SCIENCE

University of St Andrews researchers have developed a method of creating self-assembling nanostructures just one molecule thick -- no sophisticated equipment or special environment (such as a high vacuum) required -- as an alternative to conventional lithography, which is imprecise on a scale of a few nanometers.

(Manfred Buck)

The solution-based chemistry method assembles molecules into tiny dimples, themselves created when molecules self-assemble into a honeycomb-shaped network on a gold surface. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news139066118.html)

Humans will soon have the ability to modify and greatly enhance muscle fiber strength, enabling speeds of 45 miles per hour and five-seconds times for 100 meters, says Professor Peter Weyand, Southern Methodist University (Texas), known for his expertise in terrestrial locomotion and human and animal performance.

DARPA is also spending 3 billion to enhance strength and endurance. (Source: http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/gene-therapy-for-ultimate-human-running.html)

Expansive dreams about renewable energy from wind power and other sources are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

An Energy Department plan to source 20 percent of the nation's electricity from wind calls for a high-voltage backbone spanning the country, but it would cost $60 billion or more and would be contrained by multistate regulatory restrictions. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/business/27grid.html?ref=science)

Biologists at Harvard have converted cells from a mouse's pancreas into the insulin-producing cells that are destroyed in diabetes, using master proteins called transcription factors that control which sets of genes are active in a cell and thus what properties the cell will possess.

The research suggests that the natural barriers between the body's cell types may not be as immutable as supposed. This and other recent experiments raise the possibility that a patient's healthy cells might be transformed into the type lost to a disease far more simply and cheaply than in the cumbersome proposals involving stem cells.
(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/science/28cell.html?ref=science)

University of Manchester scientists have developed a simple technique to add depth to textured surfaces displayed as backdrops in computer games and digital dome presentations.

They found they could reconstruct the depth of a surface simply by taking two photos of it -- one with a flash and one without -- and processing the resulting shading patterns to capture the surface's 3D texture.

(Source: http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn14612-textured-graphics-can-be-captured-in-a-flash.html?feedId=online-news_rss20)

John Brigande of Oregon Health and Science University has developed an experimental gene therapy that generates hair cells that are damaged or missing in deaf animals.

His team injected mice embryos with a gene called Atoh1, apparently a hair- cell master switch that activates genes that turn developing cells into hair cells. The cells grew hair cells in precisely the right location in their cochleas, and the cells made connections to nerve fibers that travel to the brain, converting movements into electrical nerve pulses.

The work could speed the development of a treatment for hearing loss. (Source: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn14614-milestone-reached-in-search-for-deafness-cure.html?feedId=online-news_rss20)

Our brains can pick up subliminal signals in making decisions, University College London researchers have found. (Source: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/dn14615-why-you-should-go-with-your-gut-feeling.html?feedId=online-news_rss20)

Johns Hopkins University researchers have developed a tiny handlike gripper that can grasp tissue or cell samples and could make it easier for doctors to perform minimally invasive surgery, such as biopsies.

(Timothy Leong/JHU)

The device curls its "fingers" around an object when triggered chemically, and it can be moved around remotely with a magnet. (Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/21310/?a=f)

Researchers from multiple institution have identified a genetic link associated with dry macular degeneration, which they say may lead to treatments for the debilitating disease. (Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/21309/?a=f)

According to a 200-year-old family legend, Bettye Kearse - an African American - is the direct descendant of James Madison.  Madison, of course, was a founding father and fourth President of the United States.  As the story goes, he fathered a child name Jim with a slave cook named Coreen.  For the past 4 years she and genetic genealogist Bruce Jackson of the Roots Project have tried to use DNA to prove or disprove a story passed through 5 generations of the family.

Ubiquity, an experimental extension to Mozilla Firefox, lets people substitute simple text commands for complex Web tasks such as putting links to maps in e-mail messages.

The commands that users type in Ubiquity, such as "map" and "e-mail," find resources on the Web and can gather information from those sources in one place. (Source: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/150343/mozilla_extension_would_tap_into_typed_commands.html)

Energy Storage and Power, a new company, plans to use wind turbines to produce compressed air that can be stored underground or in tanks and released later to power generators during peak hours. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/nyregion/26wind.html?ref=environment)

Doug Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, says that distributing induced pluripotent stem cells to researchers around the world will advance the study of degenerative diseases like Parkinson's and diabetes. (Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/21307/?a=f)

The normally developed visual system quickly becomes engaged to process touch in response to complete loss of sight, researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have found in experiments with Braille tests.

