a new computer interface called the sixth sense, and a retinal implant for the blind.

Photo credit: Lynn Barry for SixthSense

The SixthSense is a wearable gestural interface that lets natural hand gestures interact with digital information. In other words, it's the computer interface that you have watching in every science fiction film made in the last ten years. Imagine a watch appearing on your wrist when you tap on it, or a phone call being placed after tapping out a phone number on the palm of your hand. Still a prototype, the SixthSense's hardware components are coupled in a wearable device with a projector and a camera connected to the computer. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and objects to be used as computer interfaces; while the camera tracks the user's hand gestures using computer-vision based techniques.

Top inventions of the decade

Latest Invention: Spray-on Liquid Glass that Can Cover Any Surface

If you like this invention you can vote for it here.Invented in Turkey and patented by Nanopool, a German company, thespray-on liquid glass might become one of the most useful inventions in the field of nanotechnology. The product was tested at the Saarbrücken Institute for New Materials. Currently the representatives of the German company are in UK negotiating with several firms and the National Health Service on the widespread use of the liquid glass.
It is worth mentioning that the invention is transparent and non-toxic. The liquid glass can protect any type of surfacefrom damages caused by water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. Besides, it is flexible and breathable, which means that the liquid glass can be applied on plants and seeds as well. The invention was tested in vineyards where researchers found that the spray considerably increases the resistance of plants to fungal diseases. The trials also showed that the sprayed seeds grew faster.
The main ingredient used in the liquid glass is silicon dioxide that is obtained from quartz sand. Depending on the type of surface that is to be covered, researchers can add water or ethanol to the spray. Scientists say that their latest invention boasts a long-lasting anti-bacterial effect. The spray produces a coating that is just 100nm thick. This coating can be easily cleaned using water or a damp cloth.
According to Neil McClelland, UK project manager with Nanopool, due to its capabilities, the spray-on liquid glass can become of the most useful inventions around the world, ending up being used by a lot of industries that will cover their products. Currently the invention is being used by a train company and a hotel chain in the UK, as well as a hamburger chain in Germany that are carrying out tests of the liquid glass for various uses.
The spray-on liquid glass was also tested in a Lancashire hospital, where it showed "very promising" results, being used to cover equipment, medical implants, catheters, sutures and bandages. The invention could be also used on clothing, because it cannot be seen by the naked eye, thus clothes could become stain resistant. Due to its unique properties, the liquid glass can be used to cover bathrooms, tiles, sinks and many other surfaces in the home. According to the researchers, the spay-on glass can last for a year. It is expected to hit the DIY stores across Britain at a price of GBP5 ($8).

Latest Invention: Technology That Allows Users to See Through Walls and Melt Objects

If you like this invention you can vote for it.Researchers from the University of South Australia in collaboration with Nokia started working on one of their latest inventions that would make it possible for users of cell phones to see through walls.
Their latest invention makes use of augmented reality(AR), being able to overlay graphics on top of real the video. The AR system comes in three types: X-ray Vision, Meltvision and Distortvision.
According to Dr Christian Sandor, Director of the Magic Vision Lab at UniSA, users prefer Meltvision over X-ray vision, due to a more appealing look, where structures appear to melt away. As for Distortvision, it changes the mobile video picture so that the objects that cannot be seen "bent" so the person could see them in the image.
It would be interesting to note that the researchers have also been working on an invention that would make it possible for users to see and sense virtual objects. The new technology is called Visuo-Haptic Augmented Reality and it allows an individual to manipulate a 3D object by making use of a head mounted screen and touch-based gadgets.
Dr Christian Sandor explains: "The current method for prototyping involves the development of a 3D design using a computer, which can be viewed on screen or printed out in what is a relatively static presentation."

• 
  

Rain making machine

An Argentinean man is said to have built a reliable weather modification machine in the 1930s. (Photos.com )

“Let it rain, let it rain
Baigorri is in the cave
Plug in the device, and watch it rain…”

An accordion accompanies these verses, dedicated to a man capable of reaching the sky. He is said to have made it rain in the middle of a drought.
 
To combat the excesses of nature, some scientists have yearned to control the weather. But while controversial silver iodide cloud-seeding represents some of the more recent attempts at weather modification, one man is said to have invented an effective rainmaking machine in the 1930s. So did this mythical rainmaking machine really work as so many reports claimed? Unfortunately, we will probably never know.

The inventor of this mysterious device, Argentinean born Juan Baigorri Velar, was a student of engineering. Later, he traveled to Italy to study Geophysics at the University of Milan. This training led him to accidentally construct what history would know as the “rainmaking machine.”

