It’s once again time for the scientific world’s most prestigious awards to be handed out. I’m talking, of course, about the Ig Nobel Prizes. The Ig Nobels are presented each year by the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research to researchers who have done something that first makes people laugh, then makes them think. …
This sounds exciting: Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers have developed a technique for inserting genes into specific non-coding regions of the genome in liver cells. Because these regions occur between genes, there’s no danger of the insertion damanging existing genes–and the inserted gene becomes a permanent part of the genome. Using this technique, the …
…created through the genetic engineering of male mosquitoes, could allow scientists to easily separate the sexes, allowing them to release large number of sterilized males in an effort to control malaria. Which is really cool, but what I like about the story is the fact it allowed me to use the headline “Glowing mosquito gonads.” …
The discovery of more “hobbit” bones in Indonesia strengthens the idea that a separate human-like species lived there as recently as 12,000 years ago. Evidence of butchered animals and the use of fire probably indicate the hobbits had rudimentary language, too.
China plans to launch its second crewed spaceflight on Wednesday. It’s been two years since the first one.
That’s what a team led by Dr. Alan Feduccia of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill says in a new paper. Listen to this: “The theory that birds are the equivalent of living dinosaurs and that dinosaurs were feathered is so full of holes that the creationists have jumped all over it, using …
Would I pay $100 a month to go sit in a cubicle in a converted warehouse somewhere to write alongside a bunch of other writers who have also paid $100 a month? Um…no. Besides, I’d be one of the loud typists complained about in the story who types too fast.
A European Space Agency satellite due to orbit the Earth for three years to scan polar ice sheets crashed into the ocean after a booster failed to ignite on the Russian-made rocket it was riding, preventing it from reaching orbit. Whenever there’s a failure like this I can’t help but think how devastating it must …
“Nano” this and “nano” that: Responsible Nanotechnology provides a short, useful field guide to what the various nano-terms mean.
It’s not my list: it’s Scientific American’s Science & Technology Web Awards. (Via Alone On A Boreal Stage.)
Alan Boyle reports from the Countdown to the X-Prize Cup private spaceflight symposium in New Mexico. Read the whole thing, but of particular interest in these parts is this update on the Da Vinci Project, Kindersley, Saskatchewan’s, best hope to become a spaceport: In the latter days of the X Prize competition, the Canadian Da …
General Motors says it hopes to have in place a viable fuel-cell powered car by 2010, with volume production possible two to three years later. As GM goes, so goes the nation…one hopes.
