BMW X Coupe Concept Car

In a surprise debut at the 2001 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, BMW unveiled its latest concept vehicle - the BMW X coupe. Dramatically different from anything that BMW has created before, the X coupe concept car challenges traditional design theory and shows a possible new direction for future BMW designs.

BMW has deliberately questioned existing preconceptions and created a vehicle that combines the sporty styling and driving characteristics of a coupe with the sense of adventure and capability that defines a Sports Activity Vehicle (SAV).Based on the four wheel drive chassis of the X5, with a body made completely from aluminium, the X coupe stands 58.3 inches high, (which is slightly taller than the 3 Series Coupé at 53.9 inches), 180.3 inches long and 73.6 inches wide. The wheelbase is identical to the X5's at 111 inches.

Under the coupe's long, one-piece bonnet is the advanced 3.0 litre BMW turbo-diesel engine, six cylinder unit used in the 530d, with state-of-the-art common rail direct injection and developing 184 bhp. The X coupe's power plant has been modified to produce 332 lb-ft. of torque. Stability at speed is enhanced by a rear spoiler beneath the bodywork. Normally flush with the vehicle's bottom rear edge, the spoiler extends downward automatically at 68 mph to generate aerodynamic downforce. Top speed is expected to be in the region of 125 mph.

A five-speed Steptronic automatic transmission takes its power to all four wheels. The driver can control the gearshift via 'paddles' on the steering wheel with the gearbox in Steptronic mode. Massive 20 inch wheels carry 225/50 tyres at the front and 285/45 at the rear adding emphasis to the coupe's assertive presence. Run flat tyres make a spare wheel and tyre unnecessary.

As a member of the BMW X family, the coupe naturally has all the traction and stability enhancing systems on board from All Season Traction (AST) for all-wheel drive, through to Dynamic Stability Control (DSC-X) and Hill Descent Control (HDC). Like the X5 the X coupe is well equipped to go off-road when required.Not content with creating body panels that look like contorted baked bean cans, BMW designers have invented a new terminology to describe the distinctive body contours – 'Flame Surfacing'. Flame Surfacing gives body surfaces the freedom to turn in on themselves and create a series of concave and convex design lines. These can be seen on the doors, the dash and on the top of the front wings where the bodywork has an unusual concave shape.

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Bike with Integrated Lock

This bike is meant to answer all those times when you have forgotten to bring a lock. In fact the bike IS a lock and is called the "Freelock".
This bike has a lock integrated into the seat post. It is made of sturdy metal and is still relatively light.

Electric Concept Car

Industrial designer Alan Kravchenko has created a concept for a compact urban commuter dubbed the Peugeot Clear.
The Clear has enough room for two at a squeeze and is laid bare by large windows that, without heavy tinting, leave just about everything going on inside open to plain view.
The design is green-friendly by way of an electric drivetrain. It incorporates hydrogen and oxygen fuel tanks positioned so as to provide most efficiency to the wheel-mounted motors.

Completely Self-Contained, Portable Ultrasound

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just approved a handheld self-contained portable ultrasound imager with a probe.
The Signos weighs half of a pound and is the size of most smartphones. It will be available with both a 3.5MHz or a 7.5MHz transducer that can be swapped. The company promotes this device for fast paced and active medical environments such as emergency departments and rural medical clinics.
The system might come in handy as a quick initial diagnostic modality for intraabdominal processes, such as ectopics, AAAs, for carotid scans in ER in patients with ongoing TIA, as well as an assistive device for central line placements.

Nanodiamonds for Cancer Treatment

A team led by Prof. Horacio Espinosa and Assist. Prof. Dean Ho at the McCormick School of Engineering have shown that nanomaterials can shuttle chemotherapy drugs to cells without producing the negative effects of today's delivery agents.
Clusters of the nanodiamonds surround the drugs to ensure that they remain separated from healthy cells until they reach the cancer cells, where they are released.
The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the V Foundation for Cancer Research and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation and the results were recently published online in the scientific journal Small.

HIV Vaccine Turns Muscle into Antibody Factories

Nine macaques have been protected against the monkey version of HIV with a novel vaccine that sidesteps the monkey immune system. Instead, the vaccine turns monkey muscles into factories for churning out antibodies.
Researchers injected the monkeys' muscles with a harmless virus carrying genes for making immunoadhesins, antibody-like molecules pre-selected to attack SIV.
The viruses put the genes into the nuclei of muscle cells, which produce antibodies that combat HIV, potentially indefinitely.

