April 30, 2008 (Wednesday)

• HP Labs
  HP Labs
  HP Labs is the exploratory and advanced research group for Hewlett-Packard. The lab has some 600 researchersin seven locations throughout the world....
  
   announces the creation of the memristor
  Memristor
  Memristor is a passive two-terminal electrical component envisioned by Leon Chua as a fundamental non-linear circuit element relating charge and magnetic flux linkage...
  
  , at times described as the fourth basic electronic element. The memristor was first predicted in 1971 by Leon Chua. The discovery may have a tremendous impact on computing and electronics, joining the other basic electronic elements the resistor
  Resistor
  A linear resistor is a linear, passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element.The current through a resistor is in direct proportion to the voltage across the resistor's terminals. Thus, the ratio of the voltage applied across a resistor's...
  
  , capacitor
  Capacitor
  A capacitor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in an electric field. The forms of practical capacitors vary widely, but all contain at least two electrical conductors separated by a dielectric ; for example, one common construction consists of metal foils separated...
  
  , and inductor
  Inductor
  An inductor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in a magnetic field. An inductor's ability to store magnetic energy is measured by its inductance, in units of henries...
  
  . (Nature)

April 29, 2008 (Tuesday)

• Rockstar North
  Rockstar North
  Rockstar North is a British video game developer based in Edinburgh, Scotland, best known for creating the Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings franchises in its earlier guise as DMA....
  
   releases Grand Theft Auto IV which is anticipated to be the fastest selling and most acclaimed video game of all time. (Metacritic)
• Yale School of Medicine
  Yale School of Medicine
  The Yale School of Medicine at Yale University is a private medical school located in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. It was founded in 1810 as The Medical Institution of Yale College, and formally opened its doors in 1813....
  
   researchers may have found how metastasis
  Metastasis
  Metastasis, or metastatic disease , is the spread of a disease from one organ or part to another non-adjacent organ or part. It was previously thought that only malignant tumor cells and infections have the capacity to metastasize; however, this is being reconsidered due to new research...
  
   occurs. Apparently it happens when a cancer cell fuses with a white blood cell
  White blood cell
  White blood cells, or leukocytes , are cells of the immune system involved in defending the body against both infectious disease and foreign materials. Five different and diverse types of leukocytes exist, but they are all produced and derived from a multipotent cell in the bone marrow known as a...
  
  . (Physorg)
• Nine countries launch the International Cancer Genome Consortium
  International Cancer Genome Consortium
  The International Cancer Genome Consortium is a voluntary scientific organization that provides a forum for collaboration among the world's leading cancer and genomic researchers....
  
   to collaborate on producing genomic data on 50 types of cancer
  Cancer
  Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
  
  , then make the data publicly available to help scientists develop new treatments. (CBC)

April 25, 2008 (Friday)

• Some synthetic food dyes blamed for hyperactivity in children have been found to reduce the risk of cancer
  Cancer
  Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
  
  . (NewScientist)

April 24, 2008 (Thursday)

• University of Michigan
  University of Michigan
  The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
  
   researchers have created an easily manufactured superlens
  Superlens
  A superlens, super lens or perfect lens is a lens which uses metamaterials to go beyond the diffraction limit. The diffraction limit is an inherent limitation in conventional optical devices or lenses. In 2000, a type of lens was proposed, consisting of a metamaterial that compensates for wave...
  
   that focuses light 10 times more sharply than a conventional lens; surpassing the diffraction limit. This could lead to smaller features on computer chips and higher capacity optical media, and may impact wireless power transfer. (NewScientist)

April 21, 2008 (Monday)

• Windows XP SP3: Service Pack 3 is available to manufactures and will be released for consumers on April 29. (CNet)
• Using the right nutrients bacteria can be temporarily awoken from stasis and more effectively killed with antibiotics, providing potentially more effective treatment of persistent diseases such as tuberculosis
  Tuberculosis
  Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
  
   and urinary tract infection
  Urinary tract infection
  A urinary tract infection is a bacterial infection that affects any part of the urinary tract. Symptoms include frequent feeling and/or need to urinate, pain during urination, and cloudy urine. The main causal agent is Escherichia coli...
  
  s. (ScienceMag)

April 18, 2008 (Friday)

• For the first time holographic storage technology will be commercially available shortly. The 300GB discs are slightly thicker than DVD's and will last for 50 years. (ZDNet)

April 17, 2008 (Thursday)

• Eastern and southeast Asia is identified as the source of the annual flu epidemic by Cambridge University by analyzing 13,000 viral samples from 2002 to 2007. It appears in one of eight countries 6 to 9 months before anywhere else. (NewScientist)

