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It's the next step on the path to robust tissue engineering and synthetic meat. Researchers today announced that they'd used special progenitor cells to grow human blood vessels inside mice. The vessels grew after scientists injected the cells into the mice, forming a "ball" of self-assembled veins that connected to each other and pumped blood.
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Afternoon reading
The Dark Knight succeeds as a film because it fearlessly trashes the idea of heroism, and turns hopelessness into a motivation so pyrotechnic that even torture is a kind of seduction. Nothing escapes corruption. Even the poignant anguish of loss is an emotion summarized by gleeful beatings in police stations, innocent faces burned down to bone, and brute-force surveillance that turns an entire city into one giant spy camera. This is a movie that grabs you by the hair and mashes your cheeks against the cold, flat reality that nobody will ever save the day again. Your only joy from now on will be in destruction. And what glorious destruction it is. Spoilers ahead.
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Get Ready for Ultra-Thin Invisible Body Armor
Graphene, which is as common as the flakes from your pencil when you write, is turning out to be the wonder material of the new millennium. A few years ago, researchers discovered its electrical properties, which make one-micron sheets of the stuff ideal for tiny computerized devices. Now a new study reveals that graphene may also be one of the strongest materials known to humans. It has a breaking strength of 55 newtons per meter. That means if you had a sheet of graphene that was the thickness of typical plastic wrap, it could support the weight of a 2000 kg car before breaking. Just to make things even more mega, graphene is also transparent. Ultra-thin, invisible body armor, here we come! [New Scientist] Image via Coderforfood.
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When you ask scientists to predict the future, they don't scrimp on the weirdness. A recent article in Nature included predictions from a number of researchers asked to speculate about how humans will reproduce in 30 years. Scott Gelfland of the Ethics Center at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater said he thought the development of artificial wombs might be a boon to the religious right. He imagined that states could pass laws mandating that every aborted fetus be brought to term in artificial wombs. Gelfland had no predictions about who would raise the babies after they were born. [Nature]
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If you're a time traveler who likes literate kids, we've got a deal for you. For a limited time, Echo Park Time Travel Mart will send you to the historical (or future) destination of your dreams, for the low price of $19.99 — with all proceeds going to a nonprofit that helps kids learn to write. What's that, you say? More posters and details below.
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We're gearing up for Comic-Con next week, joining the over 100 thousand other nerds who are converging on San Diego to find out what the studios, publishers and toymakers have in store for us next year. All your editors will be there — Annalee Newitz (that would be me), Charlie Jane Anders, Meredith Woerner, and Graeme McMillan — and we'll be joined in our scifi mania by amazing videographer Eddie Codel. We're even doing a panel on Thursday from 2-3. Though there are over 400 panels and even more events going on at Comic-Con, we've pared down the list for you so you can get a sense of what's making us freak out. Below, see our (semi) annotated picks for what to do and watch at Comic-Con.
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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]
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Makemake Is Now Officially a Dwarf Planet
Not only does the "Kuiper Belt object" Makemake have a terrific name, but it is also one of the first chunks of rock to earn the International Astronomical Union's new designation of planetoid or "plutoid" along with controversial "planet or not" Pluto. Most plutoids exist beyond the orbit of Neptune, and according to Charles Stross they will make perfect homes for the robots that will eventually take over our solar system. [USGS Astrogeology]
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Mars isn't the only planet with awe-inspiring craters. Here on Earth, we've been pummeled by space rocks in the not-so-distant past, and our planet has the scars to prove it. A new photo essay in National Geographic by Stephen Alvarez tells the story of planetary impacts like this one (above) in Arizona, U.S., called simply Meteor Crater. It's almost a mile wide. Check out an even more awesome one below.
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Mad genetics
When Will My Robot Eat My Flesh?
As usual, Bill Christensen over at Technovelgy is asking the questions that are secretly on all our minds: When will we have a robot that can eat people? He points out that we already have a slug-eating robot, as well as a robot that can "taste" and identify foods (though it unfortunately identified humans as bacon). Plus, there are robots designed to grab humans out of dangerous places (pictured). As Christensen says, all the pieces are in place for a human-eating robot. [Technovelgy]
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This deep gorge known as the Echus Chasma was ripped into the Martian soil by gushing water, and scientists speculate that it may once have boasted giant, 4000-meter-high waterfalls. This image, by the European Space Agency's Mars Express satellite, was released this week along with a few others. We've got an even more gorgeous one for you below.
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Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Burlusconi, who has suffered so many corruption charges that he got the Italian parliament to whip up a special crime bill that will get him off the hook, is apparently an expert on court systems in other solar systems. He told news reporters, "I'm the universal record-holder for the number of trials in the entire history of man — and also of other creatures who live on other planets." It's good to know that Burlusconi's not human-centric when it comes to thinking about his criminal career. [FP Passport]
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Behold the glowing, sunset-drenched beauty of Fridgehenge in New Mexico, United States, a massive recreation of Stonehenge made entirely of dead refrigerators (photo by Longrista). Although humans have reached a rather advanced state of industrial development, that doesn't prevent us from wanting to recreate ancient wonders of the stone age like Britain's Stonehenge. In fact, humans have recreated Stonehenge using quite a number of giant building materials, as you can see in our post-industrial stone-age collection below.
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Even if you have an entire fleet of ships at your disposal, Space Cthulhu is going to crush you. At least, that's the message I get from this amazing concept art by Thai CGI artist Monsit Jangariyawong. A fan of strange creatures and shiny ships, Jangariyawong works from Bangkok. Want to see another one of his amazing monsters?
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