kenmay

Mussel Glue Could Help Repair Birth Defects

sciencehabit writes “When it comes to hanging on tight, the lowly mussel has few rivals in nature. Researchers have sought the secrets behind the bivalve’s steadfast grip on wet, slippery rock. Now, a researcher says he has used the mollusk’s tricks to develop medical applications. These include a biocompatible glue that could one day seal fetal membranes, allowing prenatal surgeons to repair birth defects without triggering dangerous premature labor.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Laser intended for Mars used to detect “honey laundering”

Matthew T. Rader A laser tool funded by the European Space Agency to measure carbon on Mars has been reappropriated to detect fake honey. The counterfeit goods trade might more commonly be associated with handbags and watches, but it turns out that the world of honey trading is also a murky one, riddled with smuggling and fakery. According to a Food Safety News investigation , more than a third of honey consumed in the US has been smuggled from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals. To make matters worse, some honey brokers create counterfeit honey using a small amount of real honey, bulked up with sugar, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery (a type of unrefined sugar) and other additives—known as honey laundering. This honey is often mislabeled and sold on as legitimate, unadulterated honey in places such as Europe and the US. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Laser intended for Mars used to detect “honey laundering”

New Nanocapsule Medicine Could Sober You Up in Seconds

Anyone who’s ever had a couple of drinks knows that as fun as it can be, sometimes it’d be nice if you could just make all that haze go away, right away. There’s no solution for your average drunk yet, but researchers at MIT have managed to put together an injection that can turn a party mouse into a stone-cold sober one practically on the spot. More »

These serene Chinese landscapes are actually photographs of landfills

At first glance, Yao Lu’s digital collages look like watercolor paintings of misty Chinese mountains. But upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the real subjects of these photographs aren’t plant-covered hills but landfills, and the initial beauty of the images takes on an entirely different meaning. More »

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These serene Chinese landscapes are actually photographs of landfills

Five Best System Rescue Discs

When your computer starts behaving strangely, won’t boot, or you start getting strange errors that you can’t pin down, a great way to troubleshoot the problem is to boot to a rescue disc and see if you can isolate the problem. It might be your operating system, it could be hardware, but you’ll never know until you boot to some other media to take a look. That said, there are tons of great system rescue discs to check out if you want a tool to save your ailing system. This week we’re looking at five of the best, nominated by you, our readers. More »

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Five Best System Rescue Discs

Project Guttenberg Adds Dropbox Support, Perfect for Syncing to All Your Devices

We’ve shown you how to load up your ereaders with free ebooks , and Project Guttenberg is a great place to do it. Recently, they made accessing their catalog of 42,000 free ebooks that much easier by adding Dropbox integration. More »

Hotel Het Arresthuis: Jail Turned Into Luxury Hotel

Most hotels have bars, but you’re probably not thinking of these ones on the window. The Hotel Het Arresthuis in the Netherlands was actually a jail that was converted into a luxury hotel. Now this is one jailhouse we don’t mind checking into! Take a look.

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Hotel Het Arresthuis: Jail Turned Into Luxury Hotel

WSJ: Sony will use Gaikai streaming tech to play PS3 games on the PS4

We’re just a few days away from Sony’s February 20th “see the future of” PlayStation event where we expect to see the next edition of its home console, and the rumor mill is buzzing. The latest one tonight comes from the Wall Street Journal , with a report that connects Sony’s $380 million purchase of cloud gaming service Gaikai last year with a method to provide backwards compatibility on the PlayStation 4. The WSJ reports Sony has been “investing heavily” in preparing Gaikai for an influx of PS4-equipped gamers, while also developing better cameras for its Move and the DualShock+touchpad controllers we’ve seen recently. What’s not revealed however, is any potential pricing plan, or whether cloud games will work users existing cloud saves. While buying fully digital copies of games we already own is less than appealing, if Sony can implement something like the abandoned UMD-to-PSP Go “good will” plan , then there may be benefits for all. In the last gen Sony used hardware, then software and then nothing at all for backwards compatible gaming, while Microsoft went all software — we’ll see how it balances out this time around. Filed under: Gaming , HD , Sony Comments Source: Wall Street Journal

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WSJ: Sony will use Gaikai streaming tech to play PS3 games on the PS4

Ultrasound Waves Used To Increase Data Storage Capacity of Magnetic Media

Lucas123 writes “Electrical engineers at Oregon State University (OSU) said yesterday that they have found a technique to use high-frequency sound waves to improve magnetic data storage.The data write-technology breakthrough could allow greater amounts of data to be stored on both hard disk drives and NAND flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs), they said. Typically, when magnetic recording material is temporarily heated, even for an instant, it can become momentarily less stiff and more data can be stored at a particular spot. But, the technique has proven difficult to effectively increase capacity because heating tends to spread beyond where it is wanted and the technology involves complex integration of optics, electronics and magnetics, the researchers said. With the new technique, known as acoustic-assisted magnetic recording, ultrasound is directed at a highly specific location on the material while data is being stored, creating elasticity that allows “a tiny portion of the material to bend or stretch.” After the ultrasound is turned off, the material immediately returns to its original shape, but the data stored during the process remains in a dense form.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ultrasound Waves Used To Increase Data Storage Capacity of Magnetic Media

Alcoholism Vaccine Makes Alcohol Intolerable To Drinkers

Hugh Pickens writes “Ariel Schwartz reports that researchers are working on an alcoholism vaccine that makes alcohol intolerable to anyone who drinks it. The vaccine builds on what happens naturally in certain people — about 20% of the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean population — with an alcohol intolerance mutation. Normally, the liver breaks down alcohol into an enzyme that’s transformed into the compound acetaldehyde (responsible for that nasty hangover feeling), which in turn is degraded into another enzyme. The acetaldehyde doesn’t usually have time to build up before it’s broken down. But people with the alcohol intolerance mutation lack the ability to produce that second enzyme; acetaldehyde accumulates, and they feel terrible. Dr. Juan Asenjo and his colleagues have come up with a way to stop the synthesis of that second enzyme via a vaccine, mimicking the mutation that sometimes happens naturally. ‘People have this mutation all over the world. It’s like how some people can’t drink milk,’ says Asenjo. Addressing the physiological part of alcohol addiction is just one piece of the battle. Addictive tendencies could very well manifest in other ways; instead of alcohol, perhaps former addicts will move on to cigarettes. Asenjo admits as much: ‘Addiction is a psychological disease, a social disease. Obviously this is only the biological part of it.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Alcoholism Vaccine Makes Alcohol Intolerable To Drinkers

Ken May

Author: kenmay