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ScienceDaily (May 9, 2012) — A detailed description of development of the first practical artificial leaf -- a milestone in the drive for sustainable energy that mimics the process, photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert water and sunlight into energy -- appears in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research. The article notes that unlike earlier devices, which used costly ingredients, the new device is made from inexpensive materials and employs low-cost engineering and manufacturing processes.Daniel G. Nocera points out that the artificial leaf responds to the vision of a famous Italian chemist who, in 1912, predicted that scientists...

The theoretical physicist and author of 'Physics of the Future' talks about how nanotechnology will change our lives.Will the future bring us the teleportation devices of "Star Trek" or the sinister machines of "The Matrix"? Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku of the City College of New York says that many of the things that were once the domain of science fiction — cars that navigate rush-hour traffic on their own, wallpaper that can switch colors when you remodel, an elevator that takes you into outer space — are already here, or well on their way. His book "Physics of the Future,"...

Seth Shostak, a top astronomer at SETI has recently suggested that instead of trying to listen for standard transmissions from advanced alien biological lifeforms like ourselves, we should probably be listening for AI transmissions. This is based on our own experience, we as humans developed radio transmissions only a short while ago, considering the length of time our civilization has been advancing. And if we're any indication of the general route technologically capable life evolves, the galaxy is probably full of sentient AI collectives, not biological lifeforms. In an interview with the BBC, Dr Shostak said:"If you look at the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. researchers have created a primitive artificial lung that rats used to breathe for several hours and said on Tuesday it may be a step in the development of new organs grown from a patient's own cells. The finding, reported in the journal Nature Medicine, is the second in a month from researchers seeking ways to regenerate lungs from ordinary cells. In the latest study, Harald Ott and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston removed the cells from rat lungs to leave a scaffolding or matrix. They soaked these in a bioreactor...

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. - Fishermen often brag about catching one as long as your arm. Sam Newton caught the arm. Newton, 66, was throwing his cast net off the St. Simons Island pier last week when he pulled up an artificial arm. "It scared the heck out of me,'' he said. "Hell, I'm hoping the rest of the person ain't coming up."

Live video feed from Key West of the sinking of former USNS Vandenberg to form an artificial reef

A newly made synthetic ribosome is an important step in the quest to create artificial life forms. By Emily Singer Researchers at Harvard University have built a functional ribosome--the cell's protein-making machine--from scratch, molecule by molecule. The creation represents a significant step toward making artificial life, and it could ultimately fill a major gap in our understanding of the origins of life. But the scientists who made the ribosome are most interested in its industrial applications. They plan to genetically tinker with the molecular machinery so that it can make proteins more efficiently, as well as proteins that are the...

A new molecule that performs the essential function of life - self-replication - could shed light on the origin of all living things. If that wasn't enough, the laboratory-born ribonucleic acid (RNA) strand evolves in a test tube to double itself ever more swiftly. "Obviously what we're trying to do is make a biology," says Gerald Joyce, a biochemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He hopes to imbue his team's molecule with all the fundamental properties of life: self-replication, evolution, and function. Joyce and colleague Tracey Lincoln made their chemical out of RNA because most researchers...

Scientists develop artificial heart that beats like the real thing Adam Sage in Paris An artificial heart that beats almost exactly like the real thing is to be implanted in patients within three years in a trial that may offer hope to heart disease sufferers unable to receive a transplant. The device, which uses electronic sensors to regulate the heart rate and blood flow, was developed by Alain Carpentier, France's leading cardiac surgeon, and engineers from the group that makes Airbus aircraft. Presented yesterday, it was described by its inventors as the closest thing yet to the human heart. “If...

SACRAMENTO -- Iris and Joseph Kievernagel disagreed about having children during their 10-year marriage, and their argument moved into the courts - and the casebooks of legal precedent - after his death in a helicopter crash. In a ruling made public Friday, a state appeals court said the Sacramento County woman has no right to use her husband's frozen sperm to become pregnant because he had made it clear he did not want to father a child posthumously. If only one spouse has contributed genetic material, "the intent of the donor" must control its disposition after death, said the Third...

