10/31/2008 PERMALINK
Nanobots propelled by bacterial parts guided through body with MRI Researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal in Canada have coupled live swimming bacteria to microscopic beads to create a self-propelled nanobot and shown that such part living and part machine hybrids can be successfully steered through the body using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) ... more ... watch

10/30/2008 PERMALINK
Smart bot swarms for automated aerial search & rescue
STARMAC (Stanford Testbed of Autonomous Rotorcraft for Multi-Agent Control) can fly safely indoor or out, can carry computing and sensing resources sufficient for autonomous operation and perception, and feature simple, low maintenance, reconfigurable construction ... watch

10/30/2008 PERMALINK
No fingerprints, no DNA, but left your 'odorprint' at the crime scene An individual's underlying odor signature remains detectable even in the face of major dietary changes. The findings indicate that biologically-based odorprints, like fingerprints or DNA, could be a reliable way to identify individual humans ... more

10/30/2008 PERMALINK
The color red enhances men's attraction to women
Through five psychological experiments, Andrew Elliot, professor of psychology, and Daniela Niesta, post-doctoral researcher, demonstrate that the color red makes men feel more amorous toward women. And men are unaware of the role the color plays in their attraction ... Univ. of Rochester

10/30/2008 PERMALINK
Mitochondrial uncouplers mimic the effects of calorie restriction on aging Mitochondrial uncoupling can effectively mimic the lifespan extension benefits of a calorie restricted (CR) diet ... more

10/30/2008 PERMALINK
Low IGF-I & growth hormone levels extend lifespan Lifespan can be significantly extended by reducing the signaling selectively of a protein called IGF-I in the central nervous system. We discovered that IGF receptors in the mammalian brain affected the individual growth trajectory and lifespan. Our work confirms experimentally that continuously low IGF-I and low growth hormone levels favor extended lifespan and postpone age-related mortality ... more

10/30/2008 PERMALINK
How low can the cost of sequencing your genome go? New technologies are radically dropping the price of sequencing. The HeliScope can read the sequence of DNA with such speed that decoding of an entire human genome takes only a single day and costs the company doing the decoding only about $1,000. With overhead and profit added, we can expect the retail price to settle in somewhere in the $2,000 to $2,500 range ... watch ... Helicos BioSciences

10/30/2008 PERMALINK
Making artificial antibodies as effective as the real thing Antibodies are a critical part of the body's defense against disease and the gold standard for bio-sensing. Now biochemists have developed a method to make artificial antibodies as effective as the real thing ... MIT

10/30/2008 PERMALINK
Extreme environment virus providing parts for nanobots Viral nano-particles (VNPs) need to be ideally sized, able to be produced in large quantities, very stable and robust, able to self-assemble with very high precision, and amenable to modification by chemical means or genetic engineering. Ideal VNP found in the rod shaped SIRV2 that infects single-celled microorganism in extremely harsh environments like hot, acidic springs ... John Innes Centre

10/29/2008 PERMALINK
Nanobots swimming through your bloodstream with little sperm tails Inspired! What better power system could there possibly be for bloodstream swimming nanobots than little sperm tails. "As a proof of principle that this kind of strategy could work, we've shown that the first two enzymes could be attached to the same chip and act in series," said Chinatsu Mukai ... Cornell

10/29/2008 PERMALINK
Military wants Big Dog bot on their team
Watch this absolutely amazing video of the Boston Dynamics Big Dog bot undergoing tests and you'll understand why DARPA has written a new solicitation for more development. Watching Big Dog walk is so strange and yet so life-like at the same time, if it weren't for the loud engine buzz, you'd think your were watching an alien life form.

10/29/2008 PERMALINK
Avoiding breakthroughs that might cause humanity's extinction Just before 9/11, two microbiologists found and published a way to make any virus 100% deadly, no vaccine would work, no antivirals would work, get infected by a virus altered in this way and you die. A few years later a Rensselaer professor of cognitive science began working on Brutus, a creative AI system designed to spin short yarns of betrayal, deception, and evil for the gaming industry. See Worldview for extinction avoidance advice.

