Category Archives: News

Current Sci-Tech news

Planck’s Universe

Cosmic Microwave Background radiation map of the Universe…Credit: ESA, Planck Collaboration The big news for this week and I do mean big as in as big as the whole Universe, is a new collation and analysis of data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Planck observatory mission. The new analysis reveals several things about the [...]
Posted in News: Cosmology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments closed

Micro-endoscope: A visual probe as thin as hair

A schematic of the micro-endoscope….Credit: Joseph Kahn, Stanford University The endoscope, a thinish, flexible tube with a light and image sensor or lenses at the probe end, is an indispensable tool of medicine, especially surgery. Endoscopy, the technique of using the endoscope, is the driving force behind minimally invasive surgery, which is radically changing the [...]
Posted in News: Scientific Instruments | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments closed

Big Telescopes: ALMA already on the job

Some of the ALMA antenna array at Atacama….Credit: ESO Today, March 13, 2013 marks the official ‘opening’ of the world’s largest telescope, ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter-submillimeter Array). As the biggest and most complex telescope project in history, astronomers hope it will open a new chapter in the observations of the cosmos. Located near San Pedro [...]
Posted in News: Scientific Instruments | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Epigenetics ‘leaks’ into trans-generational inheritance

One of the bigger and most important ‘debates’ in biology – both now and in the past – is whether adaptations made for the environment of a single individual can be inherited by its offspring. This is not about genetic inheritance, mutation, and the reproduction of the genes in DNA. This is about epigenetics, the [...]
Posted in News: Epigenetics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments closed

CRE: A killer coming to a critical care facility near you

It is not pandemic, not yet, but the spread of a particular form of drug resistant bacteria is serious enough to warrant this March 6 statement from Dr. Thomas Frieden the head of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): CRE poses a triple threat. First, they’re resistant to all or nearly [...]
Posted in News: Pandemics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments closed

ePSC: A new type of pluripotent stem cell

Researchers at the University of California San Francisco have discovered a new type of stem cell. This does not happen every day, guaranteed. In fact, this discovery is potentially very important. Called an endogenous pluripotent stem cell (ePSC), it has much the same characteristics as embryonic stem cells, the ability to become almost any other [...]
Posted in News: Stem Cells | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments closed

A first: wireless, broadband, rechargeable, implantable brain sensor

A little something on the mind…wireless brain sensor Credit: Fred Field, Brown University It may seem that in this age of wireless everything that sensors for the brain should have been wireless years ago. After all, if test subjects (people or animals) must be tethered to power cords and data cables, then the range of [...]
Posted in News: Body Implants | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gene expression and regulation: It’s the location, baby.

Perhaps it is something like the real-estate business. What three things make a difference for selling a house? Location, location and location. Thus it may be for at least some of the crucial genes involved in the development of the human embryo. Specifically, researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Heidelberg, Germany) found that the [...]
Posted in News: DNA Decoding | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments closed

New lithium-ion battery: It’s a stretch

Twist, bend and stretch – and store electricity…..credit: J. Rogers, U. of Illinois In roughly the last decade, there is a substantial research track looking for ways to generate electricity for personal devices, especially those carried or worn such as watches, phones, small computers and the like. The most attractive approach is through piezoelectricity where [...]
Posted in News: Energy Storage | Tagged , , , , , | Comments closed

Earth bacteria can survive in a least some Mars conditions

To quote from a movie (Jurassic Park), “Life finds a way.” So far, there is no sign of life on Mars. Water, yes, but not life. At least at or near the surface, Mars is a very inhospitable place for life. It is dry, so dry the Sahara is a sauna by comparison. It is [...]
Posted in News: Exogenous Life | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments closed

Brillouin Spectroscopy: Using an old technique to get a new picture of spider webs

Science has known for a long time that spider silk is one of nature’s most fantastic materials – five times stronger than steel, flexible, stretchable to a third of its length, chemically stable. Because of these properties, scientists have studied spider silk for decades and you’d think by now there would be no secrets left. [...]
Posted in News: Synthetic Biology | Tagged , , , , , | Comments closed

Fetal DNA sequencing: Reading ma and pa’s genome

Depending on how successful interpretation of the personal genome becomes, any method that makes the process easier for collecting the DNA is progress. That’s one way of saying that the future of personal genome medicine depends on the research that finds the links between genes and disease, and how easy and inexpensive it is to [...]
Posted in News: DNA Decoding | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shenzhou 9: Docking in space with taikonauts

