MIMIC a surrogate human immune system for tests

Putting Immunity in a Test Tube
Scientists at VaxDesign, a five-year-old biotechnology company based in Orlando, Florida, have created a simulated human immune system, called the Modular Immune In Vitro Construct (MIMIC for short). The dime-sized immune system can predict how humans will respond to new vaccines. The goal? To streamline vaccine research and hasten the eradication of global killers, such as AIDS... [more]

Source : Time

How to "store the wind", the 'wind bags'

Can green energy be stored in bags under the sea?
The future of energy is storing it as compressed air in giant bags under the sea. And a major power company has invested in the scheme... [more]


Source : BBC

Bering Strait tunnel a tunnel link Russia with America

Proposals for such a tunnel were approved by Tsar Nicholas II in the early 20th century but were abandoned during the Soviet era. If finally built, the tunnel would allow rail connections between London and New York. A Kremlin spokesman confirmed that Putin seeks to build “a real bridge” between Russia and America... [more]

Source : Timesonline

Sound May Teach Fish to Catch Themselves

Scientists have used sound to keep newly released farmed fish
Call them Pavlov's fish: Scientists are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by swimming into a net when they hear a tone that signals feeding time. The bigger goal is to defray the costs of fish farming, an increasingly important source of the world's seafood. If fish can be trained to return to the farmer after feeding in the open ocean for several days, farms could save money on feed and reduce the amount of fish waste released in concentrated areas... [more]
Source : Breitbart

Regenerative Medicine Re-Growing Organs With Regenerative Powder

Medicine's Cutting Edge
Regenerative Powder is a substance made from pig bladders called extracellular matrix. It is a mix of protein and connective tissue surgeons often use to repair tendons and it holds some of the secrets behind the emerging new science of regenerative medicine. In this clinical trial at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, Dr. Patrick Shenot is performing a bladder transplant with an organ built with this patient's own cells. In a process developed by Dr. Atala, the patient's cells were grown in a lab, and then seeded on a biodegradable bladder-shaped scaffold... [more] & [more]
Source : CBS News & Thenewspointer

Study shows compassion meditation changes the brain

Can we train ourselves to be compassionate?
Cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make a person more empathetic to other peoples' mental states, positive emotions such as loving-kindness and compassion can be learned in the same way as playing a musical instrument or being proficient in a sport. The scans revealed that brain circuits used to detect emotions and feelings were dramatically changed in subjects who had extensive experience practicing compassion meditation... [more]
Source : University of Wisconsin-Madison

BigDog, Boston Dynamics Quadruped Rough Terrain Robot

The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth
BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system.BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy... [more]
Source : Boston Dynamics

With the trash crisis in Naples elevated levels of dioxin in Italian mozzarella

Mozzarella's reputation takes a hit from trash crisis in Naples
In the last few months, sales of buffalo mozzarella have dropped 40 percent, the product's trade association says. The problem makes for a near-perfect morality play about modern Italy: For years, the paralyzed political class has done little to halt huge-scale illegal dumping of trash, some of it toxic, around Naples. That area happens to produce some of the best mozzarella... [more]
Source : IHT

Nuclear Terrorism, Detecting Nuclear Smuggling

Technology For Detecting Nuclear Smuggling
Existing radiation portal monitors, as well as new advanced spectroscopic portal machines, cannot reliably detect weapons-grade uranium hidden inside shipping containers. They also set off far too many false alarms. So-called active detectors might perform better, but they are several years off and are very expensive.
A crude nuclear device constructed with HEU poses the greatest risk of mass destruction by terrorists... [more]

Source : Scientific American

Damage to unborn baby from smoking ‘negligible’ in the first five months

A report not welcomed by anti-smoking groups
Smoking in pregnancy is far less damaging to the unborn baby than commonly supposed, detailed analysis suggests. If women give up smoking by the fifth month of pregnancy, the effect on the baby is negligible and even if they do not, the effect on birthweight is surprisingly small... [more]

Source : Timesonline

Global warming temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years

Climate facts to warm to
No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years." The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up... [more]
Source : The Australian

PUPILS INVENT VANISHING NAIL POLISH, Vivid red outdoors but invisible inside

'Vanishing' colour gives schoolgirls chance to beat ban on nail varnish
A nail varnish that "vanishes" has been developed by a group of school pupils - offering girls the chance to beat bans on makeup. The nail colour is a vivid red outdoors - but inside it transforms to a much paler shade which can hardly be seen. The dramatic change is caused by a chemical reaction between the varnish and the ultraviolet light in natural sunlight... [more]
Source : Daily Mail

