Engineers create adhesive mimicking gecko toe hairs
A new anti-sliding adhesive developed by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, may be the closest man-made material yet to mimic the remarkable gecko toe hairs that allow the tiny lizard to scamper along vertical surfaces and ceilings. Taking a cue from the millions of hairs covering a gecko's toes, researchers squeezed 42 million hard plastic microfibers onto each square centimeter of material... [more]
Source : University of California Berkeley
New Adhesive Mimics Gecko Toe Hairs
The sushi squad
Japanese restaurants invited to win approval of the sushi squad
It may look like sushi, taste like sushi and wriggle like sushi, but for the gourmet in London, Paris or New York, the question remains: just how Japanese is this raw fish? Officials in Tokyo are offering a worldwide “authenticity screen” for restaurants that purport to be Japanese. The scheme, they say, may lead to an equivalent of the Michelin star system for the world’s 25,000 Japanese restaurants... [more]
Source : Timesonline
New Method for Producing High-Vitamin Corn
Feeding the World
A potentially powerful new tool in the fight against deficiencies in dietary vitamin A, which cause eye diseases, including blindness, in 40 million children annually, and increased health risks for about 250 million people, mostly in developing countries... [more]
Source : National Science Foundation
Discovery by scientists which can 'reverse memory loss
Scientists discover way to reverse loss of memory
Scientists performing experimental brain surgery on a man aged 50 have stumbled across a mechanism that could unlock how memory works. The accidental breakthrough came during an experiment originally intended to suppress the obese man's appetite... [more]
Source : Independent
New drugs for people with chronic pain
Strange Creature Immune to Pain
As vulnerable as naked mole rats seem, researchers now find the hairless, bucktoothed rodents are invulnerable to the pain of acid and the sting of chili peppers. A better understanding of pain resistance in these sausage-like creatures could lead to new drugs for people with chronic pain, scientists added... [more]
Source : Live Science
Empire State Building Bermuda Triangle Vehicle Trap
Empire State Building car zap mystery
In the shadow of the Empire State Building lies an “automotive Bermuda Triangle” - a five-block radius where vehicles mysteriously die. No one is sure what’s causing it, but all roads appear to lead to the looming giant... [more]
Source : Newyork Daily News
Can humans cope with space flight
Spaceflight medicals
People did not evolve for space flight, so how will they cope when the tickets go on sale? It will be a wild ride, but one that a surprisingly large number may enjoy. Many of Virgin Galactic's early customers have been put through a human centrifuge to find out. This tests their reactions and tolerance to the forces that they would experience on a sub-orbital trip. That includes dealing with G-forces 6.5 times that of Earth's gravity... [more]
Source : The Economist
Norway Firm to Build CO2 Capture Plant
The World’s First CO2 Capture Plant
Norwegian company Aker Clean Carbon announced plans Thursday to build an 875 million kroner ($157 million) plant to pioneer technology for capturing carbon dioxide from the exhaust from burned fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide emissions from industry and power generation are blamed by many scientists for contributing to global warming... [more]
Source : Next Energy News
Could Diatoms Help Offset Global Warming?
Ecologists, material scientists pursue genetics of diatom's elegant, etched casing
Diatoms -- some of which are so tiny that 30 can fit across the width of a human hair -- are so numerous that they are among the key organisms taking the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the Earth's atmosphere.
