The Star Trek "tricorder" may be closer than we thought. Researchers from Imperial College London and A*STAR in Singapore have developed a terahertz antenna only 100 nanometers across.Read | Permalink Read more »
Moderate Marijuana Smoking Doesn’t Hurt Lungs
Good news for those who partake via AP/Fox News:
Read more »Smoking a joint once a week or a bit more apparently doesn’t harm the lungs, suggests a 20-year study that bolsters evidence that marijuana doesn’t do the kind of damage tobacco does.
The results, from one of the largest and longest studies on the health effects of marijuana, are hazier for heavy users – those who smoke two or more joints daily for several years. The data suggest that using marijuana that often might cause a decline in lung function, but there weren’t enough heavy users among the 5,000 young adults in the study to draw firm conclusions.
Marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law although some states allow its use for medical purposes.
The study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham was released Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The findings…
Scientists Develop Device To See Inside Dreams
Suspect that your spouse is enamored with another? For a fee, you’ll be able to get a recording of their dreams to playback and double check. The Telegraph reports:
Read more »The secret world of dreams has been unlocked with the invention of technology capable of illustrating images taken directly from human brains during sleep.
A team of Japanese scientists have created a device that enables the processing and imaging of thoughts and dreams as experienced in the brain to appear on a computer screen.
While researchers have so far only created technology that can reproduce simple images from the brain, the discovery paves the way for the ability to unlock people’s dreams and other brain processes.
A spokesman at ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories said: “It was the first time in the world that it was possible to visualise what people see directly from the brain activity.
“By applying this technology, it may become possible to record and…
Most USB Sticks Lost On The Subway Are Swimming In Malware
People frequently lose USB sticks. Security researchers at Sophos recently purchased a group of 50 devices that had been left on the Sydney subway. Their findings indicate people are more than just forgetful.Read | Permalink Read more »
Some Atheist Scientists With Children Embrace Religious Traditions
Via ScienceDaily:
Read more »Some atheist scientists with children embrace religious traditions for social and personal reasons, according to research from Rice University and the University at Buffalo — The State University of New York (SUNY).
The study also found that some atheist scientists want their children to know about different religions so their children can make informed decisions about their own religious preferences.
“Our research shows just how tightly linked religion and family are in U.S. society — so much so that even some of society’s least religious people find religion to be important in their private lives,” said Rice sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, the study’s principal investigator and co-author of a paper in the December issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
The researchers found that 17 percent of atheists with children attended a religious service more than once in the past year. The research was conducted through interviews with a…
Dutch Researcher Creates A Super-Influenza Virus With The Potential To Kill Half the World’s Population
Via DoctorTipster.com:
A Dutch researcher has created a virus with the potential to kill half of the planet’s population. Now, researchers and experts in bioterrorism debate whether it is a good idea to publish the virus creation ”recipe”. However, several voices argue that such research should have not happened in the first place. The virus is a strain of avian influenza H5N1 genetically modified to be extremely contagious. It was created by researcher Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands. The work was first presented at a conference dedicated to influenza, that took place in September in Malta. Avian influenza emerged in Asia about 10 years ago. Since then there were fewer than 600 infection cases reported in humans. On the other hand, Fouchier’s genetically modified strain is extremely contagious and dangerous, killing about 50% of infected patients. The former strain did not represent a global threat, as transmission from human to human is rare. Or, at least, it was before Fouchier genetically modified it.Read more »
On Facebook, it’s now 4.74 degrees of separation
It used to be thought you could find a link between any two people on earth through no more than six intermediaries. But, after researchers at the Università degli Studi di Milano studied the numbers from Facebook, it appears the world is smalle... Read more »
Researchers ID Skype users who also use BitTorrent
If you like to download files through BitTorrent sites, and you use Skype, researchers have figured out a way to identify you. They managed to sift through the peer-to-peer connections to get IP addresses, names, and addresses.Read | Permalink Read more »
Data confined in physical space
A team of researchers at Virginia Tech is working on a cryptographic system that allows or blocks electronic access to data depending on location. It could be used to prevent the email or camera on a cellphone from working in certain areas. Read more »
Spanish Blood Test Can Tell When You’ll Die. Maybe.
Three-dimensional molecular structure of a telomere (G-quadruplex). Credit: Giac83 (CC)
But do you really want to know? Giles Tremlett reports on the small Spanish biological research company at the center of claims that its blood test can predict the age you will die, for the Guardian:
Read more »As a taxi takes me across Madrid to the laboratories of Spain’s National Cancer Research Centre, I am fretting about the future. I am one of the first people in the world to provide a blood sample for a new test, which has been variously described as a predictor of how long I will live, a waste of time or a handy indicator of how well (or badly) my body is ageing. Today I get the results.
Some newspapers, to the dismay of the scientists involved, have gleefully announced that the test – which measures the telomeres (the protective caps on the ends of my chromosomes) –…
