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Stephen Hawking Named Lifeboat
Foundation 2008 Guardian Award
Winner
KurzweilAI.net Jan. 1, 2009
*************************
The 2008 Lifeboat Foundation
Guardian Award has been given to
Stephen Hawking. The award is
annually bestowed upon a respected
scientist or public figure who has
warned of a future fraught with
dangers and encouraged measures to
prevent them. The 2008 award is in
recognition of his continuous
warnings that global catastrophic
risks will...
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Video: the year in robots
New Scientist Tech Dec. 30, 2008
*************************
This robot, developed at Reading
University, has a tangle of rats
neurons in place of control
software; its biological "brain"
even allows it to avoid obstacles.
Other videos include swarms of
robots that use electromagnetic
forces to cling together and a
human-like robot head that can
spookily mimic a person's facial
expressions in...
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The Year in Materials
Technology Review Dec. 31, 2008
*************************
Graphene (the world's strongest
material), nanoparticles shaped like
bacteria to do a better job getting
inside cells to deliver drugs, and
stretchable silicon electrical
circuits were among Technology
Review's top 10 emerging new
materials technologies of 2008....
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Researchers' vision: restoring
sight through artificial retinas
PhysOrg.com Dec. 30, 2008
*************************
Second Sight Medical Products has
developed Argus Two, a sophisticated
eye-implant device with an array of
60 electrodes, providing a much
sharper image to its users than its
earlier device, Argus One, with 16
electrodes, creating a 4 by 4
pattern of light and dark spots.
Argus Two consists of a tiny camera
mounted on a pair of dark glasses
and...
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Progress Toward a Biological Fuel
Cell?
PhysOrg.com Dec. 30, 2008
*************************
Japanese researchers have developed
biological fuel cells based on
metal-reducing bacteria that
aggregate into an electrically
conducting network. They
investigated how this transfer is
carried out in Shewanella loihica.
They added the cells to a solution
containing very finely divided
nanoscopic iron oxide particles and
poured the solution...
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Deciphering Dolphin Language with
Picture Words
KurzweilAI.net Dec. 31, 2008
*************************
Researchers in Great Britain and
the United States have imaged the
first high definition imprints that
dolphin sounds make in water. The
resulting "CymaGlyphs" are
reproducible patterns that are
expected to form the basis of a
lexicon of dolphin language, each
pattern representing a dolphin
"picture word." The CymaScope
captures actual...
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Religion may have evolved because
of its ability to help people
exercise self-control
PhysOrg.com Dec. 30, 2008
*************************
University of Miami professor of
Psychology Michael McCullough finds
that religious people have more
self-control than do their less
religious counterparts. These
findings imply that religious people
may be better at pursuing and
achieving long-term goals that are
important to them and their
religious groups. This, in turn,
might help explain...
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Cyborg cockroaches could power own
electric 'brains'
New Scientist Tech Dec. 30, 2008
*************************
"Cyborg insects" (using
remote-controlled or chip-based
neural stimulators to control
movements) could be powered by
piezoelectric strips attached to
their backs (generating 10
millivolts per fiber in in a
proof-of-concept experiment), Tokyo
University of Agriculture and
Technology researchers have found....
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Exercise and your brain: Why
working out may help memory
ScientificAmerican.com Dec. 30, 2008
*************************
Researchers from four universities
report in the Annals of Neurology
that people who absorb glucose more
slowly than those who metabolize it
quickly are more forgetful and are
more likely to have a faulty dentate
gyrus, a pocket in the hippocampus
section of the brain. The
hippocampus is involved with
learning and memory formation....
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Parallel Universe
Technology Review Jan/Feb 2009
*************************
The additional transistors
predicted by Moore's Law are being
used not to make individual
processors run faster but to
increase the number of processors
inside a chip. In the long term,
Intel envisions hundreds of cores
per device. However, the efficiency
of parallel systems declines with
each added processor, as cores vie
for the same data;...
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Six Images of Nano-scale Worlds
ScientificAmerican.com Dec. 29, 2008
*************************
In his recent "Innerspace" project,
University of Georgia digital media
professor Michael Oliveri explores
the landscapes of nanoscale worlds
created from nanowires and other
nanomaterials. (Michael Oliveri)...
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Scientists isolate genes that made
1918 flu lethal
PhysOrg.com Dec. 29, 2008
*************************
By mixing and matching a
contemporary flu virus with the
"Spanish flu" -- a virus that killed
between 20 and 50 million people 90
years ago in history's most
devastating outbreak of infectious
disease -- researchers have
identified a set of three genes that
helped underpin the extraordinary
virulence of the 1918 virus....
