Using a novel technique, scientists have observed a "baby planet" being formed nearly 450 light years away. When new planets absorb nearby gases and dust they get hot. A strange light is emitted as a result and that has allowed researchers to watch a distant exoplanet as it is being formed. The plant is circling a star dubbed LkCa 15 and was discovered by astronomers Adam Kraus and Michael Ireland using the Keck II telescope. Named LkCa 15b, and in orbit in a system with two other planets (aptly...

Scientists discover two gene variations linked to the condition Depression which can run in families and be in the genes. While it has long been known that the condition can run in families, researchers have struggled to find any DNA mutations linked to it, despite analyzing more than 9,000 cases. This had led to debate over whether people inherited a susceptibility to the illness or if another factor, such as the environment was the true culprit. Studies on severe depression within families hav...

Eczema, which affects thousands of New Zealanders, is characterized by red patches of itchy, dry broken skin driven by inflammation and is most common in people who suffer from allergies. Eczema can be brought on by a wide range of environmental triggers, including soaps and detergents, perfumes, clothing, jewelry, certain foods and even extremes of weather. Ten new genetic links to eczema have been uncovered that could lead to greater understanding of the skin condition, as well as potential...

Researchers have patented a low-cost device that can easily monitor the health of HIV patients living in low-resource settings. The portable device works by helping clinicians count the number of CD4 cells that are attacked by HIV in the body. HIV is known to decrease the number of CD4 cells an individual has. When CD4 counts are very low, that indicates the patient’s HIV is progressing toward AIDS and a ramp up of medication is necessary. Patients with HIV are encouraged to participate in re...

Bixby based IcyBreeze portable air conditioner is a wheeled ice cooler that doubles as an eco-friendly portable air conditioner which can be used for camping or on the sidelines of sporting events in the summer heat. The cooler, which has ample room for food and beverages, has a rechargeable battery in the lid that can last up to six hours. It features a two-cup holder and three-speed fan with a low, medium and high setting that blows cold, dry air like an air conditioner. It’s all green and has...

A new pair of “smart earplugs” called Hush, combine sound-eliminating foam and noise-masking technology. Many wearables monitor your sleep, but they don’t provide solutions to allow for better sleep. The Hush device fits comfortably in a user’s ear, and it is surrounded in a soft silicon surface. The product helps users sleep through snoring, loud neighbors, and other noises but it doesn’t block the noises that are necessary, like alarm clocks or emergency phone calls. “Hush’s ultimate goal i...

Haiku ceiling fan includes Wi-Fi connectivity and sensors that enable it to regulate temperature and kick into action when someone enters the room. With either aluminum, Moso bamboo or matrix composite airfoils, Haiku uses a built-in Wi-Fi module, infrared motion, ambient temperature and humidity sensors to help maintain the user's ideal room temperature. This means it can start up or wind down as you enter or leave a room, speed up as more people enter the room and the temperature and humidity ...

The Cumulus Parasol is a solar powered cloud-shaped parasol that automatically inflates when the sun starts shining to keep you in the shade. This artificial cumulus protects you from the sun. Whenever the sun comes out, this parasol inflates automatically in about 20 seconds to a cloud like shape using a solar panel at the top. The inflated Cumulus has a diameter of two meters. The cloud does not have a metal core structure. The curved shape of the inflated cloud is aerodynamic, allowing it ...

SmartMat is the first intelligent yoga mat with a companion app to coach you through individual exercises and correct your positioning. It contains a number of sensors that measure pressure. You calibrate the mat by giving it information about your age, gender, height and weight, then you lay down on the mat to measure the length of your arms and legs. Once the mat is set to your unique stats, it will be able to understand exactly where your hands and feet are placed, if you’ve achieved balance ...

A gadget that scrambles the egg inside the shell has just been introduced by Geraint Krumpe. He calls them calls "golden eggs," named for the eggs' creamy, soft yellow color when they come out. Krumpe and his company released the kitchen creation he calls the Golden Goose. It works by rotating an egg back and forth at an accelerated rate to mix the yolk and egg together without introducing any outside air. A soft cradle nestles the egg and holds it center, keeping it from breaking during the bac...

