The morning after
lotion is called Dimericine, which is basically an enzyme cream that repairs the skin’s damaged DNA. The body does this process naturally, but this cream would significantly speed it up — via digg
The next generation of naturalistic and touch-sensitive artificial limbs are being worn by US soldiers. Instead of the old velcro strap and cup these new models are fused directly to the bone and are controlled by controlled by the wearer’s brain. Future prosthetic arms will fuse to existing bone, eliminating the need for awkward attachment systems. These more naturalistic limbs will use bionic nerves attached to natural nerves to send and receive signals from the brain. Chips embedded in the user’s brain will help command artificial-muscle-activated, touch-sensitive, fully articulating hands
Desert ants have an internal system — like a pedometer — that keeps track of how many steps they take, according to a new study. The insects seem to rely on this system to find their way back to the nest after foraging. Other insects may also possess this pedometer-like system
Imagine being able to record any smell you encounter — fragrant or foul — so you can play it back later for others to experience. Engineers in Japan are building an odour recorder capable of doing just that. The device uses electronic noses to analyse an odour, then reproduces it by combining an array of non-toxic chemicals. The system has already recorded and reproduced the smell of orange, banana and melon — and can even distinguish red and green apples
Canadian Scientists have created the first device able to regrow teeth and bones. The researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton filed patents earlier this month in the United States for the tool based on low-intensity pulsed ultrasound technology after testing it on a dozen dental patients in Canada
Ever wonder what it would be like to see Yoda fly by your head or hear Chewbacca buzz instead of roar? Now you can find out thanks to entomologists Arnold Menke and David Vincent. These bug experts named new wasp species discovered in 1983 after their favorite Star Wars characters: Polemistus chewbacca, Polemistus vaderi, and Polemistus yoda — via Boing Boing
Life expectancy is increasing in the developed world. But Cambridge University geneticist Aubrey de Grey believes it will soon extend dramatically to 1,000
Mediaware, a tiny Canberra tech firm, has won a multimillion-dollar deal to supply digital video systems to next-generation US spy planes, staking its claim as one of Australia’s best performing software exporters
University of Helsinki chemist Anatoli Bogdan reports that cells, tissues, and perhaps the body, could be cryopreserved without suffering damage from ice crystals — via Boing Boing
Researchers led by the Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology in Italy are developing robots that evolve their own language, bypassing the limits of imposing human rule-based communication. The technology, dubbed Embedded and Communicating Agents, has allowed researchers at Sony’s Computer Science Laboratory in France to add a new level of intelligence to the AIBO dog. The robot dog has learnt to see a ball and tell another one where the ball is, if it’s moving and what colour it is, and the other is capable of recognising it
Giant superheated bubbles of gas are drifting towards Earth and popping as they encounter our planet’s magnetic field, new findings reveal. Researchers suspect the bubbles may actually feed the bow shock
that is created where the solar wind rams into our planet’s magnetic field
Scientists have used embryonic stem cells and a soup of nerve-friendly chemicals to not just bridge a damaged spinal cord but actually regrow the circuitry needed to move a muscle, helping partially paralysed rats walk
Monash University researchers are $100,000 richer after their technology, which enables speedier internet downloads, was named as an outstanding commercialisation opportunity
A Florida-based company called Oragenics may have found a way to rid our mouths of a bacteria that thrives on sugars in the mouth, which it consumes while excreting lactic acid. On the surface it seems like an elegant solution, but clearly there is the potential to upset delicate systems in nature, resulting in possible larger-scale side effects — via digg
A major drug company, Genentech, is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive variant of the same product on the market
A form of solid carbon dioxide, named amorphous carbonia, that could be used to make ultra-hard glass or coatings for microelectronic devices has been discovered by scientists from the University of Florence in Italy. It was made by squeezing dry ice, a form of carbon dioxide used to create smoke in stage shows, at huge pressure
Two butterfly species have been bred in the lab to make a third distinct species. In a species, individuals need to be capable of interbreeding to produce fertile offspring. The study demonstrates that two animal species can evolve to form one, instead of the more common scenario where one species diverges to form two. There is growing circumstantial evidence for hybrid speciation in Ragoletis fruit flies, swordtail fish and African cichlid fish. Some also suspect the American red wolf could be the product of hybridisation between coyotes and wolves
The Aymara, an indigenous group in the Andes highlands, have a concept of time that’s opposite our own spatial metaphor. A new study by cognitive scientists explains how the Aymara consider the past to be ahead and the future behind them — via Boing Boing
It’s hundreds of times thinner than a human hair but as sensitive as a human finger. Researchers have devised a nanosheet
that can be wrapped around any surface — such as that of a surgical instrument or a robotic hand — to mimic the sensitivity of touch
What happens when you combine 200 litres of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? It’s amazing and completely insane. The first part of this video demonstrates a simple geyser, and the second part shows just how extreme it can get. Over one hundred jets of soda fly into the air in less than three minutes. It’s an hysterical and spectacular mint-powered version of the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas
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