Scientists from China have built a device using metamaterial structures that can trap and absorb microwaves coming from all directions with a 99% absorption rate -- a property that makes the device simulate, to some extent, an astrophysical black hole. A model of the electromagnetic omnidirectional absorber, in which electromagnetic waves hitting the cylinder bend spirally in the shell region, and become trapped and absorbed by the lossy core. (Right) A photograph of the device, which is composed of 60 concentric layers of copper-coated metamaterials. (Institute of Physics) The device could have applications such as collecting microwaves and energies in free space, or as a source of thermal emission, since the device converts electromagnetic energy into heat energy. The researchers also plan to develop a device that works with visible light. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news194788240.html)

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have taught a monkey to use its thoughts to control an advanced robotic arm with seven degrees of freedom and perform elaborate and precise maneuvers with it. Sensors implanted in the hand and arm areas of its motor cortex send data to a computer that translates the patterns into commands that control the robotic arm. Researchers hope to one day be able to use the research to engineer and operate advanced prosthetics in a natural way to help paralyzed people live a close to normal life. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news194796581.html)

A new "dietary restriction" (not just calorie restriction) theory about how diet affects aging suggests that the drop in calories is not solely responsible for lifespan extension -- in some species at least, perhaps it is also the accompanying drop in dietary protein. Protein restriction is much less difficult to maintain than calorie restriction and may be more powerful in reducing insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) in humans (a promoter of aging), says Luigi Fontana, a professor of medicine at Washington University and head of the Division of Nutrition and Aging at the Italian National Institute of Health. Fontana draws his conclusions from his studies of people who are practicing calorie restriction ("CRONies" -- short for Calorie Restriction with Optimal Nutrition). Vegans and vegetarians have another advantage: proteins in meat and other animal products have high levels of methionine; studies show that cutting methionine lengthens life to a similar degree as calorie restriction. (Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627621.100-eat-less-live-longer.html?full=true)

University of California, Merced scientists have embedded a carbon nanotube-based transistor inside a lipid bilayer (cell-like membrane) and powered it with an ion pump and a solution of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to fuel the ion pump. Artist's representation of a new transistor that's contained within a cell-like membrane (Scott Dougherty, LLNL) The research could lead to new types of man-machine interactions where embedded devices could relay information about the inner workings of disease-related proteins or toxins inside the cell membrane, and eventually even treat diseases. It could also lead to new ways to read, and even influence, brain or nerve cells. The headline is misleading -- the device is simply biomimetic. - Ed. (Source: http://news.discovery.com/tech/transistor-cell-membrane-machine.html)

Winners of the annual $1 million Kavli Prize in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience this year include Nadrian C. Seeman of New York University for structural DNA for use as nanorobots or in a DNA computer, Donald M. Eigler of IBM's Almaden Research Center for picking up a single atom and moving it precisely to a different location, and Thomas Südhof of the Stanford School of Medicine, Richard H. Scheller of Genentech and James E. Rothman of Yale, for work on the molecular basis of nervous transmission. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/science/04kavli.html)

Researchers are building robots sympathetic and sensitive enough to serve as both therapists and playmates to kids with autism. For example, a robot named Bandit is being programmed by University of Southern California researchers to perform simple facial expressions and movements, and researchers are working to give the robot the ability to make complex decisions in response to the child's behavior. This way, Bandit and robots like it could draw socially detached kids into simple games, like Simon Says or hide-and-seek and, ultimately, social activities with people. There is increasing evidence that kids with autism respond more naturally to machines than they do to people because robots are predictable, unlike people. (Source: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-05/humanoid-robots-are-new-therapists)

Ian Fasel, an assistant research professor of computer science at the University of Arizona, has received two grants to train robots to learn concepts from trial and error in the world, instead of requiring a human to program them, and to seek out new information as efficiently as possible. More info: University of Arizona news (Source: )

Next-generation CT scanners now allow doctors to image an entire organ in less than a second or create a detailed 3-D movie of an organ in real time, with about half the radiation dose and half the contrast media. Using Toshiba's Aquilion One, for example, UT Southwestern physicians said they will be able to accurately diagnose a stroke or heart attack in about 20 minutes. Currently, doctors often perform a battery of tests to confirm a heart attack -- an EKG, CT angiography, nuclear testing and catheterization -- which can take hours or even days. More info: UT Southwestern news (Source: )

University of Hong Kong students have designed and trained neural networks that can correctly identify the genre of a song, based on features such as tempo and harmony, with greater than 87 percent accuracy -- considered a very hard problem in computer science. (Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/guest/25268/)

A highly sensitive new technology capable of detecting a single, cancer-linked molecule in blood, to predict the recurrence of prostate cancer, has been developed by Quanterix. The detection technology counts the number of prostate specific antigen (PSA) molecules released by the cells of the prostate gland into the blood. PSA molecules are trapped on beads and isolated individually on arrays of tiny wells. A fluorescent enzyme added to the array lights up when it binds to PSA, revealing the number of PSA molecules in the sample. (Quanterix) (Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25462/?a=f)

