Nanotech Could Make Humans Immortal By 2040, Futurist Says - CIO Computerworld — In 30 or 40 years, we'll have microscopic machines traveling through our bodies, repairing damaged cells and organs, effectively wiping out diseases. The nanotechnology will also be used to back up our memories and personalities. In an interview with Computerworld , author and futurist Ray Kurzweil said that anyone alive come 2040 or 2050 could be close to immortal. The quickening advance of nanotechnology means that the human condition will shift into more of a collaboration of man and machine , as nanobots flow through human blood streams and eventually even replace biological blood, he added. That may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie, but Kurzweil, a member of the Inventor's Hall of Fame and a recipient of the National Medal of Technology, says that research well underway today is leading to a time when a combination of nanotechnology and biotechnology will wipe out cancer, Alzheimer's disease , obesity and diabetes . Continue Reading
From Fermilab, a New Clue to Explain Human Existence? - NYTimes. In a mathematically perfect universe, we would be less than dead; we would never have existed. According to the basic precepts of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created in the Big Bang and then immediately annihilated each other in a blaze of lethal energy, leaving a big fat goose egg with which to make stars, galaxies and us. And yet we exist, and physicists (among others) would dearly like to know why. Sifting data from collisions of protons and antiprotons at Fermilab’s Tevatron, which until last winter was the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, the team, known as the DZero collaboration, found that the fireballs produced pairs of the particles known as muons, which are sort of fat electrons, slightly more often than they produced pairs of anti-muons. So the miniature universe inside the accelerator went from being neutral to being about 1 percent more matter than antimatter. Dr.
In an Ancient Mexican Tomb, High Society and Human Sacrifice - N The archaeologist in charge, Bruce R. Bachand of in Utah, determined from the style of ceremonial pottery in the tomb that the burials occurred about 2,700 years ago. He said that could be several centuries earlier than any richly decorated burials previously found in Mesoamerican pyramids. Dr. Bachand said recently in an interview by telephone from the site that the two principal skeletons bore the hallmarks of persons “at the very top of society.” Anthropologists who specialize in pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico and Central America said it was premature to assess the find’s full significance but agreed with Dr. The discovery was made near the top of a 30-foot-tall pyramid, the highest structure at the central plaza of the ancient site at Chiapa de Corzo in the state of Chiapas, not far from the Guatemala border. The tomb raised a difficult question: What culture was responsible for it? Dr. But aspects of the burials differed from the Olmec culture, he said. Elsa M. She praised Dr.
The Anthropocene Debate: Marking Humanity’s Impact by Elizabeth 17 May 2010: Analysis by elizabeth kolbert The Holocene — or “wholly recent” epoch — is what geologists call the 11,000 years or so since the end of the last ice age. As epochs go, the Holocene is barely out of diapers; its immediate predecessor, the Pleistocene, lasted more than two million years, while many earlier epochs, like the Eocene, went on for more than 20 million years. In a recent paper titled “The New World of the Anthropocene,” which appeared in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, a group of geologists listed more than a half dozen human-driven processes that are likely to leave a lasting mark on the planet — lasting here understood to mean likely to leave traces that will last tens of millions of years. Human activity, the group wrote, is altering the planet “on a scale comparable with some of the major events of the ancient past. Are we living in the Anthropocene? Stratigraphy, the official keeper of the geological time scale. MORE FROM YALE e360
Procreative Sex May Soon Be a Quaint Relic, Study Says | Popular According to an Australian fertility specialist, in-vitro fertilization may soon be a more reliable way for us to reproduce than old-fashioned sex. Coming breakthroughs in IVF -- now mainly a last-ditch effort for infertile couples -- may bring it to the point where it's more effective than the traditional approach. It sounds like something straight out of Gattaca or Brave New World: a time when babies are routinely made not in the bedroom but in the lab, in a fine-tuned, streamlined process where success is practically guaranteed. "Natural human reproduction is at best a fairly inefficient process," John Yovich, a doctor at PIVET Medical Centre and Cains Fertility Centre in Australia, told the Daily Mail. Yovich co-authored a study in the current issue of the journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online that surveys a decade of recent advances in embryology. Today, IVF success rates hover around 40 percent, and the procedure costs thousands of dollars -- meaning it's not exactly a cakewalk.
Researchers Create the World's First Fully Synthetic, Self-Repli If figuring out how to quickly sequence genomes was but the first small step for genetics, Craig Venter has gone ahead and made a giant leap for the discipline. The J. Craig Venter Institute announced today that it has created the world's first synthetic cell, boasting a completely synthetic chromosome produced by a machine. "This is the first self-replicating species we've had on the planet whose parent is a computer," Venter said in a press conference. The biological breakthrough could have myriad applications, as it essentially opens the door to engineered biology that is completely manipulated by laboratory scientists. The researchers are already planning to create a specially engineered algae designed to trap carbon dioxide and convert it to biofuel. Though a bacteria cell was the final product in this particular experiment, eukaryotic yeast was a critical player in the process. "Every component in the cell comes from the synthetic genome," Venter said. [J.
