Science and research

Blockbuster-moviemaker-turned-aquanaut James Cameron's solo dive in the Pacific to the Mariana Trench's Challenger Deep site last month opens up a vast, under-explored region of the world's oceans to researchers. There, scientists hope to discover, retrieve, and study a host of previously unknown organisms and chemical compounds that may someday help solve decades-old medical mysteries.

"What better place to look for adaptations and unusual compounds that have unusual characteristics than in the most extreme environments we can go to on this planet," says Richard Lutz, a professor of marine ecology and biology of deep-sea hydrothermal vents … Read more

Physicists have long sought to use the bizarre workings of quantum mechanics to make mind-boggling leaps in computing power. And they appear to actually be making progress.

Researchers from Harvard University and the Weizmann Institude of Science in Israel today published a paper describing a technique for two quantum bits, or qubits, to operate in a predictable and coordinated way, a small step toward a working quantum computer.

In a separate effort, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics today claimed to have made a breakthrough by making a prototype of a quantum communications network. Both groups say … Read more

With more than 18 million American adults suffering from some form of sleep apnea, and the bulky CPAP masks being such a nuisance that many of those prescribed it simply don't use it, a small and disposable sleep apnea device approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2008 is fast gaining steam.

Called Provent Therapy, the device is essentially a small patch consisting of one plug for each nostril that is held into place with hypoallergenic adhesive. The tech is simple: each plug provides enough air pressure to keep the airways open throughout the night.

This is a similar approach to Provent's larger cousin, the CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) mask, which also uses pressure to prevent the airways from constricting. But each plug contains a tiny valve the size of a pinhole that, during the exhale, creates enough resistance to provide backpressure. This pressure dilates the muscles that typically collapse in patients with obstructive sleep apnea, causing the fits and starts that interrupt sleep.… Read more

Just in case his billion-dollar blockbuster wasn't realistic enough for you, not to mention the new $18 million 3D version, James Cameron has created another film about the Titanic, which presents its final minutes in stunning detail.

"From iceberg to bottom, it's never been animated so precisely and so dramatically," the Canadian ubermensch and premier Titanic obsessive says in the trailer to "Titanic: The Final Word With James Cameron," which premieres on the National Geographic Channel on April 8. … Read more

Sergey Brin was spotted this evening sporting a pair of Google Glasses, the augmented-reality specs the Web giant is working on.

Brin was photographed wearing a prototype pair of the eyeglasses while he posed with tech evangelist Robert Scoble this evening at a charity event in San Francisco.

"The Google Glasses are real! Here is a set on @sergeybrinn cofounder of Googl @ Palace Hotel, San Francisco," Scoble wrote, including the picture in a Twitter post. "They look very light weight. Not much different than a regular set of glasses," he wrote in another tweet.

But that … Read more

The Remee Lucid Dreaming Mask is worn like a regular sleep mask, but it has built-in LEDs that flash in patterns. The idea is that the sleeper recognizes the lights as visual anomalies, realizes he is sleeping, and then takes control of the dream.

The LED patterns and delay times before the lights trigger will be customizable through a Web site. There's also a dimmer control so the LEDs don't wake you up by blaring through your eyelids.

Remee isn't the first lucid dreaming mask, but it's cheaper than existing options like the $190 REM-Dreamer. Remee … Read more

The European nuclear research agency CERN collided two high-power proton beams in the early hours of Thursday morning, marking the beginning of this year's Large Hadron Collider physics data collection.

The colliding beams were each of an intensity of 4 teraelectronvolts (TeV), and the resulting 8 TeV collision energy is the most powerful the particle accelerator has managed yet. In 2011's experiments, collisions went up to 7 TeV and, following the 20-month shut-down that will take place from November, CERN hopes to achieve LHC collision energy of 13 then 14 TeV.

"The experience of two good years … Read more

Roughly 20,000 years ago the great ice sheets that buried much of Asia, Europe, and North America stopped their creeping advance. Within a few hundred years sea levels in some places had risen by as much as 10 meters -- more than if the ice sheet that still covers Greenland were to melt today. This freshwater flood filled the North Atlantic and also shut down the ocean currents that conveyed warmer water from equatorial regions northward. The equatorial heat warmed the precincts of Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere instead, shrinking the fringing sea ice and changing the circumpolar winds. … Read more

Physicists have engineered a significantly more stable laser, an advance which could lead to better atomic clocks for equipment, such as GPS satellites, and physics experiments.

Researchers at the JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado, have built a prototype of a superradiant laser using 1 million rubidium atoms. Their work was described in a paper published in Nature yesterday.

Using a different structure than traditional lasers, the researchers believe they can build a laser which is 100 to 1,000 times more stable. These lasers could be used in … Read more