An almost fully-formed human brain has been grown in a lab for the first time at Ohio State University. Though not conscious the miniature brain, which resembles that of a five-week-old foetus, could potentially be useful for scientists who want to study the progression of developmental diseases. It could also be used to test drugs for conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, since the regions they affect are in place during an early stage of brain development. The brain, which is a...

Living "mini hearts" — structures that resemble tiny, primitive, beating hearts — can be created from human stem cells. These miniature heart like structures could help scientists test heart drugs for safety, and learn more about how the heart develops in order to help prevent defects. Dr. Bruce Conklin, a stem cell biologist at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco, along with colleagues developed these tiny hearts using stem cells derived from skin tissue. Th...

During a heart attack, or myocardial infarction, heart muscle cells - known as cardiomyocytes - suffer damage and die due to lack of oxygen from reduced blood flow. At present, there is no treatment to effectively reverse damage caused by heart attack, but Prof. Ruiz-Lozano and colleagues at Stanford University, CA, have set out to develop a treatment that addresses the inability of cardiomyocytes to regenerate by developing a 'protein patch' The team noted that in zebra fish, Fstl1, a p...

Optogenetics (from Greek optikós, meaning "seen, visible") is a biological technique which involves the use of light to control cells in living tissue, typically neurons, that have been genetically modified to express light-sensitive ion channels. It is a neuromodulation method employed in neuroscience that uses a combination of techniques from optics and genetics to control and monitor the activities of individual neurons in living tissue. Optogenetics offers the ability to bypass damaged ph...

Current Use of Genetically Modified Organisms Agricultural plants are one of the most frequently cited examples of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Some benefits of genetic engineering in agriculture are increased crop yields, reduced costs for food or drug production, reduced need for pesticides, enhanced nutrient composition and food quality, resistance to pests and disease, greater food security, and medical benefits to the world's growing population. Advances have also been ...

An eco-friendly architectural concept for cultivating food within skyscrapers. Dickson Despommier, a microbiologist and professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, is credited with popularizing the concept of vertical farming. It is estimated that over the next four decades, our population will increase by 3 billion people and that 80% of us will be living in cities Many scientists are concerned that the amount of land required to feed us in the future will not be...

An eco friendly house can actually walk. The latest invention derived from a collaborative effort between MIT and the Danish design collective N55 is a house that walks about five kilometers an hour similar to the walking speed of a human. The eco-friendly  prototype house powered by solar cells, miniature windmills and 6 legs walked around the campus of the Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire, England. It comprises of a kitchen, a composting toilet, a system for collecting rain water,...

Imagine if you could brush your teeth in six seconds. Bizzident is the 6 Second toothbrush that provides a faster and better way to brush your teeth. This new and revolutionary technique of brushing has just been developed by a team of dentists who have created a toothbrush which they claim can clean teeth thoroughly in such a short amount of time. The process of ordering one of these custom-fit brushes begins in your dentist's office. Your dentist takes an impression of your teeth and sen...

Mint, is the latest robot that uses GPS to clean your house. Robotic vacuum cleaners are gaining popularity quickly. Roomba isn’t the only robotic cleaning device on the scene now. The latest Mint Automatic Floor Cleaner from Evolution Robotics is designed exclusively for sweeping and mopping hard surface floors. The new Mint is easy to use. It uses disposable cleaning cloth and reusable microfiber cloth for dry sweeping and wet mopping of floors. Simply attach the cleaning cloth of choice...

Storybooks and graphic novels could soon be three dimensional. A new software platform from small business Mental Canvas reimagines drawing in the digital age. The company has introduced a new concept of picture books and graphic novels which are not flat two dimensional but could let us spin the whole story in a three dimensional setup. The company believes that digital illustration does not enhance the sketch value whereas if the image is presented in 3D, it acts as a communication tool ...