The shells of diatoms are so heavy that when they die in the oceans they typically sink to watery graves on the seafloor, taking carbon out of the surface waters and locking it into sediments below... [more]
Source : University of Washington
DNA Molecules Display Telepathy-like Quality
DNA molecules can display what almost seems like telepathy
Double helixes of DNA can recognize matching molecules from a distance and then gather together, all seemingly without help from any other molecules, scientists find. Previously, under the classic understanding of DNA, scientists had no reason to suspect that double helixes of the molecule could sort themselves by type, let alone seek each other out... [more]
Source : LiveScience
The helmet curing Alzheimer's disease
The helmet that could turn back the symptoms of Alzheimer's
An experimental helmet which scientists say could reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease within weeks of being used is to be tried out on patients. he strange-looking headgear - which has to be worn for ten minutes every day - bathes the brain with infra-red light and stimulates the growth of brain cells... [more]
Source : University of Sunderland
Immortality, we could soon survive for hundreds of years by tweaking our DNA
Scientific breakthrough could mean humans live for hundreds of years
A genetically engineered organism that lives 10 times longer than normal has been created by scientists in California. It is the greatest extension of longevity yet achieved by researchers investigating the scientific nature of ageing... [more]
Source : Independent
Mexico City Rolls Out Women-Only Buses
Mexico City designates some buses as 'ladies only
Groping and verbal harassment is an exasperating reality for women using public transportation in this sprawling capital, where 22 million passengers cram onto subways and buses each day. Some men treat women so badly that the subway system has long had ladies-only cars during rush hour... [more]
Source : My Way
Nano-Prospecting, How Squeeze More Oil and Gas
Energy companies pour millions into nanotechnology for oil and gas recovery
Could nanotechnology help squeeze more oil and gas out of the ground? That's the hope of a consortium of energy companies that is putting millions of dollars into the development of new micro- and nanosensor technologies, currently, even with the most advanced recovery techniques, only about 40 percent of the oil and gas in reservoirs can be recovered. The hope is that by injecting novel sensors into these reservoirs... [more]
Source : Technology Review
How our nervous systems control obesity
Study connects obesity with nervous system
A discovery by sheds new light on the genetic roots of obesity, with tiny, transparent worms that have similar neurotransmitters as humans. (Neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit nerve impulses) The researchers discovered that when a specific nerve receptor is deleted, the worms lose interest in foraging for food, become slow-moving and accumulate fat at a much higher rate than normal, non-modified, worms... [more]
Source : Queen's University
Société Générale discovers 5 billion fraud
Rogue Trader Costs French Bank €5bn
Société Générale has uncovered €5 billion of losses caused by a rogue trader dealing in European stock futures, A former employee of the bank’s middle office, he was able to use his ‘in-depth knowledge’ of control procedures to conceal positions he had taken ‘through a scheme of elaborate fictitious transactions... [more]
Source : Citywire
The Day the Solar Wind Disappeared
The solar wind that blows constantly from the Sun virtually disappeared in 1999 for two day
For two days in May, 1999, the solar wind that blows constantly from the Sun virtually disappeared -- the most drastic and longest-lasting decrease ever observed. Dropping to a fraction of its normal density and to half its normal speed, the solar wind died down enough to allow physicists to observe particles flowing directly from the Sun's corona to Earth. This severe change in the solar wind also changed the shape of Earth's magnetic field and produced an unusual auroral display at the North Pole... [more]
Source : Nasa
No living Buddhas without the consent of the Chinese government
No reincarnations without approval
A senior Tibetan lama and Chinese government advisers have defended contentious rules banning reincarnations of "living Buddhas" without approval. The rules are apparently aimed at empowering China to name the next Dalai Lama when the 14th and current Dalai Lama dies... [more]
Source : News.com.au
Nanostructures Give Butterflies Beautiful Color
Pigmentation In Some Butterfly Wings Created By Nanostructures
Nowhere in nature is there so much beautiful colour as on the wings of butterflies. Scientists, however, are still baffled about exactly how these colours are created. scientists don’t yet know very much about how the colour on the wings is formed.What they do know is that the colours are created in two different ways: via pigments and via nanostructures on the scales, which ensure that light is distributed in ways that are sometimes spectacular. These so-called structure colours can clearly be seen on the morpho butterflies of the South American rainforests... [more]
Source : University of Groningen
Rising Anti-Americanism in Russia
Cold War Era Anti-Americanism
Russia is witnessing a revival of the anti-Americanism that had dissipated with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Taking their cues from President Vladimir Putin and the state-controlled media, almost half of Russians now believe America's objective is the complete destruction of Russia, according to a recent survey... [more]
Source : US News & World Report
Honeybees could disappear completely from Britain by 2018
Honeybees may be wiped out in 10 years