10/28/2008 PERMALINK
The hype may have faded, but experts say virtual world comeback ahead Experts say that virtual worlds like Second Life are about to enter a second phase as a tool that lets businesses better collaboration with employees and communicate with customers. Qwaq allows users to store project documents in a virtual room where team members avatars can meet and discuss their project using IM and VoIP ... more

10/28/2008 PERMALINK
Google's amazing Reality Enhancement System (RES) The Google Earth on the iPhone or iTouch is an awe inspiring RES bot. A massive knowledge base covering any location on Earth in your palm whenever you need it. Sat photo, ground photos or the menu and phone number of the nearest bistro, turn up the RES of your life ... watch

10/27/2008 PERMALINK
Asteroids can end humankind or make us fabulously rich
On Earth, Mars and our Moon gravity sinks minerals down toward the core with only a small amount close enough to the surface to be recovered. But out in the asteroid belt there are minerals galore, floating around in nice chunks ready for recovery.
Just one asteroid, scientists say, could destroy our species if it smacked into Earth or provide us with recoverable minerals equal to the entire world's annual income -- and there are millions of them out there for the taking.
A few of us are already playing the ultimate cosmic game with the survival of humankind really at stake.
Stay stuck on Earth and an asteroid or something else will eventually kill off our kind, go to the Moon or Mars, still stuck on level 1. But head out to the asteroids, colonize and grow rich enough, and we bump up to level 2, where an entire galaxy can be won if our team plays well enough.
Epsilon Eridan, only 10.5 light-years from our sun, was recently discovered to sport not one but two asteroid belts. Could that be our second big move? Humods are dedicated to making that happen, read our our Open Source Worldview, then start learning about ... Asteroids ... Asteroids ... More space colonization concepts can be found in this gallery of space settlement art ... photo from JPL-Caltech

10/27/2008 PERMALINK
A big step towards cloning you a replacement heart In research towards growing you a replacement heart with your own DNA, eliminating fears of rejection. Researchers have found that two microRNAs, miR-1 and miR-133, control the genes that shape the formation of heart muscle tissue into valves and chambers ... Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease

10/27/2008 PERMALINK
Getting closer to a household bot worth having around If you've not seen it, this three minute webmovie of the latest humanoid bot for hobbyists from Aldebaran Robotics is worth a watch. With stereo vision and a number of other sensors, voice synthesis and recognition, and smart bot code, you can really see that we aren't so far away from a household companion and help bot that could actually be, not just a toy, but truly useful ... watch

10/27/2008 PERMALINK
Molecular assemblers able to make almost anything MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms is developing programmable molecular assemblers that will be able to make almost anything and automatically link everything they make into the net. Smart, net linked, nano-assembled technology IS the future ... CBA

10/27/2008 PERMALINK
First 50 years in aviation vs first 50 years in space In 1903 Orville Wright flew just 120 feet at 6.8 mph in the first flimsy little airplane, but only fifty years later the 707 jetliner began profitably flying 140 passengers at a time across oceans and continents at over 500 mph. Sputnik began the space race in 1957, and now 50 years later Americans find their space program is an expensive, failure prone, muddle. Why the difference? Paying passenger traffic was aviation's goal, while our space bureaucrats were so clueless, it took a former communist nation to finally put paying passengers into space. So very special kudos to Armadillo Aerospace for braving the dreaded innovation crushing American Space Bureaucracy Barrier to win the xPrizes' Lunar Lander Challenge ... more

10/26/2008 PERMALINK
Turning viruses and bacteria into nanobot fabs Structural DNA nanotechnology uses the basic chemical units of DNA, abbreviated as C, T, A, or G, to self-fold into a number of different building blocks that can be engineered to further self-assemble into complex structures. "Cells are really good at making copies of double stranded DNA and we have used the cell like a copier machine to produce many, many copies of complex DNA nanostructures," said researcher Hao Yan of the Arizona State University Biodesign Institute

10/26/2008 PERMALINK
A completely new way to capture energy from the wind A breakthrough in small scale wind energy a fraction of the cost of turbines, the Windbelt relies on the aerodynamic phenomenon known as aeroelastic flutter ... watch ... Humdinger

10/25/2008 PERMALINK
Digital logic gates made of neurons as reliable as electronics One human neuron can successfully provoke a signal in another only 40% of the time, so your brain combine neurons into heavily connected groups for reliability. Now human engineers working with neurons in the lab have developed a way to control the growth pattern of neurons to do the same thing, allowing them to build reliable circuits that use neurons rather than wires ... more

10/25/2008 PERMALINK
Another step towards a desktop nano-fab that can make anything
The Alaris30 desktop 3D printer creates durable, high-quality models (600 x 600 dpi) at minimal cost with high accuracy including 'finished-quality' smooth surfaces, moving parts and text that stands out clearly by jetting proprietary FullCure photopolymer materials in layers ... Objet Geometries

10/24/2008 PERMALINK
Grow a new transplantable organ from your own adult stem cells A team at Genentech has used adult stem cells, taken from a mouse's prostate, to grow the complete organ, a big step towards developing the ability to regenerating any organ from a patient's own adult stem cells. DNA of generated organs would match the transplant recipient exactly, eliminating any chance of rejection and potentially allowing organ transplants to become a routine anti-aging therapy ... more

