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Science & Policy News
Recent News Items
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Miracle Sponge May Save Lives On Battlefield, Home:
Uncontrolled bleeding has been the leading cause of death for soldiers on the battlefield. But the engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may have come up
with a way to stop bleeding instantly with a special sponge.
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January 24, 2012
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"I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy":
Social networks have empowered us and connected us to people around the
world. In the last year, they have even been credited with fostering
democracies. But they have also eroded our personal privacy and made us
more vulnerable. Data aggregator services use our on line activity to
compile an astonishing amount of information on us and sell it to
others. Potential employers and colleges judge candidates in part by
their social network pages. The law has not yet caught up with the
technology.
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January 10, 2012
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Reading lifes building blocks: Researchers develop tools to speed DNA sequencing:
In a Nature Nanotechnology cover article, researchers from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstrated that a long DNA molecule can
be pulled through a graphene nanopore. First described more than 15 years ago, nanopore sequencing measures subtle electrical current changes produced as the four base molecules that make up DNA pass through the pore. By reading those changes, researchers can effectively
sequence DNA.
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January 6, 2012
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Twins Data Reshaping Nature Versus Nurture Debate:
Almost 150 years ago, English scientist Francis Galton coined the phrase "nature versus nurture" — and proposed that research on twins could resolve the debate. Genetics have long seemed to weigh heavily in favor of the role of nature in shaping the people we become. But even identical twins are different to varying degrees, and some researchers believe those differences suggest a third influence at work, called epigenetics. Peter Miller of National Geographic Magazine wrote the magazine's January cover story, "A Thing or Two About Twins." Miller explains how scientists are expanding the field of epigenetics with research on twins.
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January 2, 2012
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Under Obama, an emerging global apparatus for drone killing:
The Obama administration’s counterterrorism accomplishments are most apparent in what it has been able to dismantle, including CIA prisons and entire tiers of al-Qaeda’s leadership. But what the administration has assembled, hidden from public view, may be equally consequential. In the space of three years, the administration has built an extensive apparatus for using drones to carry out targeted killings of suspected
terrorists and stealth surveillance of other adversaries.
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December 27, 2011
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Sensing the deep ocean:
Futuristic robots may be coming soon to an ocean near you. Sensorbots are spherical devices equipped with biogeochemical sensors, that promise to open a new chapter in the notoriously challenging exploration of earth’s largest ecosystem – the ocean.
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December 19, 2011
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Nanotechnology May Lead To The End Of Laundry:
Several different companies using nanotechnology are working on products that
may well spell the end of the need to do laundry – forever.
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December 16, 2011
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Scientists close in on linchpin of physics, the God particle:
If rumors were dollars, the arcane world of particle physics would have enough cash to solve the Euro crisis. For weeks, statements circulating on physics blogs have hinted at the discovery of an elusive particle essential to our understanding of how the universe works.
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December 12, 2011
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Cyber-intruder sparks massive federal response and debate over dealing with threats:
The first sign of trouble was a mysterious signal emanating from deep within
the U.S. military’s classified computer network. Like a human spy, a piece of
covert software in the supposedly secure system was “beaconing” — trying to send
coded messages back to its creator.
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December 9, 2011
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Friendly Advice For Teachers: Beware Of Facebook:
The new and ever-changing world of social networking has blurred the lines between private and public, work and personal, friend and stranger. It's becoming a particular challenge for teachers who can quickly rile students and parents by posting comments or photos online. In some cases, teachers have been fired for statements they've made on Facebook, which is raising free speech issues.
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December 7, 2011
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Creating Artificial Intelligence Based on the Real Thing:
Ever since the early days of modern computing in the 1940s, the biological metaphor has been irresistible. The first computers were referred to as “giant brains” or “electronic brains,” in headlines and everyday speech. As computers improved and became capable of some tasks familiar to humans, like playing chess, the term used was “artificial intelligence.” DNA, it is said, is the original software.
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December 5, 2011
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Following Digital Breadcrumbs To 'Big Data' Gold:
What do Facebook, Groupon and biotech firm Human Genome Sciences have in common? They all rely on massive amounts of data to design their products. Terabytes and even zettabytes of information about consumers or about genetic sequences can be harnessed and crunched.
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November 29, 2011
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Lighting Up Our Mental Ills:
If Karl Deisseroth wants to change your mind, he can. At Deisseroth Lab, in the basement of the Clark Center at Stanford University, his team is proving how, using light in the brain, we may be able to switch depression, sociability and other seemingly ungovernable behaviors on and off. Just imagine how useful this could be at Thanksgiving dinner.
