6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Brain mechanism discovery could switch-off alcohol dependency Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have discovered a new brain mechanism involved in alcohol addiction involving the stomach hormone ghrelin. When ghrelin's actions in the brain are blocked, alcohol's effects on the reward system are reduced. It is an important discovery that could lead to new therapies for addictions such as alcohol dependence.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Scientists claim to have found a potential 'biological fountain of youth' Scientists say their new discovery could lead to the single most important medical breakthrough in human history -- significantly longer lifespans. "Ultimately we are trying to discover what underlying mechanisms allow for some animal species to live a very long time with the hope that we might be able to develop therapies that allow people to age more slowly," said Asish Chaudhuri, Professor of Biochemistry, VA Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas and the senior researcher involved in the work.

Asish and colleagues made their discovery by extracting proteins from the livers of two long-lived bat species (Tadarida brasiliensis and Myotis velifer) and young adult mice and exposed them to chemicals known to cause protein misfolding. After examining the proteins, the scientists found that the bat proteins exhibited less damage than those of the mice, indicating that the bats have a mechanism for maintaining proper protein structure under extreme stress that other organisms lack. Once this mechanism is fully understood, the researchers believe that it could lead to therapies capable of significantly extending human lifespans.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Brain section multitasks to handle both phonetics and decision-making
A front portion of the brain that handles tasks like decision-making also helps decipher different phonetic sounds, according to new Brown University research. This section of the brain - the left inferior frontal sulcus - treats different pronunciations of the same speech sound the same way. This solves the mystery of how the brain is able to equate sounds that can sound radically different when spoken by different people.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
First implant of what could prove to be a much better cyborg heart
Abiomed recently announced the successful implant of its AbioCor Total Replacement Heart, performed at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital by Mark Anderson, M.D., associate professor of surgery at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. This is the first AbioCor implant since the completion of clinical trials and Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE) approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The heart was implanted in a 76-year-old male patient diagnosed with congestive, end-stage heart failure, who did not qualify for a heart transplant or other available therapies, making him eligible for the AbioCor implant.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Can studying super babies find the strength gene? Myostatin is the protein that tells your muscles when to stop growing. Two babies Super Babies have been born recently with a mutant gene that prevents them from producing enough myostatin. Scientists are studying this myostatin mutation to see if we could all become as muscle bound as these tots.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Suggestions for surviving in troubled times There is growing evidence for the theory that the last half of the 20th century was a period of extraordinary stability. But now we have returned to the more typical human condition, as previously experienced in the first half of the 20th century. A period that saw two World Wars, a flu outbreak that killed 50 to 100 million, a Great Depression and numerous 'great leaders' that slaughtered tens of millions of their own citizens to consolidate their power.

Let's hope things won't get that bad, but a good Civilization 2.0 thinker, John Robb over at Global Guerrillas, has some interesting suggestions for surviving in troubled times.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
A 'perfection tool' that will let Big Brother track you everywhere It's a frequent scene in television crime dramas: clever police technicians zoom in on a security camera video to read a license plate or capture the face of a hold-up artist. But in real life, enhancing low-quality video has not been an easy task -- until now. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed a new video perfection tool that can see what the naked eye cannot in either live or recorded video, in either color or black-and-white. "This enhancement of resolution can be a critical factor in locating terrorists or identifying criminal suspects," says Prof. Yaroslavsky.

The millions of security video cameras being installed are on the verge of being able to track you everywhere you go. Do you really want to live in a Big Brother state?

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Daily sex helps to reduce sperm DNA damage and improve fertility Daily sex improves men's sperm quality by reducing the amount of DNA damage. "I thought that frequent ejaculation might be a physiological mechanism to improve sperm DNA damage, while maintaining semen levels within the normal, fertile range," explained Dr David Greening, specialist in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Sydney IVF. To investigate this hypothesis, Dr Greening studied 118 men who had higher than normal sperm DNA damage as indicated by a DNA Fragmentation Index (DFI). The men were instructed to ejaculate daily for seven days. When the men's sperm was re-assessed on the seventh day DFI had dropped from 34% to 26%.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
One step test finds genetic and chromosomal abnormalities in embryos A one-step embryo test for both genetic and chromosomal abnormalities has been developed by researchers based in the USA and the UK. The technique, known as genome-wide karyomapping, was capable of not only detecting diseases caused by a specific gene mutation, in this case cystic fibrosis, but that it was also capable of detecting aneuploidy (an abnormal number of any of the 23 pairs of chromosome) at the same time. Clinical trials for couples seeking fertility treatment will begin later this year.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Process by which your brain repairs itself discovered Neural stem cells are your brain's repair system. These cells are capable of self-renewal to form new stem cells or differentiate into neurons, astrocytes or oligodendrocytes. Astrocytes have supportive functions in the environment of neurons, while oligodendrocytes form the myelin layer around axons in order to accelerate neuronal signal transmission. But how does a neural stem cell know which type of brain cell it is supposed to develop into?

"It has been well defined that Notch signaling drives the formation of astrocytes from neural stem cells while it suppresses the formation of neurons and the maturation of oligodendrocytes" explains Mirko Schmidt at the Institute of Neurology at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Inhibition of Notch signaling reverses the situation and more neural stem cells differentiate into neurons. This is exactly what happened upon the addition of the secreted protein EGFL7 (Epidermal Growth Factor-like domain 7).

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
A new personal transport pod that runs on anything that burns
Segway inventor Dean Kamen is developing a hybrid electric scooter that can run on almost anything that burns - from wood chips to plastic. According to the patent, the bike uses a small two-piston Stirling engine. Stirlings move their pistons by means of internal temperature differentials maintained by an external combustion heat source. The image is of a low temperature difference Stirling Engine by American Stirling Company that is powered by the heat from a warm hand holding it.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Aerobic activity keeps your brain young A long term study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine finds that aerobic activity will keep your brain young. The brain's blood vessels naturally narrow and become more tortuous with advancing age, but the study showed the cerebrovascular patterns of active patients appeared "younger" than those of relatively inactive subjects. The brains of the less active patients had increased tortuosity produced by vessel elongation and wider expansion curves.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Researchers create 'artificial leaf' light harvesting antenna An international team of researchers has modified chlorophyll from an alga so that it resembles the extremely efficient light antennae of bacteria. The team was then able to determine the structure of these light antennae. This technology allows the convertion of sunlight directly into usable energy with what amounts to an artificial leaf device.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Toyota develops mind-controlled wheelchair Toyota researchers in Japan have built a brain/machine interface (BMI) that has been demonstrated to control a wheelchair using a person's thoughts. The system enables a person to make a wheelchair turn left or right to move forward simply by thinking the commands. The response time is in 125 milliseconds. One millisecond is equal to 1/1000 of a second.

6/30/2009 PERMALINK
Breakthrough vision system allows bots to zip through crowded rooms
A European research consortium called Decisions in Motion has demonstrated a robot that can zip across a crowded room guided only by what it sees through its twin video cameras. The consortium is now hard at work on a head-mounted system to help visually impaired people get around based on their technology. "Until now, the algorithms that have been used [to allow bots to move through unstructured environments] are quite slow and their decisions are not reliable enough to be useful," says project coordinator Mark Greenlee. "Our approach allowed us to build algorithms that can do this on the fly, that can make all these decisions within a few milliseconds using conventional hardware." If this works as described, it is an enormous advance over existing bot vision systems.

6/29/2009 PERMALINK
What is sweet and purple and prevents cancer?
A Kansas State University researcher Soyoung Lim is studying the potential cancer prevention benefits of a specially bred purple sweet potato. Its purple color comes from a high concentration of anthocyanin, which is associated with reduced cancer risk.

6/29/2009 PERMALINK
New coating for metal implants vastly improves functionality
Tel Aviv University researchers have developed an electrochemical process for coating metal implants which vastly improves their functionality, longevity and integration into the body. "The surface chemistry, structure and morphology of our new coatings resemble biological material," explains Prof. Noam Eliaz. "We've been able to enhance the integration of the coating with the mineralized tissue of the body, allowing more peoples' bodies to accept implants." His new coating resulted in a 33% decrease in the level of materials failure, or delamination, in metal implants.

6/29/2009 PERMALINK
STAT3 protein has key roll in converting normal cells to cancer cells A protein called STAT3, which stands for signal transducer and activators of transcription, has been found to play a fundamental role in converting normal cells to cancerous cells, according to a new study led by David E. Levy, Ph.D., professor of pathology and microbiology at NYU Langone Medical Center. The study found that STAT3, in addition to its role in the cell nucleus regulating gene expression, is also present in mitochondria and regulates the activity of the electron transport chain in tumors cells. Mitochondria are the basic energy-producing organelles of the cell and are known to be critical for tumor cell metabolism. "These results open the possibility that inhibiting the mitochondrial function of STAT3 could be a promising cancer therapy in the future," adds Dr. Levy.

6/29/2009 PERMALINK
HIV may use miRNAs to become dormant and escape immune response Scientists at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) looked at miR29 expression levels in infected and uninfected cells and found that miR29 expression was enhanced by HIV-1 infection. Blocking the activity of miR29 with interfering RNA resulted in increased replication and infectivity of the virus. The scientists tested the association of miR29 and HIV-1 by mutating both miR29 and its target region on the HIV virus. When either was altered, miR29s suppression of HIV replication and infectivity was reduced or eliminated. In addition, the team suppressed P-bodies in the cells and noted a similar effect. This suggests that HIV may use miRNAs to become dormant and escape immune response..

6/29/2009 PERMALINK
Inserting just four genes can turn ordinary cells into stem cells
Scientists have found that inserting four specific genes into animal cells can re-program into believing they are stem cells. The re-programmed cells take on many of the properties of stem cells that would normally be derived from embryos, and, like embryonic stem cells, differentiate into many, possibly all, of the more than 250 cell types found in the body of an adult.

6/29/2009 PERMALINK
Accurate brain-interface possible without penetrating electrodes
Experimental devices that read brain signals have helped paralyzed people use computers and may let amputees control bionic limbs. But existing devices use tiny electrodes that poke into the brain. Now, a University of Utah study shows that brain signals controlling arm movements can be detected accurately using new microelectrodes that sit on the brain but don't penetrate it.

"The unique thing about this technology is that it provides lots of information out of the brain without having to put the electrodes into the brain," says Bradley Greger, an assistant professor of bioengineering and coauthor of the study. "That lets neurosurgeons put this device under the skull but over brain areas where it would be risky to place penetrating electrodes: areas that control speech, memory and other cognitive functions."

6/28/2009 PERMALINK
Yale fabs first solid-state quantum processor
A team of researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, a breakthrough in the race to build a quantum computer. They also used the two-qubit superconducting chip to successfully run elementary algorithms, such as a simple search, demonstrating quantum information processing with a solid-state device for the first time. "Our processor can perform only a few very simple quantum tasks, which have been demonstrated before with single nuclei, atoms and photons," said Robert Schoelkopf, the William A. Norton Professor of Applied Physics & Physics at Yale University. "But this is the first time they've been possible in an all-electronic device that looks and feels much more like a regular microprocessor."

6/28/2009 PERMALINK
Nanoparticles that can combat fatal brain infections Major brain infections such as meningitis and encephalitis are a leading cause of death, hearing loss, learning disability and brain damage in patients. Now scientists at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) of Singapore have developed peptide nanoparticles containing a membrane-penetrating component that enables them to pass through the blood brain barrier to the infected areas of the brain that require treatment. This offers a superior alternative to conventional antibiotics because the molecular structure of most are too big to cross the blood brain barrier membrane.

6/28/2009 PERMALINK
How alcohol alters the way your brain cells work discovered
Alcohol's inebriating effects are familiar to everyone, but the molecular details of how alcohol impacts brain activity has been a mystery. Now a new study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies brings us closer to understanding how alcohol alters the way brain cells work. The image shows a detailed view of the alcohol binding pocket with the ethanol molecule shown in yellow and red.

6/28/2009 PERMALINK
Protein that marks your cancer defenses for destruction discovered Researchers at the University of Texas have identified a protein that marks the tumor suppressor p53 for destruction, providing a potential new avenue for restoring p53 in cancer cells. The new protein, called Trim24, feeds p53 to a protein-shredding complex known as the proteasome by attaching targeting molecules called ubiquitins to the tumor suppressor, the team reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online Early Edition. "Targeting Trim24 may offer a therapeutic approach to restoring p53 and killing tumor cells," said senior author Michelle Barton, Ph.D., professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

6/27/2009 PERMALINK
'Neurologgers' reading bird brains in flight Using a "neurologger" specially designed to record the brain activity of pigeons in flight, researchers have gained new insight into what goes through a birds' brain as it flies. "We've successfully applied electrophysiological methods, previously used for the investigation of brain functions in the lab, to a freely flying bird in nature," said Alexei Vyssotski of the University of Zurich.

Research into neuro loggers and controllers is getting more sophisticated by the day. If we let it happen, agents of Big Brother will probably one day be routinely scanning everyone's mandatory "neurologgers" to make sure we aren't thinking any disloyal thoughts about the state.

6/27/2009 PERMALINK
Protein detecting biochip breakthrough
Biochips are already in widespread use for DNA testing, but not for proteins, because proteins have a defined three-dimensional structure by which they can interact specifically with other molecules and when they bind to a biochip surface the structure can be destroyed. Research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute have solved this problem. "We have developed a gel - a network of organic molecules - that we can apply to the surface of the biochip," says Dr. Andreas Hollander. "This gel layer [makes] the protein believe that it is in a solution, even though it is chemically connected to the network."

6/27/2009 PERMALINK
Protein found to prevent cancer from spreading Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have found that a protein called prosaposin inhibits metastasis by causing production of factors that block the growth of blood vessels. Cells from localized prostate and breast tumors, which didn't metastasize, secreted high levels of prosaposin, they found, while metastatic tumors secreted very little. Injecting mice with highly metastatic tumor cells with prosaposin, reduced lung metastases 80 percent and lymph node metastases were completely eliminated. Suppressing prosaposin expression in tumor cells caused more metastases. Reasearchers also demonstrated that prosaposin stimulates activity of the well-known tumor suppressor p53 in the connective tissue (stroma) surrounding the tumor. This in turn stimulated production of thrombospondin-1, a natural inhibitor of blood vessel growth (angiogenesis), both in the tumor stroma and in cells at the distant location. "Prosaposin, or derivatives that stimulate p53 activity in a similar manner in the tumor stroma, might be an effective way to inhibit the metastatic process in humans," said Prof. Randoph S. Watnick.