Unbreakable Sunglasses

The Fisk sunglasses have a number of innovative elements. First, they have a completely adjustable nose bridge. Second, the hinge is made of surgical stainless steel and built with a Metal Injection Molding process which makes it essentially unbreakable.
The Global Fit nose bridge is structural nylon covered with soft, low porosity silicone. Two stainless steel pins with eccentric heads are inserted into the frame. As these pins are turned, the angle of the bridge turns in or out for a custom to-your-face fit.

New Horizons Sees Changes in Jupiter System

New Horizons' voyage through the Jupiter system in 2007 provided a bird's-eye view of a dynamic planet that has changed since the last close-up looks by NASA spacecraft. A combination of trajectory, timing and technology allowed it to explore details no probe had seen before, such as lightning near Jupiter’s poles, the life cycle of fresh ammonia clouds, boulder-size clumps speeding through the planet’s faint rings, the structure inside volcanic eruptions on its moon Io, and the path of charged particles traversing the previously unexplored length of the planet’s long magnetic tail.
New Horizons passed our solar system's largest planet on its way to Pluto, which it should reach in 2015.

Pico Mobile Projector

The KDDI pico projector is designed to work with the new KDDI iida G9 mobile phone. It can project a 480x320 image of between six and 63 inches onto a flat surface or wall up to 8.2 feet (2.5m) away.

The battery provides for up to 130 minutes of continuous viewing and can be fully charged in less than two hours.
The pico projector is made for showing off holiday video and snaps stored on the phone and measures just 50×112×18.3mm and weighs 128g.

An Anti-Smoke Alarm

This device is meant to help you avoid getting on a ladder and taking the batteries out of your smoke alarm when you accidentally set it off.
The "Smokey" hosts an XBee chip that communicates wirelessly with the smoke alarm. So when the alarm goes off, you just need to press his hand to temporarily silence it until the smoke clears.
It also works as a conventional kitchen timer.

Violin That Teaches You How To Play

The violin has a very steep learning curve, and this is an innovative instrument that has the ability to help.
Designer Carlos R. Mendez has created a violin called the Squidolin. It's an electric violin that works just like a normal violin, except that you can also connect it to a television set and it will tutor you through a series of lessons via it's built-in software.

Air-powered Battery

Researchers at Scotland's University of St. Andrews are reporting great progress in their work on the air-powered battery, which is being designed to replace the lithium cobalt oxide electrode in the fuel cell.
The "STAIR" (St. Andrews Air) battery will run on all renewable sources, including solar, wind, and oxygen.
Within the next five years we could see electric cars that can run far longer on one charge than on a tank or two of gas. Your computer and cell phone batteries could last for several days without charging... while they are in use.

Phone Camera identifies objects for the Blind

iVisit has developed image recognition software that can identify what a cell phone camera is seeing, and read it for a blind person.
The software can identify such things as bill denominations and product labels.

New Treatment for Knee Injuries

MIT engineers have built a new tissue scaffold that can stimulate bone and cartilage growth when transplanted into knees and other joints, potentially offering a more effective, less expensive – and painful – option to more conventional therapies.
The scaffold developed by MIT has two layers, one that mimics bone and another that mimics cartilage. When implanted into a joint, the scaffold can stimulate mesenchymal stem cells in the bone marrow to produce new bone and cartilage.
The researchers demonstrated the scaffold's effectiveness in a 16-week study involving goats. In the study, the scaffold successfully stimulated bone and cartilage growth after being implanted in the goats' knees. Although the technology is still limited to small defects, using scaffolds roughly 8 mm (0.3-inches) in diameter, the scaffold offers a potential new treatment for sports injuries and other cartilage damage, such as arthritis.

Memo Personal Robot

The Memo is a robot designed to provide secondary care for Alzheimer's patients. The fingerprint-secure remote control controls it's various functions, such as schedule planning, dispensing medicine and playing games.
Memo also has a video projector and can call emergency professionals when urgent care is needed.

The Hospital on Wheels

Mercedes-Benz have developed "clinic buses" for the Government of Dubai. These mini-hospitals on wheels were developed so rapid medical assistance can be given in the event of major emergencies.
Of the three observation bays in the bus, one can be converted into a fully-functioning operating theatre. The buses are equipped with an ECG, an InSpectra shock monitor, an x-ray machine and ultrasonic equipment.
The buses can also be equipped with storage units containing generators, tents for the treatment of more injury victims, decontamination systems and an oxygen concentrator.

Nanoenergy Battery

A company called Front-Edge Technology has developed ultra-thin bendable battery technology which can deliverbetween 10 and 20 times more power than conventional batteries.
The flexibility of these "Nanoenergy" batteries makes them ideal for portable devices. Theese new batteries can also be manufactured in different shapes and in sizes that can be thinner than a sheet of paper.
Front-Edge Technology claims that the special characteristics of their batteries also make them ideal for micro power devices such as one-time-password smartcards, battery-assisted RFID tags, wireless sensor networks and medical applications such as hearing aids and heart-monitoring devices.

