Dec 17 GIF: Christmas tree to blazing inferno in less than a minute By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy A dried-out, eight-foot Christmas tree can light, blaze and burn to ash in less than a minute. By setting Christmas trees ablaze in the safety of a lab, scientists and engineers are learning how to keep you safe from the… Continue reading
Dec 15 Watch 6:36 This year’s tech trends have both nice and naughty sides By PBS News Hour Are high-tech personal gadgets on your holiday shopping list? Hari Sreenivasan talks to Amy Webb of Webbmedia Group about the rise of wearable devices, the inherent concerns over data collection and security and the industry that’s popped up to help… Continue watching
Dec 12 Watch 4:53 News Wrap: Computer failure shuts down London airspace By PBS News Hour In our news wrap Friday, British officials demanded an investigation of an incident that brought Europe’s busiest airport to a standstill. Also, the Pew Research Center found that the wealth gap between white Americans and minorities is growing. Continue watching
Dec 11 ‘SciGirls’ turns the camera on young citizen scientists By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy Twin Cities Public Television's "SciGirls" puts girl scientists in front of the camera. While the pre-teen scientists perform experiments for the audience, the producers hope it will encourage more women to join science and engineering fields. Continue reading
Dec 10 Rosetta spacecraft finds water on Earth didn’t come from comets By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy Where did Earth's water come from? For years, scientists believed comets could have delivered it to Earth. But the Rosetta spacecraft revealed today that is not the case. Continue reading
Dec 10 7 things every woman should know before freezing her eggs By Sarah McHaney and Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy As women age, the likelihood of chromosomal abnormalities climbs, and with it, the risk of miscarriage, birth defects or disorders that makes conceiving more difficult. Egg freezing is seen by some as a way to stop the biological clock, expand… Continue reading
Dec 09 Watch 6:12 Talking to dogs isn’t so far-fetched: Researchers translate canine with computer science By PBS News Hour Researchers at North Carolina State University are inventing technology to decode dog talk. Hari Sreenivasan visits a computer science lab that has designed a harness to monitor physiological and emotional changes and send wireless commands through vibrations, which could be… Continue watching
Dec 08 NASA’s New Horizons probe wakes up in time to photograph Pluto in 2015 By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy On Saturday night at 9:30 p.m. ET, an alarm clock went off for NASA’s New Horizon probe, 2.9 billion miles away from Earth. At 9:52 p.m., the piano-size spacecraft sent a message back to Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory… Continue reading
Dec 08 ‘Father of video games’ Ralph Baer dies at 92 By Justin Scuiletti While 2014 holiday sales boast the latest generation of home video game consoles -- such as the Wii U, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 -- Ralph Baer, an inventor and engineer, was instrumental in giving life to the original idea… Continue reading
Dec 05 NASA’s Orion splashes down in the Pacific after flawless test flight By Jenny Marder and Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy Watch the Orion spacecraft launch live here on the PBS NewsHour. Continue reading