A naturally myostatin blocked boy. Antisense RNA has been used to activate myostatin inhibition in mice Mice lacking the myostatin gene have 25–30% increased muscle mass. Individual muscles, such as the pectoralis and quadriceps, of myostatin mutant mice are two- to threefold heavier than those of wild type mice. Antisense RNAs were injected into normal …
Physorg reports that General Motors plans to have robotically driven cars for commercial sale by 2018 The most significant obstacles facing the vehicles could be human rather than technical: government regulation, liability laws, privacy concerns and people’s passion for the automobile and the control it gives them. Much of the technology already exists for vehicles …
The Carnival of Space 34 is up at Rainer Gerhards space launch blog. I provided my updated look at the status of scramjets Colony Worlds considers gravity suits for offworld children A Babe in the Universe reports on the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission to study the moon There is a lot of speculation …
The Energy bill has passed both the Senate and House of representatives with veto proof margins and will increase the CAFE to 35 mpg Separately, Congress reached a tentative agreement on a major energy package that it plans to enact outside the energy bill. The agreement, to be included in a broad government spending bill, …
Peter Jackson will direct the Hobbit in two movie parts. The Hobbit movies should come out in 2010 and 2011. UPDATE:Rumors are that the second film will cover the 60-70 years between the Hobbit and the beginning of the Lord of the Rings (LOTR). The timeline of the third age between the Hobbit and LOTR …
Arizona State University’s Center for Applied Nanoionics (CANi) has a new take on old memory, one that promises to boost the performance, capacity and battery life of consumer electronics from digital cameras to laptops. Best of all, it is cheap, made from common materials and compatible with just about anything currently on the market. This …
Despite some success with air pollution, current levels — mainly nitrogen oxide, fine particles and ground-level ozone — are estimated to shorten average life expectancy in Western and Central European countries by almost a year and to threaten the healthy development of children. This from the report, ‘Europe’s environment — The fourth assessment’, which was …
The Foresight Productive Nanosystems conference has started. Chris Phoenix at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology is liveblogging the event. Here is his introductory article about the conference The first speaker is Alex Kawczak, VP, Nanotechnology & BioProducts, Battelle, who talks about some aspects of the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems There are several Atomically Precise …
One day soon, laboratories may grow synthetically engineered tissues such as muscle or cartilage needed for transplants. In a major step forward, Cornell engineers describe in the journal Nature Materials a microvascular system they have developed that can nourish growing tissues. The researchers have engineered tiny channels within a water-based gel that mimic a vascular …
There has been an interpretation ruling on loan guarantees for 100% of the loan to a maximum of 80% of the total project for carbon dioxide reducing energy projects The loan guarantees make nuclear energy the cheapest option for energy. It pretty much guarantees that all 30 nuclear reactors that are in the planning stages …
Two major steps toward putting quantum computers into real practice — sending a photon signal on demand from a qubit onto wires and transmitting the signal to a second, distant qubit — have been brought about by a team of scientists at Yale. They report that superconducting qubits, or artificial atoms, have been able to …
