Five clone calves in Wisconsin have been born with 0.1 percent human DNA. They are expected to produce a human protein, C-1 Esterase Inhibitor, in their milk to treat humans suffering from angioedema.
Infigen, a biotech company in DeForest, Wisconsin, is cloning cows with human DNA to produce products such as human collagen, human fibrinogen (used to treat wounds), and human factor VIII, used for blood clotting.
The… read more
Interest is picking up in nitinol shape-memory devices for use in toys (dolls with nitinol facial muscles and mobile action figures), medical devices (stents in blood vessels and arteries to keep them from clogging), and other uses. The benefits: shrink components to reduce weight, cut materials costs and improve design flexibility.
Traditional desktop anti-virus software, based on the signature-based reactive approach, is no longer an adequate defense, say analysts. The new direction is “digital watchtowers”: scanning engines with artificial intelligence that look at patterns and unusual characteristics within e-mails before they come into a customer’s network.
Scientists have succeeded in making mice cerebral cortex grow dramatically more convoluted. They developed a line of transgenic mice that carried a variant of a gene that makes a protein, beta-catenin, thought to play a role in regulating cell growth in the developing brain.
The second law of thermodynamics has for the first time been shown not to hold for microscopic systems, which could place a fundamental limit on miniaturization.
“Their results are also in good agreement with predictions of the ‘fluctuation theorem,’ developed … to reconcile the second law with the behaviour of particles at microscopic scales.
“The results imply that the fluctuation theorem has important ramifications for nanotechnology and indeed… read more
The new Flash Communication Server MX allows Flash developers to create multimedia Web applications that let users talk and stream video, collaborate on documents in real time, chat, and send instant multimedia messages.
Lasers can open a temporary doorway into cells so that DNA can get inside, researchers at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany report. This technique might hasten gene therapy by making it easier to get new genes into living cells without harming them.
The “first fully integrated quantum cryptography prototype machine” has exchanged encryption keys across a 67km fiber optic network.
The advance was achieved by a team from the University of Geneva and Swiss electronics company id Quantique. In contrast to methods based on codes, the keys formed by quantum cryptography can, in principle, be completely uncrackable because the legitimate receiver of a message can test whether it has been intercepted… read more
A new language-translation system called EliMT from Meaningful Machines in New York City uses a statistical technique in an attempt to make machine translation more accurate.
EliMT looks for words with a tendency to cluster together in databases of translations and can refine itself in either a fully automated or a human-assisted manner as more data are entered.
Pairs of photons linked by entanglement can pass through gold sheets without the entanglement being destroyed, in an experiment at Leiden University. The finding means quantum linking of particles is far more robust than scientists thought and could help them develop new ways of making quantum computers.
The technique used to create the first synthetic polio virus, revealed last week, could be also used to recreate Ebola or the 1918 flu strain that killed up to 40 million people, according to experts.
The real worry is that bioterrorists could use the method to recreate viruses such as Ebola and smallpox.
A new voice processing system could help you “evolve” your voice so it sounds the way you want it to. An algorithm analyses the voice signal to determine which aspects of it need to be enhanced or suppressed, modifying pitch, volume and speed to produce the required effect.
Clinicians and parents can watch real-time live-action ultrasound images of a fetus, thanks to GE Medical Systems’ Voluson 730 ultrasound system.
Some neurological defects may be apparent in the movement of the fingers.
At InterOpto’02 – international optoelectronics exhibition hold in Chiba, Japan – OPTWARE Co. Ltd. demoed a super-high speed optical disk system that uses a hologram and stores 1 terabyte data in a 12-cm-CD-size disc, with 100Mbps – 1Gbps transfer rate. Available in 2003 as 19-inch rackmount, 2005 for PC.