April 16, 2008 (Wednesday)

• Recreating undulating skin, similar to dolphin
  Dolphin
  Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...
  
  s, could reduce aircraft and submarine drag by 50%. (NewScientist)
• Scientists at Copenhagen University found that vitamins and antioxidant supplements did not make people live longer, and in some cases reduced their lifespan. (BBC)

April 15, 2008 (Tuesday)

• Drug-treated blood stem cell
  Stem cell
  This article is about the cell type. For the medical therapy, see Stem Cell TreatmentsStem cells are biological cells found in all multicellular organisms, that can divide and differentiate into diverse specialized cell types and can self-renew to produce more stem cells...
  
  s which were made to resemble immature heart cells were used in mice, to improve their damaged hearts. (Physorg)
• Using photoacoustic tomography
  Photoacoustic tomography
  Photoacoustic tomography , or photoacoustic computed tomography , is a materials analysis technique based on the reconstruction of an internal photoacoustic source distribution from measurements acquired by scanning ultrasound detectors over a surface that encloses the source under...
  
   (PAT) scientists can pinpoint the part of the brain involved in epileptic seizure
  Seizure
  An epileptic seizure, occasionally referred to as a fit, is defined as a transient symptom of "abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain". The outward effect can be as dramatic as a wild thrashing movement or as mild as a brief loss of awareness...
  
  s. (NewScientist)
• A Florida Atlantic University
  Florida Atlantic University
  Florida Atlantic University, also referred to as FAU or Florida Atlantic, is a public, coeducational, research university located in , United States. The university has six satellite campuses located in the Florida cities of Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, Port St. Lucie, and in Fort...
  
   anthropologist has synthesized the voice of Neanderthal
  Neanderthal
  The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
  
  s using new reconstructions of vocal tracts. (NewScientist)
• Seagate Technology
  Seagate Technology
  Seagate Technology is one of the world's largest manufacturers of hard disk drives. Incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology, Seagate is currently incorporated in Dublin, Ireland and has its principal executive offices in Scotts Valley, California, United States.-1970s:On November 1, 1979...
  
   sues small solid-state drive
  Solid-state drive
  A solid-state drive , sometimes called a solid-state disk or electronic disk, is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data with the intention of providing access in the same manner of a traditional block i/o hard disk drive...
  
   competitor STEC, Inc.
  STEC, Inc.
  STEC, Inc. is a multinational company and a leader in enterprise solid-state drive .The company is headquartered in Santa Ana, California...
  
   alleging infringement of patents. If it wins the case it would set a precedent forcing other manufactures to pay Seagate royalties. (CBC)

April 14, 2008 (Monday)

• IBM
  IBM
  International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
  
   demonstrates high-k/metal gate
  High-k Dielectric
  The term high-κ dielectric refers to a material with a high dielectric constant κ used in semiconductor manufacturing processes which replaces the silicon dioxide gate dielectric...
  
   technology for the 32-nanometer process which increases chip speed by up to 30 percent and reduces power consumption by up to 50 percent compared to 45-nanometer chips. (PCWorld)

April 13, 2008 (Sunday)

• Kanzius RF therapy is coming closer to human trials for cancer treatment. It uses gold or carbon nanoparticles which will attach to cancer cells, then nontoxic radio wave
  Radio Wave
  Radio Wave may refer to:*Radio frequency*Radio Wave 96.5, a radio station in Blackpool, UK...
  
  s are used to heat up and kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unaffected. (Wired)

April 12, 2008 (Saturday)

• An easy method of making transparent graphene
  Graphene
  Graphene is an allotrope of carbon, whose structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. The term graphene was coined as a combination of graphite and the suffix -ene by Hanns-Peter Boehm, who described single-layer...
  
   has been developed by Rutgers University
  Rutgers University
  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
  
  . As graphene can move electrons tens of times faster than silicon
  Silicon
  Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...
  
   it can be faster and use less power. (TechReview)

April 11, 2008 (Friday)

• Cyberwalk: A virtual-reality-based omnidirectional treadmill
  Omnidirectional treadmill
  An omnidirectional treadmill, or ODT, is a device that allows a person to perform locomotive motion in any direction. The ability to move in any direction is how these treadmills differ from their basic counterparts...
  
   has been developed that will allow unrestrained walking in all directions. (Physorg)
• Carbon nanotube
  Carbon nanotube
  Carbon nanotubes are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. Nanotubes have been constructed with length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, significantly larger than for any other material...
  
  s have been made semitransparent, flexible and in multiple colors, which could impact flat panel displays and solar cell
  Solar cell
  A solar cell is a solid state electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect....
  
  s. (Physorg)

April 10, 2008 (Thursday)

• IBM
  IBM
  International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
  
   has demonstrated racetrack memory
  Racetrack memory
  Racetrack memory is an experimental non-volatile memory device under development at IBM's Almaden Research Center by a team led by Stuart Parkin. In early 2008, a 3-bit version was successfully demonstrated...
  
   for the first time. As a 3D component using spin
  Spin (physics)
  In quantum mechanics and particle physics, spin is a fundamental characteristic property of elementary particles, composite particles , and atomic nuclei.It is worth noting that the intrinsic property of subatomic particles called spin and discussed in this article, is related in some small ways,...
  