Honeybees will die out in Britain within a decade as virulent diseases and parasites spread through the nation's hives, experts have warned. The losses are being blamed on Colony Collapse Disorder, a disease that has severely affected bee populations in America and Europe, and a resistant form of Varroa destructor, a parasitic mite that affects bees... [more]
Source : Telegraph
Saline Nasal Wash Helps Kids Fight Colds, Flu
Saline Nasal Wash Helps Improve Children's Cold Symptoms
Rinsing with a special saline nasal wash made from Atlantic seawater improves symptoms in children with colds and flu, and may prevent recurrence of these infections, a new study claims.The saline technique could provide a more holistic alternative to such over-the-counter medications, and has the added advantage of having little downside and not contributing to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance... [more]
Source : Washington Post
Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Subsidized Electric Cars
Israel has decided to embrace the electric car
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with the active support of President Shimon Peres, intends to make Israel a laboratory to test the practicality of an environmentally clean electric car. The state will offer tax incentives to purchasers, and the new company, with a $200 million investment to start, will begin construction of facilities to recharge the cars and replace empty batteries quickly. The idea, said Shai Agassi, 39, the software entrepreneur behind the new company, is to sell electric car transportation on the model of the cellphone. Purchasers get subsidized hardware — the car — and pay a monthly fee for expected mileage, like minutes on a cellphone plan, eliminating concerns about the fluctuating price of gasoline... [more]
Source : New York Times
Backlash against Britain's libel terrorism
Britain, a destination for "libel tourism"
Britain remains a comfortable destination for the rich in search of friendly courts, which have already weighed complaints from people who consider themselves unfairly tarred with labels like tax dodger, terrorist financier or murky Qaeda operative... [more]
Source : IHT
Does Your Pet Seem Almost Human? It May Be A Clever Response To Loneliness
People not always needed to alleviate loneliness
Many try to identify with animals, gadgets, spiritual beliefs. New research at the University of Chicago finds evidence for a clever way that people manage to alleviate the pain of loneliness: They create people in their surroundings to keep them company. “Biological reproduction is not a very efficient way to alleviate one’s loneliness, but you can make up people when you’re motivated to do so... [more]
Source :
Deadly infections increasingly able to beat antibiotics
Bacteria race ahead of drugs
Since commercial production of penicillin began in the 1940s, antibiotics have been the miracle drugs of modern medicine, suppressing infectious diseases that have afflicted human beings for thousands of years. But today, as a generation of Baby Boomers begins to enter a phase of life marked by the ailments of aging, we are running out of miracles. Top infectious disease doctors are saying that lawmakers and the public at large do not realize the grave implications of this trend... [more]
Source : San Francisco Chronicle
The Morgellons mystery,emerging illness or mass hysteria
Morgellons disease figments of the imagination?
Thousands of people around the world say they have a disease that causes mysterious fibers to sprout painfully through the skin, and they've given it a name. The spread of 'Morgellons disease' could be Internet hysteria, or it could be an emerging illness demanding our attention... [more]
Source : Washington Post
Protein discovered that prevents HIV from spreading
New Way To Prevent HIV From Evolving
In a study that could open up the field of virology to an entirely new suite of possibilities and that paves the way for future drug research, scientists at Rockefeller University and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center have pinned down a molecule on the surface of human cells that helps keep particles of mutant strains of HIV from spreading. Rather than floating off to infect more cells, the protein contains the virus particles by keeping them attached to the parent cell’s outer membrane, as if stuck there with glue... [more]
Source : Rockefeller University
Medical plants facing extinction
Hundreds of medicinal plants are at risk of extinction
Over 50% of prescription drugs are derived from chemicals first identified in plants at risk from over-collection and deforestation, threatening the discovery of future cures for disease, according to experts... [more]
Source : BBC
Inca Ruins discovered in Peru could be the lost city Paititi
Ancient "Lost City" Discovered in Peru, Official Claims
The presumptive lost city, described in written records as a stone settlement adorned with gold statues, has long been a grail for explorers—as well as a lure for local tourism businesses. A commonly cited legend claims that Paititi was built by the Inca hero Inkarri... [more]
Source : National Geographic
Pac-Man Could Save Us From Radioactive Waste
'Pac Man' compound could gobble nuclear waste
The world's most commonly used radioactive substance--and its heaviest natural element--clutches its two oxygen atoms so tightly, it almost never reacts with other compounds. Now researchers report finding a way to pry one oxygen atom loose, potentially opening up safer ways to handle and dispose... [more]
Source : Science AAAS
2007 Earth's Second-Warmest Year in a Century
2007 Was Tied as Earth's Second-Warmest Year
Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City have found that 2007 tied with 1998 for Earth’s second warmest year in a century. The greatest warming in 2007 occurred in the Arctic, and neighboring high latitude regions.