10/24/2008 PERMALINK
Solar cells made with a pizza oven, nail polish remover & inkjet printer The iJET is a solar cell that's cheap and easy to make, requiring only a pizza oven, some nail polish remover, and a common inkjet printer. See 23 year old Australian scientist Nicole Kuepper demo and describe her invention ... watch

10/24/2008 PERMALINK
Ready for your new spotless mind - memories safely & selectively erased
New and old memories have been selectively and safely removed from mice by scientists. "Selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives," says Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, co-director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Georgia School of Medicine ... more

10/24/2008 PERMALINK
Cold virus found to have ability to manipulate your genes The human rhinovirus (HRV), which causes 30 to 50 percent of common colds, has been found to have the ability to manipulate your genes and this ability appears to be what causes some of the most annoying cold symptoms ... more (pdf)

10/23/2008 PERMALINK
Complete human genome sequencing for $5,000 coming spring 2009 Complete Genomics Inc. claims they will start offering complete human genome sequencing for only $5,000 next year ... more

10/23/2008 PERMALINK
Inquisitor smart search bot now available for Firefox & Explorer
The Inquisitor smart search bot, now owned by Yahoo, speeds up your searches. Start typing and websites appear instantly, along with suggestions to help refine your search. Inquisitor actually grows to understand your interests, learning and tailoring your results as you search. You can also add more search engines with customized keyboard shortcuts. Inquisitor offers faster, smarter, more flexible search, and its free ... more

10/23/2008 PERMALINK
Self-assembling nano-wires perfect for a direct brain-computer interface Researchers have created water-soluble electronic materials that spontaneously assemble themselves into 'wires' 10,000 times smaller than a human hair. "What's exciting about our materials is that they are of size and scale that cells can intimately associate with," said Dr. John D. Tovar. "Meaning that they may have built-in potential for biomedical applications." ... Johns Hopkins Univ.

10/23/2008 PERMALINK
Undergrads genetically alter beer to fight cancer & heart disease Lots of college students spend their free time studying a beer, but a few students at Rice University are using genetic engineering to create beer yeast that brews beer containing resveratrol, a chemical found in red wine that has been shown to reduce risk for both cancer and heart disease. Rice's "BioBeer" will be entered in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition Nov. 8-9 in Cambridge, Mass ... more

10/23/2008 PERMALINK
Melatonin prevents brain aging due to mitochondrial dysfunction Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are considered a key factor in brain aging process. Complex I of the mitochondrial respiration chain is an important site of ROS production and hence a potential contributor to brain functional changes with aging. Appropriate antioxidant strategies could be particularly useful to limit this ROS production and associated mitochondrial dysfunction ... more

10/23/2008 PERMALINK
Your government is seeking bids for multi-robot indoor pursuit system
Under the SBIR program, Topic Number 208-204 (Army) your government is seeking bids for the development of: Title: Multi-Robot Pursuit System. Objective: Develop a software and sensor package to enable a team of robots to search for and detect human presence in an indoor environment ... SITIS What an ideal opportunity the war in Iraq offers for the develop of the tools of tyranny. See Worldview for extinction avoidance advice.

10/22/2008 PERMALINK
Most of your DNA is 'spam' inserted by 'selfish' genes Much of human DNA is the genetic equivalent of e-mail spam: short repeated sequences that have no obvious function other than making more of themselves. After starting out in our primate ancestors 65 million years ago, one type of repetitive DNA called an Alu retrotransposon now takes up 10 percent of our genome, with about one million copies. Roughly every 20th newborn baby has a new Alu retrotransposon somewhere in its DNA, scientists have estimated ... more

10/22/2008 PERMALINK
Where does a quantum computer store data? In an atom, of course. In a breakthrough in computer memory miniaturization, scientists have stored information inside the nucleus of an atom. This feat represents a key step towards a practical quantum computer that could solve computational problems millions of times more complex than can be tackled by existing silicon-based computer technologies ... more

10/22/2008 PERMALINK
Imaging a brain as it learns how to image you
A brain isn't born fully organized. It builds its abilities through experience, making physical connections between neurons and organizing circuits to store and retrieve information in milliseconds for years afterwards. Now that process has been caught in the act for the first time by a Duke University research team that watched a naive brain organize itself to interpret images of motion ... Duke University

10/22/2008 PERMALINK
A smart bot that can track your interests all across the web
Breakthrough smart bot technologies that can comprehend language, allowing computers to process the meaning of a web pages, seem likely to be the next big net advance. The recently launched Twine uses a natural language processing smart bot to parse the contents of the web pages you bookmark, precisely targeting your interests to offer you other data that you will find useful ... more

10/22/2008 PERMALINK
When a breakthrough turns out to be a breakdown The price of life's necessities stayed amazingly stable for hundreds of years when gold was the world's money. Then a breakthrough called 'fiat money' was implemented in 1971 that allowed governments to create unlimited amounts of money and in the 37 years since, the cost of life's necessities, food, clothing, housing, cars have all shot up by 300% to 600%. All the money sloshing around has caused the world's financial markets to lurch from asset bubble to asset bubble, until the world's banks don't have a clue what their loans are worth.

