Photoset reblogged from Farrah Flawless aka Pauly Unstoppable with 746 notes
Graphene Aerogel
— Lightest Solid Material Ever DevelopedBecause aerogels are porous they are ultra-light materials and this one is 100 times lighter than Polystyrene foam cups and can help clean up pollutants like toluene and crude oil (other oils as well) and other compounds like ethanol. Researchers are planning to look at the materials ability for insulating and sound proofing in the future.
Previous records for lightest materials were 0.9 milligrams per cubic centimeter in 2011, 0.18 mg/cm3 in 2012, and now this material at 0.16 mg/cm3.
Prof. Gao Chao // Polymer Science Engineering at Zhejiang University
Published Feb 18, 2013 // Advanced Materials
Source: the-science-llama
Photo with 2 notes
Amazing work by howie! I’m extremely interested in seeing how this heals. I have a feeling it’s going to turn out better than most.
Photo reblogged from Freerunner's Life with 278 notes
He’s back.
Anis Cheurfa. Gainer switch s/t shuriken corkscrew
Source: thunder-blade
Photo reblogged from My Own Hell with 372 notes
One week old Nipple Removal by @samppavoncyborg. Swelling is almost gone, along with the light bruising. I’m stoked.
I’m super stoke for you brotha! Congrats!
beautiful!
They look so beautiful, congratulations sweetheart.
nice!
still so grateful to be able to go and watch this go down. and beyond pumped i finally met adam richins. <3
Source: adamrichins
Photo reblogged from Elf King of the Clan Vos with 616 notes
Nanotechnology engineers have 3D printed an ear from calf cells and silver nanoparticles that picks up radio signals at frequencies beyond human capacity. The creation is part of their greater plan to one day build spare parts for humans cyborgs to don.
Rather than simply adding electronics to an ear, the team from Princeton decided to try and integrate the two from the start. They 3D printed hydrogel — a polymer-based gel often used as scaffolding in tissue engineering — with calf cells, and weaved in silver nanoparticles to create an in-built antenna coil that replaces the cochlea. The calf cells matured to become cartilage and the electronics were then encased in a highly supportive ear that mirrors the complex build of the real thing.
Source: moshita
Photo reblogged from Scinerds with 153 notes
Disruptions: Brain Computer Interfaces Inch Closer to Mainstream
Last week, engineers sniffing around the programming code for Google Glass found hidden examples of ways that people might interact with the wearable computers without having to say a word. Among them, a user could nod to turn the glasses on or off. A single wink might tell the glasses to take a picture.
But don’t expect these gestures to be necessary for long. Soon, we might interact with our smartphones and computers simply by using our minds. In a couple of years, we could be turning on the lights at home just by thinking about it, or sending an e-mail from our smartphone without even pulling the device from our pocket. Farther into the future, your robot assistant will appear by your side with a glass of lemonade simply because it knows you are thirsty.
Researchers in Samsung’s Emerging Technology Lab are testing tablets that can be controlled by your brain, using a cap that resembles a ski hat studded with monitoring electrodes, the MIT Technology Review, the science and technology journal of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reported this month.
The technology, often called a brain computer interface, was conceived to enable people with paralysis and other disabilities to interact with computers or control robotic arms, all by simply thinking about such actions. Before long, these technologies could well be in consumer electronics, too.
Some crude brain-reading products already exist, letting people play easy games or move a mouse around a screen.
NeuroSky, a company based in San Jose, Calif., recently released a Bluetooth-enabled headset that can monitor slight changes in brain waves and allow people to play concentration-based games on computers and smartphones. These include a zombie-chasing game, archery and a game where you dodge bullets — all these apps use your mind as the joystick. Another company, Emotiv, sells a headset that looks like a large alien hand and can read brain waves associated with thoughts, feelings and expressions. The device can be used to play Tetris-like games or search through Flickr photos by thinking about an emotion the person is feeling — like happy, or excited — rather than searching by keywords. Muse, a lightweight, wireless headband, can engage with an app that “exercises the brain” by forcing people to concentrate on aspects of a screen, almost like taking your mind to the gym.
Car manufacturers are exploring technologies packed into the back of the seat that detect when people fall asleep while driving and rattle the steering wheel to awaken them.
But the products commercially available today will soon look archaic. “The current brain technologies are like trying to listen to a conversation in a football stadium from a blimp,” said John Donoghue, a neuroscientist and director of the Brown Institute for Brain Science. “To really be able to understand what is going on with the brain today you need to surgically implant an array of sensors into the brain.” In other words, to gain access to the brain, for now you still need a chip in your head.
Last year, a project called BrainGate pioneered by Dr. Donoghue, enabled two people with full paralysis to use a robotic arm with a computer responding to their brain activity. One woman, who had not used her arms in 15 years, could grasp a bottle of coffee, serve herself a drink and then return the bottle to a table. All done by imagining the robotic arm’s movements.
But that chip inside the head could soon vanish as scientists say we are poised to gain a much greater understanding of the brain, and, in turn, technologies that empower brain computer interfaces. An initiative by the Obama administration this year called the Brain Activity Map project, a decade-long research project, aims to build a comprehensive map of the brain.