6/27/2009 PERMALINK
How to fab a nano light bulb
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute have tailor-made nanoparticles that can be used as position lights on cell proteins or potentially as light sources for display screens or for optical information technology. The researchers produced cadmium sulphide particles in microscopically small membrane bubbles. First vesicles are created with different reactants and different fluorescent substances in their membranes (a). Then the bubbles are fused with red fluorescent nanoparticles form (b). The particles can be seen as bright dots under the transmission electron microscope (c).

6/26/2009 PERMALINK
Copper may prevent human 'mad cow' disease
North Carolina State University researchers have discovered a link between copper and the normal functioning of prion proteins, which are associated with transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases such as Cruetzfeldt-Jakob in humans or "mad cow" disease in cattle. Prion proteins, or PrPs, are commonly found in brain tissue and throughout the central nervous system. In humans or animals with prion diseases, these proteins deform and aggregate, creating clumps of PrPs that interfere with the nervous system's ability to function normally. A team of NC State physicists, led by Miroslav Hodak and Jerry Bernholc, has found that when PrPs bind with copper in the human body, their structure becomes more stable and less likely to misfold or aggregate. "This stability may play a role in preventing PrPs from misfolding or aggregating," said Hodak. "Which indicates that with prion diseases, copper binding may be beneficial."

6/26/2009 PERMALINK
Like burrs on your clothes, virus-size capsules stick to cells to target RNA delivery
It is now possible to engineer tiny containers the size of a virus to deliver drugs and other materials with almost 100 percent efficiency to targeted cells in the bloodstream. The technique involves filling the tiny lipid containers, or nanoscale capsules, with a molecular cargo and coating the capsules with adhesive proteins called selectins that specifically bind to target cells. A shunt coated with the capsules is then inserted between a vein and an artery. Much as burrs attach to clothing, the selectin-coated capsules adhere to targeted cells in the bloodstream. After rolling along the shunt wall, the cells break free from the wall with the capsules still attached and ingest their contents. As shown in the image, 36 hours after release nearly every target cell (round gray spheres) has ingested a nanocapsule containing a small-interfering RNA (in red).

6/26/2009 PERMALINK
Nano bacteria assassins keep implants from causing infections
Infected implants now have a foe. Brown University researchers have created a nanoparticle that can penetrate a bacterial-produced film on prosthetics and kill the bacteria. It is the first time that iron-oxide nanoparticles have been shown to eliminate a bacterial infection on an implanted prosthetic device.

6/26/2009 PERMALINK
New battery technology could let electric cars go 500 miles on a $5 charge PolyPlus is developing lightweight, high-energy batteries that can use the surrounding air as a cathode that could eventually power electric vehicles that can go for much longer in between charges. Lithium-metal batteries approach the energy density of fuel cells without the plumbing needed for these devices; in theory, the maximum energy density is more than 5,000 watt-hours per kilogram, or more than 10 times that of today's lithium-ion batteries. Lithium metal-air batteries are also very lightweight because it's not necessary to carry a second reactant. Lithium metal is "the holy-grail battery material," says Steven Visco, chief technical officer and founder of PolyPlus. IBM is also working on lithium air batteries.

6/25/2009 PERMALINK
A really good video projector built right into your cell phone
Research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF in Jena have developed a mini projector that unlike conventional beamers does not need an additional illumination system. This makes the projector small enough to fit in a cell phone and cuts energy use so much that it does not overtax the battery. "The key component of the projector is an organic display, or OLED," says Dr. Stefan Riehemann, group manager at the IOF. Currently the OLED display produces a monochrome image with a brightness of 10,000 candelas per square meter; for color images the brightness is about half that level. By way of comparison, a computer monitor generates only about 150-300 candelas per square meter.

6/25/2009 PERMALINK
Drive around town for pennies per mile in a compressed air powered mobile pod
The 2010 MDI AIRPod emits no emissions and runs on nothing but compressed air. The heart of the 2010 MDI AIRPod is a piston engine that has been specially adapted by MDI to run on compressed air. The expansion of the compressed air within the cylinders moves the pistons. The engine is "fueled" by a system of high-pressure air tanks that can be refiled in just a few minutes.

6/25/2009 PERMALINK
Good sleep necessary for good long-term memory formation Experts have long suspected that part of the process of turning fleeting short-term memories into lasting long-term memories occurs during sleep. Now, researchers at the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics of MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have shown that mice prevented from replaying their waking experiences while asleep do not remember them as well as mice who are able to perform this function. Their work, researchers say, has profound implications in the century-old search for the purpose of sleep.

6/25/2009 PERMALINK
Using stem cells to grow a new heart your body won't reject
Add some of your own heart's stem cells to a scaffold made from animal tissue, and a new heart can be grown that your body won't reject.

6/25/2009 PERMALINK
Why dogs get far more advanced medical treatment than you do You can chalk it up to politicos catering to religious ignorance. It has been going on since blood transfusion use was delayed for decades because the ignorant Christians in those days thought the soul traveled around the body in the blood stream, so a transfusion would "mix souls." Now they are on again about tiny little bundles of a few dozen undifferentiated cells having "souls," because they could potentially become human beings. As one scientist recently pointed out, with today's technology any cell in your body can become human. So when your preacher stops spewing deadly ignorance from his pulpit for a moment, to scratch his nose, he has actual just engaged in a holocaust, destroying millions of cells that could potentially become human beings.


Various embryonic and adult stem cell therapies in animals are producing simply amazing results. Old dogs with bad hips frolic like puppies. Race horses with injuries come back to become world class winners. One such racehorse, Be A Bono, won 16 out of 24 starts, earned more than 1.3 million in prize money, and was the 2004 World Champion Quarterhorse. All after a stem cell treatment.

Soon, hopefully, Christians will finally get past their ignorance about stem cells. Just like they finally got past their earlier ignorance about blood transfusion. Unfortunately, only after that ignorance had caused millions of unnecessary deaths by blocking blood transfusions for nearly half a century.

People complain about Bush causing the deaths of more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein, but those numbers pail in comparison to the millions forced to suffer pain, suffering and early deaths due to our former president's efforts to gain a few more votes from those suffering from religion-induced ignorance syndrome.

Help stamp out deadly ignorance by helping to spread a far better way of thinking.

6/25/2009 PERMALINK
Modding your PER3 gene could greatly improve your respond to fatigue Previous research showed that the PERIOD3 (PER3) gene predicts how people will respond to sleep deprivation. People carry either long or short variants of the gene. Those with the short PER3 variant are resilient to sleep loss, performing well on cognitive tasks after sleep deprivation. However, those with the long PER3 variant are vulnerable, showing deficits in cognitive performance after sleep deprivation. Now new brain imaging studies explains why. The resilient, short gene variant group overcomes the effects of sleep loss by recruiting extra brain structures to compensate. In addition to brain structures normally activated by the cognitive task, these participants showed increased activity in other frontal, temporal, and subcortical brain structures after a sleepless night.