10/21/2008 PERMALINK
One vaccine that cures them all By disarming a genetic switch, researchers have developed a vaccine that protects against many strains of Salmonella. The new vaccine stimulates the production of antibodies and immune cells that work together to kill bacteria ... Univ. of California

See also: New vaccine works for all types of flu and lasts for many years

10/21/2008 PERMALINK
Vision-guided aerial bot swarms able to cooperate & evolve
The Laboratory of Intelligent Systems directed by Prof. Dario Floreano focuses on the development of robotic systems and artificial intelligence methods inspired by biological principles of self-organization. Research areas are: vision-based flying robots, approaches to artificial evolution and swarm cooperative behavior ... more

10/21/2008 PERMALINK
Countering the use of bots by tyrannical leaders to enslave
British dot com millionaire Ben Way has becoming so concerned about the many military and surveillance bots under development that a power-hungry leader could quickly and efficiently use to turn a democracy into a tyranny. That he has set up a web site to raise awareness of the defensive systems freedom-lovers would need to defeat a bot-driven tyranny. UAV and bot detection systems, directed EMP energy disruptors, and anti-bot viruses are all covered ... Weapons Against Robots

10/21/2008 PERMALINK
DARPA funds nano-fab consortium The goal is to develop a new manufacturing technique that enables 'Tip-Based Nanofabrication' to accelerate the transition of nanotechnology from the laboratory to commercial products. Starting with the construction of 'one-at-a-time' atomically precise silicon structures, the consortium lead by Zyvex Labs initially plans to develop atomically precise, 'quantum dot' nanotech-based products in volume at practical production rates and costs ... more

10/20/2008 PERMALINK
Using rat brains to control our electric power grids
Researchers are experimenting with use living neural networks composed of thousands of brain cells from laboratory rats to control simulated electric utility power grids in the lab. "Power systems control is very complex," said Dr. Ganesh Venayagamoorthy. "The brain is really good at handling uncertainties." ... Missouri University of Science and Technology
See also: It's alive ~ bot gets brain made from rat neurons

10/20/2008 PERMALINK
"If we survive the next 200 years, we should be OK," Stephen Hawkins Stephen Hawking, in a CNN interview, "I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next 100 years, let alone next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load." See Meme 7.

10/19/2008 PERMALINK
Cyberdyne robotic exoskeleton first to enter mass production
The Cyberdyne HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) exoskeleton will initial only be leased to care facilities for the elderly on a five-year-contract at a cost of 150,000-200,000 yen (1,500 to 2,000 US$) a month ... watch

10/19/2008 PERMALINK
Stealth startup working on smart bot that will change your life
The CALO (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes) Project is the largest effort to build an artificial intelligence ever attempted with over $200 million flowing into it from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) under their PAL (Personalized Assistant that Learns) initiative. Now CALO is about to break into the wild through a stealth startup called SIRI and you'll soon wonder how you ever got along without your PAL bot.

10/18/2008 PERMALINK
Fly along on a mission with the KillerBee armed aerial bot
The KillerBee is certainly the coolest looking armed aerial bot that I've seen yet and comes equipped with lethal and nonlethal weapons. See the bot in action and fly along on a computer simulated mission over Iraqi. Then read Meme 9.

10/18/2008 PERMALINK
Tracking your thoughts as they travel along your neurons
Fluorescent proteins in the brain can light up during individual action potentials making it possible to optically track nerve cell communication and make thought processes visible ... Max Planck

10/18/2008 PERMALINK
Programming bacteria bots to cure diseases and counteract aging Researchers have designed a method for implanting a chemical-genetic circuit into a bacterium such as E. coli that could train that organism to perform useful tasks within the human body ... more

10/18/2008 PERMALINK
Hybrid nano assembly system combines self & one-by-one assembly To self-assembly guided by molecular recognition and direct molecule-by-molecule assembly of nano superstructures, researchers have now added a hybrid approach where we first assemble a pattern of binding sites one-by-one at a surface and then allow different nanoparticles to attach by self-assembly ... more

