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.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Direct recording shows brain signal persists even in dreamless sleep

Direct recording shows brain signal persists even in dreamless sleep

Neurologists have already spent many years exploring the upper levels of the brain's functional architecture. In these studies, researchers typically ask volunteers to perform specific mental tasks as their brains are scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Such "goal-oriented" tasks might include looking for or studying a visual stimulus, moving an arm or leg, reading a word or listening for a sound. As the subjects perform these tasks, the scans reveal increases in blood flow to different parts of the brain, which researchers take as indications that the brain areas are contributing to the mental task.

In the past decade, though, scientists have realized that deeper structures underlie goal-oriented mental processes. These underlying brain processes continue to occur even when subjects aren't consciously using their brain to do anything, and the energies that the brain puts into them seem to be much greater than those used for goal-oriented tasks.


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Saturday, September 27, 2008

Neuroscientists Identify Brain Regions Responsible for Warding off Negative Emotion

Neuroscientists Identify Brain Regions Responsible for Warding off Negative Emotion

hirty healthy subjects were recruited into the study, conducted inside an MRI lab at Columbia's Neurological Institute of New York. Participants' brains were monitored while they wore video goggles showing a series of 48 aversive photographs, such as a mutilated human hand and a malnourished child. Participants viewed each image for eight seconds.

Moments before viewing half of the photographs, participants were instructed by a researcher to use cognitive "reinterpretation" techniques that protect the body from adverse visceral reaction. Each subject practiced these techniques during a training session beforehand. If a subject viewed an image of a sick man in a hospital bed, for example, he could prevent a negative reaction by telling himself the bedridden man wasn't sick, but resting. After viewing each photograph, subjects evaluated the intensity of their emotions.


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Researchers study how pistachios may improve heart health

Researchers study how pistachios may improve heart health:

"We investigated mechanisms of action to explain the cholesterol-lowering effects of the pistachio diets," says Sarah K. Gebauer, recent Penn State Ph.D. recipient, currently a post-doctoral research associate, USDA Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center.

However, the researchers note that the reduction in LDL cholesterol observed was seven times greater than would be expected from only the fatty acid profile of pistachios. They suggest that the lipid lowering effects not only reflect the fatty acid profile of the diet, but also are the result of other bioactive substances in pistachios, perhaps phytosterols and fiber.

"Our study has shown that pistachios, eaten with a heart healthy diet, may decrease a person's CVD risk profile, says Penny Kris-Etherton, distinguished professor of nutrition and primary investigator of the study."


Feeding your body's defenses against cancer

Feeding your body's defenses against cancer

If garlic, broccoli, green tea or jogging could be patented, things might be different. Large, high-quality clinical trials would be held and oncologists would write out an anti-cancer grocery list. But although there's a great deal of scientific evidence showing an effect of foods on cancer growth, no one wants to fund the large, controlled trials because no profits can be made.

"It's very easy to fund a single drug looking at a single target," said Block. "But it often doesn't work. Single drugs address, at most, two targets. They cost way too much and are too toxic to use several at once.

"But if you take the phytochemical curcumin found in the Indian spice turmeric - which hits over 70 targets - you might get different results," Block said. "It might not be enough to knock down cancer on its own.


Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Free, Legal and Online: Why Hulu Is the New Way to Watch TV

Free, Legal and Online: Why Hulu Is the New Way to Watch TV

What's a hulu? In August 2007, this question ricocheted through the blogosphere to a chorus of derisive laughter. Fox and NBC were going to make the Internet safe for television! They were building a "YouTube killer"! And they were calling it Hulu! It was almost too perfect—an absurdist topper to the idea that two major broadcast networks could devise an Internet video service people would actually use. The name was even more delicious than the venture's placeholder moniker, NewCo., which the online world had changed to Clown Co. And now Hulu? It means "snoring" in Chinese, one blogger declared. "'Cease' and 'desist' in Swahili," Michael Arrington reported on TechCrunch. "Perhaps they should have just stuck with Clown Co.," he added.

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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

US Army Invests in 'Thought Helmet' Technology for Voiceless Communication

US Army Invests in 'Thought Helmet' Technology for Voiceless Communication:
The US Army has recently awarded a five-year $4 million contract to researchers from the University of California at Irvine (led by UCI's Mike D'Zmura), Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Maryland to study the concept. It will likely be a decade or two before the thought helmet becomes a reality, but the rough technology is already under investigation. Researchers have been working on other brain-computer interfaces, such as Emotiv Systems' brain-wave headset for video games, which is expected to be available commercially next summer.

The Army's version would of course be more sophisticated and reliable than the gaming headset. To make the thought helmet a feasible piece of equipment for soldiers, scientists need to combine advances in computing power together with our understanding of the human brain.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Sovereign Fund Terrorism

Sovereign Fund Terrorism

It has been a long time coming. Greed, that special variety as championed by Gordon Gekko in this well known quote:

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good.

