-placed sentry gun. In the real world, though, even a person's bedroom or office could use a little protection sometimes, which is why one designer has built the Nerf Vulcan Sentry Gun. Using a custom program and some servos, the sentry can automatically locate targets and unleash a stream of foam darts at over seven times the usual speed, while keeping its owner out of the crosshairs. Britt Liv Ulrike Michelsen, a chemical and biological engineering student from Germany, designed and constructed the sentry using mostly basic electronics and some plywood. This isn't the first time she's modified a Nerf gun, but building this robotic turret is arguably her most ambitious project to date. Luckily, the Nerf Vulcan already operates using an electric motor, so controlling the actual firing mechanism through a computer was just a matter of connecting it directly to an Arduino Uno and a laptop.

Take a pleasure cruise up the Harlem River this month and you surely won't miss the 24-ft (7.3-m) diameter Harvest Dome 2.0 which floats on the waters near Spuyten Duyvil Creek at the north tip of Manhattan, New York. Built to draw eyes to the city's watercourses, the dome is built from 450 discarded and broken umbrellas support by a floating ring made from 128 2-liter drinks bottles. The project is a sequel to the first Harvest Dome, and like it was built for Inwood Hill Park. The first dome came to an inauspicious end in 2011 when, en route to its final location, the pontoon of canoes transporting the dome shipwrecked and drifted to Rikers Island where, co-creator Amanda Schachter of SLO Architecture tells Gizmag, it was destroyed by prison officers. Perhaps it was the opportunity to make amends that drew a team of architecture grads and locals to volunteer to build the thing. Schacter and her husband and partner, Alexander Levi, turned to Kickstarter to fund version 2,

When an oil spill occurs at sea, there are already a number of  possible options  for gathering the oil that floats in a layer on the water’s surface. Some of the oil also forms into tiny suspended droplets, however, which have proven much more difficult to gather. Now, Chinese scientists have developed what could be a solution – and it owes a debt to the humble cactus needle. Although it may seem that the only purpose of cactus needles is to protect the plants from peoples’ bare feet, they also help provide the cacti with water. They do so by collecting moisture from the desert air, which forms into droplets and is carried to the base of each needle via surface tension. There, it can be absorbed through pores in the plant’s surface. A team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences has recently taken that same principle, and applied it to a material that shows promise as a means of absorbing the oil spill droplets. At first glance, the material appears to simply have a rough sur

Close on the heels of the 21st century complaint of “Where’s my jetpack?” is “Where’s my holographic projector?”. Nothing spells “future” like having a conversation with someone whose life-size image is beamed into the room. Provision  of Chatsworth, California wants to bring that one step closer to reality, with its Holovision life-size holographic projector. The company is currently running a Kickstarter campaign aimed at raising US$950,000 to fund the development of new technology for the projector, with hopes of unveiling it next year. The Holovision projector uses what is called aerial or volumetric imaging, which is a way of producing 3D images without special glasses, lenses or slits. It uses a digital LCD screen and a concave mirror to produce the illusion of a 3D image floating outside the projector. In the smaller versions currently made by Provision, this is about 30 cm (12 in) from the display surface, but in the life-size Holovision, this will be further. According

       For the last three years, a small research team at McGill University has been working with a choreographer, a composer, dancers and musicians on a project named Instrumented Bodies. Three groups of sensor-packed, internally-lit digital music controllers that attach to a dancer's costume have been developed, each capable of wirelessly triggering synthesized music as the performer moves around the stage. Sounds are produced by tapping or stroking transparent Ribs or Visors, or by twisting, turning or moving Spines. Though work on the project continues, the instruments have already been used in a performance piece called  Les Gestes  which toured Canada and Europe during March and April. "The project began as a collaboration between members of our group in the Input Devices and Music Interaction Lab (specifically Joseph Malloch, Ian Hattwick, and Marlon Schumacher, supervised by Marcelo Wanderley), a composer (Sean Ferguson, also at McGill), and a choreographer (Isabelle