10/18/2008 PERMALINK
Bot can sequence your entire genome for $10,000 Applied Biosystems has announced a new genomic analysis bot, the SOLiD 3 System, that is expected to enable scientists to sequence a human genome for approximately $10,000 ... more

10/18/2008 PERMALINK
Organic self-assembling low-cost bendable electronics Researchers have found a simple way to make high-performance electronic circuits from organic semiconductors. The advance brings us one step closer to low-cost, bendable plastic electronics ... more

10/18/2008 PERMALINK
First ever multi-input synthetic RNA computer Engineers have created a synthetic RNA customizable biological computer, made up of modules comprising the RNA-based biological equivalents of sensors, actuators, and information transmitters capable of taking in and responding to more than one biological or environmental signal at a time. This modular device processes these inputs in a manner almost identical to the logic gates used in computing; performing AND, NOR, NAND, and OR computations, signal filtering and signal gain operations ... Caltech

10/18/2008 PERMALINK
Frequency-modulated signals coordinate gene regulation Just as human engineers control devices ranging from dimmer switches to retrorockets using pulsed--or frequency modulated (FM)--signals, cells tune the expression of groups of genes using discrete bursts of activation. All those messenger proteins and now this, turns out our own cells are far better connected than we are over our cell phone nets ... CalTech

10/18/2008 PERMALINK
What are the odds your next hamburger will eventually fry your brain? Veterinary scientists are now warning that the miss-folded prion protein that causes Mad Cow disease, which can spread from cows into humans eating meat from infected animals and cause the incurable and deadly Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, appears to be mutating into forms that ARE NOT DETECTED by existing tests. So what are the odds eating that next hamburger will eventually fry your brain? Sad to say, since CJD symptoms don't show up for ten or more years, no one really knows ... more

10/18/2008 PERMALINK
Buckypaper - 10 times lighter than steal but 250 times stronger
Professor Ben Wang's buckypaper is a breakthrough material made by weaving carbon nanotubes together. It offers the most strength (250 times that of steal) for the least weight (1/10th that of steal) of any material know and also conducts both heat and electricity extremely well ... FSU's High-Performance Materials Institute

10/17/2008 PERMALINK
Is the next big thing in wireless net technology LED lights? "Imagine if your computer, iPhone, TV, radio and thermostat could all communicate with you when you walked in a room just by flipping the wall light switch and without the usual cluster of wires," said Prof. Thomas Little. "This could be done with an LED-based network that also provides light." ... Boston University

10/17/2008 PERMALINK
Breakthrough net bot lets you keep streaming movies From YouTube.com to Hulu.com, numerous stream movie sites are popping up all over, but few will let you download and keep a video. The KeepVid.com is a breakthrough net bot that solves this problem for you.

10/17/2008 PERMALINK
Quantum encryption about to go commercial A group of international researchers and Siemens Austria has demonstrated in Vienna the transmission of quantum-encrypted messages across commercial telecommunication links. An achievement that will help to bring quantum encryption into commercial deployment ... more

10/17/2008 PERMALINK
Single organism ecosystem discovered 2.8 km underground
Scientists has discovered a new bacterial called desulforudis audaxviator that is an entirely self-sufficient ecosystem in a single organism living 2.8 km below the Earth’s surface. It has the ability to obtain the elements necessary for life from inorganic sources, move freely, protect itself from viruses or harsh, nutrient-poor periods by becoming a spore. If the gamma ray burst hits before our species spreads out to other star systems, the descendants of des audax's will get their chance to inherit the galaxy ... Berkeley Lab

10/17/2008 PERMALINK
NeuroSky's MindSet offers brain control interface breakthrough
Your neurons use small electric pulses to transmit, by reading these waves, known as EEG's, your brain's activity can control computers and other devices. Reading this neurological activity formerly required an entire head of expensive sensors, but now NeuroSky has miniaturized it and made it affordable enough for any application, without sacrificing accuracy ... watch

10/17/2008 PERMALINK
Humanoid bot out dances Michael Jackson The dexterity engineers are managing to put into humanoid bots gets increasingly amazing. Here is YOGOROZA-V in a dance performance at the ROBO-ONE competition in Yokohama ... watch

10/16/2008 PERMALINK
BBC finds that brain boosting drugs are a 'growing trend' Increasing numbers of people are using prescription drugs like Ritalin to boost alertness and brain power, say experts. Up to a fifth of adults, including college students and shift workers, may be using cognitive enhancers, a poll of 1,400 by Nature journal suggests ... BBC

10/16/2008 PERMALINK
My submission to Google's contest for better world ideas The phosphorescent material painted on the inside of your old TV's screen will glow if you put just a pinch of radioactive material in with it. Paint this mixture on solar cells and you get cells that will faithfully produce power for many, many years, night or day, rain or shine, 24/7. Put a lot of these cells in a box that blocks any radiation and you've got a safe, reliable power plant.

