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BOSTON (AP) - For years, futurists have dreamed of machines that can read minds, then act on instructions as they are thought. Now, human trials are set to begin on a brain-computer interface involving implants. Cyberkinetics Inc. of Foxboro, Mass., has received Food and Drug Administration approval to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimeter chips will be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients. If successful, the chips could allow patients to command a computer to act - merely by thinking about the instructions they wish to send. It's a small, early step in a mission to improve the...

A physics professor will try to turn back time in an experiment at the Miami Museum of Science. It's back to the future all over again -- at least, that's what Carlos Dolz has in mind. The Florida International University physics professor plans to take time to task at 10 a.m. Wednesday, when he presents an experiment that involves using acceleration to speed up a digital clock by four seconds. Dolz's experiment -- which takes six hours to finish -- will become part of Playing With Time, the current exhibit at the Miami Museum of Science. Dolz, who has been...

When Holly McGuire begged to be taken home, C4's reality TV show seemed doomed - but then she learnt her lesson. It appeared to be a TV experiment too far. Reality television seemed finally to have overstepped the mark last week, after a programme taking 30 teenagers back to life in a 1950s boarding school drove one girl to break down in front of the cameras. Holly McGuire burst into tears and begged her mother to take her home on Channel 4's controversial series, That'll Teach 'Em, after being shouted at by the matron when she complained of a stomach...

A television experiment has recreated a state boarding establishment to put 1950s educational standards to the test. Cassandra Jardine reports On Monday, 30 pupils and nine teachers went back to school as it was in the 1950s. Installed at a state boarding establishment, they are spending four weeks in a world of discipline and academic endeavour. The 16-year-olds are now approaching the end of their first week in eerily quiet classrooms where they sit at old-fashioned desks with flap-top lids and inkwells. A matron inspects ears for dirt and beds for hospital corners, and a fearsome headmaster is ready to...

Hundreds of worms being used in a science experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia have been found alive in the wreckage, NASA said Wednesday. The worms, known as C. elegans, were found in debris found in Texas several weeks ago. Technicians sorting through the debris at Kennedy Space Center in Florida didn't open the containers of worms and dead moss cells until this week. All seven astronauts were killed when the shuttle disintegrated over Texas on Feb. 1. Columbia contained almost 60 scientific investigations. "To my knowledge, these are the only live experiments that have been located and identified," said...

Searchers find live worms in shuttle wreckage Wednesday April 30, 2003 By MIKE SCHNEIDER Associated Press Writer CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) Hundreds of worms being used in a science experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia have been found alive in the wreckage, NASA said Wednesday. The worms, known as C. elegans, were found in debris found in Texas several weeks ago. Technicians sorting through the debris at Kennedy Space Center in Florida didn't open the containers of worms and dead moss cells until this week. All seven astronauts were killed when the shuttle disintegrated over Texas on Feb. 1. Columbia...

Lucky discovery uncovers cancer-proof mouse 22:00 28 April 03 NewScientist.com news service A cancer-proof mouse, which can survive being injected with any number of cancer cells, has been discovered by US scientists. The discovery of the resistant mouse could pave the way for future gene or drug therapies if the mechanism by which it fights cancer can be understood Researchers at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina have now bred a colony of 700 cancer-proof mice from the resistant male they stumbled across while doing other experiments. Doctors have known for many years that in rare...

EXPERIMENTS ON DOOMED SHUTTLE INCLUDED STEM-CELL RESEARCH According to the Jerusalem Post, experiments planned for the Columbia included stem-cell research -- controversial because it involves the issue of cloning. "Among the materials taken along are genetically engineered adult stem cell cultures, which will be used for an experiment prepared by scientists from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem," the newspaper reported on January 17. "It focuses on building new, specialized cells by isolating adult stem cells taken from bone marrow and converting them into bone, cartilage, or tendon cells by introducing specific genes into them." According to the newspaper, the experiment...

[QX: COLOR, BOLD EMPHASES ADDED] CONCERNING THE USAGE OF THE MASORETIC TEXT OF GENESIS FOR THE ELS'S EXPERIMENTS In the Statistical Science paper we wrote: "We used the standard, generally accepted text of Genesis known as the Textus Receptus. One widely available edition is that of the Koren Publishing Company in Jerusalem. The Koren text is precisely the same as that used by us." That is, we didn't choose arbitrarily one of many available texts of Genesis, but chose the text of Genesis which is considered kosher in almost all Jewish communities. Critics have questioned the usage of this Masoretic...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 October 20 The Space Shuttle Docked with Mir Credit: Nikolai Budarin, Russian Space Research Institute, NASA Explanation: Before there was the International Space Station, the reigning orbiting spaceport was Russia's Mir. Pictured above in 1995, the United States Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the segmented Mir. During shuttle mission STS-71, astronauts answered questions from school students over amateur radio and performed science experiments aboard Spacelab. The Spacelab...

    Black hole theory suggests light is slowing   13:27 08 August 02 Hazel Muir   One of Einstein's most dearly held concepts - that the speed of light is constant - is looking a little fragile. Physicists in Australia claim there is good reason to think the speed of light has slowed over time. "Einstein would have absolutely hated this," said Paul Davies of Macquarie University in Sydney. "His entire theory of relativity was founded on the notion that the speed of light is an absolute fixed universal number." The physicists' suggestion follows earlier measurements of a key quantity called...

Speed of light broken with basic lab kit   10:03 16 September 02 Charles Choi   Electric signals can be transmitted at least four times faster than the speed of light using only basic equipment that would be found in virtually any college science department. Scientists have sent light signals at faster-than-light speeds over the distances of a few metres for the last two decades - but only with the aid of complicated, expensive equipment. Now physicists at Middle Tennessee State University have broken that speed limit over distances of nearly 120 metres, using off-the-shelf equipment costing just $500. Jeremy Munday and...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 27 Apollo 11: Catching Some Sun Credit: Apollo 11, NASA (Image scanned by Kipp Teague) Explanation: Bright sunlight glints and long dark shadows dramatize this image of the lunar surface taken by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first to walk on the Moon. Pictured is the mission's lunar module, the Eagle, and spacesuited lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin unfurling a long sheet of foil also...

Thursday, 25 July, 2002, 11:15 GMT 12:15 UK Fusion experiment disappoints The idea that we could build nuclear fusion reactors that relied on the extraordinary pressures and temperatures experienced inside tiny, collapsing bubbles in a liquid has suffered a grievous blow. New calculations all but rule out the controversial suggestion, made earlier this year by US and Russian researchers. We've shown that chemistry occurs within a collapsing bubble, and that it limits the energy available during cavitation Kenneth Suslick They fired sound waves through acetone, causing minute bubbles in the liquid to form and then collapse at temperatures of millions...

Another human experiment is coming this month, planned by the US Navy. A public notice was filed in today's San Diego Union Tribune which stated the Environmental Assessment "EA has determined that the proposed action will have no significant adverse impacts on the human environment." What is the experiment? Local residents would like to know. It's called "Juliet" and "will be conducted from July 24 to August 15, 2002 in the southwest region of the U.S. and offshore waters of southern California" "including San Clemente and San Nicolas Islands, offshore of Camp Pendleton, and at the Naval Air Warfare Center...