  -coherent electric current
  Electric current
  Electric current is a flow of electric charge through a medium.This charge is typically carried by moving electrons in a conductor such as wire...
  
   it has the promise to be fast, low energy, high density memory that could remove the need for RAM
  Ram
  -Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
  
   and replace harddrives. (NewScientist)

April 9, 2008 (Wednesday)

• Michael Chertoff
  Michael Chertoff
  Michael Chertoff was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush and co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act. He previously served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as a federal prosecutor, and as assistant U.S. Attorney...
  
   calls for IT security professionals to undertake a massive project to protect the United States from a catastrophic cyber attack, which could damage the country as badly as the September 11, 2001, attacks. (TechNewsWorld)

April 8, 2008 (Tuesday)

• The first frog
  Frog
  Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . Most frogs are characterized by a short body, webbed digits , protruding eyes and the absence of a tail...
  
   with no lungs is discovered in Kalimantan
  Kalimantan
  In English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo....
  
  , Indonesia
  Indonesia
  Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
  
  . It acquires all its oxygen through the skin and is the third example of lung loss. Researchers believe this occurred because of the fast moving cold water favored negative buoyancy and a flat body. (ScienceDaily)
• U.S. researchers found proteins from alligator
  Alligator
  An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. There are two extant alligator species: the American alligator and the Chinese alligator ....
  
   white blood cell
  White blood cell
  White blood cells, or leukocytes , are cells of the immune system involved in defending the body against both infectious disease and foreign materials. Five different and diverse types of leukocytes exist, but they are all produced and derived from a multipotent cell in the bone marrow known as a...
  
  s killed antibiotic resistant MRSA
  Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
  Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. It is also called multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and oxacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus...
  
   and six out of eight different strains of the fungus Candida albicans
  Candida albicans
  Candida albicans is a diploid fungus that grows both as yeast and filamentous cells and a causal agent of opportunistic oral and genital infections in humans. Systemic fungal infections including those by C...
  
  . (Physorg)
• The Scripps Research Institute
  The Scripps Research Institute
  The Scripps Research Institute is an American medical research facility that focuses on research in the basic biomedical sciences. Headquartered in La Jolla, California, with a sister facility in Jupiter, Florida, the institute is home to 3,000 scientists, technicians, graduate students, and...
  
   create a chip that permits a classroom demonstration of evolution
  Evolution
  Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
  
  ; where a ligase
  Ligase
  In biochemistry, ligase is an enzyme that can catalyse the joining of two large molecules by forming a new chemical bond, usually with accompanying hydrolysis of a small chemical group dependent to one of the larger molecules...
  
   becomes 90 times more efficient after just 70 hours of evolution. (NewScientist)
• Researchers in Canada report they have developed a special filter to remove prion
  Prion
  A prion is an infectious agent composed of protein in a misfolded form. This is in contrast to all other known infectious agents which must contain nucleic acids . The word prion, coined in 1982 by Stanley B. Prusiner, is a portmanteau derived from the words protein and infection...
  
  s from blood donation
  Blood donation
  A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions or made into medications by a process called fractionation....
  
  s, which would remove the concern of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
  Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
  Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease or CJD is a degenerative neurological disorder that is incurable and invariably fatal. CJD is at times called a human form of mad cow disease, given that bovine spongiform encephalopathy is believed to be the cause of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans.CJD...
  
   (human version of mad cow disease
  Bovine spongiform encephalopathy
  Bovine spongiform encephalopathy , commonly known as mad-cow disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. BSE has a long incubation period, about 30 months to 8 years, usually affecting adult cattle at a peak age onset of...
  
  ). (EurekAlert)
• Soyuz TMA-12
  Soyuz TMA-12
  Soyuz TMA-12 was a Soyuz mission to the International Space Station which was launched by a Soyuz FG rocket at 11:16 UTC on 8 April 2008. It docked to the Pirs module of the station on 10 April 2008. Landing occurred at 03:37 on 24 October...
  
