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PM: Can you define neuroergonomics?A: It’s really just a merger of neuroscience, the study of the brain, with ergonomics, the study of how to design systems and technologies to be more compatible with what we know about human capabilities and limitations. PM: How have improvements in medical science helped this field of study?A: Neuroscience is a field that, traditionally, was mainly concerned with describing the structure of the brain and the function of the level of individual brain cells—the physiology and biochemistry....

THORNEY ISLAND, England — “No one goes round the back, there’s 360 horsepower of colorless death ‘round there.” It was a statement that made nearby fireman at a secure military base here prick up their ears. The British Steam Car, a potential Land Speed Record breaker, wasn’t belching its intense fire when it revved up on a track for the first time today, so there was no need for the firefighters’ services....

The mitrailleuse was one of the early types of mechanical machine gun, along with the Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, and others. “Mitrailleuse” is actually a general name for a volley gun–one with many barrels in a cluster, which are fired sequentially. The two most common types were the Montigny (a Belgian design fired by a lever) and the Reffye (a French design fired by crank).The Reffye was a top-secret weapon used by the French in the Franco-Prussian War, which was expected to be a huge game-changer....

The worst thing about Star Wars, aside from Hayden Christensen’s acting, is that there’s no way to go to that galaxy far, far away. It’s pretty much the same thing with Jurassic Park. There are no real live dinosaurs to go out and see, unless you count birds.But Industrial Light and Magic is working on the ultimate fix for fans, made in virtual reality. The team is working on virtual reality experiences powered by Oculus Rift that will let you meet a virtual dinosaur straight out of the movies, or join the droids on Tatooine....

Everyone loves a story about a small but daring character that overcomes all obstacles to become a hero at just the right moment. This week saw one such story play out in dramatic detail—and it was set in space.On November 27, and the world’s attention is fixated on Mars. A lander would soon enter the Martian atmosphere and land on its surface, collecting troves of new data about the Red Planet’s formation....

4.5 billion years ago, in the Orion Spur of the Milky Way galaxy, a swirling cloud of gas and dust collapsed under the weight of its own gravity. This so-called solar nebula spun faster and faster, and⁠—as it eventually flattened out⁠—most of that material drew toward the center, giving birth to our home star, the sun. The sun is the source of life as we know it. Without its light, energy and heat, we could not survive....

Media Platforms Design TeamBrian Vosburg has to have a visual. An acoustic Doppler current profile, a multibeam bathymetry readout, a hydrograph—anything to help the geologist from Louisiana’s Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration explain how the state plans to restore its tattered coast by tapping into the roiling brown Mississippi River, just 50 yards away. All he has on hand, however, is a chunk of gravel.Hunched down on the river levee at Myrtle Grove, 25 miles south of New Orleans, Vosburg scratches into the concrete a schematic diagram of a U-shaped notch in the embankment called a river diversion....

An animatronic skeleton frightens suspects into confession in this 1930 patent.The invention has a whiff of Spiritualism, a technology- and psychology-fueled social religion.Wonder at spectacle is a major source of energy for new scientific inquiry.Would an interrogation be more successful if it were conducted by a light-up robot skeleton? The osteodetective in question was patented in 1930 by a woman who called it “Apparatus For Obtaining Criminal Confessions And Photographically Recording Them....

German scientists took air samples from around Munich’s Oktoberfest celebration and found high levels of methane emissions.How high? Try 1,500 kilograms (3,306 pounds) worth of emissions during the two-week festival.Oktoberfest is the world’s largest folk festival. We hear there’s also some drinking involved.Every fall in Munich, Germany, over six million ale enthusiasts gather together to guzzle sausages, schnitzel and, of course, beer. Oktoberfest is magical.Yet in the midst of all the revelry, scientists from Technical University of Munich recently assembled to assess one of the Munich Oktoberfest’s environmental impacts: methane emissions....

On October 19, astronomers spotted a faint point of light in the sky—no more than a blip in the Pan-STARRS 1 survey telescope’s observations. As soon as scientists detected this tantalizing object, the window to observe it was already closing. Now, a month later, we finally know more about the interstellar traveler.Strange VisitorThe object was named Oumuamua, Hawaiian for "scout" or "messenger," as the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope sits atop the Hawaiian volcano Haleakalā....

