Forget Lucy. A new 47 million-year-old fossil unveiled at the American Natural History Museum Tuesday may offer clues on human ancestry. The fossil, labeled Darwinius Massilae, but nicknamed “Ida” is an early member of a “stem group” from which humans are thought to have derived. The specimen—also said to be the most in-tact primate fossil ever discovered because its skeleton is 95 percent complete—has an opposable big toe and fingernails, in addition to a developed mandible. Ida was discovered outside of Frankfurt, Germany in 1983. Dr. Jørn Hurum, the chief scientist for the project, purchased her in 2006. He has spent the last two years researching the fossil's origins in secret. He’s now unveiling it amid massive media hoopla. The discovery, which has been branded “The Link,” and likened to the Rosetta Stone and the Holy Grail will, conveniently, be the subject of a book and a two-hour History Channel special. Maybe we shouldn't forget about Lucy, after all.
Scary projections from the government: The Great Recession has wiped out the financial underpinnings of the Medicare and Social Security programs. According to the official yearly appraisal of the two giant entitlement programs, Medicare’s trust fund is now projected to run out of money in 2017, two years earlier than projected a year ago; Social Security will be insolvent in 2037, a full four years earlier than last year’s estimate. It’s far worse news than during the weaker recession earlier this decade, which hardly dented the trust funds that support the programs, and the report shows that fewer workers are paying into both systems.
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_______________________________________________________________May 13 (Bloomberg) -- The World Health Organization is investigating a claim by an Australian researcher that the swine flu virus circling the globe may have been created as a result of human error.
Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu drug, said in an interview that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus’s origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint.
The World Health Organization received the study last weekend and is reviewing it, Keiji Fukuda, the agency’s assistant director-general of health security and environment, said in an interview May 11. Gibbs, who has studied germ evolution for four decades, is one of the first scientists to analyze the genetic makeup of the virus that was identified three weeks ago in Mexico and threatens to touch off the first flu pandemic since 1968.
A virus that resulted from lab experimentation or vaccine production may indicate a greater need for security, Fukuda said. By pinpointing the source of the virus, scientists also may better understand the microbe’s potential for spreading and causing illness, Gibbs said.
Possible Mistake
“The sooner we get to grips with where it’s come from, the safer things might become,” Gibbs said by phone from Canberra yesterday. “It could be a mistake” that occurred at a vaccine production facility or the virus could have jumped from a pig to another mammal or a bird before reaching humans, he said.
A little known fact among most is that Japan is one of the epicenters of world concrete production, and thanks to one of their latest innovations our future cities will have the ability to heal. Building on the research of Japan's concrete engineers, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor researchers Victor Li and Yingzi Yang have developed a kind of self-healing concrete.
According to their results, tiny cracks in specially formulated concrete can self-heal after being exposed to rainwater and carbon dioxide in the air, a process that produces a calcium carbonate similar to that found in strong yet malleable seashells. The material is being considered as an expensive, yet safer alternative for a wide array of stress bearing structures as well as earthquake prone areas.
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- at Zoombak.com, you can have all kinds of fun, including secretly tracking the movements of your spouse, children or employees
- G.E.’s Breakthrough Can Put 100 DVDs on a Disc
- human vs machine IBM supercomputer takes on Jeopardy
Oh how neat and convenient, swallowing chips :
Microchips in pills could soon allow doctors to find out whether a patient has taken their medication.
The digestible sensors, just 1mm wide, would mean GPs and surgeons could monitor patients outside the hospital or surgery.
Developers say the technology could be particularly useful for psychiatric or elderly patients who rely on a complicated regime of drugs – and are at risk if they miss a dose or take it at the wrong time.
It could also be used for the chronically ill, such as people with heart disease, to establish whether costly drugs are working or whether they are causing potentially dangerous side effects.
The sensors could even remind women to take the Pill if they forget.
The ‘intelligent’ medicine works by activating a harmless electric charge when drugs are digested by the stomach.
This charge is picked up by a sensing patch on the patients’ stomach or back, which records the time and date that the pill is digested. It also measures heart rate, motion and breathing patterns.
The information is transmitted to a patient’s mobile phone and then to the internet using wireless technology, to give a complete picture of their health and the impact of their drugs.
Doctors and carers can view this information on secure web pages or have the information sent to their mobile phones.
The silicon microchips are invisible to patients and can be added to any standard drug during the manufacturing process.
more gore at UK's Daily Mail. Ta-ta!
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_______________________________________________________________Pentagon mad-science division Darpa is helping build thought-controlled robotic limbs, artificial pack mules, real-life laser guns and "kill-proof" soldiers. So it comes as no surprise, really, that the agency is now getting into the flying-car business, too.
Darpa hopes its "Personal Air Vehicle Technology" project, announced yesterday, will ultimately lead to a working prototype of a military-suitable flying car -- a two- or four-passenger vehicle that can "drive on roads" one minute and take off like a helicopter the next. The hybrid machine would be perfect for "urban scouting," casualty evacuation and commando-delivery missions, the agency believes.
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