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Monthly Archives: January 2008
GM researching driverless cars
Cars that drive themselves – even parking at their destination – could be ready for sale within a decade, General Motors Corp. executives say.
GM, parts suppliers, university engineers and other automakers all are working on vehicles that could revolutionize short- and long-distance travel. And Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner will devote part of his speech to the driverless vehicles.
“This is not science fiction,” Larry Burns, GM’s vice president for research and development, said in a recent interview.
Scientists Use Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2
Sandia researcher Rich Diver checks out the solar furnace which will be the initial source of concentrated solar heat for converting carbon dioxide to fuel. Eventually parabolic dishes will provide the thermal energy.
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico have found a way of using sunlight to recycle carbon dioxide and produce fuels like methanol or gasoline.
The Sunlight to Petrol, or S2P, project essentially reverses the combustion process, recovering the building blocks of hydrocarbons. They can then be used to synthesize liquid fuels like methanol or gasoline. Researchers said the technology already works and could help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, although large-scale implementation could be a decade or more away.
Study: Monkeys ‘Pay’ for Sex by Grooming
Male macaque monkeys pay for sex by grooming females, according to a recent study that suggests the primates may treat sex as a commodity.
“In primate societies, grooming is the underlying fabric of it all,” Dr. Michael Gumert, a primatologist at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said in a telephone interview Saturday.
“It’s a sign of friendship and family, and it’s also something that can be exchanged for sexual services,” Gumert said.
Sea Cucumber Protein Used To Inhibit Development Of Malaria Parasite
Scientists have genetically engineered a mosquito to release a sea-cucumber protein into its gut which impairs the development of malaria parasites, according to new research. Researchers say this development is a step towards developing future methods of preventing the transmission of malaria.
Malaria is caused by parasites whose lives begin in the bodies of mosquitoes. When mosquitoes feed on the blood of an infected human, the malaria parasites undergo complex development in the insect’s gut. The new study has focused on disrupting this growth and development with a lethal protein, CEL-III, found in sea cucumbers, to prevent the mosquito from passing on the parasite.
Exploding Nanowires
Gizmodo via Patrick
Neuroimaging Fails To Demonstrate ESP Is Real
Psychologists at Harvard University have developed a new method to study extrasensory perception that, they argue, can resolve the century-old debate over its existence. According to the authors, their study not only illustrates a new method for studying such phenomena, but also provides the strongest evidence yet obtained against the existence of extrasensory perception, or ESP.
The research was led by Samuel Moulton, a graduate student in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University with Stephen Kosslyn, John Lindsley Professor of Psychology at Harvard and was published in the Jan. 2008 issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. The scientists used brain scanning to test whether individuals have knowledge that cannot be explained through normal perceptual processing.
“If any ESP processes exist, then participants’ brains should respond differently to ESP and non-ESP stimuli,” explains Moulton. “Instead, results showed that participants’ brains responded identically to ESP and non-ESP stimuli, despite reacting strongly to differences in how emotional the stimuli were and showing subtle, stimulus-related effects.”
Scientists look at sperm energy for robots
U.S. scientists are examining whether they can capture the energy driving human sperm to propel nanoscale robots to deliver medicine.
By analyzing stages in the biological pathway sperm cells use to generate energy, Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine researchers said they hope to recreate that process artificially to deliver medicine to targeted sites in the body, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
‘Golden Bullet’ Shows Promise For Killing Common Parasite
Researchers in Australia report development of a new type of gold nanoparticle that destroys the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis, a potentially serious disease acquired by handling the feces of infected cats or eating undercooked meat. Their so-called “golden bullet” could provide a safer, more effective alternative for treating the disease than conventional drug therapy, they say.
Psychedelic Healing?
Mind-altering psychedelics are back—but this time they are being explored in labs for their therapeutic applications rather than being used illegally. Studies are looking at these hallucinogens to treat a number of otherwise intractable psychiatric disorders, including chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and drug or alcohol dependency.
The past 15 years have seen a quiet resurgence of psychedelic drug research as scientists have come to recognize the long-underappreciated potential of these drugs. In the past few years, a growing number of studies using human volunteers have begun to explore the possible therapeutic benefits of drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT, MDMA, ibogaine and ketamine.
Much remains unclear about the precise neural mechanisms governing how these drugs produce their mind-bending results, but they often produce somewhat similar psychoactive effects that make them potential therapeutic tools. Though still in their preliminary stages, studies in humans suggest that the day when people can schedule a psychedelic session with their therapist to overcome a serious psychiatric problem may not be that far off.
Big Brother Gets Bigger! Says Global Privacy Study
According to a new international privacy report, governments around the world are increasingly invading the privacy of citizens with surveillance, identification systems, and archiving of private data.
Driven by concern over immigration and border control, countries have been quick to implement database, identity, and fingerprinting systems, according to the 2007 International Privacy Ranking report.
There was also an increase in the trend of governments archiving data on the geographic, communications, and financial records of citizens, as well as enacting legislation intended to increase the reach into individuals’ private lives, the report found.
The Influence of Subliminal Messages
Subliminal messages–messages that are processed by our brains but never reach our consciousness–really do influence attitudes and behavior, according to a new study.
Researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem Psychology Department say that their studies indicate that, in general, subliminal messages do indeed influence explicit attitudes and real-life political behavior–a significant extension to what we know about the effects of non-conscious processes.
The studies, led by cognitive scientist Dr. Ran Hassin show that the subliminal presentation of a national symbol affects not only political attitudes, but also voting intentions and actual voting in general elections.