Our Technological Future

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Brain Cell Regeneration Milestone Achieved

Milestone in the regeneration of brain cells

The majority of cells in the human brain are not nerve cells but star-shaped glia cells, the so called “astroglia”. “Glia means “glue”, explains Götz. “As befits their name, until now these cells have been regarded merely as a kind of “putty” keeping the nerve cells together.

A couple of years ago, the research group had been already able to prove that these glia cells function as stem cells during development. This means that they are able to differentiate into functional nerve cells. However, this ability gets lost in later phases of development, so that even after an injury to the adult brain glial cells are unable to generate any more nerve cells.

In order to be able to reverse this development, the team studied what molecular switches are essential for the creation of nerve cells from glial cells during development. These regulator proteins are introduced into glial cells from the postnatal brain, which indeed respond by switching on the expression of neuronal proteins.

In his current work, Dr. Benedikt Berninger, was now able to show that single regulator proteins are quite sufficient to generate new functional nerve cells from glia cells. The transition from glia-to-neuron could be followed live at a time-lapse microscope. It was shown that glia cells need some days for the reprogramming until they take the normal shape of a nerve cell. “These new nerve cells then have also the typical electrical properties of normal nerve cells”, emphasises Berninger. “We could show this by means of electrical recordings”.

Alzheimer Cure Found By Scientists

SCIENTISTS believe they have discovered a “cure” for Alzheimer’s, the devastating illness that affects nearly 600,000 people in the UK.

For years experts have been looking for a way of preventing the debilitating brain condition.

Now British and American scientists have found a way of halting its spread.

Last night the discovery was being hailed by experts as a huge development in the fight against the condition – as the number of victims is likely to double over the next decade.

One of the researchers described the breakthrough as “blindingly simple”.

Alzheimer’s is caused when amyloid – a chemical that naturally occurs in the bloodstream – passes into the brain.

Once there it forms plaques that harden. These damage communication between brain cells and eventually cause brain cell death.

Scientists have discovered a synthetic human protein that is capable of soaking up amyloid – preventing it leaking into the brain.

Researchers say trials will start within two years.

Patients will be screened for the disease by a blood test that reveals if they have high levels of amyloid.

Professor Berislav Zlokovic, of Rochester University in the US, who is behind the new study, said: “Stop over-production of amyloid and you effectively cure Alzheimer’s disease. It’s very simple.”

He said lab experiments had been so successful that he and his team were “convinced it will work in humans”.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.

Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."

"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways—in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

That first cell of synthetic life—made from the basic chemicals in DNA—may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it.

"Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."

And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.

64 Core Processors... Coming Up!

TILE64 PROCESSOR FAMILY

The TILE64™ family of multicore processors delivers immense compute performance to drive the latest generation of embedded applications. This revolutionary processor features 64 identical processor cores (tiles) interconnected with Tilera's iMesh™ on-chip network. Each tile is a complete full-featured processor, including integrated L1 & L2 cache and a non-blocking switch that connects the tile into the mesh. This means that each tile can independently run a full operating system, or multiple tiles taken together can run a multi-processing operating system like SMP Linux.

The TILE64™ processor family slashes board real estate and system cost by integrating a complete set of memory and I/O controllers, thus eliminating the need for an external North Bridge or South Bridge. It delivers scalable performance, power efficiency and low processing latency in an extremely compact footprint.

Friday, August 17, 2007

First Genome Transplant Changes One Species Into Another

First genome transplant changes one species into another

For the first time, scientists have completely transformed a species of bacteria into another species by transplanting its complete set of DNA. The achievement marks a significant step toward the construction of synthetic life, with applications including the production of clean fuel in as little as a decade.

Scientists Carole Lartigue and colleagues from the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, have published their results in a recent issue of Science. In addition to being a proof-of-concept experiment, the researchers hope that genome transplantation will enable the production of synthetic microbes for green energy sources, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and textiles.

Resveratrol: Elixer of Youth?

A controversial biologist at Harvard claims he can extend life span and treat diseases of aging. He just may be right.

