After much hard work, I have a night to post...

Hi there. I just finished a ton of reports this last weekend, so I am able to post this evening. Sorry about last post. I just didn't have the time to comment on them properly. I will try better in this one. I am really falling behind on posting...Sigh!

• Artificial Playmates for Autistic Children - One of the first articles I found this evening combines autism and virtual people. Heh, it's like an article tailored with my specific interests in mind. I can't wait for my own virtual people to interact with. So much more predictable that the random, so called 'real' people are. I can see why autists would open up more readilly to them.
• Scientist postulates 4 aspects of 'humaniqueness' differentiating human and animal cognition - Iamba! This is an interesting article regarding our project to write about uplifting animals. It's not a heavy read and very informative.
• Michigan laser beam believed to set record for intensity - "The world's most intense laser beam uses 300 terawatts of power concentrated in a 30 femtosecond pulse to a 1.3-micron area, or 20 billion trillion watts per square centimeter. " That is a lot of watts.
• Scientists Develop Tool to Probe Role of Oxidative Stress in Aging, Disease - "University of Michigan researchers have a new technique to observe how oxidative stress affects proteins, allowing them to quantify the oxidation state of thousands of different proteins in a single experiment." Michigan is on fire! Go UM!
• Brain blanket boosts mind control - "With a sheet of electrodes placed over the brain, people can quickly learn to move a cursor around a computer screen using their thoughts." A step in the direction of direct brain-computer interface. I cannot wait to get rid of the keyboard and mouse...How quaint, indeed.
• The Chinese Government's Plans for Nanotechnology - "BOSTON, MA - China aims to leapfrog the United States in technological development with substantial investment in nanotechnology, but whether those efforts will actually pay off is still unclear. That was the message from University of California at Santa Barbara researchers presenting their findings on the state of Chinese nanotechnology here at the AAAS annual meeting. " China, India and Russia are going to be MAJOR economic players in the next 25 years, just based on thier populations alone. They also plan for the long term rather than our 4 year election cycle ADD the US suffers. That will allow them to build a strong and robust space system and possibly blow us out of the water science wise. We better watch out.
• Scientists move towards stem cell therapy trials to mend shattered bones - "Scientists are developing a revolutionary way to mend damaged bones and cartilage using a patient's own stem cells."
• Solar cell speeds hydrogen production - I hope this leads to ubiquitous hydrogen production for use in cars and home generators. This will decentralize energy production which will reduce the impact of distaster and our dependance on foriegn oil.
• Researchers discover new way to reverse poor circulation and heal wounds - "Researchers have solved a longstanding mystery about how flexing muscles “tell” nearby blood vessels that they need more blood to perform, according to a study published Feb. 15 in the journal Circulation Research. The study mechanism suggests new ways to treat conditions that involve poor circulation like peripheral artery disease, which comes with aging, affects 10 million Americans and leads to amputation in the worst cases. Furthermore, the same signals that influence circulation in some tissues drive cell growth elsewhere. That could lead to an ointment that would speed healing when spread across chronic wounds."
• The 10 Emerging Technologies of 2008 - Technology Review presents its annual list of the 10 most exciting technologies.
• Smart rubber promises self-mending products - Self-healing rubber that binds back together after being snapped or punctured could pave the way for self-healing shoes, fan belts, washing-up gloves and more.
• Replacing bulk with nanotechnology, researchers find new way to keep fiber-optic signal sharp - Cornell researchers have demonstrated that a single photonic microchip--using four-wave mixing to amplify an optical signal by "pumping" with another beam of light--can replace the bulky bundles of fiber or electronic amplifiers now needed to clean up and sharpen fiber optic signals distorted by distance.
• Genetic pathway critical to disease, aging found - University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have discovered a gene expression pathway and specific enzymes that exert a sweeping influence over the process of oxidative stress, the process that contributes to many diseases and conditions ranging from Alzheimer's, heart disease and stroke to cancer and the process of aging. The finding is important because it represents a master pressure point for a host of medical conditions. One key enzyme in the new pathway--Star-PAP-- is a master switch that controls key aspects of oxidative stress in cells.
• Largest yet survey of human genetic diversity - Two researcher teams performed the most thorough genetic analysis yet on samples from the Human Genome Diversity Project (HGDP), confirming that populations lost genetic variation as they migrated farther from Africa and discovering that copy number variants (rearrangements within longer stretches of DNA) differ between human populations similarly to SNPs. Previous studies had either looked at fewer "markers"--sites of genetic variation--or fewer population groups. The HGDP covers more than 50 geographic groups from all over the globe.
• Scientists Measure What It Takes to Push a Single Atom - IBM scientists have measured the force needed to nudge one atom: one-130-millionth of an ounce of force pushes a cobalt atom across a smooth, flat piece of platinum, and one-1,600-millionth of an ounce of force pushes it across copper. To measure the force, an atomic force microscope tip was attached to a small tuning fork. Changes in the frequency of the tuning fork's vibrations as it pushed the cobalt atom let the scientists calculate the force applied.
