Myostatin inhibitors funded for muscle regeneration of war injuries

A $1.2 million grant from the Office of Naval Research to Dr. Hamrick,bone biologist in the Medical College of Georgia Schools of Graduate Studies and Medicine, is enabling laboratory studies of two experimental myostatin inhibitors: a decoy receptor and a binding protein, both developed by MetaMorphix, Inc. of Beltsville, Md. Both inhibitors have been shown …

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DNA sewing machine

DNA sewing machine created by Kyohei Terao from Kyoto University and colleagues. They designed laser-directed microdevices to pick up and manoeuvre giant individual molecules of DNA. The technology will also be useful for a number of other applications including DNA sequencing and molecular electronic. This should help enable the goals of $10-1000 whole genome sequencing …

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High magnetism reveals the inner electronic structure of high temperature superconductors

University of Cambridge researchers have discovered where the charge ‘hole’ carriers that play a significant role in the superconductivity originate within the electronic structure of copper-oxide superconductors. A correct and detailed understanding what is going on in high temperature superconductors will help to get to a correct theory for superconductors and can lead to the …

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Myostatin blocking still under hot pursuit

Acceleron, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech firm, and other companies are still pursuing myostatin blocking, which can be four times more effective at building muscle versus high doses of steroids Se-Jin Lee, the molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins University who discovered myostatin in mice in 1992, says it’s “disappointing” that MYO-029 is dead, but he still …

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Second look shows Apollo Moon rocks had water inside them

In a study published today in Nature, researchers led by Brown University geologist Alberto Saal found evidence of water molecules in pebbles retrieved by NASA’s Apollo missions. Mars magma contained as much as 2 percent dissolved water. For the past four decades, the limit for detecting water in lunar samples was about 50 parts per …

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Current information on Wind Power material usage

Per Peterson, Prof at Berkeley provides information on construction material for energy. 95% of construction inputs are steel and concrete. This article looks at the most recent wind turbines and finds that wind power’s need for a lot of steel and concrete is not substantially changed from the 1990 figures. 700-1000 tons (not including all …

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HP could be producing Memristors in 2009

HP scientists have now successfully engineered control over how the device functions. This means it is now possible to design memristors into integrated circuits that remember information, consume far less power than existing devices and may someday learn from past behavior. The EEtimes, reports that the advance promises to speed development of commercial prototype chips …

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Carnegie Endowment makes conservative prediction of China overtaking the US Economy in 2035

Here is 16 page briefing from the Carnegie Endowment by Albert Kiedel on the economic rise of China UPDATE: The British Telegraph has an interesting series of articles on life in China now The very conservative projection described in the table above already underestimates China’s economy. It has China at $4 trillion on an exchange …

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