Thoughtware.TV

Silk: it's stronger than Kevlar, thinner than a human hair, it's biocompatible (it doesn't trigger human immune system response), and it's produced by insects (although some new-fangled metabolically engineered bacteria seem to be up to the task). Researchers at Tufts University have created a silk and gold biosensor that can be implanted in the body to keep tabs on proteins and chemicals. One poss... More

Next-generation lasers will have the power to create matter by capturing ghostly particles that, according to quantum mechanics, permeate seemingly empty space.

Last week, the FDA gave biotech firm Geron the green light to proceed with clinical trials of an embryonic stem cell treatment for spinal cord injuries. But while we wait on promising embryonic stem cell research to clear political and regulatory hurdles, adult stem cell research is trucking right along. Yesterday it was announced that Iraq War veteran and Marine Matt Cole, paralyzed from the chest... More

MIT's OpenCourseWare, possibly the best place to go if you want to study physics in your pajamas, has been awarded the Science Prize for Online Resources in Education (SPORE) by Science magazine. OpenCourseWare receives close to 1.5 million pageviews a month, with traffic from educators, students, and especially independent learners.

The world’s first human testing of a mind-controlled artificial limb is ready to begin. A joint project between the Pentagon and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the Modular Prosthetic Limb will be fully controlled by sensors implanted in the brain, and will even restore the sense of touch by sending electrical impulses from the limb back to the sensory cortex. Last week APL annou... More

As we strive closer and closer to quantum computing, physics may need to be improved. A paper released in Nature Physics suggests that the limit defined by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle can be beaten with quantum memory. From the article, 'The cadre of scientists behind the current paper realized that, by using the process of entanglement, it would be possible to essentially use two particles ... More

Good news for all you aspiring Craig Venters out there. Before the end of the year, synthetic biologists will have a stocked factory of DNA building blocks with which to remix microbe life forms – one that will provide standardized, reliable components for the most creative of life sciences. Best of all? It’s free. As we previously reported, the International Open Facility Advancing Biotechn... More

July 27, 2010 Intel today announced an important advance in the quest to use light beams to replace the use of electrons to carry data in and around computers. Intel Corporation today announced an important advance in the quest to use light beams to replace the use of electrons to carry data in and around computers. The company has developed a research prototype representing the world's first sil... More

Why fight cancer with chemotherapy or radiation when you can teach the immune system to do it for you? Sound far-fetched? In fact, cancer vaccines have already arrived. We’ve recently reported on Provenge, a new vaccine that rewires your body’s own defenses to wipe out prostate cancer. Now, Accentia Biopharmaceuticals and Biovest International have developed a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) vac... More

A small change to the theory of gravity implies that our universe inherited its arrow of time from the black hole in which it was born.

Date Published: July 19, 2010 A revolution in medicine is occurring as stem cell research jumps out of the embryonic stage. Startling advances in recent months are reported from multiple nations: China: Stem cells help autistic, epileptic girl (February) United Kingdom: Stem cells enable boy to receive a windpipe transplant (March) USA: Man cured of HIV after stem cell therapy (April) Israel:... More

Trivializing technology is easy enough. For one thing, we are so immersed in it, that the simple lives of the past and in distant places seem appealing, perhaps just for how starkly different they are. Humans definitely live longer than they have ever done and that’s an disputable success of technology. But even that can’t be conclusively called an “improvement”. After all, the answer to t... More

Perhaps ranking behind only bullets and water, blood is one of those things you really don't want to run out of on the battlefield. But better battlefield medicine -- as well as some of the more malicious combat techniques employed by insurgent guerrilla fighters -- mean more soldiers are surviving their injuries, and that puts military blood banks in a bind. But a DARPA program launched in 2008 is... More

Word of an exciting new discovery in the world of HIV research came Thursday with the announcement of an antibody that is almost always deadly to the virus that causes AIDS. The discovery holds out the promise that an effective vaccine will eventually be made to provide protection against the virus. That goal has been elusive ever since it became clear in the 1980s that the HIV virus causes AIDS... More

"This is the first we know in the history of medicine that clinicians are actively trying to prevent homosexuality," says Alice Dreger, professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dreger and collaborator Ellen Feder, associate professor and acting chair of philosophy and religion at American University, have brought to national att... More

The recent CanSecWest Pwn2Own contest saw successful hacking attacks against Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox and Apple's Safari and iPhone products. Now that the dust has settled and the vendors are starting to patch the vulnerabilities, Threatpost editor Ryan Naraine takes a look at the real-world implications of the contest and the lessons learned.

Researchers from the University of Wyoming have developed a way to incorporate spiders' silk-spinning genes into goats, allowing the researchers to harvest the silk protein from the goats’ milk for a variety of applications. For instance, due to its strength and elasticity, spider silk fiber could have several medical uses, such as for making artificial ligaments and tendons, for eye sutures, and... More

The Shimizu Corporation, a Japanese construction firm, has recently proposed a plan to harness solar energy on a larger scale than almost any previously proposed concept. Their ambitious plan involves building a belt of solar cells around the Moon’s 6,800-mile (11,000-kilometer) equator, converting the electricity to powerful microwaves and lasers to be beamed at Earth, and finally converting the... More

Researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine (MGH-CRM) and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have a developed a new type of human pluripotent stem cell that can be manipulated more readily than currently available stem cells. As described in the June 4 Cell Stem Cell, these new cells could be used to create better cellular models of disease processes and eventu... More

Computer companies are betting that the future is not only bright but in three dimensions, as a string of manufacturers are set to bring 3D laptops and desktops on to the market.

The first biological design-build facility in the world announced that it will soon be able to synthesize chemicals, fuels and new drugs by manipulating the elements necessary to make microbes. Initiated by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the facility’s product—standardized biological parts made from genetic material—will be made available to both academic and commercial u... More

During his homily this Easter, Pope Benedict argued that medical science, in trying to defeat death, is leading humanity toward likely condemnation. It's a position at odds with the value of life, one that the Church will likely revise years from now, replaying the institution's embarrassment over censoring Galileo. "Let us reflect for a moment," Pope Benedict urged, "what would it really be lik... More

Researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington have found the first solid evidence of horizontal DNA transfer, the movement of genetic material among non-mating species, between parasitic invertebrates and some of their vertebrate hosts.

The US Food and Drug Administration has given its first first approval for a therapeutic cancer vaccine. In a clinical trial 'involving 512 men, those who got Provenge (sipuleucel-T) had a median survival of 25.8 months after treatment, while those who got a placebo lived a median of 21.7 months. After three years, 32 percent of those who got Provenge were alive, compared with 23 percent of those w... More

Doctors at a British hospital have just carried out the world’s first surgery using a remote controlled robot! The procedure fixed a patient’s irregular heart rhythm, and although the doctor was in the same hospital as the patient — just through the wall in another room — developers of the RC surgery technology believe this is the first step towards long-distance operations.