A new cancer diagnosis technique that separates cancerous cells from blood may inspire a new form of treatment for the disease. A researcher at Australia’s University of New South Wales (UNSW) who helped devise the test says it could potentially be scaled up to cleanse meaningful quantities of blood, which could then be reintroduced into the body to battle different forms of the disease.
via < … Read More → "Diagnosis technique that filters out harmful cells could lead to a “dialysis machine” for cancer"

Researchers in Switzerland have created what has been classed as the world’s smallest inkjet-printed picture.

They made a 0.08mm-by-0.115mm (0.003in-by-0.005in) colour photo of tropical clown fish, which is about as wide as a piece of photocopy paper is thick.

They printed it using “quantum dot” technology, an innovation also being deployed in new high-end TVs.

… Read More → "Quantum dots print tiniest inkjet image"

If you were to create a data visualization of individual human genomes, it wouldn’t be particularly interesting. Yours would probably look a lot like mine. But drill down a little deeper, and that .1 percent of your genetic code is a treasure trove of information that can be turned into a very cool visualization.

Iona Inglesby is a designer from London, who has created a company that highlights those genetic differences. Called& … Read More → "If your DNA were a scarf, this is what it’d look like"

The United States Postal Service has joined the growing list of airlines and online retailers cracking down on the hoverboard due to safety concerns, saying it will no longer carry the devices on airplanes for fear their batteries may be a fire hazard. The agency will still ship hoverboards using ground transportation like Standard Post.

“Effective immediately and until further notice, the Postal Service will ship the … Read More → "US Postal Service bans hoverboard shipments by plane"

Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) have created an algorithm they claim can predict how memorable or forgettable an image is almost as accurately as a human — which is to say that their tech can predict how likely a person would be to remember or forget a particular photo.

The algorithm performed 30 per cent better than existing algorithms and was within a few … Read More → "MIT researchers train an algorithm to predict how boring your selfie is"

Chinese news media is claiming that scientists have discovered a huge salamander in a cave in southwestern China. It measures 4 feet, 7 inches long and weighs 115 pounds. Wildlife experts claim that it’s probably about 200 years old, which would make it the oldest living creature on the planet. This would take that title away from Jonathan, the 183-year old tortoise on the island of St. Helena.

… Read More → "This 200-Year old salamander could be the oldest living creature on Earth"

This summer, I started wondering what you might do to build a small farming robot to manage a home garden. I then discovered the interesting FarmBot project, which has been working on this for much longer, and has done much of what I thought might be useful. So I offer kudos to them, but thought it might be worth discussing some of the reasons why this is … Read More → "How a robot in the garden might save a trip to Whole Foods"

Researchers are trying quantum cryptography and other exotic ways to keep your missives safe, but here’s a new one: junk mail. A team of computer scientists from MIT’s CSAIL have devised a system called “Vuvuzela” that adds noise to messages, making them virtually untraceable to the recipient or sender. While it uses nodes like the Tor”dark internet” router, it only requires a few servers and relies more on numerous fake messages to confuse hackers. If scaled up, the technique could give you nearly mathematical certainty that your messages and even metadata … Read More → "Researchers hide messages in a sea of spam"

All roads might not technically lead to Rome—but, if you happen to be in Europe, the majority of them do.

In a new infographic, designers Philipp Schmitt, Benedikt Groß, and Raphael Reimann set out to answer the centuries-old question of: Do all roads actually lead to the Italian capital?

To find the answer, the designers began by crunching some numbers. First they overlaid& … Read More → "Here are all the roads that lead to Rome"