• Google to Store Patients' Health Records - Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people who volunteered to an electronic transfer of their personal health records, so they can be retrieved through Google's new service (not yet available to the public). I hope that this will become the standard for an EHR system (or something like this). We are desperately in need of such a system. It would increase the availability of health history which would decrease costs, reduce error, and increase the quality of care for the patients.
• PC beats doctor in scan tests - A computer does better than a doctor at diagnosing Alzheimer's from brain scans: trained computers had a 96% diagnosis success rate analyzing a clinical MRI scan, compared to an 85% success rate for doctors using standard scans, blood tests and interviews.
• No Directions Required--Software Smartens Mobile Robots - DARPA initiative to develop self-navigating robots introduces a world of potential for the development of autonomous vehicles, but will the government take advantage of its research or let it wither on the vine?
• 'Exaflop' Supercomputer Planning Begins - Researchers at Sandia and Oak Ridge National Laboratories have launched the Institute for Advanced Architectures to do basic research on issues such as power consumption and reliability for an exaflop (10^18 floating point operations per second) system that could have a million hundred-core processors. The U.S. Department of Energy and the National Security Agency expect to need exaflop computing by 2018 for large-scale prediction, materials science analysis, fusion research, and national security problems.
• Electron Stroboscope - Lund University scientists have recorded snapshots of electron motion, using 300-attoseconds-long light pulses to create images of the quantum state of electrons. An attosecond is one quintillionth (10^-18) of a second long.
• Going by the book - A group of Chinese scientists has discovered the main biochemical pathways in drug addiction—and without having to do a single experiment. This should lead us to curing addiction within 20 years.
• Solar Power to Rule in 20 Years, Futurists Say - Speaking on behalf of a panel of experts convened by the National Association of Engineers to address the 14 "grand challenges of the 21st century," Ray Kurzweil said solar power will scale up to produce all the energy needs of Earth's people in 20 years. Members of the panel are "confident that we are not that far away from a tipping point where energy from solar will be [economically] competitive with fossil fuels," Kurzweil said, adding that it could happen within five years.
• Kurzweil: 'Exponential' change ahead for games, people - Look for the price-to-performance ratio of computers to improve a billionfold in the next 25 years, Ray Kurzweil said in a keynote speech, "The Next 20 Years of Gaming," at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on Thursday, CNET reported. Kurzweil said game programmers should be developing ahead of the curve, considering the constantly changing face of game technology. "We may even have the ability to accurately represent the human brain or produce convincing human language -- dialog -- on the fly," Kurzweil said. "The implications and potential for the advancement of games from such technological leaps are exciting to ponder," Wired reported. Kurzweil's forecasts have "obvious and exciting implications for gaming," according to Game Helper. By 2010, we'll have electronics so tiny they are "embedded in the environment, our clothing, our eyeglasses"; images and video will be "written directly to our retinas" and "we will all enjoy a "ubiquitous high bandwidth connection to the Internet at all times." By 2029, "We will have developed a human-level non-biological intelligence; "$1,000 worth of computation = 1000 times the human brain"; and while biological intelligence is in essence "fixed," non-biological intelligence will continue increasing exponentially, and will combine "the subtlety and pattern recognition strength of human intelligence with the speed, memory, and knowledge sharing of machine intelligence."
• Stock exchange for 'grid' computing? - You might soon be selling your spare computer power over the internet, or perhaps buying in extra resources to solve a tricky problem. In either case, network administration used to be a stumbling block – until European researchers developed a successful free-market approach to grid computing.
• Physicists Demonstrate Qubit-Qutrit Entanglement - For the first time, physicists have entangled a qubit with a “qutrit” – the 3D version of the 2D qubit. Qubit-qutrit entanglement could lead to advantages in quantum computing, such as increased security and more efficient quantum gates, as well as enable novel tests of quantum mechanics.
• Seeds of Future Agriculture Enter Doomsday Deep Freeze - The first batch of 100 million of the most important agricultural seeds were placed into the "doomsday repository" Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. The vault is a backup of last resort, stocked with copies of different crops from national seed storage facilities. In cold isolation the seeds can keep for hundreds and thousands of years--sorghum alone can last for 20,000 years--effectively allowing agriculture to be restarted in the event of a global calamity, such as nuclear war or catastrophic climate change. See Also Doomsday vault to avert world famine.
• Penn researchers engineer first system of human nerve-cell tissue - University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine researchers engineered living human nerve cells into three-dimensional neural networks with the potential to survive transplantation. Four neurons that survived months in culture. In previous work with rat neurons, the researchers demonstrated a new way to engineer nerve structures, or constructs, in culture. The new study uses the same method with human neurons, which survived at least three months in culture while maintaining the ability to signal. See Also Engineering nerve jumper cables for spinal cord repair.