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new report indicates artificial reproduction could take place with a capsule inside a woman's body rather than using traditional treatment at a fertility clinic. Pro-life groups are concerned that the "progress" in fertility treatment continues to commodify human life. The Invocell technique involves the mixing of eggs and sperm in a pill-like container that is placed inside a woman's vagina for three days. Full Story at http://www.lifenews.com/bio2414.html

· Law change could help cancer victims · embryo bill fuels impassioned debate Mps are planning a change in the law to allow babies to be conceived from artificial sperm, a move described by opponents as playing God with human DNA. A furious debate is building over how far to leave the door open to its use in IVF treatment, ahead of a Commons vote due shortly on the government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill. The legislation currently allows ...#8239;so-called artificial gametes in research, but imposes a blanket ban on their use in creating a human pregnancy. The technique involves...

Everyone knows the score with black holes: even if light strays too close, the immense gravity will drag it inside, never to be seen again. They are thought to be created when large stars finally spend all their fuel and collapse. It might come as a surprise, therefore, to find that physicists in the UK have now managed to create an “artificial” black hole in the lab. Originally, theorists studying black holes focused almost exclusively on applying Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes how the gravity of massive objects arises from the curvature of space–time. Then, in 1974, the...

RICHARDSON, Texas - David Hanson has two little Zenos to care for these days. There's his 18-month-old son Zeno, who prattles and smiles as he bounds through his father's cramped office. Then there's the robotic Zeno. It can't speak or walk yet, but has blinking eyes that can track people and a face that captivates with a range of expressions. At 17 inches tall and 6 pounds, the artificial Zeno is the culmination of five years of work by Hanson and a small group of engineers, designers and programmers at his company, Hanson Robotics. They believe there's an emerging business...

PARIS (AFP) - Experts in artificial intelligence have built a computer programme that can understand simple jokes, marking an important step in making robots seem friendlier to humans, the weekly New Scientist reports. Previous attempts at getting machines to understand humour have failed miserably, because what is funny to humans is subjective and complex -- and fiendishly difficult to programme. But, says New Scientist, Julia Taylor and Lawrence Mazlack of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio have devised a prototype joke-detection software. They began by loading a programme with a database of words, extracted from a children's dictionary to keep...

TOKYO - Japanese are staying cool as a cucumber this summer with "Pepsi Ice Cucumber" — a new soda based on the crisp green gourd. The soft drink, which hit stores here on Tuesday, doesn't actually have any cucumber in it — but has been artificially flavored to resemble "the refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber," said Aya Takemoto, spokeswoman of Japan's Pepsi distributor, Suntory Ltd. "We wanted a flavor that makes people think of keeping cool in the summer heat," Takemoto said. "We thought the cucumber was just perfect." The mint-colored soda is on sale just for the summer...

NEW YORK - A couple can proceed with a lawsuit against a fertility clinic they filed after the wife gave birth to a daughter whose skin they thought was too dark to be their child, a judge has ruled. ADVERTISEMENT Thomas and Nancy Andrews, of Commack, N.Y., sued New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine, accusing the Manhattan clinic of medical malpractice and other offenses. They claim the Park Avenue clinic used another man's sperm to inseminate Nancy Andrews' eggs. Three DNA tests — a home kit and two professional laboratory tests — confirmed that Thomas Andrews was not the...

December 20, 2006 4800-Year-Old Artificial Eyeball From the announcement by the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies, an educational and research group out of UK: Archaeologists in Burnt City announced unprecedented discovery of an artificial eyeball, dated to 4800 years ago, in this historic site. Announcing this news, director of Burnt City archaeology excavation team, Mansur Sajadi, said that this eyeball belongs to a sturdy woman who was between 25 to 30 years of age at the time of death. Skeletal remains of the woman were found in grave number 6705 of Burnt City's cemetery. Regarding the material used to make...

Robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans, according to a study by the British government. If granted, countries would be obligated to provide social benefits including housing and even "robo-healthcare", the report says. The predictions are contained in nearly 250 papers that look ahead at developments over the next 50 years. Other papers, or "scans", examine the future of space flight and methods to dramatically lengthen life spans. "We're not in the business of predicting the future, but we do need to explore the broadest range of different possibilities to help ensure government is prepared in...

'Chatbot' king George looks for human friends on the internet Sep 15 6:00 AM US/Eastern George, who is 39, single and light-hearted, is looking for friends on the Internet. He has gifts -- the ability to speak in 40 languages and with 2,000 people at the same time. And one quirk: he doesn't really exist. George is a piece of software, arguably the best of the speaking "chatbots" or talking robots, and he's recently received the Loebner prize in Britain, a scientific award recognising the machines best capable of matching the most realistic human dialogues with their own. Seven years...

