700 million black carbon free cookers would save over one million lives per year, reduce birth defects and reduce global warming

PNAS – Association of selected persistent organic pollutants in the placenta with the risk of neural tube defects Pregnant mothers who are exposed to pesticides and smoke are as much as four times more likely to give birth to infants with serious birth defects. Neural tube defects, or NTDs, are brain and spinal cord defects …

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Genetically engineered stem cells help repair heart tissue in Mice and one dose gene therapy protects arteries from atherosclerosis and high cholesterol in rabbits

1. Genetically engineered human cardiac stem cells helped repair damaged heart tissue and improved function after a heart attack in a mouse study. Ten weeks after investigators implanted the genetically engineered human stem cells into mice, tissue repair and function, as measured by the heart’s ability to pump blood, was twice that of controls. This …

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India plans to start exporting nuclear reactors and Indian Tumalapalli has 150,000 tons of uranium

1. India is offering its indigenous 220 and 540 megawatt heavy water reactor designs for export, although no specific customers have been identified. “Only Canada, China, France, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States export nuclear reactors. India may join this group in the near term,” the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in its …

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Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have developed a platform technology for monitoring single-cell interactions in real-time

Probing the cellular niche environment and signalling using cells engineered with an aptamer sensor. Aptamer sensors that bind to signalling molecules (PDGF in this case) are covalently attached to the surface of cells Nature Nanotechnology – Cell-surface sensors for real-time probing of cellular environments The ability to explore cell signalling and cell-to-cell communication is essential …

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China COSCO Suspended nuclear powered shipping study

China COSCO Holdings Co Ltd, the country’s biggest shipping conglomerate by market value, said it has suspended its research into nuclear power as an alternative energy to replace fuel oil in vessels after Japan’s nuclear incident. The study on nuclear, wind and solar power, undertaken to find ways to cut carbon emissions, has been under …

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Bioprinting company finds stable revenue stream by making 3-dimensional “constructs” of diseased or dysfunctional human cells for better drug testing

Xconomy reports that Organovo is bioprinting 3-dimensional “constructs” of diseased or dysfunctional human cells that can be used as models for testing new drugs. Creating a 3-D matrix of cells enables each cell to interact with adjoining cells, so they react to drug compounds much as they would in the body. Pharmaceutical companies are paying …

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Flywheels for cheaper hybrid cars

Technology Review – The automakers Volvo and Jaguar are testing the possibility of using flywheels instead of batteries in hybrid electric vehicles to aid acceleration and help engines operate more efficiently. The devices could reduce fuel consumption by 20 percent and would cost a third as much as batteries. Volvo will begin road-testing a car …

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Recreating human livers, in mice for better drug testing and screening

By growing human liver tissue inside mice, Alice Chen has created “humanized” mouse livers that respond to drugs the same way a human liver does. “What’s exciting to researchers is this idea that if we can create these mice with human livers, we can basically create a slew of human-like patients to do drug-development screens, …

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New MIT-developed materials make it possible to produce photovoltaic cells on paper or fabric

Graduate student Miles Barr hold a flexible and foldable array of solar cells that have been printed on a sheet of paper. Photo: Patrick Gillooly Almost as cheaply and easily as printing a photo on your inkjet, an inexpensive, simple solar cell has been created on that flimsy sheet, formed from special “inks” deposited on …

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Accelerated evolution machine being adapted to human stem cells and creates the new field of Recombineering

In May, 2010, Venter and his team successfully inserted a fully customized strand of DNA into a living cell, creating what they call the “first synthetic genome.” Church says MAGE (Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering) can achieve similar results faster and cheaper. His lab’s device will go on sale later this year for about $90,000, and …

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Russia puts nuclear energy in list of 27 technologies critical to Russia and Areva pushes ahead with Trekkopje uranium mine for 2013

1. Nuclear energy has been formally recognised as a critical technology in a decree that makes nuclear development a priority for Russia. President Dmitry Medvedev signed off a list of 27 technologies as critical to Russia, including nuclear energy, the nuclear fuel cycle, safety of radioactive waste and used nuclear fuel. Nuclear power, along with …

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