Science and technology news blog

A team of international researchers has developed a way to look inside people’s brains and read their intentions before they even act.

The method was 70 per cent accurate at decoding the intentions of participants from patterns of their brain activity monitored through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), according to a study.

It appears in Thursday’s online issue of the journal Current Biology and was written by researchers from Germany, Japan and the U.K.

Participants were asked to covertly choose to either add or subtract two numbers and then hold the intention in their minds before being shown the two numbers.

By separating the task of choosing to subtract or add the numbers from the actual act of performing the calculation, the researchers were able to differentiate between the two kinds of brain activity.

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U.S. scientists say a series of physical changes to the human brain might help the organ monitor the passage of time.

‘Many complex human behaviors … rely on the brain`s ability to accurately tell time,’ said Dean Buonomano, an associate professor of neurobiology and psychiatry at UCLA`s David Geffen School of Medicine. ‘Yet no one knows how the brain does it.’

Buonomano`s research suggests a physical model for that ability.

‘If you toss a pebble into a lake,’ he explained, ‘the ripples of water produced by the pebble`s impact act like a signature of the pebble`s entry time,’ he said. ‘The farther the ripples travel the more time has passed.

‘We propose a similar process takes place in the brain that allows it to track time,’ he added. ‘Every time the brain processes a sensory event, such as a sound or flash of light, it triggers a cascade of reactions between brain cells and their connections. Each reaction leaves a signature that enables the brain-cell network to encode time.’

The study appears in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Neuron.

The British government has had a proven track record for supporting scientists in their quest to find new ways to cure debilitating diseases.

Unlike the US, it gave a resounding “yes” to requests to do stem cell work, and has given the thumbs up for researchers to do therapeutic cloning.

But its latest plan to ban experts from making hybrid embryos has caused an uproar in the scientific community.

It is generally agreed that laws set out in the 16-year-old Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act need updating because science has moved on significantly.

Also, experts accept that a balance needs to be struck between pioneering science and the moral and ethical ramifications of allowing experimental work.

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According to Chinese Zodiac, Year of 2007 is a Year of the Pig which begins on February 18, 2007 and ends on February 6, 2008. So they probably thought at celebrating it with some… green pigs that glow in the dark.

Chinese scientists claim they have successfully bred partially green pigs. Their endeavor is thought to have implications in the famous stem cell research, which could help millions of people recover from serious illnesses or even regain their severed limbs.

Genetically modified pigs are not very new though; fluorescent green pigs were first bred by a group of researchers led by Prof. Wu Shinn-Chih at the Department of Animal Science and Technology at National Taiwan University, announcing the results of the experiment in January 2006.

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Futuristic ‘invisible’ electronics may appear sooner rather than later, thanks to U.S. researchers developing transparent, high-performance transistors.

The transistors can be assembled inexpensively on glass and plastic, creating high quality displays on car windshields, goggles or billboards, the Northwestern University researchers said.

Developing new types of displays powered by electronics without visible wires has been going on for years. But no one could develop materials for transistors that could both be ‘invisible’ and maintain a high level of performance, the university said in a news release.

‘Our development provides new strategies for creating transparent electronics,’ said Tobin J. Marks, professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern, who led the research. ‘You can imagine a variety of applications for new electronics that haven`t been possible previously—imagine displays of text or images that would seem to be floating in space.’

To create the transistors, Marks` team combined films of the inorganic semiconductor indium oxide with a layers of self-assembling organic molecules that provides insulation. The films can be fabricated at room temperature, allowing the transistors to be produced at a low cost.

The findings were published in Nature Materials.

A feeding machine and a furry, therapeutic seal—both designed to make life easier for older people—were among robots honored Thursday at a government-sponsored award ceremony.The My Spoon feeding robot, which won a prize in the service category at Robot Award 2006, helps elderly or disabled people eat with a joystick-controlled swiveling arm.

My Spoon, which is already sold in Japan and Europe, doesn’t force feed: the spoon-fitted arm stops at a preprogrammed position in front of the mouth so users can bite and swallow at their leisure, according to developer Secom Co. It sells for as much as 408,100 yen ($3,454).

Another robot receiving an award in the service category was Paro, a furry seal fitted with sensors beneath its fur and whiskers. It responds to petting by opening and closing its eyes and moving its flippers.

About 800 of the seal robots, developed by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science, are used for therapy in Japanese nursing homes and by autistic and handicapped children, according to the award’s Web site.

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U.S. researchers have determined some cells must die for regeneration to occur, moving science closer to understanding how a limb or organ can be grown.

The Forsyth Institute researchers say their findings might provide insight into mechanisms necessary for therapeutic regeneration in humans, potentially addressing tissues that are lost, damaged or non-functional as a result of genetic syndromes, diseases, accidents, and aging.

Using Xenopus tadpoles for their study, the Forsyth team examined the cellular underpinnings of regeneration.

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A story first posted on ArabNews.com has been making the rounds on the Internet, involving an Indian student who has allegedly found a method of storing compressed digital information on a regular sheet of paper. Sainul Abideen claims that his technique, dubbed Rainbow Technology, can store between 90 and 450 GB on a single sheet of paper.

