Re: In today's news...
Double post.
Guess what time it is?
SCIENCE TIME! Since I'm lazy I'll just copy paste directly from the source on this one. Most of it anyway. Getting too lazy to write quote brackets.
The source is this guy, for anyone who wants to keep themselves informed
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First fully integrated artificial photosynthesis nanosystem
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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists have developed the first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis, in which solar energy is directly converted into chemical fuels.
“Similar to the chloroplasts in green plants that carry out photosynthesis, our artificial photosynthetic system is composed of two semiconductor light absorbers, an interfacial layer for charge transport, and spatially separated co-catalysts,” says Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, who led this research.
The tree-like architecture was used to maximize the system’s performance. Like trees in a real forest, the dense arrays of artificial nanowire trees suppress sunlight reflection and provide more surface area for fuel-producing reactions.
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A new tool for precise brain mapping
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Multitasking neurons found essential to the brain’s computational power
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ACT confirms clinical trial participant showed improvement in vision
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Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT) has confirmed that the vision of a patient enrolled in a clinical investigation of the company’s retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) has improved from 20/400 to 20/40 following treatment.
ACT is currently enrolling patients in three clinical trials in the U.S. and Europe for treatment of Stargardt’s macular dystrophy (SMD) and dry age-related macular degeneration (dry AMD) with hESC-derived RPE cells. These trials are prospective, open-label studies, designed to determine the safety and tolerability of hESC-derived RPE cells following sub-retinal transplantation into patients with dry AMD or SMD at 12 months, the study’s primary endpoint.
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World record for wireless data transmission
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Researchers of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology have achieved wireless transmission of 40 Gbit/s over a distance of one kilometer, a new world record.
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Thought experiment: build a supercomputer replica of the human brain
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Henry Markram’s Human Brain Project (HBP), backed by 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) funding Jan. 2013 from the European Commission, plans to integrate findings from the Allen Brain Atlas, the National Institutes of Health-funded Human Connectome Project, and the Brain (“Brain Activity Map”) project, Wired reports.
The HBP is an ambitious attempt to build a complete model of a human brain using predictive reverse-engineering and simulate it on an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer. Markram plans to give the EU an early working prototype of this system within just 18 months.
Markram thinks that the greatest potential achievement of his sim would be to determine the causes of the approximately 600 known brain disorders. He’ll achieve this by connecting his model brain to sensor-laden robotics and simultaneously recording what the robot is sensing and “thinking” as it explores physical environments, correlating audiovisual signals with simulated brain activity as the machine learns about the world.
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Patient receives 3D printed skull
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At the beginning of March of this year, a radical surgery was performed on an American patient: 75 percent of his skull was replaced with a 3D printed implant. The company that produced the implant, Oxford Performance Materials, made the announcement though offered little detail about the patient or the procedure. The surgery was given the green light by the Food and Drug Administration in February.
Scott DeFelice, President and CEO of Oxford Performance Materials, stated that the OsteoFab technology “is a highly transformative and disruptive technology platform that will substantially impact all sectors of the orthopedic industry.” The company projects that between 300 to 500 patients in the U.S. alone could have skull replacement surgeries each month. Additionally, it has indicated plans to expand beyond the skull to other bone replacements in the body, opening up the technology to a multimillion dollar industry.
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Brain rewires itself after damage or injury, life scientists discover
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Cells as living calculators
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By combining existing genetic “parts,” or engineered genes, in novel ways, MIT engineers have transformed bacterial cells into living calculators that can compute logarithms, divide, and take square roots, using three or fewer genetic parts.
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Google and NASA launch Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab
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Virtual worm project wriggles into life
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Programmers and scientists have joined together to try to create a comprehensive computer model of the Caenorhabditis elegans nematode worm.
The cellular model of the worm will help to understand how its complex behaviour emerges from the interaction of those basic building blocks.
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Human stem cells created by cloning
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Wireless signals could transform brain-trauma diagnostics
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University of California, Berkeley researchers have developed a device that uses wireless signals to provide real-time, non-invasive diagnoses of brain swelling or bleeding.
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Engineered biomaterial prevents body’s attack on medical implants
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Brain frontal lobes not sole center of human intelligence
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Clinical trial supports use of Kava to treat anxiety
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A world-first completed clinical study by an Australian team has found Kava, a medicinal South Pacific plant, significantly reduced the symptoms of people suffering anxiety.
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‘Paint-on’ solar panels
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Do-it-yourself invisibility cloaking with 3D printing
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Hydrogel biomaterial shows promise for Type 1 diabetes treatment
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Extracting human DNA with full genetic data in minutes
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Making old hearts younger
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The emergence of individuality in genetically identical mice
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3D printing right into your spine could make you whole again
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Organ and tissue replacement could cure aging by 2025
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Newly Sequenced Genome of ‘Sacred Lotus’ May Hold Anti-Aging Secrets
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A team of 70 scientists from the U.S., China, Australia and Japan today reports having sequenced and annotated the genome of the “sacred lotus,” which is believed to have a powerful genetic system that repairs genetic defects, and may hold secrets about aging successfully. The scientists sequenced more than 86 percent of the nearly 27,000 genes of the plant
“The lotus genome is an ancient one, and we now know its ABCs,” said Jane Shen-Miller, one of three corresponding authors of the research and a senior scientist with UCLA’s Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life. “Molecular biologists can now more easily study how its genes are turned on and off during times of stress and why this plant’s seeds can live for 1,300 years. This is a step toward learning what anti-aging secrets the sacred lotus plant may offer.”
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Carmat gets approval to test artificial heart in four countries
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Memory implants may start human trials in 2 years
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Global leaders support new six-year plan to deliver a polio-free world by 2018
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And then a thing on Israel+Syria. They're just doing the same stuff as always, nothing too new or interesting there.
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And one on Benghazi, which is now known as the greatest/worst US scandal ever, by far exceeding Watergate.
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