The SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY News Thread

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

NASA's not quite dead yet!

If only the few trillion of fiscal stimulus went into NASA and the various space engineering firms instead of banks to create more rubbish financial products.....

[synaesthetic]

Agreed completely.

[LoweGear]

Even if NASA completely folds shop (I wouldn't want that though), the private industry is now able to take over, even if it will take them a while to get to the level that NASA is at.

Meanwhile in more down-to-earth news:

Singularity Hub: Scientists bag and tag the stem cell that may create an endless supply of blood

Also

PopSci: Self-Assembling Microparticle Machines Pick Up and Transport Material, Forming Spontaneous Assembly Lines

One step closer to nanomachine construction... also, micromachines, but still small

And finally:

PopSci: A Transparent Battery to Power Next-Gen See-Through Gadgets

Transparent batteries... looks like we can get some cool transparent watches now

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

Even if NASA completely folds shop (I wouldn't want that though), the private industry is now able to take over, even if it will take them a while to get to the level that NASA is at.

NASA probably won't close shop - there is something like a working relationship between the space engineering firms and NASA themselves. I believe both sides are equally pissed when Star Wars and Orion are scrapped - space is like a giant vote-winning card for the government, and a giant profit machine for the private firms. They have the same goal of getting into space and dominating it before someone else in the world does.

Meanwhile in more down-to-earth news:

Singularity Hub: Scientists bag and tag the stem cell that may create an endless supply of blood

Looks like a premise for the world of Vampire Hunter D.

[AnimeFan188]

"Cyberpunk futurist gaming fantasies are getting closer to commercial reality
courtesy of Walt Disney’s research labs.

Disney Research, Pittsburgh (DRP), has created a new sensory based technology
called Surround Haptics, which allows gamers and film audiences to feel a range
of sensations wherever they wear the technology."

See:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08...g_thanks_walt/

[killer3000ad]

$30 toy can jam FBI, Homeland Sec and Secret Service digital radios

Expensive high-tech digital radios used by the FBI, Secret Service, and Homeland Security are designed so poorly that they can be jammed by a $30 children's toy, CNET has learned.

A GirlTech IMME, Mattel's pink instant-messaging device with a miniature keyboard that's marketed to pre-teen girls, can be used to disrupt sensitive radio communications used by every major federal law enforcement agency, a team of security researchers from the University of Pennsylvania is planning to announce tomorrow.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

"Cyberpunk futurist gaming fantasies are getting closer to commercial reality
courtesy of Walt Disney’s research labs.

Disney Research, Pittsburgh (DRP), has created a new sensory based technology
called Surround Haptics, which allows gamers and film audiences to feel a range
of sensations wherever they wear the technology."

See:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/08...g_thanks_walt/

I bet the Japanese eroge industry will be the first to capitalise on this......

[AnimeFan188]

"In a potential breakthrough in cancer research, scientists at the University of
Pennsylvania have genetically engineered patients' T cells — a type of white
blood cell — to attack cancer cells in advanced cases of a common type of
leukemia.

Two of the three patients who received doses of the designer T cells in a clinical
trial have remained cancer-free for more than a year, the researchers said.

Experts not connected with the trial said the feat was important because it
suggested that T cells could be tweaked to kill a range of cancers, including ones
of the blood, breast and colon."

See:

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-...,1073777.story

[MrTerrorist]

Interesting read here.

The Case For Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must

[Ithekro]

Interesting. The big question is...which government or corporation will actually get the ball rolling towards Mars? And when?

As a History Major, I've come to believe that the problems with America is because we have no goal and that we are not expanding anyplace. While individual people may not think it is needed, the country as a whole seems to have been driven by either, explortion, expansion, or a driving need to get something done. With a goal, society has nothing to do but spin its wheels and fall apart. Americans need a national level goal. Sure half the country will not be for it...that is normal, but the half that is for it will make it happen out of pride, of nothing else.

How do you stop Rome from falling? Keep successfully expanding? Maybe...maybe not. How do you keep Americans from degenerating? Let them be Pioneers again? Maybe...hopefully. There might not be anyone out their (locally) to be at war with or whatever...but explorations and settling are sometimes easier when you don't have restless natives to fight every decade on the way.

[synaesthetic]

Well, we don't have restless natives to fight on Mars...

[Ithekro]

Well at least until there are a generation or two of humans born there. They might be restless.

[AnimeFan188]

"Genetic engineering scares a lot of people, partly because we love making sci-fi
movies and video games starring walking humanoid horrors that resulted from
experiments gone wrong. And, while the idea of something like growing a human heart
in a sheep's body just seems wrong somehow, it probably seems less wrong to the
person who actually needs a heart transplant.

What we're trying to say is that as weird as it is, genetic engineering may save your life
some day thanks to things like ..."

See:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19343...your-life.html

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

"Genetic engineering scares a lot of people, partly because we love making sci-fi
movies and video games starring walking humanoid horrors that resulted from
experiments gone wrong. And, while the idea of something like growing a human heart
in a sheep's body just seems wrong somehow, it probably seems less wrong to the
person who actually needs a heart transplant.

What we're trying to say is that as weird as it is, genetic engineering may save your life
some day thanks to things like ..."

See:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19343...your-life.html

Well, the only thing that pisses me off, is that with the same argument. Bio-tech firms like Monsanto try to advertise their genetically modified crops. These have no advantage for the consumer, only the producer benefits because he can now use more pesticides that would otherwise harm the plant.

For the consumer it might actually be a bad deal... imagine you have an allergy against a certain acid in tomatoes. Now imagine for whatever reason a bio tech firm injects the genetic information that is responsible for this acid into other farm products. As a consumer you've now alergies against these genetically modified farm products too.

Besides, you can see in hospitals where the artificial intervention in the environment can lead to (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance). Fiddling with nature in that regard could result in actually making things worse.
For example super resistant plants could easily destroy ecosystems or replace natural crops by replacing other non-resistant plants.
There might also be super resistent pests as a side-effect... which in turn demand evermore poisenous pesticides to get rid of them.

[AnimeFan188]

"A hair-thin electronic patch that adheres to the skin like a temporary tattoo could
transform medical sensing, computer gaming and even spy operations, according to a
US study published Thursday."

See:

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Elec..._uses_999.html

[synaesthetic]

GMO foods aren't always bad, but some of what Monsanto does is, well, pretty damn evil. They modify their shit just so they can patent the seeds, and charge people out the ass for the rights to use their plants.

[MrTerrorist]

Japanese researchers grow plants on high-tech sheets that are microns thick

This looks like a great helpful technology, especially in the future for trees and crops.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

GMO foods aren't always bad, but some of what Monsanto does is, well, pretty damn evil. They modify their shit just so they can patent the seeds, and charge people out the ass for the rights to use their plants.

Most comment against GMO than I heard are in fact against Monsanto's ''ethic'': peoples are mixingGMO and Monsanto.

[LoweGear]

PopSci: 'Epidermal Electronics' Paste Peelable Circuitry On Your Skin, Just Like A Temporary Tattoo

[AnimeFan188]

'Making science-fiction a reality': Bulletproof human skin made from spider silk and
goat milk developed by researchers:

"It might look like a poorly drawn picture of an alien, but this is actually one of the
most advanced types of skin ever made - that can even stop bullets."

See:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...cientists.html