A round-up of the latest technology news from around the globe.
TAKE THE WEIGHT OFF: The anti-grav treadmill is aquajogging without the water: pressurised air takes the weight off your feet. The treadmill, designed to rehabilitate injured athletes, is enclosed in a large, clear airtight plastic bubble. Runners wear a special pair of shorts that are zipped in to the top of the bubble and the air gives
them lift. Who needs swimming pools? More at ScientificAmerican.
BLOCKED TROUBLES: Troubled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder flashbacks? Try Tetris. Researchers testing healthy volunteers found that playing Tetris helped reduce flashbacks after a traumatic film, while an alternative computer game actually increased flashbacks.
Cartoon villains are stocking up now on alternative, flashback
inducing computer games. More at Plosone.
BLOWING CHIPS: At the Norwegian University of Science and Technology they're trying out a portable vacuum cleaner that blows bark chips or other absorbent material onto oil spills, scrubs, and then sucks the soaked material up again. Rotating brushes in the head of the vacuum cleaner work the oil and the absorbent material together. The device could be useful for cleanups at car crashes or where oil has spilled from overfilled tanks. Shame they can't scrub the Gulf of Mexico. More at ScienceDaily.
SUGAR AND RICE: Rice University researchers can now make graphene from plain table sugar and other carbon-based substances, in a single step. The researchers put 10 mg of sugar on a square-centimeter sheet of copper foil. Then they flowed hydrogen and argon gas over it at 800C to create graphene. Cooking classes weren't that interesting in my day. Details at ScienceDaily.
TWO-UP: The Sikorsky X2 prototype helicopter clocked over 250 knots on a test run earlier in 2010. That was a new world speed record. The machine uses a pair of counter-rotating coaxial rotors, with a backward facing tail rotor for thrust. Read more at Sikorsky. They just beat out the Eurocopter X3's 220 knots.