For the development of animals, nothing — with the exception of DNA — may be more important than oxygen in the atmosphere. Oxygen enables the chemical reactions that animals use to get energy from stored carbohydrates — from food. So it may be no coincidence that animals appeared and evolved during the “Cambrian explosion,” which coincided with a spike in atmospheric oxygen roughly 500 million years ago. It was during the Cambrian explosion that most of the current animal designs appeared....

Finnish government is considering scrapping welfare and paying everyone $10000 a year instead. To fight poverty and boost its own economy, Finland is planning to issue a check for $876 to every citizen, every month. The concept is called basic income, and the Finnish government is getting closer to finalizing its implementation. There is no income testing, no lengthy application process, needless bureaucracy is slashed, and you can earn as much — or as little — as you like on top of this, ...

Cambridge Medical Robotics is developing a next-generation robotic system for universal minimal access surgery. It has developed a robot 'Versius' to perform upper GI, gynaecological, colorectal and renal surgery in cadaveric trials.  The system has already demonstrated the ability to visualise and access all these surgical workspaces and to perform tissue manipulation, suturing, needle driving and electro-surgery. CMR has now built 20 proprietary robotic arms, built and tested nine different...

Many different fruit trees grow well in containers, from familiar apples to exotic pomegranate (pictured). Dwarf fruit trees provide earlier yields in smaller spaces, and can even be grown in large containers. They bear fruit sooner than standard fruit trees, usually within two years. Dwarf fruit trees also look good, with a compact form that bears normal-sized fruit. They generally reach 2 – 2½m in height. Instead of planting a full size apple tree, you can plant 3-4 dwarf trees in the sa...

People become vegetarians for many reasons, including health, religious convictions, concerns about animal welfare or the use of antibiotics and hormones in livestock, or a desire to eat in a way that avoids excessive use of environmental resources. Traditionally, research into vegetarianism focused mainly on potential nutritional deficiencies, but in recent years, the pendulum has swung the other way, and studies are confirming the health benefits of meat-free eating. Nowadays, plant-based e...

EVELO bikes don’t look much different from a typical bike. An electric bicycle is essentially a regular bicycle equipped with an electric motor designed to make the ride more enjoyable. It gives you an unlimited gear range controlled by the turn of a dial, and lets you change gears while you're stopped. EVELO's mid-drive system uses your bike's gears, so the motor works with you - not against you. With a top speed of 20 miles per hour and unparalleled hill-climbing ability, you'll be able to ...

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a new analytical method that uses the rare metal tungsten to measure 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC), a marker for gene expression, one nucleotide at a time. This method holds promise of contributing to advances in epigenetics and regenerative medicine research by simplifying 5hmC detection in the genome, and accelerating the pace in which knowledge on the initialization of cell functions is accumulated. Many multicellular organisms carry o...

A centuries-old herbal medicine, discovered by Chinese scientists and used to effectively treat malaria, has been found to potentially aid in the treatment of tuberculosis and may slow the evolution of drug resistance. In a promising study led by Robert Abramovitch, a Michigan State University microbiologist and TB expert, the ancient remedy artemisinin stopped the ability of TB-causing bacteria, known as Mycobacterium tuberculosis, to become dormant. This stage of the disease often makes the...

Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego used an innovative 3-D printing technology they developed to manufacture multipurpose fish-shaped microrobots — called microfish — that swim around efficiently in liquids, are chemically powered by hydrogen peroxide and magnetically controlled. These proof-of-concept synthetic microfish will inspire a new generation of “smart” microrobots that have diverse capabilities such as detoxification, sensing and directed drug delivery, researchers...

Microsoft is working on a brand new "Game Mode" feature for Windows 10 that will enhance the PC gaming experience by minimizing resources used by running apps to almost nothing and allocating freed up resources to the game, making it run faster, better and smoother overall. Windows 10 “Game Mode” Will Boost Performance of PC Games, it has been found to include a new DLL file called gamemode.dll, and the repercussions of this could be very interesting . Gaming on Windows 10 might be getting ev...

Understanding of 21st Century Skills and Outcomes Early in this century, leaders and visionaries in the business and education communities joined together to recommend the skills needed to enrich the lives of those living in the 21st century and to make them more successful in their work. Business leaders were especially outspoken in their call for a workforce well versed in 21st century skills. In a recent survey, business leaders were asked about the skills most needed for readiness for tod...

"Luke Arm," whose official name is DEKA Arm System, is one of the most advanced robotic prostheses ever built. FDA approved this robotic arm for amputees after extensive research. LUKE arm is a modular prosthetic arm that is configurable for different levels of amputation including transradial, transhumeral, and shoulder disarticulation. DEKA Arm was created by famed inventor Dean Kamen and his team at DEKA Research and Development Corp., in Manchester, N.H., as part of DARPA's Revolutioni...

