Science

If you want to consider a difficult computational problem, try thinking of the algorithms required to animate more than 10,000 helium balloons, each with its own string, but each also interdependent on the rest, which are collectively hoisting aloft a small house.

That was the challenge the production team at Pixar faced when it set out to begin work on "Up," its tenth feature film, five years in the works, which hits theaters on Friday.

There was absolutely no way the team was going to hand-animate the balloons. Not with their numbers in five-figures, and especially not … Read more

Scientists at the University of Illinois have developed polymers that change color when the material becomes overstressed.

The materials science invention could be used in things like parachute cords, climbing ropes, or added to smart coatings for bridges.

The polymers contain mechanophores--molecules that create a chemical reaction that makes the synthetic material change color when a certain amount of force is exerted upon it.

One of the polymers offered by the scientists as an example of their work is an amber-colored elastomer that turns progressively more orange as it's pulled and then finally red right before it reaches its … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--For Graham Hawkes, the inventor of an entirely new class of deep-sea submersibles, a reporter's question on Wednesday--What kind of fish inspired his new flying craft?--was the perfect opportunity to vent about one of his chief frustrations with science.

"The thousands we don't know of," Hawkes answered, adding that when a world-class ichthyologist friend of his had said he'd never before seen many of the different species of fish they'd passed by while flying far underwater in one of his vessels, "I go, 'yeehah.'"

On Wednesday, Hawkes, his business partner … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--For Paul Kavanagh, the animation supervisor on the new "Star Trek" movie, one technical element of the film was particularly challenging.

During live-action filming, director J.J. Abrams had done something unusual: In a bid to incorporate a shaky, handheld effect, Abrams would frequently sit behind the camera and literally tap on the back of it with his fingers. But "Star Trek" is jam-packed with computer graphics, and for Kavanagh, it was imperative to find a way to replicate the effect of that finger tapping, even in the purely digital sequences. Not to do so, … Read more

NASA said on Thursday that it has released a collection of 3D photographs of the International Space Station and its Mars rover.

The photos, which were created using Microsoft's Photosynth tool, show both internal and external views of the space station, as well as a model of the rover.

Because the images were prepared using Photosynth, users can zoom in or out of any of the images, allowing them to see "details of the space station's modules and solar arrays or...a more global view of the complex."

At the same time, the Mars rover images … Read more

NICE, Calif.--Over the last few days, I spent hours with my wife's parents, Tyler and Donna, helping them adapt to the first Internet connection they've ever had. For them, living on top of a mountain at 4,000 feet, in the middle of a national forest, and entirely off the grid--this has been a big step.

For my wife and I, it's also been a big project, at least in terms of teaching them the basics, and helping them get ready to learn on their own. While their Internet proficiency is still low, they are learning … Read more

Last year, the Institute for the Future created an alternate-reality game, Superstruct, designed to crowdsource scenarios to try to save humanity from fictional "superthreats" discovered in 2019 that are thought to mean the end of humanity by 2042.

Now, the IFTF has issued its first findings from the 1,000-plus stories, 500-plus discussions, and 500-plus "superstructures" created by the worldwide community of the game's players, and while there's some reason for hope, there's also a lot to be pessimistic about.

In a report issued Wednesday evening, Superstruct's program director, Kathi Vian, lead … Read more

While they're fascinating to watch and sometimes even delicious to eat, how many times a day do you really think about the octopus or what an amazing piece of natural machinery it is?

Cecilia Laschi, professor of industrial bioengineering at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa, Italy, is so impressed by the octopus she's leading an extensive team of roboticists and scientists to build the first soft-bodied robot replicate of one. Which may not seem that exciting, until you learn just how unique the muscle tissue and dexterity of the octopus is.

As New Scientist cleverly pointed out, if the "Octopus" project is successful a robot someday might be able to accomplish the task seen in this video by Dr. James B. Wood, an assistant research scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences who maintains a Web site on cephalopods.

If you think it through, the octopus is a very dexterous creature that if translated into a robot could provide endless capability for exploring hard to reach places in the ocean. While we've seen other aquatic robots reaching for the depths of the ocean or mimicking creatures like fish and snakes, a completely soft-bodied underwater robot would be groundbreaking.… Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--If there was one name that stood out on the agenda of speakers at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival here this week, it was famed FiveThirtyEight.com blogger Nate Silver.

Known as a statistical wunderkind, his models predicted the final outcome of the 2008 presidential election to within .4 percent of the final popular vote. But more important to many Democrats who had their hopes for electoral victory dashed by George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, FiveThirtyEight.com--which got its name from the total number of electoral votes available--was able to provide daily affirmation that Barack Obama was really winning, even when many were tempted to believe he would be overcome by Sen. John McCain.

Silver was SXSWi's keynote speaker on Sunday, and he and interviewer Stephen Baker of Business Week went onstage in front of an audience of about 2,000 fans, most of whom were there to hear Silver talk about the secret sauce behind his hugely popular blog.

What many might not know is that Silver first came to prominence not in the political realm, but in baseball, where he authored Baseball Prospectus, a well-regarded baseball statistics site. Many might see the connection between baseball and politics as far-fetched, but to people like Silver, it's a very direct path.

Still, before starting FiveThirtyEight.com, he wasn't entirely a political neophyte. Silver had already begun to make a name for himself in the liberal political blogosphere with a series of data-rich posts on DailyKos. When he began to recognize some significant holes in the national polling establishment, he decided to step in to fill the void.

After his keynote interview, Silver sat down with CNET News and talked about the election, how his site got started, and more about the philosophical similarities between baseball and politics.

Q: Many Democrats were emotionally tied to what you were doing, in the sense that your data kept them calm during the election. Did your own numbers keep you calm? Nate Silver: Yeah, I think so. I'm just one of those people that likes to try and dissect a problem and once you started to dissect, some days you feel better about it. If I ever get cancer, the first thing I'll probably do is go on the Web and collect a bunch of data about different survival rates. I just feel better about things when I do them that way. It's a nerdy kind of thing to do.

Q: We were able to get up every day and look at the data and see what was going on. And this is not something you could do because it was your own data. How your own data affect how you felt about what was going on? Silver: I wouldn't be frustrated by it if McCain or Obama picked up points on a particular day. Sometimes you get frustrated if you know that something you did reveals something about your model. When something doesn't feel right, and you go and make changes. And we made a lot of changes over the course of the campaign where, even as recently as two weeks before the election, we were tweaking little parameters, and what started out as a pretty simple system--taking weighted averages of polls--became much more complex over time. But, yeah, we were never saying we had the perfect answer. We were always trying to improve things as we went along.

Q: The blog had an overt liberal position, but you always said the statistics were objective. What kind of feedback, if any, did you get from conservatives? Silver: We had a pretty good balance. We had probably about a 2-1 ratio in terms of liberal versus conservative readers, based on the comment threads. Now that we're not in an election, I think it's swung more toward the liberal side, both in terms of my writing and what people are reading about.

We try and be fair. That's the main thing, we try and be forthright. There's so much commentary from conservatives, also from liberals, that is just entirely disingenuous about certain things. It's a lot of cheerleading and cherry-picking of data. We're trying to present a case that by and large is a liberal's case, because it's my case. It's how I see the world. But we're trying to use data to do it where a lot of people just make bad arguments. … Read more