The home of Mac info for New Zealanders, mac-nz serves daily Mac, iPhone and related news from the world of Apple Inc.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Nanogel could regrow cartilage in joints: Researchers at Northwestern University have designed a bioactive nanomaterial that promotes the growth of new cartilage in human joints.
Minimally invasive, the therapy activates bone marrow stem cells to produce natural cartilage, no expensive growth factors necessary.
The discovery is important because while bone can grow back, cartilage does not – leaving athletes and other active individuals with worn out, painful joints that can’t be rehabilitated by orthopedic surgeons.
Smart Planet reports that the researchers’ gel is injected as a liquid to the area of the damaged joint, where it then self-assembles and forms a solid. An extracellular matrix that mimics nature, the gel binds on a molecular level to an important growth factor that helps repair and regenerate cartilage.
Comment — as the aged proportion of our population grows, this could ease a lot of lives.
Nano-bubbles may join cancer fight: Scientists may be able to explode individual cancer cells by implanting nanoparticles into them, then hitting them with lasers to create "nanobubbles," which can grow until they burst the cells.
Scientists at Rice University found they could target individual cells with the nanobubble therapy, and tune the laser therapy, either creating small, bright bubbles that are easy to see – or, for diseased cells, larger bubbles that destroy the cell in question. The Rice researchers were able to use the technique to destroy leukemia cells and cells from head and neck cancers. They attached antibodies to the nanoparticles, so they would only target the cancer cells, and found that they were able to locate and destroy the cancer cells, leaving healthy cells undamaged, reports IO9.
Comment — I guess it's no weirder or more troubling than undergoing irradiation.
Miracle Machine brings clean water from the air to Haiti: Atmospheric water generators, which extract water from humid air, have been around for awhile but it's expensive. Earthquake-ravaged Haiti is using an Aqua Sciences atmospheric water extraction machine, the first time the device has been used for relief efforts. And so far it has been wildly successful.
It has produced thousands of gallons of clean water for drinking, wound cleansing and surgical scrubbing at the University Hospital Compound in Port-Au-Prince. According to Aqua Sciences CEO Abe Sher, the machine has actually succeeded in fulfilling fresh water needs at the compound, reports Fast Company.
Comment — water from the air, food from ..?
Bees can remember what human faces look like: It's long been known that bees are capable of recognising and retaining complex visual patterns. They're able to tell different kinds of flowers apart, of course — but a joint project between researchers at the Université de Toulouse and Melbourne's Monash University has found that bees can be trained to distinguish flowers from human faces, and to recognize the basic configuration of human facial features in different contexts. IO9 has more.
Comment — I can often do it too, but I'm not so good with flowers.
Hair proves Saqqaq from Siberia, not North America: Inuk is a 4,000-year-old man known from a tuft of hair found in Greenland permafrost.
In those frozen strands, enough DNA was preserved to sequence the first ancient-human genome and confirm an unexpected ancient migration from Siberia to the New World, plus a few of Inuk’s own traits, including brown eyes, brown skin and facial hair, and tendency to baldness.
A few bone fragments and hair tufts found at the site were the only biological remnants of the Saqqaq, the earliest known inhabitants of the North American Arctic, were found at Qeqertasussuk in southwest Greenland, solving longstanding controversy over the Saqqaq’s origins. Some anthropologists thought they were descended from temperate North Americans who wandered north, others from early ancestors of modern Inuit who left no archaeological trace, says Wired.
Comment — 'temperate North Americans'? Bring them back!
Hubble detects X-shaped spaceship-like object: The Hubble telescope has discovered a mysterious X-shaped object (pic) traveling at 17702kph. NASA says that P/2010-A2 may be a comet, or the product of a collision between two asteroids. Or, as Gizmodo puts it, it might be a Klingon Bird of Prey. Weirder still, the 140-meter-wide nucleus is outside the dust halo and separated from the trail, a behaviour is never been before seen in a comet or any other solar-system-swooshing object.
Comment — I'm more intrigued by the precise measurements reported. And will the rest of the alphabet follow?
Want to see where your mouse pauses on screen? Designed by Anatoly Zenkov and available on a Mac or PC, you just run the app, minimise the window, and go about your business. The tracks show your mouse path, and the circles show where your pointer lingered; stopping points where you were working on the keyboard, away from the computer, or immersed in content, reports Fast Company.
Comment — note to self: must work more intensively to create more complex cyber-Pollock!
Tiny robots to clean your home: At CES this year, Evolution Robotics wowed many with its cute little Mint robot. This diminutive machine, which is now available on pre-order, is actually a sweeperbot. It only has three buttons, and all you have to do to kick it off is stick either a new wet or dry Swiffer pad on its bottom and select the corresponding mode by button.
Fast Company has more info and embedded video.
Comment — bring ’em on!
