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For years, the energy industry has been looking to seaweed to become the next big source of biofuel. But the algae plant has its drawbacks. Much of its energy is stored in a form of sugar that is difficult to tap into; this snag drives the cost of biofuel produced from seaweed up, and its viability as an alternative to petroleum-based fuels down. More »
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The world's smallest ear doesn't belong to any animal. Instead, it's a tiny piece of gold suspended in a laser beam. It can hear sounds a million times fainter than any human ear can, making it a powerful acoustic microscope. More »
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Self-replication. If there's one thing that scifi has taught us it's that there's no possible situation where giving things that can't replicate the ability to do so is a good thing. Yet, against all our grey goo warnings, science has brought us one step closer. More »
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It could be the first step towards truly immersive virtual reality, where you can feel the computer-generated world around you. An international team of neuroengineers has developed a brain-machine interface that's bi-directional. That means the monkeys can use this brain implant not only to control a virtual hand, but also to get feedback that tricks their brains into "feeling" the texture of virtual objects. More »
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One of the barriers that stops us from plugging computers into our brains and replacing our eyeballs with cameras is the fact that biological systems and electronics use different control systems. Electronics use electrons and living creatures use either protons or ions. Because of this, our cyborg dreams are a bit further off than we would hope. More »
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We love our electronics, but the increasing demands of high end gadgets put a huge amount of stress on their Li-ion batteries, to the point where it's not uncommon to have to charge your smartphone every day, and your laptop every couple of hours. We keep waiting for the next big thing in batteries, but what might make your gadgets keep going even longer could be a small tweak from an unexpected place. More »
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According to reports from the World Health Organization, the number of blood donors worldwide is decreasing, while the global need for safe blood of all types continues to rise. Blood is running out. More »
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For people who suffer chronic back pain from degenerated or diseased spinal discs, there are few options. Surgeons can implant a plastic or metal spinal disc to replace your damaged one. But metal and plastic prosthetics can only do so much; surgeries are costly and recovery times are long. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5825764&view=rss&microfeed=true Researchers have developed a brain implant that augments the brain capacity of rats, boosting their ability to recall tasks. Reports Benedict Carey in the New York Times: More »
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Want to make some plastic? Take a vat of the common bacteria E. coli and feed it a bunch of sugar. Over a few days, it will secrete a non-natural chemical used to make everything from tupperware to spandex. More »
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We assumed that in the future humans, or other biological entities, would receive mechanical or electronic 'upgrades'. It looks like it could be the other way around. Machines might be getting biological upgrades. More »
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By tucking high-tech implants inside people's eyes, researchers in Germany have given three blind people the ability to see. More »
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MRSA bacteria is a virulent bacteria that breeds in hospitals, killing patients who are recovering from surgery or other ailments. But now we can create MRSA-free hospitals, by painting them with a special substance that kills MRSA without antibiotics. More »
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Lasers can stimulate nerves and synchronize the pulsing of heart cells, but now they can control organs. In a breakthrough experiment, scientists used infrared light to control the beats of a quail's heart. More »
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It may look like some diagrams and a few blobs, but what you're seeing here is nothing short of a nanotech revolution. Four nanorobots made of DNA are interacting on an "assembly line" in order to build a tiny device. More »
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In a blow struck for consumers and scientists against the pharmaceutical industry, a New York judge ruled yesterday that a company could not patent a human gene just because they discovered it. The ruling could revolutionize the biotech industry. More »
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Check out the future of brain-computer interfaces. After we poked fun at the electrode-strewn skullcap you'd need to control a pinball machine's flippers yesterday, a researcher sent us this picture of the next-generation EMG helmet, that doesn't need direct contact. More »
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Three decades ago, William Gibson's Neuromancer showed us a future where people "jack into" computers by plugging wires into their brains. Today a new study shows that our brains may be perfectly adapted for Gibson's world. More »
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A few years from now, your blood transfusion may contain synthetic blood cells (pictured) almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Except in one important way: These synth-cells can be stuffed with drugs for special delivery via your circulatory system. More »
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So Hollywood trashed the world in 2012, and scourged it in The Road. But neither apocalypse delivered the sweet tang of satisfaction. That's because what the Earth needs now are life-distorting biotech mutation stories. Here's why. More »
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A company called Stryker Biotech was in court last week defending a bone-growth product it sold for years, despite reports that it would "drift" in the body, causing bones to grow in random locations. More »
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Soon, you could be determining your breast cancer risk with a simple needle jab, to collect a small amount of tissue — which doctors would electrify and subject to weird chemicals, before extracting the estrogen for analysis. More »
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When nanotech and lasers team up, is there anything they can't do? Apparently not. New research shows a combined nanotube/laser treatment zaps kidney tumors in 80 percent of mice. Nanotech is teaming up with viruses to kill ovarian tumors, too. More »
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Bioethicist Malcolm Dando has published a disturbing and well-researched editorial in this week's Nature magazine, about how biological research is being weaponized - and how poorly biologists understand the military implications of their work. Here's what he has to say. More »
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Yesterday researchers at the University of British Colombia in Vancouver announced that they'd created a tiny battery (pictured) that could draw power from human blood. They're basically cyborg batteries, half biological and half technological. More »
