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Research into human/animal "hybrid" embryos has hit a roadblock in the UK with all funding refused, and one of the three leading scientists in the field leaving the country in part, perhaps, due to disillusionment with hostility to his work. More »
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With some networks offering mixed signals about their futures with science fiction, we may increasingly rely on cable for compelling television about the future. Fortunately, HBO is stepping up, developing two new science fiction series with X-Files alum Frank Spotnitz. More »
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The first artificial virus was created in 2003 — to cure people, not kill them. A virus can deliver cures to cells just as easily as it delivers death. The problem with artificial viruses is that no one has been able to make them the proper shape to serve as a therapeutic delivery system. But now, Korean scientists have created a virus that could deliver a remedy directly to a patient's cells with far greater efficiency than past attempts. The key lies in those Lovecraftian tentacles extending from the virus. More »
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It could be the beginning of a new global pandemic. Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease spread from animals to humans through water contaminated by infected urine. In severe cases, it can lead to liver failure, kidney failure, meningitis and eventually death. While it's been contained historically through screening and antibiotics, medical researchers in Peru recently stumbled across a new species of Lepto so genetically mutated that current tests for the disease don't detect it. More »
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Radiation exposure is going to be a serious problem after the nuclear apocalypse, or when your orbital home is going to be bombarded with plenty of dangerous cosmic radiation from solar flares. And in fact, it's already a problem now in many workplaces where people work with radioactive materials. But a solution may be in sight with a new pill, Protectan, that developer Cleveland BioLabs promises can prevent radiation sickness. More »
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Worried about the bacteria in your water? Just dip a test-strip coated with a special mix of nanoparticles into your glass, and watch the result. If the strip changes color, don't drink. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts have devised a way to instantly identify several species of bacteria using a blend of charged polymers and gold dust. The implications are fairly staggering for medicine, but also for national security. More »
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Darren Lynn Bousman's Repo! The Genetic Opera is one of the two organ repossession movies coming out this year, and now it's gone viral with a creepy-looking donation poster (jump below see it) urging you to give until it hurts. This "Warnerian-Rocky Horror-meets-Bladerunner musical" takes place in a future where massive organ failures plague humankind. But the sickly masses can ward off death by financing an easy-clone organ implant from GeneCo. If you can't pay when the loan comes due, a repo agent will yank your fancy new organs like a bad tooth. And it's an opera, of course. We've got the awesome repo poster below. 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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