eldavojohn writes "In Rotterdam, there's a new technology in place that dispenses a barely visible mist over those around it and alerts the police. The purpose? To tag robbers and link them back to the scene of the crime. From ...

Nicros writes with this snippet from Nature News: "A specially designed supercomputer named Anton has simulated changes in a protein's three-dimensional structure over a period of a millisecond — a time-scale more than a hundred-fold greater than the previous record. ...

zrbyte writes "Are you an electronics hobbyist or a garden shed tinkerer? If so, then move aside, because there's a new kid on the block: the DIY biotechnologist. The decreasing price of biotech instrumentation has made it possible for everyday ...

An anonymous reader writes "When it comes to gambling, many people rely on game theory, a branch of applied mathematics that attempts to measure the choices of others to inform their own decisions. It's used in economics, politics, medicine — ...

WildNahviss writes "Apple has loosened its tight grip on the iPhone and allowed a third party to develop a health device that exchanges data with the iPhone and their hardware. Is this the start of a trend for Apple that ...

mrvook submitted an item that might affect a lot of you "Working with a laptop on one's lap for extended periods of time has been found to cause heat damage and skin discoloration in a handful of cases, prompting researchers ...

An anonymous reader writes "Forests of genetically altered trees and other plants could sequester several billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year and so help ameliorate global warming, according to estimates published in the October issue of BioScience. ...

juliangamble writes "Scientists reported Thursday they had developed a technique that can quickly create safe alternatives to human embryonic stem cells, a major advance toward developing a less controversial approach for treating a host of medical problems. The researchers published ...

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers in the Midwest are developing microelectronic circuitry to guide the growth of axons in a brain damaged by trauma. The goal is to rewire the brain connectivity and bypass the damaged region in order to ...

An anonymous reader writes "Deleting a certain gene in mice can make them smarter by unlocking a mysterious region of the brain considered to be relatively inflexible, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have found. Mice with a disabled ...

Flash Modin writes "Two separate teams, one from UC Berkeley and the other from Stanford, have created distinct types of artificial skin that could find uses in prosthetics or artificial intelligence (Data in First Contact, anyone?). The first team coupled ...

An anonymous reader writes "For most people, wisdom teeth are not much more than an annoyance that eventually needs to be removed. However, a new study appearing in the September 17 Journal of Biological Chemistry shows that wisdom teeth contain ...

Within the next decade you will be able to grow all of your vegetables in a box barely larger than your refrigerator. This surprising statement is the result of a class project at Singularity University this summer. Here’s how we ...

Small conditional RNAs selectively kill cancer cells. In lab-grown human brain, prostate and bone cancer cells, small conditional RNAs (light and dark blue) bind to a targeted RNA cancer mutation (orange and green), triggering self-assembly of a long double-stranded RNA ...

Swedish researchers are developing a photovoltaic device based on green fluorescent protein (GFP) from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. The team deposit two aluminium electrodes with a tiny gap between them onto a silicon dioxide substrate. A droplet of green fluorescent protein is then ...

An anonymous reader writes "Swedish researchers have devised a way to turn bioluminescent jellyfish into solar cells. It works like this: the green fluorescent protein (GFP) that makes the Aequorea victoria glow is simply dripped onto a silicon dioxide substrate ...

For years, claims have circulated that red rain that fell in India in 2001 contained cells unlike any found on Earth. Now new evidence that these cells can reproduce is about to set the debate alive. Optical microscope images of red ...

eldavojohn writes "A new analysis of millennia old mummy bones (abstract; full article is paywalled) shows high concentrations of tetracycline, which indicates empirical knowledge and use of antibiotics — most likely consumed in beer. The researchers traced the source of ...

CliniHub is developing a cheap detector that senses a telltale fluorescent glow from disease markers. Credit-card-sized sample trays inserted in a modem-sized reader hold antibody-coated polystyrene beads containing a fluorescent label. The antibodies interact with specific disease markers, causing the beads ...

Researchers have used two different viruses to create the cathode and anode for a lithium ion battery. University of Maryland research could allow the parts for lithium ion batteries to be grown in and harvested from tobacco plants. MIT research ...

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would appeal a court ruling challenging the legality of President Obama’s rules governing human embryonic stem cell research. The head of the National Institutes of Health said the decision would most likely force the cancellation of dozens of ...

Bruce Schneier noted a story today over at his blog about a new Skeletal Identification System being developed at Wright State. Of course this is just another biometric detection system, but one that would be pretty tough to disguise. Read ...

Bioengineers at the University of Tokyo have created a more sensitive e-nose by genetically modifying frog eggs to express the proteins known to act as smell receptors. They placed the modified cells between electrodes and measured the telltale currents generated when ...

The second SENS Foundation L.A. Chapter meeting will be held on Friday, August 27th, 2010, at the Westwood Brewing Company (1097 Glendon Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-2907), starting at 6 PM. The meeting will feature Dr. Sarah Marr (SENS Foundation ...

An anonymous reader sends this quote from Reuters: "A US district court issued a preliminary injunction Monday stopping federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, in a slap to the Obama administration's new guidelines on the sensitive issue. The ...

This image shows rows of human embryonic stem cells that MIT researchers grew on a new synthetic surface. The cells at top (blue) are stained to reveal their nuclei, while the cells in the middle and bottom are stained for ...

This V-shaped nanowire, shown near a cluster of cells, has a transistor at its tip. When inserted into a cell, the transistor can send and receive electrical signals. The probe is attached to electrical contacts on a flexible backing. ...

Building on a tool that they developed in yeast four years ago, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine scanned the human genome and discovered what they believe is the reason people have such a variety of physical ...

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in genetically engineering a rat by specifically removing a single gene,  reported online August 11 in Nature. The process is known to geneticists as “knocking out” a gene; in this case, the gene encodes ...