Finals are coming, and I am not posting...

"We need schools which embrace the diversity within our community, not a diversity of schools dividing pupils and staff on religious grounds."-Mary Bousted

Hi! How are you today? I am fine... Oh right, enough small talk, just get to the news!

• Bacteria and nanofilters -- the future of clean water technology - Bacteria often get bad press, with those found in water often linked to illness and disease. But researchers at The University of Nottingham are using these tiny organisms alongside the very latest membrane filtration techniques to improve and refine water cleaning technology.
• Wiring Up DNA - Caltech and Columbia University researchers have measured DNA's ability to conduct electricity by wiring it up between two carbon nanotubes, creating a new way to detect mutations.
  Introducing just a single letter change can drastically alter DNA's resistance, a phenomenon that they plan to exploit with a device that can rapidly screen DNA for disease-linked mutations.
• Plucking Cells out of the Bloodstream - University of Rochester scientist Michael King and team have developed an implantable device that captures very pure samples of stem cells circulating in the blood.
  The device, a plastic microtube coated with proteins called selectins, could lead to better bone-marrow transplants and stem-cell therapies, and may also be a way to capture and reprogram cancer cells roaming the bloodstream.
  CellTraffix, which is commercializing the technology, is developing a kit that will enable researchers to capture large numbers of stem and cancer cells in the lab, and hopes to begin clinical testing of the anticancer coatings by early 2010.
• Welcome to Cyberwar Country, USA - The US Air Force has launched the Cyber Command, dedicated to the proposition that the next war will be fought in the electromagnetic spectrum, and that computers are military weapons.
• Breaking disk encryption with RAM dumps - A security hack with video.
• Fabric may make the first real power suit - Nanofibres made that produce power when rubbed together.
• Functional Immune System Can Be Derived From Embryonic Stem Cells, Preliminary Study Finds - A new study demonstrates for the first time that embryonic stem cells can be used to create functional immune system blood cells, a finding which is an important step in the utilization of embryonic stem cells as an alternative source of cells for bone marrow transplantation. This hopeful news for patients with severe blood and immune disorders, who need these transplants for treatment, was prepublished online in Blood.
• Map reveals US disaster hotspots - University of South Carolina, Columbia scientists have created a map that shows where people would be hit hardest were a natural disaster to strike.
• Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead To Emission-free Cars - Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. Georgia Tech researchers envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels.
• New Technique Makes Tissues Transparent - California Institute of Technology, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, and MIT researchers have developed a technique that counteracts the scattering of light and removes the distortion it creates in images.
  The "turbidity suppression by optical phase conjugation" (TSOPC) techniques used a holographic crystal to record the scattered light pattern emerging from a 0.46-mm-thick piece of chicken breast. They then holographically played the pattern back through the tissue section to recover the original light beam.
• Bandwidth on Demand - An academic internet provides clues about ways to improve the commercial Internet.
• Metabolic Syndrome Linked to Cold Tolerance - University of Chicago researchers have discovered that many of the genetic variations that have enabled human populations to tolerate colder climates may also affect their susceptibility to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of related abnormalities such as obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, heart disease, and diabetes.
  The researchers report that some genes associated with cold tolerance have a protective effect against the disease, while others increase disease risk. Genes that varied by climate included the lepin receptor, several involved in heat production, cholesterol metabolism, energy use, and blood glucose regulation.
• Scientists Show Stem Cells Don't Cause Cancer - Japanese researchers have shown that stem cells made from reprogrammed adult skin cells can be implanted using a retrovirus without fear of causing cancer.
