Got five, count’em, five hot science stories for you this week, so I am gonna just jump right in.
Magic Door Unlock
Would it not be cool if all the important doors of your life seemed to just magically recognize you and open when you turn the knob or pull the handle, but not when anyone else does it?
Woudn’t that make you feel all powerful and cool, like some kind of minor god? Doors just unlocking automatically for you when you reach for them?
Well AT&T Labs is trying to make this dream come true. The idea is that your mobile device produces a very special kind of modulated vibration (one we can’t feel) that travels through your body via bone conduction to your fingertips, and the lock on your door would recognize that vibration and open for you.
Obviously, this is more than an app. The lock would have to be an electronic one, with enough electromechanical heft to open and close on its own, plus the receiver for the vibrations.
Skill, the folks at AT&T say it is quite secure because not every skeleton changes the signal the same way, so even if someone stole your phone, they would still need your skeleton to open the door.
And you have to admit, having a door just open at your touch would be pretty freaking cool.
Always Clear Glass
Not to be outdone, those marvelous mavens at MIT have comes up with a kind of glass that never fogs, gets dirty, or flares up with glare.
The secret is a very specific kind of nanoscale etching on the glass that creates billions of tiny sharply angled cones on the surface of the glass.
This has the effect of making the glass extremely hydrophobic, meaning it repels water perfectly. It also makes it so that dirt and grime simply cannot stick to the surface of the glass, and so it simply slides right off the glass, keeping the glass crystal clear.
And what truly impresses me is that this also makes the glass completely diffraction free, meaning light passes straight through without spreading at all, regardless of the angle.
And that means glare free glass. Glass that is perfectly clear, glass that reflects absolutely no light whatsoever and is hence invisible.
Glass that might actually be a little dangerous to have around, to be honest. Anyone who has ever hurt themselves whanging into a too-clear patio door knows what I mean.
But thing of the fun you could have sticking things onto a pane of invisible glass and moving it around making silly “oooOOOOooo!” noises.
Here Comes Super Cruise
No, that is not that thing that Tom Cruise is sure nobody knows but is obvious to everyone else.
You know… his superhero identity.
No, it is a new car feature called Super Cruise Mode, and it might just be the stepping stone between us and a self-driving car future.
If conditions are right (bright and visible lane markers and good GPS data available), Super Cruise would leverage lane detection technology along with auto-braking and traditional cruise control to create a system where the car pretty much drives itself when on the highway.
Imagine how much easier your morning commute would be with all the highway driving taken care of for you. I imagine people would not be willing to just take a nap or read a book while Super Cruise does the work (nor should they), but still, it would take a lot of the mindless, automatic portion of highway driving out of the equation, and isn’t that what technology is supposed to do?
Do the mindless labour for us?
The Almighty G
Moving from the highway to Lover’s Lane, there is a real possibility that one of the biggest shibboleths of modern sexology has finally been brought to light : a surgeon claims to have found the G spot.
To refresh your memories, the G spot, known formally as the Grafenberg spot, is purported to be either an organ or a place where nerve centers cluster inside the front wall of the vagina that when stimulated, causes women intense sexual pleasure, including the fabled vaginal orgasm and even female ejaculation.
Now Grafenberg discovered this spot in 1940, and you would think that in the ensuring 72 year, we could have figured out whether the darn thing really exists or not, and if so, what the heck it is.
But no. And this discovery, made by a gynecologist while dissecting the cadaver of an 81 year old woman, has done nothing to resolve the question. Instead, it just kicked up the dust about this whole surprisingly complicated issue all over again.
A lot of women have found their spots, and are deliriously happy about it. They are quite sure it exists and love theirs move than they love chocolate.
A lot of women have not found it, and not for lack of trying either, and are understandably pretty pissed off about it. They think it is a myth and that those other women are fooling themselves.
These factors alone are enough to ensure that this issue will never be entirely put to rest.
Could it truly be that some women have one, and some do not?
Doesn’t see fair, does it?
Of course, men have one. It’s called the prostate. But most straight guys do not want to go there.
How sad for them.
This Video Is Real
Finally, a video clip.
No remember, what you are about to see is a real object moving in real space. It is not a computer graphic superimposed on real video. It is an honest to goodness real thing that exists in the real world. You could reach out and touch it. It is a real thing.
It is made of plastic filled with helium, and topologically speaking, it moves forward by turning itself inside out and back again.
Oh, and in theory, if nothing interferes with it, it will keep going forever.
I want one. Wouldn’t it be freaky to see one of those just casually float by your window at work?