Initially, Velar set out to make a device that could measure potential electricity and electromagnetic conditions of the Earth. But, in 1938, when working in the attic of his Buenos Aires home, he discovered that the device induced a little rain that dispersed amid his surroundings. Baigorri Velar realized that his little machine could be the start of something big.

When the gifted scientist made it rain in some of the country’s more remote and driest regions, his mysterious machine quickly became the talk of Argentina. According to some accounts, Velar's most memorable feat was his ability to bring rain over provinces that had seen droughts for many months or even years.

In Santiago, Velar’s machine was said to have ended a drought that had lasted for one year and four months. Dr. Pio Montenegro noted that before Velar, the area hadn’t seen rain for three years. Yet in just two hours under the influence of Velar’s visit, the area saw 2.36 inches of rain.

In Carhue, Velar was said to have made it rain enough to bring back an old lagoon. In 1951, in a rural area of San Juan where rain hadn’t fallen in eight years, Velar’s visit was said to have immediately produced 1.2 inches.

Velar kept the internal workings of the machine a secret, but it’s known that it had an “A” circuit for slight drizzles and a “B” circuit for heavy rains.
 
Because the machine has disappeared, much of the “evidence” of Baigorri Velar’s revolutionary invention is in the form of national and foreign interviews.

Velar was granted the nickname “Wizard of Villa Luro,” which naturally encouraged a flood of skeptics and nonbelievers, including the director of the National Meteorological Service, Alfred G. Galmarini. However, Galmarini’s insistence on discrediting Velar would make him the victim of his own demise when he challenged the “Lord of the Rain” to induce a storm on June 2 in 1939.

Velar accepted the challenge. He was so confident in his machine that he sent Galmarini a raincoat with a note that read: “To be used on June 2nd.” True to his word, on that day, Velar’s miracle began to materialize. Clouds quickly began to form and turn dark. Then a deluge of divine proportions continued well into the next day.

With these miraculous performances, one would think that Baigorri Velar and his machine were destined to earn a place in history, but who is familiar with the name today? Velar is said to have received a couple of foreign offers to buy his machine, but he refused, insisting that it was built to benefit Argentina.

In 1972, Baigorri Velar (81) died poor and few knew of his great accomplishments. Nobody is sure what became of his enigmatic machine, but it is said that on the day he was buried, there was was huge downpour.

The fame of Baigorri Velar has always been seen as questionable. Many continued to refute his machine, arguing that the weather it was said to create was merely a convenient coincidence.

The future of cars

Google has been testing self-driving cars on roads in California, according to a report, and so far they've avoided everything but a minor fender bender--caused by a human-driven car.

The New York Times reports that seven test cars have traveled 1,000 miles without need for human intervention (a driver has been stationed behind the wheel just in case, accompanied by a technician to monitor the navigation system), and that they've covered more than 140,000 miles with the human chaperone stepping in only occasionally. One of the cars was even able to safely make its way down Lombard Street in San Francisco, the fabled "crookedest street in the world," the Times says.

'Stanley,' devised by Sebastian Thrun and his team from Stanford, won the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005.

(Credit: Stefanie Olsen/CNET)

Google's robot car is equipped with artificial-intelligence software; a rotating sensor on its roof, which can scan more than 200 feet in all directions to create a 3D map of the car's environs; a video camera mounted behind the windshield, which helps the navigation system spot pedestrians, bicyclists, and traffic lights; three radar devices on the front bumper, and one in the back; and a sensor on one of the wheels that allows the system to determine the car's position on the 3D map, the Times says. The car also features a GPS device and a motion sensor. The car follows a route programmed into the GPS system, and it can be instructed to drive cautiously, or more aggressively.

Engineers say robot cars aren't susceptible to drowsiness or driving under the influence, and that eventually they might allow for more cars on the road, because they can drive closer to other vehicles, and less fuel consumption, because their safety would allow them to be made lighter, with less defensive armor, the Times says.

The man behind the project, Sebastian Thrun, a Google engineer and co-inventor of Google's Street View mapping project, was also behind the autonomous auto that won the $2 million prize in the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, a contest to see if a driverless vehicle could successfully navigate nearly 150 miles in the California desert.

