Scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have shown that tiny polymer nanofibers become much stronger when their diameters shrink below a certain size. Their research, published in the January issue of Nature Nanotechnology, could make possible stronger fabrics that use less material. Professor Eyal Zussman and Dr. Oleg Gendelman of the Faculty of Mechanical …
An article that discusses various research and possibilities for extending maximum lifespan Optimal amounts of the amino acid methionine seems to be an important part of low calorie diets. A recent Spanish study found that methionine restriction definitely decreases oxidative damage to crucial mitochondrial DNA and proteins. Has any animal exploited the immortality of its …
Coals impact on you $200-1000/year in higher health insurance premiumshigher prices on goods and products. Companies are passing on the higher health premiums that they pay for their workers, plus the lost productivity for workers that are out sick because of pollution. Higher costs for acid resistant paint for cars, housesExtra costs for public buildings …
Skin cells genetically engineered to be resistant to bacteria could reduce infections and improve chances of survival among burn victims. A patient’s skin cells, genetically modified and grown in a test tube, could provide the next generation of artificial skin. As a first step in creating such replacement skin, scientists in Cincinnati have engineered bacteria-resistant …
Mostafa Ronaghi, one of the inventors of this sequencing chemistry, group at Stanford is working on an inexpensive superscaler pyrosequencer. It would use $10 CMOS imaging instead of $100,000 CCDs. The objective is to run 400 million sequencing reactions in parallel that can produce between 60 and 100 gigabases of data per run with 200-base …
The World Future Society makes forecasts which show that the forecasters do not seem to really understand some of the technology that they are forecasting. Forecast #2: The era of the Cyborg is at hand. Researchers in Israel have fashioned a “bio-computer” using the DNA of living cells instead of silicon chips. This development may …
Walmart targets selling 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs each year by 2008 If it succeeds in selling 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs a year by 2008, total sales of the bulbs in the United States would increase by 50 percent, saving Americans $3 billion in electricity costs and 3 million tons of greenhouse gas per …
George Church predicts 2007 as the year of personal genomics The price to sequence the 1% of the genome that differentiates people will drop to a street price of $3000 in 2007. Momentum is thus building for millions of people to volunteer to have their genome data correlated with their physical-traits to benefit the billions …
The EPSRC Ideas Factory has opened up a public blog to accept ideas for software control of matter Chris Phoenix has contributed Silica-nucleating proteins (e.g. silicatein) might be used to make silica structures. Chris points out mechanosynthesis of [molecularly precise] structures is much broader than diamondoid or Drexler, and blends into approaches that don’t even …
From IEEE spectrum, IBM is making a major research effort into services science. The goal is to measureably improve service productivity. Paul Maglio, a senior manager at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, says his services group has grown from nine people in December 2002 to more than 70 now. He estimates that 550 …
The race to build an exotic material with a negative refractive index for visible light has been won by a team of researchers in Germany. The demonstration could open the door to a new generation of optical devices such as superlenses able to see details finer then the wavelength of visible light. Dolling’s metamaterial is …