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Apr 15, 2019

Bioethicists Concerned over Japan’s Chimera Embryo Regulations

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, ethics

Many researchers see the move to relax the rules as a welcome change, yet some are worried the revisions don’t take public concerns enough into consideration.


Apr 15, 2019

Israeli scientists ‘print’ world’s first 3D heart with human tissue

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, materials

A team of Tel Aviv University researchers revealed the heart, which was made using a patient’s own cells and biological materials.

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Apr 15, 2019

Israeli Researchers Print 3D Heart Using Patient’s Own Cells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, materials

Israeli researchers have printed a 3D heart using a patient’s own cells, something they say could be used to patch diseased hearts — and possibly, full transplants.

The heart the Tel Aviv University team printed in about three hours is too small for humans — about 2.5 centimeters, or the size of a rabbit’s heart. But it’s the first to be printed with all blood vessels, ventricles and chambers, using an ink made from the patient’s own biological materials.

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Apr 15, 2019

Too much information? Sure looks like it

Posted by in category: mathematics

Mathematicians have confirmed that humanity’s collective attention span is getting shorter. And it’s not just social media that’s to blame.


Research reveals ‘social acceleration’ occurring across different domains. Samantha Page reports.

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Apr 15, 2019

Travel through wormholes is possible, but slow

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics, space travel

A Harvard physicist has shown that wormholes can exist: tunnels in curved space-time, connecting two distant places, through which travel is possible.

But don’t pack your bags for a trip to other side of the galaxy yet; although it’s theoretically possible, it’s not useful for humans to through, said the author of the study, Daniel Jafferis, from Harvard University, written in collaboration with Ping Gao, also from Harvard and Aron Wall from Stanford University.

“It takes longer to get through these wormholes than to go directly, so they are not very useful for ,” Jafferis said. He will present his findings at the 2019 American Physical Society April Meeting in Denver.

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Apr 15, 2019

Removing Fuel Rods, Japan Hits Milestone in Fukushima Nuclear Cleanup

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, robotics/AI

The operator of Japan’s ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant began removing radioactive fuel rods on Monday at one of three reactors that melted down after an earthquake and a tsunami in 2011, a major milestone in the long-delayed cleanup effort.

Thousands of former residents have been barred from the area around the plant for years as crews carried out a large-scale radioactive waste cleanup in the aftermath of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The process of removing the fuel rods from a storage pool had been delayed since 2014 amid technical mishaps and high radiation levels.

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power, said in a statement that workers on Monday morning began removing the first of 566 spent and unspent fuel rods stored in a pool at the plant’s third reactor. A radiation-hardened robot had first located the melted uranium fuel inside the reactor in 2017.

Continue reading “Removing Fuel Rods, Japan Hits Milestone in Fukushima Nuclear Cleanup” »

Apr 14, 2019

One Month, 500,000 Face Scans: How China Is Using A.I. to Profile a Minority

Posted by in categories: government, information science, robotics/AI

In a major ethical leap for the tech world, Chinese start-ups have built algorithms that the government uses to track members of a largely Muslim minority group.

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Apr 14, 2019

Spot the Andromeda Galaxy Overhead This Week

Posted by in category: space

Watch for Andromeda in the early evening night sky this fall.

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Apr 14, 2019

New Kind of Cancer ‘Vaccine’ Teaches The Immune System to Destroy Tumours

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Researchers have invented a new type of cancer immunotherapy by injecting tumours with a series of stimulants. The experimental therapy attracts the body’s own immune system’s attention, so it can come and destroy the cancerous masses.

The radical new approach has already shown promise in patients with an advanced form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that resists conventional treatments, and is currently being tested on a variety of stubborn cancers.

The result can be described as turning the tumours into “cancer vaccine factories”, because attracting the body’s immune cells to the cancer site is a method known as in situ vaccination.

Continue reading “New Kind of Cancer ‘Vaccine’ Teaches The Immune System to Destroy Tumours” »

Apr 14, 2019

Chinese Scientists Implant Human Brain Genes into Monkeys

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Scientists in China implant human genes into brains of the rhesus macaque monkey, in a move described by some as an “ethical nightmare.”

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