Three Blind Mice No More

Effective Prosthetic Retinal Device For Blindness

The Smallest Transistor

Physicists Create a Working Transistor From a Single Atom - NYTimes.com

Australian and American physicists have built a working transistor from a single phosphorus atom embedded in a silicon crystal.

The Oldest Life

200,000-Year-Old Patch of Seagrass Is the World's Oldest Living Organism | Popular Science

A patch of Posidonia oceanica, a species of seagrass native to the Mediterranean, has just gotten its DNA sequenced and its age determined--and as it turns out, some parts of this particular patch are up to 200,000 years old. That easily destroys the previous world record of the oldest living organism, a Tasmanian plant believed to be around 43,000 years old. Ha! A youngun!

Atomic Storage Nears

Smaller Magnetic Materials Push Boundaries of Nanotechnology - NYTimes.com

Researchers at I.B.M. have stored and retrieved digital 1s and 0s from an array of just 12 atoms, pushing the boundaries of the magnetic storage of information to the edge of what is possible...

Lotsa Planets

Crowded cosmos: In Milky Way, planets more plentiful than stars, even in unexpected places - The Washington Post

...Confirmed planets outside our solar system — called exoplanets — now number well over 700, still-to-be-confirmed ones are in the thousands...

It's Getting Colder In There

BBC News - Ultracold science finds new method to get even colder

Grow A Frog Eye Anywhere

My, Your Eyes Are So Electric - ScienceNOW

A decade ago, Michael Levin made a bizarre discovery. Subjected to an electrical pulse, cells in a developing frog gut or tail would form what looked like normal eyes. At the time, the developmental biologist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, was too busy with other projects to follow up on the discovery. But now he and colleagues have shown that a natural electrical current jump-starts normal eye development in frogs. The discovery comes as a surprise to some biologists, but it may eventually help clarify why certain human eye defects arise and lead to ways to repair damaged or diseased eyes...

 

Terra Nova For Real

Potentially Earth-Like Planet Has Right Temperature for Life

• By ScienceNow
• December 5, 2011  | 
• 3:42 pm  | 
• Categories: Space

By Govert Schilling, ScienceNOW

For the first time, astronomers have found a planet smack in the middle of the habitable zone of its sunlike star, where temperatures are good for life. “If this planet has a surface, it would have a very nice temperature of some 70° Fahrenheit [21°C],” says William Borucki of NASA’s Ames Research Center here, who is the principal investigator of NASA’s Kepler space telescope. “[It's] another milestone on the journey of discovering Earth’s twin,” adds Ames director Simon “Pete” Worden...

Distant Water

Largest water reservoir discovered - Hindustan Times: "Astronomers have discovered what they claim is the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. Looking from a distance of 30 billion trillion miles away into a quasar, a team at California Institute of Technology has found a mass of water vapour that's at least 140 trillion times that of all the water in the world's oceans combined, and 100,000 times more massive than the sun..."

Perfect Insulator Could Eliminate Heating Bills : Discovery News

Perfect Insulator Could Eliminate Heating Bills : Discovery News

THE GIST:

• A new material developed by MIT scientists perfectly reflects heat and absorbs none of it.
• This perfect insulator could eliminate heating bills and solve cell phone network overload issues.
• Currently, the material only works under freezing conditions, but a perfect insulator that functions at room temperature is soon expected.

Blind Will See

MIT's eyeball chip could restore sight within three years | DVICE

Teleporting To Mars

Two whistleblowers independently report teleporting to Mars and meeting Martian extraterrestrials: "Two whistleblowers, both formerly involved in secret research and development projects undertaken by US defense agencies, have independently verified their secret teleportation to US bases on Mars, and to meeting intelligent Martian extraterrestrial life. Their accounts are now available on the Internet, and can be seen below in this article..."

A Real Blast From The Past

TG Daily - NASA satellite observes ancient gamma-ray burst

Houston (TX) - A NASA satellite has observed a gamma-ray burst from an ancient star that died when the universe was only 630 million years old.

The event, known as GRB 090423, was the most distant cosmic explosion ever recorded.

"The Swift [satellite] was designed to catch these very distant bursts," explained Swift lead scientist Neil Gehrels. "The incredible distance to this burst exceeded our greatest expectations - it was a true blast from the past."

Dark Energy News

Measuring the Mysterious ‘Dark’ Force - NYTimes.com

"Measurements of the lack of growth of galaxy clusters over the last five billion years put astronomers one step closer, they say, toward narrowing the possible explanations of dark energy, the mysterious force that is speeding up the universe..."

Saturn's Water

Plumes from Saturn moon may come from liquid water | Science | Reuters: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Huge plumes of water vapor and ice particles are spewing from Saturn's moon Enceladus at supersonic speeds in a way that strongly suggests they come from liquid water down below the icy surface, scientists said.

The research, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, offers new evidence that the moon may harbor an underground ocean of water, meaning conditions might exist that could support life, even if only microbial organisms..."

Good News For Sweeties

Quoted from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090801015.html:

 

Under-the-Skin Blood Sugar Monitor Boosts Diabetes Control

 

By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter
Monday, September 8, 2008; 12:00 AM

MONDAY, Sept. 8 (HealthDay News) -- A device worn under the skin that measures blood sugar 24/7 can benefit people with type 1 diabetes, a new study shows.

 

"Continuous glucose monitoring" consists of a disposable blood sugar sensor placed under the skin, worn for a few days and then replaced. The sensor sends data to a transmitter which, in turn, sends it to a receiver worn like a pager. The receiver displays blood glucose levels on a continuous basis.

 

The device used in the study "monitors blood glucose about every five minutes," said lead researcher Dr. Roy W. Beck, from the Jaeb Center for Health Research in Tampa, Fla. "We evaluated how much benefit, if any, that could have on control of diabetes in both children and adults with type 1 diabetes," he said...

Solar Power Breakthrough

Solar Power Breakthrough Stores Energy for Later Use: "Solar Power Breakthrough Stores Energy for Later Use
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, August 2, 2008 (ENS) - Within 10 years, homeowners could power their homes in daylight with solar photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water to power a household fuel cell. If the new process developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finds acceptance in the marketplace, electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

'This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years,' said MIT's Daniel Nocera, senior author of a paper describing the simple, inexpensive, and efficient process for storing solar energy in the July 31 issue of the journal 'Science.'

'Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon,' Nocera said..."

Pill Pooped

Exercise in a pill? Researchers find two | Science | Reuters: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers who genetically engineered 'marathon mice' that could run for hours have found two pills that can mimic the effects -- and they have already developed a test for the drugs in case athletes try to cheat with them.

The drugs reproduce many of the biological benefits of exercise, helping cells burn fat better and boosting endurance, said Ronald Evans, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California.

One of the pills may some day help people enhance their exercise or training, while the other might be more suited for couch potatoes who need to kick-start themselves, Evans and colleagues reported on Thursday in the journal Cell."

Fat Cells Forever

BBC NEWS | Health | Fat cell numbers 'set for life': "No amount of dieting will alter the number of fat-hoarding cells in our bodies, research has suggested.

Scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden say that the number is set during adolescence and stays the same, regardless of obesity later in life...."

Record Catfish

Angler Releases Probable World Record Catfish
See the Pictures
posted January 23, 2008

A TWRA Fisheries Biologist recently distributed this e-mail to his counterparts across the state.

"Attached are a couple of photos of a monster blue catfish caught near Greenville, Mississippi by an elderly man who let the fish go after his wife took the pictures. The weight of the catfish is unknown, though some catfish anglers guessed it to be at least 150 pounds. It looks like 200 pounds to me. For sure it would have been a new world record."