Bionic limb replacements that look and work exactly like the real thing could be realized within a decade, thanks to fast advances in human-to-machine communication and miniaturization.
Writing in Science, Feb. 8, Rutgers biomedical engineer and inventor William Craelius, whose Dextra artificial hand is the first to let a person use existing nerve pathways to control individual computer-driven mechanical fingers, says “bionic technologies can be adapted for restoring some… read more
The nano future is emerging through the haze of hype: the road to terabit memory and cheap flat-screen displays will be paved with carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotubes are, in theory at least, the ideal material for building tomorrow’s nanoelectronics. And now, a little more than 10 years after their discovery, nanotubes seem ready to make the transition from exotic laboratory wonders to materials useful in actual technologies. Prototypes of… read more
Hitachi has produced a Wearable Internet Appliance for business use that enables users to surf the Internet through a wireless LAN. It includes a head mount display and pointing device.
Scientists have demonstrated that they can stimulate the visual cortex in the brain while bypassing the retina itself.
Several teams of scientists are trying to develop a device that would electrically stimulate the visual system in seeing-impaired individuals. Although serious problems must be overcome before a useful device is developed, a review in Science concludes that “a number of international groups are tackling the remaining problems associated with epiretinal and… read more
Ongoing research and development in operating systems is extending the ability for individuals and groups to use worldwide computing resources.
An artificial intelligence computer system that analyzes state-wide patient data from emergency rooms and instant care facilities has been installed in most of the state of Utah for the Olympics. If it detects a significant pattern suggesting an outbreak, it pages the on-call state public health physician.
The Realtime Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS), developed by the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, is a protoype… read more
The internet is continuing to boom, despite the current global recession, according to research from analyst firm IDC.Despite doom mongers predicting the death of the net in the light of recession and slowdown in the tech industry, by the end of this year 600 million people will be online, says the report.
However the idea that the global village created by the internet will be homogenous is mistaken, says… read more
Bioengineered skin — grown in the lab using small samples of human cells — offers an alternative to animal testing.
Proponents argue that tissue models provide both ethical and scientific advantages. Scientists don’t have to extrapolate human responses from animal-derived data and test results are easier to reproduce from lab to lab.
While limited, bio-engineered models are finding a niche as tools to screen out drugs likely to fail… read more
Video games of the future could have characters with almost human intelligence, capable of understanding and acting on your commands.
Scientists from King’s College in London have created a technology called the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) which emulates the functions of the brain’s frontal lobes, where humans process language and emotion.
At the moment, the LAD prototype has the learning ability of an 18-month old child. Professor John Taylor… read more
Doctors are developing artificial wombs in which embryos can grow outside a woman’s body. The work has been hailed as a breakthrough in treating the childless. The research is headed by Dr. Hung-Ching Liu of Cornell University’s Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility. Liu’s work involves removing cells from the endometrium, the lining of the womb.
After this Liu and her colleagues grew layers of these cells on scaffolds… read more
Transplants of mouse stem cells into the brains of patients with Huntington’s Chorea could help slow the associated dementia and loss of coordination, says UK company ReNeuron.
Huntington’s is caused by an inherited genetic mutation, which leads to a destruction of cells in a part of the brain called the striatum. ReNeuron has transplanted cells from its mouse neural stem cell line into monkeys designed to act as models of… read more
Japanese researchers who cloned a dozen mice reported on Sunday that virtually all of the animals died early, a report that casts more doubts on the safety of cloning.
The mice had abnormal livers, lungs and perhaps some immune system anomalies, the team reported.
They also noted that clones may be born
“old.” Some clones have shortened telomeres, which are a kind of cap on the chromosome, the structures… read more
Scientists may be close to an elusive goal of creating artificial blood, a breakthrough that could ease shortages and save countless lives.
Biopure Corp. in Cambridge, Mass., has produced artificial hemoglobin from the red blood cells of cows. It has been cleared for use in the Republic of South Africa and is awaiting Food and Drug Administration review of its phase III clinical trials in the United States. U.S.… read more
The next big wave in imaging technology is terahertz radiation, now probing everything from cells to stars. Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule scientists have used terahertz radiation to spot particular sequences of DNA in a sample. This technique is quicker and more accurate than current fluorescent-labelling methods.
To detect changes in the tiny amounts of material that are typically involved in gene-chip analysis, the researchers built guide channels, just a few… read more
Real birds pecking virtual moths have shown how camouflage probably evolves. The computerized prey adapted to blend into their background, and developed a wide range of different markings.
University of Nebraska biologists made virtual moths. A set of computer instructions representing an electronic genome determined their wing patterns. The researchers trained captive blue jays to hunt the moths. Pecking at an on-screen moth earned a jay a food pellet. After… read more