Electrical 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 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 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...
View ArticleIn Sharp Turn, Obama’s New Nuclear Strategy Ends U.S. Warhead Development
After months of deliberation and 150 meetings, the Obama Administration finally released its new guidelines for nuclear weapons policy. In a sharp break from previous administrations, Obama’s Nuclear...
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 ArticleFirst Ever Multicellular Animals Found In Oxygen-Free Environment
In the 236 years since oxygen was identified as a life-giving necessity, no scientist anywhere has discovered a multicellular animal capable of living without the stuff. Until now. Researchers from...
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,...
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New LOFAR Telescope Network Probes Universe’s Low-Frequency Radiation to Look...
Until recently, radio astronomers have concentrated almost exclusively on the high-energy radiation streaming in towards Earth from exotic stellar bodies like pulsars, quasars, and super-massive black...
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 ArticleVideo: A Company’s Algorithms Reveal Hidden Connections Among All That Data
Within the vast, undifferentiated torrent of data that courses through the Internet, there hides an intricate topology of information. Decision makers with millions of dollars on the line need a much...
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 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,...
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 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 ArticleIon Engines Will Make Little CubeSats Steerable
The DIY miniature satellites known as CubeSats have a lot going for them. They’re cheap, they’re easy to program, and they’re small. That last benefit also adds a downside, in that the CubeSats are...
View ArticleThis Week, Cybersecurity Efforts Advance on Several Fronts
For cybersecurity wonks who see Chinese agents or al Qaeda hackers lurking behind every email from a Nigerian prince, this was one hell of a busy week. With fallout continuing from the recent attack...
View ArticleMarine Corps’ Unmanned Programmable Copter Passes First Major Test
The difficulty of supplying remote outposts across rugged terrain has contributed to many of the deadliest moments in the Afghan War, by preventing the delivery of weapons and ammo to engaged...
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