The Google researchers said that at the moment they don't have a plan for marketing the system, the Times says. Thrun is a promoter of the idea of robot cars making roads safer and helping to cut down on energy costs, as is Google co-founder Larry Page, the Times reporterEdward Moyer

Recent advances in direct methanol fuel cells at Los Alamos National Laboratory

This paper describes recent advances in the science and technology of direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) made at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The effort on DMFCs at LANL includes work devoted to portable power applications, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), and work devoted to potential transport applications, funded by the US DOE. We describe recent results with a new type of DMFC stack hardware that allows to lower the pitch per cell to 2 mm while allowing low air flow and air pressure drops. Such stack technology lends itself to both portable power and potential transport applications. Power densities of 300 W/l and 1 kW/l seem achievable under conditions applicable to portable power and transport applications, respectively. DMFC power system analysis based on the performance of this stack, under conditions applying to transport applications (joint effort with U.C. Davis), has shown that, in terms of overall system efficiency and system packaging requirements, a power source for a passenger vehicle based on a DMFC could compete favorably with a hydrogen-fueled fuel cell system, as well as with fuel cell systems based on fuel processing on board. As part of more fundamental studies performed, we describe optimization of anode catalyst layers in terms of PtRu catalyst nature, loading and catalyst layer composition and structure. We specifically show that, optimized content of recast ionic conductor added to the catalyst layer is a sensitive function of the nature of the catalyst. Other elements of membrane/electrode assembly (MEA) optimization efforts are also described, highlighting our ability to resolve, to a large degree, a well-documented problem of polymer electrolyte DMFCs, namely “methanol crossover”. This was achieved by appropriate cell design, enabling fuel utilization as high as 90% in highly performing DMFCs.

Recent Advances in Chemoprevention of Cancer

Chemoprevention is the use of pharmacologic or natural agents that inhibit the development of invasive cancer either by blocking the DNA damage that initiates carcinogenesis or by arresting or reversing the progression of premalignant cells in which such damage has already occurred. Recent advances in our understanding of the mechanisms of carcinogenesis have led to the synthesis of new drugs that can inhibit tumor development in experimental animals by selective action on specific molecular targets, such as the estrogen, androgen, and retinoid receptors or inducible cyclooxygenase. Several of these agents (including tamoxifen, 13-cis-retinoic acid, retinyl palmitate, and an acyclic retinoid) are clinically effective in preventing the development of cancer, particularly in patients who are at high risk for developing second primary tumors after surgical removal of the initial tumor.

