1/30/2010 PERMALINK
Breakthrough Alert Show Number 2 Your briefing on the latest advances in the ultimate personal technology - human genetic & cyborg mods for regeneration and enhancement of your mind and body. The podcast version is ready for download now.

Bots controlled by neural networks evolve complex predator-prey behaviors at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, Ecole Polytechnique Federale.

A new technique for turning human embryonic and pluripotent stem cells into plentiful, functional endothelial cells, critical to the formation of blood vessels, has been developed by a team of scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College.

A new study in human cells has singled out a molecule that specifically directs immune cells to develop the capability to produce an allergic response. The signaling molecule, called thymic stromal lymphopoietin, is key to the development of allergic diseases such as asthma, atopic dermatitis (eczema) and food allergy. The study team was from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

A group of proteins called chaperonins insure that proteins fold properly to carry out their assigned roles in the cells. Mis-folding can result in disease like Mad Cow. Now researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and Stanford University have discovered how Group II chaperonins close and open folding chambers to initate the folding event and to release the functional protein to the cell.

Scientists are reporting the first evidence from human research that blueberries, one of the richest sources of healthful antioxidants and other so-called phytochemicals, improve memory. The research was by scientists at the University of Cincinnati.

Your performance on a video game can be predicted simply by measuring the volume of specific structures in your brain find researchers at University of Illinois.

Researchers have reported a development that could allow old immune systems to be rejuvenated to function like they were young again. The technique involves treating aged mice with a macrophage-specific growth factor. It was developed by the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.

Transplanted neurons grown from embryonic stem cells can fully integrate into the brains of young animals, according to new research by a team of neuroscientists st Stanford Medical School.

Human growth hormone may not be a life extender after all. People profoundly deficient in human growth hormone (HGH) due to a genetic mutation appear to live just as long as people who make normal amounts of the hormone, finds a new study finds by researchers at the Department of Endocrinology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Researchers report development of a new magnesium diet supplement called magnesium-L-threonate (MgT), which is more effective than conventional oral supplements at boosting magnesium in the brain. When tested MgT led to significant enhancement of spatial and associative memory in both the young and aging rats. Neuroscientists at MIT and Tsinghua University in Beijing preformed the research.

In an acute viral infection, most of your T cells die in the fight, but a few become memory cells, allowing your immune system to respond better the next time. Now the molecule that defines which cells remember has been found by scientists at Emory University.

Power-generating rubber films that can harness natural body movements such as breathing and walking to power implants, wearware or pocket devices are being developed by engineers at Princeton University.

Adults aged over 70 years who are classified as overweight are less likely to die over a ten year period than adults who are in the 'normal' weight range, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Western Australia.

The world's largest laser system has uniformly compressed and superheated a fuel capsule, a major breakthrough on the road to practical fusion power -- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Progresses is being made towards developing the technologies necessary to map all the connectomes in your brain -- MIT.

By fusing bone marrow cells to embryonic stem cells to create hybrid cells with DNA from both the donor and recipient, immune rejection of embryonic stem cell therapies can be avoided without drugs say researchers from the University of Iowa and Department of Medical Genetics, Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

If you would like a new computer that locks you into a voluntary servitude where you are made to pay premium prices for your music, movies, shows, books and magazines. Where you lose your choice of web browser and media player and have to look at big holes in web pages, instead of being able to play the flash videos that normally are available there. Then Steve Jobs has an iPad for you. Once Apple was a path to escape exploitation, now it's out of the frying pan and into the fire.

A researcher from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has invented a novel way to halt and even reverse rheumatoid arthritis. He developed an imitation of a suicide molecule that floats undetected into overactive immune cells responsible for the disease.

Be sure to check out the latest promo video for the HULC exoskeleton from Lockheed Martin. Run, crawl, leap, while easily carrying the Terminator's favorite monster gun.

Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have succeeded in the ultimate switch: transforming mouse skin cells in a laboratory dish directly into functional nerve cells with the application of just three genes.

HRS-I is a small, lightweight device that adheres to your chest and relays all your vital signs to a computer or mobile phone via wireless connection. The device was developed at the University of Tokyo's Advanced Institute of Wearable Environmental Information Networks.

What if a jury could decide a man's guilt through mind reading? What if reading a defendant's memory could betray their guilt? And what constitutes 'intent' to commit murder? The thought police are coming as new advances make them possible.

The birth of new neurons, a process called neurogenesis, needs to continuously keep occurring in your brain for it to function properly. A team of researchers at the European Centre for Brain Research has now demonstrating that the gene PC3/Tis21 (also known as BTG2) is essential to the process of neurogenesis.

Autophagy sequesters and digests aged organelles, damaged proteins and other components, which, if not disintegrated would threaten cell viability. Autophagy is an important process in keeping your cells young and researchers at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona have identify a new gene involved in controlling it.

Police plan to use military-style spy drones. If researchers keep developing WOMO (Weapons of Mass Oppression) that will allow a tiny elite to control a city. Then that is the sort of future we will all be forced to live in.

DARPA believes that replicating the semiconductor industry manufacturing model will enable other manufacturing sectors to experience similar economic booms. This kind of research can create a better future, unfortunately DARPA also funds a lot of WOMO.

Researchers discover a non-viral vector for gene therapy that works in post-mitotic tissues such as the retina and brain. Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences.

If you are losing sleep, you are losing brain function, report researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam.

The vampire stories are true, an unspecified factor in the blood of young mice can reverse signs of aging in the circulatory system of older ones reports researchers at Harvard University.

When your brain looks for something common, it will often think it see it even when it isn't there, report researchers at Harvard Medical School.

Cancer stem cells have the ability to suppress your immune response against brain tumors say researchers at University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The future of American manufacturing is moving into a brand new cloud, crowd, garage-fab paradigm, proclaims a fascinating article by Chris Anderson at Wired.

An international research consortium has found 13 new genetic variants that influence your blood glucose regulation, insulin resistance, and the function of insulin-secreting beta cells report researchers from the National Institutes of Health.

An impressive iPhone augmented reality bot called True City has launched that provides hyper-local, real-time information for 6 European cities. The bot was developed by Nike.

To understand how damaging to a civilization a bad meme can be, read this article to learn how the "War on Drugs" meme has brought about the destruction of the rule of laws in America.

That's all for this week. Check the text version for links to any story you want to learn more about. Be seeing you.