Well folks, tighten your money belts, the certain well known substance is about to hit the fan. We are being fed the pablum of the Wall Street elite and their politician lackeys: check out this revealing link General Motors and the Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Wall Street.

What the 'masses' are not being told is the real reason for the massive Trillion Dollar plus bailout - the distinct probability that the Sovereign Funds [trillions and trillions of dollars held in state managed funds by the Chinese and the Arab Oil States - not America's top allies in the world] would have bought the United States, literally, for penny's on the dollar. This was the 'OMG' knowledge that could not be spoken by the members of Congress that attended the Paulson/Bernanke 'the end is near' meeting. The United States empire was on the brink of a Filenes Basement liquidation due to the Federal Reserve being asleep at the wheel and the Wall Street Elites greed induced myopia giving Sovereign Fund Terrorism an opening to devastate the U.S and World financial markets and most assuredly alter the course of modern history.

What's The Sovereign Individual to do? Update your knowledge at the Ludwig von Mises Institute web site, the Lew Rockwell blog, buy gold and beware of wolves in sheep's clothing.



Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Wistar Institute ::

The Wistar Institute :::
Researchers at The Wistar Institute have deciphered the structure of the active region of telomerase, an enzyme that plays a major role in the development of nearly all human cancers. The landmark achievement opens the door to the creation of new, broadly effective cancer drugs, as well as anti-aging therapies.

Researchers have attempted for more than a decade to find drugs that shut down telomerase—widely considered the No. 1 target for the development of new cancer treatments—but have been hampered in large part by a lack of knowledge of the enzyme’s structure.
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Wistar researchers invigorate 'exhausted' immune cells

Wistar researchers invigorate 'exhausted' immune cells

In battles against chronic infections, the body's key immune cells often become exhausted and ineffective. Researchers at The Wistar Institute have found a way to restore vigor to these killer T cells by blocking a key receptor on their surface, findings that may advance the development of new therapies for diseases such as HIV, hepatitis B and C, and cancer.

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Monday, September 15, 2008

Home-Brewed Biodiesel Goes Prime-Time

Home-Brewed Biodiesel Goes Prime-Time

Home-brewed biodiesel may be ready to move from your neighbor's garage to prime time. No longer is the practice limited to a few mechanically inclined hippies with old converted electric water heaters. Now anyone can order up their own bio-brew kit online.

"We are testing some products now to make sure they work at the level of quality our customers expect," said Go Green Home Stores spokesman Dennis Healy. "We're really looking forward to having these products in our store."

And Go Green's interest in mass-marketing a processor comes on the heels of a decision earlier this year by Northern Tool, the Sears of professional-grade tools, to put biodiesel processors for home brewers in its catalog, for $3,000 to $13,500.


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Sunday, September 14, 2008

Researchers identify cancer-causing gene in many colon cancers

Researchers identify cancer-causing gene in many colon cancers

The discovery of CDK8's role in cancer was made possible by new tools for assessing the activity of specific genes, say the authors of the new study. As these tools are further improved, the stream of newly discovered cancer genes is expected to increase, providing new avenues for therapy, the authors suggest. The findings are being published as an advanced online publication by the journal Nature on Sept. 14.

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Saturday, September 13, 2008

More active, emotionally stable people live longer, study finds

More active, emotionally stable people live longer, study finds

After tracking more than 2,300 people for more than 50 years, researchers there found that calm and active people lived longer than their counterparts.

These findings came from data collected by the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging - the oldest running study on aging - and were published in the July/August issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

The most recent findings looked at the link between personality traits of people and their lifespan. The data showed that certain personality traits were definitively linked to a longer life, including emotional stability, organization, discipline, conscientiousness and resourcefulness.


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Friday, September 12, 2008

Technology Review: A New MRSA Defense

Technology Review: A New MRSA Defense

Substances harvested from cannabis plants could soon outshine conventional antibiotics in the escalating battle against drug-resistant bacteria. The compounds, called cannabinoids, appear to be unaffected by the mechanism that superbugs like MRSA use to evade existing antibiotics. Scientists from Italy and the United Kingdom, who published their research in the Journal of Natural Products last month, say that cannabis-based creams could also be developed to treat persistent skin infections.



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Thursday, September 04, 2008

Tobacco Could Hold the Key to Revolutionary Gene Therapy | Wired Science from Wired.com

Tobacco Could Hold the Key to Revolutionary Gene Therapy | Wired Science from Wired.com

After centuries of giving humanity little more than nicotine and death, the tobacco plant may be the wellspring of a revolution in gene therapy.

Scientists are using a modified tobacco virus to deliver delicate gene therapies into the heart of diseased cells, with the potential to treat most cancers, viruses and genetic disorders.

The tobacco mosaic virus, which plagues the plant but is harmless to humans, is hollowed out and filled with "small interfering RNA" molecules, or siRNA, which some scientists consider to be the most significant development in medicine since the discovery of vaccines.



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