Shapeways provides a low risk and low barrier model for 3d printing of products but it has not made millionaires yet

Shapeways, a 3-D printing service and online marketplace, has been described as the Amazon of 3-D printing for its on-demand model, if not its outsize volume: The machines spit out about 120,000 objects a month, a tidal flow of design that runs from the mundane to the astonishing. Bradley Rothenberg, a Manhattan-based architect and designer, …

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China completing several nuclear reactors in 2014

A number of new nuclear power reactors in China are approaching start-up. The first unit at Yangjiang has completed full-power trial operation while hot tests have concluded at Fuqing 1. Two other units recently completed pressure tests on their containments. Unit 1 of the Yangjiang plant in China’s Guangdong province has entered commercial operation, becoming …

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Human trials of rapid cooling suspended animation to provide doctors and patients with extra hours to treat traumatic injury

New Scientist reports that doctors will try to save the lives of 10 patients with knife or gunshot wounds by placing them in suspended animation, buying time to fix their injuries. Knife-wound or gunshot victims will be cooled down and placed in suspended animation later this month, as a groundbreaking emergency technique is tested out …

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Oculus rift went from a 2012 Kickstarter to a $2 billion Facebook buyout

Facebook acquired Oculus VR—creator of the forthcoming Oculus Rift virtual reality headset—for approximately $2 billion. Following the demonstration of the Oculus Rift prototype at E3 in June 2012, on 1 August 2012 the company announced a Kickstarter campaign to further develop the product. Within four hours of the announcement, Oculus secured its intended amount of …

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Open thread for March

This is an nextbigfuture thread for March, 2014. Submit any articles of interest or introduce topics for discussion. Please avoid any abuse and insults to other commenters. Please keep things polite and courteous. The debate should be about content and ideas with facts and analysis on the subjects. It is not about the other people. …

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Dwarf Planet 2012 VP113 which is in the range of Pluto size has been discovered at 80AU and it could be orbiting an as yet unseen planet ten times the size of the earth

Scientists using ground based observatories have discovered an object that is believed to have the most distant orbit found beyond the known edge of our solar system. Named 2012 VP113, the observations of the object — possibly a dwarf planet — were obtained and analyzed with a grant from NASA. A dwarf planet is an …

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Cadnano simplifies and enhances the process of designing three-dimensional DNA origami nanostructures

Shawn Douglas is an advocate for Cadnano Cadnano simplifies and enhances the process of designing three-dimensional DNA origami nanostructures. Through its user-friendly 2D and 3D interfaces it accelerates the creation of arbitrary designs. The embedded rules within cadnano paired with the finite element analysis performed by cando, provide relative certainty of the stability of the …

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BIOMOD is an annual biomolecular design competition for students

Shawn is an advocate and founder of for the BIOmed project. Undergraduate teams compete to build the coolest stuff using the molecules of life. Previous winners have used DNA, RNA, and proteins as building blocks to create autonomous robots, molecular computers, and prototypes for nanoscale therapeutics. Students lead projects each summer and then travel to …

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Shawn Douglas Google Solve for X targeted cancer therapeutics with DNA origami nanobots

Recently we had covered the Google Solve for X talk on DNA nanobot microsurgery by Ido Bachelet. Here is the 2013 Google Solve for X talk by Shawn Douglas who led the work on the 2012 paper that was co-written by Ido Bachelet and George Church. Shawn Douglas has his personal website here Problem: Cancer …

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High temperature gas nuclear reactor cooperations within China and a US and Europe deal

Although various HTGR projects have been under development around the world over the years, China’s HTGR project is currently the closest to commercial realisation. Construction work began on two demonstration HTGR units at Shidaowan, Shandong province, in late 2012, with Tsinghua University-CNECC joint venture Chinergy the main contractor for the nuclear island. The plant’s twin …

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Graphene alters copper wires dissipate 25% more heat

The semiconductor industry has another thermal problem to sort out. As chip components shrink, the copper wiring that connects them must shrink, too. And as these wires get thinner, they heat up tremendously. A sandwich made of graphene on both sides of a sheet of copper improves the copper’s ability to dissipate heat by 25 …

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