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Scientists have found a way to turn iron nuclei transparent to X-rays, using lasers. And besides the coolness of making things disappear using lasers, this could have huge applications in optical computing. More »
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Jurassic Park taught us that we could find insects trapped in ancient amber and analyze them — but what about the insects on top of the insects? Much like Swift's famous poem, there's a whole different layer of creatures living on top of the ones we know about, which have been too small to analyze. But now with a new technique called phase contrast X-ray computed tomography, scientists have managed to scan and analyze a mite on the head of a spider preserved in amber. The mite is just 0.2mm long. More »
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History contains many examples of medical functions performed by frighteningly unqualified people. Barbers once were also dentists. Whoever was the oldest lady in the village was also a midwife. And x-rays were shot through children's feet - by shoe store attendants. More »
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The man of steel is impossible. Let's not pretend otherwise. The guy has X-Ray vision. He has super strength. He has supercold breath. He goddamn flies. There is no way he could do all that. But if there were, here's how they would work — according to what we currently know about the laws of physics. More »
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The first X-ray machines needed patients to sit still for well over an hour, they doused people with 1500 times the amount of radiation as today's machines, and the pictures were fuzzy at best. But they were still absolutely amazing. More »
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Earth is surrounded by two huge regions of charged particles like protons and electrons, and these areas are known as the Van Allen radiation belts. These belts can mysteriously change their intensity, posing a threat to astronauts and sensitive electronics. More »
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A NASA telescope was temporarily blinded by the brightest X-rays ever detected from beyond our galaxy. The blinding light came from a gamma ray burst, the sign of a massive star collapsing into a black hole 500 billion light-years away. More »
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Seriously though - don't x-ray yourself with sticky-tape. You can, and we'll tell you how. But seriously gang, don't. More »
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How do you navigate when you're floating out in deep space? By pulsar, that's how. In outer space (and even in Earth orbit) GPS doesn't do you a whole lot of good, so space scientists at the PLANS navigation conference in Monterey, CA this week have put together a couple of papers designed to show that a spacecraft could navigate autonomously by triangulating off the X-ray light emitted from pulsars scattered throughout the universe. The new system promises to be for space what GPS is for Earth; pretty useful when your stranded out past Saturn wondering "maybe that should have been a right at Titan..." More »
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