The University of Michigan's COM-BAT most definitely isn't the first mechanical animal to get its inspirations from the bat, but it's probably the best equipped to play a vital role in modern day warfare. A select group of Wolverines have been blessed with a $10 million grant from the US Army in order to concoct a "six-inch robotic spy plane modeled after a bat [that] would gather data from sights, sounds and smells in urban combat zones and transmit information back to a soldier in real time." Purportedly, the critter will eventually boast a bevy of sensors, miniature microphones and detectors for picking up nuclear radiation and poisonous gases. Even more interesting, creators are hoping to implement "energy scavenging," which would enable the bat to stay charged from wind / solar energy along with vibrations and "other sources." So much for being nocturnal, eh?

[Via UberGizmo]

Rest assured, we've seen some wicked frickin' lasers in our day, but apparently, even the two-kilowatt rendition that heats coffee in mere seconds can't hold a candle ray of light to HERCULES. Intentionally named in all caps by University of Michigan gurus in order to highlight its awesomeness, said laser contains 300 terawatts of power (or 300 times the capacity of the entire US electricity grid) and could "help scientists develop better proton and electron beams for radiation treatment of cancer." Still, we can't help but conclude with UMich's own description of this masterpiece: "If you could hold a giant magnifying glass in space and focus all the sunlight shining toward Earth onto one grain of sand, that concentrated ray would approach the intensity of [HERCULES]." Damn.

[Via Physorg]

Scientists at North Carolina's PULSTAR nuclear reactor facility fired a positron bean five times stronger than any other ever created earlier this month, breaking a record previously held by a team in Germany. The antimatter device -- which apparently looks like a Star Trek warp reactor -- was developed as part of a two year project by NC State, the University of Michigan, and Oak Ridge National Labs. Now that the device is working, the team is looking for practical applications for the tech, including building an "antimatter telescope," which would allow even closer observations of atomic interactions. Or they could use it to blow up the universe. You know, whatever.

[Via TG Daily]

The latest locale to join Toronto and Raleigh in the LED City initiative is none other than the home of the Wolverines, which recently announced plans to replace about 1,400 street lights with light-emitting diodes. The city is claiming that it will be the nation's first to "convert all downtown street lights to LED technology," and it's hoping to save around $100,000 per year in doing so. Not surprisingly, Research Triangle Park-based Cree will be providing the components for Ann Arbor's transformation, and it sounds like it'll take a couple of years before the $630,000 project is actually completed. Hopefully, it won't take quite that long before the Maize and Blue can topple Ohio State again.

[Image courtesy of University of Michigan]

Early last year, gurus at the University of Michigan were devising a newfangled type of cochlear implant, but now it looks like the Wolverines are more interested in a fresh auditory nerve implant that is being dubbed "a superior alternative" to the (now) old fashioned option. The uber-thin electrode array would purportedly "transmit a wide range of sounds to the brain," and could give profoundly and severely deaf people the ability to "to hear low-pitched sounds common in speech, converse in a noisy room, identify high and low voices, and appreciate music." Researchers on the project are convinced that this technology trumps cochlear implants in every way, and while preliminary patents have already been filed, it'll still be nearly a decade at best before these things can invade human ears en masse.

[Via Physorg]

In the only politically responsible move when your party is the focus of national media attention because of a ridiculous budget proposal, Michigan state Democrats have denied that they ever planned to suggest funding an iPod for every student, and also pledged to repay Apple for that controversial "fact-finding trip" where lawmakers are suspected of hatching the supposed initiative. Representative Tim Melton spoke for the three jet setters when he claimed that this whole ordeal has been blown out of proportion, arguing that Dems were actually considering a wide-ranging $38 million technology package, and not just a DAP giveaway. So in the end -- other than bemused readers -- no one seems to have come out a winner here: Melton and his cronies will have to shell out $1,702 each for the Cupertino junket, Michigan kids statewide will have to return all of the iPod accessories they've been buying to prep for their freebies, and worst of all, Apple won't be able to realize its ultimate dream of locking an entire state's children into the iTunes ecosystem for life.

