Mark Roth: Suspended animation is within our grasp

Researchers create ultra-thin, ultra-tough balloon Jonathan Alden Scientists have developed the world's thinnest balloon that is impermeable to even the smallest gas molecules. Above is a multi-layer graphene membrane that could be used in various applications, including filters and sensors. Using a lump of graphite, a piece of Scotch tape and a silicon wafer, Cornell researchers have created a balloonlike membrane that is just one atom thick -- but strong enough to contain gases under several atmospheres of pressure without popping.

Spinning Spare Parts Clean crochet: A specialist weaves a blood vessel graft from human threads on a sterile tubular loom. Thin off-white threads of human cellular material spiral around the spindle of a machine that is braiding them into a sturdy rope. It sounds macabre, but the inspiration for the material, made by San Francisco–based Cytograft Tissue Engineering, is health, not horror: the biological strands could be used to weave blood vessel patches and grafts that a patient’s body would readily accept for wound repair. 1969 Fireball Meteorite Reveals New Ancient Mineral A fireball that tears across the sky is not just a one-time skywatching event — it can reap scientific dividends long afterward. In fact, one that lit up Mexico's skies in 1969 scattered thousands of meteorite bits across the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua. And now, decades later, that meteorite, named Allende, has divulged a new mineral called panguite. Panguite is believed to be among the oldest minerals in the solar system, which is about 4.5 billion years old. Panguite belongs to a class of refractory minerals that could have formed only under the extreme temperatures and conditions present in the infant solar system. The name of the titanium dioxide mineral, which has been approved by the International Mineralogical Association, honors Pan Gu, said in Chinese mythology to be the first living being who created the world by separating yin from yang (forming the earth and sky).

Alternatives: Testing Without Torture Besides saving countless animal lives, alternatives to animal tests are efficient and reliable. Unlike crude, archaic animal tests, non-animal methods usually take less time to complete, cost only a fraction of what the animal experiments that they replace cost, and are not plagued with species differences that make extrapolation difficult or impossible. Effective, affordable, and humane research methods include studies of human populations, volunteers, and patients as well as sophisticated in vitro, genomic, and computer-modeling techniques. Forward-thinking companies are exploring modern alternatives. For example, Pharmagene Laboratories, based in Royston, England, is the first company to use only human tissues and sophisticated computer technology in the process of drug development and testing. With tools from molecular biology, biochemistry, and analytical pharmacology, Pharmagene conducts extensive studies of human genes and how drugs affect those genes or the proteins they make.

Squishiness of Saturn's moon suggests salty ocean below surface - Technology & Science Scientists have reported the strongest sign yet that Saturn's giant moon may have a salty ocean beneath its chilly surface. If confirmed, it would catapult Titan into an elite class of solar system moons harboring water, an essential ingredient for life. Titan boasts methane-filled seas at the poles and a possible lake near the equator. And it's long been speculated that Titan contains a hidden liquid layer, based on mathematical modeling and electric field measurements made by the Huygens spacecraft that landed on the surface in 2005. The latest evidence is still indirect, but outside scientists said it's probably the best that can be obtained short of sending a spacecraft to drill into the surface — a costly endeavor that won't happen anytime soon. The research looks convincing, said Gabriel Tobie of France's University of Nantes.

Breakthrough: Electronic circuits that are integrated with your skin At least from what's being shown in this article, I doubt such circuitry would be so deeply enmeshed with your own nervous system. It would have to be deeply enmeshed at the spinal level at the very least to do what you're thinking. As for risks of cracking, well, no system is foolproof especially our own natural ones despite eons of evolution. Rabies, spinal meningitis and a huge array of microbial "hacking" have been screwing us over for millions of years now.

Topological Matter in Optical Lattices Illustration by Kamran Samimi This month’s Learnin’ Corner is an explanation of topological matter in optical lattices by University of Pittsburgh associate professor of physics W. Vincent Liu, whose paper “Topological Matter in Optical Lattices” first interested us in the subject of topological matter in optical lattices. Cold atomic gases are a new form of quantum matter, which is currently at the forefront of many-body physics research.

Next Big Future: New drug could cure nearly any viral infection including the common cold, SARS and flu a team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection. Researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Lab have developed technology that may someday cure the common cold, influenza and other ailments. A team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection. The researchers tested their drug against 15 viruses, and found it was effective against all of them — including rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, H1N1 influenza, a stomach virus, a polio virus, dengue fever and several other types of hemorrhagic fever.

DNA Transforms into Dark Matter Detector Underground experiments costing millions of dollars have still failed to find definite proof of the dark matter that supposedly makes up 90 percent of our Milky Way galaxy. But a much cheaper detector made of DNA could finally come up with the "smoking gun" for dark matter's existence. The smoking gun would come from finding both daily and annual changes in the detection of suspected dark matter particles called weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) — pattern changes that would fit leading theories about dark matter. Scientists have figured out how thousands of DNA strands can show the direction of incoming WIMPs for the first time, so that they can detect the proposed pattern changes.

Misbehaving Particles Poke Holes in Reigning Physics Theory The reigning theory of particle physics may be flawed, according to new evidence that a subatomic particle decays in a certain way more often than it should, scientists announced. This theory, called the Standard Model, is the best handbook scientists have to describe the tiny bits of matter that make up the universe. But many physicists suspect the Standard Model has some holes in it, and findings like this may point to where those holes are hiding. Inside the BaBar experiment at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., researchers observe collisions between electrons and their antimatter partners, positrons (scientists think all matter particles have antimatter counterparts with equal mass but opposite charge). When these particles collide, they explode into energy that converts into new particles.

Icy Antarctica Once Ringed With Carpet of Lush Flora The few plants that live in Antarctica today are hardy hangers-on, growing just a few weeks out of the year and surviving poor soil, lack of rain and very little sunlight. But long ago, some parts of Antarctica were almost lush. New research finds that between about 15 million and 20 million years ago, plant life thrived on the coasts of the southernmost continent. Ancient pollen samples suggest that the landscape was a bit like today's Chilean Andes: grassy tundra dotted with small trees. Moondust: Nanoparticles in Lunar Soil May Solve Mystery The moon has never had all that much. It doesn't have atmosphere, it doesn't have water and it sure doesn't have life. What it does have, though, is dirt — lots and lots of dirt — and it's some of the coolest stuff you ever saw. Now it's even cooler, thanks to the discovery this week of a wholly unexpected ingredient stirred into the lunar mix.

NASA's Juno Mission to Probe Jupiter's Biggest Secrets ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A NASA probe that is traveling through space on its way to Jupiter is expected to help astronomers unlock mysteries about the largest planet in our solar system when it arrives there in 2016. NASA's Juno mission was launched in August 2011 to study how Jupiter formed and evolved. After a five-year journey, the spacecraft is expected to arrive at the gas giant planet in August 2016. Jupiter has long intrigued astronomers, from the planet's distinct surface features and complex weather systems to its mysterious origin and evolution, said Fran Bagenal, a professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and a co-investigator on the Juno mission. "People have been looking at this exterior since the time of Galileo," she said.