Race is on to use embryonic stem cells in humans

TISSUE grown from human embryonic stem cells, the most prized, and most controversial, cells ever grown in a lab, could at last make it into the human body.

After a decade of scientific and political wrangling, several therapies are now edging towards human trials. Which will be first?

Read More : http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427364.400-race-is-on-to-use-embryonic-stem-cells-in-humans.html

How to make ZZZs = memory

Sounds played as you sleep can reinforce memories, suggest Ken Paller and his colleagues at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

They asked people to memorise which images and their associated sounds – such as a picture of a cat and a miaow – were associated with a certain area on a computer screen and then to take a nap. They played half the group the sounds in their sleep, and these people were better at remembering the associations than the rest when they woke up.

Paller hopes sounds can be used to improve all kinds of memory and next he'll be figuring out if we can learn languages while we snooze.

Read More : http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18199-sleep-success-how-to-make-zzzs--memory.html

Cern's Large Hadron Collider makes first collisions

Engineers operating the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have smashed together proton beams in the machine for the very first time.

The step was described as a "great achievement" for those working on the huge physics experiment.

The low-energy collisions came after researchers circulated two beams simultaneously in the LHC's 27km-long tunnel earlier on Monday.

Read More : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8375486.stm

Romantic Jealousy

"I found myself sitting curled up in the bushes, following every movement seen through the curtains in her lit-up window. I knew her boyfriend was there, and the knowledge caused me excruciating pain. It was a cold winter night, and once in a while it would drizzle. I said to myself: "I know I am a sane, well-adjusted, responsible adult. What in the world is happening to me? Have I totally lost my mind?" And yet, I continued sitting in those bushes for hours. I didn't leave until the light in the window was gone. A force larger than myself held me hypnotized to the light and to her. I have never in my life felt so close to madness."

Read More at : http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200910/romantic-jealousy

3D mapping drone fires lasers from a mile away

"The MIT Technology Review has unearthed a new laser-based 3D mapping robot that can produce results similar to those obtained from $100,000 systems at about a fifth of the cost. Funded by the US Army, researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology have now demonstrated the Remotely Operated and Autonomous Mapping System (ROAMS, for short), which employs a mirror-based LIDAR system that bounces a laser off a rapidly rotating mirror and gleans environmental information from how long it takes for each pulse to bounce back."

Source : Engadget

URL : http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/18/3d-mapping-drone-fires-off-lasers-from-a-mile-away-video/

Beyond the LHC

"The Large Hadron Collider is by no means the last of the particle smashers. A group at CERN recently explored the various scenarios that might emerge from the atomic debris in Geneva – and how they would shape what colliders we build next. We draw out the key points about each of the scenarios."

Source : New Scientist 

URL : http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427354.900-future-colliders-beyond-the-lhc.html

See this also : http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/20/large-hadron-collider-is-online-higgs-boson-be-damned/

Medibots: The world's smallest surgeons

"A MAN lies comatose on an operating table. The enormous spider that hangs above him has plunged four appendages into his belly. The spider, made of white steel, probes around inside the man's abdomen then withdraws one of its arms. Held in the machine's claw is a neatly sealed bag containing a scrap of bloody tissue."

Source : New Scientist

URL : http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427351.100-medibots-the-worlds-smallest-surgeons.html

NASA :Innovative Partnership Tests Fuels of the Future

It’s exactly what everyone’s looking for: an engine that works on cheaper, less toxic, more readily available fuels.

This engine just happens to be for a rocket.

Read More about it at :http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/lox_methane_engine.html

SWINE FLU TIME LINE

This article is for the ones who are interested in researching into the history of Swine Flu. New Scientist's timeline explains how the origins of the H1N1 pandemic go back more than a century!

Link : http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18063-timeline-the-secret-history-of-swine-flu.html

Swine Flu: Eight Myths That Could Endanger Your Life

"The second wave of the swine flu pandemic is now under way in the northern hemisphere. Case numbers are climbing fast and in some places vaccination has begun.

So what's the big deal? The virus hasn't evolved into the monster that some feared and most cases are mild. Were all those pandemic warnings just scare-mongering?

The Butcher family of Southampton, UK, wouldn't say so. In August, their daughter Madelynne, 18, became sick and short of breath after returning from a holiday. Two weeks later, she died in hospital.

Neither would the Parker family of Baltimore, Maryland. In September, their healthy 14-year-old daughter Destinée started having trouble breathing within minutes of arriving at school. She was rushed to hospital. A week later she was dead.

There has been complacency-mongering, too. This pandemic is very far from the worst-case scenario, but it is not normal flu either. Many more people than usual will catch flu this year. The vast majority will be fine but some of us, including young, otherwise healthy people, will die. You can help protect yourself and your family by learning the latest on swine flu, from how to spot a serious case to the facts about the vaccines."