Researchers and hobbyists around the world are developing desktop manufacturing plants with the aim to create a machine that is able to fix itself and, ultimately, to replicate. Already, anyone with a few hundred dollars and some spare time can build low-cost versions of a 3D printer from plans available free on the Internet. (Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627621.200-rise-of-the-replicators.html)

DNA-based logic gates that could carry out calculations inside the body have been constructed for the first time. The work brings the prospect of injectable biocomputers programmed to target diseases as they arise. "The biocomputer would sense biomarkers and immediately react by releasing counter-agents for the disease," says Itamar Willner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, who led the work. The new logic gates are formed from short strands of DNA and their complementary strands, which in conjunction with some simple molecular machinery mimic their electronic equivalent. Two strands act as the input: each represents a 1 when present or a 0 when absent. The response to their presence or absence represents the output, which can also be a 1 or 0. (Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18989-dna-logic-gates-herald-injectable-computers.html?full=true&print)

A new massively parallel approach for manipulating single DNA and protein molecules and studying their interactions under force, called "single molecule centrifugation," has been developed by researchers from the Rowland Institute at Harvard University. The "The Centrifuge Force Microscope" (CFM) allows for improvements in throughput and cost in studying biological systems ranging from DNA replication to blood clotting, compared to technologies such as optical and magnetic tweezers and the atomic force microscope. The Centrifuge Force Microscope (CFM) uses centrifugal force to manipulate molecules, allowing forces to be applied to many molecules at once while simultaneously observing their nano-to-microscale motions (Dr. Wesley Wong) Developing the instrument involved miniaturizing a light microscope and safely rotating it at high speeds while maintaining precision and control. Experiments involve tethering thousands of micron-sized "carrier" particles to a surface and observing their motion as the sample rotates to generate the centrifugal force. More info: Harvard University newe (Source: )

By chemically building clusters of nanospheres from a liquid, a team of Harvard researchers, in collaboration with scientists at Rice University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Houston, has developed novel devices with amazing and exotic optical properties not found in nature -- by simply evaporating a droplet of particles on a surface. The finding, published in the latest issue of Science, demonstrates simple scalable devices that exhibit customizable optical properties suitable for applications ranging from highly sensitive sensors and detectors to invisibility cloaks. Schematics of two types of optical circuits: the three particle trimer functions as a nanoscale magnet, while the seven particle heptamer exhibits almost no scattering for a narrow range of wavelengths. (Capasso lab) "With our bottom-up approach, we mimic the way nature creates innovative structures, which exhibit extremely useful properties," explains Federico Capasso, Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics. "Our nanoclusters behave as tiny optical circuits and could be the basis of new technology such as detectors of single molecules, efficient and biologically compatible probes in cancer therapeutics, and optical tweezers to manipulate and sort out nano-sized particles. Moreover, the fabrication process is much simpler and cheaper to carry out." The researchers' self-assembly method requires nothing more than a bit of mixing and drying. To form the clusters, the particles are first coated with a polymer, and a droplet of them is then evaporated on a water-repellent surface. In the process of evaporation, the particles pack together into small clusters. Using polymer spacers to separate the nanoparticles, the researchers were able to controllably achieve a two nanometer gap between the particles -- far better resolution than traditional top-down methods allow. More info: Harvard Science news (Source: )

The small four-legged robot LittleDog, from Boston Dynamics, has acquired an impressive array of improved locomotion skills thanks to researchers at the University of Southern California. (Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/25248/)

The picture on E Ink's latest prototypes has a better color gamut, and a higher-resolution black and white screen with better contrast. The company expects to create screens that can also do video by the end of the year. (Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/25251/?ref=rss)

As more and more "things" in the world are connected to the Internet, driven by a "sensor revolution" (including data from mobile phones and "ubiquitous nanosensors"), a new computing platform is required to deal with this massive influx of exascale data and the complexity of processing it in real-time. (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2010/05/31/31readwriteweb-the-coming-data-explosion-13154.html)

New types of analytics software and much more powerful computers will be required to handle the coming explosion of online data from a trillion sensors connected to the Web. (Source: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/data_analytics_software_must_adapt.php)

"When the language part of the brain has been damaged, you can sometimes recruit the part that processes music to take over," says neuroscientist Aniruddh D. Patel, author of "Music, Language, and the Brain." "Music neuroscience is also helping us understand Alzheimer's. There are Alzheimer's patients who cannot remember their spouse. But they can remember every word of a song they learned as a kid. By studying this, we're learning about how memory works." (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/science/01conv.html?ref=science)

iRobot has released new video of its Warrior robot, a beefed up version of the more well-known PackBot, designed for "deliberate breaching of anti-personnel minefields and multi-strand wire obstacles." (Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/military-robots/irobot-demonstrates-their-latest-war-robot)