The speed and dynamic nature of the changes they observed suggest that rather than establishing new nerve connections -- which would take a long time -- the visual cortex is unveiling abilities that are normally concealed when sight is intact.

These principles may also apply to other sensory loss, such as deafness or loss of function following brain injury. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news139028746.html)

The new Google Suggest feature aims to help users to better formulate queries, reduce spelling errors, and save keystrokes by suggesting queries as uses type letters and words.

The suggestions are based on an aggregate of Google searches. Yahoo Search Assist and Microsoft Live Search offer similar services.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_852573C400693880002574B100555BF2.html)

21% of 193 traditional Indian Ayurvedic medicines bought on the Internet from US or Indian sources contained high amounts of lead, mercury or arsenic, with some heavy metals deliberately added, Boston University School of Medicine researchers have found. (Source: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn14608-ayurvedic-medicines-laden-with-toxic-heavy-metals.html?feedId=online-news_rss20)

National Institute of Mental Health scientists have created a "BTBR" strain of mice with autistic-like behaviors, using an extra human gene thought to be involved in the condition.

The mice show symptoms normally used to diagnose human autism: repetitive behavior, restricted social interaction, and certain sound behaviors.

The mice may help scientists study the complicated genetics of autism.

(Source: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn14607-autistic-mice-offer-hope-of-genetic-clues.html?feedId=online-news_rss20)

Aubrey de Grey's Methuselah Foundation could receive a grant of up to $1.5 million from a student group that has applied to American Express for an "Undergrads Fighting Age Related Disease" project -- if the project gets more than 2000 votes by September 1 (anyone can vote).

Instructions are on the Methuselah Foundation website.

The Methuselah Foundation's SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) research program addresses the main types of cellular damage underlying most age-related diseases.

Researchers from Monash University have designed a sponge-like chitosan biopolymeric nanoparticle "trojan horse" particle that protects antioxidants from being destroyed in the gut, ensuring a better chance of being absorbed in the digestive tract.

The longer-term aim is to include similarly treated nanoparticles into food items. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news138871826.html)

In the WINSOC project, European and Indian researchers are applying principles learned from living organisms to design self-organizing networks of wireless sensors suitable for a wide range of environmental monitoring purposes,robust against node failures and capable of being implemented on large scales.

They developed mathematical models of biological systems and translated them into algorithms to determine how the sensor nodes should interact with each other, using self-organization. The sensor nodes communicate with their neighbors to arrive at a consensus on what has been sensed. The network then finds the best path through the available nodes to relay this information to the control centre.

(Source: http://www.physorg.com/news138892683.html)

Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End" science-fiction novel portrays a world in 2025 when the Singularity seems near, based on intelligence amplification (IA), in which humans get steadily smarter by pooling their knowledge with one another and with computers, possibly even wiring the machines directly into their brains.

The alternative to IA, he figures, could be the triumph of AI that far surpasses the human variety. If that happens, Dr. Vinge says, the superintelligent machines will not content themselves with working for their human masters, nor will they remain securely confined in laboratories.

Also see: How to Get Smarter

The Long Now Foundation has developed a modern Rosetta Stone -- a backup of human languages that future generations might cherish -- etched on a 3-inch nickel disc with an estimated lifespan of 2,000 to 10,000 years.

The disc contains an archive of 13,500 scanned pages in more than 1,500 human languages with human-readable scripts, text, and diagrams (using a microscope). The plan is to replicate the disc and distribute them around the world in nondescript locations so at least one will survive their 2,000-year lifespan.

(Source: http://kk.org/kk/2008/08/very-longterm-backup.php)

Étienne Ghys of the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon, France has created a series of videos teaching others to visualize four dimensions the way he does. (Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/35740/title/Seeing_in_four_dimensions)

Affluent Mexicans worried by soaring kidnapping rates are spending thousands of dollars to implant tiny transmitters under their skin so satellites can help find them. (Source: http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn14589-mexicans-get-microchipped-over-kidnapping-fears.html?feedId=online-news_rss20)

Governments around the world are developing increasingly sophisticated electronic surveillance methods in a bid to identify terrorist cells or spot criminal activity.

German electronics company Siemens has gone a step further, developing a complete "surveillance in a box" system called the Intelligence Platform, pooling data from sources such as telephone calls, email and internet activity, bank transactions and insurance records. It then sorts through this mountain of information using software that Siemens dubs "intelligence modules."
(Source: http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn14591-surveillance-made-easy.html?feedId=online-news_rss20)