Calorie Restriction mimicking drugs

From Fighting Aging, there is a list of several companies that are making drugs that mimick caloric restriction. Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, MA, has begun testing a resveratrol-based drug in diabetic patients. It has raised $82 million from venture capitalists, a hefty sum for an early-stage biotech. It faces competition from Elixir Pharmaceuticals Inc., …

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Lunar lander competitor confident of victory in 2007

Armadillo Aerospace of Mesquite, Texas flew but crashed in the recent 2006 competition Armadillo is confident of success and victory in 2007. Another group, Masten Space Systems of Santa Clara, California is the closest to being flight qualified for 2007. They need to fly their very first test vehicle, then design, build, and test a …

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Lunar resource utilization challenges

May 2007, the Regolith Excavation Challenge promotes the development of new technologies to excavate lunar regolith. The total purse of $250,000 will go to the winning teams excavating the most regolith above 150 kilograms. The mass of the system cannot exceed 40 kilograms and 30 Watts of DC power will be provided to the system. …

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Kistler, Spacex, Tspace and others

In the timeframe from 2009 to 2011 we will know whether the new efforts to lower launch costs has been successful. Spacex plans to get costs down to $3000/kg to Low earth orbit (LEO) and $8000/kg to Geosynchronous orbit China is developing the Long March 5 rocket which should be able to put 25 tons …

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How the US political system is rigged

Computerized political and racial gerrymandering places all of the voters who would tend to oppose an incumbent into as few districts as possible. The incumbent also tends to have a fund raising advantage since they can give favors to supporters who will provide them with campaign funds. Incumbents win over 98% of the time The …

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Record 85 Tesla magnet

After 10 years of work, lab officials announced Tuesday that the world’s most powerful pulsed, non-destructive magnet is ready for use at 85 tesla. The magnet, which has achieved 87.8 tesla and is expected to reach 100 tesla in time, is the most powerful of its kind in the world. Researchers can combine very low …

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Nanostructured aluminum 10 times stronger than normal aluminum alloys

The newest class of cast metal matrix composites (MMCs) fortifies aluminum with nanoparticles to produce materials that can withstand enormous amounts of stress, are exceptionally hard, but are also lightweight. Nanoparticles are smaller than 100 nanometers (about the size of a baseball shrunk to one-millionth of its original size) that sometimes behave differently than larger …

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Future DNA Sequencing $100K per genome and $1000 genome

Here is a pdf of a research paper that surveys new DNA sequencing approaches Several approaches could provide genome (3 billion base pairs) sequencing for $100,000 within 4 years. Cycle extension methods 454 Corp pyrosequencing Quake cycle extensionPoloniesSolexa cycle extension Solexa corporation’s approaches could reach a cost $9000 to $15000 to sequence a genome. Genovoxx …

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biochip: 60 times more data from living cells

Purdue University researchers have developed a biochip that measures the electrical activities of cells and is capable of obtaining 60 times more data in just one reading than is possible with current technology. In the near term, the biochip could speed scientific research, which could accelerate drug development for muscle and nerve disorders like epilepsy …

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Wind power – they want it from local suppliers

Wind power politics and economics discussed in the Economist magazine It costs $2.3 million per mile ($1.4 million per kilometer to transmit power. States and countries prefer to pay their own farmers to generate electricity like wind. Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per …

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Improved detection of small amounts of plutonium and uranium

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have demonstrated that they can cheaply, quickly and accurately identify even subnanogram amounts of weapon-grade plutonium and uranium. The scientists were able to successfully identify trace amounts of uranium-235 and plutonium-239 in less than three minutes. They have applied …

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