Modern Building Materials The construction industry consumes more natural resources than any other industry. With increasing public awareness of the needs and demands of sustainable development and environmental conservation, no other industry is called on as much as the country's construction and building industry to evolve their practices to satisfy the needs of our current generation, without curtailing the resources of future generations to meet theirs. For example, concrete is by far the m...

LEVL is a consumer health and wellness device that will measure a molecule (acetone) in your breath using an innovative nanosensor. With the press of a button and a quick breath, LEVL will measure your fat burning state. Simply breathe into the breath pod and place the pod into the testing port. LEVL is designed to detect trace amounts of acetone in your breath when your body is burning fat. Simply breathe into LEVL. Your breath is captured and analyzed by our groundbreaking nanosensor, provi...

The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day. Past research has shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels which can be seen with the naked eye. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light. To learn more about this faint visible light, scientists in Japan employed extraordinarily sensitive cameras capable of detecting single photons. Five healthy male ...

Visible light communication (VLC) is a data communications variant which uses visible light between 400 and 800 THz (780–375 nm). VLC is a subset of optical wireless communications technologies. The technology uses fluorescent lamps (ordinary lamps, not special communications devices) to transmit signals at 10 kbit/s, or LEDs for up to 500 Mbit/s. Low rate[vague] data transmissions at 1 and 2 kilometres (0.6 and 1.2 mi) were demonstrated. RONJA achieves full Ethernet speed (10 Mbit/s) over the ...

Before birth and early in life, the developing brain is acutely sensitive to its environment. A symposium at the Fifth Annual Aspen Brain Forum, hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences in New York City, explored how certain social and psychological aspects of environment influence biology and behavior. Tracy L. Bale, of the University of Pennsylvania, noted that maternal stress during pregnancy is associated with increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and schizophrenia ...

First came sound, then color, then 3D—now virtual reality (VR) is lining itself up to be the next major innovation in filmmaking. Watching a movie in VR allows you to view a movie theater size screen in your living room. If the film is 360 degree you can step into the movie and be part of it not just watch it. Unlike conventional animation, motion-capture experienced in VR injects a stronger dose of realism by making viewers feel like they are actually in the movie. Virtual-reality (VR)...

ZYILA is Poland based company which has developed  world’s first spherical microphone which records and separates each instrument and vocals into a separate track. ZYLIA is an innovative and patented recording sound-source separation technology, a complete Portable Recording Studio for multi-track in one integrated solution. It isolates every instrument playing around it and records the results via dedicated software and cloud processing. Music band recording is a difficult task which requ...

Even though LED lights are among the most energy efficient available, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Researchers recently found that light emitting diodes’ efficiency can be impeded by trace amounts of iron, which is a byproduct of LED production. That conclusion was the result of an international study involving KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and other universities, including University of California Santa Barbara, Rutgers University, the Univers...

University of Leeds (UK) has initiated a 'Smart Agriculture' project for organic farms in Riverford. Theobjective of the project was to collect real-time data for optimized yield. The project was to be able to capture useful data to start predicting measurements and events that could help farmers and agronomists to save time and money with its farms. In this project, the type of farm was not determining, because it has been deployed in a diverse range of crops, from vegetables to grain. Th...

A popular belief that there is a higher number of births around the full moon has been shown to be true for dairy cows by a group of University of Tokyo researchers. Previous studies have found conflicting evidence on the moon cycle affecting the timing of human births and many researchers remain unconvinced that the moon influences human births. Associate Professor Tomohiro Yonezawa of the Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences explains that the results may have varied because “...

Feynman Technique Helps You Study Faster and Retain More Information. You can read something and hope that it'll all be beamed into your brain for future application. Or you can read it and write down what you just learned, as if you were teaching someone else, and actually retain it. In other words, implement a more “active” way of learning, which obviously takes a lot more work than it sounds. Ideally, when you write down your learnings, you’d also repeat what you wrote aloud, like a teache...

Boston is ready for its next wave of innovation. On Dec. 9, the city released a request for information (RFI) calling for new ideas to help it deliver better services while keeping in mind that adding human value is the primary driver for new technology. But one thing the city wants companies to keep in mind: to please keep the sales speak at home and be ready to deliver a fully thought-out plan after speaking with residents and interest groups that have a stake in the city. “Our call went...

A CubeSat (U-class spacecraft) is a type of miniaturized satellite for space research that is made up of multiples of 10×10×11.35 cm cubic units. California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and Stanford University developed the CubeSat specifications to promote and develop the skills necessary for the design, manufacture, and testing of small satellites intended for low Earth orbit (LEO) that perform a number of scientific research functions and explore new space technologies. CubeS...

Sperm are constantly replenished in the adult male body. Understanding the workings of stem cells responsible for this replenishment is expected to shed light on why male fertility diminishes with age, and possibly lead to new treatments for infertility. "So-called Myc genes play an important role in stem cells' ability to self-renew," explains Kyoto University's Takashi Shinohara, who is interested specifically in spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs), which are responsible for producing sperm. S...