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There was big news last week in the heated debate about whether childhood vaccines cause autism. The 1998 study in The Lancet, which largely launched the vaccine-autism imbroglio, has been officially retracted. Its lead author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, has also been discredited by Britain’s independent regulator of doctors for his “unethical” and “dishonest” actions in conducting the pulled study.But Wakefield’s deeply flawed paper is not the only study that has fueled the anti-vaccination movement....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe U.S. Army is planning on mounting joystick-controlled weapon stations on the bulk of its inventory of tactical vehicles, and the defense industry is readying itself for the lucrative contract that will make it happen. The Army’s Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, in Warren, Mich., in 2011 is expected to release a request for proposals for tens of thousands of vehicle-mounted weapons platforms called Common Remotely Operated Weapons Station, or CROWS....

Washington Dulles Airport is quietly starting a pilot program to use facial recognition at customs checkpoints. The “Targeted Biometrics Program” will check passenger faces against a database of IDs to determine if the passengers are who they say they are. But the plan is drawing the ire of civil liberties groups.Customs officials say the program isn’t targeting everyone. Agents can choose passengers at random for the identification procedure, with no opt-out available....

Media Platforms Design TeamEscort Passport 9500ix /// $499 The Promise: “No false alarms.” That’s the Escort 9500ix’s central claim: This machine not only detects four bands of radar as well as speed-trap and red-light cameras, it can, with the help of an internal GPS antenna, sort out which signals are worth slowing down for and which aren’t worth bothering you about. Over time, the machine “learns,” which means if you’re used to driving the same routes again and again, it will become a quiet and unobtrusive machine, alerting you only when there’s a real speed trap....

Media Platforms Design TeamImage shot with a catadioptric lens.+ Click to enlargeMedia Platforms Design TeamNanophotonics catadioptric lensA lens developed by South Korean researchers offers a wide-angle view without fisheye distortion, perfect for ceiling-mounted security cameras. The lens has a 151-degree field of view, slightly short of the theoretical limit of 180 degrees for fisheye lenses. The camera itself, which protrudes from the lens structure, shows up as a small circle in the center of the image (above)....

Here’s the trailer to Minority Report, the new FOX show coming this fall. It is loosely based on the movie starring Tom Cruise, which was loosely based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, which is loosely based on a weird hallucination he had while amped up on speed.This show follows the precogs from the original movie after their program got shut down. If the trailer is any indication, the show scraps Steven Spielberg’s original tone of futuristic paranoia in favor of something that’s more like CSI: Cyber meets X-Men meets that show where Coach Taylor got the newspaper a day ahead of time....

Media Platforms Design TeamHow to prevent ice damsTo prevent an ice dam, don’t heat the roof, keep it cold. That way, the snow on the roof eventually dissipates without making large amounts of meltwater. The underside of the roof deck should not exceed 30 F. The best way to maintain low temperatures is by ensuring that there is adequate insulation and sealing gaps that let warm air pass into the attic from the house....

In the jungles of Guatemala and Belize, frustrated archaeologists walk across hillsides that hide Mayan temples beneath layers of earth, stones and roots. A trove of forgotten history is just waiting to be unearthed and explored, but digging is imprecise and expensive. Enter Roy Schwitters–part particle physicist, part Indiana Jones. The University of Texas professor has come up with a novel idea that harnesses the forces of the cosmos to locate temples, vaults and other long-hidden structures....

LAS VEGAS — Like a black hole with infinite gravity, the CES press day seems to suck in more and more journalists each year. We are here early for the early morning-LG press event. The Korean electronics giant produces everything from HDTVs to washers and dryers. The big news today is the world’s first dual-format HD-DVD/Blu-ray player, called the LG Super Multi Blue Player (scheduled to hit the market at the beginning of February for a cost of $1199—gulp!...

Media Platforms Design TeamIn the latest episode of Lost, “Review,” Jack Sheppard puts fate to an empirical test when he and the ageless Richard Alpert sit across from each other, watching the fuse of a stick of dynamite sizzle between them. If the stick explodes, maybe Jack’s preordained island destiny doesn’t exist. The scene is fraught with tension, but how does it stack up to the reality of explosive engineering? One person who certainly thinks the episode is in error is Robert Hopler, an author and explosives expert who served as an advisor for Lost....

