Technut News

In 2006, Sinclair and National Institute on Aging gerontologist Rafael de Cabo, also a co-author of the Cell Metabolism study, used resveratrol to improve the health and extend the lives of obese mice on high-calorie diets. The latest study involved both obese and normal mice, fed standard, low- and high-calorie fare.

Regardless of mouse weight and diet, resveratrol worked wonders. At two years of age, or the mouse equivalent of senescence, the mice were more coordinated than their non-dosed counterparts. Their bones were thicker and stronger, their eyes free of cataracts, their hearts beating strong. At the cellular level, tissues displayed gene-level changes almost identical to those produced by caloric restriction.

The mitochondria of resveratrol-taking mice also proved healthy. Mitochondrial degeneration has been implicated in a variety of diseases, leading some researchers to believe that heart disease, cancer and dementia — all the so-called diseases of aging — have a common root.

source

I can’t believe what’s possible in mice these days.

I’ve seen’em heal from spinal paralysis, get a cure for sickle cell anemia, and more. And now they’re getting longer and healthier life in which they’re allowed to eat all they want.

Makes me wish I was one of them.

HIV Breakthrough: Protein That Fights Immunodeficiency Identified

A Canada-U.S. research team has solved a major genetic mystery: How a protein in some people’s DNA guards them against killer immune diseases such as HIV. In an advance online edition of Nature Medicine, the scientists explain how the protein, FOX03a, shields against viral attacks and how the discovery will help in the development of a HIV vaccine.

The breakthrough emerged by studying three groups of men: One HIV-negative sample, a second HIV-positive group whose infection was successfully controlled through tritherapy and a third group whose HIV did not show any symptoms. Called elite controllers, this third group fended off infection without treatment because their immune system, which would normally be attacked by HIV, maintained its resilient immune memory through the regulation of the FOX03a protein.

“Given their perfect resistance to HIV infection, elite controllers represent the ideal study group to examine how proteins are responsible for the maintenance of an immune system with good anti-viral memory,” said Dr. Haddad. “This is the first study to examine, in people rather than animals, what shields the body’s immune system from infection and to pinpoint the fundamental role of FOX03a in defending the body.”

Pretty amusing. Especially considering the fact I mostly quote and hardly write anything on here myself.

from: David Appell
date: Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 3:40 AM
subject: technutnews.com

I have been reading your blog for about three months, but… I am going
to stop and have taken you out of my RSS feed.

Your optimism is without limits. You think every little scientific
advance is a great thing, without analysis of the downsides or even
whether the development will pan out. You throw all kinds of numbers
around with no context whatsoever. You think *everything* will pan out.
That’s a joke. Almost everything peters out and amounts to nothing.
You’re exactly what’s wrong with so much of futurism.

You don’t seem to understand this.

Your blind cheerleading is useless. It’s certainly not informative. It’s
a waste of time.

David Appell, freelance science journalist

Flying saucer ‘nears US take-off’

It has been called the vehicle of the future and the ultimate way to beat the rush hour commute.It is the M 200G, otherwise known as a “flying saucer”, which is being built by a company in Davis, California called Moller International.

It says the futuristic contraption will go on sale in a few months and hopes to expand production to 250 a year.

Company representatives say it is easy to operate, with plenty of leg room and space for a passenger.

…

Capable of vertical take-off and landing, the craft - so far a one-off prototype - hovers like a helicopter up to 10ft off the ground. Any higher and the driver would need a pilot’s licence.

It is the brainchild of Dr Paul Moller, an aeronautics engineer who envisions a “highway in the sky” which he believes could cut conventional commuter traffic in half.

“We have this wonderful natural resource above us,” Dr Moller told the BBC.

“Look at the sky above us - how many aircraft do you see? It’s a great space that is not being utilised. That is what we plan to use. Cars are finished as a means of getting around. It’s only a matter of time.”

The flying saucer is powered by eight engines which can run on petrol, diesel or even ethanol.

For many more movies, visit the flying car movie page on www.moller.com.

Are we on the brink of the flying car?

For 50 years, science fiction has been tantalizing us with visions of airborne roadways and quickly maneuvering, sports-car-like flying cars. And for 50 years, companies have been chasing the dream, releasing the occasional prototype to keep their investors investing. Now, an Israeli company names Urban Aeronautics has made a bold projection: A flying car on the market by 2012.