Source : New Scientist

Link :  http://www.newscientist.com/special/swine-flu-myths-that-could-endanger-your-life


LET'S FIGHT IT OFF!

Emotiv EPOC human-computer interface supposedly on track to ship next month

Remember that Emotiv EPOC mind-controlled USB controller from last year? Well, we've been dreaming of controlling a game of pong with merely our thought waves ever since, and it looks like our wish might at last be granted. According Emotiv's site, the $299 headgear will be shipping in limited quantities to US customers on December 21st, just in time for your thoughts of the holidays to coalesce into a concentrated, computer-controlling tip. The device works with 14...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/10/emotiv-epoc-human-computer-interface-supposedly-on-track-to-ship/

What The LHC is Really Looking For

AS DAMP squibs go, it was quite a spectacular one. Amid great pomp and ceremony - not to mention dark offstage rumblings that the end of the world was nigh - the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's mightiest particle smasher, fired up in September last year. Nine days later a short circuit and a catastrophic leak of liquid helium ignominiously shut the machine down.

Now for take two. Any day now, if all goes to plan, proton beams will start racing all the way round the ring deep beneath CERN, the LHC's home on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland.

Read More : http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427341.200-in-susy-we-trust-what-the-lhc-is-really-looking-for.html

Giant crack in Africa formed in just days!

A crack in the Earth's crust – which could be the forerunner to a new ocean – ripped open in just days in 2005, a new study suggests. The opening, located in the Afar region of Ethiopia, presents a unique opportunity for geologists to study how mid-ocean ridges form.

The crack is the surface component of a continental rift forming as the Arabian and African plates drift away from one another. It began to open up in September 2005, when a volcano at the northern end of the rift, called Dabbahu, erupted.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18114-giant-crack-in-africa-formed-in-just-days.html

Are you asleep? Exploring the Mind's Twilight Zone

"EARLIER this year, a puzzling report appeared in the journal Sleep Medicine. It described two Italian people who never truly slept. They might lie down and close their eyes, but read-outs of brain activity showed none of the normal patterns associated with sleep. Their behaviour was pretty odd, too. Though largely unaware of their surroundings during these rest periods, they would walk around, yell, tremble violently and their hearts would race. The remainder of the time they were conscious and aware but prone to powerful, dream-like hallucinations...."

Source : New Scientist

Link : http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427291.000-are-you-asleep-exploring-the-minds-twilight-zone.html

Lab Makes Renewable Diesel Fuel!

Today, scientists all over the globe are working to create fuels with the same properties but without that pesky 100 million-year wait. And "renewable petroleum" is now a reality, on a small scale, in some laboratories.

The biotech company LS9 Inc. is using single-celled bacteria to create an oil equivalent. These petroleum "production facilities" are so small, you can see them only under a microscope.


Source : CNN.com

Link : http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/08/12/bug.diesel/index.html

New camera promises to capture your whole life!

"A camera you can wear as a pendant to record every moment of your life will soon be launched by a UK-based firm.

Originally invented to help jog the memories of people with Alzheimer's disease, it might one day be used by consumers to create "lifelogs" that archive their entire lives.

Worn on a cord around the neck, the camera takes pictures automatically as often as once every 30 seconds. It also uses an accelerometer and light sensors to snap an image when a person enters a new environment, and an infrared sensor to take one when it detects the body heat of a person in front of the wearer. It can fit 30,000 images onto its 1-gigabyte memory.

The ViconRevue was originally developed as the SenseCam by Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK, for researchers studying Alzheimer's and other dementias. Studies showed that reviewing the events of the day using SenseCam photos could help some people improve long-term recall."


Source : New Scientist

Read More : http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17992-new-camera-promises-to-capture-your-whole-life.html

First black hole for light created on Earth! But nobody raps about it...

"An electromagnetic "black hole" that sucks in surrounding light has been built for the first time.

The device, which works at microwave frequencies, may soon be extended to trap visible light, leading to an entirely new way of harvesting solar energy to generate electricity."

Source : New Scientist

Read More at : http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17980-black-hole-for-light-created-on-earth.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=physics-math

Will your smartphone rat you out?

"THERE are certain things you do not want to share with strangers. In my case it was a stream of highly personal text messages from my husband, sent during the early days of our relationship. Etched on my phone's SIM card - but invisible on my current handset and thus forgotten - here they now are, displayed in all their brazen glory on a stranger's computer screen.

I've just walked into a windowless room on an industrial estate in Tamworth, UK, where three cellphone analysts in blue shirts sit at their terminals, scrutinising the contents of my phone and smirking. "If it's any consolation, we would have found them even if you had deleted them," says one.

Worse, it seems embarrassing text messages aren't the only thing I have to worry about..."

Source : New Scientist

Read More : http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427301.100-the-pocket-spy-will-your-smartphone-rat-you-out.html