Month: August 2013

High efficiency generation of super intense x-rays from materials produced by 100 million atmospheric pressure has been funded

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DTRA (Defense Threat Reduction Agency) awarded a SBIR Phase I contract to investigate commercial potential of super-intense x-ray generation with MIMS (Metastable Innershell Molecular State) in the areas from semiconductor lithography to x-ray laser. Scaling up of soft x-ray generation with MIMS will be performed with Los Alamos National Lab under a CRADA arrangement. MIMS …

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3D Printing simplifies Jet Engines and Elon Musk developing Iron Man Like Design Interface for Rocket Part Design

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Elon Musk tweeted two days ago tha Spacex has figured out how to design rocket parts just with hand movements. Spacex will post a video of the process next week. They then use 3d printing to make the parts. The director of the Iron Man movie Jon Favreau tweeted Musk asking: “Like in Iron Man?” …

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Carnival of Space 316

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1. Universe Today Free-floating rogue planets are intriguing objects. The leading theory on how these nomadic planets came to exist is that they were they ejected from their parent star system. But new research shows that there are places in interstellar space that might have the right conditions to form planets — with no parent …

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First mini-lungs, mini-kidneys and mini-hearts and now mini-brains have been grown

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Minibrains have been grown from stem cells. They grew 2-3 millimeters (0.08-0.1 in) in diameter, and have survived in lab dishes for 10 months so far. This is the size and has some of the structure of the brain of a 9- or 10-week-old human embryo. Their size is limited, because they lack a circulatory …

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Elon Musk shows innovation comes from outsiders with fresh viewpoints

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Elon Musk’s career stands in contrast to what David Burkus calls the Expert Myth, one of many myths, or faulty beliefs, we have about creative people. The Expert Myth claims that innovation is typically the result of the most experienced or knowledgeable person in a field. In reality, breakthroughs are often made by people at …

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Global Economic Outlook to 2017 with a lot of risks according to leading rating agency

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Dun and Bradstreet have a global economic outlook for the next 5 years. The recovery from the 2008-2009 recession is the slowest and most problematic of the past century, highlighted by changes in D and B’s country risk ratings: 56 of the 132 countries (42.4%) rate worse than in October 2009 when the recovery started, …

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Progress made to improve gene therapy for treating disease without dose limiting side effects

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For many disabling or fatal diseases, there is pre-clinical or clinical evidence of the potential therapeutic benefits of gene therapy. Unfortunately, the limitations of current gene transfer technologies have prevented successful trials or even led to serious adverse effects during trials. The EU-funded project PERSIST (‘Persisting transgenesis’) was concerned with the development of new gene …

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New technique for activating multiple genes at the same time

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By creating a powerful new gene regulation system called CRISPR-on, Whitehead Institute researchers now have the ability to increase the expression of multiple genes simultaneously and precisely manipulate each gene’s expression level. The system is effective in both mouse and human cells as well as in mouse embryos. “CRISPR-on is a tool that will be …

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Nissan promises to start Marketing Affordable Self-Driving Cars by 2020

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“Nissan Motor Co. pledges that we will be ready to bring multiple affordable, energy efficient, fully autonomous-driving vehicles to the market by 2020,” Executive Vice President Andy Palmer said during a presentation in Southern California. Nissan demonstrated on Tuesday how a prototype self-driving Leaf electric car could use a combination of laser guidance systems, radar …

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