Pixellated thermal armour cloak conceals or disguises

Engineers in Sweden have announced the development of a prototype tank which is covered in "pixels" that enable it to disappear from thermal images - or to disguise itself as something else.

The "Adaptiv" system, funded by the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV), covers the test vehicle in hexagonal panels whose temperature can be quickly adjusted. The vehicle's own thermal cameras scan the background against which the tank is seen from each aspect, and the system can then adjust the pixels to match, making it very hard to see using thermal imaging systems. Alternatively, the pixels can be manipulated to present the appearance of something other than a tank - for instance a car or truck.

Researchers have created the smallest electric motor ever devised.

The motor, made from a single molecule just a billionth of a metre across, is reported in Nature Nanotechnology.

The minuscule motor could have applications in both nanotechnology and in medicine, where tiny amounts of work can be put to efficient use.

Tiny rotors based on single molecules have been shown before, but this is the first that can be individually driven by an electric current.

According to a new study, the month in which your child is born may determine what career he or she is likely to follow as an adult.

The study, conducted by the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), found that being born in a certain month indicates a statistical likelihood of what job a person will end up with. Researchers in the study also found that the month in which babies are born could also affect everything from intelligence to how long they live.

Using information from the last national census, the ONS analyzed the birth months of people from 19 different careers, reports the Daily Mail.

They found that general practitioners and debt collectors have the greatest percentage of January births, while sheet-metal workers have the lowest percentage. February newcomers appear to have a greater chance of becoming artists, and March is a good month for pilots, according to the ONS study.

The team said their findings suggest that both April and May have a fairly even spread of career paths. They said that babies born during the summer months (June, July and August) have a much lower chance of having high-end, top-paying careers, such as doctor, dentist, or professional athlete.

This image reveals the dark sediments and worn path of what was once a river delta, connecting a river with its lake terminus. Though this river bed has been dry for eons, it's proof that rivers once ran on Mars.

Proof of rivers and lakes like this are not unheard of on Mars, but this finding by the ESA's Mars Express orbiter is still a rare and impressive find. It's located in the planet's Southern Highlands, specifically in the Eberswalde crater. The river delta is quite small by Earth standards - it's got nothing on the famous Nile, Amazon, and Mississippi deltas, but then, few rivers do - but its location is rather more important than its size. It's some of the clearest proof that liquid water did indeed flow on the surface of Mars in not insignificant quantities, albeit eons ago.

Understanding how bacteria infect people is crucial to preventing countless human diseases.

Now scientists have made a breakthrough with a new approach enabling them to study molecules within their natural environment.

The research, led by a team of biochemists, microbiologists and physicists at the University of Bristol, provides an unprecedented level of detail of the consequences of a bacterium approaching another cell.

Until now, traditional approaches to understanding infection have focused on either studies of the cells involved or dissection of individual molecules present within the cells.

Distinct features of autistic brain revealed in novel analysis of MRI scans

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital have used a novel method for analyzing brain-scan data to distinguish children with autism from typically developing children. Their discovery reveals that the gray matter in a network of brain regions known to affect social communication and self-related thoughts has a distinct organization in people with autism. The findings will be published online Sept. 2 in Biological Psychiatry.

While autism diagnoses are now based entirely on clinical observations and a battery of psychiatric and educational tests, researchers have been making advances toward identifying anatomical features in the brain that would help to determine whether a person is autistic.

"The new findings give a uniquely comprehensive view of brain organization in children with autism and uncover a relationship between the severity of brain-structure differences and the severity of autism symptoms," said Vinod Menon, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of neurology and neurological sciences, who led the research.

"We are getting closer to being able to use brain-imaging technology to help in the diagnosis and treatment of individuals with autism," said child psychiatrist Antonio Hardan, MD, who is the study's other senior author and an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford. Hardan treats patients with autism at Packard Children's.

Night owls might think staying up late is a real hoot, but a new study hints that delayed sleep might have a sinister side. People who hit the sack late might have a greater risk of experiencing nightmares, according to scientists, although they add that follow-up research is needed to confirm the link.

"It's a very interesting preliminary study, and we desperately need more research in this area," says Jessica Payne, director of the Sleep, Stress and Memory Lab at the University of Notre Dame, commenting on the new findings.

Previous reports have estimated 80 percent of adults experience at least one nightmare a year, with 5 percent suffering from disturbing dreams more than once a month. The new paper, from a group of scientists writing in the journal Sleep and Biological Rhythms, surveyed 264 university students about their sleep habits and frequency of nightmares, defined as "dysphoric dreams associated with feelings of threat, anxiety, fear or terror."

The scientists, led by Yavuz Selvi at the Yuzuncu Yil University in Van, Turkey, used a measure known as the Van Dream Anxiety Scale to assess the rate of bad dreams. Specifically, study participants were asked to rate their frequency of experiencing nightmares on a scale from zero to 4, corresponding to never and always, respectively.

Space-age airships are set to replace lorries, trains and even cargo ships for carrying goods around the world, under a project being led by NASA.


The first prototype of the new airships is expected to make its maiden voyage next year while scientists leading the project predict airships capable of carrying hundreds of tonnes of cargo at a time will be available by the end of the decade.

Using materials and aerodynamics knowledge gained from the space-race, engineers at NASA are helping to develop a new generation of airships they believe will replace lorries, trains and even cargo ships for carrying goods around the world.

Thin-haired with deep-set grey eyes and a large, red pimpled nose: this is how Jack the Ripper, perhaps the most notorious murderer in history, might have looked, according to new archival research into police documents.

Retired British police detective, Trevor Marriott, gathered together evidence and has built a case against Carl Feigenbaum, a 54-year-old German merchant seaman, and made him the top suspect for committing the horrific and notorious murders between August and November 1888.

At that time, at least five women in the Whitechapel area in London were found horribly disfigured, often with organs missing.

The name Jack the Ripper was coined in taunting letters sent to the press and police, in which the writer claimed credit for the crimes.

Ripper's career ended as suddenly as it began with the murderer still at large, making his case one of the history's greatest murder mysteries.

Since the first murder 123 years ago, more than 200 suspects have been named, including Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, Prince Albert Victor and Sir John Williams, obstetrician to the Royal Family.

How do we define intelligence? SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, clearly equates intelligence with technology (or, more precisely, the building of radio or laser beacons). Some, such as the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, suggested that intelligence wasn't just the acquisition of technology, but the ability to develop and improve it, integrating it into our society.

By that definition, a dolphin, lacking limbs to create and manipulate complex tools, cannot possibly be described as intelligent. It's easy to see why such definitions prove popular; we are clearly the smartest creatures on the planet, and the only species with technology. It may be human hubris, or some kind of anthropocentric bias that we find difficult to escape from, but our adherence to this definition narrows the phase space in which we're willing to search for intelligent life.

Technology is certainly linked to intelligence - you need to be smart to build a computer or an aircraft or a radio telescope - but technology does not define intelligence. It is just a manifestation of it, perhaps one of many.

Astrobiologists see intelligence a little differently. The dictionary defines intelligence as the ability to learn, while others see it as the capacity to reason, to empathize, to solve problems and consider complex ideas, and to interact socially.