It seems that automated science writing is not ready—yet. Still, an April 18, 2019 news item on ScienceDaily suggests that progress is being made, The work of a science writer, including this one, includes reading journal papers filled with specialized technical terminology, and figuring out how to explain their contents in language that readers without a scientific background can understand.Now, a team of scientists at MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] and elsewhere has developed a…

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Scientists at Japan’s University of Osaka have a technique for creating higher resolution computer and smart phone screens from the main ingredient for a dessert, nata de coco. From the nata de coco Wikipedia entry (Note: Links have been removed), Nata de coco (also marketed as “coconut gel”) is a chewy, translucent, jelly-like food produced by the fermentation of coconut water,[1] which gels through the production of microbial cellulose by ‘Komagataeibacter xylinus’. Originating in the…

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Adding to the body of ‘memristor’ research I have here, there’s an April 17, 2019 news item on Nanowerk announcing the development of ‘memristor’ hardware by Japanese researchers (Note: A link has been removed), A research group from Tohoku University has developed spintronics devices which are promising for future energy-efficient and adoptive computing systems, as they behave like neurons and synapses in the human brain (Advanced Materials, “Artificial Neuron and Synapse Realized in an Antiferromagnet/Ferromagnet…

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Before getting to the research news from the University of Twente (Netherlands), there’s this related event which took place on April 18, 2019 (from the Future Under Our Skin webpage (on the University of Twente website) Note: I have made some formatting changes, Why this event? Our skin can give information about our health, mood and surroundings. Medical and recreational tattoos have decorated humans for centuries. But we can inject other materials besides ink, such…

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One of Joseph Cohen’s painting incorporating carbon nanotubes photographed in normal light. Photo courtesy of Joseph Cohen. [downloaded from https://news.artnet.com/art-world/carbon-nanotube-cancer-paint-1638340?utm_content=from_&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Global%20September%202%20PM&utm_term=artnet%20News%20Daily%20Newsletter%20USE%20%2830%20Day%20Engaged%20Only%29] The artist credited with the work seen in the above, Joseph Cohen, has done something remarkable with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Something even more remarkable than the painting as Sarah Cascone recounts in her August 30, 2019 article for artnet.com (Note: A link has been removed), Not every artist can say that his or her work…

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This is very exciting news and it’s likely be at least 10 years before this technology could be made available to the public. Caption: A 3D-printed, small-scaled human heart engineered from the patient’s own materials and cells. Credit: Advanced Science. © 2019 The Authors. An April 15, 2019 news item on ScienceDaily makes a remarkable announcement, In a major medical breakthrough, Tel Aviv University researchers have “printed” the world’s first 3D vascularised engineered heart using…

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Caption: Bryson and Sanchez, two alpacas who produce unusually small antibodies. These ‘nanobodies’ could help highly promising CAR T-cell therapies kill solid tumors, where right now they work only in blood cancers. Credit: Courtesy of Boston Children’s Hospital Bryson and Sanchez are not the first camelids to grace this blog. ‘Llam’ me lend you some antibodies—antibody particles extracted from camels and llamas, a June 12, 2014 posting, and Llama-derived nanobodies are good for solving crystal…

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There are movies, plays, a multimedia installation experience all in Vancouver, and the ‘CHAOSMOSIS mAchInesexhibition/performance/discussion/panel/in-situ experiments/art/ science/ techne/ philosophy’ event in Toronto. But first, there’s a a Vancouver talk about engaging scientists in the upcoming federal election. . Science in the Age of Misinformation (and the upcoming federal election) in Vancouver Dr. Katie Gibbs, co-founder and executive director of Evidence for Democracy, will be giving a talk today (Sept. 4, 2019) at the University of…

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This is a CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) story where the researchers are working on flies. If successful, this has much wider implications. From an April 10, 2019 news item on phys.org, New CRISPR-based gene drives and broader active genetics technologies are revolutionizing the way scientists engineer the transfer of specific traits from one generation to another.Scientists at the University of California San Diego have now developed a new version of a gene…

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Spend enough time reading about emerging technologies and, at some point, you will find yourself questioning some of your dearly held beliefs. It gives a whole new meaning to term, mind altering (also, mind blowing or mind expanding), which in the 1960s was used to refer to the effects of LSD and other hallucinogens. Today <September 1, 2019 (Labour Day in Canada and elsewhere), I have two news bits that could be considered mind expanding,…

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