Brain activity can be monitored with tiny flexible electronics which could roll up to fit in a pocket. Charles Lieber, a nanoscientist and nanotechnologist at Harvard University, has designed latest ultra-thin electronics flexible enough to get stuffed into the needle of a syringe with a diameter as small as the average width of a human hair. Currently available flexible electronics are usually flat sheets, designed to lie on surfaces. They help to monitor and manipulate living tissue but ...

Skinput, a new technology, listens to the vibrations of your body and turns it into a touching interface. One of the newest invention ideas in interface devices is Skinput which is the product of a collaboration between Carnegie Mellon's Harrison, Desny Tan and Dan Morris of Microsoft Research. Previous attempts at using projected interfaces used motion-tracking to determine where a person taps. Skinput uses a series of sensors to track where a user taps on his arm. It uses a different and no...

OncoSec Medical Incorporated ("OncoSec") has designed "smart" catheter-based devices to perform minimally invasive intratumoral immunotherapy. The new catheter-based electrodes are designed to be compatible with standard medical instruments which can access deep visceral tumors and are capable of treating the tumor. These all-in-one devices have the ability to inject a DNA-based agent while deploying electrodes to perform electroporation in a single procedure. They have an adjustable ne...

Amazing innovative technology was created to rebuild the human face with 3D printing in silicone. English chemist Frederick Kipping did his pioneering work on the study of the organic compounds of silicon which led to synthetic rubber and silicone-based lubricants used to enhance the decollete of dancers, seal fish tanks and now rebuild the human face. Industrial designer Tom Fripp was contacted by researchers at the University of Sheffield and asked if it would be possible to print struct...

Power-generating rubber material could harness walking and other movement to charge electronic devices. Researchers at Princeton University have recently invented a new energy-harvesting rubber material composed of ceramic nanoribbons that could harvest energy from your breathing and walking. This material is composed of ceramic nanoribbons embedded onto silicone rubber sheets which generates electricity when flexed and is highly efficient at converting mechanical energy to electrical ener...

The latest spy camera pen takes video in true HD with the HD720P recording lens and no interpolation. Many camera pens you see on the market are not a true HD and use a process called interpolation to artificially upscale a lower resolution video to make it look closer to HD quality. This pen uses a OmniVision CMOS sensor chip that helps the video recorded to be in true HD without any upscaling. This pen offers a sleek durable metal casing look and fits comfortably in your hand. You can st...

A sugar–glass cartridge can store vaccines without refrigeration. Scientists at Nova Bio-Pharma Technologies and the University of Oxford have developed a new way of preserving vaccines without refrigeration by sealing the vaccine's live viruses inside glass made of sugar. Currently, vaccines need to be stored in a fridge or freezer which means there is a need for electricity supply and refrigeration trucks for distribution as exposure to inappropriate temperatures can reduce the vaccine p...

Japanese company Oriental invented a revolutionary and innovative White Goat machine which converts normal paper into toilet paper. The machine recycles office paper into toilet paper right in your office. All you have to do is put paper and water in the machine and 30 minutes later out comes a roll of toilet paper. The machine shreds the paper, dissolves it in water, thins it out, dries it and winds it around a roll. Paper is thrown into a hopper and the machine untangles, shreds and u...

An innovative biometric identification and security device works without any contact to scanner. The latest technology from PalmSecure™ is a leading-edge authentication system using biometric technology that uses vein pattern recognition. As organizations search for more secure authentication methods for data access, physical access and general security, many are turning to biometrics. Biometrics is gaining attention as a reliable, highly accurate and efficient method of confirming a pe...

"See-through" larvae of zebrafish reveal how wound healing leads to skin cancer. Genetically modified larvae of zebrafish were studied by the researchers in the United Kingdom and Denmark   to watch the relationship between wound-associated inflammation and melanoma. The cellular events and changes were observed by live imaging with a special confocal laser-scanning microscope. The experiments showed that neutrophils, the protective inflammatory cells of the body's immune system, gets d...