The U.S. Army’s artillery is set to receive a new round of upgrades that will allow artillerymen to conduct precision fire missions without the use of GPS. The Army working to head off the day when enemies could jam the worldwide satellite-based navigation network, degrading the service’s ability to operate on modern battlefields.Back in the 1980s, few if any understood the impact the upcoming Global Positioning System would have on the U....

Researchers from the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia created a hybrid, centaur robot with four wheeled legs and two front-facing arms that can aid in future search-and-rescue missions (it’s also very fun to watch). The robot can pick up blocks, navigate through rubble, climb stairs or karate chop wood with its powerful arms. The Centauro stands at 1.5 meters tall, and weighs 93 kilograms. Its hybrid body structure means it’s both adaptable and tough, which is essential in search-and-rescue missions....

Would you let a robot surgeon drill a hole in your skull? Researchers from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands created a robot arm that can take on skull surgeries, drilling with sub-millimeter precision. The robot, called RoBoSculpt, could perform its first surgery within five years.Surgeons drill out holes in the base of a skull for over 100,000 patients a year worldwide to treat infections and cancers, a painstaking, slow process that requires exacting precision for hours at a time....

cellspacing=“0” cellpadding=“0” border=“0”>1. STAR WARS (1977)Motion-control photography, in which a computer is used to control a long, complex series of camera movements, made possible the spaceship battles in Star Wars. It would have taken too long to film the scenes manually, says Anne Thompson, deputy film editor at The Hollywood Reporter.Media Platforms Design Team2. TRON (1982)It wasn’t the first film to use computer-generated (CG) graphics (and many effects were hand-drawn) but the sci-fi video-game fantasy flick Tron was the first to use computer imagery to create a 3D world, making it one of the pioneering CGI films....

Media Platforms Design TeamBraced but unprepared: That’s the sober scouting report American teenagers have offered for their future in inheriting a generation’s legacy of environmental setbacks, a key report on innovation and science education said on Wednesday. Nearly three out of four students surveyed in the annual Lemelson-MIT Invention Index think high-tech inventions can help solve issues such as climate change and natural-resource depletion within the next 10 years—and 64 percent of them think they could come up with the a-ha moment themselves, compared to 38 percent of adults....

Wet wipes: They’re a tiny miracle of materials science, maintaining structural integrity no matter how much barbecue sauce or baby … stuff they have to clean up. That tenacity comes at a cost, though. Indestructible wipes are coalescing into conglomerations of grossness that are clogging the sewers, The New York Times reports.Often, the wipes combine with other materials, like congealed grease, to create a sort of superknot. “They’re really indestructible,” said Vincent Sapienza, a deputy commissioner for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection....

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus don’t hit Apple Store shelves until Friday. But a few lucky reviewers have spent close to a week with the phones, posting their full reviews this morning.While Apple’s new smartphones are already backordered by a few months online, you can still snag one tomorrow if you’re willing to wait in line for a few hours. Is it time to break out the camping chair and head to your local store?...

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: Tetra Images/Getty Images)Hackers could strike in one of the places you’d least expect: at the gas pump.These days you’re probably too busy beaming about low gas prices to think much about the machine that dispenses your fuel. But Jack Chadowitz of BostonBase is trying to alert people to a vulnerability in automatic tank gauges (ATG) at fuel pumps, which are used to monitor fuel levels. By gaining access to them, hackers could mess with stations by shutting off the gas pumps, creating a fraudulent leak report, or falsely claiming the station is full up on fuel—if that happened, gas stations might not know they’re running low on gas until it’s too late....

Earlier this week, the Trump administration implemented a tariff on imported solar panels, which has understandably rattled the solar industry. Solar panel manufacturers, electric utilities, and clean energy advocates are still trying to figure out what the ramifications of the tariff are, and how this new rule will affect both their businesses and the industry as a whole.Here are the particulars: All imported solar panels will be taxed at a 30 percent rate to start....

Remembering passwords can always be a drag, especially because it’s so common to place emphasis on remembering the wrong things. Luckily, scientists at MIT are working on a much simpler system: skulls. Your skull, specifically. That’s what three scientists from the University of Stuttgart, Saarland University, and the Max Planck Institute have done with SkullConduct, which they describe as “a biometric system that uses bone conduction of sound through the user’s skull as well as a microphone readily integrated into many of these devices, such as Google Glass....