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Flyman, MD
Tethered and put through their paces in the lab, they tend to get a bit cranky. But they have the most sensitive noses on the planet, fantastic internal gyros, the most complex visual system known, and muscles so powerful they can instantly lift twice their own body weight. So, scientists are...
May 01, 2001
How to Find a Face in the Crowd
The technology has applications for surveillance, information security, access control, identity fraud, gang tracking, banking and finding missing children. It is currently being evaluated for use in airport security and as a counter-terrorism tool. Last February Dr. Atick's work was selected by...
January 01, 2001
Just What the Vet Ordered
In many domestic and exotic animal species, immunization with killed or live infectious organisms is an effective, low-risk, and relatively inexpensive method of protection against common infectious diseases. But they haven't worked in marine mammals and this is of concern to Navy veterinarians at...
June 01, 2001
Landing On His Feet
Sometimes, good ideas materialize in some very unlikely places. Take spatial perception for instance. Navy Captain Angus Rupert took a recreational parachute jump back in the 70's, and in his free-fall toward the ground realized that even while tumbling he could tell the direction of down just by...
January 01, 2001
Lifting the Fog
Objects shrouded by smoke, fog, dust or camouflage can be isolated and identified by a special camera developed by Office of Naval Research-funded researchers. This device aids human vision, which does not have the capability of seeing very far into the infrared region of the electromagnetic visual...
January 01, 2001
Listening for an Ocean
Things are crackling on the giant Jovian moon, Europa, and a group of earth-bound ocean scientists funded by the Office of Naval Research are intrigued… could Jupiter's Europa be hiding an ocean of water under that icy surface? A salty ocean… larger than all the oceans of the earth combined? The...
January 01, 2001
Mirror, Mirror, on the Ball
Starshine-2, the third in a programmed series of mirror-covered satellites built with help by students from around the world, will be launched from the Space Shuttle Endeavor on November 29th. Two other similar satellites have already been launched and placed in orbit (Starshine-1 was launched in...
November 01, 2001
Plankton Power
For hundreds of millions of years, plankton - those tiny drifting sea creatures found throughout the ocean - have been raining unceasingly on the sea floor as individuals die. There they've been deposited as organic (reduced carbon) matter in the sediment. This organic matter is a rich and...
August 01, 2001
Putting the Smarts at the Sharp End of the Spear
The United States Navy and Marine Corps are an expeditionary team. Thus they operate in the littorals-in the sea and on the land along the coastline. Expeditionary work takes a very different set of operational capabilities from those needed in blue-water fleet operations. The Navy must bring in the...
May 22, 2001
Quantum Loops
Physicists deal with unimaginable things… things such as liquids that can flow without resistance. Superfluid helium-3 is one such liquid, but it exists only at an equally unimaginable temperature, a thousandths of a degree above absolute zero. Yet, because it flows without resistance, it flows...
July 01, 2001