[Via The Raw Feed, photo courtesy of Anti iPod]

Michigan's much-derided initiative to give iPods to every student in the state just seems to be getting curiouser and curiouser, with word now coming out that some of the lawmakers involved in the proposal went on a junket to California that was paid for at least in part by Apple. As The Detroit Free Press reports, both Representative Matt Gillard and House Speaker Andy Dillon took part in the 2 1/2 day trip earlier this year, where they apparently discussed classroom technology and the educational benefits of iPods, sneaking in some time to discuss wine distribution and business taxes as well. While it's not clear exactly how much of an influence the junket had on their decision, it certainly doesn't seem to have hurt things, with Dillon unveiling the $36-million iPod proposal not long after he returned.

[Via The Inquirer, photo courtesy of Anti iPod]

Facing a $1 billion budget deficit, Michigan state House Democrats have proposed the natural addition to such a weighted spending plan: free iPods for every kid. Ostensibly for educational purposes, the $38 million plan would provide iPods or MP3 players to every student in Michigan to use as a learning tool. We've seen laptops -- which Michigan (and Virginia) handed out to its students a few year back -- and even PSPs be put to such educational use, but iPods are a bit of a new one on us. Pearson Education does have that curriculum for the iPod, and bought Apple's PowerSchool a little while back, but this would undoubtedly be the largest rollout of such curriculum to date. That said, we're all for the insanity, 'cause just like our iPod always told us: "We don't need no education... Teachers leave those kids alone." And if the iPod says it, it must be true!

[Via The Raw Feed, picture courtesy of Anti iPod]

While we've seen water-based, cement cast, and speaker-shaped speakers make their respective debuts lately, this Michigan Tech project might just take the proverbial cake. Seeking to becoming kings of university's annual snow statue building contest, a few zany students crafted a monstrous snow horn, fully equipped with tweeters, mid-range drivers, and subwoofers. The horn was unfortunately disqualified from the competition due to using "materials other than snow," but how can you not hand over a gold medal to a team that braved the freezing cold in order to craft a 20,000-watt megaphone? You heard right, powering this immense array of drivers were nine Behringer EP2500s and a Crown XLS602, and while we've no way of confirming, we have every reason to believe that folks have "called to complain from miles away." So if you've ever wondered what (is probably) the loudest speaker to ever be constructed primarily from snow looks like, be sure to hit the read link for a bevy of in-progress and finalized snapshots.

[Via Audio Junkies, thanks Lukas G]

We've heard of plenty of DIY projects, ranging from an MP3 player to a Wacom tablet, but a kid building a small nuclear fusion device in his parents' basement? That's something special. Thiago Olson, a 17-year-old from Oakland Township, outside Detroit, has just completed a 1,000-hour (that's over 40 days worth, but he spread it out over two years) project to build a small-scale nuclear fusion reactor. How does it work? The short of it is that Olson takes a vacuum chamber, fills it with deuterium gas and then jolts it up with 40,000 volts, which creates a very small amount of nuclear fusion. That sounds easy enough -- but now the question is, can young Dr. Strangelove hook up his reactor to the house so he can pay his parents' electrical bill?

[Via MAKE: Blog, photo courtesy Detroit Free Press]

Although you may have never given a thought to what transistors do to repair themselves when certain sectors fail, there are a few organizations who make it their life's work. Researchers from the National Science Foundation, the Semiconductor Research Corporation, and the University of Michigan have a mission to complete before their grant money runs dry: to create semiconductors that can heal themselves without the burdensome redundancy currently used. The goal here, which could seem a tad superfluous until you consider these chips operate in things like airplanes and medical devices -- you know, fairly critical applications -- is to design a semiconductor that runs more efficiently and can be counted on to function no matter how crucial the situation. By designing a chip that can auto-detect a problem, then shift the resources to a functioning area while the chip diagnoses and repairs the issue with help from "online collaboration software," you'll get a slimmer semiconductor that suffers no noticeable loss in performance while self-repairing. If this circuitry talk has your wires all crossed up, here's the skinny: more dependable chips will make everyone's life a bit easier, and if the team's plan is free of defects, we can expect to see prototypes within the next three years.

[Via Mobilemag]