"EDAN"

wired: motherjones: kqedscience: Teen Develops Computer...

Tue, 21 May 2013 15:37:18 -0400

motherjones:

kqedscience:

Teen Develops Computer Algorithm to Diagnose Leukemia

“Brittany Wenger isn’t your average high-school senior: She taught the computer how to diagnose leukemia.

The 18-year-old student from Sarasota, Fla. built a custom, cloud-based “artificial neural network” to find patterns in genetic expression profiles to diagnose patients with an aggressive form of cancer called mixed-lineage leukemia (MLL). Simply put, this means Wenger taught the computer how to diagnose leukemia by creating a diagnostic tool for doctors to use.”

Rock.

Eff. Yes. This girl is such a bad-ass.

smarterplanet: 3-D Printed Food Vs World Hunger - Business...

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:56:18 -0400

smarterplanet:

3-D Printed Food Vs World Hunger - Business Insider

Anjan Contractor’s 3D food printer might evoke visions of the “replicator” popularized in Star Trek, from which Captain Picard was constantly interrupting himself to order tea. And indeed Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, just got a six month, $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer.

Read more:

"In short, it is only a humanity which is capable of awe, which will also be capable of controlling..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:43:47 -0400

“In short, it is only a humanity which is capable of awe, which will also be capable of controlling the new potentials which we are opening for ourselves. We can be humble and live a good life with the aid of the machines, or we can be arrogant and die.”

- Mathematician Norbert Weiner in 1949, from M.I.T. Scholar’s 1949 Essay on Machine Age is Found [NY Times]

Of note,

Not even the brightest picture of an age in which man is the master, and in which we all have an excess of mechanical services will make up for the pains of transition, if we are not both humane and intelligent.

(via thenoobyorker)

laboratoryequipment: Local Opinion, Not Money, is True Value of...

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:56:08 -0400

laboratoryequipment:

Local Opinion, Not Money, is True Value of Wetlands

A new way of valuing ecosystem services — incorporating the local perspective — is the driving force behind a project assessing aquatic ecosystems in highland areas of Asia.

We know when something is valuable to our everyday lives. We do not need a price tag. This is precisely what the HighARCS project attempts to do: to measure the socio-economic value of ecosystem services, but without counting in euros, renminbi or dollars. Instead, local opinions take precedence. “One of the first activities undertaken at each site was a situation analysis which identified the stakeholders at all levels associated with site wetlands,” explains Kevin Smith, IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), an ecologist involved in the EU-funded project who is based in Cambridge, UK.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/local-opinion-not-money-true-value-wetlands

did-you-kno: Source

Sat, 18 May 2013 03:32:22 -0400

did-you-kno:

Source

Human tissue cloning a step closer to reality - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:59:28 -0400

Human tissue cloning a step closer to reality - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):

emergentfutures:

Shoukhrat Mitalipov is one of the scientists behind a breakthrough to create stem cells.

Paul Higgins: See Link for Video

tlacapatani: The portrait Dewey-Hagborg created based on the...

Fri, 10 May 2013 01:51:14 -0400

tlacapatani:

The portrait Dewey-Hagborg created based on the DNA sample from the cigarette butt collected on Myrtle Avenue. Image courtesy of Heather Dewey-Hagborg.

Dewey-Hagborg’s odd habit has a larger purpose. The 30-year-old PhD student, studying electronic arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, extracts DNA from each piece of evidence she collects and enters this data into a computer program, which churns out a model of the face of the person who left the hair, fingernail, cigarette or gum behind.
From those facial models, she then produces actual sculptures using a 3D printer. When she shows the series, called “Stranger Visions,” she hangs the life-sized portraits, like life masks, on gallery walls. Oftentimes, beside a portrait, is a Victorian-style wooden box with various compartments holding the original sample, data about it and a photograph of where it was found.

(via laughingsquid) Terrafugia Unveils Futuristic TF-X Flying...

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:48:20 -0400

(via laughingsquid) Terrafugia Unveils Futuristic TF-X Flying Car Concept

JP is on Twitter @Embrocell

Tue, 07 May 2013 22:26:55 -0400

JP is on Twitter @Embrocell

milesian: DNA Chromosome Wrapping - what makes it possible for...

Mon, 06 May 2013 02:06:49 -0400

milesian:

DNA Chromosome Wrapping - what makes it possible for a six foot long molecule to fit into the nucleus of every cell in the human body! This entire process of forming into the familiar chromosomal shape only happens right before a cell is about to divide.

