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LysoSENS Progress Update
2007-02-15 19:31:00
I blogged recently about the Methuselah Foundation's LysoSENS project, one of their funded research efforts to help eliminate the deleterious effects of aging. What I didn't read closely enough was that the contest ended on December 31 (although I'm sure they are still accepting samples). On their blog, they have posted an update including details of the top five samples they received. If you're interested in details of the progress being made in the fight against aging, check it out.
More About: Update , Prog , Progress , Sens

Researchers Develop Method to Control Water Flow Through Carbon Nanotubes
2007-02-14 20:53:00
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new method of controlling the flow of water through carbon nanotube membranes with an unprecedented level of precision. That may not sound that interesting, but it could lead to technologies designed to transform salt water into pure drinking water almost instantly, or to immediately separate a specific strand of DNA from the biological jumble. Nanotube membranes have fascinated researchers with their combination of high flow rates and high selectivity, allowing them to filter out very small impurities and other organic materials like DNA and proteins from materials with high water content. The problem is that nanotube arrays are hydrophobic, strongly repelling water. The researchers found a way to use low-voltage electricity to manipulate the flow of water through nanotubes. They discovered that when the nanotube’s membrane is given a small positive potential of only 1.7 volts, and the water is given a negative ...
More About: Research , Tube , Search , Carbon , Water

Intel Builds Fastest Chip Ever
2007-02-12 18:26:00
Intel yesterday announced that its researchers have created a single chip with 80 processing cores, capable of a trillion floating point operations per second (Teraflops). The chip isn't available yet, however, and likely won't be for another five or six years. A chart on Intel's website demonstrates how, through frequency scaling, the chip can be made to achieve as much as 1.81 Teraflops, though doing so increases the power needed from 62 Watts (less than many commercial processors available today) to 265 Watts. Just 10 years ago, a cluster of supercomputers capable of processing the same amount of calculations took up more than 2,000 square feet and consumed a half-megawatt of electricity. This type of processor will be a big step in the right direction for making computers do what we really want. Better pattern recognition for speech and video, better simulations of physical and biological processes, and better video games are just a few examples of how more powerful proc...
More About: Intel , Ever , Test , Fast , Build