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Feb 22, 2016

RMIT Researchers Examine Environmental and Health Risks Posed by 3D Printing

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, computing, health, materials

3D Printing hazardous to the environment due to toxins.


Three-dimensional (3D) printing, also known as additive manufacturing, refers to those technologies capable of developing 3D objects from raw materials, like metals and polymers based on computerized 3D parametric models.

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Feb 22, 2016

Breaking Through the Bacteria Barrier

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, genetics

Breaking the bacteria barriers.


If that field is at just the right magnitude, it will open up pores within the cell membrane, through which DNA can flow. But it can take scientists months or even years to figure out the exact electric field conditions to reversibly unlock a membrane’s pores.

A new microfluidic device developed by MIT engineers may help scientists quickly home in on the electric field “sweet spot” — the range of electric potentials that will harmlessly and temporarily open up membrane pores to let DNA in. In principle, the simple device could be used on any microorganism or cell, significantly speeding up the first step in genetic engineering.

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Feb 22, 2016

Water bear don’t care: watch these tardigrades wake up after being frozen for 30 years

Posted by in category: life extension

And act like nothing happened.

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Feb 22, 2016

A different picture of quantum surrealism

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

New research supports an old, more intuitive theory of how sub-atomic particles behave. Cathal O’Connell explains.

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Feb 22, 2016

Eating chocolate regularly can ‘improve brain function’ according to a new study

Posted by in categories: food, neuroscience

Good news for chocolate lovers: eating the sweet treat has been found to have a positive association with cognitive performance, according to a new study.

Published in the journal Appetite, researchers used data collected from a Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study (MSLS), in which 968 people aged between 23 and 98 were measured for dietary intake and cardiovascular risk factors, as well as cognitive function.

The researchers found that regularly eating chocolate was significantly associated with cognitive function “irrespective of other dietary habits”.

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Feb 22, 2016

This Room-Size VR Game Makes You Into an Actual Action Hero

Posted by in categories: entertainment, virtual reality

Thanks to “room-scale” VR, full-body gaming is coming. WIRED’s Peter Rubin tries out “Raw Data,” a first-person shooter that turns players into jumping, shooting, crouching, katana-slicing action heroes. Your living room will never be the same again.

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Feb 22, 2016

This 4.7-Inch Organic LCD Wraps Right Around Your Wrist

Posted by in categories: electronics, wearables

Your smartwatch screen may soon be rather more impressive: This 4.7-inch organic LCD display is flexible enough to wrap right around a wrist.

Produced by FlexEnable from the UK, the screen squeezes a full-color organic LCD onto a sheet that measures just one hundredth of an inch thick, which makes it highly conformable. The company claims that it can easily run vivid colour and smooth video content, which is a sight better than most wearables.

It’s not the first flexible display, of course. LG already has an 18-inch OLED panel that has enough flexibility to roll into a tube that’s an inch across. But this concept—which, sadly, is all it is right now—is the first large, conformable OLCD designed for wearables that we’ve seen.

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Feb 22, 2016

Here’s All the Cool Stuff From Mobile World Congress (So Far)

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, virtual reality

We’ve just wrapped up the second day of Mobile World Congress, the annual mobile technology conference in Barcelona. We’ve seen smartphones, VR headsets, and some batshit crazy stuff (see photo above)—and almost all of it has been awesome. Here are some of our favorites:

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Feb 22, 2016

3D-printing basic electronic components

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, electronics

UC Berkeley engineers created a “smart cap” using 3-D-printed plastic with embedded electronics to wirelessly monitor the freshness of milk (credit: Photo and schematic by Sung-Yueh Wu)

UC Berkeley engineers, in collaboration with colleagues at Taiwan’s National Chiao Tung University, have developed a 3D printing process for creating basic electronic components, such as resistors, inductors, capacitors, and integrated wireless electrical sensing systems.

As a test, they printed a wireless “smart cap” for a milk carton that detected signs of spoilage using embedded sensors.

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Feb 22, 2016

Traveling to Mars could be a lot easier and quicker than ever

Posted by in category: space travel

New technology could take us to Mars in as fast as 3 days.

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