Zurich, Switzerland, (SPX) Aug 23, 2006 Scientists have unveiled a new technology that could lead to video displays that faithfully reproduce a fuller range of colors than current models, giving such a life-like viewing experience that it could be hard to go back to your old TV. The invention, based on fine-tuning light using microscopic artificial muscles, could turn into competitively priced consumer products in eight years, the scientists say. In ordinary displays such as TV tubes, flat-screen LCDs, or plasma screens, each pixel is composed of three light-emitting elements, one for each of the fundamental colors red, green, and...

Hatin’ on Hillary: N.H. Dems lambaste Clinton By Brett Arends Boston Herald Business Columnist Monday, August 7, 2006 - Updated: 02:56 AM EST MANCHESTER, N.H. - Dick Bennett has been polling New Hampshire voters for 30 years. And he’s never seen anything like it. “Lying b**** . . . shrew . . . Machiavellian . . . evil, power-mad witch . . . the ultimate self-serving politician.” No prizes for guessing which presidential front-runner drew these remarks in focus groups. But these weren’t Republicans talking about Hillary Clinton. They weren’t even independents. These were ordinary, grass-roots Democrats. People who identified...

THE LAW of UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES You've probably heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences. It refers to the unanticipated later results of earlier decisions or actions. We saw a television report of an unintended consequence of "sperm banks"--organizations which sell male sperm to lesbians or other single women who want pregnancy "without a father," and couples who want to have children despite male infertility of the husband. You will be shocked, as we were, to discover an estimated 40,000 children are born each year using this repulsively modern means. Apparently, anonymous "profiles" of the sperm donor are used to market...

I ate a field roast for dinner last night, because I am a vegetarian and those are the types of things we eat (carnivores often wonder). A field roast sort of tastes like meat and sort of looks like meat--but it's made of three vegetables and a grain, so not really. Still, no bunnies died in its making, except maybe when the underpaid field worker harvested all the carrots to make my roast. I thought the field roast was the ultimate in meat technology (note: fakin' bacon? Not good technology), until I came across this Wired News story about a...

Mark Bedau ’76 and Norman Packard ’77 used to stay up late nights at Reed pondering the nature of life. What makes organisms alive? Is there a knowable organizing principle behind living cells? Can life be broken down into its constituent parts? Thirty years later, Bedau and Packard are on a quest for answers. Surrounded by powerful computers and sophisticated equipment in a high-tech industrial park on the outskirts of Venice, Italy—and bankrolled with millions of euros—they are trying to produce actual cells. The two Reedies are part of a long-shot entry in the race to create artificial life. Bedau,...

CHICAGO - Buying organic milk these days - or organic apples, eggs, or beef - no longer has to mean an extra trip to a Whole Foods supermarket or the local co-op. Organic products now line the shelves at Safeway and Costco. And Wal-Mart - already the nation's largest organic-milk seller - says it wants to sell more organic food. Large companies including Kraft, General Mills, and Kellogg own sizable organic- and natural-food brands. Now, they are developing organic versions of their own products, too. Still, while some organic-food fans welcome its broadening appeal and availability, others worry that the...

BEIJING - Beijing will use artificial rainmaking to clear the air after a choking dust storm coated China's capital and beyond with yellow grit, prompting a health warning to keep children indoors, state media said If oil prices surge to record highs, what affect will this have on the US dollar? The huge storm blew dust far beyond China's borders, blanketing South Korea and reaching Tokyo. The storm, reportedly the worst in at least five years, hit Beijing overnight Sunday, turning the sky yellow and forcing residents to dust off and hose down cars and buildings. Hospitals reported a jump...

Presenting American Robot Servants By Roger F. Gay GeckoSystems, Inc., a leading developer of mobile service robots (MSRs), has announced completion of a revolutionary servant class personal robot designed for eldercare, childcare, and home security. This news isn’t coming from Japan or Korea. GeckoSystems is based in Conyers, Georgia in the good ole U.S. of A. Their robot is so new that even the name seems fresh from the engineers’ workbenches: the CareBot™ MSR 3.4. (CareBot) The CareBot stands approximately 4 feet tall (see picture) and rolls gracefully over shag and plush carpet as well as over any smooth...

Rockville, Md. -- A judge allowed corrections officials to forcibly feed convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad while he awaits trial in the county for six October 2002 killings. Muhammad had not eaten anything since being transferred to the Montgomery County, Md., jail on Monday, corrections officials said in court documents filed Thursday. He was apparently upset with the food he was being served and the handling of his legal material. Doctors had concluded that Muhammad, 44, was at risk of serious injury or death of he continued his hunger strike, corrections officials said. Judge James L. Ryan issued an order...