  : Yi So-yeon
  Yi So-yeon
  Yi So-yeon is a South Korean scientist and Ph.D. graduate of KAIST . On April 8, 2008, she became the first Korean and the second Asian woman to fly in space, after Chiaki Mukai.-Biography:Yi So-yeon was born to father Yi Gil-soo...
  
   has become the first South Korean astronaut. (Times)

April 7, 2008 (Monday)

• Protein synthesis is directly observed for the first time. (Physorg)

April 6, 2008 (Sunday)

• Columbia University
  Columbia University
  Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
  
   scientists hypothesize that a meteorite impact along with water and hot temperatures could create and explain the dominance of left-handed amino acids, the prerequisites for life on Earth. (Physorg)
• Astronomers find a planetary solar system which may be similar to our own. Indicating systems similar to ours may be more common than previously thought. (BBC)

April 4, 2008 (Friday)

• British researchers have found a way to turn embryonic stem cells into insulin
  Insulin
  Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle....
  
  -producing pancreatic tissue. (EurekAlert)
• Louisiana State University
  Louisiana State University
  Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
  
   researchers find a gene from adenovirus-36 can trigger obesity by making fat precursor cells differentiate into fat cells. (NewScientist)

April 3, 2008 (Thursday)

• Stem cell treatments
  Stem cell treatments
  Stem cell treatments are a type of intervention strategy that introduces new cells into damaged tissue in order to treat disease or injury. Many medical researchers believe that stem cell treatments have the potential to change the face of human disease and alleviate suffering...
  
  : North American scientists have found a way to produce 140 cell types from human embryonic progenitor (hEP) cells, overcoming issues of poor yields of desired cell type and short telomere
  Telomere
  A telomere is a region of repetitive DNA sequences at the end of a chromosome, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration or from fusion with neighboring chromosomes. Its name is derived from the Greek nouns telos "end" and merοs "part"...
  
  s from current fetal or adult cell methods. (MedicalNewsToday)
• Two mutations in mitochondria have been found to increase the chance a tumor
  Tumor
  A tumor or tumour is commonly used as a synonym for a neoplasm that appears enlarged in size. Tumor is not synonymous with cancer...
  
   will metastasize. (ScienceMag)
• Jules Verne ATV
  Jules Verne ATV
  The Jules Verne ATV, or Automated Transfer Vehicle 001 , was an unmanned cargo resupply spacecraft launched by the European Space Agency . The ATV was named after the French science-fiction author Jules Verne...
  
  : The European Automated Transfer Vehicle
  Automated Transfer Vehicle
  The Automated Transfer Vehicle or ATV is an expendable, unmanned resupply spacecraft developed by the European Space Agency . ATVs are designed to supply the International Space Station with propellant, water, air, payload and experiments...
  
   successfully docked with the ISS
  ISS
  The ISS is the International Space Station.ISS may also refer to:* I See Stars, an American electronic rock band* ISS A/S, a Danish service company* Idea Star Singer, a Malayalam music reality show by Asianet TV...
  
   delivering three times the cargo capacity compared to the progress spacecraft
  Progress spacecraft
  The Progress is a Russian expendable freighter spacecraft. The spacecraft is an unmanned resupply spacecraft during its flight but upon docking with a space station, it allows astronauts inside, hence it is classified manned by the manufacturer. It was derived from the Soyuz spacecraft, and is...
  
  . (Reuters)
• Helicos BioSciences has created a single molecule DNA
  DNA
  Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
  
   sequencer, avoiding the time consuming and error prone polymerase chain reaction
  Polymerase chain reaction
  The polymerase chain reaction is a scientific technique in molecular biology to amplify a single or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence....
  
   process. It is estimated a sequencing would cost $72,000 and take eight weeks to complete. (Nature)
• Bat
  Bat
  Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
  
  s have a greater role in controlling tropical insects than bird
  Bird
  Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
  
  s have, studies on rain forest and coffee plantations show. (Reuters)

April 1, 2008 (Tuesday)

• C-KAD
  C-KAD
  C-KAD is a chemical solution, composition not published, that allegedly breaks up the molecules which cause cataracts and may also treat the symptoms of glaucoma and macular degeneration. It was developed by Rajiv Bhushan an electrical engineer...
  
   a chemical solution that breaks up cataracts is entering final stages of clinical testing. (PopSci)
• United Kingdom mechanical engineers have created an engine that can switch between two-stroke and four-stroke modes, perhaps providing 27% fuel savings. (TechReview)
• MIT researchers have created an artificial cell that can use genes to create proteins quickly and cheaply. This could help assess how individual patients will react to specific drugs. (NewScientist)