Edible materials can make experimenting with 3-D printing more fun for kids. The latest technology from Ontario-based Structur3D Printing lets printers work with a wide variety of gel materials to produce everything from silicone-based orthotic shoe inserts to custom cake toppers printed from icing sugar. The technology of 3D printing machinery that carves or sculpts 3D objects from a block of material using a computer generated design has been around for years. Although fast and accurate,...

Tony Fadell who invented the iPod and the iPhone has developed a new thermostat called 'Nest'. The slimmer and sleeker Nest Thermostat includes many features, one of which is a bigger, sharper display which saves energy. Nest is a thermostat that utilizes artificial intelligence and learns from manual adjustments. It uses sensors to detect room temperatures and can also know whether a room is occupied or not. It can interact with you directly or communicate with you over the internet throu...

The smartbox records details about how your car is driven and data is wireless transferred in real time to the insurance company. MyDrive Solutions, an insurance telematics provider announced the launch of its insurance smart box product which will enable car insurance companies to use driving behavioral data, as derived by the latest data capture technology, to assess the risk presented by individual drivers and price car insurance premiums accordingly. Insurance companies are implementin...

The iBAC alcometer is a thumb-sized, portable, breathalyzer spectrometer that measures your blood alcohol content in a way that is similar to tests done at a laboratory. It transmits the breathalyzer reading to your smartphone via Bluetooth where an application containing your bio data such as your weight and other physical characteristics analyzes the results in about a minute. It will measure your degree of sobriety, your alcohol burning rate and will even forecast when you will have a z...

A flying robot that imitates a bird has been created. Plenty of robots can fly but none can fly like a real bird. Markus Fischer and his team at Festo built SmartBird, a large, lightweight robot, modeled on a seagull that flies by flapping its wings. This invention of a flying robot imitates a bird. It takes off, lands and flies like a real bird. The flying robot has a two-meter wingspan, and is made of a lightweight (450 gram) carbon-fiber skeleton body. It uses hybrid drive technol...

Revolutionary small portable printer promises instant prints at any time and any place with ease. The Polaroid PoGo™ Digital Instant Mobile Photo Printer is the easiest way to print photos from a camera phone. It transfers images wirelessly from a Bluetooth-enabled camera phone to the mobile printer which prints instantly. The small portable printer weighs only a few ounces and can fit in the pocket. It uses rechargeable batteries or an AC adapter. The printer is built around ZINK techn...

Novel and revolutionary Science On a Sphere® (SOS) is an educational tool that uses computers and video projectors to help illustrate Earth System science to people of all ages. This tool has been developed by Dr. Sandy MacDonald along with researchers at NOAA. Unique and captivating, it's been used in science museums, visitor centers, zoos, aquariums, laboratories, and schools around the world. It consists of a spherical projection system created by NOAA which presents high-resolution vid...

Roses have been genetically modified to be blue. The blue colored rose is often portrayed in literature and art as a symbol of love and prosperity but it does not exist in nature due to genetic limitations. They have been available at florists in recent years but have only artificially been created by using various dying techniques to stain the petals of naturally white roses. A blue rose is a flower that presents blue-to-violet pigmentation instead of the more common red, white, or yellow...

Imagine if you could glide through the air with wings like a bat and control your movements more easily. Inventor Tony Uragallo of Zephyrhills has invented a new product called Bird Wingsuit which is created of a web of nylon material between outstretched arms and legs. He based his research on the kite birds to develop his technique. He observed that Kites steer by twisting their tail one way or another and this led him develop his new wingsuit. Compared to the earlier wingsuits, this ...

Imagine if a vitamin sized pill could collect medical data from your body. Companies such as SmartPill have come out with wireless devices contained in tiny capsules to collect information from inside the body. The SmartPill capsule includes miniaturized sensors or cameras, a printed circuit board and tiny batteries that work to collect medical data as it makes its way through a person's gastrointestinal tract. Once swallowed, the device collects the required information, stores the data a...