Humanness, Genes Unique To Humans

First study hints at insights to come from genes unique to humans
Among the approximately 23,000 genes found in human DNA, scientists currently estimate that there may be as few as 50 to 100 that have no counterparts in other species. Expand that comparison to include the primate family known as hominoids, and there may be several hundred unique genes... [more]
Source : Physorg

Melting glaciers could trigger food shortages

The effects of environmental damage on food production
The irrigation water vital for the grain crops that feed China and India is at risk of drying up, as global warming melts the glaciers that feed Asia's biggest rivers. The world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia... [more]
Source : NewScientist

Arctic Oil & Gas claim to nearly all of the Arctic Ocean's undersea oil

Vast oil potential in Arctic, new data says
A U.S.-based company that has controversially laid claim to nearly all of the Arctic Ocean's undersea oil said Thursday that new geological data suggests a "potentially vast" petroleum resource of 400 billion barrels. Las Vegas-based Arctic Oil & Gas has raised eyebrows around the world with its roll-of-the-dice bid to lock up exclusive rights to extract oil and gas from rapidly melting areas of the central Arctic Ocean, currently beyond the territorial control of Canada, Russia and other polar nations. The company has filed a claim with the United Nations to act as the sole "development agent" of Arctic seabed oil and gas... [more]
Source : Canada.com

Keeping The Brain Sharp, Stopping a Receptor Called 'Nogo' Boosts the Synapses

The nogo receptor
New findings about a protein called the nogo receptor are offering fresh ways to think about keeping the brain sharp. Scientists have found that reducing the nogo receptor in the brain results in stronger brain signaling in mice, effectively boosting signal strength between the synapses, the connections between nerve cells in the brain. The ability to enhance such connections is central to the brain’s ability to rewire, a process that happens constantly as we learn and remember.
The new research gives scientists a way to produce changes in the brain that mirror those brought about by exercise, by reducing the effect of the nogo receptor... [more]
Source : University of Rochester Medical Center

The caveman diet : paleolithic-style diet

The Caveman Diet on Stone Age
A Paleolithic-style diet popularly known as a Paleolithic diet, paleo diet, caveman diet, Stone Age diet or hunter-gatherer diet, is a contemporary diet regimen consisting of commonly available modern foods. It emulates the diet of wild plants and animals that humans and their close relatives habitually consumed during the Paleolithic a period of about 2 million years duration that ended about 10,000 years ago when Homo sapiens invented agriculture. Paleolithic-style diets focus on eliminating more or less all foods that advocates believe were rarely or never consumed by humans before the Neolithic revolution, such as dairy products, grains and legumes... [more]
Source : Wikipedia

Insomnia, Why You Can't Sleep

Anxiety and snoring are now among the most important causes of insomnia in the Western world
Anxious people who have mortgages, overdrafts and a hard-earned lifestyle to maintain are likely to be in for months of disturbed nights' sleep and drowsy, lacklustre days. Insomnia, the conviction that someone has that he or she is not getting an adequate amount of sleep, is not just a modern problem... [more]
Source : Timesonline

Suicide robot : Man commits suicide with online built robot

Australian Man Gunned Down in Driveway by Killer Robot
An 81-year-old Australian man has shot himself dead with an elaborate suicide robot built using plans he downloaded from the Internet. He spent hours searching the Internet for a way to kill himself, downloaded what he needed and then built a complex machine that would remotely fire a gun... [more]
Source : Fox News

East and West part ways in test of facial expressions

Eastern and Western perceptions in facial expressions
How do you know how someone is feeling? For people in Western societies, it is usually easy: look at the person's face. The differences may speak to deeply ingrained cultural traits, the authors write, suggesting that Westerners may "see emotions as individual feelings, while Japanese see them as inseparable from the feelings of the group... [more]

Source : IHT

Wartime author Antoine de Saint-Exupery mystery solved

The most enduring mystery in post-war France
A former Luftwaffe fighter pilot may have ended the 64-year-old mystery surrounding the death of French writer and aviator, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, former German pilot Horst Rippert says he fears he may have shot down the author - though he cannot be sure... [more]


Source : BBC

Promotional Piracy, Digital Piracy May Benefit Companies

Piracy claimed to endanger whole industries?
Unauthorised copying of software, music or films, so-called digital piracy, may have benefits for the affected companies, in her talk at the Annual Conference of the Royal Economic Society, Oxford economist Karen Croxson suggests that piracy does not necessarily undermine profit as pirates may actually help to promote the product they steal... [more]