Breakthrough in nanodevice synthesis revolutionizes biological sensors

A novel approach to synthesizing nanowires (NWs) allows their direct integration with microelectronic systems for the first time, as well as their ability to act as highly sensitive biomolecule detectors that could revolutionize biological diagnostic applications, according to a report in Nature.

“We electronically plugged into the biochemical system of cells,” said senior author Mark Reed, Harold Hodgkinson Professor of Engineering & Applied Science. “These developments have profound implications both for application of nanoscience technologies and for the speed and sensitivity they bring to the future of diagnostics.”

In other words, we can turn our reactive healthcare system into a preventive healthcare system. That means we’ll catch diseases in early developing stages and undertake measures to prevent them from happening. We’ll be healthier and greatly curbing our healthcare costs.

This is one of the reasons why I’m optimistic for the future.

Scientists build nanomachine envisioned 150 yrs ago

“We have a new motor mechanism for a nanomachine,” said David Leigh, a professor of chemistry at the University.

Scientists are trying to unravel the secrets of nanomachines and nanotechnology, which works on a tiny scale. One nanometer is a billionth of a meter, or about 80,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair.

“Molecular machines allow life itself to occur at a molecular level. Our new motor mechanism is a small step toward doing that sort of thing with artificial molecular machines,” Leigh told Reuters.

“It is a machine mechanism that is going to take molecular machines a step forward to the realization of the future world of nanotechnology. Things that seem like a Harry Potter film now are going to be a reality.”

Not sure what the Harry Potter remark is all about. I guess Leigh is just trying to get the world to brace itself for vast change…

The Perfect Electric Car?

The Phoenix Motorcars SUV will be introduced in late 2007, having a range of 130 miles, and can be recharged in less than 10 minutes with an off-board charging unit or trickle-charged overnight when plugged into a 220V power source, similar to the SUT. The estimated cost to recharge the battery pack is a small fraction of equivalent gasoline costs

Microsoft Blue&Me in-car computing coming to US via Ford in 2007

Remember Microsoft’s Blue&Me project with Fiat, the one that equipped select models with an in-car computer system with all kinds of connectivity functionality? Well, we’ve learned from a source close to Microsoft’s car-computer project that Microsoft and Ford are planning to announce the US availability of the system in 2007…

How spicy foods can kill cancer

Scientists have discovered the key to the ability of spicy foods to kill cancer cells.

They found capsaicin, an ingredient of jalapeno peppers, triggers cancer cell death by attacking mitochondria - the cells’ energy-generating boiler rooms.

The research raises the possibility that other cancer drugs could be developed to target mitochondria.

…

The study showed that the family of molecules to which capsaicin belongs, the vanilloids, bind to proteins in the cancer cell mitochondria to trigger apoptosis, or cell death, without harming surrounding healthy cells.

Capsaicin was tested on cultures of human lung cancer cells and on pancreatic cancers.

Lead researcher Dr Timothy Bates said: “As these compounds attack the very heart of the tumour cells, we believe that we have in effect discovered a fundamental ‘Achilles heel’ for all cancers.

…

The fact that capsaicin and other vanilloids are already commonly found in the diet proves they are safe to eat.

This could make development of a drug containing them a much quicker and cheaper process.

British gene team are on the brink of cancer breakthrough

British scientists are on the verge of producing a drug that could revolutionise cancer treatment.

It shuts down the rogue genes that cause cancer and is due to be tested on humans for the first time in the next few months.

If successful, the drug will be used to stop the disease spreading to other parts of the body, at the same time improving quality of life and life expectancy.

The technique, known as RNA interference therapy, is still in its early stages of development but one day it could be extended to treat other conditions ranging from asthma to Aids.

The drug works by preventing genes from making disease-causing proteins. Similar in structure to DNA, it should halt the disease in its tracks.

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The first human trials are due to start in the next few months and it could be on the market within three years.

Remotely Activated Nanoparticles Destroy Cancer.

The first in a new generation of nanotechnology-based cancer treatments will likely begin clinical trials in 2007, and if the promise of animal trials carries through to human trials, these treatments will transform cancer therapy. By replacing surgery and conventional chemotherapy with noninvasive treatments targeted at cancerous tumors, this nanotech approach could reduce or eliminate side effects by avoiding damage to healthy tissue. It could also make it possible to destroy tumors that are inoperable or won’t respond to current treatment.