The Honda Hovercar

The Honda Fuzo is a Vertical Take-Off and Landing concept vehicle. The Fuzo has four high-powered turbines for high-speed horizontal flight and directional control.
The vehicle has a top speed of 350 mph and two joysticks on wither side of the armrest to control speed, trust, and steering.
It also features an automatic collision-detection system that relies on GPS to keep cars from hitting one another and also airbags on the inside and outside of the vehicle for safety.

Robot with Artificial Skin

A new New robot with artificial skin could help improve human communication. The project, worked on by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire, has developed this technology so that it can be used in their work investigating how robots can help children with autism to learn about social interaction.
The researchers have covered a robot with artificial skin and will develop new sensor technologies which can provide tactile feedback from areas of the robot’s body. The idea is to make the robot able to respond to different styles of how the children play with it. This could help the children develop ‘socially appropriate’ playful interaction when interacting with the robot and other people.
Roboskin is being co-ordinated by Professor Giorgio Cannata of Università di Genova (Italy) and other partners include Università di Genova, Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne, Italian Institute of Technology, University of Wales at Newport and Università di Cagliari.

DISCOVERY OF NEW DINOSAURS

A New Species

DISCOVERY OF NEW DINOSAURS can happen almost anywhere and anytime. A 14-year-old boy found these dinosaur bones buried on his family's ranch in Montana. Although no one realized it at the time, the fossil was unlike any other dinosaur and proved to be a new species. This dinosaur, named , looked similar to a modern bird and was a fierce hunter that may have preyed on small mammals and reptiles.
Around 90 percent of Bambiraptor's bones were recovered, making this one of the most complete specimens ever found in North America. With so much of the skeleton to study, researchers have been able to learn some surprising details about this fossil. Based on analysis of the skull, for example, scientists think that this species had a brain nearly as large as the brains of some modern birds.

FAST FACTS: Bambiraptor

• Species: Bambiraptor feinbergi
• Pronunciation: "BAM-be-rap-tor fine-BERG-eye"
• Size:
• LENGTH: 0.7 meter (30 inches)
• HEIGHT: 0.3 meters (12 inches)
• WEIGHT: 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds)
• Food: small mammals and reptiles
• When it lived: 75 million years ago
• Fun fact: The large claw on Bambiraptor's second toe was probably used for killing prey, suggesting the animal was a fierce hunter.

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New Discoveries at Mercury

Mercury's magnetic field is "alive." Volcanic vents ring the planet's giant Caloris Basin. And Mercury has shrunk in on itself more than previously suspected.
These are just a few of the new discoveries by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, which flew past Mercury on January 14, 2008. The results are described in a series of 11 papers published in a special July 4th issue of Science magazine.
Six of the papers in Science report studies of the planet's surface--its colors, mineralogy, and the shape of its terrain. For instance, the color enhanced image below reveals evidence of volcanic vents along the margins of Caloris basin, one of the Solar System's largest and youngest impact basins:
"By combining Mariner 10 and MESSENGER data, the science team was able to reconstruct a comprehensive geologic history of the entire Caloris basin interior," says James Head of Brown University, lead author of one of the Science reports. "The basin was formed from an impact by an asteroid or comet during a period of heavy bombardment in the first billion years of Solar System history. As with the lunar maria, a period of volcanic activity followed, producing lava flows that filled the basin interior. This volcanism is responsible for the comparatively light, red material of the interior plains intermingled with [newer] impact crater deposits."
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Anti-microbial Paint Kills Superbugs

Scientists in South Dakota have developed the first antimicrobial paint, a material that can simultaneously kill not just disease-causing bacteria but mold, fungi, and viruses.
The paint is especially effective at fighting "superbugs," the antibiotic-resistant microbes that infect hospital surfaces and cause an estimated 88,000 deaths annually in the US.
The researchers developed a new antimicrobial polymer which has no undesirable effects on the quality of latex paints. Laboratory tests showed that the new polymer kills a wide range of disease-causing microbes including those resistant to multiple antibiotics. The paint can be easily "recharged" with a simple chlorination process.

Generating Electricity from Moving Vehicles

A company called New Energy Technologies, Inc. has designed a system called MotionPower which can trap kinetic energy drivers generate simply by driving over an energy-capturing device on the road.
The MotionPower system is designed to be installed at high traffic locations such as tollbooths, traffic intersections, rest areas, travel plazas, restaurant and bank drive-thrus, border crossings, and neighborhoods with traffic calming zones.
New Energy engineers have built and tested the first prototype, and are working to optimize the efficiency of the system that can potentially produce energy from the 250 million vehicles on the road in the US.

