Technology has immortality, cures for the worlds devastating diseases, quantum computing and a host of other science fiction notions in its grasp. Current trends in a number of areas indicate that over the next 10 years many of these technologies will come to fruition. "The Next 10 Years" tracks the trends that will transform our everyday lives in almost unimaginable ways.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Famed geneticist creating life form that turns CO2 to fuel

Famed geneticist creating life form that turns CO2 to fuel:
Famed geneticist creating life form that turns CO2 to fuel.

A scientist who mapped his genome and the genetic diversity of the oceans said Thursday he is creating a life form that feeds on climate-ruining carbon dioxide to produce fuel.

Geneticist Craig Venter disclosed his potentially world-changing "fourth-generation fuel" project at an elite Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California.

"We have modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry and becoming a major source of energy," Venter told an audience that included global warming fighter Al Gore and Google co-founder Larry Page.

"We think we will have fourth-generation fuels in about 18 months, with CO2 as the fuel stock."

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Thursday, February 21, 2008

Genetic pathway critical to disease, aging found

Genetic pathway critical to disease, aging found

Genetic pathway critical to disease, aging found

MADISON -- The same chemical reaction that causes iron to rust plays a similarly corrosive role in our bodies. Oxidative stress chips away at healthy cells and is a process, scientists know, that contributes to a host of diseases and conditions in humans ranging from Alzheimer's, heart disease and stroke to cancer and the inexorable process of aging.

Now, writing in the current edition (Feb. 21, 2008) of the journal Nature, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists reports the discovery of a gene expression pathway that exerts a sweeping influence over the process of oxidative stress.

The finding is important because at its foundation it represents a master pressure point for a host of medical conditions, and could one day enable the manipulation of genes or the development of novel drugs to thwart disease.

"Most of the genes this pathway controls are important for human disease," according to Richard A. Anderson of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and senior author of the new Nature report. "This is a totally new and novel pathway that controls the synthesis of enzymes key for many human diseases."

Oxidative stress occurs when the body's ability to neutralize highly toxic chemicals known as free radicals is overtaxed. Free radicals can damage DNA and other molecules essential for the health of a cell.

A key enzyme in the new pathway, dubbed Star-PAP by its Wisconsin discoverers, functions as part of a complex that controls the expression of messenger RNA, all-important molecules that carry genetic information from the nucleus of a cell to the cytoplasm where proteins are made. Star-PAP is responsible for adding a critical biochemical tail onto messenger RNA. The tail, in kite-like fashion, is necessary for the stability of the messenger RNA molecules, can turn them on and off, and thus governs the production of certain key enzymes and proteins in the cell.

"The tail," Anderson explains, "is like a postage stamp that enables messenger RNA to exit the nucleus of the cell and enter the cytoplasm where the genetic message is translated into protein."

The Star-PAP enzyme regulates the production of a relatively small number of proteins and enzymes in cells, but those could have an influence far beyond oxidative stress, Anderson notes. However, the Wisconsin group found that the newfound pathway contains a genetic "on-off" switch for a key protein known as heme oxygenase-1, an agent that protects cells from oxidative stress.

"Star-PAP is a master switch that controls key aspects of oxidative stress in cells," says Anderson, a UW-Madison professor of pharmacology. "A wealth of the genes involved in oxidative stress also seems to be the direct targets for the Star-PAP pathway."

The discovery of a gene expression pathway and specific enzymes that exert broad influence on the process of oxidative stress has clear clinical relevance, Anderson says, because it could potentially be manipulated to mitigate the damage oxygen does to cells.

"Oxidative stress control pathways for us humans are pretty important because we live in an environment where oxygen is required to keep us alive, but also stresses us because of oxidative damage to our cells," Anderson says.

Oxidation can damage DNA, mitochondria, cell membranes, and other mechanisms and structures essential to the cell. Such damage underpins disease, including in the parts of the body -- the heart, the lungs and the brain -- that are heavy users of oxygen.