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If you've ever thought that selling your kidney, ova, or sperm sounded like a handy way to make some cash, it's time to consider body farming. Michael Burton's photographs show how advances in biotech will change the way humans treat and relate to their bodies. After all, if we can sell our organs, gametes, and hair, what's to stop us from growing extra ones all over our bodies? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5067052&view=rss&microfeed=true Researchers have figured out a way to modify the deadly food poison Salmonella, a bacteria, and turn it into a vaccine delivery system. Don't worry — this won't become an "I Am Legend" situation. All the bad parts of the bacteria (most of its genome) get sucked out and replaced by antigens for pneumonia. [The Biotech Weblog] More »
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If you have a pet dog or cat, chances are your furry pal has an embedded microchip that allows animal shelters to find out who the owner is in the event of an escape or pet-napping. Imagine if that same chip could tell a dog to go home or relay instructions directly from the owner, even if the dog was miles away. That's the sort of technology being pursued by the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, which can remotely direct cows and even calm them down. More »
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Next-gen cyborgs will have human blood flowing through artificial veins (pictured), and their organs will be grown in a lab to act just like real organs, only better, stronger, faster. We have the technology. The next time someone you know gets a coronary bypass, they might come out of the operation as a cyborg. In fact, there is a new field of biotech whose practitioners are calling themselves cyborg engineers. More »
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Blade II has got to be one of the best movies ever, not the least because director Guillermo "Hellboy" Del Toro goes where no genre bender ever has before. He manges to combine the biotech science fiction flick with the gothic vampire flick. I don't think you realize quite how awesome that really is. There is actually a vampire mad scientist who lectures hero Blade about recombinant DNA. Plus, check out the concept design in this clip, which perfectly blends gothic imagery with high-tech creepy lab stuff straight out of some X-Files episode. More »
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If you've been wanting to see the John Woo produced cyborg war romance Appleseed: Ex Machina on the big screen, and you happen to live in New York, then this is your lucky day. We're giving away five pairs of tickets for a midnight screening of the movie at IFC Center in NYC for either Friday or Saturday night, take your pick. We've been vocal about our love for the movie, and although the movie will be out on DVD starting next Tuesday, it really takes a huge screen to appreciate the animation. Find out how you can take yourself and a friend (or just put your feet up) inside. More »
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All viruses have an organic outer shell, but it turns out that with a little genetic tinkering they can be trained to produce an inorganic outer shell made of gold or cobalt oxide. Angela Belcher's lab at MIT has created an entire factory of trained viruses whose genes have been reprogrammed to grow battery ingredients. They're also growing ingredients for solar cells, as well as computer monitors and water-purification systems. More »
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This masked reveler at last year's Bio Taiwan Exhibition was enjoying two kinds of fluorescent protein: one on her lips, and one in her drink. At last, synthetic biology that isn't designed to improve the human condition, cure disease, or revolutionize anything. Nope, it's just there to look cool. Want to see an even cooler — and more expensive — form of facial adornment from the Bio Taiwan Exhibition? More »
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Two new artificial organs rolled out in the past week are going to make things a hell of a lot easier for people with malfunctioning (or absent) heart valves and kidneys. The first device (pictured) is an artificial heart valve that can replace the part of your heart that pushes blood through your body. Being born without a heart valve (you have two, a right and a left) is a common congenital heart defect. Most people get it repaired with a cadaver valve — the valve from a dead person or a dead pig. Those work great, but are prone to infection. So this artificial valve could save lives. And the wearable artificial kidney is even cooler. More »
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Imagine living at a time in history when this "trephine drill" was a cutting-edge neurosurgery tool. This device, on display at Phisick Medical Antiquities Collection, would grip the skull of the patient while the doctor turned the handle on the skull drill. The groovy innovation here? You could quickly pull the drill bit back when you popped through the skull, so you weren't as likely to hit brain. Nice. Another biotech invention of the nineteenth century after the jump. More »
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Forever-young physicist Freeman Dyson, now 83, has long been beloved by scifi writers for his extremely fucking cool ideas. He invented the Dyson Sphere, featured in a Star Trek: TNG episode, where the crew visits a sun wrapped entirely in an artificial sphere that captures every bit of solar energy available (you can see a Dyson Ring in Halo). Now Dyson is battling it out with neo-Luddite Wendell Berry in the NY Times Book Review. Read the old crank getting crankier! [NYBOB] More »
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Apparently sales were so abysmal for Pfizer's insulin inhaler known as Exubera that the drug giant, manufacturer of bestselling pill Viagra, has killed it. Patients only spent a droopy $12 million on the oddly-named Exubera last year. The world just isn't ready for insulin without needles, and besides there were complaints that the Exubera inhalers looked like bongs. The consumer medtech market can be so harsh! Maybe if the insulin bongs streamed RSS feeds or could double as Wii controllers, the public would have spent a hundred million more. More »
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Eggplant has always had a dodgy reputation, and some Cornell researchers working with India's Sathguru Management Consultants have just made the plump purple fruit even weirder. They've rigged the eggplant genome to express a "natural insecticide" that will drive away pesky fruit and shoot borers, bugs which routinely ravage crops throughout India, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines. The bug-killing eggplants are called Bt eggplants because their new insecticide-producing powers come from the spliced-in genes of the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. Bt eggplants will likely hit your tastebuds in 2009, and are the first GMO to come to Southeast Asia. Are they safe? Cornell reports: More »
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To make up for the lack of human eggs needed to create stem cell farms, scientists have invented the "cybrid," an animal egg pumped full of human nuclear DNA. The idea is that stem cell cultures farmed out of these cybrids can be used in humans because they will be mostly human — except for those pesky mitochondrial DNA that live outside the nucleus in cells. According to researchers, human-animal cybrids will never be more than embryos whose stem cells are harvested for growing tissue or regrowing damaged brain cells in people suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Anti-biotech activists are protesting the ethics of all this, but I think we need to keep going down the cybrid path so next summer I can watch a kickass B-movie about the coming cybrid menace. Can't you see it? More »
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