Nanoparticles in food, vitamins could harm human health

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An intestinal cell monolayer after exposure to nanoparticles, shown in green.

Billions of engineered nanoparticles in foods and pharmaceuticals are ingested by humans daily, and new Cornell research warns they may be more harmful to health than previously thought.

A research collaboration led by Michael Shuler, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Chemical Engineering and the James and Marsha McCormick Chair of Biomedical Engineering, studied how large doses of polystyrene nanoparticles — a common, FDA-approved material found in substances from food additives to vitamins — affected how well chickens absorbed iron, an essential nutrient, into their cells…

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New Kickstarter record set as double fine game hits $400K in 8 hours, $1M in a day

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Breakthrough project.

If you played PC games in the 90s, chances are you played some of Tim Schafer’s work. He worked on the Monkey Island Series and Day of the Tentacle, later going on to create such classics as Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. He recently took to Kickstarter to try and score some funding for a new point-and-click adventure game, as most publishers would consider the genre more or less untouchable these days.

He figured there were enough people out there who wanted a new adventure game that they could scrape together $400,000. That was last night. They hit their goal in 8 hours, and are likely to break a million dollars before the end of the day. In fact, just since I started this post, I’ve had to adjust the headline to reflect an additional $50,000 $70,000 $100,000 that has been pledged…

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3D Printing For Fun And Medical Applications

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3D printing goes medical.

3d printing continues to take us boldly into the brave new world of the 21st century, and not surprisingly medical applications are at the top of the innovation ladder, since replacement parts are always in demand.

Recently, an entire mandible was created in a 3d printer by mixing titanium with the printing compound, and an elderly woman got a new lease on life thanks to the 3d printing of this replacement part. Here’s the scoop…

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Fracking Could Ruin New York’s Organic Food Industry

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Facing an uncertain future thanks to fracking.

Once Again Nut Butter produces organic products in upstate New York—it’s a pretty successful company as far as organic food goes, considering you can find it in just about any natural foods store around.

But Once Again is growing increasingly concerned not only for its own future as an organic company, but for the entire state’s organic industry, if plans to develop fracking in the state are allowed to continue…

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Congress and the EU are fighting to change Google’s privacy policy

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Are you ready for Google’s new privacy policy?

Google’s new privacy policy has already caused a stir among users. Now, Congress and EU regulators are sniffing around the changes and aren’t happy about them — but Google doesn’t seem to care in the slightest.

According to The Hill, house lawmakers questioned Google representatives for two hours yesterday about the changes, but they still aren’t satisfied with the company’s explanations. Speaking to The Hill, Representative Mary Bono Mack said…

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Road Runoff Spurring Spotted Salamander Evolution

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A female spotted salamander gravid with eggs in route to her breeding pool. There she will lay a cluster of approximately 100 eggs. Eight to ten weeks later, those eggs will hatch as larvae. In late summer, if the pool has not already dried, larvae will metamorphose into juveniles that migrate to the adjacent upland habitat.

Spotted salamanders exposed to contaminated roadside ponds are adapting to their toxic environments, according to a Yale paper in Scientific Reports. This study provides the first documented evidence that a vertebrate has adapted to the negative effects of roads apparently by evolving rapidly…

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The state of OpenCourseWare (infographic)

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The world of academics is changing rapidly.

OpenCourseWare, or OCW, is a term applied to course materials created by universities and shared freely with the world via the internet. The movement started in 1999 when the University of Tübingen in Germany published videos of lectures online in the context of its timms initiative. The OCW movement only took off, however, with the launch of MIT OpenCourseWare at MIT in October 2002 and has been reinforced by the launch of similar projects at Yale, Michigan University, and the University of California Berkeley…

(infographic after jump)

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Yummy? Scratch ‘n sniff raspberry scented jeans

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They may look like other jeans, but these smell different.

These jeans look like any other pair of denim you’d see on a fashionable twentysomething. Dark, slim fit and cut perfectly, heck, I wouldn’t mind buying these myself. But unlike other jeans, this pair is made with scratch ‘n sniff raspberry scented denim. Yes. Scratch and sniff. On your freaking jeans! This is awesome…

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Scientists create first atomic X-ray laser

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A powerful X-ray laser pulse from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Linac Coherent Light Source comes up from the lower-left corner (shown as green) and hits a neon atom (center). This intense incoming light energizes an electron from an inner orbit (or shell) closest to the neon nucleus (center, brown), knocking it totally out of the atom (upper-left, foreground). In some cases, an outer electron will drop down into the vacated inner orbit (orange starburst near the nucleus) and release a short-wavelength, high-energy (i.e. “hard”) X-ray photon of a specific wavelength (energy/color) (shown as yellow light heading out from the atom to the upper right along with the larger, green LCLS light).

Scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have created the shortest, purest X-ray laser pulses ever achieved, fulfilling a 45-year-old prediction and opening the door to a new range of scientific discovery.

The researchers, reporting in Nature, aimed SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at a capsule of neon gas, setting off an avalanche of X-ray emissions to create the world’s first “atomic X-ray laser.”
“X-rays give us a penetrating view into the world of atoms and molecules,” said physicist Nina Rohringer, who led the research. A group leader at the Max Planck Society’s Advanced Study Group in Hamburg, Germany, Rohringer collaborated with researchers from SLAC, DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Colorado State University…

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McDonald’s Is Spraying Robbers with an Invisible DNA Mist

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Invisible DNA mist is traceable under blacklight for two weeks.

Apparently, robbing McDonald’s has become a thing in Australia. McRobbery’s are so rampant down under that McDonald’s locations in Aussieland are taking measures to protect themselves by spraying criminals with an invisible mist of DNA. I repeat, AN INVISIBLE MIST OF DNA. The DNA seeps into the criminal’s skin and is visible under blacklight for two weeks.

Sounds ape nuts right? I mean, this sort of tech is needed at a McDonald’s? Of all places!? According to McDonald’s, this is how the SelectDNA system works…

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Carbon dioxide Is ‘driving fish crazy’

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Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes.

Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes with serious consequences for their survival, an international scientific team has found…

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A 3D printer that works with chocolate?

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Why make your food when you can print it?

Futurist Thomas Frey talked about 3D food printers HERE and now we have a production model that can print with chocolate (and more). How awesome is that!

From Gizmodo:

Instead of the toxic smell of melted plastics, while the Imagine 3D printer is doing its thing, your workspace will be filled with the aroma of delicious confections. Because its printing head uses syringes that can be filled with chocolate…

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