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Warp speed, Scotty? Star Trek’s FTL drive may actually work

NASA scientists are taking the first steps to prove it’s possible to traverse vast distances faster than the speed of light.

Star trek desks: Classrooms for the next generation?

Scientists designing and testing what they hope might become the classroom of the future have found that “Star Trek”-style multi-touch, multi-user desks can boost children’s maths skills.

A three-year project with 400 eight to 10-year olds found that using interactive “smart” desks can have benefits over doing maths on paper, and that pupils are able to improve their fluency and flexibility in maths by working together.

“Our aim was to encourage far higher levels of active student engagement, where knowledge is obtained by sharing, problem-solving and creating, rather than by passive listening,” said Liz Burd of Britain’s Durham University, who led the study.

The research team, whose findings were published in the journal Learning and Instruction, designed software and desks that recognise multiple touches on a desktop using infrared light vision systems.

The desks are built into furniture of the classroom to help encourage more collaboration, and are networked and linked to a main smartboard. A live feed of the desks goes directly to the teacher who can intervene quickly to help a pupil while allowing group work to continue.

Burd’s team found that 45 percent of pupils who used a maths programme on the smart desk system increased the number of unique mathematical expressions they created, compared with 16 percent of those doing it on paper.

Using the new desks helped children work together and solve problems using inventive solutions, the researchers said.

“We found our tables encouraged students to collaborate more effectively,” said Burd. “Such collaboration just did not happen when students used paper-based approaches.”

iheartchaos:

Keeping the dream alive for millions, NASA recently said that the idea of a warp drive, as has become fairly common in sci-fi, is a plausible idea and should be pursued. Score one for Star Trek.

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mothernaturenetwork:

Beam me up, Scotty: Scientists successfully teleport photons nearly 100 kilometers

Experiment smashes the previous distance record for quantum teleportation, and could soon make the technology practical.

mothernaturenetwork:

Scotty finally gets beamed up: ‘Star Trek’ star’s ashes blast into space

Celestis is responsible for launching some of actor James Doohan’s ashes into space. The company charges nearly $3,000 to launch 1 gram of ash into orbit.

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mothernaturenetwork:

Engineer plans to build real-life version of Starship Enterprise within 20 years

Capt. Kirk explored the universe in the USS Enterprise around the year 2250, but at least one engineer thinks it can be done this century.

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Scientist beams up a real “Star Trek” tricorder

Dr. Peter Jansen, a PhD graduate of the Cognitive Science Laboratory at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, has developed a scientific measurement device based on the tricorders used by Captain Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy and other space adventurers on the classic TV series that has spawned numerous spin-offs in more than 45 years.

“Star Trek inspired me to be a scientist” said Jansen, who has been formally working on his tricorder prototypes since 2007, but toying with the idea of making a functioning device since he was “a kid in high school.”

The 29-year-old Jansen’s school days spanned the late 1990s when “Star Trek: Voyager” was on the air. It featured his favorite tricorder, a model with screens on top and bottom.

The first tricorder appeared on the original show’s initial episode in 1966, when Capt. Kirk swaggered toward audiences with his phaser weapon holstered to his side but a tricorder in his hand. The hand-held devices for data sensing, analysis and recording, have been a part of “Star Trek” ever since.

But if Jansen, a self-confessed “addicted maker” of things, is successful at developing, testing and bringing his instrument into the public, the tricorder may not be just the stuff of “Star Trek” prop rooms. It may be used for real.

Jansen said his tricorder can take atmospheric measurements, or ambient temperature, pressure or humidity. It can take electromagnetic measurements to test magnetic fields, and it can make spatial measurements of distance, location, or motion.

Fascinating, as Spock might say.

Jansen thinks of his tricorder as a “general tool” — a kind of “Swiss Army Knife” — with practical uses in building inspection, for instance, where it might help taking temperature and humidity readings or be a distance sensor to measure rooms.

It resembles the device carried by countless “Away Team” members in “Star Trek - The Next Generation” - his favorite of the “Star Trek” shows, he notes.

No independent group has yet verified his claims for the device which, he said, is one reason for placing his designs on a public website as an “open source” that technology makers can utilize to test and tinker.

Jansen has posted schematics and designs of his first and second prototypes, the Mark 1 and Mark 2, for anyone to see and build. Jansen expects to have his latest version, the Mark 4, produced for “about $200.”

“Everything you need to build one is on line” at www.tricorderproject.org, said Jansen. He hopes others will follow his lead.

While it may sound like the stuff of science fiction, Jansen isn’t the only one to take notice of just how useful a real functioning tricorder would be - especially as a medical tool.

Telecommunications giant Qualcomm Inc this year launched the “Tricorder X-Prize Contest” with the slogan “Healthcare in the palm of your hand.” Qualcomm hopes to motivate developers with a $10 million prize to make medical tricorders a reality.

Wanda Moebus of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, who is not affiliated with Jansen or Qualcomm, told Reuters the X-Prize “is really cool,” but cautioned that making a real medical tricorder device “would have to be measured on its safety and effect, like all other medical technologies.”

Jansen said he has been approached by “a couple of teams” about the X Prize, but added that his prototypes are more for science research than medical tools.

Besides, he said he already is on to his next frontier, making a sort of “replicator,” another “Star Trek” device that will create 3D objects and foods that are dimensional copies of real items.

Jansen’s “replicator” is a 3D printer, which in itself is not really new, but the scientist thinks about it in terms reminiscent of “Star Trek’s” famous prologue. It’s “like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” Jansen said.

King Abdullah II, a well-known Trekkie, has partnered with Middle Eastern and American investors to create the Red Sea Astrarium, which will feature a massive “space-flight adventure” ride based 2009’s “Star Trek” film reboot.

Despite the naysayers, woman goes from Trekkie to NASA engineer

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