General Motors and Segway to Make PUMAs for 2012

Segway reveals specifics on the PUMA on their site Built off of the proven reliable and safe technology you find in Segway Personal Transporters (PTs), the prototype truly does expand upon the exhilarating riding experience. It increases capacity to two passengers in a seated position; capable of carrying them up to anywhere between 25 and …

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Microbes to Convert Coal to Methane and Algae Fuel are Both Close to Industrial Scaleup

Microbes to Convert Coal to Methane Scale Up Announcement Soon At Synthetic Genomics, the San Diego startup he co-founded in 2005, Venter said scientists are using such techniques to create new microbial species with enhanced and even unique capabilities. For example, he said Synthetic Genomics has created new species of microbes that grow on the …

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Singularity Motivated Donation and Singularity Related Research at Oxford

The James Martin 21st Century school has received 36 million pounds in a matching grant donation from James Martin. [H/T to Michael Anissimov at Accelerating future The Institutes who will share the money:AgeingArmedConflict Cancer Therapy Carbon Reduction Emerging Infections Energy Materials Environmental Change Ethics of Biosciences Future of Humanity [this is where Nick Bostrom, Robin …

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Atomic Force Microscopes 100 times More Stable: Picometer Stability

The JILA team has controlled the probe’s position in three dimensions to better than 40 picometers (1 nanometer = 1000 picometers) over 100 seconds. In imaging applications, they showed the long-term drift at room temperature was a mere 5 picometers per minute, a 100-fold improvement over the best previous results under ambient conditions. Just like …

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Smart Dew. 25 cent sensor can detect intruders up to 50 meters away. Cost Effective US-Mexico or Israel Border Control

A Tel Aviv University researcher’s fingertip (bottom right) points to a “Smart Dew” droplet. Proposed smart dust designs were of comparable size. More advanced concepts exist for even smaller version of smart dust but this is the smallest and cheapest to date. A new invention from Tel Aviv University — a network of tiny sensors …

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Algae Fuel Cost and Production Breakthroughs

Algae Ventures claims to have a method of lowering the cost for harvesting, dewatering, and drying algae by Over 99.75%. Patent documents have been filed and an operational prototype unit has been demonstrated to collaborators who have participated in research and commercialization proposals. Prototype and laboratory testing has successfully been achieved with three species attempted …

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Accelerated Bacterial Evolution

From MIT Technology Review, A genome-wide approach to genetic engineering greatly speeds the manufacture of bacteria for making drugs and biofuels. H/T Alfin Rather than changing the genome letter by letter, as most genetic engineering is done, George Church and his colleagues have developed a new technology that can make 50 changes to a bacterial …

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Lab-Grown Nerves Promote Nerve Regeneration After Injury, Penn Study Finds

A surviving cluster of transplanted neurons at the graft extremity (top) with axons in the center (bottom). In both images, transplanted nerve cells are labeled green and axons are stained red. These axons are a mix of the transplanted axons and host axons, which intertwined as regeneration occurred directly across the transplanted tissue. – Researchers …

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Most Commonly Used Chemical Building Blocks

From Wired magazine, the top 30 most used basic chemical foundation shapes. Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, …

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