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November 19, 2011
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License plate readers: A useful tool for police comes with privacy concerns:
An armed robber burst into a Northeast Washington market, scuffled with the cashier, and then shot him and the store owner. The killer sped off in a silver Pontiac, but a witness was able to write down the license plate number. Police figured out the name of the suspect very quickly. But locating and
arresting him took a little-known investigative tool: a vast system that tracks the comings and goings of anyone driving around the city.
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November 19, 2011
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Bird Flu Research Rattles Bioterrorism Field:
Scientists and security specialists are in the midst of a fierce debate over recent experiments on a strain of bird flu virus that made it more contagious. The big question: Should the results be made public? Critics say doing so could potentially reveal how to make powerful new bioweapons.
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November 17, 2011
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HzO Nanotechnology Seal Keeps Smartphones from Drowning:
HzO CEO Paul S. Clayson, armed with a smartphone and a bowl of water, showed how his company’s nanotechnology can protect electronic gadgets from moisture even when they’re completely immersed in water. He explained that HzO’s "nano-scale film barrier" bonds so tightly to the interior and exterior of a smartphone or other electronic device that the units are completely protected from water.
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November 14, 2011
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Experimental Drug Melts The Fat Off Chunky Monkeys:
Fat monkeys, rejoice! An
experimental drug that zeroes in on the blood vessels that feed fatty
tissue helped obese monkeys lose quite a bit of weight in a study done
by researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in
Houston.
Great for monkeys, sure. But maybe great for you, too.
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November 10, 2011
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Why HPV Vaccination Of Boys May Be Easier:
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended a half-dozen years ago that preteen girls be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, two things happened: A lot of parents and some conservative groups were jarred by the idea of immunizing young girls against a sexually transmitted virus. And uptake of the vaccine has been poor — only about a third of 13- to 17-year-old girls have gotten the full three-shot series. Now, in the wake of a CDC expert panel's recommendation to extend vaccination to 11- and 12-year-old boys, there's reason to think things might be different this time.
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November 7, 2011
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Smile! You're On Cop Camera!:
The next time you talk to a police officer, you might find yourself staring into a lens. Companies such as Taser and Vievu are making small, durable cameras designed to be worn on police officer's uniforms. The idea is to capture video from the officer's point of view, for use as evidence against suspects, as well as to help monitor officers' behavior toward the public.
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November 7, 2011
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Knife, Fork ... And Nanoparticles?:
Wondering whether your anti-stink workout clothes are sending nanosilver into the environment? Turns out that you should take a look at other silver objects you might be wearing or using as a potential source for sloughing off ultra-tiny bits, too. A new study showing that large-scale silver objects can essentially shed nanoparticles is further complicating an already
dizzying discussion over the potential hazards of nanotechnology—leaving scientists and regulators staring at big, hard questions.
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November 4, 2011
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How Technology Is Eliminating Higher-Skill Jobs:
The U.S. economy hit an important milestone last week: Gross domestic
product, the sum of all goods and services produced in the country,
returned to pre-recession levels. But the gains were made with millions
fewer workers. Part of the reason is technology, as computers and
machines continue to replace humans.
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November 3, 2011
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Supercomputers offer tools for nuclear testing and solving nuclear mysteries:
A group of nuclear weapons designers and scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory conducted a what-if experiment several years ago, deploying
supercomputers to simulate what happens to a nuclear weapon from the moment it leaves storage to the point when it hits a target. Such checks typically have been carried out by taking bombs and warheads apart; scrutinizing them using chemistry, physics, mathematics, materials science and other disciplines; and examining data from earlier nuclear explosive tests. This time, however, the scientists and designers relied entirely on
supercomputer modeling, running huge amounts of code.
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November 1, 2011
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'Super skin' for robot limbs can feel - and survive the pressure of two elephants standing on it:
The 'skin-like' sensor unveiled by Stanford University scientists can 'feel' pressure just like human skin - but is far, far tougher. It could be used for advanced prosthetic limbs - or to create robots that can 'feel' a touch. The 'super skin' can be stretched out to twice its length and snap back without any harm.
Inside are tiny 'springs' made of carbon nanotubes - minuscule hair-like filaments - that can 'sense' pressure from a slight pinch up to the equivalent of two elephants stepping on top of the sensor.
