Science and research

With its many pedestrians and subway users, New York seems like one of the greener cities in the U.S. But it still produced a gob-smacking mountain of carbon emissions in 2010.

In the vid below from graphics firm Carbon Visuals, the 54 million tons of CO2 is illustrated as a mass of spheres that tower over the city, engulfing its buildings.

Some 75 percent of the pollution came from buildings, with the bulk of the rest from transport, according to the firm, which used city data. … Read more

A Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto is using the same transfer paper currently affixing temporary tattoos to kids -- in conjunction with a common screen-printing technique -- to develop a medical sensor that keeps tabs on a person's exertion by monitoring the skin's pH levels.

Similar devices, which are called ion-selective electrodes (ISEs), are already common among athletic trainers and medical researchers to help spot fatigue, dehydration, or even metabolic diseases. But they tend to be bulky and don't stick well to sweaty skin.

The new sensor stays put and doesn't look so, … Read more

Her majesty looks fantastic in plastic.

A polymer portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is in many Canadian wallets now that a new $20 bill packed with anti-forgery tech is in circulation.

The plastic note follows the circulation of new plastic $100 and $50 bills, but since it changes hands with greater frequently, more Canadians are taking notice.

Reactions to have been mixed. Some say the bills tend to stick together in stacks and ATMs, others have praised their security features, and some say they look like play money.

Apart from Braille-like raised dots for visually impaired users, the twenty's … Read more

Next time you see an obese adolescent, blame the parents. At least that's what researchers at the Imperial College London are suggesting. They have developed a calculator to predict a newborn's chances of developing childhood or adolescent obesity

With only one in 10 cases of obesity being the result of a rare genetic mutation, researchers set out to determine which environmental factors played the largest roles in the development of childhood obesity.

"Once we compare different statistical models, and we added the genetic variants [associated with causing obesity], their ability to explain childhood obesity didn't improve … Read more

NASA is already experimenting with 3D-printing components for rockets to Mars, but the fun doesn't have to stop at liftoff.

Researchers at Washington State University and NASA are suggesting that rocks on the moon or Mars could be used to print useful objects like tools or replacement parts.… Read more

Forget Mars! NASA has discovered signs of video gaming on a moon of Saturn. Recently released images from the Cassini mission show features on the icy moon of Thethys that look suspiciously like a famous '80s arcade creation.

The Pac-Man image was discovered in thermal data provided by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer. You can read up on the nifty high-energy electrons bombardment theory for the shape over at NASA. The findings were published in the journal Icarus.… Read more

Remember the cuddly Furby? Imagine it's grown a killer case (literally) of artificial intelligence and decides your house and your family are far better than its own, and decides to murder you for it.

OK, so researchers think that such a scenario is a "flakey concern" and wildly far-fetched. Still, the U.K.'s University of Cambridge is setting up a new center to analyze the dangers posed by artificial intelligence and increasingly non-human interactive machines.

Founded by distinguished philosophy professor Huw Price, cosmology and astrophysics professor Martin Reess and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, the project will … Read more

When it comes to detecting a wide range of extremely faint scents, including the primary vapor that emanates from TNT-based explosives, dogs are the gold standard. But researchers out of the University of California at Santa Barbara, report in the journal Analytical Chemistry that they just may have man's best friend beat -- in the form of a fingerprint-sized silicon microchip.

"Like a person, a dog can have a good day or a bad day, get tired or distracted," Carl Meinhart, a mechanical engineering professor who led the research, said in a school news release. "We … Read more

MARANA, Ariz. - Three-dimensional printing: hype, or hope?

That's the question industry leaders sought to answer at the Techonomy conference here in the sunny greater Tucson area. A panel of experts -- Geomagic's Ping Fu, Shapeways' Peter Weijmarshausen and PARC's Stephen Hoover, with CNET's own Paul Sloan moderating -- discussed the promises, pitfalls and potential of a technology that allows almost anyone to turn a digital file into a perfect copy of a physical object, from puzzle pieces to airplane wings, in materials such as plastic, metal and rubberlike polymers.

Can 3D printing change the world? … Read more