Neil deGrasse Tyson’s worst science movie of all time? Titanic.

American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is not only a brilliant orator, he’s among the funniest scientific personalities I’ve heard. In the following video, he gives his reasons why Titanic is one of the worst science movie of all time. The video will automatically start at 26m12s and the part you need to watch lasts for […]

XBox 360 graphics chip helps cardiac researchers

The Xbox 360 is many things: games console, media streamer, DVD player (and, in some cases, an expensive paperweight with a shiny red ring.) But now it’s got a new role: predicting heart problems. Researchers in Britain are using the console’s graphics chip (pictured, courtesy of Flickr user avalonstar) to power parallel processing: splitting a […]


Do Social Networks Make Us Dumber?

By Casey Lynn Contributing Writer, [GAS] According to an Australian psychologist, Facebook makes you smarter, but Twitter makes you dumber. Why? Well, it has to do with exercising your working memory. Staying on top of Facebook is like solving puzzles, since it hones our ability to remember and use information. But more “micro-level” activities like […]

Rat-Brain Controlled Robot

I, for one, welcome our future rat-brain controlled robot overlord. This is no ordinary robot control system – a plain old microchip connected to a circuit board. Instead, the controller nestles inside a small pot containing a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics. Inside that pot, some 300,000 rat neurons have made – and continue […]

Let there be light: students turn “grade 12 physics” into giant multi-touch screen

While many students would surely like to own a 48-inch multi-touch screen, most don’t have the cash to buy a Microsoft Surface device. But a group of engineering students at the University of Waterloo in Ontario didn’t see that as a problem: they just built their own. Their device does not strictly work on touch, […]