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The Fight Over NASA's Future
New York Times Dec. 30, 2008
*************************
Contentious issues on the future of
the U.S. space program have become a
focus of the members of the
presidential transition team dealing
with NASA, and the space program
could undergo a transformation after
Barack Obama takes office....
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Nutrigenomics: Developing
Personalized Diets For Disease
Prevention
Science Daily Dec. 29, 2008
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The emerging field of
nutrigenomics, which aims to
identify the genetic factors that
influence the body's response to
diet and studies how the bioactive
constituents of food affect gene
expression, is explored in a series
of interdisciplinary reports and
analyses in the December 2008
Special Issue (Volume 12, number 4)
of OMICS: A Journal of...
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How Small Can Computers Get?
Computing In A Molecule
Science Daily Dec. 30, 2008
*************************
Researchers at the French National
Scientific Research Centre's (CNRS)
Centre for Material Elaboration &
Structural Studies have designed a
simple logic gate with 30 atoms that
perform the same task as 14
transistors. They are focusing on
two architectures: one that mimics
the classical design of a logic gate
but in atomic form, including...
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Top Technology Breakthroughs of
2008
WIRED Dec. 26, 2008
*************************
R&D labs were busy laying the
foundations of some amazing future
technologies in 2008. They produced
concepts such as silicon chips you
can swallow for personalized
medicine from the inside out and a
fourth fundamental element in
electronic...
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The Year in Robotics
Technology Review Dec. 29, 2008
*************************
Robotic research marched ahead this
year: biomedical robots performed
less invasive and more complex
experimental surgeries, winged
robots copied each other to perform
potential military maneuvers, and
researchers began work on robots
that may even be able to travel
through the blood to zap a...
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Nanotechnology's biggest stories of
2008
New Scientist Tech Dec. 27, 2008
*************************
Manganese-oxide nanowires were
shaped into a kind of paper tissue
that guzzles up oil spills without
absorbing a drop of water, and a
novel mixture of gold-filled carbon
nanotubes and lithium hydride
capable of converting radiation
directly into electricity are among
New Scientist's top nanotech stories
of...
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Most extreme news stories of 2008
New Scientist Tech Dec. 28, 2008
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From camera footage of the deepest
living fish, swimming some 5 miles
beneath the surface of the Pacific
ocean, to the creation of the
smoothest ever surface -- a lead and
silicon film, New Scientist
summarizes eight extreme news
stories....
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Unconscious Brain Makes The Best
Decisions Possible
Science Daily Dec. 29, 2008
*************************
Researchers at the University of
Rochester have shown that contrary
to conventional wisdom, people do
make optimal decisions -- but only
when their unconscious brain makes
the choice....
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Breakthrough achieved in the
production of double-walled carbon
nanotubes
Nanowerk News Dec. 29, 2008
*************************
Northwestern University researchers
have developed a solution to the
double-walled nanotube production
problem. They used a technique
called density gradient
ultracentrifugation to cleanly and
easily separate double-walled
nanotubes (DWNTs) from single-walled
nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled
nanotubes (MWNTs). Double-walled
nanotubes...
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Food additives linked to lung
cancer risk
Health Newstrack Dec. 29, 2008
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A diet high in inorganic
phosphates, found in a variety of
processed foods including meats,
cheeses, beverages, and bakery
products, might speed growth of lung
cancer tumors and contribute to the
development of those tumors in
individuals predisposed to the
disease, researchers at Seoul
National University have found....
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Biologists Learn Structure,
Mechanism Of Powerful 'Molecular
Motor' In Virus
Science Daily Dec. 28, 2008
*************************
Purdue University and The Catholic
University of America researchers
have discovered the atomic structure
of a powerful "molecular motor" that
packages DNA into the head segment
of some viruses during their
assembly, an essential step in their
ability to multiply and infect new
host organisms. {The journal Cell,
Dec. 26, 2008; Steven McQuinn,...
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Potentially Disruptive Antibody
Sequencing Technology Developed
Science Daily Dec. 22, 2008
*************************
Bioinformatics researchers at the
University of California, San Diego
and Genentech have developed a new
shotgun protein sequencing method
based on mass spectrometry that
reduces the time required to
sequence an unknown antibody to
under 36 hours -- a "dramatic
reduction" compared to the most
widely used technique today, which
can take weeks or...
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