6/25/2009 PERMALINK
Surprising finding favors age-matched stem cells tissue regeneration mods
Scientists working at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Embryology have overturned previous research that identified critical genes for making muscle stem cells. It turns out that the genes that make muscle stem cells in the embryo are surprisingly not needed in adult muscle stem cells to regenerate muscles after injury. The finding challenges the current course of research into regenerative medicine, which uses stem cells for healing tissues, and it favors using age-matched stem cells for regenerative therapy. Damaged muscle cells are dyed blue in image.

6/24/2009 PERMALINK
Lasers can lengthen quantum bit memory by 1,000 times Physicists have found a way to drastically prolong the shelf life of quantum bits, the 0s and 1s of quantum computers. Perturbation caused by magnetic field fluctuations from the nuclei of the atoms creating the quantum dot can cause it to forget the piece of information it was tasked with storing. A quantum dot is a semiconductor nanostructure that is one candidate for creating quantum bits. University of Michigan's Duncan Steel and colleagues used lasers to elicit a previously undiscovered natural feedback reaction that stabilizes the quantum dot's magnetic field, lengthening the stable existence of the quantum bit by several orders of magnitude, or more than 1,000 times.

6/24/2009 PERMALINK
Enzyme pair critical to longevity identified
Experiment after experiment confirms that a diet on the brink of starvation expands lifespan in mice and many other species. But the molecular mechanism that links nutrition and survival is still poorly understood. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified a pivotal role for two enzymes that work together to determine the health benefits of diet restriction. When lacking one enzyme or the other, roundworms kept on a severely calorie-restricted diet no longer live past their normal lifespans report Salk researchers. The enzyme WWP-1, shown in green in the image, is a key player in the signaling cascade that links dietary restriction to longevity. Sensory neurons are shown in red.

6/24/2009 PERMALINK
Your brain can adapt well to cyborg enhancements When you brush your teeth, the toothbrush may actually become part of your arm - at least as far as your brain is concerned. That's the conclusion of a study showing perceptions of arm length change after people handle a mechanical tool. The brain maintains a physical map of the body, with different areas in charge of different body parts. Researchers have suggested that when we use tools, our brains incorporate them into this map.

6/24/2009 PERMALINK
Array of nanoparticles and polymers can sniff out disease
Using a chemical nose array of nanoparticles and polymers, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a fundamentally new, more effective way to differentiate not only between healthy and cancerous cells but also between metastatic and non-metastatic cancer cells. It's a tool that could revolutionize cancer detection and treatment, according to chemist Vincent Rotello and cancer specialist Joseph Jerry.

6/23/2009 PERMALINK
The girl that does not age Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler. She turned 16 in January. "Why doesn't she age?" Howard Greenberg, 52, asked of his daughter. "Is she the fountain of youth?" Such questions are why scientists are fascinated by Brooke. Among the many documented instances of children who fail to grow or develop in some way, Brooke's case may be unique, according to her doctor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine pediatrician Lawrence Pakula, in Baltimore.

6/23/2009 PERMALINK
The proofreading protein that keeps errors out of your DNA

Researchers at the Universities of Leeds and Bristol have modeled how errors are corrected whilst proteins are being built. Ensuring that proteins are built correctly is essential to the proper functioning of our bodies, but the quality assurance mechanisms are not fully understood. "Scientists have been puzzled as to how this process makes so few mistakes," says Dr Netta Cohen. So how are errors corrected? Intelligent typesetters would remove the last few letters when they spot an error. The new model suggests how the backward sliding stalls when passing an error, so wrong letters can be snipped off and copying can resume.

6/23/2009 PERMALINK
Morning people and night owls brains work differently
Scientists at the University of Alberta have found that there are significant differences in the way the brains of early risers and night owls function. Using magnetic resonance imaging-guided brain stimulation, scientists tested muscle torque and the excitability of pathways through the spinal cord and brain. They found that morning people's brains were most excitable at 9 a.m. This slowly decreased through the day. It was the polar opposite for evening people, whose brains were most excitable at 9 p.m.

6/23/2009 PERMALINK
China testing two Maglev Systems for transporting freight
Maglev systems could potentially transport freight for 1/3 the cost of truck or rail transport. Magplane Technology designs and fabricates pipeline transport systems using the linear synchronous motor technology developed for the Magplane system. Typical applications for pipeline transport range from priority mail packages to ore transport. A typical ore application would have an underground pair of 60 cm diameter pipes for outbound and returning capsules, and typically carry 10 millions tons per year over a distance of 50 km. Maglev has the potential to drastically reduce the transportation costs and petroleum dependency of civilization 2.0.

6/23/2009 PERMALINK
Doctors discover new source for stem cells
Stem cells harvested from umbilical cord blood have already cured hundreds of children with bone marrow-related disorders, including sickle cell disease, thalassemia and leukemia. But upstream from that cord is a whole placenta, which researchers have found is filled with many times more stem cells than the umbilical cord. A new method for harvesting these stem cells means that thousands more children can be cured.

6/23/2009 PERMALINK
Arimaz's MyDeskFriend new penguin bot can deliver your messages from Facebook
MyDeskFriend from Arimaz features: Autonomous life cycles with changing behaviors. Five different moods. Reacts to voice, poking, cherishing, shaking, and more. Can receive and read you notes from your friends through Facebook.

6/23/2009 PERMALINK
What is the current state of Artificial Intelligence research? Can machines think? In 1950, Alan Turing, considered by some to be the father of modern computing, published a paper in which he proposed that, "If, during text-based conversation, a machine is indistinguishable from a human, then it could be said to be 'thinking' and, therefore, could be attributed with intelligence." He predicted that a computer would pass this "Turing Test" by the end of the century. That hasn't happened--yet. But the question continues to provoke and inspire. Artificial Intelligence might be just around the corner, or it might be centuries away. Forbes Magazine brings together many experts to see where the effort to design smart bots currently stands.

6/23/2009 PERMALINK
Making materials 10 times stronger by nanostitching in carbon nanotubes MIT researchers have found a way to fuse together materials that gives a whole new meaning to the concept of sewing. Nanostitching uses carbon tubes only billionths of a meter thick to reinforce advanced materials for airplane skins and more. The resulting composites could be more than 10 times as strong as their conventional counterparts.

6/22/2009 PERMALINK
Inflation or deflation, which is ahead for America? I just read a blog post on Mish's economics blog, the last line of which is:

Fears of massive inflation are at this point ridiculous.

Normally, I tend to find Mish's analysis persuasive and have linked to his comments many times in the past, but I fear that by going with a purely credit-based analysis of the situation, he has put himself at risk of a major failure with this prediction. What worries me is that it fails to take into account the requirement that foreign investors maintain their semi-religious faith in dollars. Since there is no practical way all America's debts can ever be paid back, other than in drastically depreciated dollars.

For 40 years the Fed has been able to create far more money annually than Americans have been force to actually experience in inflation.

This has only been possible because of the American dollar's unique status as the world's reserve currency. Due to that unique status, foreign investors & central banks were willing to immediately take many of the dollars the Fed created each year out of circulation, storing them in vaults and mattresses. A thousand dollars stuck in a mattress in India isn't causing any inflation in America. A trillion dollars in a foreign bank vault causes no inflation in America.

No inflation, that is, until someone decides to spend those dollars. Then all that pent up inflation can come roaring back.

