Mind Reader
Scientists say they can read a person's unconscious thoughts using a simple brain scan. A team at University College London found that with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan results they could tell what a person was thinking deep down even when the individual was unaware themselves. The technique has some psychological healing potential for people in revealing repressed memories, h... posted on Apr 27 2005, 1,704 reads

Memory
In this era of high-tech memory management, next in line to get that memory upgrade isn't your computer, it's you. Professor Theodore W. Berger, director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California, is creating a silicon chip implant that mimics the hippocampus, an area of the brain known for creating memories. If successful, the artificial brain prosthesis could... posted on Mar 25 2005, 1,233 reads

The Plastic Cadaver
Through a blend of macabre, art, and science, the Body Worlds exhibit (now showing at the California Science Center in Los Angeles) has attracted 16 million visitors, worldwide. Dr. Gunther von Hagens’ team is displaying some 200 cadavers they have taken through a process he invented called plastination, by which the fat and water in the donated bodies have been replaced with a polymer. The rigi... posted on Feb 04 2005, 1,474 reads

Blind Person's Tongue
A blind person can see through his tongue? Indeed! NY Times recently reported on a fascinating new device, BrainPort, that can translate visual information from a camera to pulses that reach a blind patient's brain via his/her tongue. Interestingly enough, that blind patient was able to find doorways, see her wife in the park and play a game of rock, paper, scissors with his daughter! While t... posted on Dec 07 2004, 1,402 reads

Smells Like A Nobel Prize
Her mother used to grumble about her stubborn persistence and "one-track mind" when faced with a problem. In later years, she focused on her lab work with laser-beam intensity, reducing time away to the "one-minute dinner." Linda Buck asked how humans can detect odors for upto 100,000 different chemicals and process this information into perceptions. Not only did she ask the question, she also fo... posted on Oct 07 2004, 1,129 reads

Brilliant 10
A way to repair the failing memories of Alzheimer's patients, a tool in the search for new medicines and special lasers to help fight the war on terrorism are among the quests of young scientists honored by the editors of Popular Science. For the third year, the magazine has compiled its list of the "Brilliant 10" young scientists, all 40 or younger and virtually unknown to the public.... posted on Sep 30 2004, 1,494 reads

Second Generation Traffic
Get rid of stop signs and red lights and let cars, bikes and people mingle together. That's what a new school of traffic design says, citing many examples in the developing countries that work amazingly well. For the past 50 years, the American approach to traffic safety has been dominated by the "triple E" paradigm: engineering, enforcement and education. Designer Ben Hamilton adds, "The histo... posted on Sep 07 2004, 1,177 reads

Vegan For Sustainability?
To survive, we all might have to turn vegan! In Stockholm this week, scientists warned that the growth in demand for meat and dairy products is unsustainable. Animals need much more water than grain to produce the same amount of food, and ending malnutrition and feeding even more mouths will take still more water. They said that the world will have to change its consumption patterns to have any... posted on Aug 20 2004, 1,636 reads

Never Away From Ego
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Pedaling Banner
Josh Kinberg just finished his master's thesis and hit print. It read only "I Love New York." His adviser loved it. Of course, Kinberg's degree is an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design in New York City, and his thesis is a bicycle that receives text messages and prints them in foot-high chalk letters, then blogs a digital photo and GPS map of the printing, all while the ri... posted on Aug 04 2004, 1,391 reads