Augmented reality (AR) is basically a live, direct or indirect view of a real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated stimuli ranging from sound to graphics. It may sound new, but it is the same type of technology used to draw lines on satellite pictures of streets in Google Earth. It seems that Google did not stop there. Google announced the development of a head-worn AR display in late 2012, and by February 2013, the device was introduced to the public. In February, Google launched the Glass Explorer program, and a selected few were given the opportunity to try out the futuristic lenses. The Explorer edition receives data through Wi-Fi, or can be tethered to a smartphone with network capability such as an iPhone or Android. Users can issue voice commands by first saying, “OK, Glass,” and then the command, or they can scroll through the options using a finger along the side of the device. The Explorer edition also has an interchangeable sunglasses accessory which twists on or... ...

It’s a balmy evening in Davis, a perfect time and temperature for a breezy cruise on your bike through town. You saddle up the good ol’ cruiser, head out and have a splendid evening — but all of that is about to change. At the beginning of your intended return back to your apartment, you notice that you’ve conveniently removed and forgotten your bike light. Upon your ride up Third Street, you end up flipping over your handlebars because someone decided it was a good idea to put their unwanted twigs, lawn-clippings and leaf debris in a neat pile by the curb. Truth be told, you probably wouldn’t have seen the road obstruction even if you had your bike light, which provides a dim, pathetic excuse for an illuminated path. Fortunately, however, design students at Sichuan University in China are on their way to releasing a new device that will improve the reliability of bike lights. The Lumigrid bike light design is an ingenious one to say the least. Instead... ...

Let’s pretend for a moment that hammers hadn’t been invented throughout the entirety of human history. We still had nails and rail spikes (which are just another form of nail designed with a specific purpose), anyway. Now suppose a team of researchers in both private industry and academia started learning more about the exciting field of driving objects into other objects to hold things together. The common man has long suffered the tyranny of the screw, forever forced to worry about ruining the threading or over-torquing one made of a particularly weak metal and ruining the head. Another alternative had been proposed in bolts, but the conspicuous heads protruding from surfaces made for a less-than-ideal solution to the problem of holding things together. Fortunately, a team of bright minds got together and decided to apply science and technology to the field of holding things together. After years of planning and meticulous study of the process by which an object can be driven into another, they came up with a solution:... ...

Imagine visiting the ASUCD Coffee House, loading up on delicious entrees such as a garden salad from Croutons, or a seam-bursting burrito from TexMex, pulling up to the checkout counter, and instead of desperately searching for plastic cards in your backpack, wallet or purse (ladies, can I get an amen), you simply swipe your finger to pull up your information and pay for your food. Thanks to engineers at the School of Mines and Technology (SMT) working in a new field called biocryptology, this reality might not be too farfetched. Biocryptology, currently used in products such as fingerprint door locks and retinal-scan identifications, is a real-life manifestation of science-fiction technologies of a bygone era. Biocryptology is a blossoming field of technology comprised of the functional combination of biometrics (the use of anatomical identification) and cryptology (the study of encoding private information). South Dakota’s student engineers are on the way to improving how college students experience and interact with financial transactions by way of the current plastic technology. This technology is... ...

We’ve all seen them: aphids, dandelions, cockroaches, rats, bread molds, racoons, pigeons and many others. We’ve seen these unique and resilient organisms deemed pests by so many. These creatures are often considered objects to be exterminated or controlled, and for good reason. They harbor disease, they eat what isn’t theirs (according to us, at least) and they can ruin a perfectly ordered garden. I’ll submit that before we go and try rounding up all of these living things and giving them the same treatment as the western black rhinoceros or the American bison, we take a step back and consider a few things. Thinking like an ecologist (or a child), it becomes abundantly clear that all of these organisms eat and are eaten by others. The removal of any significant proportion of any of their populations would have a tremendous impact on the surrounding trophic levels, otherwise known as participants in food webs, otherwise known as things that eat other things. For instance, many people are fearful of spiders, but... ...

