Science & Technology

Science and technology videos, and articles, that I found fascinating.

[sci-thefuture]

Targeting Drug-Resistant Cancer (Brainstorm Ep124)

Medical News http://tinyurl.com/amjy45e Material Science News http://tinyurl.com/ano92ng Biology News http://tinyurl.com/ajd8yu2

[wildcat2030]

Artificial Photosynthesis Project Aims to Create Hydrogen Fuel

See on Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future

An ?800,000 research project aims to artificially replicate the process of photosynthesis in a bid to harness the sun’s energy more efficiently.

See on wired.com

[wildcat2030]

Computer files stored accurately on DNA in new breakthrough Scientists have recorded data including Shakespearean sonnets and an MP3 file on strands of DNA, in a breakthrough which could see millions of records stored on a handful of molecules rather than computer drives.

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By translating computerised files into DNA similar to that found in plants and animals, the researchers claim it is possible to store a billion books’ worth of data for thousands of years in just a small test tube. Although the method is expensive, it could still be much more efficient than hard drives or magnetic tape for long-term storage of large sets of data such as government records, the scientists said. Within a decade, they expect the technique to have become cheap enough that DNA storage could become cost-efficient for the public to store lifelong keepsakes like wedding videos. Dr Nick Goldman of the European Bioinformatics Institute, who led the study, said: “We already know that DNA is a robust way to store information because we can extract it from bones of woolly mammoths, which date back tens of thousands of years, and make sense of it. “It’s also incredibly small, dense and does not need any power for storage, so shipping and keeping it is easy.” (via Computer files stored accurately on DNA in new breakthrough - Telegraph)

[sci-thefuture]

University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have developed a strain of mice that turns on a gene from fireflies to provide a visual indication of aging and tumor growth in mice. The mice light up whenever another mouse gene, p16INK4a (p16) is is activated (in cells undergoing senescence, the p16 gene is switched on).

[sci-thefuture]

How do you annihilate lymphoma without using any drugs?

Starve it to death by depriving it of what appears to be a favorite food: HDL cholesterol.

Northwestern Medicine® researchers discovered this with a new nanoparticle that acts like a secret double agent. It appears to the cancerous lymphoma cell like a preferred meal -- natural HDL. But when the particle engages the cell, it actually plugs it up and blocks cholesterol from entering. Deprived of an essential nutrient, the cell eventually dies.

[sci-thefuture]

Filabot promises to help turn your plastic crap into 3-D printed fanciness, alleviating one of the biggest sustainability problems for 3-D printing.

Just over a year ago, Tyler McNaney was on break from college. “I was surfing the internet as most college kids do, and I saw a video of 3-D printing,” he says. “I was amazed and I learned all I could about it.” Soon after, he owned one of his own. Not much longer after that, he decided he wanted to make his own filament for it. Sadly, he was low on cash. So he launched Filabot on Kickstarter.

[sci-thefuture]

Human Trial: Vaccine Temporarily Breaks HIV (Brainstorm Ep123)

Medical News http://tinyurl.com/an2fx7q Biotechnology News http://tinyurl.com/byxabhy Technology News http://tinyurl.com/akuk3gg

[singularitarian]

An Australian scientist said Wednesday he had discovered a way to turn the HIV virus against itself in human cells in the laboratory, in an important advance in the quest for an AIDS cure.

[sci-thefuture]

Artificial muscles at MIT

MIT researchers at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research have developed a new material that changes its shape after absorbing water vapor.  This material is made from an interlocking network of two different polymers. One forms a hard but flexible matrix that provides structural support while the other is a soft gel that swells when it absorbs water. Together these polymers create a material that converts water vapor to energy without the use of an external energy source.  When the 20-micrometer-thick film is exposed to moisture the bottom layer absorbs the evaporated water, forcing the film to curl away from the surface. Once the bottom of the film is exposed to the air, it quickly releases the moisture causing it to somersault forward and start to curl up once more. Researchers were surprised to discover not only does it need a very small amount of vapor, but it also demonstrated a large amount of strength. Using only water vapor as an energy source, the film can lift a load of silver wires 10 times its own weight.

[temporaryhuman-blog]

“The presence of quantum effects in photosynthesis surprised both physicists and biologists, and left them wondering how a fragile quantum state could survive in a living organism.” (Proteins boost quantum coherence in bacteria - physicsworld.com)

[sci-thefuture]

An international team of scientists has taken the next step in creating nanoscale machines by designing a multi-component molecular motor that can be moved clockwise and counterclockwise. Although researchers can rotate or switch individual molecules on and off, the new study is the first to create a stand-alone molecular motor that has multiple parts, said Saw-Wai Hla, an Ohio University professor of physics and astronomy who led the study with Christian Joachim of A*Star in Singapore and CEMES/CNRS in France and Gwenael Rapenne of CEMES/CNRS.

[sci-thefuture]

Rice University's latest nanotechnology breakthrough was more than 10 years in the making, but it still came with a shock. Scientists from Rice, the Dutch firm Teijin Aramid, the U.S. Air Force and Israel's Technion Institute this week unveiled a new carbon nanotube (CNT) fiber that looks and acts like textile thread and conducts electricity and heat like a metal wire. In this week's issue of Science, the researchers describe an industrially scalable process for making the threadlike fibers, which outperform commercially available high-performance materials in a number of ways.

"We finally have a nanotube fiber with properties that don't exist in any other material," said lead researcher Matteo Pasquali, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and chemistry at Rice. "It looks like black cotton thread but behaves like both metal wires and strong carbon fibers."

[sci-thefuture]

An industrial revolution on a minute scale is taking place in laboratories at The University of Manchester with the development of a highly complex machine that mimics how molecules are made in nature.

The artificial molecular machine developed by Professor David Leigh FRS and his team in the School of Chemistry is the most advanced molecular machine of its type in the world. Its development has been published in the journal Science.

[singularitarian]

CES 2013: Audi Piloted Parking

[wildcat2030]

See on Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future

It’s hard to get straightforward health guidance from personal genome tests, which are banned in some places. But one way to make them more meaningful is to let more people buy them.

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It was easy to send my spit to 23andMe, a...

[sci-thefuture]

At a CES press conference yesterday, Toyota presented its semi-autonomous Lexus Advanced Active Safety Research Vehicle, a car designed to take over from you when an accident is imminent to keep you in one piece. 

To be clear, this is a research vehicle, and it's not designed to turn into a Google-style autonomous car. It's more about a high-level of driver assistance, with the car using sensors and intelligence to augment what its human driver is doing. Think of it as a co-pilot, essentially, there to point things out and give you help when you need it.

[sci-thefuture]

Power Loader power amplification exoskeleton robot

The Power Loader power amplification robot, under development by Panasonic subsidiary Activelink, is a full body exoskeleton which when completed will be able to carry over 100kg. Activelink is currently working on a compact version for use in the reconstruction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant