The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Karplus, Levitt and Warshel

Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel have won this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry for laying the foundation for computer models used to understand and predict chemical processes.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Wednesday said their research in the 1970s has helped scientists develop programs that unveil chemical processes such as the purification of exhaust fumes or the photosynthesis in green leaves.

3D printers for individuals: will they change the world?

Three-dimensional printing was recently named by Goldman Sachs as one of eight technologies that are going to creatively destroy how we do business.

Experts say 3D printers will soon be in every home, but are they fads or will they change the world? Of course, 3D printers aren’t printers at all; they are model-making machines that squirt out molten plastic to create highly intricate and accurate designs. They have...

An afghan refugee to develop an incredible solution to clear landmines

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• An afghan refugee in Netherlands  works now as a product designer at Intermission  developped a €40 solution (vs $1,200 for traditionnal methods) to clear landmines. It's a giant sphere with sitcks and suckion pads that moves with the power of the wind and can detonate landmines when rolling. With one explosion it loses only a few sticks so one product can destroy many landmines per journey. It's designed to be provided to local people as a tool to cheaply prevent the landmine danger.

Pranav Mistry to allow anyone to use and contribute to SixthSense technology

Three years ago, inventor Pranav Mistry demoed the SixthSense technology on the TED stage — and talked about open-sourcing the software behind it. SixthSense is a wearable interface that enables interaction between digital information and the physical world through hand gestures. (Watch his TEDTalk to see how it works.) As promised, Pranav and his team have open-sourced the code for anyone to use and contribute at www.code.google.com/p/sixthsense. Download the code and create your own SixthSense device, join a discussion group and augment the codebase.

Wildcat: why is it so scary?

Boston Dynamics, the company that’s singlehandedly trying to hasten the fall of humankind with its incredible robot technology, has just unveiled the WildCat – the next generation of its Cheetah robot.

“WildCat is a four-legged robot being developed to run fast on all types of terrain. So far WildCat has run at about 16 mph on flat terrain using bounding and galloping gaits. The video shows WildCat’s best performance so far. WildCat is being developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPA’s M3 program,” says the company.

An alternative approach to space exploration?

As engineers, we need to avoid getting stuck in the same old mindsets and attempting to solve problems in the same way over and over. Sometimes we need to toss out the old way of doing things and take a fresh approach.

Consider the approach that some of the commercial (privately held) space research companies are taking in doing projects, and compare that to NASA's traditional approach. Rather than lift the whole launch vehicle vertically using powerful rocket engines (high stress over a short time frame), they are using a high-altitude aircraft to lift the launch vehicle to 40,000 to 50,000 feet over a longer period of time -- a kinder, gentler approach.

Aircraft are a more mature technology, and statistically more reliable, more environmentally friendly, and less expensive to operate than rocket boosters.

23 future technologies

          WHILE WE can’t really predict what the future holds, we can look at how far we’ve come with technology in merely the last decade and realize the present we know now will, very soon, find itself memorialized in nostalgia. Here are some technologies on the horizon that are poised to change your life.