One of these new approaches places gold-coated nanoparticles, called nanoshells, inside tumors and then heats them with infrared light until the cancer cells die. Because the nanoparticles also scatter light, they could be used to image tumors as well. Mauro Ferrari, a leader in the field of nanomedicine and professor of bioengineering at the University of Texas Health Science Center, says this is “very exciting” technology.

“With chemotherapy,” Ferrari says, “we carpet bomb the patient, hoping to hit the lesions, the little foci of disease. To be able to shine the light only where you want this thing to heat up is a great advantage.”

Anti-Aging Molecule Discovered

A team of South Korean scientists on Sunday claimed to have created a “cellular fountain of youth,’’ or a small molecule, which enables human cells to avoid aging and dying.

The team, headed by Prof. Kim Tae-kook at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, argued the newly-synthesized molecule, named CGK733, can even make cells younger.

The findings were featured by the Britain-based Nature Chemical Biology online early today and will be printed as a cover story in the journal’s offline edition early next month.

“All cells face an inevitable death as they age. On this path, cells became lethargic and in the end stop dividing but we witnessed that CGK733 can block the process,’’ Kim said.

“We also found the synthetic compound can reverse aging, by revitalizing already-lethargic cells. Theoretically, this can give youth to the elderly via rejuvenating cells,’’ the 41-year-old said.

Kim expected that the CGK733-empowered drugs that keep cells youthful far beyond their normal life span would be commercialized in less than 10 years.

Reading things like this sometimes gives me the impression that significant life extension is closer than you’d think. I’ll bet humanity is going to see a great improvement in public health in the next decade.

And thanks to the recent change of year, the next decade is now only 3 years away.

Scientists Announce Mad Cow Breakthrough

Scientists said yesterday that they have used genetic engineering techniques to produce the first cattle that may be biologically incapable of getting mad cow disease.

The animals, which lack a gene that is crucial to the disease’s progression, were not designed for use as food. They were created so that human pharmaceuticals can be made in their blood without the danger that those products might get contaminated with the infectious agent that causes mad cow.

That agent, a protein known as a prion (pronounced PREE-on), can cause a fatal human ailment, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, if it gets into the body.

More generally, scientists said, the animals will facilitate studies of prions, which are among the strangest of all known infectious agents because they do not contain any genetic material. Prions also cause scrapie in sheep and fatal wasting diseases in elk and minks.

In the future, experts said, similar techniques might be used to engineer animals with more nutritious meats — though the Food and Drug Administration has said it will require engineered food animals to pass tests far more stringent than those it recently deemed adequate for clones.

Nano-welds herald new era of electronics.

“We can create any 3D shape by varying the beam and rotating the target,” he adds. Using this technique, the researchers have already made nano-scalpels 10 nm by 20 nm across and just a few nanometres thick. These scalpels can be used for cutting into living cells.

U.S. developing nanotech military armor

The U.S. Army awarded a $15 million contract for the development of a new type of lightweight composite armor based on nanotechnology.

…

Rice said the planned armor “will be even stronger than existing armor, but also lighter, to reduce the top weight of the ‘up-armored’ vehicle.”

He also assured that engineers would be looking into reducing the flammability and flexibility issues inherent in many composite materials as an improvement in body armor.

The Year in Nanotech

Dazzling displays, handheld sensors, cancer killers, and nanotube computers.

…

Nanocures.
Conventional cancer treatment can wreak havoc on the body. So researchers are developing technology smaller than the cancer cells that can seek them out, slip inside, and deliver a dose of deadly cancer medicine, leaving healthy cells untouched.

…

As researchers race to develop new cancer-fighting nano tools, an important weapon will be computer modeling, which will help researchers identify materials and structures that can be used safely in the body. (See “Speeding Up Nanomedicine.”) But perhaps the biggest impact of nanotechnology on health could be new ways of using nanostructures to purify water, since dirty water is a leading cause of disease worldwide.

We’ll All be Cyborgs Someday (This link acts weird in Firefox. the second time you visit it, it wil bother you with subscription information. Just use IE to view this, or clean your cookies in Firefox and then revisit the site)

Kevin Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, has firsthand knowledge. In 1998, he had a chip surgically inserted into his left arm, becoming, he thinks, the first human ever implanted with a computer chip.

Since then, he’s had a more sophisticated chip connected directly to his nervous system. He is still working toward his grandest experiment: having a chip implanted in his brain.