  Last year, researchers showed that adult human and mouse skin cells could be reprogrammed into stem cells similar to embryonic stem cells, but a major concern with those stem cells was the possibility that the retrovirus used to implant the cells might cause cancer.
• Shear Ingenuity: Tweaking The Conductivity Of Nanotube Composites - National Institute of Standards and Technology scientists have learned to tune the conductive properties of an polymer-nanotube composites (electrically conducting plastics) simply by changing changing processing conditions--how fast the polymer flows--without changing the carbon nanotube concentration.
• "Junk" RNA May Have Played Role in Vertebrate Evolution - New study says tiny snippets of RNA co-evolved with vertebrates, likely accounting for the new organisms' complexity
• Pulsing web gives ailing hearts a boost - UK researchers are developing a pulsing fibrous web to wrap around diseased hearts, designed to be less invasive than existing heart-assist techniques, which involve surgically connecting a pump directly into the heart.
  Their device is made from polyethylene and has three constricting belts woven through its fabric, powered by small electric motors.
• Smaller Version of the Solar System Is Discovered - Astronomers had found a miniature version of our own solar system 5,000 light-years across the galaxy -- the first planetary system that really looks like our own, with outer giant planets and room for smaller inner planets.
  The new discovery was made by a technique called microlensing: the gravity of the nearer star can bend and magnify the light from the more distant one, causing it to get much brighter for a few days. If the alignment is perfect, any big planets attending the nearer star will get into the act, adding their own little boosts to the more distant starlight.
• 21st Century's Grand Engineering Challenges Unveiled - The U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) today announced 14 grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century that, if met, "would improve how we live by improving sustainability, health, and joy of living, and reducing vulnerability."
  A diverse committee of experts from around the world chaired by former secretary of defense William Perry (committee chair) and including genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter, Google co-founder Larry Page, and Ray Kurzweil, developed the list of challenges. The effort received worldwide input from prominent engineers and scientists and the general public and its conclusions were reviewed by more than 50 subject-matter experts.
  NAE is offering the public an opportunity to vote on which challenge they think is most important and to provide comments at the project Web site, www.engineeringchallenges.org, which features a five-minute video overview of the project and committee-member interview excerpts. A podcast of the news conference announcing the challenges will also be available on the site starting next week.
  "Meeting these challenges would be 'game changing,'" said NAE president Charles M. Vest. "Success with any one of them could dramatically improve life for everyone."
  The Challenges:
  
  Make solar energy affordable
  Provide energy from fusion
  Develop carbon sequestration methods
  Manage the nitrogen cycle
  Provide access to clean water
  Restore and improve urban infrastructure
  Advance health informatics
  Engineer better medicines
  Reverse-engineer the brain
  Prevent nuclear terror
  Secure cyberspace
  Enhance virtual reality
  Advance personalized learning
  Engineer the tools for scientific discovery

Well, that's it for today. Lots to read. Enjoy and have fun!

"Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact." -Thomas Huxley 1825 - 1895

Good afternoon!

I'll get right to it:

• BIL & TED,… no way…Yes way - "TED brings together an extraordinary group of people every year. The catch for most of us is the cost: $6,000. So along with some friends I’m helping organize BIL (brainchild of Todd Huffman), which will be completely free, running March 1st and 2nd, immediately after TED.
  We have the thumbs up from TED Curator Chris Anderson, who has been very supportive.
  Check out the BIL website and add your name if you can attend.
  I hope to see many of you in Monterey, California in a few weeks.
  If you can, please spread the word!
  See also this BIL & TED post from Ethan Zuckerman, one of the main TED bloggers.
  I’m happy to say that SIAI is the founding sponsor of BIL." I think TED rocks! I love their talks and videos. Definately a site to check out.