Miyoung Chun, a molecular biologist and vice president for science programs at the Kavli Foundation, is working on the project and although she said it would take a decade to completely map the brain, companies would be able to build new kinds of brain computer interface products within two years.
“The Brain Activity Map will give hardware companies a lot of new tools that will change how we use smartphones and tablets,” Dr. Chun said. “It will revolutionize everything from robotic implants and neural prosthetics, to remote controls, which could be history in the foreseeable future when you can change your television channel by thinking about it.”
There are some fears to be addressed. On the Muse Web site, an F.A.Q. is devoted to convincing customers that the device cannot siphon thoughts from people’s minds.
These brain-reading technologies have been the stuff of science fiction for decades.
In the 1982 movie “Firefox,” Clint Eastwood plays a fighter pilot on a mission to the Soviet Union to steal a prototype fighter jet that can be controlled by a brain neurolink. But Mr. Eastwood has to think in Russian for the plane to work, and he almost dies when he cannot get the missiles to fire during a dogfight. (Don’t worry, he survives.)
Although we won’t be flying planes with our minds anytime soon, surfing the Web on our smartphones might be closer.
Dr. Donoghue of Brown said one of the current techniques used to read people’s brains is called P300, in which a computer can determine which letter of the alphabet someone is thinking about based on the area of the brain that is activated when she sees a screen full of letters. But even when advances in brain-reading technologies speed up, there will be new challenges, as scientists will have to determine if the person wants to search the Web for something in particular, or if he is just thinking about a random topic.
“Just because I’m thinking about a steak medium-rare at a restaurant doesn’t mean I actually want that for dinner,” Dr. Donoghue said. “Just like Google glasses, which will have to know if you’re blinking because there is something in your eye or if you actually want to take a picture,” brain computer interfaces will need to know if you’re just thinking about that steak or really want to order it.
Source: The New York Times
Link reblogged from SixStrongHands with 151 notes
World's first GM babies born | Mail Online →
The world’s first genetically modified humans have been created, it was revealed last night.
The disclosure that 30 healthy babies were born after a series of experiments in the United States provoked another furious debate about ethics.
So far, two of the babies have been tested and have been found to contain genes from three ‘parents’.
Fifteen of the children were born in the past three years as a result of one experimental programme at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science of St Barnabas in New Jersey.
The babies were born to women who had problems conceiving. Extra genes from a female donor were inserted into their eggs before they were fertilised in an attempt to enable them to conceive.
Genetic fingerprint tests on two one-year- old children confirm that they have inherited DNA from three adults —two women and one man.
The fact that the children have inherited the extra genes and incorporated them into their ‘germline’ means that they will, in turn, be able to pass them on to their own offspring.
Altering the human germline - in effect tinkering with the very make-up of our species - is a technique shunned by the vast majority of the world’s scientists.
Geneticists fear that one day this method could be used to create new races of humans with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high intelligence.
Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, the researchers, led by fertility pioneer Professor Jacques Cohen, say that this ‘is the first case of human germline genetic modification resulting in normal healthy children’.
Some experts severely criticised the experiments. Lord Winston, of the Hammersmith Hospital in West London, told the BBC yesterday: ‘Regarding the treat-ment of the infertile, there is no evidence that this technique is worth doing … I am very surprised that it was even carried out at this stage. It would certainly not be allowed in Britain.’
John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: ‘One has tremendous sympathy for couples who suffer infertility problems. But this seems to be a further illustration of the fact that the whole process of in vitro fertilisation as a means of conceiving babies leads to babies being regarded as objects on a production line.
‘It is a further and very worrying step down the wrong road for humanity.’ Professor Cohen and his colleagues diagnosed that the women were infertile because they had defects in tiny structures in their egg cells, called mitochondria.
They took eggs from donors and, using a fine needle, sucked some of the internal material - containing ‘healthy’ mitochondria - and injected it into eggs from the women wanting to conceive.
Because mitochondria contain genes, the babies resulting from the treatment have inherited DNA from both women. These genes can now be passed down the germline along the maternal line.
A spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which regulates ‘assisted reproduction’ technology in Britain, said that it would not license the technique here because it involved altering the germline.
Jacques Cohen is regarded as a brilliant but controversial scientist who has pushed the boundaries of assisted reproduction technologies.
He developed a technique which allows infertile men to have their own children, by injecting sperm DNA straight into the egg in the lab.
Prior to this, only infertile women were able to conceive using IVF. Last year, Professor Cohen said that his expertise would allow him to clone children —a prospect treated with horror by the mainstream scientific community.
‘It would be an afternoon’s work for one of my students,’ he said, adding that he had been approached by ‘at least three’ individuals wishing to create a cloned child, but had turned down their requests.
Source: questionall
Link reblogged from Children of the Stars with 46,056 notes
Children of the Stars: Helpful Websites To Learn Languages →
French
- http://www.laits.utexas.edu/fi/home - I absolutely love this website. It has everything!
- http://french.speak7.com/
- http://www.elanguageschool.net/
- http://www.learnalanguage.com/
- French word of the day: …
Source: les-langues-sont-ma-vie
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