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found footage
Posts Tagged “
Biotech
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found footage
appleseed: ex machina
Want To See Appleseed: Ex Machina On The Big Screen for Free this Weekend?
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 »
mad engineering
A Battery Made by Bioengineered Viruses
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 »
sci fashion
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 »
Wearing and Drinking Fluorescent Protein
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 »
biotech
You Can Live Without Heart Valves and Kidneys
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 »
retro neurosurgery
Nineteenth Century Biotech for Brains and Unknown Maladies
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 »
Freeman Dyson Goes Wild
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]
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]
drugs
No Future for Exubera, Pfizer's "Insulin Bong"
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 »
genetic engineering
GMO Eggplants With Built-in Pesticide
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 »
memo to hollywood