• Researcher leads international effort to create 'proteinpedia' - "A researcher at the Johns Hopkins Institute of Genetic Medicine has led the effort to compile to date the largest free resource of experimental information about human proteins. Reporting in the February issue of Nature Biotechnology, the research team describes how all researchers around the world can access this data and speed their own research." We need this for the general populace. I still don't understand why the Health Care record system in this country is so disjointed. Probably the same reason there is no universal health care system either...politics!


• Higher-Capacity Memory - "Nanochip's forthcoming array-based memory will provide an alternative to both flash memory and hard drives. In addition to storing more data than flash, it will be cheaper and can be about as fast. The first prototypes will store about 100 gigabytes; eventually, the devices could store terabytes' worth of data. The Nanochip technology stores information by applying a voltage to a thin-film material using an array of microscopic cantilevers, each with an extremely sharp tip. The size of each bit will be 15 nanometers in the first devices, but could theoretically be as small as just a couple of nanometers." I hope to see, within 8 years, hard drives and memory being integrated into one device, and not seperated like they are today. That will allow instant boot up devices and mobile devices that have huge storage capabilities with very robust reliabilty due to no moving parts.


• 'Recordable' proteins as next-generation memory storage materials - "Move over, compact discs, DVDs, and hard drives. Researchers in Japan report progress toward developing a new protein-based memory device that could provide an alternative to conventional magnetic and optical storage systems, which are quickly approaching their memory storage capacities. Their study is scheduled for the March 4 issue of ACS’ Langmuir. "


• de Grey appears on The Colbert Report - A must see.


• Researchers fashion copper for high-speed computing - "As computers and networks gain complexity one thing is always needed: more speed. With that axiom in mind, researchers today said they have developed a fabrication method to create all-copper connections between computer chips and external circuitry, significantly boosting the speed and amount of data that can be sent throughout a computer."


• New Test Detects Early Stage Ovarian Cancer With 99 Percent Accuracy - "Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have developed a blood test with enough sensitivity and specificity to detect early stage ovarian cancer with 99 percent accuracy." I am thinking that Cancer, as a deadly disease, has about 8-10 years. After that people might get it, but it will no longer be life threatening.


• UD researchers discover promising technique for repairing gene defect that causes spinal muscular atrophy - This is a very early step towards adult gene therapy and repair.


• Could smart traffic lights stop motorists fuming? - "Traffic lights that wirelessly keep track of vehicles could speed up journeys, reduce fuel consumption and improve urban air quality. So say Romanian and US researchers who show that "smart" traffic lights might reduce the time drivers spend waiting at intersections by more than 28% during rush hours."

A rainy day in Miami yesterday

It was raining heavily here in Miami yesterday. Finally a break from the sun. I love it when it's cool and overcast. Reminds me of home. What in the world am I doing here?!? Sigh...

I have a little story to tell today. This morning I was in my local Subway, getting my morning breakfast and cafe con leche, when this young man in line behind me wanted just a cookie, but all he had in his pocket was a $20 bill. The cashier shook her head and said she couldn't break that bill for a 50 cent item. The poor guy was crestfallen, so I told the cashier that I would pay for it (I wouldn't want anything to get in the way of me and MY cookie!). The young gentleman just stood there looking VERY confused and speechless. He just could not believe that I was buying a complete stranger a cookie, for no reason. His face got very red and he stood there what must have been 45 seconds trying to understand why I would do such a thing. I asked him if anyone had ever been generous with him before, and he said no. I said, "Well, I am from Oregon, NOT Miami, being generous is just my nature." He seemed to finally get that I wasn't asking for anything in return, that I just wanted him to have a cookie. "Plus," I told him, "its just 50 cents, its really no problem at all" He finally took the cookie and kept saying thank you, thank you, over and over. He was genuinly shocked. I guess I am too. I am a little sad that generosity and kindness is so uncommon. I hope I made his day a little better. Maybe he will pass it on.

