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Source: New York Times - Apr 11, 2011 In their new book, Infinite Reality, Dr. Jim Blascovich and Dr. Jerry Bailenson insist that 3-D conferences with avatars are nigh because consumer technology has suddenly caught up with the work going on in virtual-reality laboratories in academia. These psychologists point to three developments in the past year: the Microsoft Kinect tracking system for the Xbox, the Nintendo 3DS gaming device, and the triumph on "Jeopardy!" of IBM's Watson computer.

A startup called Quid has developed algorithms that analyze Internet-based data from corporations to make fast-moving technology developments visible, navigable, and understandable. Quid has built a data set combining information about firms that succeeded and sank, patent documents, government grants, help wanted advertisements, and tweets. Its algorithms use the collection of information to analyze the prospects of around 35,000 firms and research groups working on new technologies. By extracting words and phrases from the collected documents, Quid constructs a "technology genome" that describes the primary focus of each of those 35,000 entities. A map of the connections between those genomes can be used by investors to find hints about interesting companies or ideas. Most companies cluster around established sectors, but a few will sit in the white spaces between the clusters and can represent the seeds of new technology sectors.

A 36-year-old man has received the world's first synthetic trachea, made from a synthetic scaffold seeded with his own stem cells, in an operation at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. Professor Paolo Macchiarini of Karolinska University Hospital and Karolinska Institutet led an international team, including professor Alexander Seifalian from University College London, who designed and built the nanocomposite tracheal scaffold, and Harvard Bioscience, which produced a specifically designed bioreactor used to seed the scaffold with the patient´s own stem cells. The cells were grown on the scaffold inside the bioreactor for two days before transplantation to the patient. Because the cells used to regenerate the trachea were the patient's own, there has been no rejection of the transplant and the patient is not taking immunosuppressive drugs. "The big conceptual breakthrough is that we can move from transplanting organs to manufacturing them for patients," says David Green, the president of Harvard Bioscience in Holliston, Massachusetts. Transplantations of tissue-engineered windpipes with synthetic scaffolds in combination with the patient's own stem cells as a standard procedure means that patients will not have to wait for a suitable donor organ. Patients could benefit from earlier surgery and have a greater chance of cure. This would be of especially great value for children, since the availability of donor tracheas is much lower than for adult patients.

Driving distractions such as cell phones and other electronic devices cause as much as 25% of all U.S. car accidents, researchers at the Governors Highway Safety Association have found, WinBETA notes. A major finding was that being distracted was the cause of 15 to 25% of all accidents, ranging from minor property damage to death. Their findings suggest that distracted driving accidents be reported in accident reports to assist in evaluating distracted driving laws and programs. They propose creating low-cost roadway measures that alert motorists when they are drifting out of their driving lane. They also propose that all cell phones be banned on the road, even hands-free versions. In another report by The New York Times, police in Syracuse and Hartford have handed out nearly 20,000 tickets for illegal use of a phone while driving - either for texting or use of a handheld phone. According to the federal government, these efforts have had the desired effect: distracted driving has fallen sharply. Their research shows that drivers talking on a phone are four times as likely to get into a crash as those not on a phone, and that the risks for motorists who text are at least twice as high. In Syracuse, handheld cellphone use and texting have each fallen by one-third. In Hartford, handheld cellphone use by drivers fell 57 percent while texting fell by 75 percent, the Times reports. Ref.: Vicki Harper. et al., Distracted Driving: What Research Shows and What States Can Do, GHSA, 2011

More than 50 severely disabled people in Second Life have been trying out a sophisticated new brain-computer interface (BCI) that lets users freely explore Second Life's virtual world and control their real-world environment. The system was developed by medical engineering company G.Tec of Schiedlberg, Austria as part of a pan-European project called Smart Homes for All. It's the first time the latest BCI technology has been combined with smart-home technology and online gaming. To activate a command, the user focuses their attention on the corresponding icon on a screen. Electroencephalograph (EEG) caps pick up brain signals, which are translated into commands to navigate and communicate within Second Life and Twitter. It can also be used to open and close doors, answer the phone, and control the TV, lights, thermostat, and intercom. G.Tec's system has been tested at the Santa Lucia Foundation Hospital in Rome, Italy.

Researchers from Purdue University and colleagues are developing new technologies that combine a laser and electric fields to manipulate fluids and tiny particles such as bacteria, viruses, and DNA molecules for a wide range of potential applications, including medical diagnostics, testing food and water, crime-scene forensics, and pharmaceutical manufacturing.. This "hybrid optoelectric manipulation in microfluidics" technology could allow for innovative sensors and analytical devices for "lab-on-a-chip" applications, or miniature instruments that perform measurements normally requiring large laboratory equipment, the researchers said. The technology works by first using a red laser to position a droplet on a platform specially fabricated at Purdue. Next, a highly focused infrared laser is used to heat the droplets, and then electric fields cause the heated liquid to circulate in a "microfluidic vortex." This vortex is used to isolate specific types of particles in the circulating liquid, like a micro centrifuge. Particle concentrations replicate the size, location and shape of the infrared laser pattern. The technology can also be used in nanomanufacturing because it shows promise for the assembly of suspended particles (colloids), the researchers said. Ref.: Steven T. Wereley, et al., Hybrid opto-electric manipulation in microfluidics-opportunities and challenges, Lab on a Chip, 2011; 11 (13): 2135 [DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20208A]

Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov of the University of Rochester have found that human cells undergoing oxidative stress caused by environmental chemicals or routine cellular processes produce a protein (SIRT6) that stimulates cells to repair DNA double-strand breaks, thought to be associated with premature aging and cancer. The team first measured levels of SIRT6 in stressed cells, then treated a second group of stressed cells with a drug that deactivates the protein. DNA repair in the second group stopped, confirming SIRT6′s role.  The team also found that SIRT6 acts in concert with another protein, called PARP1, to make the repairs. Furthermore, the team found that increased levels of SIRT6 lead to faster DNA repair. They suspect that the protein acts as a "master regulator," coordinating stress and DNA repair activities. Ref.: Zhiyong Mao, Christopher Hine, Xiao Tian, Michael Van Meter, Matthew Au, Amita Vaidya, Andrei Seluanov, and Vera Gorbunova. SIRT6 Promotes DNA Repair Under Stress by Activating PARP1. Science 17 June 2011: 1443-1446. [DOI:10.1126/science.1202723]

The founder of Palm, Jeff Hawkins, solves the mystery of Artificial Intelligence and presents his theory at the RSA Conference 2008. He gives a brief tutorial on the neocortex and then explains how the brain stores memory and then describes how to use that knowledge to create artificial intelligence. This lecture is insightful and his theory will revolutionize computer science.