10/16/2008 PERMALINK
Solar breakthrough ~ material that absorbs ALL of sunlight's energy Researchers have created a new material that overcomes two of the major obstacles to solar power. It absorbs all of the energy contained in sunlight and it generates electrons in a way that makes them easier to capture. The material combines electrically conductive plastic with metals including molybdenum and titanium to create the hybrid material. "We can cover the entire range of the solar spectrum," explained Prof. Malcolm Chisholm of Ohio State University.

10/15/2008 PERMALINK
DARPA promises direct neural control of full function artificial arms
DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program will create, within this decade, a fully functional (motor and sensory) upper limb that responds to direct neural control. This revolution will occur by capitalizing on decades of previous DARPA investments in neuroscience, robotics, sensors, power systems, and actuation. In particular, this program builds on DSO's Human Assisted Neural Devices Program, which has recently decoded the brain's motor signals with such fidelity that motor movements of a robotic arm can be achieved entirely by direct brain control ... DARPA

10/15/2008 PERMALINK
Artificial cells that could power human implants Researchers have created a blueprint for artificial cells that are more powerful and efficient than the natural cells they mimic that could one day be used to power tiny medical implants ... Yale University

10/15/2008 PERMALINK
Self-healing plastic fixes its own cracks The repair process, in which solvent-filled microcapsules embedded in an epoxy matrix rupture when a crack forms, allows the plastic to retain its own structural integrity and extend its own useful life ... more

10/15/2008 PERMALINK
Nissan prototype mobile pod features 4 bots to prevent collisions
Nissan has unveiled an All-Around Collision Free prototype incorporating four bots - Side Collision Prevention (SCP), Back-up Collision Prevention (BCP), available Distance Control Assist (DCA) and Lane Departure Prevention (LDP) systems. This latest prototype vehicle extends Nissan's 'Safety Shield' concept to help protect the vehicle and its occupants from potential risks ... more

10/15/2008 PERMALINK
Pigs come to the rescue of humans with cancer It is possible, new research claims, to remove immune cells from those suffering from cancer and cultivated many more of these cells in piglets before injecting all the immune cells back into the donors body to greatly boost their body's natural cancer fighting defenses ... more

10/15/2008 PERMALINK
Annual census finds 6.5 million bots out in the wild The statistical department of the International Federation of Robotics says that there are now 6.5 million mobile and articulated bots out in the wild. We're talking meat-space robots here, since no one has any clue how many smart agent bots might exist on the net ... more

10/15/2008 PERMALINK
Paralyzed limb movement restored with artificial brain-muscle connections "This study demonstrates a novel approach to restoring movement through neuroprosthetic devices, one that would link a person's brain to the activation of individual muscles in a paralyzed limb to produce natural control and movements," said Joseph Pancrazio, Ph.D., a program director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) ... more

10/14/2008 PERMALINK
Bots prevented our occupation of Iraq from ending in defeat There is more evidence everyday that without bots, our occupation of Iraq would have already ended in bitter defeat. To see exactly how effective bots can be in urban warfare, give this 60 Minutes report a look ... watch

10/14/2008 PERMALINK
The electric 'city car' motion pod's time has arrived A lot of 'city car' concepts are showing up around the web these days including this interesting electric vehicle concept car the Nissan Nuvu.

There is also the gas fueled Toyota iQ, which Motor Trend says will soon be coming to America under the Scion brand.

Given that most city dwellers drive no more than 40 miles per day, a small electric 'city car' vehicle could be the breakthrough that brings the cost of getting around back down to a more reasonable level. With hundreds of millions of Indians and Chinese now rich enough to be in the market for vehicles, clearly a breakthrough of some sort is necessary.

