As part of a project to understand how the brain learns, biologists have written memories into the cells of a fruitfly’s brain, making it think it had a terrible experience.
 

Scientists use fiber-optic cables to control neural activity in mice
Molecular “light switches” can reveal exactly which neurons are involved in creating a memory, allowing scientists to trigger that memory using only light. The finding, presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this week, is just one example of how a novel technology called [...]

What kind of critter flesh will you grow today?

The Cocoon Cooker isn’t just some fancy steamer or something like that. No, it’s a machine that actually grows meat and fish from heated animal cells. A-whaaa?
It’s a mere design concept, sadly, as we don’t have the science of growing animal proteins quite figured out yet. But Electrolux is [...]

Man juggling several small balls.
Learning to juggle leads to changes in the white matter of the brain, an Oxford University study has shown.

A bright ribbon of hydrogen atoms marks the edge of the solar system
A bright ribbon of hydrogen atoms marks the edge of the solar system, where the Sun’s wind meets emissions from the rest of the galaxy, researchers reported.   They used telescopes aboard the orbiting Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft or IBEX to look toward the [...]

The magnetic equivalent of electricity in a ‘spin ice’ material
A magnetic charge can behave and interact just like an electric charge in some materials, according to new research led by the London Centre for Nanotechnology.   The findings could lead to a reassessment of current magnetism theories, as well as significant technological advances.
 

Model of Europa’s interior, including a global ocean
New research suggests that there is plenty of oxygen available in the subsurface ocean of Europa to support oxygen-based metabolic processes for life similar to that on Earth. In fact, there may be enough oxygen to support complex, animal-like organisms with greater oxygen demands than microorganisms.
 

It’s not all in the mind — the so-called placebo effect is real and reaches right down to the spine, German scientists said.  The finding may help in the hunt for better ways to tackle pain and other disorders.
 

Tool transfer upon recipient’s request.
The evolution of altruism has long puzzled researchers and has mainly been explained previously from ultimate perspectives—”I will help you now because I expect there to be some long-term benefit to me”. However, a new study by researchers at the Primate Research Institute (PRI) and the Wildlife Research Center (WRC) of [...]

The diagonal fracture in the ischium bone of a Venenosaurus suggests the break occurred when the bone was still fresh.
Imagine the gruesome sound of bones snapping as a thirsty, 30-ton dinosaur tramples a heap of fresh carcasses on his way to a rapidly shrinking lake.
That’s the scene revealed by a painstaking analysis of thousands of [...]

KITE POWER!

The Italian firm KiteGen Research is developing a generator that harnesses the wind through kites. As a kite flies into the air, it unspools a cord that cranks the turbine. Carina Storrs writes in Popular Science:
The company developed a prototype that flies 200-square-foot kites to altitudes of 2,600 feet, where wind streams are four [...]

Adult female Bagheera kiplingi eats Beltian body harvested from ant-acacia.
There are approximately 40,000 species of spiders in the world, all of which have been thought to be strict predators that feed on insects or other animals. Now, scientists have found that a small Central American jumping spider has a uniquely different diet: the species Bagheera [...]

New research shows that eating chocolate or drinking water can blunt pain, reducing a rat’s response to a hot stimulus.
People often eat food to feel better, but researchers have found that eating chocolate or drinking water can blunt pain, reducing a rat’s response to a hot stimulus. This natural form of pain relief may help [...]

Another Awesome Dyson Vision

He pioneered the bagless vacuum cleaner and more recently has transformed the UK’s public toilets with his revolutionary hand-dryer. Yesterday the billionaire businessman and inventor Sir James Dyson unveiled his latest product – a desk fan that he hopes will provide a greener alternative to office air conditioning and a safer and [...]

Pedal for Power!

The One Laptop Per Child project (OLPC) hopes to distribute a simple but useful laptop computer to impoverished children in developing nations at a very low cost per unit. One recurring problem in the project has been power supply. So the Afghan IT company Paiwastoon has developed this prototype pedalling machine that allows [...]

Engineers have developed a wireless network of radio transmitters that can track people moving behind solid walls. The system could help police, firefighters and others nab intruders, and rescue hostages, fire victims and elderly people. It also might help retail marketing and border control.
 

Preparation of a solution of sensor nanoparticles.
Scientists at Queen’s University Belfast are developing new sensors to detect chemical agents and illegal drugs which will help in the fight against the threat of terrorist attacks.

Glow Glow Mushrooms!

Biologists have newly identified seven mushroom species that glow-in-the-dark. (The mushrooms may look psychedelic, but they are not in the psilocybe genus.) San Francisco State University biologist Dennis Desjardin found the glowing fungi in Belize, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia and Puerto Rico. From National Geographic:

Desjardin and colleagues scouted for mushrooms during [...]

Plagne site where sauropod dinosaur tracks were discovered. September 2009.
Footprints from sauropod dinosaurs, giant herbivores with long necks, were found in Plagne, near Lyon, France. Discovered by Marie-Hélène Marcaud and Patrice Landry, two nature enthusiasts, the dinosaur footprints have been authenticated by Jean-Michel Mazin and Pierre Hantzpergue, both of the Paléoenvironnements et Paléobiosphères laboratory

Section of a butterfly wing under a microscope
A team of researchers from the State University of Pennsylvania (USA) and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) have developed a technique to replicate biological structures, such as butterfly wings, on a nano scale. The resulting biomaterial could be used to make optically active structures, such as optical [...]

 Breathe, Wheeze and Measure.

An asthma sufferer myself, I’ve long known the ghostly sensation of an invisible hand reaching through my breastplate to ethereally squeeze my lungs until I turn into a purple faced goblin. In the manner of many asthma sufferers, I like bragging about my attacks, and comparing them to the supposed attacks of [...]

Windmills have opened many doors for William!

William Kamkwamba, a teenage boy in Malawi, saw a photo of a windmill in a textbook at the library and decided that if he could build one it would be useful to his village.

Mr Kamkwamba, who is now 22 years old, knocked together a turbine from spare bicycle parts, [...]

This artist’s illustration simulates an infrared view of the giant ring. Saturn appears as just a small dot within the band of ice and dust. The ring’s diameter is equivalent to roughly 300 Saturns lined up side to side
Saturn’s biggest and never-been-seen before ring has been discovered.  The ’super-sized’ halo was found by Nasa’s Spitzer [...]

Above: CCD image sensor. Below: Optical fibers.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2009 with one half to Charles K. Kao, Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow, UK, and Chinese University of Hong Kong “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication”, and [...]

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!!!

Katherine Harmon writes in Scientific American that pharmacology researchers are developing a drug that could diminish the pleasurable effects of cocaine. Taking the drug might help addicts detoxify with greater success:
The vaccine itself does not destroy cocaine molecules, rather it induces antibodies that bind to it, making the opiate lose its ability to [...]