Life Form Created With Man-Made DNA Offers Benefits, Dangers - B Will E.T. Look Like Us? What are the odds that intelligent, technically advanced aliens would look anything like the ones in films, with an emaciated torso and limbs, spindly fingers and a bulbous, bald head with large, almond-shaped eyes? What are the odds that they would even be humanoid? In a YouTube video, produced by Josh Timonen of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, I argue that the chances are close to zero (www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKAXrmkx12g). Richard Dawkins himself made this interesting observation in a private communication after viewing it: I would agree with [Shermer] in betting against aliens being bipedal primates, and I think the point is worth making, but I think he greatly overestimates the odds against. I replied to Dawkins that if something like a smart, technological, bipedal humanoid has a certain level of inevitability because of how evolution unfolds, then it would have happened more than once here. But you are leaping from one extreme to the other. Good point.
Looking for Life in the Multiverse The typical Hollywood action hero skirts death for a living. Time and again, scores of bad guys shoot at him from multiple directions but miss by a hair. Cars explode just a fraction of a second too late for the fireball to catch him before he finds cover. And friends come to the rescue just before a villain’s knife slits his throat. In some respects, the story of our universe resembles a Hollywood action movie. Select an option below: Customer Sign In *You must have purchased this issue or have a qualifying subscription to access this content Air Force's Hypersonic X-51 WaveRider Ready For First Test Fligh The military's new wingless plane is set to make its first hypersonic test flight Tuesday, after it is released from a B-52 bomber off the California coast. The X-51A WaveRider, which sort of resembles a shark, will fly for about five minutes, powered by a scramjet engine. It should reach about Mach 6 and transmit data to ground stations before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, according to the Air Force Research Laboratory. The longest previous hypersonic scramjet flight test, performed by a NASA X-43 in 2004, was faster, but lasted only about 10 seconds and used hydrogen fuel. The WaveRider is basically wingless — it has some little fins on its side — so it is designed to ride its own shockwave, hence the name. Tuesday's flight will be the third time a WaveRider has been aloft, but in the past it had remained attached to a B-52. The X-51A program could pave the way to hypersonic weapons and future access to space, the Air Force says.
Armenian Cave Yields Oldest Known Leather Shoe Perfectly preserved under layers of sheep dung (who needs cedar closets?), the shoe, made of cowhide and tanned with oil from a plant or vegetable, is about 5,500 years old, older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, scientists say. Leather laces crisscross through numerous leather eyelets, and it was worn on the right foot; there is no word on the left shoe. While the shoe more closely resembles an L. It could have fit a small man or a teenager, but was most likely worn by a woman with roughly size 7 feet. The shoe was discovered by scientists excavating in a huge cave in , part of a treasure trove of artifacts they found that experts say provide unprecedented information about an important and sparsely documented era: the Chalcolithic period or Copper Age, when humans are believed to have invented the wheel, domesticated horses and produced other innovations. Dr. Many tools found were of obsidian, whose closest source was a 60-mile trek away.
Male menopause is 'rare' but it is not a myth 17 June 2010Last updated at 13:16 Depression can be a symptom of the male menopause The male menopause does exist - but it is rare, researchers have concluded. Just days after it was dismissed as a myth, the European team said the male menopause did exist - but that it affects only 2% of middle-aged men. Over 3,300 men from across Europe were assessed for the New England of Journal study. A men's health expert said testosterone therapy could be beneficial, but doctors had to be cautious about its use. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote We need to be very cautious about the prescribing of testosterone therapy” End QuoteDr Ian BanksPresident, Men's Health Forum Scientists led by a team from the University of Manchester looked at the testosterone levels of 3,369 men aged 40 to 79 from eight European centres. The men were also asked about their sexual, physical and mental health. Depression, fatigue and an inability to perform sexual activity were also linked. 'Excessive diagnosis' warning
Tissue.prn: Desktop Printer Technology Used to Lay Down Regenera The same printer technology that sits on your desk could soon be a common fixture in rebuilding human tissue, treating burns by laying down layers of a patients' own skin or even rebuilding whole organs. A team at Wake Forest University has built a "bioprinter" that uses cells instead of ink. It even uses an ordinary, off-the-shelf printhead, connected to test tubes full of different cell types instead of wells full of colored inks. Led by Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston–Salem, N.C., the team is working on treating burns. Currently, grafts are either sheets of skin taken from a donor site on the body, or layers of cells cultured in vitro from the patient. To treat burns, a laser would scan the wounded area and create a three-dimensional map that would be transmitted to the printer. The project is part of an $85-million U.S. Atala says the idea of building objects with a printer has been around for some time.