Science & TechnologyS


Bulb

'Odourprinting' could be used to identify people

Matthew Moore
PLoS ONE
Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:44 UTC
Human beings could one day be identified by our smells, according to research that shows individual "odourprints" cannot be masked by diet.

Every person has a unique fragrance, similar to a fingerprint or DNA sample, which could be used to create a database of human scents, scientists said.

Eating powerful foods such as chili or garlic may change how we smell, but it does not disguise our underlying genetically-determined aroma, tests on mice have shown. Creatures who were given strong-smelling foods were still recognised by their peers.

The signature smells may have evolved to help in choosing mates and marking out territories.

Jae Kwak, lead author of the study at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, said that the research suggested that "odourprinting" could soon have a practical use.
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Telescope

Meteor showers appearing back-to-back next week


The China Post
Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:16 UTC
People in many areas of Taiwan will have the opportunity of witnessing two waves of rare and spectacular meteor showers are set to appear next week.

Astronomers at the Taipei Astronomical Museum said people will be able to see the upcoming meteor showers with naked eyes under fair weather conditions.
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Info

Researchers harvest energy from heart beat, open potential for active implanted devices

Rick Merritt
EETimes
Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:42 UTC
A group of researchers has conducted a successful test of a tiny generator that can power an implanted device using energy from a heartbeat. Details of the test were presented in New Orleans at Scientific Sessions 2008, an event sponsored by the American Heart Association.

The generator showed the potential to act as an adjunct to traditional batteries to extend the life of implanted devices. In the test, it produced one-third of the energy required to power a conventional cardiac pacemaker.

The device was designed by the Self-Energizing Implantable Medical Microsystem (SIMM) project, a partnership launched in late 2006. Members include Zarlink Semiconductor, InVivo Technology Ltd., Perpetuum Ltd., Finsbury Orthopaedics and Odstock Medical.
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Info

Forced Evolution: Can We Mutate Viruses To Death?


Science Daily
Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:23 UTC
It sounds like a science fiction movie: A killer contagion threatens the Earth, but scientists save the day with a designer drug that forces the virus to mutate itself out of existence. The killer disease? Still a fiction. The drug? It could become a reality thanks to a new study by Rice University bioengineers.
Computer-generated image of a virus
© iStockphoto/Chris DascherComputer-generated image of a virus.

The study, which is available online and slated for publication in the journal Physical Review E, offers the most comprehensive mathematical analysis to date of the mechanisms that drive evolution in viruses and bacteria. Rather than focusing solely on random genetic mutations, as past analyses have, the study predicts exactly how evolution is affected by the exchange of entire genes and sets of genes.
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Info

Neuroimaging Of Brain Shows Who Spoke To A Person And What Was Said


Science Daily
Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:45 UTC
Scientists from Maastricht University have developed a method to look into the brain of a person and read out who has spoken to him or her and what was said. With the help of neuroimaging and data mining techniques the researchers mapped the brain activity associated with the recognition of speech sounds and voices.
Image
© iStockphotoResearchers have demonstrated that speech sounds and voices (such as those in the audio waves depicted above) can be identified by means of a unique 'neural fingerprint' in the listener's brain.

In their Science article "'Who' is Saying 'What'? Brain-Based Decoding of Human Voice and Speech," the four authors demonstrate that speech sounds and voices can be identified by means of a unique 'neural fingerprint' in the listener's brain. In the future this new knowledge could be used to improve computer systems for automatic speech and speaker recognition.
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Einstein

Physicists Create BlackMax To Search For Extra Dimensions In The Universe


Science Daily
Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:39 UTC
A team of theoretical and experimental physicists, with participants from Case Western Reserve University, have designed a new black hole simulator called BlackMax to search for evidence that extra dimensions might exist in the universe.

Black holes are theorized to be regions in space where the gravitational field is so strong that nothing can escape its pull after crossing what is called the event horizon. BlackMax simulates these regions.
Image
© iStockphoto/Christophe RollandBlack holes are theorized to be regions in space where the gravitational field is so strong that nothing can escape its pull after crossing what is called the event horizon. BlackMax simulates these regions.

Approximately two years in the making, the computer program enables physicists to test theories about the production and decay of black holes and takes into account new types of effects on both the creation and evaporation of black holes at the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) currently being commissioned at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.
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Magnify

Welsh scientists develop bionic HIV assassins

Madeleine Brindley
WalesOnline
Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:55 UTC
Welsh scientists have developed cutting-edge "bionic assassins" to seek out and destroy the HIV virus.

A team from Cardiff University has discovered a way to genetically engineer the body's own immune cells in a breakthrough which could revolutionise the treatment of HIV.

Experts at the university also hope that the breakthrough could be applied to cancer by finding a way of using the body's own immune cells to attack invading cancer cells and tumours.
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R2-D2

Honda unveils leg assist machine for elderly


Agence-France Presse
Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:16 UTC
Image
© Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty ImagesAn engineer from Japan's auto giant Honda Motor demonstrates a walking assist device with bodyweight support system at the company's headquarters in Tokyo on November 7, 2008.


TOKYO - Honda Motor, a pioneer of humanoid robots, on Friday unveiled a new walking assist machine designed to make it easier for the elderly to climb stairs and help factory workers.

The computerised leg device is the latest addition to walking technology developed by the Japanese automaker, which announced the world's first two-legged walking robot, ASIMO, in 2000.
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Info

The Recycled Cell-Phone Trap

Rachael King
BusinessWeek
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:02 UTC
The sales director of a large Japanese company thought he was doing a good deed when he donated his BlackBerry for recycling. But later a group of British and Australian researchers discovered the device and found it still contained sensitive data, including bank account numbers, a business plan for his organization, and the identity of his main customers.

Indeed, a September 2008 survey of 160 mobiles by the researchers - a team from British Telecom (BT), Wales' University of Glamorgan, and Australia's Edith Cowan University - found that one in five mobile communications devices still held sensitive information. BlackBerrys (RIMM) contained the most, with 43% of those examined harboring data that could be considered a threat to the individual or the organization.

On Oct. 31, the EPA released new guidelines for annihilating all data on mobile devices, and businesses have even more reason to take notice of their cell phones' potential threat to confidentiality - and do something about it.
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Sun

Half-life (more or less)

Davide Castelvecchi
Science News
Sun, 09 Nov 2008 06:10 UTC
Physicists are stirred by claims that the sun may change what's unchangeable - the rate of radioactive decay

It's nuclear physics 101: Radioactivity proceeds at its own pace. Each type of radioactive isotope, be it plutonium-238 or carbon-14, changes into another isotope or element at a specific, universal, immutable rate. This much has been known for more than a century, since Ernest Rutherford defined the notion of half-life - the time it takes for half of the atoms in a radioactive sample to transmute into something else. So when researchers suggested in August that the sun causes variations in the decay rates of isotopes of silicon, chlorine, radium and manganese, the physics community reacted with curiosity, but mostly with skepticism.
Sun
© SOHO (ESA & NASA)THE SOURCE-Physicists have responded with curiosity and skepticism to reports that the sun causes variations in the decay rates of some isotopes.

In one experiment, a team at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., was monitoring a chunk of manganese-54 inside a radiation detector box to precisely measure the isotope's half-life. At 9:37 p.m. on December 12, 2006, the instruments recorded a dip in radioactivity. At the same time, satellites on the day side of the Earth detected X-rays coming from the sun, signaling the beginning of a solar flare.

The sun's atmosphere was spewing out matter, some of which would reach Earth the day after. Charged particles would contort the planet's magnetic field, disrupt satellite communications and pose a threat to astronauts on the International Space Station.
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