September 2008

Most of us were taught to share at a very early age. What happened? A big chunk of the world’s population still starves every day, even though we know that when we do share, we all benefit. Especially when it comes to scientific learning.

Sharing among professionals is called collaboration. And as the world gets more complex and our challenges more daunting, services like our own IdeaConnection arise to enable and encourage collaboration among scientific minds around the world.

Likewise, the more we discover and invent, the more critical it becomes that we not only help each other solve problems but that we share what we learn. Recent advances in the highly complex field of genetics illustrate the need for an open-door policy of collaboration. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes someone comes up with something that makes everyone else think “Why didn’t I think of that ?”

Have you ever outpaced cars and been honked at? Had a car almost wipe you out while making a turn? Do you ever ride your bike so fast that you wish that everyone else could know how close to the speed of light you were? Or sometimes are you riding your bike, cars honking impatiently behind you, wishing that they knew you were actually going more than 10 mph? Or maybe you just want to show off to your buddies that you left in your dust!

Enter… the speed vest! Read the rest of this entry »

Man borrows a lot from nature in his application of technology, like when the bat provided inspiration for sonar – a system using transmitted and reflected underwater sound waves to detect and locate submerged objects or measure the distance to the floor of a body of water.

Bionic engineers are specialists in translating nature’s solutions into human technology and attempt to answer questions such as why nocturnal animals like bats which are known to be blind can adapt to use echolocation by which they navigate and hunt prey.

Daimler AG, the automotive manufacturer that claims to act responsibly towards society and the environment and to shape the future of safe and sustainable mobility with groundbreaking technologies, too use bionics to design their top-end cars.

Read the rest of this entry »