The highly conductive nanotubes can be stretched in any direction, but still send electrical information - which could be fed back to a robot brain or to a patient.
Read More
October 27, 2011
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Possible study of anthrax vaccines effectiveness in children stirs debate:
The Obama administration is wrestling with the thorny question of whether scientists should inject healthy children with the anthrax vaccine to see whether the shots would safely protect them against a bioterrorism attack. The other option is to wait until an attack happens and then try to gather data from children whose parents agree to inoculate them in the face of an
actual threat.
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October 24, 2011
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Antisocial side of social media helps police track gangs:
For weeks, police came up empty in their search for a gang member charged with distributing the drug ecstasy — until they turned to Facebook. It took a few keystrokes for Prince George’s County officers to find their man’s user profile, where they had expected to see his usual rantings about police and coded tidbits about his chosen trade. But what they discovered was even more helpful: That very morning, the fugitive had posted a photograph of himself wearing a “very distinctive” purple and teal shirt. A few hours later, a photo of the suspect in hand. “We picked him out right away,” said Sgt. John O’Donnell of the Prince George’s gang unit. “He knew we were looking for him. But he couldn’t help himself from updating Facebook.”
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October 23, 2011
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Radar that can 'see' through solid walls:
MIT has developed a new radar technology with immediate military applications, a radar system which can ‘see’ through walls. Much like how light cannot pass through solid objects, so are radio waves typically blocked by concrete.However, by using short S-band waves and powerful amplifiers, MIT scientists were able to side-step this problem, allowing them to detect moving objects behind a solid wall.These signals were then picked up and digitized, with the moving people appearing as blobs on a video screen. The system was even able to detect people attempting to stand still.
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October 19, 2011
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Self-Replication Process Holds Promise for Production of New Materials:
New York University scientists have developed artificial structures that can self-replicate, a process that has the potential to yield new types of materials.
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October 17, 2011
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Nanotechnology Paved Way for Safer Breast Implants:
Nanotechnology has new techniques and procedures in developing safer breast implants. This is a better alternative to the traditional silicone rubber for
breasts, according to a review at WIREs Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology.
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October 13, 2011
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Naked mole rat genome may point way to long, healthy life:
The upside is you live a ridiculously long and healthy life, can’t develop cancer, feel very little pain, never get lonely and have great skin right to the end.The downside is you breathe stinky air, rarely go outside, tend to get cold, don’t see well, live in a monarchy and can’t count on having sex. (Also, you’re a naked mole rat.) How this collection of traits and behaviors came to exist in a strange rodent found only in the Horn of Africa has been a mystery. Now biologists have a tool for unraveling it — and what they find may one day prove useful to human medicine.
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October 12, 2011
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Rich Titanium Ore Reserves on Moon Could Warrant Lunar Mining:
Mining on the moon may become a reality in the near future with the recent discovery of titanium deposits on the moon. Using a map of the moon’s surface obtained from U.S. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and samples from the Apollo mission, Mark Robinson of Arizona State University and Brett Denevi of Johns Hopkins University were able to infer some of the chemical composition of the lunar surface. The moon may contain titanium ore deposits up to ten times more abundant than can be found on Earth.
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October 10, 2011
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The next step in bionics:
A wheelchair used to be all science could offer a person stricken by paralysis. But times have changed with new advances in bionics and human machine interfaces.
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October 9, 2011
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Group Urges Research Into Aggressive Efforts to Fight Climate Change:
With political action on curbing greenhouse gases stalled, a bipartisan panel of scientists, former government officials and national security experts is recommending that the government begin researching a radical fix: directly manipulating the Earth’s climate to lower the temperature.
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October 4, 2011
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Cant pay for burial? Cook County morgue to donate bodies to science:
The bodies of those who die in Cook County whose family
members can’t pay for burial will be automatically donated to science, according to a new policy implemented by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
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October 3, 2011
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Smartphones Take on Silent Killers as Portable Danger Detectors:
A silent killer threatens a family with a baby in a hotel room. Fortunately, their smartphone wises up, senses the threat and notifies the authorities -- and the local fire department charges in to the rescue, saving the day. This is no hypothetical scenario: As of this week, new technology can turn your cellphone into a portable “silent killer” detector. And in the near future, this technology has the potential to convert the average cellphone into a handheld detector capable of warning you of chemical warfare attacks and automatically calling for help.
