Tactical assault carriages for babies: "
I recall late great UT-Austin Philosophy professor Robert Solomon once saying in lecture, 'We're lucky babies are so helpless, because if they had any power at all they would destroy the world.' Well, Chinese artist Shi Jinsong is apparently trying to immanentize that particular eschaton by arming the world's infants with engines of destruction worthy of a Space Marine Terminator. Way to go, dude. [via Dude Craft]
Tactical assault carriages for babies: "
I recall late great UT-Austin Philosophy professor Robert Solomon once saying in lecture, 'We're lucky babies are so helpless, because if they had any power at all they would destroy the world.' Well, Chinese artist Shi Jinsong is apparently trying to immanentize that particular eschaton by arming the world's infants with engines of destruction worthy of a Space Marine Terminator. Way to go, dude. [via Dude Craft]
The cat is out of the bag: cortical simulations with 10^9 neurons, 10^13 synapses: "Results of massively parallel cortical simulations of a cat cortex, with 1.5 billion neurons and 9 trillion synapses, running on Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Dawn Blue Gene/P supercomputer, will be presented by IBM and LLNL researchers today at the SC09 Conference on High Performance Networking and Computing in Portland.
'The simulations, which incorporate phenomenological spiking neurons, individual learning synapses, axonal delays, and dynamic synaptic channels, exceed the scale of the cat cortex, marking the dawn of a new era in the scale of cortical simulations,' according to the ACM proceedings abstract.
BlueMatter, a new algorithm created in collaboration with Stanford University, exploits the Blue Gene supercomputing architecture in order to noninvasively measure and map the connections between all cortical and sub-cortical locations within the human brain using magnetic resonance diffusion weighted imaging. Mapping the wiring diagram of the brain is crucial to untangling its vast communication network and understanding how it represents and processes information. (IBM Research)
Also see: IBM Moves Closer To Creating Computer Based on Insights From The Brain (Source: )"
Machine Converts CO2 into Gasoline, Diesel, and Jet Fuel: "Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have built a machine that uses the sun's energy to convert carbon dioxide waste from power plants into transportation fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
The system could provide an alternative to carbon sequestration; instead of permanently storing CO2 underground, the CO2 could be recycled and put to use. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news178203219.html)"
Pork meat grown in the laboratory: "Pork meat grown in the laboratory
December 1st, 2009 in Biology / Biotechnology
meat
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from Eindhoven University in The Netherlands have for the first time grown pork meat in the laboratory by extracting cells from a live pig and growing them in a petri dish.
The scientists, led by Professor of Physiology Mark Post, extracted myoblast cells from a living pig and grew them in a solution of nutrients derived from the blood of animal fetuses (although they intend to replace the solution with a synthesized alternative in the future).
Professor Post said artificially cultured meat could mean the meat of one animal could be increased to a volume equivalent to the meat of a million animals, which would reduce animal suffering and be good for the environment. As long as the final product looks and tastes like meat, Post said he is convinced people will buy it.
At present the product is a sticky, soggy and unappetizing muscle mass, but the team is seeking ways to exercise and stretch the muscles to turn the product into meat of a more familiar consistency. Post described the current in-vitro meat product as resembling wasted muscle, but he is confident they can improve its texture. Nobody has yet tasted the cultured meat because laboratory rules prevent the scientists tasting the product themselves.
The research is partly funded by the Dutch government, but is also backed by the Dutch sausage-making firm Stegeman, which is owned by food giant Sara Lee. The scientists (and presumably, the sausage makers) believe the meat product may be available for use in sausages within five years.
Other groups are also working on trying to produce cultured meat. NASA has funded research in the US on growing fish chunks from cells and meat from turkey cells, with the idea that the technology could have wide application in future space travel, since growing edible muscle would allow future astronauts to avoid a range of problems associated with using live animals in space. In a June 29 paper in the journal Tissue Engineering another group of scientists proposed new techniques that could lead to industrial production of meat grown in cultures.
The reaction of vegetarian groups has been mixed. A representative of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) said as long as the meat was not the flesh of a dead animal there would be no ethical objection. Last year PETA even offered a prize of $1 million to the first person or group who could come up with a commercially viable cultured meat product. Other vegetarians have been more guarded, with a representative of The Vegetarian Society saying the main foreseeable problems would be labeling issues, as it would be difficult to label products containing cultured meat in a way that vegetarians would trust."
New study measures HIV anti-retroviral regimens' safety and efficacy: "A study in the New England Journal of Medicine released on World AIDS Day reports that viral failure, the point at which medication can no longer suppress the HIV infection, was twice as likely and happened sooner among patients initiating anti-retroviral therapy with high viral loads who were given Epzicom when compared to similar patients treated with Truvada."
Dutch PhD student develops device to combat noise
Johan Wesselink of the University of Twente, The Netherlands, has developed a device to actively combat noise nuisance. This invention curtails sound waves and vibrations by producing anti-noise. The researcher is confident that his device will be used in the transport and industrial sectors within a matter of years.
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