David Sinclair is very good at persuading people. The catch, says a longtime colleague and scientific rival, is that he is sometimes overly optimistic about his results. "David is brilliant, but sometimes he is too passionate and impatient for a scientist," says another colleague. "So far, he is fortunate that his claims have turned out to be mostly true."

Sinclair's basic claim is simple, if seemingly improbable: he has found an elixir of youth. In his Australian drawl, the 38-year-old Harvard University professor of pathology explains how he discovered that resveratrol, a chemical found in red wine, extends life span in mice by up to 24 percent and in other animals, including flies and worms, by as much as 59 percent. Sinclair hopes that resveratrol will bump up the life span of people, too. "The system at work in the mice and other organisms is evolutionarily very old, so I suspect that what works in mice will work in humans," he says.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Optical Memory: 50.000 Times Faster

Laser Flips Magnetic Bit Without Any Help

Physicists in Netherlands and Japan are the first to flip the value of a magnetic memory bit by firing a very short pulse of circularly-polarized laser light at it. Unlike other magneto-optic data storage systems, no external magnetic field was required to flip the bit, which meant that its value could be changed about 50 thousand times faster than the fastest conventional memory. The result could lead to the development of low-cost and ultrafast all-optical magnetic hard disk drives.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Jumper Leads Deep Into Brain Revive Man After Six Years

Jumper leads deep into brain revive man after six years

SCIENTISTS have jump-started the consciousness of a man with severe brain injury in a world-first procedure in which electrodes were inserted deep into his brain.

The 38-year-old, who had been in a minimally conscious state for six years after an assault, could only move his fingers or eyes occasionally and was fed through a tube.

Now he can chew, swallow and carry out movements like brushing his hair and drinking from a cup, say the US neuroscientists who carried out the procedure, known as deep brain stimulation.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Colossal Magnetic Levitation Wind Turbine Proposed

(click to enlarge)

It's a vision of a magnetically levitated wind turbine that can generate one gigawatt of energy (enough to power 750,000 homes). This is the device proposed by a new Arizona-based company, MagLev Wind Turbine Technologies. The company claims that it can deliver clean power for less than cent per kilowatt hour using this wind turbine.

That's a pretty big deal actually. Today's energy is 10-15 cents per kilowatt.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Solar Energy Hits New 42.8% Efficiency Record

Team sets solar cell record

Using a novel technology that adds multiple innovations to a very high-performance crystalline silicon solar cell platform, a consortium led by the University of Delaware has achieved a record-breaking combined solar cell efficiency of 42.8 percent from sunlight at standard terrestrial conditions.

...

The consortium’s goal is to create solar cells that operate at 50 percent in production, Barnett said. With the fresh funding and cooperative efforts of the DuPont-UD consortium, he said it is expected new high efficiency solar cells could be in production by 2010.

...

“This is a solar cell that works,” Barnett said, adding, “This technology has the potential to change the way electricity is generated throughout the world.”

Barnett believes the 50 percent efficiency mark is just the beginning. “Our best inventions are in front of us,” he said. “The consortium has been a super team, and has worked to develop new devices and architectures based on a breakthrough design paradigm.”

Also see Researchers develop inexpensive, easy process to produce solar panels.

Monday, July 23, 2007

I have here two movie clips that demonstrate the current state of affairs in the whacky world of mind control.

The first one shows a monkey moving a mechanical arm by thought.

The second one shows a guy lifting boxes in a virtual world, just by thinking about it.

The technology holds great promise for disabled people.

Even though this technology is being developed with disabled people as the major motive, they won't be the only ones that end up using the technology.

Imagine a day where people interact with their computer. By the time the technology hits the mainstream (at least a decade from now), computers will be small enough to be practically invisible.

We will have smoothly hooked up the Internet to our brains... or our brains to the Internet. It all depends on how you wanna look at it.

It might seem harmless enough, but in fact it is the beginning of our transcendance to something bigger.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Our Technological Future - Mixed Bag #21

Luddites across the globe... eat your heart out!

(And yes, I deliberately put all the cool stuff on top to piss off luddites.)

Be sure to watch this 'ere video. It'll blow your socks off.

Especially if your a Trekkie. Then you simply cannot afford to not watch it.