"We'll be able to get at this new machinery and, hopefully, manipulate it," says Marvin Wickens, a UW-Madison biochemist who was not involved in the study. New drugs that modulate the enzyme and control its activity could potentially blunt the stress that leads to disease.

Although the discovery of a new genetic pathway in cells is important, much work remains to identify how the pathway influences human disease, Anderson says.

"We've discovered a novel pathway that controls expression of genes important to oxidative stress," he says. "It has really key implications for heart disease, stroke, and possibly for aging, but it is still not clear precisely what functions this pathway is regulating in the context of those conditions."

###

Co-authors of the study include David L. Mellman, Michael L. Gonzales, Christy A. Barlow, Ping Wang and Christina Kendziorski, all of UW-Madison.

-- Terry Devitt, (608) 262-8282, trdevitt@wisc.edu

Contact: Richard Anderson
raanders@wisc.edu
608-262-3753
University of Wisconsin-Madison


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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Technology Review: 10 Emerging Technologies 2008

Technology Review: 10 Emerging Technologies 2008

Technology Review presents our list of the 10 technologies that we think are most likely to change the way we live.

comment: this is a great read! Lot's of engineering challenges but will certainly change our daily lives.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Brain blanket boosts mind control - tech - 15 February 2008 - New Scientist Tech

Brain blanket boosts mind control - tech - 15 February 2008 - New Scientist Tech

With a sheet of electrodes placed over the brain, people can quickly learn to move a cursor around a computer screen using their thoughts. Early trials suggest that this new procedure could overtake more established brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

The two established techniques involve inserting electrodes into the brain or attaching them onto the scalp. These approaches have let people control robotic limbs, steer wheelchairs, type messages and walk in virtual worlds using thought alone.

BCIs will one day transform the lives of people with disabilities and neurological disorders affecting their ability to move or communicate, says neuroscientist Gerwin Schalk at the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, US.

But which method will be best at doing that is still an open question, he says. "The two established sensor methods have fundamental problems that I think will be difficult to overcome."

Solar cell directly splits water for hydrogen

Solar cell directly splits water for hydrogen

Solar cell directly splits water for hydrogen

Plants trees and algae do it. Even some bacteria and moss do it, but scientists have had a difficult time developing methods to turn sunlight into useful fuel. Now, Penn State researchers have a proof-of-concept device that can split water and produce recoverable hydrogen.

"This is a proof-of-concept system that is very inefficient. But ultimately, catalytic systems with 10 to 15 percent solar conversion efficiency might be achievable," says Thomas E. Mallouk, the DuPont Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics. "If this could be realized, water photolysis would provide a clean source of hydrogen fuel from water and sunlight."

commentary: this is like the alchemists turning ordinary substances to gold. Off to the world of clean, green hydrogen living.


Saturday, February 16, 2008

Brain waves pattern themselves after rhythms of nature

Brain waves pattern themselves after rhythms of nature

The same rules of physics that govern molecules as they condense from gas to liquid, or freeze from liquid to solid, also apply to the activity patterns of neurons in the human brain. University of Chicago mathematician Jack Cowan will offer this and related insights on the physics of brain activity this week in Boston during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“Structures built from a very large number of units can exhibit sharp transitions from one state to another state, which physicists call phase transitions,” said Cowan, a Professor in Mathematics and Neurology at Chicago. “Strange and interesting things happen in the neighborhood of a phase transition.”

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Saturday, February 09, 2008

Inventor Doesn't Dare Say 'Perpetual Motion Machine'

Inventor Doesn't Dare Say 'Perpetual Motion Machine':
Thane Heins knows the track record of inventors that claim to make breakthroughs in power generation methods, especially when they claim to defy the second law of thermodynamics. Every so often, a (usually untrained) scientist comes along with a machine that supposedly creates more energy than is put in. Every time, the ideas have been rebuked by real scientists.
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