10/14/2008 PERMALINK
Will spam bots spawn the first human-level artificial intelligence? A new cold war is raging that could spawn the first human-level artificial intelligence. This cold war isn't between nations, it is between researchers writing the CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) site sentry bots that you see when you log in at many web sites vs researchers trying to CAPTCHA cracking bots smart enough to solve those site sentry puzzles. The one sure winner of this war is smart bot technology ... Technology Review

10/13/2008 PERMALINK
Leading geneticist says human evolution is over

Human evolution is grinding to a halt because of a shortage of older fathers in the West, according to a leading genetics expert. Fathers over the age of 35 are more likely to pass on mutations, according to Professor Steve Jones of University College in London. Speaking at a UCL lecture entitled "Human evolution is over" Professor Jones argued that there were three components to evolution - natural selection, mutation and random change. "Quite unexpectedly, we have dropped the human mutation rate because of a change in reproductive patterns." ... more

10/13/2008 PERMALINK
Creating nanoscale protein arrays quickly and cheaply In a breakthrough in bio-sensory technology, a team of researchers at Northwestern University has demonstrated the ability to rapidly write nanoscale protein arrays using a tool they call the nanofountain probe (NFP). "The NFP works much like a fountain pen, only on a much smaller scale, and in this case, the ink is the protein solution," said Horacio Espinosa, head of the research team and professor of mechanical engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern ... more

10/13/2008 PERMALINK
Research finds that drinking alcohol makes your brain get smaller "There was a significant negative linear relationship between alcohol consumption and total cerebral brain volume," concludes the Framingham Offspring Study

10/13/2008 PERMALINK
Small, fast unmanned ground vehicle for urban combat
The US Army Tank-Automotive Research Group's Stingray Project is developing technologies that will enable teleoperation of small UGVs at high speeds through urban terrain. Their approach combines immersive telepresence to give the operator the impression of being in the vehicle with semiautonomous driver-assist behaviors like those found in a jet fighter. In phase 1, a Chatten Head-Aimed Remote Viewer (HARV) was mounted on an iRobot Warrior UGV prototype. Tripple A, Armed Autonomous Androids, unlike human troops, will have no problems with shooting down citizens of their own country in urban combat. See HUMODS memes

10/13/2008 PERMALINK
A mobile pod running on compressed air costing only a penny per mile
A breakthrough from the French engineer Guy Negre could soon having you moving to and from work, the grocery store and all those other town trips that make up most of everyone's driving for a cost of less than a penny per mile in a 3-person vehicle powered by compressed air.

10/13/2008 PERMALINK
Futuristic dashboard designs from Paris Motor Show 2008 Some of the top ten dashboard designs from the 2008 Paris Motor Show got me thinking about how cool looking and functional all our gear could become if there were more talented designers around.

10/13/2008 PERMALINK
Breakthrough offers far cheaper bio-fuel production Chemists at Augsburg College in Minneapolis appear to have found the Holy Grail for producing bio-fuels. Use of a catalyst often used in pharmaceutical manufacturing can produce bio-diesel at a price so low that the huge government subsidies paid to keep ethanol programs afloat are not required.

10/13/2008 PERMALINK
A 'breakthrough' solution to the nation's financial troubles? If they guarantee ALL loans, our politicos now tell us, the economy will be fine again. But in Iceland, the first country to actually give this approach a try, the guarantee crashed the value of their nation's currency instead. Now Iceland's citizens are lining up at stores to buy the last of the food, since there is no money to import any more supplies. A very interesting experiment in economic science is now underway. Have our politicos found a 'breakthrough' solution for returning the nation to prosperity, or simply a fast path to currency collapse and national bankruptcy?

10/13/2008 PERMALINK
CO2 into fuel breakthrough Carbon Sciences, Inc. claims to have achieved a breakthrough in transforming carbon dioxide (CO2) into the basic fuel building blocks required to produce gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and other portable fuels. "We are very excited about this breakthrough," stated Derek McLeish, the company's CEO. "By innovating at the intersection of chemical engineering and bio-engineering disciplines, we are developing a highly scalable biocatalytic process to meet the fuel needs of the world. With over 28 billion tons of CO2 emitted each year, there is an abundant supply of raw material available to produce renewable and sustainable fuels for global consumption."

10/13/2008 PERMALINK
World's best chat bots compete in 'Turing' contest Google reports on Fred Roberts' Elbot wins the Loebner Artificial Intelligence Prize's bronze medal, for duping three out of 12 judges assigned to evaluate it into thinking it was human. Voice recognition, synthesis and chat bots all are improving rapidly, bringing us very close to being able to communicate with a personal digital assistant verbally.

10/08/2008 PERMALINK
Bot-driven mobile pods will hit the streets soon Ars Technica reports on how the success of DARPA's urban vehicle challenge series has made it clear that it is only a question of "when," not "if," self-driving automotive technologies will make their way into car showrooms and onto our streets.

10/06/2008 PERMALINK
Rovio mobile telepresence robot Watch the Rovio mobile telepresence robot in action featuring the Northstar navigation system allowing it to execute patrol routes perfectly even when signal is lost. It can take high quality pictures automatically and emailing them to you if you wish providing a home surveillance system that can cope with bad web connections.