Green Fuel: Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Lab have recently developed a process that some might call the environmental savior. This new process removes CO2 from the atmosphere and at the same time creates high-alkalinity, carbon-negative hydrogen, which can be used for both fuel and to offset the acidification of the ocean. The hydrogen can be used as fuel in any hydrogen-fuel capable vehicle and would work to de-acidify the ocean in the same way alka-seltzer works to neutralize the acid in your stomach. Adaptable Brain: You may have heard the term “neuroplasticity” before. It refers to the brain’s ability to continuously adapt to new situations and environments. Doctors from the University of New South Wales Black Dog Institute have discovered that the brains of people with depression are far less “plastic,” and are far less able to adapt to new situations. This means that “depressed” brains are less able to learn and retain new information, and are less able to create new connections between different areas of the brain.... ...

If you have ever taken leftover antibiotics for a common cold, you may have been contributing to a growing problem. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics seems to be a more frequent issue, and one that worries many professionals in the health field. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) outbreaks are extremely difficult to combat when they occur, but in the near future, they may become easier to control. Engineers at University of California, San Diego have created a nanosponge that can safely remove a wide variety of toxins and pathogens from the bloodstream. A study using a lethal dose of a toxin from MRSA was administered to two groups of mice. One group was given an inoculation with nanosponges two minutes prior to the toxin and 89 percent of the mice survived. The other group was given the nanosponge inoculation after the toxin, and only 44 percent survived. In order for the nanosponge to work, researchers took a commonly used medical nanoparticle and coated it with natural red blood cell material. These new... ...

In the face of economic duress, a rather infamous topic of discussion for past years has been, and continues to be, the status of extracurricular programs for pre-collegiate students. Artistic education comprises a plurality of such public programs that have been at the forefront of such controversy. It is in times such as these, when an absolutely essential branch of education finds itself on the precipice of extinction, that those who face the reality of these struggles will inevitably look for reasons to continue fighting. And so, nestled comfortably between the Interstate 80 and the Robert Mondavi facilities on the face of the UC Davis campus, lies the freshly trodden ground of what will become the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art — a beacon of hope and inspiration for artistic communities and architectural enthusiasts nationwide. The design for this 50,000-square-foot building, which will champion existing UC Davis L.E.E.D. sustainability efforts, is an aesthetic intermarriage of scientific and architectural ingenuity and artistic prowess. L.E.E.D. (Leadership in Energy... ...

Editor’s note: This article is part two in a series on graphene. Part 1 was published April 18, 2013. When we last spoke about emergent technologies and their human side effects, we explored how nuances in advancement could affect the individual. Applied electric fields could theoretically manipulate systems of the very small: cells. However, increased understanding of things on the molecular level can have potential side effects for humanity on a much grander scale. Historically, there have been many human costs to emergent technologies. The widespread use of hydrocarbon combustion during the Industrial Revolution greatly increased the demand for coal. As a result, many found work in mines, and countless individuals suffered varying forms of cancer and lung damage from the inhaled substances. The synthesis of sulfurous dichlorides has led to the immeasurable poem-inspiring agony of soldiers during World War I. On the other side of the coin, we owe almost the entirety of modern medicine to the advances made during the Industrial Revolution and throughout mankind’s wars. While some... ...

Do you find yourself perpetually losing your keys and getting locked out of your house or apartment? It’s even more troublesome when your roommates are gone for the weekend and there is no one to let you in. You could spend the night making calls, or you could invest in a more convenient way to lock your door. Instead of keys, use your fingers. Biometric locks have been around for years, but are only just starting to enter the consumer market. Some people buy them for the added security, as it is nearly impossible to fool a fingerprint lock. Others just buy them for their helpfulness, choosing convenience over convention after misplacing their key ring too many times. Biometric locks work by reading your unique fingerprint on the lock’s touchpad. It takes a couple seconds to scan and confirm, and then the lock opens and you are in; it is that simple. Simply place your finger back on the scanner to re-lock the door. Most biometric locks even allow you... ...

