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 ArticleVideo: F-35 Performs Its First Fully Vertical Landing
After cost overruns, a series of delays, and almost a decade of hype, the F-35 Lighting finally performed a vertical landing for the first time. Yesterday at 1 P.M., after descending from a...
View ArticleTED Talk: Mark Roth Says Suspended Animation Could Soon Be a Reality
It used to be that suspended animation was only for people heading to Planet LV-426, and former Red Sox players. But Mark Roth, a researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle,...
View ArticleBreakthrough Low-Power Desalination and Purification Technology Brings Clean...
High costs, in money and energy, limit the usefulness of desalination as a way to provide drinkable water in disaster areas. However, a new method could lead to portable desalination devices simple...
View ArticleClever Math Puts a Firm Number on the Amount of Dark Matter in Existence
Dark matter, the material that makes up the majority of the matter in the universe, remains so mysterious that scientists don’t even know how much of it there is, let alone how it behaves. However,...
View ArticleDARPA Chief Testifies That US May Soon Face Critical Nerd Shortage
In last week’s testimony before Congress, Dr. Regina Dugan, director of DARPA, warned the House Armed Services Committee that the US was facing a lack of a critical resource — a lack so severe that it...
View ArticlePARC Develops iPod-Sized HIV-Detection Device to Bring Affordable Testing To...
The monetary and energy expense of HIV testing machines prevent their deployment to remote or impoverished areas; the very places that need them the most. To rectify that inequity, Palo Alto Research...
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Happy 50th Birthday to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence!
Fifty years ago today, on April 8th, 1960, a Cornell astronomy professor named Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope at the star Tau Ceti in the hope of hearing broadcasts from extraterrestrial...
View ArticleChinese Government to Build 215-MPH Bullet Trains in California
The US has looked to China for help building railroads ever since Chinese laborers laid down the tracks for the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s. Now, California hopes a partnership with the...
View ArticleInkjet Cell Fabricator Prints Healing Flesh Directly Onto Wounds
As if fabricating a new heart from scratch wasn’t impressive enough, the doctors at the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine have come up with another astounding breakthrough. This time,...
View ArticleTogolese Student Builds Humanoid Robot From Old TV Parts
Most robots covered on this site push the envelope of technology, by working in space or eerily replicating flesh-and-blood humans. But for Sam Todo, a student in the Togolese Republic in Africa,...
View ArticleFrench City Plans To Harness Pedestrian Power for Street Lights
In the French city of Toulouse, the newest craze in sustainable energy is about to hit the streets. Literally. Inspired by a nightclub in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the city of Toulouse has begun...
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 ArticleWhat the Defense Department Wants For Christmas
When you control a budget that exceeds a trillion dollars, you don’t have to wait until after Thanksgiving to start writing your holiday present wish list. The Department of Defense (DoD) has just...
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To TiVo or Not to TiVo
This year’s fall TV lineup couldn’t be geekier. With two new network shows breaking out the beakers and several returning shows ratcheting up the scientific tension, it seems lab coats have taken over...
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 ArticleInsulin Can Now Be Made Cheaply from Flowers
In 1922, Canadian scientists isolated insulin for the first time. Now, over 80 years later, our neighbors to the north are helping diabetics again by devising the cheapest way yet to produce insulin....
View ArticleSuperinsulating Aerogels Arrive on Home Insulation Market At Last
Over 70 years ago, scientists invented aerogel, the least dense solid known to man, and an insulator four times more efficient than fiberglass or foam. Famously, according to Dr. Peter Tsou of NASA’s...
View ArticleMiniature Sensor Perpetually Charges Self Using Environmental Energy
Scientistsu, engineers, and doctors yearn for tiny sensors to record a vast array of events in the world’s many hard-to-reach places. And so far, the tradeoff between battery life and size has...
View ArticleNanofiber Lamps Are More Efficient Than Incandescent Bulbs, Eco-Friendlier...
For those who want to start saving the planet at home, lighting presents a vexing paradox. While incandescent bulbs are wildly inefficient, compact fluorescent bulbs contain hazardous chemicals. With...
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