10/06/2008 PERMALINK
Cheap generic drug can halve your risk of heart attack & stroke A drug that combines four different medicines that could halve your risk of death due to heart attack and stroke enters human trials in London.

10/06/2008 PERMALINK
Not just a few web sites, make the entire net peer-to-peer If an internet connection is unavailable, congested or even just unaffordable, it shouldn't prevent a group from networking. We need to move away from the centralized, rigid client-server paradigm and fixed communications infrastructure and create a peer-to-peer internet. This is exactly what researchers on the EU-funded POPEYE project are working on ... more

10/03/2008 PERMALINK
Who should be give precious drugs during a flu pandemic Not only are doctors, nurses, and firefighters essential during a severe pandemic influenza outbreak but so are truck drivers, communications personnel, and utility workers. "When preparing for a severe pandemic flu it is crucial for leaders to recognize that if the public has limited or no access to food, water, sewage systems, fuel and communications," said Nancy Kass, Sc.D. "The secondary consequences may cause greater sickness death and social breakdown than the virus itself." ... Johns Hopkins

10/03/2008 PERMALINK
Good bacteria drive intestinal response to infection In healthy individuals, some intestinal T cells (known as Tregs) recognizing commensals (good bacteria) and keeping the immune system from attacking them. Dr. Yasmine Belkaid's team found that during an infection, the DNA of the body's beneficial bacteria binds to a specific receptor on the intestinal immune cells, called TLR9. The binding of commensal DNA to TLR9 in the presence of a pathogen prevents the generation of Tregs in favor of the generation of protective T cells. These protective T cells can then clear the body of the invading pathogen ... National Institute for Health

10/03/2008 PERMALINK
Why people believe in superstitions & conspiracies explained Take away an individual's feeling of control and they will seek to find and impose order on the world using superstitious and conspiratorial explanations. People who's sense of control had been eroded in a previous part of the experiment, found patterns in all types of random data. They saw 'faces in static and detecting conspiracies between acquaintances,' Dr. Jennifer Whitson said. 'This suggests that lacking control leads to a visceral need for order - even imaginary order.' ... University of Texas

10/02/2008 PERMALINK
Space elevator & nanotube conference Nov.14-16 in Tokyo
The finest scientific minds in Japan are devoting themselves to designing a space elevator requiring huge breakthroughs in engineering to which the biggest Japanese companies and universities have turned their collective attention. To draw up a timetable for the machine the Japan Space Elevator Association will hold a conference on Nov.15-16, 2008 at Miraikan (Kotoh ward,Tokyo) and a Carbon Nanotube Filament Seminar on Nov. 14.

10/02/2008 PERMALINK
No one is calling it 'junk DNA' anymore Before the human genome was sequenced, researchers estimated the genome might contain upwards of 140,000 protein-coding genes, but sequencing revealed only about 20,000, accounting for less than 2% of the entire genome. But lurking in the other 98% are sequences known as ultraconserved elements, which are identical between humans and many animals separated by hundreds of millions of years of independent evolution. What are these sequences doing that makes their preservation essential in the evolutionary process? ... more

10/01/2008 PERMALINK
Predictive, preventive, personalized & participatory medicine Using genome sequencing and blood tests, a doctor will be able to determine a patient's probability of developing certain diseases and based on this individualized risk profile. Personalized therapies could then be designed to cut the likelihood of illness, increasing average lifespans by 10 to 30 years ... Wired

10/01/2008 PERMALINK
Chromosome damage that blocks cell suicide key to cancer Normally when a chromosome is damaged, the cell carrying the chromosome turns on a gene named p53, which helps kill the cell. When mutated, p53 fails to carry out this vital function. That is why mutant p53 is a cancer-causing gene and is found in most human tumors. "Loss of a single telomere may be a primary event that puts a cell on the road to cancer," says Kent Golic, a professor of biology and senior author of the study ... University of Utah

10/01/2008 PERMALINK
A simple test kit that tests for many diseases biomarkers A team led by scientists at the University of Leeds has developed a biosensor technology that uses antibodies to detect biomarkers - molecules in the human body which are often a marker for disease - much faster than current testing methods. "We've designed simple instrumentation to make the biosensors easy to use and understand," says Dr Paul Millner from the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds. "They'll work in a format similar to the glucose biosensor testing kits that diabetics currently use." ... more

10/01/2008 PERMALINK
Study allowed participants to "shape their own brain activity" "The aim of the study was to improve sleep quality and memory performance by 'rewarding' the existence of certain activities of the brain," said the study's workgroup leader, Dr. Manuel Schabus, researcher for the division of physiological psychology at the University of Salzburg in Austria. EEG changes transferred into sleep and improved immediate memory retrieval after learning ... more