The team that cloned Dolly the sheep have been granted the UK’s first stem cell research licence allowing the creation of human embryos from unfertilised eggs.
This process is called parthenogenesis - Greek for “virgin birth” - and occurs naturally in some reptiles and insects. It allows females to reproduce without males, as their eggs are […]
David Rose is betting there is money to be made heading against the crowd. His company, Ambient Devices, a start-up in Cambridge, Mass., is producing devices that display limited information in ways that can be understood with just a glance.
Researchers have speculated since the 1980’s that data-deluged consumers might welcome a new class of unobtrusive […]
Admittedly, the Hilton Garden Inn’s gadget-crammed Room 267 is not your typical lodging. But stay just one night there, and you’ll want it to be.
The invitation-only “Room of the Future” is housed in a special Hilton University wing of the property near Los Angeles International Airport. It comes furnished with a legion of next-generation products […]
People are now beginning to use a legal tactic called “offensive blocking patents” in which businesses or individual entrepreneurs use patents not so much as tools to build new products, but as legal roadblocks or bargaining chips against competitors or corporate giants.
Some legal experts, including those representing big corporations, are skeptical of this approach, which […]
Continuing research by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has proved that mobile telephone transmissions made by airline passengers can interfere with aircraft equipment.
The tests support the existing CAA ban on the use of mobile telephones on board aircraft when the engines have started. This has been in effect since the widespread introduction of mobile telephones […]
A detailed model has been built for a “cellular factory” that can produce motor neurons from embryonic stem cells, a development that could lead to treatments for people with spinal cord injuries and movement diseases such as Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s.
Reporting in the June 5 issue of the journal Neuron, Salk Institute researcher Sam Pfaff […]
To the naked eye, it looks like a fleck of tile decorated with the Greek letters alpha and omega. But when it is magnified by a factor of 600, its true nature becomes evident — the world’s most portable copy of the New Testament. According to the latest version of Guinness Book of World Records, […]
A drug to protect unborn babies from the harm caused their mother’s excessive drinking is a step closer, with the discovery of a specific way to block alcohol’s toxicity.
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation in children in the US, affecting up to three babies in every 1000 births. While […]
Watching movie stars light up on screen is the biggest single factor in influencing teenagers to smoke, suggests a new US study.
Adolescents who had never smoked were almost three times more likely to then take up the habit if they had watched films packed with smoking scenes, compared to their peers who had seen films […]
Handwriting experts fear that the wild popularity of e-mail and IM, particularly among kids, could erase cursive writing within a few decades. With 90 percent of Americans between the ages of 5 and 17 using computers, it’s not uncommon for kids to type 20-30 WPM by the time they leave elementary school. Keyboards, joysticks and […]