Global warming has a larger affect in polar areas, as the loss of snow and ice leads to more open water, which absorbs more sunlight and warmth. Snow and ice reflect sunlight; when they disappear, so too does their ability to deflect warming rays... [more]
Source : NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Superhuman Vision With Contact Lenses
Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision
Movie characters from the Terminator to the Bionic Woman use bionic eyes to zoom in on far-off scenes, have useful facts pop into their field of view, or create virtual crosshairs. Off the screen, virtual displays have been proposed for more practical purposes -- visual aids to help vision-impaired people, holographic driving control panels and even as a way to surf the Web on the go... [more]
Source : University of Washington
UFO in Texas bigger than a Wal-Mart
Dozens Claim They Spotted UFO in Texas
Faster than a speeding bullet — and bigger than a Wal-Mart. That's how residents near the west Texas town of Stephenville described an object they spotted in the sky one night last week. Dozens of the town's residents — including a pilot and a police officer — said a UFO hovered over the farming community for about five minutes... [more]
Source : NPR
Butanol Best Biofuel Than Ethanol
New techniques create butanol -- biofuel superior to ethanol
Butanol can be derived from lignocellulosic materials, which are plant biomass parts that range from woody stems and straw to agricultural residues, corn fiber and husks, all containing in large part cellulose and some lignin. Butanol is considered to be a better biofuel than ethanol because it's less corrosive and has a higher caloric value, giving it a higher energy value. Like ethanol, butanol is being considered as an additive to gasoline... [more]
Source : Washington University in St. Louis
The Shark Jesus or The Virgin Birth
Shark virgin birth celebrated in Hungary
A Hungarian aquarium is celebrating an extrordinary virgin birth after its lone female shark produced a pup without ever having come into contact with a male shark. "When I saw the baby shark lying on the bottom of the tank I thought it was a joke... [more]
Source : Telegraph
Time May Not Exist
The problem of time
Efforts to understand time below the Planck scale have led to an exceedingly strange juncture in physics. The problem, in brief, is that time may not exist at the most fundamental level of physical reality. If so, then what is time? And why is it so obviously and tyrannically omnipresent in our own experience?... [more]
Source : Discover Magazine
Culture influences brain function
People from different cultures use their brains differently
To find out, a team led by John Gabrieli, a professor at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, asked 10 East Asians recently arrived in the United States and 10 Americans to make quick perceptual judgments while in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner--a technology that maps blood flow changes in the brain that correspond to mental operations... [more]
Source : Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Researchers Create Beating Heart in Laboratory
New Method revolutionize how heart and other organ tissues are developed
By using a process called whole organ decellularization, scientists from the University of Minnesota Center for Cardiovascular Repair grew functioning heart tissue by taking dead rat and pig hearts and reseeding them with a mixture of live cells. “The idea would be to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from your own cells... [more]
Source : University of Minnesota
Jews in Venezuela Target of Chavez Antisemitism
Government Sponsored” Antisemitism Grows Under Chavez
There are charges that Hugo Chavez’s government in Venezuela is sponsoring blossoming antisemitism — concerns that are reflected in the gradual flight of Jews from Venezuela. Venezuelan Jews, long uneasy with the Chavez government's alliances with Iran and other Middle Eastern countries that espouse anti-Israel views, are concerned that the government is sponsoring anti-Semitism in this hemisphere... [more] & [more]
Source : The Moderate Voice & Miami Herald
Anti-war Soros funded phony Iraq study
Soros secretely funded report which claimed 650,000 deaths in Iraq
A study that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros. New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people - less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate - have died since the invasion in 2003... [more]
Source : Timesonline
Huge gas cloud will hit Milky Way
Massive Gas Cloud Speeding Toward Collision With Milky Way