Microsofts Multi Touch Surface

DARPA's Better Bionic Arm: Our Most Limb-Like Prosthetic

Bear robot rescues wounded troops

Move to create less clumsy robots

Drivers Unwanted: MIT 'Robocar' takes a spin

Japanse man gives robot a woman's touch

First 100% Solar Powered Community In California Opens

Genome of DNA Pioneer Is Deciphered

Dutch try to grow enviro-friendly meat in lab

Single spinning nuclei in diamond offers stable quantum computing building block

Human Stem Cell Treatment Restores Motor Function in Paralyzed Rats

Japanese Researchers Develop Creepiest Robot Ever

Scientists Move Closer to Turning Skin Cells Into Tissues

New drug helps lose weight without going hungry

Serious diseases genes revealed

Large study links genes to 7 serious diseases

Autism symptoms reversed in lab

Scientists Use Embryonic Stem Cells to Regenerate a Heart

Scientists Reverse Mental Retardation in Mice

Gene therapy awakens the brain despite blindness from birth

Maryland Professor Creates Desktop Supercomputer

Monitoring the Brain in 3-D

Brain Boosters

First artificial life 'within months'

Potential cure for HIV discovered

Designer Enzyme Cuts HIV Out of Infected Cells

Nanosoccer debuts at RoboCup 2007

Cloned Pigs Help Scientists Towards A Breakthrough In Alzheimer's

Scientists find way to separate HIV virus from cells

Scientists find drug to banish bad memories

Parallel computing = 100 time faster than current PC

Monday, June 25, 2007

Our Technological Future - Mixed Bag #20

Can you believe this is mixed bag #20 already?

I am sooooooo gonna have the most gigantic collection of mixed bags in the entire blogosphere if I keep this up long enough.

Anyways... enjoy.

Cyborgs Coming Soon (2008)

Pass the Virtual Scalpel, Nurse

3D Printers to Dip Below $5,000 USD This Year

The Most Realistic Virtual Reality Room In The World

Stem cells speed growth of healthy liver tissue

Expressive robot computers

Raytheon Develops World's First Polymorphic Computer

The Memory Hacker

Stem cell therapy shows promise for rescuing deteriorating vision

British team grows human heart valve from stem cells

Salamanders Re-grow Lost Limbs, Could Human Medicine Benefit From Understanding Regeneration?

The Age of Cheap, Plastic Robots

Computer Model Behaves Like Humans On Visual Categorization Task

Diabetics cured in stem-cell treatment advance

Isolation Of Stem Cells May Lead To A Treatment For Hearing Loss

Lives of a Cell, the 3-D Version

Liver regeneration may be simpler than previously thought

'Fat' gene found by scientists

Learn Like A Human

‘Exercise pill’ switches on gene that tells cells to burn fat

Scientists Make Skin Grow New Hair Follicles By Itself

Mouse cortex simulated on supercomputer

45-minute operation to restore sight to millions

40% efficient solar cells to be used for solar electricity

Hydrogen breakthrough could open the road to carbon-free cars

Daily pill to beat genetic diseases

Deep brain implants show bionic vision promise

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Google Pushes 100-mpg Car

Google pushes 100-mpg car

Google said Tuesday it is getting in on the development of electric vehicles, awarding $1 million in grants and inviting applicants to bid for another $10 million in funding to develop plug-in hybrid electric vehicles capable of getting 70 to 100 miles per gallon.

The project, called the RechargeIT initiative and run from Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org, aims to further the development of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles - cars or trucks that have both a gasoline engine and advanced batteries that recharge by plugging into the nation's electric grid.

"Since most Americans drive less than 35 miles per day, you easily could drive mostly on electricity with the gas tank as a safety net," Dan Reicher, director of Climate and Energy Initiatives for Google.org, wrote on the organization's Web site. "In preliminary results from our test fleet, on average the plug-in hybrid gas mileage was 30-plus mpg higher than that of the regular hybrids."

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Nanotechnology Research and Development in the USA

From National Nanotechnology Initiatives comes a 10 minute video introducing the public to the state of nanotechnology research in the USA.

It also explains what nanotechnology might be good for. So for all of you who are not up to date on the latest hype and are too lazy to read...

Watch this video.