Technology

The ability of bats and dolphins to see at night and navigate the murky depths of the sea has long garnered the interest of the United States military.

“We would like to emulate this capability for the quick, accurate detection and classification of buried mines,” said Harold Hawkins, a program manager with the biosonar program at the Office of Naval Research in Arlington, Virginia.

That well-imagined nightmare in which a bloodthirsty Tyrannosaurus rex is chasing the family car down a lonely road in the red-rock desert as the children scream and the gas gauge hovers on empty and the dinosaur gnashes at the rear bumper is just that: a bad dream. T. rex was a slowpoke.

The most feared and revered of the dinosaurs did not have the leg strength to run very fast, if at all, according to a computer model developed by two experts in the mechanical movements of living creatures.

Computers and satellites are being successfully harnessed to the problem of biodiversity conservation in the Amazon rain forest.

Scientists believe that at least half of the world’s animal, plant, and insect species reside in the rain forest, an area half the size of the continental United States.

Disco isn’t dead; it’s just gone high-tech—very high tech.

A 200-pound (90-kilogram) satellite covered in 1,500 mirrors hand-polished by schoolchildren around the world was launched into a low orbit at the weekend to measure the effects of solar storms on the density of Earth’s upper atmosphere.

In cycling, triathlons, and other races, the leader of the pack may not be out ahead in terms of innate talent.

The “bunching” that often occurs in such events gives some racers an advantage that masks their individual ability. As a result, the person who crosses the finish line first isn’t necessarily the most physically and mentally fit competitor in the race.

In a clever twist of nature, the sea has eyes in its stars.

Scientists have discovered a species of brittle star whose outer skeleton is covered with crystalline lenses that appear to work collectively as an all-seeing eye.

Will the Internet change humanity? Why do we make music and art? Does sex have a future? What will tomorrow really be like? Questions such as these lack simple answers, but open discussion of them is vital to understanding the nature of human existence.

At least that’s the theory of Robert Kuhn, an investment banker with a Ph.D. in brain science from the University of California in Los Angeles and a passion to use communications technology for intellectual discourse, not to sell advertising.