"How do you deal with society when its paradigm of what is right is so dominant?" Doug Engelbart, the 1960s computer visionary asked me the other evening. It's a question he has pondered many times over the past 20 years or so, ever since his research funding was taken away. Mr Engelbart and his teams of researchers at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) shaped the look and feel of the PC, as John Markoff chronicles in his latest book What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. Mr Markoff's book raises the profile of Mr...

Korea's Oldest Artificial Pond Discovered By Kim Ki-tae Staff Reporter The nation¡¯s oldest artificial pond was found in Andong, North Kyongsang Province. The pond¡¯s construction dates back to the Bronze Age. Museum of Dongyang University yesterday announced that the artificial pond was created at least 2,600 years ago, after examining the site where the pond used to be, a swampy place in Chojon-ni, Sohu-myon in the region. It said the rectangular pond was formed in the valley area by digging paths from nearby streams. The artificial lake is estimated to be 50 meters long and 15 meters wide, with a...

I seem to remember some mention of artificial cloud generation ("cloud weaving?") in a thread some time ago. It may just be tin-foil hat stuff, but I remember there was a link to a website that was rather intriguing. I'm not coming up with anything on Google. Anyone know what the heck I'm talking about?

IN a story by Isaac Asimov, three technocrats are sitting in an underground cavern stuffed with electronics discussing how, with a computer named Multivac, they won the war. The attack had come from an enemy that seemed inscrutable - not Shiite fundamentalists or Al Qaeda terrorists but beings from the star system Deneb, a shining light in the constellation Cygnus, who had threatened Earth with weapons of mass destruction. But the earthlings, relying on the help of an artificial, dispassionate intelligence - this sprawling subterranean computer - had ultimately prevailed. Recent reports that the Pentagon is planning to spend tens...

Man-made diamonds are now so perfect they stump the experts. The diamond industry is hoping nobody notices. Feb. 14 issue - Leo, a balding man with an Israeli accent, stands behind a glass counter in one of the hundreds of jewelry shops on 47th Street, the heart of New York's diamond district. Leo makes his living on the strength of his ability to evaluate the authenticity and value of diamonds. He is examining three small stones, each weighing less than half a carat—one pink, one colorless and a third, slightly green, called a marquise. He picks up the pink crystal...

Using an Egg Donor And a Gestational Surrogate, Some Gay Men Are Becoming Dads -- and Charting New Legal and Ethical Territory But most of the time, the single gay executive said, becoming a father using his sperm and eggs donated by a 24-year-old woman he met once in a downtown Starbucks to create embryos that were implanted in the uterus of a 22-year-old surrogate mother he barely knows, absolutely seems like the right thing to do.

A woman who gave birth to a child months before entering a same-sex civil union in Vermont is appealing a court ruling that granted parental standing to her former partner. Cheryl Barlow, who says she no longer is a lesbian, was united with Keri Jones, both residents of Utah, five months after Barlow became pregnant by artificial insemination in 2001. But the relationship ended in 2003 after Barlow discovered Jones was seeing another woman. Jones then sued for parental visitation rights to Barlow's child and was granted favor by Judge Timothy Hanson in Utah's 3rd District Court in Salt Lake...

Choosing a diet soft drink over a regular, sugar-packed beverage may not be the best way to fight obesity, according to new research from Purdue University. But the researchers said this doesn't mean you should grab a regularly sweetened soft drink instead. Susan Swithers and Terry Davidson Download photo caption below Professor Terry Davidson and associate professor Susan Swithers, both in the Department of Psychological Sciences, found that artificial sweeteners may disrupt the body's natural ability to "count" calories based on foods' sweetness. This finding may explain why increasing numbers of people in the United States lack the natural ability...

DAVAO CITY — Over 300 Muslim religious leaders from all over the country announced on Wednesday the official Islamic canonical decision (fatwah) on reproductive health and family planning. The new fatwah allows the use of both natural and artificial contraceptive methods, except for tubal ligation and vasectomy. "The assembly finds reproductive health and family planning program, as practiced under valid reasons and recognized ancestries, are in accordance with the teachings of Islam," the fatwah stated. However, it stressed that family planning for the Muslim community in the Philippines should be anchored on the principles of non-coercion, responsible parenthood, and informed...