After 40 years of dollars as fiat money, with no restraint on America's ability to create them, foreigners are sitting on dollars equal to hundreds of percent points of pent-up inflation, which will all manifest itself at once, if the holders of those dollars ever lose their faith that they represent a good value.

Take away foreign investor confidence in the dollar and suddenly trillions of foreign dollars will start simultaneously chasing whatever commodities and other goods are available for dollars.

This could cause massive inflation to occur, even if as Mish rightly points out, American banks remain completely unwilling to lend money to anyone.

Chinese actions lately make it me think that they are wisely trying to get out in front of the eroding faith problem of the dollar.

If China were able to be perceived by the world's investors as having avoided losses when the dollar crash acceleration occurs. Then their fiat currency might be able to survive the dollar collapse and become the new oil trading unit of exchange, since it is doubtful either the Yen or Euro could survive a dollar collapse. That and China's control of so much of the world's manufacturing plant, could serve to transform China into the world's new dominant economic power, almost overnight.

America became the world's new economic power when, after World War II, we were left with the world's only undamaged manufacturing plant, a strong currency, and a thriving internal market.

Now, told by our elite that we can thrive as a "service economy" we have dismantled our manufacturing plant, allowing China to step in. Today, China is the only country in the world with an undamaged manufacturing plant, a potentially strong currency and a potentially thriving internal market. The monumental stupidity of America's elite has put China in the perfect position to pull the rug out from under America and take over the role of global economic superpower. Winning the war for world leadership, without ever firing a shot.

We could be about to witness a brilliantly executed coup d'etat on the world stage that cuts the legs from under the western world by destroying their severely weakened fiat currencies and leaves China in the world reserve currency driver's seat.

6/22/2009 PERMALINK
New device designed to detect quantum effect in ordinary objects
Physicists have long wondered if large collections of atoms can exhibit the same quantum effects found in single particles. "It'd be weird to think of ordinary matter behaving in a quantum way, but there's no reason it shouldn't," says Keith Schwab, an associate professor at CalTech. "If single particles are quantum mechanical, then collections of particles should also be quantum mechanical. And if that's not the case - if the quantum mechanical behavior breaks down - that means there's some kind of new physics going on that we don't understand." Now, researchers have developed a new tool that can be used to search for quantum effects in an ordinary object.

6/22/2009 PERMALINK
Your cell is transforming into a smart bot RES - Reality Enhancement System Researchers are increasingly using cell phones to better understand users' behavior and social interactions. The data collected from a phone's GPS chip or accelerometer, for example, can reveal trends that are relevant to modeling the spread of disease, determining personal health-care needs, improving time management, and even updating social-networks. The approach, known as reality mining, has also been suggested as a way to improve targeted advertising or make cell phones smarter: a device that knows its owner is in a meeting could automatically switch its ringer off, for example.

Two slick new just launched cell phones continue the trend towards your cell phone morphing into a smart bot RES (Reality Enhancement System).

6/21/2009 PERMALINK
The best designed living pod yet from New Zealand
Much like modern manufacturing techniques used in the automotive industry, the HABODE is constructed in a customized factory. Utilizing a "fold-out" patented system, HABODE can be shipped and transported worldwide as in their shipping mode they are compliant with international shipping standards with respect to dimension and structural characteristics. Once landed and trucked to your site this unit is positioned onto its foundations. This operation can be performed in eight hours provided weather is favorable with full completion within two days.

6/21/2009 PERMALINK
The BRIT1 protein plays a key role in early detection of DNA damage Like a mechanic popping open the hood of a car to get at a faulty engine, the BRIT1 tumor-suppressing protein allows cellular repair mechanisms to pounce on damaged DNA by overcoming a barrier to DNA access. A research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center shows that BRIT1 connects with another protein complex to relax DNA's tight packaging at the site of the damage, allowing the faulty DNA to be repaired. The team showed that normal BRIT1 aids repair of double-stranded DNA breaks by allowing access to two repair pathways: homologous recombination (HR) and non-homologous end-joining (NHEC).

6/20/2009 PERMALINK
Highly flexible and configurable container living pods
These modular container houses offer a high degree of flexibility. These living pods can be easily modified and regrouped to change the nature of your dwelling. The structural rigidity in the metal frame and corrugation give greater strength than standard timber and steel construction, allowing easy stacking and joining in numerous possible configurations for habitats both large and small. Construction time from start to finish is significantly reduced through prefabrication of about 80% of the structure. Once a plan has been selected, the factory prepares the units by cutting for windows, doors or removing sides. Windows, flooring, and other finish materials are applied easily through use of standard dimensions and pre-assembled framing.

6/20/2009 PERMALINK
Breakthrough in efforts to develop tiny biological fuel cells University of Georgia researchers have developed a successful way to grow molecular wire brushes that conduct electrical charges, a first step in developing biological fuel cells that could power human implants and prosthetic limbs. "This technique gives us the control to systematically vary polymer architecture," said chemist Jason Locklin. "Opening up the possibility for various uses in electronic devices such as sensors, transistors and diodes." The ultra-thin films are between 5 and 50 nanometers—too small to see, even under a high-powered optical microscope.

6/20/2009 PERMALINK
Could solar panels filled with gasoline-secreting diatoms replace petroleum? Scientists in Canada and India are proposing a surprising new solution to the global energy crisis: "milking" oil from the tiny, single-cell algae known as diatoms, renowned for their intricate, beautifully sculpted shells that resemble fine lacework. Abstract: Here, we review a simple line of reasoning: (a) geologists claim that much crude oil comes from diatoms; (b) diatoms do indeed make oil; (c) agriculturists claim that diatoms could make 10 to 200 times as much oil per hectare as oil seeds; and (d) therefore, sustainable energy could be made from diatoms.

6/19/2009 PERMALINK
Keynesian bubble economics is destroying our lives John Maynard Keynes did more damage to our civilization than any other pseudo-scientist.

Prior to the adoption of Keynes ruinous ideas, many nations had money with the more stable, intrinsic value of being backed by precious metals and market forces, not politicos running central banks, controlled interest rates. In those days, the value of your money did not erode away and interest tended to give you a reasonable return on your capital.

Up until the end of the 1960's in the USA, you could still work hard, put your money in the bank or Government Savings Bonds, and be assured of a comfortable retirement.

Then Keynes' fiat money system was imposed on America by politicos who wanted to buy votes by handing out freebies at home, while simultaneously taking on the costly role of creating an American world economic empire. This caused the buying power of the dollar to plunge. For fifty years the price of a Hershey bar at the neighborhood store where I grew up was 5 cents. Then when America replaced our gold-backed money with Keynesian fiat money, the price of that Hershey bar skyrocketed: [1969] 10 cents, [1974] 15 cents, [1977] 20 cents, [1978] 25 cents, [1982] 30 cents, [1983] 35 cents, [1986] 40 cents, [1991] 45 cents, [2002] 59 cents, [2009] 89 cents. Along with the price of nearly everything else we all buy regularly.

You could no longer simply work hard, save your money and be assured of a comfortable retirement. Because politicos were inflating away the value of your savings at a rapid clip, and keeping interest rates so artificially low that you couldn't keep up.