Well, anyway here are todays tech news headlines:

• New Electronics Promise Wireless at Warp Speed - "Company uses nanoscale metals to build faster radios to wirelessly process video and other massive data files." Really cool process...
• Pursuing Synthetic Life, Dazzled by Reality - The NY Times is a great newspaper, but sometimes they just write fluffy peices...This one has some good info, but I don't like the way they put opinion in the report.
• Shmoocon's coming - As an IT security student, its nice to understand how hackers and crackers operate, so here is a convention where these things come together. Unfortunately I won't have the time off to attend, but maybe next year will be different.
• Brain Region That Can Be Stimulated To Reduce The Cognitive Deficits Of Sleep Deprivation Identified - I am, by nature, a night owl. I like to stay up late, but my job has me up much too early. I would love to have the effects of sleep deprevation be eliminated so I could stay up forever and use those 8 wasted (usually 5-6 for me) hours of sleep time. Between this new finding and the drug Provigil, I hope to be soon up for the duration!
• Team Uncovers New Evidence of Recent Human Evolution - Dr. Barry Sears of "Enter the Zone" diet book fame has also noted that one out of every four is genetically predisposed to handle grains and cereals without an ellevated insulin response. This study is the genetic evidence that backs up this claim. Now I want the gene therapy that applies it to me and fixes my older, obsolete genetic heratige! I want my cookies without the imballanced hormones that go with it!
• Researcher leads international effort to create 'proteinpedia' - "A researcher at the Johns Hopkins Institute of Genetic Medicine has led the effort to compile to date the largest free resource of experimental information about human proteins. Reporting in the February issue of Nature Biotechnology, the research team describes how all researchers around the world can access this data and speed their own research. "
• Scientists produce carbon nanotubes using commercially available polymeric resins - "Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have successfully produced carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in high yields in bulk solid compositions using commercially available aromatic containing resins. The concentration of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and metal nanoparticles can be easily varied within the shaped carbonaceous solid." GO NAVY!
• Brain Signal Linked to Autism - "Imaging the brain during social interaction reveals a deficit that may be tied to a sense of self." This article takes the position that autism is a disorder, that something is wrong with us. I am very curiuos as to the difference between us Aspys and the NTs (NeuroTypicals). But I would never say that we are difficient, and the NTs are not. That is highly erroneous in thinking and dangerous. Will the NTs force us to undergo genetic therapy to "fix" our difficiency? That is analogous to the "whites" fixing the "blacks" via genetic manipulation. Its just wrong. We are not sick, just different. We should celebrate our differences. Feh.
• Robotic glider feeds off ocean temperatures - Very cool article. I hope they are used and not just a 'novel concept'.
• Implants Create Insect Cyborgs - Incredible! When will the military do it to humans?
• Human Skin Cells Reprogrammed Into Embryonic Stem Cells - "UCLA stem cell scientists have reprogrammed human skin cells into cells with the same unlimited properties as embryonic stem cells without using embryos or eggs." Will this get Federal funding? Or is there some overarching moral issue preventing reasonable advances that will elleviate suffering and ban this as well? FEH!
• Studies identify factors associated with exceptionally long life - "Two studies provide new insights on exceptional longevity."

Thats all for today! I finally had some time to get this done, but much more is out there and it seems to be ramping up. Accellerating, one could even say.

A moment to breathe!

Wow, It has been a week or so since I last posted! I have been slammed at both work and school. Work, Work, Work! Well, here is some play time that I am making myself do.