“I want to become a cyborg,” he said with an infectious grin. “I can see the advantages.”

…

In 2002, doctors sliced open Warwick’s left wrist and implanted a much smaller and more sophisticated device. For three months, its 100 electrodes were connected to his median nerves, linking his nervous system to a computer.

“I moved my hand, and my neural signals were sent over the Internet to open and close a robot hand,” he said.

Not only that: The robotic hand had sensors. As it grasped a sponge or a glasses case, it sent information back to Warwick.

“It was tremendously exciting,” Warwick said. “I experienced it as signals in my brain, which my brain was quite happy to recognize as feedback from the robot hand fingertips.”

A Robot in Every Home

…I can envision a future in which robotic devices will become a nearly ubiquitous part of our day-to-day lives. I believe that technologies such as distributed computing, voice and visual recognition, and wireless broadband connectivity will open the door to a new generation of autonomous devices that enable computers to perform tasks in the physical world on our behalf. We may be on the verge of a new era, when the PC will get up off the desktop and allow us to see, hear, touch and manipulate objects in places where we are not physically present.

UK report says robots will have rights

“If we make conscious robots they would want to have rights and they probably should,” said Henrik Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

…

Robots and machines are now classed as inanimate objects without rights or duties but if artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous, the report argues, there may be calls for humans’ rights to be extended to them.

…

“There will be people who can’t distinguish that so we need to have ethical rules to make sure we as humans interact with robots in an ethical manner so we do not move our boundaries of what is acceptable.”

Robots of the Future

First there was the DARPA Grand Challenge, a robotic contest for building a driverless car capable of successfully completing a 132-mile off-road course. In November 2007, DARPA will throw down the gauntlet once again in the form of the Urban Challenge. This contest raises the bar by requiring its autonomous contestants to negotiate a 60-mile course through simulated urban traffic in less than six hours. Bookies’ favorite is likely to be Sebastian Thrun and his team of roboticists from Stanford University, CA, who won the last challenge, in 2005.

Conscious computing debated at MIT anniversary event

The question of whether machines will be capable of human intelligence is ultimately a matter for philosophers to take up and not something scientists can answer, an inventor and a computer scientist agreed during a debate late last month at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

What if your laptop knew how you felt?

Faces reveal emotions, and researchers in fields as disparate as psychology, computer science, and engineering are joining forces under the umbrella of “affective computing” to teach machines to read expressions. If they succeed, your computer may one day “read” your mood and play along. Machines equipped with emotional skills could also be used in teaching, robotics, gaming, sales, security, law enforcement, and psychological diagnosis.

In Pictures: Robot Menagerie

Continued Support From the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research

In response to the recent progress report from Methuselah Foundation chairman Aubrey de Grey, we are pleased to note that the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research has stepped forward in greater support of Foundation-funded SENS research with the offer of an additional $50,000 donation.

Paul F. Glenn, founder of the Glenn Foundation, said, “We have been following the progress of Aubrey de Grey’s ideas with interest, and the Thiel matching pledge allows us to leverage our funds in a highly efficient way.”

Filter removes mad cow proteins from blood

A new filtering device can remove dangerous “mad cow disease” proteins from blood. Scientists say the device could prevent the spread of deadly prion diseases via blood transfusions.

At least three people have died in the UK after receiving blood contaminated with variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (vCJD) – the human equivalent of mad cow disease. There is currently no test available to screen blood for the misfolded “prion” proteins that cause the illness.

The new “P-Capt” filter designed by Robert Rohwer of the VA Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, US, and colleagues aims to make blood safer by removing these proteins. Their tests show the filter can prevent infections in hamsters and can remove the vCJD prions from human blood.

Military college to set up stem cell research centre

‘Stem cell therapy is the futuristic regenerative or reparative medicine. It will be the futuristic treatment replacing drug therapy and surgery. Through stem cell treatment, heart diseases, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, eye and muscle disease and various other diseases can be cured,’ Surgeon Vice Admiral V.K. Singh, the Armed Forces Medical Services director general, told IANS.

…

‘We are not playing god. Our intention is not to create a super human being but to repair diseased and damaged human tissues and organs,’ said Col. Harsh Kumar, head of the Department of Transfusion Medicine, AFMC.

‘Stem cell therapy, a futuristic treatment in medicine, is all set to revolutionise and replace drug-based treatment as stem cells have the potential to form parts of the human body. It is absolutely achievable,’ he added.