The system allegedly works by encoding data into small geometrical shapes (circles, squares, and triangles) in various colors, then printing them out on a piece of paper. A scanner is used to read the data back in to the computer. Abideen claims that his storage method is more environmentally friendly due to the biodegradable nature of paper, and envisions magazine publishers printing tear-out sheets of paper containing demos and programs, replacing the traditional plastic-wrapped CD or DVD.

Storing digital information on paper dates back to the earliest days of computing. When I was a little kid, my dad used to bring home punched cards from his job programming a mainframe computer at Vancouver General Hospital. The cards had 80 columnsan artifact that remains with us today as the default width for console-mode applicationsand could only store a maximum of 120 bytes (about one-eighth of a kilobyte) per card.

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New technology such as alcohol-detecting devices in cars may hold the key to eliminating drunken driving, the activist group Mothers Against Drunk Driving assert in a campaign started Monday.The organization and the U.S. Department of Transportation are pushing for such devices as well as tougher enforcement around the country.

“If we can’t stop drunks from driving, we’ll stop vehicles from driving drunks,” said Glynn Birch, president of MADD, at a news conference. Birch said technology, along with tougher laws and enforcement, has put the elimination of drunken driving “at our fingertips.”

The organization wants states to pass laws that would require breath-test interlock devices in vehicles for all those who have been convicted of drunken driving even after the first offense. Only New Mexico has such a law for first offenders; 45 states and the District of Columbia allow the device for some offenders.

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The world’s largest superconducting magnet has been successfully powered up on its first try and is ready to test some of the most fundamental questions of science, researchers say.Weighing 110 tons (100 metric tons), the Barrel Toroidseen here with all eight of its superconducting coils clearly visible in a photo released November 20is 16 feet (5 meters) wide and 82 feet (25 meters) long, dwarfing the lone technician seen bottom center.

The instrument is a vital component of ATLAS, one of the particle detectors housed at the European Organization for Nuclear Research’s (CERN’s) Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a new, internationally funded particle accelerator scheduled to begin operation late next year in Geneva, Switzerland. Particle accelerators create and collide beams of speeding, highly energetic atomic or subatomic particles.

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We’ve reported in the past that researchers were attempting to sequence the Neanderthal genome in an attempt to better understand the origin of modern humans. The need for this project might have gotten a boost from a recent report that suggested that at least some of this pre-modern human lineage lives on in our own genomes. So it seems to be a perfect time to provide an update on how that work’s going. Conveniently, both Nature and Science have obliged, and they describe different approaches to this attempt to understand our ancestry.

The Nature paper provides an excellent summary of the difficulties posed by the problem of getting an accurate sequence from ancient samples. They describe a detailed survey of Neanderthal remains, in which they examined 70 different bone and tooth samples for DNA content and contamination. After rejecting most as poorly preserved, they screened six for Neanderthal-specific DNA. Most showed high amounts of contamination by human sequences, but a 38,000 year old sample from Croatia provided over 90 percent Neanderthal sequences. All the work was done using this individual.

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Arsenic-contaminated water can be made drinkable cheaply and simply using tiny crystals related to rust, scientists at Rice University in Texas say.

The US team says that particles of iron oxide can bind themselves to large amounts of arsenic in water.

When a strong magnet is placed above the particles, they clump together like iron filings and are simple to remove.

If confirmed it could help nearly 60 million people in Bangladesh who drink water with dangerous arsenic levels.

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Stem cell scientists have applied for permission to create embryos by combining human DNA with cow eggs. Their research aims to develop new therapies for human ailments such as strokes, Alzheimers and tissue damage suffered by spinal trauma victims. Critics say the mixing of animal and human DNA is unethical and should be illegal.Dr. Lyle Armstrong, who is based at the North East England Stem Cell Institute at the International Centre for Life in Newcastle, today submitted an application for a three year license from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, HFEA, for the work.

Stem cells are the body’s master cells and each cell has the potential to grow into any type of tissue such as liver, heart and muscle cells.

Scientists eventually hope to take a cell from a patient and re-program it so that stem cells can be extracted to grow new tissue for damaged body parts without fear of immune rejection.

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Suzuki has developed a new fuel cell vehicle and is assessing customer interest before deciding whether to put it into production. But it’s not quite what you might think.

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Scientists say they’ve made a cool discovery about living longer.

Mice genetically engineered to have lower body temperatures live substantially longer than normal mice, researchers report in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Science.

The newfangled mice are only slightly cooler than standardjust 0.5 to 0.9 degree Fahrenheit (0.3 to 0.5 degree Celsius), an effect that occurs only during waking hours.

But the temperature drop significantly increases the rodents’ life spans, scientists say. Altered male mice live 12 percent longer on average, while females live 20 percent longer than regular mice.

“We’ve demonstrated that a modest but prolonged reduction of core body temperature can contribute to increased longevity,” said lead study author Bruno Conti, a biologist and neuroscientist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

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