Just in time for Halloween
Richards’ Auction Gallery had one interesting item up for sale this week just in time for Halloween: A real human skeleton.
The bones, wired together to keep them in place, were sold for $500 Tuesday. The winner bidder agreed to donate the skeleton to a forensics center for research.

 US President George W. Bush (c), Republican presidential candidate John McCain (l) and
Democratic candidate Barack Obama (r): The crisis is happening while the US is in a political vacuum.
GERMANY: The banking crisis is upending American dominance of the financial markets and world politics. The industrialized countries are sliding into recession, the era of turbo-capitalism is [...]

 
There is a theory that the spark of genius lurks hidden within all of us.Now scientists are developing a ‘thinking cap’ that could turn that theory into practice and unlock the amazing potential of the human brain. The device uses tiny magnetic pulses to change the way the brain works and has produced remarkable results [...]

 
 
With visions of Star Wars’ R2-D2 clearly ringing in their heads, the lab wonks at Nissan have unveiled the Biomimetic Robot Car (BR23C). The robot is meant to demonstrate the car maker’s new crash prevention technology being shown off at this week’s CEATEC conference in Tokyo. Video after the jump.

 
 Abnormal Cartilage
A new biomaterial developed by Cartilix, a biotech startup based in Foster City, CA, could dramatically improve the success rate of knee-cartilage repair surgery, making the procedure more accessible to patients with bad knees. The new material, called ChonDux, consists of a polymer hydrogel that, when injected into the knee during surgery, guides the [...]

 
A lot can be learned from simply counting the cells found in a sample of blood or water; the rub is that it requires either a lengthy and complex manual process with an expensive microscope or a a quicker process with an even more expensive flow cytometer. Now, UCLA researchers have devised a compact system [...]

 
 
I see many people every day and most of them choose to have an energy drink for their breakfast or as part of their breakfast. Energy drinks are quite popular these days, but scientists at the John Hopkins Medical Institutions warn that energy drinks could lead to caffeine intoxication and other health problems. The scientists [...]

 
Are patients swimming in a sea of health information? Or are they drowning in it?

 
What will the retail storefront of the future look like?
Recently, Thomas Frey and his wife Deb were relaxing at a new shopping center in the Denver area. Along the sidewalks a series of speakers cast a rather pleasant musical backdrop to the shopping experience. Thomas Frey, Executive Director of the DaVinci Institute went onto talk [...]

 
Dads, please note – the more time you spend with your child, the more intelligent the toddler is going to be, says a new study.

Using salt as a medium for visualizing sound waves
This video does a great job of creating the visual patterns associated with sound waves. Its a simple science experiment done with lots of salt. Second video after the jump.