Researchers at a Toronto hospital have stumbled upon a dramatic treatment for mouse diabetes, with large implications for the treatment of diabetes in humans. The islet inflammation cleared up and the diabetes was gone. Some have remained in that state for as long as four months, with just one injection. They also discovered that their treatments curbed the insulin resistance that is the hallmark of Type 2 diabetes, and that insulin resistance is a major factor in Type 1 diabetes, suggesting the two illnesses are quite similar
Nanotechnology, the use of subatomic materials as microscopic building blocks for thousands of consumer products, has turned into a big business so quickly that few are monitoring its effects on health and the environment. So the government of Berkeley, California, is intending for the city to be the first to step into the breach and try to regulate this industry
Llamas are not just for transportation anymore. It turns out that the animals’ blood could be useful for detecting all sorts of maladies in the surrounding environment — from deadly pathogens to industrial emissions. A research effort has done just that, manipulating a rare type of antibody found in llamas to make an inexpensive and diverse biosensor
US Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Alexander Karsner today announced that with DOE funding, a concentrator solar cell produced by Boeing-Spectrolab has recently achieved a world-record conversion efficiency of 40.7 percent, establishing a new milestone in sunlight-to-electricity performance. This breakthrough may lead to systems with an installation cost of only $3 per watt, producing electricity at a cost of 8-10 cents per kilowatt/hour, making solar electricity a more cost-competitive and integral part of our nation’s energy mix
The molecules that make octopus skin so successful as a dynamic camouflage could provide materials scientists with a new way to make super-reflective materials. What’s even more odd is just how reflective these proteins are — they reflect all wavelengths of light that hit at any angle
The CSIRO demonstrated the world’s fastest
wireless radio link by transmitting sixteen full quality DVD streams over a 250m link and only using a quarter of the available bandwidth. The CSIRO ICT Centre announced that it has achieved over six gigabits per second over a point to point wireless connection with the highest efficiency (2.4bits/s/Hz) ever achieved for such a system
In an age of multimillion-dollar high-tech weapons systems, sometimes it’s the simplest ideas that can save lives. Which is why a New Jersey mother is organizing a drive to send cans of Silly String to Iraq. American troops use the stuff to detect trip wires around bombs, as Marcelle Shriver learned from her son, a soldier in Iraq
Liquid water has flowed on the surface of Mars within the past five years, suggest images by the now lost Mars Global Surveyor (MGS). The results appear to boost the chances that Mars could harbour life
French and American researchers have discovered that the stones on the higher levels of the great pyramids of Egypt were built with concrete. Until recently it was hard for geologists to distinguish between natural limestone and the kind that would have been made by reconstituting liquefied lime. They found traces of a rapid chemical reaction which did not allow natural crystallisation. The reaction would be inexplicable if the stones were quarried, but perfectly comprehensible if one accepts that they were cast like concrete
A new telescope has been unveiled in Mexico by President Vicente Fox. The Large Millimeter Telescope will be used to pick up electromagnetic radiation known as millimetre waves emitted 13 billion years ago, when the first stars burst into existence, astrophysicists say. The $128M telescope is a joint project between Mexico and the US. With an antenna diameter of 164 feet, the LMT dwarfs existing millimetre-wave telescopes and should be able to pick up signals from the faintest objects in outer space
Researchers at the University of Rochester have found a way to change the properties of almost any metal by using a femtosecond laser pulse. This ultra-intense laser blast creates true black metal
from copper, gold or zinc by forming nanostructures at the surface of the metal. As these nanostructures capture radiation, the metals turn black. And as the process needs surprisingly low power, it could soon be used for a variety of applications, such as stealth planes, black jewels or car paintings
It’s been more than 100 years since the discovery of the 2,000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism, but researchers are only now figuring out how it works. Since its discovery in 1902, the Antikythera Mechanism — with its intricate and baffling system of about 30 geared wheels — has been an enigma… During the last 50 years, researchers have identified various astronomical and calendar functions, including gears that mimic the movement of the sun and moon. But it has taken some of the most advanced technology of the 21st century to decipher during the past year the most advanced technology of the 1st century BC
Rubber tyres, the kind that lie at the bottom of rivers and at the back of junkyards the world over, could be ideal water filters says an environmental engineer at Penn State university in the US. Yuefeng Xie says his crumb rubber
suffers none of the problems of traditional water filtration systems and as a result can filter wastewater up to four times faster
Scientists have taught dolphins to combine both rhythm and vocalisations to produce music, resulting in an extremely high-pitched, short version of the Batman theme song. The findings, outlined in two studies, are the first time that non-human mammals have demonstrated they can recognise rhythms and reproduce them vocally
Thiago Olson, a 17 year old Michigan teen, was able to create a small fusion device in his parents’ basement. The machine uses a 40,000 volt charge and deuterium gas to create the small reaction, which he says looks like a small intense ball of energy
. The teen’s fusion device is obviously not a self-sustaining reactor, but it still shows how fusion technology is becoming more accessible. Hopefully this points to a future where large scale fusion reactors are both economical and widely used
Unlike salamanders and lizards, most animals have lost the ability to replace missing limbs. But a research team in San Diego has been able to regenerate a wing in a chicken embryo — a species not known to be able to regrow limbs — suggesting the potential for such regeneration exists innately in all vertebrates, including humans
Nobel Prize winning scientist Paul Crutzen has suggested deliberately spreading a layer of particulate matter in the upper atmosphere to help reflect some of the sun’s energy in an effort to combat global warming. He reminds us that the eruption of the volcano Pinatubo in 1991 cooled the planet by as much as 0.9 degrees; he believes his computer simulations show a similar effect from deliberate injection of sulfur into the atmosphere by humans. Whatever the feasibility of the idea, as the president of the National Environmental Trust has said, We are already engaged in an uncontrolled experiment by injecting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
Researchers at Dresden University believe that sabres from Damascus dating back to 900 AD were formed with help from carbon nanotubes. Sabres from Damascus are made from a type of steel called wootz. But the secret of the swords’ manufacture was lost in the eighteenth century. At high temperatures, impurities in the metal could have catalysed the growth of nanotubes from carbon in the burning wood and leaves used to make the wootz,
Paufler suggests. These tubes could then have filled with cementite to produce the wires in the patterned blades,
he says
Mirrors in orbit around Mars could create Earth-like conditions on a small patch of the planet’s surface, according to a NASA-funded study. The extra sunlight would provide warmth and solar power for human explorers, but some experts say the mirrors may be hard to deploy — via Warren Ellis
Deep in the most remote jungles of South America, Amazon Indians are using Google Earth, GPS and other technologies to protect their fast-dwindling home. Tribes in Suriname, Brazil and Colombia are combining their traditional knowledge of the rainforest with Western technology to conserve forests and maintain ties to their history and cultural traditions. Indians use Google Earth to remotely monitor their lands by checking for signs of miners and GPS to map their lands. Google Earth is used primarily for vigilance,
says Vasco van Roosmalen, program director of a nonprofit involved in the project
RSS – Posts