Low interest rates, easy credit, massive creation of money through the printing press and fractional reserve lending had to be put into place to keep all the negative effects of Keynes ideas from being seen, to keep an economic system being slowly strangled to death, walking. But like any Frankenstein, our undead economy was unable to walk smoothly, but instead had to lurch from one hastily inflated economic bubble to the next, with each new bubble seeming to take more monetary stimulus to inflate than the last one.

Without your knowledge, you had been robbed of the ability to save your money for a comfortable retirement. This was no longer an option, since fiat money inflation would destroy the buying power of your savings to quickly and interest rates on savings had to be kept artificially low, to keep our dying economy walking.

In order to protect the buying power of our savings, we were all forced into becoming speculators. We had to keep taking on more and more risky investments keep our dreams of retirement from being stolen by the politicos pushing the new Keynesian bubble economic system that gave them far more power at your expense.

Wall Street's big firms profited as never before from selling investors more speculative investments and joined with Washington to keep the destructive Keynesian delusion alive.

Eventually, things got to the point that what I have called the king has no clothes recognition avoidance mechanism began to take effect. We in the west knew that our portfolios would be utterly wiped out if any of us said anything about the fact that Lord Keynes was prancing around the kingdom not wearing any clothes. So we all tightly closed our eyes to avoid seeing what had become obvious to any thinking person, that all the Keynesian clowns running our Treasury Department and Central Banks were running around stark naked.

The work of Lord Keynes supports the empowerment of economic and political elites at the expense of ordinary workers and investors, who's ability to save and retire is severely impaired.

Economists are richly rewarded by these political and economic elites for supporting Keynes and that insidious feedback loop is the only reason Keynes ruinous economic ideas persist.

Now though, the voices of reason, pointing our that Lord Keynes' followers are wearing no clothes are growing stronger.

Recently, Dr Xu, who has a doctorate from the University of California and was formerly managing director of the China's biggest investment bank began calling western leaders to account for remaining stuck in the failed Keynesian bubble economy mind set, saying: "It's time to announce Keynesianism's failure, time to announce the emperor Lord Keynes has no clothes." He went on to accuse the west many Keynesian politicos of "casting a moral verdict without seeming to care about truth or logic".

At least in Asia, reason seems to be returning. In the west, I fear we have more pain to endure before we again begin to see the light.

6/19/2009 PERMALINK
Fallopian tubes offer new stem cell source Human tissues normally discarded after surgical procedures could be a rich additional source of stem cells for regenerative medicine. New research shows for the first time that human fallopian tubes are abundant in mesenchymal stem cells which have the potential of becoming a variety of cell types.

6/19/2009 PERMALINK
Breakthrough in interfacing biological and electronic systems A network of artificial cells that work together to act as an AC/DC converter has been built. Demonstrating that synthetic cells can team up to achieve such feats is a step towards building synthetic tissues to interface biology with electronics, says the team of chemists behind the work.

6/18/2009 PERMALINK
Editing the genome of human pluripotent stem cells Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine have successfully edited the genome of human-induced pluripotent stem cells, making possible the future development of patient-specific stem cell therapies. The team altered a gene responsible for causing the rare blood disease paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, or PNH, establishing for the first time a useful system to learn more about the disease.

6/18/2009 PERMALINK
A protein called neuroligin is the Velcro for connecting new synapses
A protein called neuroligin is critical to the construction of a working synapse, locking neurons together like molecular Velcro, a study lead by a team of UC Davis researchers has found. "We are the first to observe that neuroligin zips around dendrites (the branched projections of neurons) before synapses form and can accumulate very soon after contact between cells," said UC Davis postdoctoral fellow Stephanie Barrow.

6/18/2009 PERMALINK
Patients test DARPA's nerve signal driven cyborg-arm
A new surgical technique, developed by scientists at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, allows patients who have lost arms to use residual nerve signals to control a prosthetic limb. This video shows three patients testing a prototype limb being developed by DARPA. The patients can perform complex tasks, including picking up a cup, grasping a cracker without breaking it, and putting a spoon in a cup.

6/17/2009 PERMALINK
Discovery of the cell's water gate can provide cancer control technique
Cells must be able to regulate the flow of water in and out in order to maintain their form and size. This regulation is carried out by special proteins known as aquaporins and inhibiting their function has been shown to dramatically reduce the spread and growth of tumors. Now researchers at the University of Gothenburg have determined the three-dimensional structure of the aquaporin in yeast. "Our study shows that the amino-terminal extensions in yeast act as a gate that can be opened and closed depending on how much water the cell must release or absorb", says Professor Karin Lindkvist. Since human and yeast aquaporin are similar this model could be used to develop human cancer inhibitors.

6/17/2009 PERMALINK
Reality gets a higher resolution with the Layar RES - Reality Enhancement System
The Layar RES (Reality Enhancement System) browser goes live in Amsterdam, Netherlands with five Dutch content providers participating.

6/17/2009 PERMALINK
A comfortable living pod you can fold up and move
Our planet's climate regularly swings between no-ice periods, when locations of all our coast cities are under hundreds of feet of water, to high-ice periods when the sites of all our mid-western cities are under hundreds of feet of ice. Not to even mention all the in between uncertainties: constantly shifting jobs, wars and other economic uncertainties. So here is the ultimate in resilient living pods. A pod that you can just fold up and move out of any emerging risk zone and over into the nearest emerging reward zone. Why own a fixed living pod, when the politicos of most of America's cities have created employee pension traps that are about to force them to start property taxing all their fixed home owners to death?

6/17/2009 PERMALINK
Wearware - transforming clothing into smart bots Textiles and the fibers that compose them are experiencing a sort of high-tech renaissance lately. Researchers are finding ways to turn silk into sensors by adding biological molecules to it, and turn cotton sheets into electronic fabric by bathing them in a solution of nanotubes. The idea is to use the electronic textiles, which are flexible and can be worn comfortably, to sense such things as the blood of a soldier or pathogens circulating in the air. Now researchers at MIT have integrated a collection of light sensors into polymer fibers, creating a new type of camera.

6/17/2009 PERMALINK
Hydrogen powered car ready to go and it's design is open source
A new hydrogen-powered mobile pod, whose designs will be open source and posted for free use in the cloud, was unveiled in London. The open-source approach means entrepreneurs around the world could download the designs and manufacture the two-seater prototype locally for free.

6/17/2009 PERMALINK
Flexible solar panels that install on roofs like shingles
A new type of flexible rooftop solar panels, called building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs), promises to replace today's boxy solar panels that are made with rigid glass or silicon and mounted on thick metal frames. The flexible solar shingles would be less expensive to install than current panels and made to last 25 years.

6/16/2009 PERMALINK
Nanoparticles are about to put an end to era of painful chemotherapy
UCF researcher's say that their nanoparticles could soon put an end to the era of painful and primitive chemotherapy.

University of Central Florida Assistant Professor J. Manuel Perez used a drug called Taxol for their cell culture studies, because it is one of the most widely used chemotherapeutic drugs. Taxol normally causes many negative side effects because it travels throughout the body and damages healthy tissue as well as cancer cells. However, the Taxol-carrying nanoparticles engineered in Perez's laboratory are designed so they carry the drug ONLY to the cancer cells, allowing targeted cancer treatment without harming any healthy cells. This is achieved by attaching a vitamin (folic acid) derivative that cancer cells like to consume in high amounts.

