As the next wave of court hearings over patent disputes between Apple and Samsung rage on, investors are growing tepid over Samsung stock, which lost one fifth of its value from June to to mid-July. But it’s not Samsung’s viability that has some investors worried; the Korean handset maker currently makes 1 out of every 3 phones sold worldwide. It sells more than twice as many as its next closest competitor, Apple.
What if you could print your own bandages? Or skin grafts? How about a new liver? Living in the future is a strange and interesting place, and it grows more interesting by the year. Scientists at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology are advancing the field of tissue engineering—developing biologically-derived tissue replacements—by automating tissue replication through the use of inkjet printers.
During the search for our doppelgangers in the world, we may miss the question that eludes many of our minds: What exactly makes each face so distinct? It’s common sense that we have eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but how is it possible that we can recognize between hundreds of our friends solely from these features? Geneticist Axel Visel of Berkeley Lab’s Genomics Division has made discoveries in the field that allow us to better answer this question.
Over the past decade, the scientific community has agreed that the average global temperature is rising. Some attribute this increase to the production of greenhouse gases; others believe that the rising temperatures are part of a bigger cycle, consisting of warm and cold periods. Nevertheless, there is an evident rise in temperatures. Recently, a research team from the University of Colorado Boulder presented convincing evidence that global warming is a result of greenhouse gas emissions.
Astronomers from the University of California, Riverside, working in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin, the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, and other institutions nationwide have discovered what they believe to the be farthest known galaxy to date.
The next time you’re watching that baseball player hit a mammoth home run or that defensive linesman crushing the quarterback, or even that cyclist sprinting up an almost vertical hill well ahead of the competition, don’t only wonder if the athlete is on steroids, but also wonder if he or she has ever been on steroids. A new paper recently published in The Journal of Physiology written by researchers from the University of Oslo suggests that exposure to performing enhancing drugs (PEDs) may have a memory effect, i.e., the drug may produce its intended effect long after it is initially taken. This is in direct contrast to the current thinking that PEDs lose their effects shortly after administration. These findings can have serious implications with regard to drug testing policies.
The Amazon rainforest is filled with the sounds of chirping, buzzing, and howling. However, there is one sound you might not have expected. Purring. From a monkey. This monkey, the Callicebus caquetensis, is one of more than 440 new species discovered in remote parts of the Amazon rainforest, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, the agency that oversees the allocation of this scarce resource in the United States, the number of waitlist candidates for organs is 118,634 as of 2:47 PM on the 11th of July, 2013. The top three organs on the list: kidneys, livers, and hearts.
Researchers at NIH have been tackling problems in biological microscopy with the development of two new microscopes. The new technologies will allow researchers to see fast moving organisms at higher resolutions and to capture three-dimensional images with minimal light damage to the cells.
What is art? Tolstoy said it is a means of union among men. Fellini thought it was autobiography. Oscar Wilde defined it as the most intense mode of individualism the world has seen. Lexus, trying its hand at aesthetic philosophy, thinks art is motion.
Coffee, energy-shots and sugar drinks are faithful companions for those who cannot afford to sleep the required seven to nine hours a day. It is quite common for those with busy lifestyles to try to cheat sleep. But why do we need sleep to begin with? Taking up roughly 1/3 of our lives, sleep has been an intriguing phenomenon to scientists and philosophers alike ever since the late 400s BC.
For two years, the Silk Road was an online, underground marketplace for narco-traffickers and other criminals: an eBay for customers interested in purchasing all sorts of illegal drugs and miscellaneous merchandise, including firearms and contract killers. While most commercial websites, such as Amazon, require some form of registration, the Silk Road didn’t require any personal information. The anonymity of Silk Road was the key to attracting thousands of criminals to the online market. Fortunately, after two years of operating in impunity, the FBI was able to shutdown the site on Oct. 2.
The transformation in the mobile industry in the past eight years has been truly extraordinary. Phones have evolved from tools for simple telecommunications to mobile computing powerhouses. Mobile phone brands pride themselves on their commitment to continually to improve on their products; they manage to make their products slimmer, sleeker and faster year after year. And almost just as miraculously, demand in the mobile phone industry remains strong despite near market saturation in developed nations.
The first successful instance of genetic modification came in 1973 when Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen successfully modified an E. coli to produce a Salmonella gene. Since then, the area of genetic engineering has taken off, producing new and different genetically modified organisms every year.
Where did we come from? How come we, as humans, seem so different as compared to others in the animal kingdom.
The Journal of the American Medical Association published an article by Jon C. Tilburt et al., a former Greenwall Fellow at the Berman Institute, entitled “Views of US Physicians About Controlling Health Care Costs.” I sat down with Matthew DeCamp, MD, PhD, an Assistant Professor at the Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, to talk about the results of the survey.
In honor of one of the most largely recognized and creepiest of holidays, the Science and Technology section of The News-Letter presents to you, an assemblage of the absolute freakiest animals on Earth.
You’ve made it to the final round in a million dollar competition! There is one last challenge you must complete, and it seems elementary; they present two cups to you, and, while blindfolded, you must determine which cup has hot water and which cup has cold water. They blindfold you, and you put your hands out. You grab both cups and feel that one is hotter than the other. You have made your decision! Congratulations! You won!
Money doesn’t grow on trees but apparently gold does.
Many Americans are rather familiar with the current energy crisis. As the world population continues to grow, available fuel deposits and supplies continue to dwindle. Some estimate that the Earth will reach an energy shortage epidemic in the next 50 years.