"The assumption driving these kinds of design speculations [Google Glass] is that if you embed the..."

Fri, 03 May 2013 10:12:12 -0400

“The assumption driving these kinds of design speculations [Google Glass] is that if you embed the interface–the control surface for a technology–into our own bodily envelope, that interface will “disappear”: the technology will cease to be a separate “thing” and simply become part of that envelope. The trouble is that unlike technology, your body isn’t something you “interface” with in the first place. You’re not a little homunculus “in” your body, “driving” it around, looking out Terminator-style “through” your eyes. Your body isn’t a tool for delivering your experience: it is your experience. Merging the body with a technological control surface doesn’t magically transform the act of manipulating that surface into bodily experience. I’m not a cyborg (yet) so I can’t be sure, but I suspect the effect is more the opposite: alienating you from the direct bodily experiences you already have by turning them into technological interfaces to be manipulated.”

- Your Body Does Not Want to Be an Interface, John Pavius (via christmasgorilla)

Photo

Fri, 03 May 2013 01:39:52 -0400

Photo

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 02:42:27 -0400

kateoplis: “I fell in love with my planet. This work is not...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:06:59 -0400

kateoplis:

“I fell in love with my planet. This work is not about landscapes.

It is about love.”

Sebastião Salgado

new-aesthetic: “The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is a new...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:16:29 -0400

new-aesthetic:

“The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is a new international campaign by non-governmental organizations calling for a pre-emptive ban on fully autonomous weapons. These are future weapons with full autonomy that would be able to choose and fire on targets without any human intervention.”

Campaign to Stop Killer Robots

If only there were some way to automate the campaign…

2headedsnake: Pia Dehne

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:27:56 -0400

2headedsnake:

Pia Dehne

the-daily-robot: Few things are reliable in this world, whether...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:13:04 -0400

the-daily-robot:

Few things are reliable in this world, whether you’re in this galaxy or one far, far away. You can, however, always rely on the heartless, mechanical precision of a particular droid’s allegiance to Protocol. Doing things the Right Way, Every Time™.

This is design is available as print at my Etsy store!

Need a new heart? Then print it out.

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:26:28 -0400

Need a new heart? Then print it out.:

futuretechreport:

This new technology is being called biofabrication and its ultimate aim is the 3-D printing of entire human organs. Traditional 3-D printing is a machine process in which an ultra-fine nozzle extrudes particles - usually of plastic or metal - and micro-layer by micro-layer creates a 3-D object. Biofabrication adopts this process but uses living cells rather than plastic or metal as its building blocks.

Biofabrication scientists have already 3-D-printed human blood vessels using stem cells first cultured in a lab to grow into blood vessel cells and loaded them into a 3-D bioprinter. Because the stem cells are taken from the patient who will receive the blood vessels, it’s hoped that rejection of the new vessels will be unlikely. Now scientists plan to put the blood vessels through human clinical trials to prove that it is functional and able to grow, paving the way to a future in which damaged blood vessels can be treated with 3-D-printed replacements.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/archived/lifestyle/need-a-new-heart-then-print-it-out#ixzz2QToVjbEb
Follow us: @TheNationalUAE on Twitter | thenational.ae on Facebook

Bio: U.S. top court weighs patentability of human genes

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:13:10 -0400

Bio: U.S. top court weighs patentability of human genes:

5hinigam1:

Soon after learning that his son had autism, Hollywood producer Jon Shestack (“Air Force One”) tried to get researchers investigating the genetic causes of the disorder to pool their DNA samples, the better to identify genes most likely to cause that disorder. But his approach to scientists at…

"Should technologies such as tDCS prove safe and become widely available, they would represent an..."

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:07:00 -0400

“Should technologies such as tDCS prove safe and become widely available, they would represent an alternate route to human longevity, extending our conscious lifespan by as much as 50 per cent. Many of us cherish the time we spend in bed, but we don’t consciously experience most of our sleeping hours — if they were reduced without extra fatigue, we might scarcely notice a difference except for all those open, new hours in our night time existence. Lifespan statistics often adjust for time spent disabled by illness, but they rarely account for the ultimate debilitation: lack of consciousness. Now a life lived at 150 per cent might be within our grasp. Are we brave enough to choose it?”

- Life without sleep (via azspot)

O_O