The bottom line is much better treatment results with none of the normal chemotherapy caused damage to normal cells that makes chemo such a painful ordeal for many cancer patients.

6/16/2009 PERMALINK
Pictures from the front line of the war on religious/state tyranny and how cloud-crowd is helping The latest pictures from the front line of the war on religious/state tyranny.

And Clay Shirky gives a TED talk about how the world's cloud-crowd net is helping us all push back against the increasingly oppressive and corrupt elites running the world's nation states and the other failing old order institutions.

6/16/2009 PERMALINK
How to keep the Earth habitable for an extra 1.3 billion years (65 million more human generations)
Scientists at Caltech have figured out how to counteract the changes in our sun to keep the Earth habitable for humans for another 1.3 billion years. That is long enough to give another 65 million generations of humans the opportunity to be born on humanity's home world.

As the sun has matured over the past 4.5 billion years, it has become both brighter and hotter, increasing the amount of solar radiation received by Earth, along with surface temperatures. Earth has coped by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thus reducing the warming effect. The pressure of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has dropped some 2,000-fold over the past 3.5 billion years.

The problem, says Caltech Professor Joseph L. Kirschvink is that "we're nearing the point where there's not enough carbon dioxide left" in the atmosphere to regulate temperatures by lowering it. Essentially, even taking atmospheric CO2 to zero will not be enough to overcome the Sun's increased heat generation. The solution for preventing Earth from becoming uninhabitable due to our Sun's increasing energy output, say Kirschvink and his collaborators, is to reduce substantially the total pressure of the atmosphere itself, by removing massive amounts of molecular nitrogen, the largely nonreactive gas that makes up about 78 percent of the atmosphere. This would regulate the surface temperatures and allow carbon dioxide to remain in the atmosphere, to support life, and could tack an additional 1.3 billion years onto Earth's expected human habitability lifespan.

All the world's politico's quibbling over carbon taxes won't even make a dent in the needed offset to the Sun's increased output. Scientists are going to have to figure out how to engineer a much more robust thermostat for our planet, if we want that 65 million generations of human to get that opportunity to be born on our home world.

6/16/2009 PERMALINK
Safer, scalable factory-built nuclear power plants
The Babcock and Wilcox mPower reactor, with its scalable, modular design, has the capacity to provide 125 MWe to 750 MWe or more for a five-year operating cycle without refueling, and is designed to produce clean, near-zero emission operations. Each B&W mPower reactor that is brought online will reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 57 million metric tons over the life of the reactor. Babcock and Wilcox has been making nuclear reactors for United States Navy ships for 50 years. See also this general overview of new developments in safer, lower-cost nuclear power.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Understanding the Cosmic master blaster - the gamma-ray bursts Since a gamma-ray burst has the power to destroy all life on our planet down to dozens of meters below the surface, we need to find out all we can about what makes these Cosmic master blasters happen. A new effect that may oppose the formation of black holes could explain the mysteriously immense energy of gamma-ray bursts.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Sox21 gene therapy may cure baldness
Disruption of the Sox21 gene causes hair loss and baldness in mice. This gene would be target for gene therapy to treat baldness in humans.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
SHP2 - the gene that built your head and heart New research from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center highlights the critical role a certain gene (SHP2) and its protein play during early embryonic development on formation of a normal heart and skull.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Cancer mouse trap could prevent disease from ever spreading The vast majority of cancer deaths are due to metastasis, the spread of cancer cells from its primary site to other parts of the body. These metastatic cells tend to move more than their non-metastatic variants but this movement is poorly understood. Scientists are studying cancer cells intently with the hope they can learn to control the movements of the dangerous cells. Now Northwestern University researchers have demonstrated a novel and simple method that can direct and separate cancer cells from normal cells. Based on this method, they have proposed that cancer cells possibly could be sequestered permanently in a sort of cancer mouse trap inside your body, made of implantable and biodegradable materials.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
FABulous breakthrough in precisely gluing micro/nano particles together
In a major step towards the powerful desktop fabricators we are all so eager to own, researchers at New York University have created a method to precisely bind nano/micrometer-sized particles together into larger-scale structures with useful materials properties.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Breakthrough could super-size your personal cognitive computation capabilities
When Physicists Yulin Chen, Zhi-Xun Shen and their colleagues tested the behavior of electrons in the compound bismuth telluride they discovered a breakthrough that could revolutionize cognitive computation with dramatically faster, smaller and far more power efficient computational electronics. The results show a clear signature of what is called a topological insulator, a material that enables the free flow of electrons across its surface with no loss of energy. This is another step towards the powerful RES - Reality Enhancement Systems - that will eventually make each of us dramatically more intellectual capable, but giving us our own awesomely capable personal bot assistant.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Can an inflatable dock reach all the way into space?
Inflatable pneumatic modules already used in some spacecraft could be assembled into a 15-kilometer-high tower. Brendan Quine, Raj Seth and George Zhu at York University in Toronto, Canada, wrote in Acta Astronautica (DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.02.018) "A free-standing space elevator structure: A practical alternative to the space tether". If built from a suitable mountain top it could reach an altitude of around 20 kilometers, where it could be used for atmospheric research, tourism, telecoms or launching spacecraft. They calculate the tower could be extended up to low Earth orbit at 200 kilometers. Shown in the image is a 7 meter proof of concept model.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Patching your immune cells to make you much healthier Allergies and lots of other diseases are caused by over reactions of your immune cells. Scientists from the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig, Germany and the Medical School Hannover, Germany have now succeeded in upgrading immune cells to prevent unwanted immune reactions.

You get promised a Supreme Being was your designer, then your DNA turns out to be more buggy than Windows Vista and you'll have to spend a lot to fix it if you really want to go for that eternal life thing. The old institutions are corrupt to the core, but there is a way of living that is both rational, healthy and can offer you a thousand times more sense of wonder, awe and accomplishment than any of the old, obsolete belief systems.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Want to solve the energy problem - go fly a bot-controlled kite In the future, wind power tapped by high-flying kites could light up New York. A new study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution and California State University identifies New York as a prime location for using kites to exploit high-altitude winds, which globally contain enough energy to meet the world's entire demand 100 times over.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Scientists invent world's smallest (1.2nm) controllable molecule-gear Scientists from A*STAR's Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), led by Professor Christian Joachim, have scored a breakthrough in nanotechnology by becoming the first in the world to invent a molecular gear of the size of 1.2nm whose rotation can be deliberately controlled. This achievement marks a radical shift in the scientific progress of molecular machines

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Will you suffer from arthritis? Up-regulation of certain cytokines and chemokines (signaling molecules involved in the functioning of the immune system) can predict the development of rheumatoid arthritis three years before the onset of symptoms.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
RoboGames 2009 Highlights RoboGames 2009 Highlights Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Tengion can grow a replacement organ from your own cells Tengion, a leader in the field of regenerative medicine is developing new human organs and tissues that are derived from a patient's own cells. Says the company:

Our patented technology combines the patient's own normal cells with biomaterials to create a neo-organ or neo-tissue, which restores or augments organ or tissue health, without using embryonic stem cells or donor tissue.