A giant cloud of hydrogen gas is speeding toward a collision with our Milky Way Galaxy, and when it hits -- in less than 40 million years -- it may set off a spectacular burst of stellar fireworks. The cloud will likely strike a region somewhat farther from the Galactic center than our Solar System and about 90 degrees ahead of us in the Milky Way disk. The collision may trigger a period of rapid star formation fueled by the new gas and the shock from the collision. Some theories say that the ring of bright stars near the Sun, called Gould's Belt, was created by just such a collision event... [more]
Source : National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Edible antifreeze promises perfect ice cream
Edible antifreeze to offer ice cream advances
Tasteless and edible antifreeze proteins could prevent the formation of ice crystals in ice cream, and maintain the smooth, silky texture, reports research from the US. Ice cream formulated with gelatin hydrolysate contained smaller and fewer ice crystals than ice cream that did not contain the ingredient... [more]
Source : Food Navigator
Penis Enlargement Spammer Exposed
UK journalist, Danish geek beat authorities to alleged spammer
A British radio journalist and a Danish geek beat professional investigators in New Zealand to the home of an alleged "spammer" in Christchurch. A Christchurch businessman alleged to be the source of millions of emails offering sexual enhancement pills has become the first person in New Zealand to be raided under tough new anti-spam laws... [more] & [more]
Source : The New Zealand Herald & Stuff.co.nz
Body Heat To Power Cell Phones
Nanowires Enable Recovery Of Waste Heat Energy
Researchers make thermoelectric breakthrough in silicon nanowires, the far-ranging potential applications of this technology include DOE’s hydrogen fuel cell-powered “Freedom CAR,” and personal power-jackets that could use heat from the human body to recharge cell-phones and other electronic devices... [more]
Source : DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Sugar-Free Sorbitol Containing Gum Poses Health Risk
Too Much Sugar-Free Chewing Gum Linked to Severe Weight Loss
Chewing too much sugar-free gum containing the artificial sweetener sorbitol can cause diarrhea leading to potentially dangerous weight loss. The cases of a 21-year-old woman who suffered diarrhea that caused her to lose about 24 pounds and a 46-year-man who lost approximately 46 pounds because of diarrhea were mysteries until the doctors asked about their chewing habits... [more]
Source : The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Expert warns of 'rogue' black holes
Hunreds of hungry black holes may be lurking in our Milky Way galaxy
These "rogue" black holes would each weigh several thousand times the mass of the sun which itself tips the scale at a whopping 10 to the power of 30 kilograms, or 10 followed by 30 zeros, waiting to gobble unsuspecting planets and stars that cross their paths... [more]
Source : The Australian
Exceptional Fossil Found With Soft Tissues
480-million-year-old Fossil Sheds Light On 150-year-old Paleontological Mystery
Discovery of an exceptional fossil specimen in southeastern Morocco that preserves evidence of the animal’s soft tissues has solved a paleontological puzzle about the origins of an extinct group of bizarre slug-like animals with rows of mineralized armor plates on their backs, according to a paper in Nature... [more]
Source : Yale University
Alzheimer's Recovery, Reversal Of Symptoms Within Minutes
Improvement in Alzheimer’s disease within minutes of administration of a therapeutic molecule
New study documents a dramatic and unprecedented therapeutic effect in an Alzheimer’s patient: improvement within minutes following delivery of perispinal etanercept, which is etanercept given by injection in the spine. Etanercept (trade name Enbrel) binds and inactivates excess TNF. Etanercept is FDA approved to treat a number of immune-mediated disorders and is used off label in the study. The use of anti-TNF therapeutics as a new treatment choice for many diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and potentially even Alzheimer’s... [more]
Source : University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Planet Earth at The Edge of Habitability
Earth: A Borderline Planet for Life?
Our planet is changing before our eyes, and as a result, many species are living on the edge. Yet Earth has been on the edge of habitability from the beginning. New work by astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows that if Earth had been slightly smaller and less massive, it would not have plate tectonics - the forces that move continents and build mountains. And without plate tectonics, life might never have gained a foothold on our world... [more]
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