Cancer: How do we stop ovarian cancer? We bling the ovaries, obviously. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic have recently discovered that gold (nano) particles can prove quite effective in killing cancerous ovarian cells. By limiting the uptake of calcium into the ovarian cells’ mitochondria, the gold particles become far more toxic than normal, killing the normally resistant cancer cells. Do not take this as an excuse to go stock up on Goldschlager. Climate and Culture: According to researchers at Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, the University of Barcelona and the London Natural History Museum, early human cultural innovation increased exponentially during the Middle Stone Age about 80,000 years ago — a period of massive climate change. By measuring the dates of these climatic events and correlating them with archaeological finds, the researchers found that there were major societal changes around the same time that rainfall dramatically increased and when rainfall dramatically decreased. This indicates that it is not just humans that affect the environment, but it is... ...

From what is virtually birth to death, American women have been, and continue to be, bombarded with imagery introduced by multi-billion dollar cosmetic companies. Case in point, flip through any feminine reading material at the grocery check out , and it’s no difficult task to discern that about 75 percent of magazine content is advertising for beauty products. Just as men are made to believe that they need to be the walking embodiment of testosterone, many women are made to feel as if they are somehow lacking without a face improved by the likes of mascara, concealer, blush, and bronzers. But in the keen words of attractive people everywhere, beauty ain’t cheap. There’s so much emphasis placed on this social expectation, in fact, that in some cases women, and inevitably some men, may actually be subjecting themselves to unprecedented and dangerous levels of various makeup products. Unknown to many, overexposure to store-bought lip products may present toxic levels of metallic compounds that reside within the cosmetics. In response to this... ...

From exercise fanatics to active everyday businessmen, everyone enjoys a good step counter. Thanks to modern technology, people can track their progress with programs like FitBit or the Nike+ FuelBand. The drawback to these wonderful exercise tracking programs is their prices. FitBit costs between $49.99 and $99.99, and the Nike+ FuelBand costs around $150. If you’re looking to save some money and still get a quality activity tracker, have no fear: there is an app for that. The app is called Moves, and it tracks your daily activity. It automatically registers the type of activity you are doing, whether it be walking, running or even biking. You don’t even need to tell it which activity you are doing as it will recognize it automatically based on your movement. There is also no extra equipment to buy; the app uses GPS tracking and data from your phone’s accelerometer to calculate your distance. It tracks how much you walk, run and cycle throughout the day in the format of a timeline. Above... ...

On May 12, 2013, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, captivated the internet world with a musical tribute to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” played in commemoration of completing Expedition 35 on the International Space Station (ISS), a journey lasting 144 days and spanning 62 million miles. Throughout the duration of the mission, Hadfield has balanced a rigorous program of scientific inquiry with an active level of involvement in new media and the internet. Hadfield’s social media presence is both entertaining and educational, with blog posts, tweets and videos chronicling the difficulties of living in space, stunning photography of the planet and even original music describing the feelings of a life at 7,706.6 meters per second. With over 900,000 Twitter followers and one of the most successful Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) threads ever to appear on Reddit, Hadfield has been called one of the most social media-savvy astronauts on off the planet. Hadfield’s videos, like those from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, do a great educational service by explaining principles such as chemical cohesion... ...

Forensics: A recent study on the brains of patients diagnosed with depression has accidentally uncovered a method of accurately determining someone’s time of death. The study from the University of Michigan found that throughout a 24-hour day, different sets of about 12,000 genes become active and inactive depending on what time of day it is, and where you are in your circadian rhythm. Based on which genes are active or inactive, scientists can determine how long an individual was awake for and determine their time of death. Physics and Cancer: Researchers from CERN have been looking at possible cancer treatments based off an element called astatine (85 on the periodic table) … You’ve probably never heard of it. Astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element on Earth, and it is estimated that there are only three to four grams present in the entire Earth’s crust. For any speakers of ancient Greek out there, astatine is the word for unstable, which is appropriate since its half-life can range from eight hours... ...