Nov 27
Lake Vida in East Antarctica is seven times saltier than the sea, 13 degrees celsius below freezing and pitch black. It was a place researchers thought life would never exist—but they were wrong. More »
Nov 20
Imagine eternally odorless public restrooms, or stink-free changing rooms. Amazingly, researchers claim to have discovered what they’re calling a “white smell”—an odor made up so many complex aromas that it’s neither pleasant or foul-smelling, in no way overwhelming, and could be the most effective air-freshener ever. More »
Nov 08
One cow looks much like another, but some provide meltingly tender meat while others are as tough as old boots. Fortunately, a team of researchers has devised a series of DNA tests that can predict how good beef will taste by the time it hits your plate. More »
Oct 24
Nano-machines built to mimic human muscle could help power cyborgs, keep the OSI budget down
Posted in: Today's Chili 
At today’s prices, building a Six Million Dollar Man would cost around $31 million. Of course, being a TV show means the Office of Scientific Intelligence doesn’t have too many bionic employees, but that might not the case in the future. Nicolas Giuseppone and a team at the Université de Strasbourg and CNRS have created thousands of nano-machines to replicate the movement of human muscle fibers. Weaving them all together, the machines are able to make a coordinated contraction movement that stretches and contracts. For the moment, the supramolecular polymers can only stretch a matter of micrometers, but in the future they could be used to create artificial muscles, small robots or even materials that can move. Hopefully it’ll also give us the power to leap tall buildings, so we’ll be outside practicing our sound effects.
Nano-machines built to mimic human muscle could help power cyborgs, keep the OSI budget down originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Oct 22
Craig Venter, the über-DNA jockey who quietly sequenced the human genome using his own DNA, then made “synthetic life” by outfitting a gutted bacterium with homemade genes, says his next trick will be emailing biological molecules, using 3D biological printers. The move that could revolutionise healthcare – and biological warfare. More »
Oct 17
The Science of Blushing [Video]
Posted in: Today's Chili
If you don’t know why humans blush, don’t be embarrassed: just watch this video. You might be able to guess that it’s to do with increased blood flow in the face—but even scientists are still a little puzzled by its evolutionary basis. More »
Oct 05
There’s a fundamental stumbling block when it comes to building a base on Mars, and that’s getting all the building materials there in the first place. No problem, though, because NASA is busy engineering space bugs that will turn the crap on the planet into building materials to help make the hostile planet habitable. More »
Oct 05
A team of Japanese scientists has managed to turn mouse stem cells into viable eggs—that can be inseminated and go on to produce normal, healthy mouse pups. The finding has massive implications for the development of infertility treatments in the future. More »
Oct 04
Researchers at a hospital in Kansas have been using this machine to crank out entire genome sequences of just-born babies in two days—which could be fast enough to change treatment regimes and save their wonderful little lives. More »
Sep 21
Fears are formed when we associate things with a strong, negative emotional response. Now, a team of scientists have developed a technique which lets them erase new emotional memories from the human brain—which could make it possible to wipe out your fears for good. More »
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