Bistro, an automatic feeder that uses facial recognition technology to ensure the food is going to its intended recipient has been just introduced by a group of cat lovers. We all know that cats requires regular feeding, watering and the occasional trip to the vet, but few of us would know exactly how our cat’s health, weight, and hydration are faring on a day-to-day basis. And, when we do feed them, how do we even know that the food we put out for our feline friend is actually being eaten by th...

Grillbot, a cute, single button operated bot that perches on your grill that automatically cleans barbecue grill grates. It works automatically on both gas and charcoal grills (hot or cold). It doesn’t matter if it’s called a BBQ, a grill or a Barbie, those char-grilled steaks leave a thick layer of grease and grime behind. And while cooking is fun, cleaning is not. The Grillbot is the invention of former real estate agent Ethan Woods. Woods had his eureka moment while scrubbing his grill with a...

The Joy For All cats are sold under the slogan, ‘Why should kids have all the fun?’, and are marketed as a relaxation device, designed to make users feel happier and less alone upon hearing the mewing of the cat’s response to their touch. Created by the producers of My Little Pony and Transformers, the cat toys do not requiring feeding or bathroom breaks, and react to affection. “Joy for All” pets are robotic cats that “look, feel, and sound like real cats,” Hasbro claims on its website, whic...

We leave a trail of microbes on every surface we touch, from pens and keyboards to door handles and elevator buttons. Everywhere you go, in everything you do, you are surrounded by an aura of microbes. They drift down from your hair when you scratch your head, they fly off your hand when you wave to your friend, and they spew out of your mouth when you talk. Even when you sit around doing nothing, you’re sitting in your own, personal microbial bubble. In addition to leaving our mark on surfaces,...

Lasers could heat materials to temperatures hotter than the centre of the Sun in only 20 quadrillionths of a second, according to new research that could revolutionise energy production. Physicists from Imperial College London have devised an extremely rapid heating mechanism that they believe could heat certain materials to ten million degrees in much less than a million millionth of a second. The method, proposed for the first time, could be relevant to new avenues of research in thermonuclear...

This past August, Hardison, now 41, received an entirely new scalp and face. For the first time since 2001, he has ears, a nose, lips, and eyelids, the last was especially crucial because, although he retained his vision on the fire, he was unable to blink or close his eyes for 14 years. His new face was donated by 26-year-old David Rodebaugh, a young BMX biker from Brooklyn, who was pronounced brain dead after being thrown off his bike. The revolutionary face transplant took 26 hours and was pe...

Scientists have just made a breakthrough in understanding how clouds interact with the surrounding air by studying clouds in unprecedented detail. Raymond Shaw, a professor of physics at Michigan Tech, looks at the smallest part of clouds, droplets. To understand groups of droplets, Shaw and the NCAR team flew airplanes through fluffy, cottonball cumulus clouds in Wyoming and Colorado. Aboard the plane, the team took detailed 3-D images with an instrument called the Holographic Detector for Clou...

The Babolat Play Pure Drive racket looks like a regular racket on the outside. However, sensors integrated into the handle allow players to have access to a lot of information on power, impact locator, type and number of strokes (forehand, backhand, serve, overhead smash). Babolat's challenge has been to integrate sensors in the handle of the racket without changing the playability or the feel of the racket. The design seamlessly integrates 2 buttons and a USB port inside the butt cap without ch...

The first smart sonic toothbrush that turns tooth brushing into a game, educates kids, and empowers parents. The Kolibree can tell you if your brushing sessions tend to be as long and thorough as they should be.The Bluetooth-enabled Kolibree is now being replaced with a new model that’s both better and more affordable. The new Kolibree improves upon the original with better Bluetooth connectivity, more precise motion tracking and is cheaper. According to the Paris-based company behind the too...