Source : University of Oxford

Marcellus black shale in Pennsylvania could boost U.S. gas reserves

Unconventional natural gas reservoir in Pennsylvania poised to dramatically increase U.S. production
Natural gas distributed throughout the Marcellus black shale in northern Appalachia could conservatively boost proven U.S. reserves by trillions of cubic feet if gas production companies employ horizontal drilling techniques. The Marcellus shale runs from the southern tier of New York, through the western portion of Pennsylvania into the eastern half of Ohio and through West Virginia. In Pennsylvania, the formation extends from the Appalachian plateau into the western valley and ridge... [more]
Source : The Pennsylvania State University

9/11 Health Problems, Environmental Illnesses Haunt Some Who Covered 9/11

Health Problems Persist for Photojournalists Who Shot Ground Zero
New York Times staff photographer Keith Meyers loved to tackle rigorous assignments, like flying in military jets and scuba diving with astronauts in training. New York Times photographer Keith Meyers, whose photographs of the still-smoking towers earned him a Pulitzer, has asthma and other health problems so severe he can no longer work... [more]

Source : PDN Online

Stephen Trantel : Wall Street Traders Secret Life As A Serial Bank Robber

Stolen Dreams
Stephen Trantel was a Wall Street insider who seemed to have it all: a beautiful family, a nice home in an upscale Long Island community, and fancy cars. But what those closest to him didn't know was that he was living a secret life. To the people who knew Stephen, he was the least likely to rob a bank - for one, he was the son of a New York City cop. And because he was a trader in the big money world of commodities, he wouldn't have to steal anything... [more]
Source : CBS News

Cybercrime botnet scams exploding

Largely unnoticed by the public botnets inundate the Internet with 40% of the 800 million computers online serving as bots
On a typical day, 40% of the 800 million computers connected to the Internet are bots engaged in distributing e-mail spam, stealing sensitive data typed at banking and shopping websites, bombarding websites as part of extortionist denial-of-service attacks, and spreading fresh infections... [more]
Source : USA Today

Europe's last dictator Lukashenko Hires British Image Maker

Lukashenko trying to put on a better face
The 66-year-old, staunchly conservative spin doctor again has his work cut out for him if he is to alter public perceptions of his latest client -- Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. Timothy Bell a member of Britain's House of Lords whose most recent work has revolved around his friend and the Kremlin's self-exiled enemy Boris Berezovsky, was invited by Lukashenko to his presidential office in Minsk... [more]
Source : The Moscow Times

Wine damages brain more than beer shrinking brain volume

Wine is worse for brain than beer
Wine particularly affects the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with memory and spatial awareness, and one of the first areas to be affected by Alzheimer's disease. It could explain why millions forget what they are doing mid-task, or arrive in a room only to forget why they went there in the first place, the hippocampus, which is located deep within the brain's temporal lobes, was up to 10 per cent smaller in those who drank... [more]
Source : Daily Mail

Human trafficking : A Desperate Search For Stolen Children in China

Making the cheap bricks used in China's construction boom with poor salary, beatings and vicious dogs
Historically, many victims have been women forced to marry lonely farmers, or male babies illegally adopted by couples who wanted a son. But those types of cases are leveling off, while cases of migrants deceived into sexual exploitation and forced labor are increasing. Three years ago, Zhang Aihua's son, Hao Bingbo, was abducted in Zhengzhou while delivering food to a construction site. Five people surrounded him, taped his mouth, tied his hands, blindfolded him and threw him into a car... [more]
Source : Washington Post

Patent Abrogation : Protecting Patents, Saving Lives

Slightly higher drug prices today will guarantee incentives for innovation tomorrow
Widespread patent abrogation in developing countries further exacerbates the problem, encouraging drug companies to make products for the more lucrative markets in the United States, the European Union, and Japan, which together account for over 85 percent of the world’s pharmaceutical market. But the lack of affordable drugs in the developing world is the consequence of a limited market, not a failed one. The R&D necessary to develop and market drugs is expensive and risky—and because the vast majority of consumers in the developing world are poor, they are unable to pay drug prices sufficient to prompt companies to invest significantly in such R&D... [more]
Source : The American

Shift to electric vehicles could strain water resources

Plugging in to more water use
A fully electric car never fills up at the gas pump, but it does use water. No, the water doesn't fuel the car, but power plants use quite a bit of water to make the electricity that surges through the plug. And as more electric vehicles hit the road, power plants will use more water. Driving a car on electricity consumes three times more water than driving with gasoline, mile for mile. Water use is not an issue that people typically associate with plug-in vehicles, which have many environmental benefits... [more]
Source : American Chemical Society

