As nations around the world rush to reconsider their nuclear plans, nuclear experts look toward a future of smaller, safer reactors designed to greatly reduce the likelihood of a Fukushima-sized catastrophe
Hill assured me that "this is a real project." There have been meetings between Mexico's President Calderon and President Obama about the cross-border trade of energy, especially renewable energy. Hill also said that the CEO of NGK Japan had tol
In earlier studies, the researchers conditioned rats to associate a nauseating sensation with saccharin by pairing it with lithium, so that they shunned the sweet taste. However, after the rats received a chemical that blocked the enzyme PKMzeta in t
The Fukushima nuclear incident will likely be upgraded from a level 4 to a 5 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. The scale runs from 0 to 7—the most severe. The incident will remain "an event with local consequences," althoug
In a 'long shot' theory, physicists propose that the world's largest atom smasher could be used as a time machine to send a special kind of matter backward in time. The scientists outline a way to use the Large Hadron Collider to send a hypothetical
"It was a matter of necessity. I had my first case of bedbugs about four years ago. I'm a very hands-on landlord. I do my own repairs, that's what I do. And the response I was getting from my exterminators wasn't adequate," explains Wieler, who
ue in large part to its natural defenses to being chemically dismantled, cellulosic biomass like corn stover and switchgrass, which is abundant and cheap, has been much more difficult to utilize than corn or sugar cane. This means that producing biof
vulnerability of our civilization. Soon after Christmas 2004, I volunteered for the rescue operation on the day after the Indian Ocean tsunami and simultaneously did an on-site field study on the causes of fatalities in southern Thailand. The report,
Rather than bringing people into the lab, researchers at MIT are putting tiny labs into people via a tiny implantable capsule that can track the growth of a tumor or detect heart-deterioration or even silent heart attacks from inside the body.
Rachel Maddow explains the mechanics of what happens when a nuclear reactor has a meltdown, and about how experts are reading signs from the compromised Japanese nuclear reactors to understand how close they are to meltdown.
In a prime example of trickle-down cyborg robotics, the remote-controlled rhinoceros beetle created (modified, really) by DARPA may soon be available in a DIY kit, using cockroaches instead of giant beetles. It could help you realize your dream of tu
The combination of vulnerability to earthquakes and a natural affinity for robotics has led to a surplus of Japanese rescue robots
Microsoft software recognizes organs and other structures in medical images.
A rival to flash memory that requires one percent as much power could improve battery life in mobile devices.
Using tape, rubber and a tiny glass ball, researchers transformed an iPhone into a cheap, yet powerful microscope able to image tiny blood cells. They’ve also added a clinical-grade cellphone spectroscope that might be able to measure some vital sign
The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis. Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy es
"Focusing light into a scattering medium such as tissue has been a dream for years and years, since the beginning of biomedical optics," Wang says. "We couldn't focus beyond say a millimeter, the width of a hair, and now you can focus wherever yo
Parkinson's disease sufferers lack a sufficient amount of a brain chemical called dopamine. In previous research, Kanthasamy has shown that a novel protein -- known as protein kinase-C (specifically PKCδ) - kills essential dopamine-producing ce
Scientists at Stanford University in California have given a new twist to the old saying "seeing the light." Their remarkable research has shown that stimulating the brain with a flash of light can remove fear. The breakthrough experiment offers po
As explained in a recently published study, a Penn research team was able to create high-quality graphene that is just a single atom thick over 95% of its area, using readily available materials and manufacturing processes that can be scaled up to in
The scientists found that the basic cause of age-related health decline is malfunctioning telomeres — the end caps on cells’ chromosomes that protect them against DNA damage. As cells reach their predetermined limit of times that they can divide, the
Time to give thanks for your genome: A new study finds that at some point in our evolutionary history, humans lost a stretch of DNA that would have otherwise promoted the growth of spines on the penis.
Engineers in the UK have designed a new manufacturing process using powdered materials, using it to “grow” a weird ivory-colored bicycle made of nylon. They say it is as strong as steel.
Skeletonics, a six-month-old Japanese student project, has resulted in an exoskeleton made of plastic and metal that's surprisingly dexterous and powered solely by the human embedded inside.
Hoping to take advantage of its violent volcanic heritage, Iceland is contemplating building the world’s biggest undersea electric cable, so it can sell geothermal power to other European nations. If it works, it could export enough electricity to po
XCOR Aerospace announced today that the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), a commercial entity, has purchased six suborbital flights to carry SwRI experiments as pathfinder missions for other SwRI suborbital clients. This is the first such contrac
The pathological processes in MS are not well understood, but an important contributor to its progression is the infiltration of white blood cells involved in immune defense through the blood-brain barrier. Douglas Feinstein, research professor in
In a world first, pluripotent stem cells have been generated from horses by a team of researchers led by Dr. Andras Nagy at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital and Dr. Lawrence Smith at the University of Montreal's Facult
Developed nations have become "dangerously over-reliant" on satellite navigation systems such as GPS, which could break down or be attacked with devastating results, British engineers said Tuesday.
Because patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) exhibit immune system activation and neurodegeneration in several brain regions, researchers in the study hypothesized that there may be numerous antibodies in the serum of affected patients that are s
