Mapping How the Brain Matures

New analysis tools may eventually help doctors predict autism and other developmental disorders.

Using a new way of analyzing brain-imaging data, scientists have mapped out how the complex networks of connections in the brain evolve as children age. The researchers are now using the technology to examine how brain development in children with specific disorders, such as autism, veers off the norm. Ultimately, researchers aim to use the technology to predict, for example, whether a child at risk for autism will actually develop the disorder, or what treatments might work best for that individual.

Fungus Genes Help Turn Grass into Ethanol

Modified yeast could help make ethanol from hard-to-digest materials.

Genes copied from a common fungus could simplify the production of ethanol from abundant materials such as grass and wood chips, a development that could one day help ethanol compete with gasoline.

Subway Trains to Generate Power for the Grid

A battery will capture power from braking trains.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), which runs the transit system in Philadelphia, is piloting a smart electrical grid technology that could cut its electricity bills by up to 40 percent and generate millions of dollars a year.

Building an Implantable Artificial Kidney

A prototype uses kidney cells to help it perform vital functions.

Nearly 400,000 people in the United States--and as many as two million worldwide--rely on dialysis machines to filter toxins from their blood because of chronic kidney failure.

The Next Stage of Online Video Evolution

HTML5 is changing the look of Web video, but can it edge out Flash?

At the end of August, the band Arcade Fire launched an online experiment with Google that allowed fans to build a personalized music video to accompany the new song "We Used to Wait." But the video was more than a normal video: it was a collection of video windows within the Web browser that provided, among other images, aerial and street-level footage of any address a user provided (via Google Maps).

Big Bang Detector Heads to Space

A unique particle physics detector will be attached to the space station to study the universe and its origins.

In an effort to uncover some of the universe's greatest mysteries, an international team of researchers has developed the largest space-based particle physics detector. Known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02), it will study the universe and its origins by searching for dark matter and antimatter and measuring the composition of cosmic rays with greater precision than any previous device.

Blog - Non-Expanding Cosmology Attempts To Oust Big Bang Theory

A static universe better explains the properties of the cosmos than the Big Bang and avoids the nagging problems of dark matter and dark energy, according to a new cosmology

The idea that the universe began in an event called the Big Bang some 13 billion years ago has a special place in science and in our society. We like the idea of a beginning.

Blog - Why Isn't YouTube Following Its Own Rules on Hate Speech?

The hosting provider for the "Burn a Koran Day" church pulled their site. So why hasn't Google?

Blog - Ban on Federal Funding for Embryonic Stem Cell Research Temporarily Lifted

The order brings a brief reprieve for scientists and the NIH, though many uncertainties remain.

A federal appeals court temporarily suspended an injunction, issued last month, that had halted federal funding for research on embryonic stem cells. The injunction had thrown the field into disarray, as the National Institutes of Health stopped all research on embryonic stem cells within the institute and suspended reviews of grants involving the cells. The Justice Department had asked that the injunction be stayed while the court considers the government's appeal of the ruling.

Fuel Sipping Diesel Hybrids to Debut in Europe

High fuel prices make the cars cost-effective in Europe.

Next year, European automakers Peugeot and Mercedes-Benz will introduce the first diesel hybrid cars, which will get about 60 miles per gallon. Peugeot expects to be the first to market with its 3008Hybrid4 in the spring. The Mercedes E 300 Blue Tec hybrid is due out by the end of 2011.

Clean Water for the Developing World

Cotton fabric treated with nano inks produces a water filter that's efficient and needs little power to work.

A water filter under development at Stanford University removes bacteria from water quickly and without clogging--and could lead to a simple and inexpensive method of cleaning water for the developing world. The device, which uses a piece of cotton treated with nanomaterial inks, kills bacteria with electrical fields but uses just 20 percent of the power required by pressure-driven filters.

New Chip Captures Specialized Immune Cells

The device could help scientists predict which patients are susceptible to serious infections.

A novel microfluidics chip developed by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) will let doctors examine how white blood cells called neutrophils help the body cope with burns and other traumatic injuries. It may also shed light on why the immune system sometimes spirals out of control, resulting in dangerous inflammation.

Blog - Why Spacetime on the Tiniest Scale May Be Two-Dimensional

The latest thinking about quantum gravity suggests that spacetime is two-dimensional on the smallest scale. And there may be a way to prove it.

In 1973, George Ellis and Stephen Hawking published a book called The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime. Their aim, they said, was to understand spacetime on the scale ranging from 10^(-13)cm to 10^28cm or, in other words, from the size of elementary particles to the radius of the universe.

Blog - Preventing Smart-Phone Armageddon

If hackers got access to enough smart phones, they could paralyze wireless communications.

In 2009, Scott Totzke, vice president of security at Research in Motion -- maker of the BlackBerry smartphone -- told Reuters that his nightmare scenario was a type of attack in which a sufficient number of smart phones in a given area were compromised in a way that they would send so much data through a local cell phone network that normal cell phone service would effectively be knocked out.

Video - Making a Nano-Water Filter for the Developing World
Researchers at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California are developing a filter that rapidly kills bacteria in water. The researchers hope their filter will be used in the developing world, where at least one billion people lack access to clean water.


Full Article

	Web www.PDAportal.com