Venezuelans taking circuitous route to get dollars

The island of Curaçao: a Venezuelan haven
In a desperate quest to get their hands on American dollars, Venezuelans are flocking to this island in the Netherlands Antilles to take part in this elaborate backroom scheme and dozens of others like it to get around currency controls imposed by the government of President Hugo Chávez. For Venezuelans, the Curaçao option for obtaining dollars emerged last year when the value of Venezuela's currency, the bolivar, fell sharply against the dollar as fears intensified over Chávez's economic policies, including the nationalization of oil and telephone companies... [more]
Source : IHT

Semantic web : Google could be superseded, says web inventor

Next generation of web technology is likely to be far more powerful than the current
Google may eventually be displaced as the pre-eminent brand on the internet by a company that harnesses the power of next-generation web technology, the inventor of the www has said.The search giant had developed an extremely effective way of searching for pages on the internet,Tim Berners-Lee said, but that ability paled in comparison to what could be achieved on the "web of the future... [more]
Source : Timesoline

Dino-Era Feathers Found Encased in Amber

Seven dino-era feathers found perfectly preserved in amber in western France
The hundred-million-year-old plumage has features of both feather-like fibers found with some two-legged dinosaurs known as theropods and of modern bird feathers, the researchers said. The find provides a clear example "of the passage between primitive filamentous down and a modern feather... [more]
Source : National Geographic

Chemical brain controls nanobots

Chemical "brain" to remote control swarms of nano-machines
The molecular device - just two billionths of a metre across - was able to control eight of the microscopic machines simultaneously in a test, the machine is made from 17 molecules of the chemical duroquinone. Each one is known as a "logic device"... [more]
Source : BBC

Humor : North America's Indians gather in Mexico to ask forgiveness from "our Mother Earth"

North America's Indians gather in Mexico in bid to save the planet and explore traditional solutions to pollution
Indians from Mexico, the United States and Canada gathered before dawn Monday to light incense, pray and sing in the shadow of ancient Mayan pyramids, asking the contaminated earth for forgiveness. More than 200 leaders from 71 American Indian nations were joining in this jungle town to offer indigenous wisdom about ways to save the polluted planet. "Our Mother Earth is being polluted at an alarming rate, and our elders say that she is dying," said Raymond Sensmeier, a Tlingit leader from Yakutat, Alaska. "The way the weather is around the world ... a cleansing is needed."... [more]
Source : The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

U.S. Rush to Produce Corn-based Ethanol Will Worsen “Dead Zone” in Gulf of Mexico

Corn production a disaster for the Gulf of Mexico
The U.S. government’s rush to produce corn-based ethanol as a fuel alternative will worsen pollution in the Gulf of Mexico, increasing a “Dead Zone” that kills fish and aquatic life. The researchers looked at the estimated land and fertilizer required to meet proposed corn-based ethanol production goals. Recently, the U.S. Senate announced its energy policy aims of generating 36 billion gallons annually of ethanol by the year 2022, of which 15 billion gallons can be produced from cornstarch. The corn-ethanol goal represents more than three times than triple the production in 2006... [more]
Source : University of British Columbia

Curing Addiction,Obesity, diabetes, Depression With Cannabis Medicines

Smokers trying to quit in the future could do it with the help of cannabis based medicines
Teams of pharmacologists, studying the cannabis-like compounds which exist naturally in our bodies (endocannabinoids), are exploring the potential for medical treatment. This includes treating conditions as diverse as obesity, diabetes, depression and addiction to substances like nicotine. Scientists have known about endocannabinoids since the mid-1990s. This led to an explosion in the number of researchers looking into the future medical uses of cannabinoids and cannabis compounds. Because cannabinoids have also been shown to bring down blood pressure, it is hoped that related compounds can be used in patients with conditions like hypertension... [more]
Source : University of Nottingham

‘Quantum Logic Clock’ Rivals Mercury Ion as World’s Most Accurate Clock

The worlds Most Accurate Clock
An atomic clock that uses an aluminum atom to apply the logic of computers to the peculiarities of the quantum world now rivals the world's most accurate clock, based on a single mercury atom. Both clocks are at least 10 times more accurate than the current U.S. time standard. Highly accurate clocks are used to synchronize telecommunications networks and deep-space communications, and for satellite navigation and positioning. Next-generation clocks may also lead to new types of gravity sensors, which have potential applications in exploration for underground natural resources and fundamental studies of the Earth... [more]
Source : National Institute of Standards and Technology

Beijing Olympics : Thirsty land sucked dry to irrigate Olympics

Plan to irrigate the Chinese capital's olympic ambitions
Water was always scarce in this arid northern Chinese township several hundred kilometres from Beijing, but competition for it is more intense than ever as his land adjoins a new canal, which is going to pump 300 million cubic metres of water to Beijing to make sure that everything looks lush and green for August's Olympic Games... [more]
Source : Independent