• Intel Microchip Packs Two Billion Transistors - GO Moore's Law GO! This means 4 million transistors in 2010, 8 million in 2012, 16 million in 2014, etc...
• Eyes to the skies getting bigger - I have always wondered why is it that when we look for the center of the universe, the place where the big bang happened, it's all around us...in every direction. Shouldn't it be, oh I don't know, like off to the left and down, or something? Maybe someone out there could explain it to me? Leave a comment if you will.
• Team develops energy-efficient microchip - I see this appying to Body Area Networks very well.
• Tuning In to Nanotube Radio - "Researchers have made analog electronics out of carbon nanotubes." I suspect this may be the 6th Paradigm of computation. Integrated Circuits are the 5th and current Paradigm and follows Moore's Law, which is expected to hit a wall around 2020, approximately. Good to know that this new method is well on its way to replacing the venerable IC.
• Genetic 'telepathy'? A bizarre new property of DNA - What the?!? This is indeed bizarre. Read it for yourself.
• Embryos Created With DNA From 3 People - "British scientists have created human embryos containing DNA from two women and one man, a procedure that could potentially prevent conditions including epilepsy, diabetes and heart failure."
• With Mini in vivo Robots, Anyone Can do Surgery - "By attaching a millimeter-sized camera robot to a tether, scientists have designed a way to allow individuals with non-medical backgrounds to perform minimally invasive surgery in almost any location. Unlike room-size and expensive surgical robots, mini in vivo robots are inexpensive and mobile enough to support emergency surgeries almost anywhere, from the battlefield to outer space." By extension, with sufficient miniaturizastion and autonomous AI, we could have mini-surgeons permanently housed inside of us to perform on demand surgeries automatically, repairing us as needed as determined by its software parameters.
• Remote-control DNA 'pistons' could power tiny robots - This could enable molecular nano-factories, or the nano-surgeons I was just talking about above.
• Charles Ostman discusses synthetic biology and the Singularity - Damn, I just wanted to hear this guy, and it's on a pay for subscription site. I might cave in later and cough up the cash...I hope its worth it.
• Flexible, Nanowire Solar Cells - "Exotic materials and cheaper substrates could lead to better photovoltaics."
• New Thoughts On Language Acquisition: Toddlers As Data Miners - This is a valid research path for AI. By reverse engineering our own behaviors and starting at the infant level then growing the AI like a child, we should have greater success that if we tried to reverse engineer a fully mature adult.
• Rewritable holograms promise 3D displays - Interesting, but I feel a better approach would be to have contact lenses that are inherently 3D that can augment reality instead of a remote static display.
• Electromagnetic Railgun Blasts Off - "A supersonic bullet is fired with a record-breaking 10 megajoules of muzzle energy." Whoa Nelly!

Well, thats it for today. See you very soon!

Hola! ?Como esta? ...and that's about as much Spanish that I know...

• DNA construction kit self-assembles 3D 'crystals' - I wonder how strong these self assembling materials are? I can't imagine it being too strong if DNA is used as the linking structures. Plus it requires water as a sorrounding solution. This would be good for bioengineering, but limited in out of water applications. I am sure we could engineer a differant method though, using stronger materials, I have no doubt. And to reinforce my opinion...
• Artificial letters added to life's alphabet - I am continually amazed what our engineers can do!
• New Process Makes Nanofibers In Complex Shapes And Unlimited Lengths - I wonder if this process can be modified to make Carbon Nanotubes? Then the Space Elevator cable system could be created finally.
• Scientists discover a way to reverse memory loss in 'accidental breakthrough' - Instant memory retrieval? Wire me up!
• Cheap Hydrogen - A new process uses sunlight and a nanostructured catalyst to inexpensively and efficiently generate hydrogen for fuel. I have a concept of integrating this technology with tidal power, ocean current, and wind power, all on an ocean based platform. It would collect energy from as many sources as possible and could store the energy as hydrogen, or desalinate water for drinking and agriculture. It's still in the back of my mind, with no formal drawings as yet.
• The Next 25 Years in Tech - "PCs may disappear from your desk by 2033. But with digital technology showing up everywhere else--including inside your body--computing will only get more personal." Both this article and the next one are pretty conservative and reflect linear thinking. I think things will change faster than this. By 2029 a $1000 laptop will have as much computational power as a human. What will supercomputers have? How will the exponential growth rate of computation effect things such as Nanotechnology, Genetics, and Artificial Intellignece, which all effect each other in self reinforcing feedback loops. Not all things are being held equal, they are all changing at an exponential rate, so I would like to predict a much more aggressive proggression rate than most "experts" are willing to make.
• Five Sci-Fi Scenarios That Will Come True - "In the next 25 years, these technological advances, made famous in movies and on TV, will become reality. How accurate are our prognostications? Check back with us in 2033." - Very conservative in outlook.
• More Macs, More Mobile, More Open Source, Gartner Predicts - A better, more informed prediction set compared to the previous two articles.
• Researchers' nanotube findings give boost to potential biomedical applications - I had made a previous comment on a related article wondering about the safety of CNTs (Carbon NanoTubes) and their use in the body. Well I guess I have an answer :-)
• Death of the father: British scientists discover how to turn women's bone marrow into sperm - Whoever says we humans cannot create life in the lab have their heads in the sand.

Thats all for today. Have a great weekend!