Top 200 Universities and Colleges in the world in 2011

Top 200 Universities and Colleges in the world in 2011

1  Stanford University	United States
2  Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
3  University of California, Berkeley	United States
4  Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México	Mexico
5  Michigan State University	United States
6  Indiana University	United States
7  Yale University	United States
8  Peking University	China
9  Purdue University	United States
10  Shanghai Jiaotong University	China
11  Duke University	United States
12  Xi'an Jiaotong University	China
13  Tsinghua University	China
14  University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
15  Universidad Complutense de Madrid	Spain
16  Fudan University	China
17  University of Oxford	United Kingdom
18  California Institute of Technology	United States
19  Keio University	Japan
20  Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich	Switzerland
21  Universidad de Granada	Spain
22  National University of Singapore	Singapore
23  Zhejiang University	China
24  Indian Institute of Technology Madras	India
25  Nanjing University	China
26  Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro	Brazil
27  Tampereen teknillinen yliopisto	Finland
28  Indian Institute of Technology Bombay	India
29  Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais	Brazil
30  National and Kapodistrian University of Athens	Greece
31  The University of Texas at Austin	United States
32  Institut Teknologi Bandung	Indonesia
33  Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur	India
34  Imperial College London	United Kingdom
35  Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem	Hungary
36  Harvard University	United States
37  Universidade de Coimbra	Portugal
38  Istanbul Teknik Üniversitesi	Turkey
39  Columbia University in the City of New York	United States
40  Bogaziçi Üniversitesi	Turkey
41  Bilkent Üniversitesi	Turkey
42  University of Michigan	United States
43  University of Georgia	United States
44  University of Washington	United States
45  New York University	United States
46  Cornell University	United States
47  Penn State University	United States
48  University of Pennsylvania	United States
49  Princeton University	United States
50  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States
51  University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
52  Oregon State University	United States
53  Boston University	United States
54  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
55  University of Southern California	United States
56  University of Toronto	Canada
57  University of California, Los Angeles	United States
58  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey	United States
59  Carnegie Mellon University	United States
60  University of Minnesota	United States
61  The Ohio State University	United States
62  Norges teknisk-naturvitenskaplige universitet	Norway
63  University of Virginia	United States
64  Universidade de São Paulo	Brazil
65  University of California, San Diego	United States
66  University of Colorado at Boulder	United States
67  University of Florida	United States
68  University of Pittsburgh	United States
69  University of Notre Dame	United States
70  Washington State University	United States
71  North Carolina State University	United States
72  Renmin University of China	China
73  University of Iowa	United States
74  University of Arizona	United States
75  University College London	United Kingdom
76  Arizona State University	United States
77  University of Maryland	United States
78  University of Chicago	United States
79  Kungliga Tekniska högskolan	Sweden
80  Texas A&M University	United States
81  Universität Wien	Austria
82  McGill University	Canada
83  Waseda University	Japan
84  King Saud University	Saudi Arabia
85  Johns Hopkins University	United States
86  Dartmouth College	United States
87  Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	United States
88  Simon Fraser University	Canada
89  Drexel University	United States
90  University of Phoenix	United States
91  The University of British Columbia	Canada
92  Northwestern University	United States
93  York University	Canada
94  University of California, Davis	United States
95  Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen	Germany
96  Universität Leipzig	Germany
97  The University of Tokyo	Japan
98  The University of Manchester	United Kingdom
99  Universitat de València	Spain
100  King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals	Saudi Arabia
101  University of California, Irvine	United States
102  Freie Universität Berlin	Germany
103  Universidade de Brasília	Brazil
104  Monash University	Australia
105  National Taiwan University	Taiwan
106  University of Calgary	Canada
107  Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina	Brazil
108  Colorado State University	United States
109  Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
110  The University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
111  Rice University	United States
112  University of Delaware	United States
113  Brown University	United States
114  University of Alberta	Canada
115  The University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
116  Boston College	United States
117  Universität Trier	Germany
118  Universitat de Barcelona	Spain
119  University of Leeds	United Kingdom
120  Georgetown University	United States
121  Iowa State University of Science and Technology	United States
122  Universidad de Sevilla	Spain
123  University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
124  Università degli Studi di Bologna	Italy
125  Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza	Italy
126  University of New Mexico	United States
127  The University of Tennessee	United States
128  Universitetet i Oslo	Norway
129  The University of Melbourne	Australia
130  The Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
131  Université de Genève	Switzerland
132  Moscow State University	Russia
133  University of Waterloo	Canada
134  Lunds Universitet	Sweden
135  The Australian National University	Australia
136  The University of Oklahoma	United States
137  Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin	Germany
138  Universidade Estadual de Campinas	Brazil
139  Universidad Politécnica de Valencia	Spain
140  Universität zu Köln	Germany
141  The University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
142  The London School of Economics and Political Science	United Kingdom
143  Tufts University	United States
144  Technische Universität Wien	Austria
145  Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster	Germany
146  University of Nebraska-Lincoln	United States
147  University of Rochester	United States
148  The University of York	United Kingdom
149  University of California, Riverside	United States
150  Technische Universität Berlin	Germany
151  Universität Hamburg	Germany
152  University of Southampton	United Kingdom
153  Université Libre de Bruxelles	Belgium
154  Universidad de Salamanca	Spain
155  Universitas Indonesia	Indonesia
156  University of California, Santa Cruz	United States
157  CUNY System	United States
158  University of Ottawa	Canada
159  Universidad de Chile	Chile
160  Universität Innsbruck	Austria
161  Universidad de Alicante	Spain
162  Anadolu Üniversitesi	Turkey
163  Nanyang Technological University	Singapore
164  University of Connecticut	United States
165  Universidad de Navarra	Spain
166  The University of New South Wales	Australia
167  Universidad de Buenos Aires	Argentina
168  The University of Sydney	Australia
169  Rochester Institute of Technology	United States
170  The University of Queensland	Australia
171  Rijksuniversiteit Groningen	Netherlands
172  Universidad del País Vasco	Spain
173  Université Laval	Canada
174  University of Maryland, Baltimore County	United States
175  Universität München	Germany
176  University of Glasgow	United Kingdom
177  University College Dublin	Ireland
178  Katholieke Universiteit Leuven	Belgium
179  École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
180  Ruhr-Universität Bochum	Germany
181  University of Liverpool	United Kingdom
182  University of Delhi	India
183  Université de Caen Basse-Normandie	France
184  Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology	Australia
185  University of Miami	United States
186  Carleton University	Canada
187  Universidad de La Rioja	Spain
188  Tianjin University	China
189  University of Science and Technology of China	China
190  Wuhan University	China
191  Karolinska Institutet	Sweden
192  Universidad de Zaragoza	Spain
193  Newcastle University	United Kingdom
194  Universidad de Guadalajara	Mexico
195  Durham University	United Kingdom
196  University of California, San Francisco	United States
197  Technische Universität Dresden	Germany
198  Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin	Ireland
199  Kasetsart University	Thailand
200  Universidad Politécnica de Madrid	Spain