STEM

Scientists at Princeton University have designed a bionic ear that can hear better than human ears. And get this: It was printed using an off-the-shelf 3D printer. We’ve heard of 3D printers someday building human organs before, but what’s noteworthy about this project is this printed ear intertwines embedded electronics. These Princeton researchers basically 3D-printed Continue Reading →

Anjan Contractor’s 3D food printer might evoke visions of the “replicator” popularized in Star Trek, from which Captain Picard was constantly interrupting himself to order tea. And indeed Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, just got a six month, $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer. But Contractor, Continue Reading →

Google’s making it easy for educators and their students to discover and recommend applications and books with Play for Education. Announced onstage at this year’s I/O by Chris Yerga, Google’s Android Engineering Director, the new Play storefront organizes content by education type, age and various other criteria to make the content discovery process simple for Continue Reading →

Time, Inc., together with Google, the U.S. Geological Survey, and Carnegie Mellon University’s Create Lab, have set up a website featuring timelapse animations depicting changes in Earth’s surface from 1984 to 2012.  The animations are based on images collected as part of the Landsat program, conducted jointly by the USGS and the U.S. National Aeronautics Continue Reading →

Intel executive says that though Moore’s Law is becoming challenging, it is by no means gone. Intel will advance Moore’s Law for the foreseeable future, but keeping up with it is becoming more challenging as chip geometries shrink, according to a company executive.  Moore’s Law is based on a theory that the number of transistors Continue Reading →

Finally, some good news concerning females in technology. In the same week that people lost their minds over the Donglegate and upon learning that a woman is behind the popular Facebook page “I F*cking Love Science,” the Internet redeemed itself somewhat after throwing its collective support behind a Kickstarter campaign that’ll help a 9-year-old girl Continue Reading →

We’re not quite sure what a next-generation condom would look like (gesture control? a tiny touch screen?), but we may find out sooner rather than later if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation succeeds in its new quest. The foundation is seeking new ideas that improve on condom design, which it describes as having seen “very Continue Reading →

Microsoft is dangling a new offer to get students to try its Office 365 University software. As of Monday, students with a qualifying .edu e-mail address can register to receive three months free of Office 365 University and an extra 20GB of space for their SkyDrive online storage. Share the offer on Facebook and you’ll Continue Reading →

The bad news: just as much of the world is starting to get excited about the prospects of 3D printing, science is moving on to the world of 4D. The good news: in the future, you might not have to assemble that Ikea chair yourself. “4D printing” is the term cientists are using to refer Continue Reading →

Going all the way back to the venerable eMac, Apple has produced a low-price version of its iMac for educational institutions. This year is no different. Apple is now offering a new education-only version of the all-in-one featuring many of the improvements from 2012’s model, but at $1,099 it costs $200 less than the entry-level Continue Reading →