The Lully Sleep Guardian is a Bluetooth-enabled pod that pairs with an iPhone app, to prevent a child from entering an "unhealthy state of sleep," when night terrors typically occur. The pod uses gentle, timed vibrations. A good night's sleep for a child typically means the same for a parent. But night terrors can make middle-of-the-night wakings more frequent and can leave parents feeling helpless. This new device wants to fend off night terrors by rousing a child into a lighter sleep stage. ...

A recent study shows that a large fullerene system can interrupt the infection of an artificial Ebola virus. An infection with Ebola starts when the virus gains access to the cellular DC-SIGN receptor and begins to infect the immune system’s dendritic cells. Thanks to the new, larger molecule comprised of fullerenes that are coated with carbohydrates, scientists can block the receptor and interrupt the infection. This has been tested on an artificial virus model. Researchers attained a remark...

Kamen's SlingShot (so-named after the Biblical David & Goliath story) device is an energy-efficient "vapor compression distiller," and one possible answer to the safe water crisis. The SlingShot is designed to take virtually any unfit source of water, such as contaminated well water or seawater, and turn it into clean water, without requiring a filter (which regularly need to be replaced) or using any chemical additives (which have to be purchased). The device does use combustible fuel to po...

Atrial fibrillation is a heart rhythm disorder that affects millions of people. It can make you feel lousy. Even worse, it can cause potentially disabling or deadly strokes. A special MRI scan may help identify people with atrial fibrillation who are at high risk of having a stroke. This could help many people with this condition to avoid taking warfarin or other clot-preventing medications for life. A normal heartbeat starts in a cluster of cells called the pacemaker. It sits in the heart’s ...

Smart bed for kids monitors their snoozing cycles and determines if diet, stress and other daily activities are impacting the quality of their sleep. The bed, which is equipped with tiny hidden sensors, uses digital-signal capture within the mattress and processing techniques to pick up on motion and pressure. It tracks a child's breathing and heart-rate throughout the night too, and blends that data with other factors to determine a SleepIQ score in the morning. The higher the number (based fro...

Scientists led by Peter Girguis, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard, have found that the gut microbiome of right whales and other baleen species shares characteristics with those of both cows and meat-eating predators. The dual microbial communities allow whales to extract the most nutrition possible from their diet, digesting not only the copepods they eat, but their chitin-rich shells as well. The great whales are carnivores, feeding on tiny, shrimp-like animals such a...

Microbial life forms including viruses, bacteria, and fungi are the most diverse and abundant organisms on earth. They have shaped our evolutionary origins for billions of years and continue to have widespread impact. The UMIC foresees the microbiomes being leveraged through genetic engineering for applications within 10 years. “Microbes are everywhere. Therefore understanding microbiomes, whether they be the ones that live in and on our bodies or the ones in the environment, is essential to ...

A new study finds that at least 16.8 million Americans could potentially benefit from lowering their systolic blood pressure (SBP) to 120 mmHg, much lower than current guidelines of 140 or 150 mmHg. The scientists calculated the potential impact of preliminary results from the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) that will be presented in full at the American Heart Association meeting and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine. The initial analysis of SPRINT, r...

A team of researchers at Queen's University's Human Media Lab have unveiled a system of flying 'BitDrones' that let users explore virtual information by interacting with levitating voxels. The system, called BitDrones, allows users to explore virtual 3D information by interacting with physical self-levitating building blocks. BitDrones is the first step towards creating interactive self-levitating programmable matter, materials capable of changing their 3D shape in a programmable fashion using s...

A medical checkup of people living in remote villages deep in the Amazon rainforest in Venezuela has uncovered striking details about these villagers' microbiomes and the bacteria living on and in their bodies. The villagers appear to have the highest levels of bacterial diversity ever reported in a human group, the researchers found. Their microbiomes include bacteria that have genes that could make them resistant to treatment with antibiotics. Some of these genes could even make these bacteria...