A nano sensor, developed by scientists at the Center for Molecular Imaging Research at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, detects apoptosis (cell suicide).
The sensor could directly signal whether a drug is working or not by looking at individual cells. The detector uses an iron-oxide nanoparticle, which may allow for seeing the sensors inside the human body using MRI because the iron-oxide particle is a very good imaging… read more
A new nanoscale apparatus–a tiny gold beam whose 40 million vibrations per second are measured by hopping electrons–offers the potential for a 500-fold increase in the speed of scanning tunneling microscopes, perhaps paving the way for scientists to watch atoms vibrate in high definition in real time.
The new device measures the space between a metal beam and an electrically conducting point just a single atom wide,… read more
Ill Gotten Games‘ Pocket Tactics is the first open-source miniatures game designed to be manufactured on a 3D printer, Wired Design reports.
Consisting of character figurines, tiles, and dice, the pieces can be downloaded from Thingiverse and printed on a MakerBot. A complete set of parts takes several hours to extrude, but games can be played in just over 20 minutes.
The use of… read more
ETH Zurich roboticists and architects used a fleet of quadcopters to build a 6 meter (20 feet) twisting tower out of 1500 foam bricks, IEEE Spectrum Automaton reports.
The ceiling of the room where the assembly is taking place was equipped with a motion-capture system. A computer uses the vision data to keep track of the quadcopters and tell them where to go.
A simple method of recycling waste silicon from microchips that could help ease the shortage of refined silicon for solar energy panels has been developed by IBM.
IBM estimates that 3.3 percent of these wafers are normally scrapped before they reach the market, which adds up to nearly 3 million discarded wafers per year. It reckons the silicon from these discarded wafers could make solar panels capable of generating… read more
Neurobiologists at the University of Washington have found that bigger-bodied social wasps have larger brains and devote up to three times more of their brain tissue to regions that coordinate social interactions, learning, memory, and other complex behaviors.
The researchers dissected wasp brains and measured the volume of two brain regions. They focused on the central processing region (the mushroom bodies) that, like the cerebral cortex… read more
New legislation now before President Bush could result in $37 billion in new funding over the next five years for the National Science Foundation –money that is expected to boost venture capital investments in nanotechnology and emerging biotech sectors.
The anthropic principle — which argues that our universe is finely tuned to support life and there is no point in asking why it is so — has been criticised as lazy, untestable science. Now there may be a way to test the theory for one of the most problematic instances of fine-tuning.
Cosmologists have observed that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and have attributed this to… read more
A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television’s Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, according to scientists at the 100 Year Starship Symposium, Space.com reports.
A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster… read more
Warp drive and stargate wormholes could be used for time travel to the past. That’s the surprising conclusion that controversial theoretical physicist and author Dr. Jack Sarfatti has reached from his research into dark energy and dark matter.
Sarfatti, who was the inspiration for “Doc” in the movie “Back To The Future,” will discuss this on the Coast to Coast AM national radio… read more
A program that can mimic online flirtation and then extract personal information from its unsuspecting conversation partners is making the rounds in Russian chat forums.
The artificial intelligence of CyberLover’s automated chats is good enough that victims have a tough time distinguishing the “bot” from a real potential suitor.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s new World Wide Web Foundation is looking for ways to give websites a label for trustworthiness once they had been proved reliable sources and help people separate rumor from real science.
Antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” originating in hospitals are now increasingly being found in cats and dogs, and in victims of bites.
Ironically, most animals probably acquired their infections originally from their owners.
Two leading researchers warn that the entry of big companies like Microsoft and Google into the field of personal health records could drastically alter the practice of clinical research and raise new challenges to the privacy of patient records.
Microsoft and Google have recently begun offering Web-based personal health records, in a new “personalized, health information economy” in which consumers tell physicians, hospitals and other providers what information to… read more