Inventive Reading Glasses

These LED Light Reading Glasses or inventive reading glasses have ultra-bright LED lights built into each corner of the lens frame. In the frame are four batteries that power the glasses for up to 30 hours.
These glasses have an edge over small book-lights as they do not move or fall out of place and don't have to be moved every time a page is turned.
These headlamp-in-glasses are also useful for using a computer keyboard at night and also for finding things in small, dark places.

Making Urine Drinkable

This device was created for emergency areas and areas with unclean water, and turns urine into drinkable water.
The device uses a fairly simple Activated Carbon filter to remove the taste and color from the urine, and a housing underneath stores the resulting water.

The Heat is On: Spitzer's Infrared Views of the Cosmos

RCW 38 is at a distance of ~1.7 kpc (~5500 light years) from us, near the famous Vela supernova remnant and the Gum nebula. This starforming region contains a number of highly massive O stars embedded in a dense obscuring cloud. The stars are about 2 million years old, indicating that star formation is ongoing is this relatively young region.

Flexible, Extremely Thin Loudspeakers

Extremely flat, flexible loudspeakers have been designed by Warwick Audio Technologies. They bend easily, they could adapt to whatever space they're being installed in. Conventional stereo speakers use vibrating electromagnetic drivers to produce sound, whereas these speakers operate using a flexible laminate composed of a series of conducting and insulating materials. The laminate vibrates when an electrical audio signal is introduced and the speakers create a directional sound wave based on the audio signal. Warwick also says that the technology is easy and inexpensive to manufacture.

Shark-Shaped Submarine

Fabien Cousteau (the grandson of the famous Jacques Cousteau) has developed a submarine that is shape like a shark. This allows a diver to interact and study sharks in their own habitat. The 14-foot long shark sub mimics the movement of a real great white shark - when submerged, the sub is flooded with water, making in necessary for the diver/pilot to wear a wet suit.Cousteau hopes that this new device will help other scientists to delve further into the study of sharks.

Telescope snaps most distant object

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Astronomers tracking a mysterious blast of energy called a gamma ray burst said on Tuesday they had snapped a photograph of the most distant object in the universe -- a smudge 13 billion light-years away.

Hawaii's Gemini Observatory caught the image earlier this month after a satellite first detected the burst.

"Our infrared observations from Gemini immediately suggested that this was an unusually distant burst, these images were the smoking gun," said Edo Berger of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Distortions in the light signature of the object show it is 13 billion years old -- at the speed of light, 13 billion light-years away. A light-year is 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km).

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Air-Conditioned Bed

Kuchofuku and Itochu have developed a mattress with a built-in air conditioning system.

A fan located at the foot of the mattress pulls in air from behind the sleeper's head drawing off body heat, and transporting it out of the bed.

According to the makers, operating the mattress for eight hours results in about 13 cents in monthly electricity costs, which is way less than using an air conditioner that cools an entire room. The best part is that the mattress can be used in winter as well, as buyers get a heater with the mattress.

Running eight hours a day, the system will generate only about 13 yen in — much cheaper than using an air conditioner to cool an entire bedroom. The mattress goes on sale in May in Japan in May and costs $300.

Zip-up Earbuds

These innovative iPod earbuds have an integrated zipper which helps keep the cables from getting tangled.

To use the headphones, you unzip them to use, then zip them back up to store them away. The cables don't get tangled, and also the zipper can take up the extra slack when they are being worn.

The volume control is integrated right into the zipper pull.

Hand Exerciser Helps Arthritis Patients

This "hand fitness trainer" strengthens your muscles and joints, resisting repetitive stress injuries and slowing the progression of osteoarthritis.The device, which was a recipient of the Medical Design Excellence Award, fits over your hand like a glove. As you open up your fingers, the adjustable elastic bands that extend from the palm to your finger tips offer resistance, strengthening the muscles of the hand, wrist, and elbow.

Geostationary Solar Powered Airship

May-01-09
U.S. Defense contractor Lockheed Martin is developing a $400 million airship surveillance and telecommunications platform called the High Altitude Airship (HAA).The HAA is an un-tethered, unmanned lighter-than-air vehicle that will operate above the jet stream in a stationary position. The airship will be able to survey a 600-mile diameter area to deliver telecommunications relay, weather data or surveillance. The ship will be built using high-strength fabrics to minimize hull weight. Lift is provided by helium and leakage, as well as migration of air and water vapor into the helium enclosure, will be minimized by the envelope design.