Pfizer Employee Claims Company Fired Her After Infection From An Engineered...
A former Pfizer scientist is suing the pharmaceuticals giant after alleging she contracted an artificial, HIV-like, virus created by a colleague. In her lawsuit, Becky McClain claims Pfizer unlawfully...
View ArticleBad News for Terraformers: Periodic Bursts Of Solar Radiation Destroy The...
Unfortunately for anyone looking to terraform Mars, a new study shows that powerful waves of solar wind periodically strip the Red Planet of its atmosphere. Scientists had known for years that Mars...
View ArticleMIT Student Invention Deployed in Haiti to Save Lives
While many MIT students busily build break-dancing robots or websites that let your pets network better at doggie daycare, PhD candidate Danielle Zurovcik has designed a $3 pump to drastically speed...
View ArticleIn First Successful Human Trial, Nanotech Robots Deploy Cancer-Fighting RNA
RNAi, also known as “gene silencing,” is a cellular mechanism that blocks the production of proteins, and has tantalized doctors as a potential medicine for a number of years now. However, by placing...
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Insanely Hi-Res Z-Contrast Photos Can Determine Which Atoms Are Which
And you thought the macros on your camera was good because you got a sweet close up of a flower? Well, the scientists over at Oak Ridge National Laboratory zoom in so tight they can distinguish atoms...
View ArticleUS District Court Says No To Patenting Human Genes
In a move that could significantly alter the future of genetic medicine and the industry around it, a US District Court judge invalidated seven patents for human genes linked to breast and ovarian...
View ArticleElectrical Nerve Hacking Restores Movement To Paralyzed Limbs
When Matthew Schiefer, a neural engineer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, first managed to stimulate the leg of an unconscious volunteer by wrapping an electrode around a nerve...
View ArticleNASA Radar Developed for Mars Could Find Water Hiding Deep Beneath Earth Deserts
With 884 million people lacking a reliable source of clean drinking water, droughts throughout Africa and the Middle East exacerbating already tense situations, and global warming only making those...
View ArticleNational Institute of Standards and Technology Tests Spray-On Transistors,...
In a discovery sure to help the development of solar panel and display technology, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have engineered transistors that they can...
View ArticleFinland Launching National Pilot Program To Open and Scan All Snail Mail
In an effort to increase efficiency, cut carbon emissions, and reduce costs, Finland has begun a pilot program wherein snail-mail letters are converted into PDFs and made viewable online by their...
View ArticleNYPD And NYFD Super Boats To Replace Half-Century-Old Clunkers Patrolling New...
After years of patrolling New York City’s water ways in antiquated, decades-old boats, the New York Fire and Police Departments are upgrading to some of the most technologically advanced vessels this...
View ArticlePyroelectric Crystals Could Enable the First Truly Portable X-Ray Machine
Like many pieces of modern medical equipment, X-ray machines are as bulky and energy dependent as they are vital. Even “portable” X-ray machines remain too heavy to carry across rough terrain, and too...
View ArticleTiny Titanium Origami Highlights New Method Of Micro-Construction
While three-dimensional printing has come a long way, engineers still struggle with fabricating objects smaller than a quarter. In those small structures, the upper layers crush and distort the weak...
View ArticleEvidence of First Virus That Infects Both Plants and Humans
From rabies to bird flu to HIV, diseases passing from animals to humans is a well-known phenomenon. But a virus jumping from plants to humans? Never. At least, that’s what doctors thought until Didier...
View Article2012 Military Wishlist Features Smart Wound-Diagnosing Uniforms and...
Even though giant companies like Lockheed and General Dynamics produce the majority of U.S. military hardware, the Department of Defense still turns to small businesses for some of its more...
View ArticleScientists Observe Live Human Cells Communicating For the First Time
The basis of a human body’s cells’ ability to communicate with one another is the vesicle. That little ball packed with biological material is the medium through which all of our billions of cells...
View ArticleObama Puts the EPA to Work
Having spent his first week in office focusing on the global economic crisis and America’s many wars, Obama began his second week by tackling another looming problem: climate change. On Monday,...
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Say Hello to Robonaut2, NASA’s Android Space Explorer of the Future
With the news that the White House has canceled the Constellation Program, NASA seems to be moving out of the human space flight business. However, the unveiling of a next-generation robot astronaut...
View ArticleBrain Scan Shows Vegetative Patient Responding To Yes-or-No Questions
In a study that challenges the diagnosis of vegetative state, doctors found that the brain of a seemingly unconscious, vegetative man responded to yes-or-no questions in the same fashion as an alert,...
View ArticleVideo: What Would You See As You Plummet Into a Black Hole?
By definition, one can’t see a black hole itself, only its effect on the light of intervening stars. And without some serious equipment, even that’s a tall order. Luckily for all us amateur...
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