Yesterday, the Federal Aviation Administration reclarified in a (very) public campaign that you should not fly drones at or near Washington, DC. Today, a man was arrested for trying to fly drone over the White House fence, sending the White House into lockdown and landing the man in custody. All of DC and much of the surrounding suburbs are a no-fly zone, a security precaution taken after September 11, 2001. The area in and around the White House and Capitol are especially sensitive, for really obvious reasons....

They don’t bury the dead in New Orleans. The highest point in the city is only 6 ft. above sea level, which makes for watery graves. Fearful that rotting corpses caused epidemics, the city limited ground burials in 1830. Mausoleums built on soggy cemetery grounds became the final resting place for generations. Beyond providing a macabre tourist attraction, these “cities of the dead” serve as a reminder of the Big Easy’s vulnerability to flooding....

BEIJING – During the Summer Olympics, which begin here today, IT departments at some U.S. companies could face network-straining levels of traffic as employees tune into video feeds from NBC. It’s never been easy for fans of sports such as archery and field hockey during the Olympics–the TV networks just didn’t give such niche sports the prime-time love showered on swimming, gymnastics and other popular events. But this time around, NBC has been making much of its plan to stream more than 2200 hours of live events via its Web site, and provide 3000 additional hours of on-demand video during the Beijing Games beginning on Friday, Aug....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhen I was a child, in the 1970s, my parents plugged in a 4-watt night light near my bedroom door to keep me from crashing into walls on my way to the bathroom. My two young sons don’t need such a thing. Their rooms are lit by the soft glow of LEDs, seeping out of various appliances, toys, and electronic devices. Together they produce what I call the underglow....

Media Platforms Design TeamSingtrix Party Bundle Limited EditionPrice: $345Ok, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I’ve had a thing for karaoke ever since my grandmother bought me a Lonestar Singalodeon K-2 off of QVC, and my best friend and I began spending hours rapping along to “Ice Ice Baby” in my room. So when I finally had the chance to review the Singtrix Studio, I jumped at the opportunity....

Media Platforms Design TeamWe use all these products, but we never think about where they came from and how. If these venture capitalists hadn’t taken a chance on Steve Jobs and Woz (Steve Wozniak), for example, we might not have the PC or the iPhone. Why did you think this would be a good idea for a documentary?MOLLY DAVIS: I was at a meeting at Silicon Valley with a number of venture capitalists when [executive producer Paul Holland] showed up....

Media Platforms Design TeamOver the next decade, the familiar ways we light our world, from incandescent light bulbs to overhead fluorescent tubes, may go the way of the oil lamp. At least that’s the future envisioned by the Department of Energy (DOE). The agency announced $37 million in grants earlier this month in its sixth round of funding for solid-state lighting. The cash will go toward basic research, product development and manufacturing of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and carbon-containing organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)....

Media Platforms Design TeamEvery week during the football season, Peyton Manning is a six-foot-five, 235-pound science lesson. The future Hall of Famer has obvious skills but also a variety of not-so-obvious ones that have made him a legend—skills best explained by someone with a Ph.D. So, in released this week, Yale scientist Ainissa Ramirez and I talked to top scientists and NFL players and coaches about the subtle physical and mental demands of one of the most demanding positions in sports....

On the top of all running shoes, there are these extra lace holes way at the top that almost no one uses. Turns out, they’re made for looping your laces back, and tightening the top so your feet don’t shuffle around inside. File this under things I wish I’d learned a decade ago.Lace your shoes up normally. Then run the laces back into the next hole—from the outside of the shoe inwards—to create a loop....

Media Platforms Design TeamFrank Tong is peering into another man’s mind. The Vanderbilt University neuroscientist is sitting in front of a bank of monitors inside a dimly lit room. On the other side of a plate-glass window, an undergraduate lies immobile, his legs protruding from a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. A display unit above the young man’s eyes flashes a picture of a pigeon or a penguin–at this point Tong doesn’t know which....