Stories by Author

Evan Ackerman

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Evan Ackerman is a native Oregonian who now lives, somewhat unwillingly, in San Francisco. He has a background in creative writing and astrogeology, neither of which are necessarily appropriate for someone who is now a full-time blogger. Evan also writes for IEEE Spectrum's robotics blog, and when he's not parked at his computer with his eyes glazed over, you can find him getting injured on a soccer field or playing bagpipes excellently.

Flexible nanogenerators turn your socks into a power source

Evan Ackerman
Monday, November 8, 2010 - 3:05pm
 
Piezoelectric generators take motion and turn it into electricity. They've been used to convert muscle movement into energy to run medical implants, but it's been hard to get them to scale up enough to power stuff that's bigger and more fun. Researchers at Georgia Tech have been able to create a tiny piezoelectric nanogenerator that's capable of powering an LED and a liquid crystal display, and your iPod is going to be next.

Massively powerful supercomputer coming in 2018

Evan Ackerman
Friday, November 5, 2010 - 11:57am
 
Intel, DARPA, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center have launched an eight year project to create the most powerful computer ever constructed. By 2018, the extreme scale supercomputer will be running exaflop-level calculations: that's a million trillion operations every second, or about a thousand times faster than the fastest supercomputer we've got today.

6 beautiful pictures of galaxies from Europe's infrared space-cam

Evan Ackerman
Thursday, November 4, 2010 - 1:17pm
 
The European Southern Obervatory's Very Large Telescope array sits on top of a mountain in Chile, where it's so dark and clear that you can see your shadow cast by the light from the Milky Way. This is great, but it doesn't help see past all the dust surrounding the galaxies themselves. For that, they've got an ultra-sensitive infrared camera that strips away the haze to reveal the structure of galaxies in exquisite detail.

3D mouse could be the future of PC gaming

Evan Ackerman
Wednesday, November 3, 2010 - 10:22am
 
Mice have traditionally been two-dimensional creatures, offering an easy way to navigate around flat and boring desktops. Now that 3D is a new buzzword and everybody (and their parents) are cruising around Google Earth, it's time to take advantage of all those extra degrees of freedom.

Elastic gravity suits keep astronauts strong and sexy

Evan Ackerman
Monday, November 1, 2010 - 1:52pm
 
Spending extended time in space can also be dangerous. Besides the inevitable meteor showers and hostile aliens, astronauts also have to contend with things that are harder to defend against, like slowly losing bone mass. A new elastic jumpsuit may be able to help astronauts stay healthy, and keep them looking like superheroes while doing it.

Handheld radar senses people through walls

Evan Ackerman
Thursday, October 28, 2010 - 8:04am
 
While it's not quite x-ray vision (at least, not yet), this sensor is capable of detecting people through solid walls. It's being developed and tested in cooperation with the U.S. Army, in the hopes that technology like this will make it possible for soldiers to get some clues about what's inside a room before they have to go in.

Transparent super armor created from Alzheimer's protein

Evan Ackerman
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - 3:05pm
 
One of the causes of Alzheimer's disease is thought to be a buildup of plaque in the brain, caused by some nasty little proteins called beta-amyloids. Scientists in Israel have managed to take those proteins and put them to work, creating an organic material that's printable, transparent, and twice as strong as Kevlar.

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