The company is already in clinical trials.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Could we fix the US economy by retaking our former lead in connectivity Researchers say that running fiber to homes could boost productivity, innovation, employment and add trillions to the economy in the years ahead. Scaling to Gigabit access could increase GDP by about an extra 3% per year.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Biodegradable synthetic resin can replace vital body parts
Researchers at the University of Twente (UT) have developed a new type of resin that can be broken down by the body. This new resin makes it possible to replicate important body parts exactly and make them fit precisely. The resin can be given different properties depending on where in the body it is to be used. Cells can be sown and cultured on these models, so that the tissues grown are, in fact, produced by the body itself.

6/15/2009 PERMALINK
Diesel-electric trike pod kit gets a sweet 225mpg
Robert Riley's XR3 kit mobile pod has three-wheels and a plug-in diesel-electric hybrid that get 225mpg on combined diesel-electric power or about 125mpg on the diesel engine alone.

6/12/2009 PERMALINK
A living pod building system that delivers
There are certain basics everyone wants in a living pod: energy efficiency and non-toxic materials, abundant daylighting, good acoustics and superior air quality. With the Project FROG building system, you get all this delivered with just six months from contract to completion.

6/12/2009 PERMALINK
Stem cells cultured on a simple contact lens to restore sight In a world-first breakthrough, UNSW medical researchers have used stem cells cultured on a simple contact lens to restore sight to sufferers of blinding corneal disease.

6/12/2009 PERMALINK
Research team creates simple chemical system that mimics DNA A team of Scripps Research scientists has created a new analog to DNA that assembles and disassembles itself without the need for enzymes. Because the new system comprises components that might reasonably be expected in a primordial world, the new chemical system could answer questions about how life could emerge.

6/12/2009 PERMALINK
Bot can intelligently extract data from millions of pages in the cloud A software bot that pulls together facts by combing through more than 500 million web pages has been developed by researchers at the University of Washington. The tool extracts information from billions of lines of text by analyzing basic relationships between words. Some experts say that this kind of "automated information extraction" will likely form the basis for far more intelligent next-generation Web search, in which nuggets of information are first gleaned and then combined intelligently.

6/11/2009 PERMALINK
Cloud-based therapy as effective in treating depression as office visits University of New South Wales have shown that internet-based therapy programs are as effective as face-to-face therapies in combating the illness. Patients in a clinician-assisted internet-based treatment program experienced rates of recovery similar to those achieved by face-to-face therapy, the research found.

6/11/2009 PERMALINK
Replacement of lost MicroRNA can stop cancer in its tracks A new study suggests that delivering small RNAs, known as microRNAs, to cancer cells could help to stop the disease in its tracks. microRNAs control gene expression and are commonly lost in cancerous tumors. Researchers have shown that replacement of a single microRNA in mice with an extremely aggressive form of liver cancer can be enough to halt their disease. They delivered the microRNA to the mice using a virus that has been applied in other forms of gene therapy. That so-called adeno-associated virus (AAV) is particularly good at targeting new genetic material to the liver. "Mice given the control virus showed no change in the growth rate of their tumors and within three weeks, the cancer had taken over," said Joshua Mendell of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "When we gave them the microRNA-carrying virus, some animals showed essentially complete regression of their tumors." In other cases, he said, the tumors were much smaller and far fewer.

6/11/2009 PERMALINK
Stress really does make your hair turn gray Those pesky graying hairs that tend to crop up with age really are signs of stress. Researchers have discovered that the kind of "genotoxic stress" that does damage to DNA depletes the melanocyte stem cells (MSCs) within hair follicles that are responsible for making those pigment-producing cells. Rather than dying off, when the going gets tough, those precious stem cells differentiate, forming fully mature melanocytes themselves. Anything that can limit the stress might stop the graying from happening, the researchers said.

6/11/2009 PERMALINK
BrainGate brain-computer interface goes into clinical trials The BrainGate2 pilot clinical trial is taking place at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), in close collaboration with an interdisciplinary team of researchers from MGH and Brown University. The trial will determine the safety and feasibility of the BrainGate Neural Interface System, which consists of an implanted baby aspirin-size brain sensor that reads brain signals and computer technology that interprets these signals. The BrainGate Neural System may allow people with paralysis to control assistive devices.

6/11/2009 PERMALINK
IBM jumps into development of amazing new lithium-air batteries
Lithium-air batteries can give us cheap electric cars with 1,000 mile ranges. Labs at PolyPlus Battery, in Berkeley, CA, Japan's AIST, and St. Andrews University, in Scotland, are currently working on lithium-air batteries. Now IBM has joined the race to a low cost, practical, long-range electric car battery pack. See also: Using zinc-air battery technology in lithium batteries can increase power ten fold

6/11/2009 PERMALINK
Pay teachers more, grades stay poor, but pay kids to score and off they soar Paying kids to learn boosts math and English performance test scores by far more than raising teacher's pay. At PS 188 on the Lower East Side, 76 percent of fourth-graders met or exceeded state benchmarks in English -- 39.6 percentage points higher than last year, when the kids were in third grade. While efforts by some school districts a few years back to see if, as teacher's unions claimed, paying teachers more would greatly improve scores boomed utterly, with results continuing down hill after the raises.

If you put a school with the latest learning software bots combined with automated financial incentives to students for good performance up against a school run in the traditional way. Odds are that the bots and incentives would produce dramatically better results, while costing taxpayers considerably less.

Of course, such a test is unlikely to ever take place in an environment where our educational decision making is so heavily influenced by teachers associations entirely focused on their own narrow self interests at the expense of the futures of our kids and our nation.

6/11/2009 PERMALINK
How your brain keeps you alive in an uncertain world A new study uncovers a pivotal role for the human frontal lobe in the promotion of behavioral flexibility during voluntary choice. The researchers observed that the FPC kept track of evidence in favor of switching to the alternative course of action. Further, immediately prior to a switch in behavior, the FPC (frontopolar cortex) exhibited a distinct pattern of connectivity with the parietal cortex, an area of the brain that is known to be active during cued behavior switching. "This suggests that when the FPC has recruited sufficient evidence to support a behavioral switch, it engages the parietal cortex to implement the switch," offers Dr. Boorman.

6/11/2009 PERMALINK
Quantum Dot LED tunable light breakthrough
Spectrally narrow electroluminescence of our QD-LEDs is tuned over the entire visible wavelength range from λ = 460 nm (blue) to λ = 650 nm (deep red). By printing close-packed monolayers of different QD types inside an identical QD-LED structure, we demonstrate that different color QD-LEDs with QDs of different chemistry can be fabricated on the same substrate.

6/11/2009 PERMALINK
Speeding up your brain network would probably boost your IQ After analysing the brain as an incredibly dense network of interconnected points, a team of Dutch scientists has found that the most efficiently wired brains tend to belong to the most intelligent people.

6/10/2009 PERMALINK
The ultimate clean lean mean electric riding machine
Drawing inspiration from BMW's DNA with a focus on their efficient dynamic theme, the BMW X bike by designer Jacobus Marx is a zero-emission electric bike concept for the active urban motion pod of the near future. This motion pod concept is propelled by two 80KW in-wheel electric motors and uses super-capacitors to keep the bike lean and super fast to charge. It can run in an elevated mode at city speeds or sink down close to the ground for a higher speed ride.