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Avoiding carbohydrates might make you thinner, but if you want to live longer and healthier, it might not be the smartest thing to do...

Now this is an interesting hypothesis! Would make terraforming a bit easier 

Having an ocean on Mars would solve so many problems... btw, again this guy? Isabelle take a look at that : Tim Lenton is everywhere, last time he wrote half of our literature references on the tipping points study.

this is what I call truly cloaking!...of course only found in and made by nature :) (video at the bottom of the page)

Definitely beautiful, even psychedelic maybe.. but technically its not really cloaking, you wouldn't call your window a cloaking device right? :)

The video looks surreal!

After a discussion this morning on robust computing and possible implementations in biological systems I found this really nice result (from 2008) on molecular RNA computers that get assembled within cells and perform simple functions. Of course by having different types of computers within the same cell one could go on to process the output of the other and more complex computations could be executed... Food for thought. :-)

By just getting a DNA footprint of a person scientists (and soon police) can produce an image of the person's face. Check out the pictures!

should try it the other way around, deduce the DNA from facial features. That would be even cooler.

Well actually, they did something like that as they searched for common DNA patterns in people that had similar facial features. With a large enough dataset that could provide already 24 DNA tracers that could used reliably for prediction. Imagine if you had even more data available, who needs a model then... just let the NN do it :)

"Cuckoos have a bad reputation as home-wreckers, taking over the nests of other birds and killing their chicks. But one species benefits its hosts by producing a smelly fluid that repels predators. "Cuckoos are not always the villains we think they are," says Ros Gloag of the University of Sydney, who was not involved in the study."

So they not only take over part of the nest, but also crap all over the place? Then again, if that is the prize to pay for safety, it might well be worth the inconvenience.. :)

Awesome! Origami finally got useful! :-D

"What's new: Choi said that although some researchers have used natural photosynthetic units to enhance the light-harvesting abilities of nanomaterials, this is the first time anyone has used nanomaterials to enhance the function of photosynthetic units."

theoretical physicists... :) Read the last sentence of the paper...in this way anyone can publish in nature...just make a good story with little evidence Did dark matter kill the dinosaurs? The Solar System's periodic passage through a 'dark disk' on the galactic plane could trigger comet bombardments that would cause mass extinctions.

Hmm.. right.. then again, this is not an actual journal publication but a news broadcast. But you are right that the name Nature is attached to it so the journal is definitely banking on their acquired status.

YMCA revisited for enzymes and DNA

interesting how the evolution theory is evolving maybe we could add this topic to the brainstorming session?

Neurobiologists from the University of Leicester have shown that insect limbs can move without muscles - a finding that may provide engineers with new ways to improve the control of robotic and prosthetic limbs

The goal is to better understand how memory works to help for example against dementia, depression, stress.. but as we all know it would be great to learn how to fly a helicopter in 5 seconds as well.

... or to make a first real inception ;)

looks like a mythbuster paper!

Vertical windmills based on fish fins and school swimming behaviour

A possible way of teraforming some planets or moons?

"An elegant combination of electronics and elastic materials has been used to construct a small visual sensor that closely resembles an insect's eye. The device paves the way for autonomous navigation of tiny aerial vehicles."

According to the article it seems that the growth of biofilms in space (MIR, ISS) is continuing to be a challenge for any space missions. Hardly any information is present on what role gravity plays in their growth and development. Maybe detection is also one important aspect of this indeed (Tom?)

The telepathic cyborg lives, sort of. University of Washington scientists Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco claim that they are the first to demonstrate human brain-to-brain communication. Rao sent a signal into a Stocco's brain via the Internet that caused him to move his right hand.