The Long March Rocket and Shenzou 9 lift off………Credit: China National Space Administration Only a few days ago the media was celebrating the success of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, the first commercial (private) craft to dock with the International Space Station. It brought some supplies to the ISS and took waste material back. Today there might [...]
Posted in News: Space Exploration | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Quantum Teleportation: Step 4, 150 Kilometers

It’s a race of sorts. It’s a race to be the first research team to use quantum teleportation to transmit messages to and from orbiting satellites. The distance of this transmission will be about 500 kilometers. The latest ‘leg’ of this race was just completed by a team of European physicists and published at arXiv [...]
Posted in News: Photonics | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bonobo Genome: Our ever-lovin’ kin get closer

Ulindi, a bonobo to love……..credit: Michael Seres These days the genome sequencing of yet another plant, animal or insect barely raises an eyebrow, even in the scientific community. It’s important work that increasingly powerful technology and declining cost has made routine, which is a good thing. Once in a while though, a new ‘complete genome [...]
Posted in News: DNA Decoding | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Citrullination: Nanoparticles and arthritis

Here’s another study to add to the list of potential (or probable) problems with a world exposed to nanoparticles: Nanomedicine [12 June 2012, paywalled, Citrullination of proteins: a common post-transitional modification pathway induced by different nanoparticles in vitro and in vivo]. Translated: Many kinds of nanoparticles (billionths of a meter in size) can find their [...]
Posted in News: Nanomedicine | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Pushing the efficiency envelope: Solid oxide fuel cell

Nothing illustrates the incremental nature of improving alternative energy methods better than the push to increase efficiency. Whatever the process, (chemical, solar, combustion) the more efficient the conversion of the energy source (sunlight, fuel, chemicals) into electricity, the better. With fuel cells, which convert a fuel source such as hydrogen or methane into electricity, it’s [...]
Posted in News: Alternative Energy | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New sequencing technique opens doors for epigenetics

What’s the difference between 5mC and 5hmC? Yes, the “h” but it is much more than that. Both are in biochemistry shorthand, which unless you’re a geneticist or biochemist you’ve probably never heard of and are not likely to remember. So let’s cut to the chase, oversimplified though it may be: As you almost certainly [...]
Posted in News: Epigenetics | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

microDNA: A new piece of genetics puzzle

In the beginning the big discovery was the existence of DNA and RNA. Eventually more refined experiments and better equipment revealed that RNA in particular came in many forms and functions, for example, micro RNA (miRNA) for DNA regulation or piwi-interacting RNA (piRNA) for transposon defense. So far there are 25-27 types of RNA. However, [...]
Posted in News: DNA Decoding | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Coming soon: Google’s Augmented Reality glasses

Slick, stylish and they might even be useful: Google glasses….Credit: Google Google calls it Project Glass. You may call it futuristic, fantastic or just let’s wait and see. These highly sophisticated computerized specs are intended to receive and process information from the Web and display it to one eye. It’s called augmented reality. For example, [...]
Posted in News: Virtual/Augmented Reality | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Personal genome disease risk analysis: New study finds important limits

As the cost of sequencing a person’s genome has sharply declined, the enthusiasm for using that genomic knowledge to predict susceptibility to gene-based illness has grown. In fact, it’s been one of the most common topics of medicine in the public media for more than a year. This includes intense debates about whether it is [...]
Posted in News: DNA Decoding | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Energy density: Improving the lithium-ion battery

The cost and weight of batteries is the Achilles heel for electric vehicles. Today’s lithium-ion batteries used in cars such as the GM Volt are serviceable but expensive, up to 60% of the cost of the car. This has provided a major incentive for science and industry to chase large-scale battery improvement for decades. The [...]
Posted in News: Energy Storage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Recognizing one face in a crowd of 36 million

A new camera surveillance system in preparation for the market by Hitachi Kokusai Electric (Japan) claims the ability to recognize a face from a database of 36 million in less than a second. It does this by not creating a stored image and then analyzing it, but by immediately analyzing the incoming visual stream (containing [...]
Posted in News: Sensor Technology | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Planet Under Pressure conference

There’s this from the co-chair of the Planet Under Pressure conference, Dr. Lidia Brito: If you like, our presenters today are akin to doctors saying, “Look, you may not feel too sick at the moment but you’ve got high blood pressure, your cholesterol is going up, and your lifestyle is not conducive to good health.” [...]
Posted in News: Climate Change | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wi-fi and TV: Corkscrew signals for solving the world’s bandwidth problem

As the mega-money auctions for broadcast bandwidth demonstrate, there are a finite number of frequencies and they are almost all allocated. Put another way, the world is running out of broadcast frequencies. That also amounts to a challenge for the world’s physicists and radio engineers – How to get more signal (information) onto existing bandwidths? [...]
Posted in News: Communications | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment