Category Archives: Winning Science

A city north of London looks to be the first city to roll out self driving cars. Minton Keynes is starting its program with 100 cars that will take passengers to various destinations for a minimal fee of $3. The program will start in 2015 with a full roll out by 2017.

Even with speed limited to 12 mph, this is still a huge leap foward. I’d love to know why we in the US can’t seem to get ourselves moving on this.

So often women in the sciences don’t get proper recognition for the important contributions they make in their chosen fields. One New York exhibit is working to change that. The exhibit highlights the work of thirty two different women, some as famous as Marie Curie and Florence Nightingale, and others who are less well known, though just as important. The exhibit also provides interesting little tidbits about their lives, such as that Marie Curie drove to the Western Front in WWI to x-ray wounded soldiers.

Marie Curie

In male dominated fields, like the sciences, it’s often too easy to forget that there have been women proving they are equally capable of ground breaking discoveries. The exhibit runs through Nov. 23.

For those of us who are frequent internet shoppers, one of the biggest fears is that our awesome new acquisition will be stolen right off the door step while we’re at work. Now with the Doorbot, you can go to work with peace of mine. When your doorbell rings, the Doorbot lets you know via an app for your smartphone and then allows you to see who is at your door. If combined with a Lockitron lock, you can unlock your door, allow the delivery man to place the package safely inside your house, and then lock the door behind him.

Now hopefully nobody steals the package that delivers the Doorbot.

Of course, on everyone’s mind this week is Super Typhoon Haiyan. How did this storm get to be so massive and destructive? It turns out that Haiyan is the fifth storm of this magnitude in the Pacific this year. For comparison, it has been six years since there was a storm this bad in the Atlantic. Haiyan and the other storms like it are due to a combination of three factors:  higher surface water temperature, higher subsurface water temperate, and low wind sheer. These three allow large storms to continue to grow in size while also moving as one.

While the science of these storms is quite fascinating, we can’t forget the human toll. Please donate to the Red Cross and help these people in their time of need.