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September 30, 2011
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Wearable electronics: NASA develops memory-storing e-textile material:
Using a technique that looks strongly reminiscent of 1950s and ’60s core memory, two NASA nanotechnologists from the Ames Research Center in California have devised a method of weaving non-volatile computer memory into garments of clothing, or “e-textiles.”
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September 27, 2011
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Military spearheads clean-energy drive:
With the Navy’s Blue Angels and their F/A-18 Hornets arrayed in a neat line behind him, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced that they would perform using a 50-50 mix of a plant-based biofuel and conventional fuel. “It’s part of our process to move to alternative energy all across the Navy,” Mabus told reporters. As the nation’s single biggest energy consumer, the Pentagon has many reasons to want to diversify its fuel sources. Mabus and others say the move toward alternative energy is about national security and assured sources of supply.
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September 26, 2011
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Physicists who measured particles traveling faster than speed of light dont dare dream:
Physicists on the team that measured particles traveling faster than light said Friday they were as surprised as their skeptics about the results, which appear to violate the laws of nature as we know them. Going faster than light is something that is just not supposed to happen, according to Einstein’s 1905 special theory of relativity. The team fired a neutrino beam 454 miles (730 kilometers) underground from Geneva to Italy. They found it traveled 60 nanoseconds faster than light.
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September 23, 2011
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A future for drones: Automated killing:
One afternoon last fall at Fort Benning, Ga., two model-size planes took off, climbed to 800 and 1,000 feet, and began criss-crossing the military base in
search of an orange, green and blue tarp. The automated, unpiloted planes worked on their own, with no human guidance, no hand on any control. After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed
images from an onboard camera, zeroed in on the tarp and contacted the second plane, which flew nearby and used its own sensors to examine the colorful object. Then one of the aircraft signaled to an unmanned car on the ground so it could take a final, close-up look. Target confirmed. This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy
based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans.
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September 20, 2011
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HPV Vaccine: The Science Behind The Controversy:
The first vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer, came out five years ago. But now it has become a hot political topic, thanks to a Republican presidential debate in which candidate Michele Bachmann inveighed against "innocent little
12-year-old girls" being "forced to have a government injection."
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September 19, 2011
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NASA satellite expected to hit Earth this week:
The sky is not falling. A 12,500-pound NASA satellite the size of a school bus is, however. It’s the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS — YOU-arz — and it’s currently tumbling in orbit and succumbing to Earth’s gravity. It will crash to the surface Friday. Or maybe Thursday. Or Saturday.
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September 18, 2011
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Inside the Freaky World of Next-Gen Night Vision:
Night vision technology has been around for more than a half-century. The green-tinged view from inside the goggles is now yawningly familiar. But the ITT Corporation facility doesn't make the rudimentary night-vision gear found in kids' toys or sex tapes. Here, they design and build the military-grade gear. And it can peer further into the dark, with greater fidelity, and under darker conditions, than any civilian equipment.
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September 14, 2011
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Hi-Tech Denim Jeans Could Clean Up London's Air Pollution:
HI-TECH denim jeans that use nanotechnology to stop air pollution are to go on show at the London Design
Festival, which starts later this week. The jeans, or any other clothing fitted with the new technology, "harness the power of a photocatalyst to break down air borne pollutants," by using light as an energy source.
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September 12, 2011
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New Study Quantifies Use of Social Media in Arab Spring:
In the 21st century, the revolution may not be televised – but it likely will be tweeted, blogged, texted and organized on Facebook, recent experience suggests. After analyzing more than 3 million tweets, gigabytes of YouTube content and thousands of blog posts, a new study finds that social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring.
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September 12, 2011
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Protective parenting faces new highs and lows with technology:
In the 21st century, parenthood and paranoia often walk hand in hand. For some, the blessed event is followed by high-tech surveillance — a monitoring system tracks the baby's breathing rhythms and relays infrared images
from the nursery. Toddlers and grade schoolers can be equipped with GPS devices enabling a parent to know their location should something go awry. To cope with the uncertainties of the teen years, some parents acquire
spyware to monitor their children's online and cellphone activity. Added together, there's a diverse, multibillion-dollar industry seeking to capitalize on parents' worst fears about their children.
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September 5, 2011
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Endangered species set for stem cell rescue:
In a novel marriage of conservation and modern biology, scientists have created stem cells from two endangered
species, the northern white rhino and the drill - a west African monkey, which could help ensure their survival. The scientists report that their stem cells could be
made to turn into different types of body cells. If they could turn into eggs and sperm, "test-tube babies" could be created.
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September 4, 2011
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