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Oct 4, 2016

Programmable T cells chase down cancer, deliver drugs directly to tumors

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Customised immunotherapy for treating cancer is part of the new generation of biotech solutions to diseases.


UC San Francisco scientists have engineered human immune cells that can precisely locate diseased cells anywhere in the body and execute a wide range of customizable responses, including the delivery of drugs or other therapeutic payloads directly to tumors or other unhealthy tissues. In experiments with mice, these immune cells, called synNotch T cells, efficiently homed in on tumors and released a specialized antibody therapy, eradicating the cancer without attacking normal cells.

As reported in the Sept. 29, 2016, online edition of Cell, in addition to delivering therapeutic agents, synNotch can be programmed to kill cancer cells in a variety of other ways. But synNotch cells can also carry out instructions that suppress the immune response, offering the possibility that these cells could be used to treat autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes or to locally suppress immune system rejection of transplanted organs.

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Oct 4, 2016

How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight

Posted by in categories: government, Peter Diamandis, space travel

Alone in a Spartan black cockpit, test pilot Mike Melvill rocketed toward space. He had eighty seconds to exceed the speed of sound and begin the climb to a target no civilian pilot had ever reached. He might not make it back alive. If he did, he would make history as the world’s first commercial astronaut.

The spectacle defied reason, the result of a competition dreamed up by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, whose vision for a new race to space required small teams to do what only the world’s largest governments had done before.

Peter Diamandis was the son of hardworking immigrants who wanted their science prodigy to make the family proud and become a doctor. But from the age of eight, when he watched Apollo 11 land on the Moon, his singular goal was to get to space. When he realized NASA was winding down manned space flight, Diamandis set out on one of the great entrepreneurial adventure stories of our time. If the government wouldn’t send him to space, he would create a private space flight industry himself.

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Oct 4, 2016

Quantum computing: What businesses need to know

Posted by in categories: business, computing, particle physics, quantum physics

Most people will be familiar with Moore’s Law which states that the number of transistors it’s possible to get on a microprocessor doubles every 18 months. If this holds true it means that some time in the 2020s we’ll be measuring these circuits on an atomic scale.

You might think that that’s where everything comes to a juddering halt. But the next step from this is the creation of quantum computers which use the properties of atoms and molecules to perform processing and memory tasks.

If this all sounds a bit sci-fi, it’s because practical quantum computers are still some way in the future. However, scientists have already succeeded in building basic quantum computers that can perform certain calculations. And when practical quantum computing does arrive it has the potential to bring about a change as great as that delivered by the microchip.

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Oct 4, 2016

New devices that emulate human biological synapses

Posted by in categories: biological, computing, engineering, neuroscience

Check this out.


Engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are leading a research team that is developing a new type of nanodevice for computer microprocessors that can mimic the functioning of a biological synapse—the place where a signal passes from one nerve cell to another in the body. The work is featured in the advance online publication of Nature Materials.

Such neuromorphic computing in which microprocessors are configured more like human brains is one of the most promising transformative computing technologies currently under study.

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Oct 4, 2016

HIV cure close after disease ‘vanishes’ from blood of British man

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

UK researchers from five major universities close in on a cure for HIV by reprogramming immune cells to recognize the virus and destroy it.


A British man could become the first person in the world to be cured of HIV using a new therapy designed by a team of scientists from five UK universities.

The 44-year-old is one of 50 people currently trialling a treatment which targets the disease even in its dormant state.

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Oct 4, 2016

Airbus signs up first customer for external space station platform

Posted by in category: space

An Australian company is the first customer for an external research platform Airbus Defence and Space plans to install on the space station by 2018.

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Oct 3, 2016

MIT applies soft touch to robots with programmable 3D-printed skins

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, computing, robotics/AI

Spectators of the DARPA Robotics Challenge finals in 2015 would have noticed that many of the competing robots were padded up for protection in case they took a tumble. MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is looking to build customizable shock-absorbing protection into robots by using 3D printing to produce soft materials that not only dampen the impact of falls, but also allows them to carry out safer, more precise movements.

Robotics engineers have long had a keen interest in soft materials. At their simplest, such materials can protect robots against falls and collisions, but can also protect people in environments were robots and humans are increasingly working together. Going beyond this, soft materials also allow for making completely soft robots that can mimic animal design.

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Oct 3, 2016

Intel and Oakley pack a fitness tracker and AI coach into a pair of shades

Posted by in categories: privacy, robotics/AI, wearables

As useful as they are, wearable fitness trackers aren’t usually the height of fashion themselves, with many devices blending away out of sight on your wrist or ankle. Now Intel and Luxottica have teamed up to put a fitness tracker front and center on your face, stashing various biometric sensors and a voice-activated AI coach into a stylish, custom-designed pair of Oakley shades.

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Oct 3, 2016

About Neumann Space

Posted by in categories: government, habitats, space

Our mission is simple.

We believe humanity’s future lays in the stars. Our future home will be different worlds as Government initiatives turn into.

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Oct 3, 2016

Smarter thread

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, computing, health, mobile phones, nanotechnology

I never get tired in circuitry thread and any new findings.


Tufts University engineers say that revolutionary health diagnostics may be hanging on a thread—one of many threads they have created that integrate nano-scale sensors, electronics and microfluidics into threads ranging from simple cotton to sophisticated synthetics. “We think thread-based devices could potentially be used as smart sutures for surgical implants, smart bandages to monitor wound healing, or integrated with textile or fabric as personalized health monitors and point-of-care diagnostics,” says Sameer Sonkusale, Ph.D., director of the interdisciplinary Nano Lab in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Tufts School of Engineering, Medford/Somerville, Mass.

Researchers dipped a variety of conductive threads in physical and chemical sensing compounds and connected them to wireless electronic circuitry. The threads, sutured into tissues of rats, collected data on tissue health (pressure, stress, strain and temperature), pH and glucose levels. The data helps determine how wounds are healing, whether infection is emerging or whether the body’s chemistry is out of balance. Thread’s natural wicking properties draw fluids to the sensing compounds. Resulting data is transmitted wirelessly to a cell phone and computer.

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