Climate change may spark conflict with Russia

Alert over scramble for control of energy resources in the Arctic
European governments have been told to plan for an era of conflict over energy resources, with global warming likely to trigger a dangerous contest between Russia and the west for the vast mineral riches of the Arctic. "The rapid melting of the polar ice caps, in particular the Arctic, is opening up new waterways and international trade routes. The increased accessibility of the enormous hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic region is changing the geostrategic dynamics of the region... [more]
Source : Guardian

Diet globalization : Farmers struggle to keep up with world food demand

The world's grain stockpiles have fallen to the lowest levels in decades
Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. Whether the world is in for a long period of continued increases has become one of the most urgent issues in economics. Many factors are contributing to the rise, but the biggest is runaway demand. In recent years, the world's developing economies have been growing at about 7 percent a year, an unusually rapid rate by historical standards. The high growth rate means hundreds of millions of people are, for the first time, getting access to the basics of life, including better diets. That jump in demand is helping to drive the prices of agricultural commodities up... [more]
Source : IHT

Costa Rica Aims to be 1st Carbon-Neutral Country

Costa Rica is believed to house about 5 percent of the world's plant and animal species
A small but growing number of countries are racing to become "carbon neutral" by reducing or offsetting their emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming. The smart money may be on Costa Rica to get there first, experts say, even though the small Central American country faces a host of problems, from illegal logging to overdevelopment fueled by tourism... [more]
Source : National Geographic

Blue Brain :Thinking, remembering, decision-making, biologically accurate computer

Out of the blue
In the basement of a university in Lausanne, Switzerland sit four black boxes, each about the size of a refrigerator, and filled with 2,000 IBM microchips stacked in repeating rows. Together they form the processing core of a machine that can handle 22.8 trillion operations per second. It contains no moving parts and is eerily silent. When the computer is turned on, the only thing you can hear is the continuous sigh of the massive air conditioner. This is Blue Brain. The name of the supercomputer is literal: Each of its microchips has been programmed to act just like a real neuron in a real brain. The behavior of the computer replicates, with shocking precision, the cellular events unfolding inside a mind... [more]
Source : Seed Magazine

Global Cooling : If There's Global Warming, Why Is It So Cold?

Global Warming or Global Cooling
The world has seen some extraordinary winter conditions in both hemispheres over the past year: snow in Johannesburg last June and in Baghdad in January, Arctic sea ice returning with a vengeance after a record retreat last summer, paralyzing blizzards in China, and a sharp drop in the average temperature of the globe. Many scientists also say that the cool spell in no way undermines the enormous body of evidence pointing to a warming world with disrupted weather patterns, less ice and rising seas should heat-trapping greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels and forests continue to accumulate in the air... [more]
Source : Sci-tech-today

Plastic bag eco fears are based on science blunder

Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain
Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims. The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds... [more]
Source : Timesonline

Alien life : nearby star should harbor detectable, Earth-like planets

Terrestrial planets are likely to have formed around the star Alpha Centauri B
A rocky planet similar to Earth may be orbiting one of our nearest stellar neighbors and could be detected using existing techniques, the closest stars to our Sun are in the three-star system called Alpha Centauri, a popular destination for interstellar travel in works of science fiction. If they exist, we can observe them... [more]
Source : University of California, Santa Cruz

Female sexual emancipation, French women 'are the sexual predators now

Study on Sexuality in France
French women are becoming increasingly assertive in their sexual habits, while one-in-five younger French men "has no interest in sex", according to one of the most comprehensive surveys of the nation's love lives... [more]


Source : Telegraph

Crops for energy, biofuels risk global starvation

The rush towards biofuels is theatening world food production and the lives of billions of people
By 2030 the world population would have increased to such an extent that a 50 per cent increase in food production would be needed. By 2080 it would need to double. But the rush to biofuels – allegedly environmentally friendly – meant that increasing amount of arable land had been given over to fuel rather than food. The world’s population is forecast to increase from the six billion at the start of the millennium to nine billion by 2050. Already biofuels have contributed to the rapid rise in international wheat prices... [more]
Source : The Australian

Why Japan persists in hunting whales

Contentious cuisine
If you want to understand why the Japanese hunt whales, you need to travel to one of the handful of small coastal communities where they still take them from the sea, a place like Wada, "we have been eating whale for 400 years so what is the difference between catching a whale and catching a fish?"... [more]
Source : BBC