<p>DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- With her sparkling blue eyes, wispy eyelashes and demure smile, Hertz is the center of attention wherever she goes.</p> <p>If you're lucky enough to meet her, try to ignore the tangle of wires slinking from behind her face. If you speak with her, talk slowly and loudly. And no matter what you say, don't be offended if she looks at you blankly and repeatedly asks, "What did you say?"</p>

<p>Technically, Stephen Thaler has written more music than any composer in the world. He also invented the Oral-B CrossAction toothbrush and devices that search the Internet for messages from terrorists. He has discovered substances harder than diamonds, coined 1.5 million new English words, and trained robotic cockroaches. Technically.</p>

Italy bans donor sperm and eggs Italy's Senate has overwhelmingly approved a law which bans the use of donor sperm, eggs or surrogate mothers. It also limits the right to artificial fertilisation to "heterosexual couples in stable relationships", excluding gay couples and single women. The bill, one of the most restrictive in Europe, has drawn support and criticism from across the party lines. BBC Rome correspondent Frances Kennedy says that the bill has pitted Catholics against liberals and men against women. The legislation, passed in the Senate by 169 votes to 90 on Thursday, will now be sent back to...

Cyber women test what's real By Jo Twist BBC News Online technology reporter Software cyberbabes, created by powerful computers, sophisticated modelling packages and active imaginations are getting extremely human-like. Rene Morel's 3D model has a very human face Virtual cyberbabes are used in advertising campaigns, hit shoot-em-up games, and the pop industry, from Lara Croft to virtual pop idols, T-Babe and Diki or DK-96. Some of the best 3D models around are currently on show at an exhibition which has just opened in London called Perfectly Real: Women in Bits and Bytes. But they raise questions about what people...

Artificial Development To Build Biggest Spiking Neural Network The first CCortex cluster Palo Alto - Sep 16, 2003 Artificial Development, Inc. today announced that it has completed assembly of the first functional portion of a prototype of Ccortex, a 20-billion neuron emulation of the human cortex, which it will use to build a next-generation artificial intelligence system. Artificial Development will initiate testing of Ccortex in October. The cluster being assembled at AD.com Data Center is a high-performance, parallel supercomputer, composed of 500 nodes and one thousand processors, 1.5 terabytes of RAM, and 80 terabytes of storage. The low-cost software/hardware system...

<p>What was the greatest scientific idea of all time? The answer, I think, is clear: Evolution by natural selection, conceived more or less simultaneously by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid-19th century. It was their genius to imagine a way diverse organisms could arise from simple ancestors by purely natural process.</p>

<p>Tim Devor, 57, tries on a prosthesis with the help of Eric O'Guinn Tuesday at Advanced bio-mechanics in Auburn. Medi-Cal would not cover such devices for many users under proposed cuts.</p> <p>A year ago, doctors amputated the bottom half of Joe Svogar's right leg.</p>

Russian scientist Alexander Bolonkin develops artificial intelligence in the USA It was shown in my previous articles about the artificial intelligence and human immortality that the issue of immortality can be solved fundamentally only with the help of changing a biological bubble of a human being to an artificial one. Such an immortal person made of chips and supersolid materials (the e-man, as it was called in my articles) will have incredible advantages in comparison with common people. An e-man will need no food, no dwelling, no air, no sleep, no rest, no ecologically pure environment. Such a being...

WASHINGTON, July 30 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Ben & Jerry's misleads customers by falsely claiming that some of its ice cream and frozen yogurt products are "All Natural," when they contain artificial flavors, hydrogenated oils, or other factory-made substances, according to a complaint filed today by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The group wants the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take enforcement action against the company, a unit of the multinational food conglomerate Unilever. "Ben & Jerry's enjoys a carefully-cultivated public image as an eco-friendly, worker-friendly brand -- the kind of company whose label claims...

"ISN'T THIS GREAT STUFF?" said the cashier at Puget Consumers Coop. "I'm glad we could get it in again." Then he added, sardonically, "It's OK to sell tobacco, but not this?" "This" is stevia, an herb that - depending on who's talking - is an amazing no-calorie sweetener, a diabetic's salvation, a nutritious health enhancer or an unproved folk flavoring with uncertain effects on heart, kidneys and blood sugar, and a possible detriment to female reproduction. In more than a dozen countries, stevia, sometimes called sweet leaf, is incorporated into manufactured foods and used as a sweetener. But in the...