Bioconductor is an open source and open development software project for the analysis and comprehension of genomic data. The project, written for the R language environment, aims to provide a variety of visualizations for the analysis of genomic data. [download]

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Plfy has assembled a revealing series of toponymic (place naming) maps of the United States, based on the GNIS (Geographic Names Information System) dataset provided by USGS. The results instantly illustrate the regional preferences over naming their local body of water, ____ Brook or ____ Creek, ____Pond or ____ Lake, etc.

via Cartography

Anyone who has bought “white” LED devices knows that the light is not quite white. Michael Bowers, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University, has discovered an alternative method of producing white LEDs with a broad spectrum while remaining cool to the touch. This discovery will certainly make its way to architectural lighting and large scale applications as LED production costs drop. Bowers’ method also indicates possibilities to provide illumination through chemical processes in a luminescent paint to transform any surface into an light source.

via Exploration | Treehugger | Worldchanging

The Florida Advanced Center for Composite Technologies (FAC2T) under the direction of Ben Wang, is working to develop real-world applications for Buckypaper, a material made of carbon nanotubes. The film holds potential for use in illuminating devices, heat sinks, armor, and electromagnetic protective skins. [press release]

via Physorg

Using laser pulses that last just 70 femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second), physicists have observed in greater detail than ever before what happens when atoms collide. The experiments at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder, confirm a decades-old theory of how atoms–like tennis balls–briefly lose form and energy when they hit something. The results will help scientists study other atomic-scale processes and better understand the laws of physics.

via Physorg

Willcom’s soon to be released (11.25.2005) W-SIM packs a cellular data card into the size of a SIM card (25.6 x 42.0 x 4mm or 1 x 1.65 x 0.15-inch). The card opens new avenues for companies to embed cellular data connectivity into about any electronic device you can think of giving ubiquitous cellular connectivity a new horizon.

via Engadget

Adrian Ocneanu, professor of mathematics at Penn State, has designed a stainless steel sculpture depicting a 3-dimensional projection of a 4-dimensional “octacube”. The massive sculpture was fabricated by Penn State’s Engineering Services Shop. [press release] [animation]

via Physorg

W. Daniel Hillis of Applied Minds, Inc. is designing a perfectly synchronized 10,000 year clock / sculpture / statement with the Long Now Foundation. Everything about this clock is deeply unusual. For example, while nearly every mechanical clock made in the last millennium consists of a series of propelled gears, this one uses a stack of mechanical binary computers capable of singling out one moment in 3.65 million days. . . Unlike any other clock, this one is being constructed to keep track of leap centuries, the orbits of the six innermost planets in our solar system, even the ultraslow wobbles of Earth’s axis. . .”The ultimate design criterion is that people have to care about it,” says Hillis. “If they don’t, it won’t last.”

via Discover

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A 650+ collection of historical contraceptives donated by Percy Skuy, the former president of Ortho-Macneill, is on view at the Dittrick Medical History Center at the Case Wester Reserve University. Percy Skuy’s collecting began in 1965 and encompassed all manner of contraceptive devices, from a broad variety of cultures and time periods, and eventually developed into a “History of Contraception Museum”.

via Medgadget | boingboing

The CommonCensus Map Project is redrawing the map of the United States based on ’spheres of influence’. Using a growing set of votes, maps of regional associations with cities and sports teams are generated.

via information aesthetics