Robot scientist makes discoveries without human help:

A robot scientist that can generate its own hypotheses and run experiments to test them has made its first real scientific discoveries.

MIT: Batteries built with viruses, nanotech to power cars, devices:

MIT researchers have combined nanotechnology with genetically engineered viruses to build batteries that could power hybrid cars and cell phones. The batteries have the same energy capacity and power performance as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries being considered to power plug-in hybrid cars and personal electronic devices.

Implantable Telescope for the Eye:

VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies has developed a miniature telephoto lens that can be implanted into the eye and could soon help people with vision loss from end-stage macular degeneration.

Humanoid robot helps scientists to understand intelligence

Genetic roots of synaesthesia unearthed: The regions of our DNA that wire some people to "see" sounds have been discovered. So far, only the general regions within chromosomes have been identified, rather than specific genes, but the work could eventually lead to a genetic test to diagnose the condition before it interferes with a child's education.

Doctors test latest attempt at artificial liver:
The ELAD from Vital Therapies Inc. and powered by human liver cells, "comes closer to replacing the amount of liver" people need, says Dr. Robert Brown of New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University.

NASA fashions mountain climbing robot:
NASA researchers have built and tested a robot that can rappel off cliffs, travel over steep and rocky terrain, and explore deep craters.

Unnatural selection: Robots start to evolve: Researchers at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, UK have created a robot that adapts to such changes by mimicking biological evolution, using an incremental evolutionary algorithm (IEA) capable of adding new parts to its robot brain over time.

Intel's New Breed of Chips: Intel has long dominated the market for personal-computer and server chips, but as sales of these components decline, the Santa Clara, CA, company is hoping to get a better toehold in new markets, particularly those for smart phones, netbooks, and other mobile Internet devices. To do this, Intel is exploring system-on-chip (SoC) designs--complex microchips that perform specialized tasks on top of general-purpose computations.

Single Atom Quantum Dots Bring Real Devices Closer: Single atom quantum dots created by researchers at Canada’s National Institute for Nanotechnology and the University of Alberta make possible a new level of control over individual electrons, a development that suddenly brings quantum dot-based devices within reach. Composed of a single atom of silicon and measuring less than one nanometre in diameter, these are the smallest quantum dots ever created.

Managing Energy with Swarm Logic: REGEN Energy has has come up with a way to reduce energy use by mimicking the self-organizing behavior of bees.

Teleporter sends ions on long-distance journey: University of Maryland researchers have built a teleporter capable of sending the state of ytterbium ions from one side of the lab to the other; something that until now had only been possible with photons.

Innovation: Speech prediction software:
The software could make speech-rocognition software more powerful by increasing the speed and accuracy with which you can dictate long and difficult words and common phrases.

Microscopic bio-robot slaves:Shrinking robots allows them to carry out ever more delicate tasks. But even the smallest built so far are too big to be able to, say, imprint microscopic, or even nanoscale, patterns onto microchips.

Video: Revealing the technology of invisibility:If your superpower of choice would be to make things disappear, you may be surprised to see how close researchers are to making it come true.

IBM Building Next Generation of BlueGene Supercomputers:
IBM and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have signed a new contract to build the next generation of IBM’s BlueGene supercomputers at the famed DOE facility. The first IBM BlueGene supercomputer, called “Dawn,” will have a top processing speed of 500 teraflops. The second IBM system, dubbed “Sequoia,” will offer 20 petaflops of performance and surpass the records Big Blue set when it installed the massive Roadrunner system for the DOE in 2008.

Neurobiologist proposes 'The end of sex as we once knew it':
Differences in the hormones of men and women make it likely that drugs and other treatments for some disorders should be tailored differently for the two sexes, says Rockefeller University's Bruce S. McEwen.

The cockpit of the future:Research scientists have developed a novel car dashboard that functions as a 3-D display and shows velocities, engine speeds or warnings in three dimensions. The display’s design can be chosen individually by the driver.

Super-resolution microscopy takes on a third dimension:
Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists have developed a new interferometry-based imaging technology that produces the best three-dimensional resolution ever seen with an optical microscope, pinpointing fluorescent labels in their images to within 10-20 nanometers.

SKorea to build top-speed information highway: South Korea will install a nationwide 1 Gbps super-broadband infrastructure by 2013 that would enable downloading a feature film in one to two seconds, according to the state-run National Information Society Agency.

India's $10 Laptop to be revealed Feb. 3: On February 3, the Indian government will display a prototype of the Rs 500, a $10 laptop that will hopefully give more young people the opportunity to learn and help increase the country's school enrollment.
Engineers develop novel method for accelerated bone growth: vEngineers at the University of California at San Diego have come up with a way to help accelerate bone growth through the use of nanotubes and stem cells. This new finding could lead to quicker and better recovery, for example, for patients who undergo orthopedic surgery.

Targeted nanospheres find, penetrate, then fuel burning of melanoma: Hollow gold nanospheres equipped with a targeting peptide find melanoma cells, penetrate them deeply, and then cook the tumor when bathed with near-infrared light, University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center researchers have shown.

Autonomous Robots Invade Retail Warehouses: Warehouses run by Gap, as well as Zappos and Staples now use autonomous robots to pluck products from their shelves and send them to you.

Efficient Ethanol Fuel Cells:Portable fuel cells powered directly by ethanol could soon be practical, thanks to a new catalyst that breaks a strong bond at the heart of ethanol molecules, freeing electrons and generating electricity. Such fuel cells could replace batteries in laptops and cell phones, and could eventually be used to power electric vehicles.

Organic computing takes a step closer: Computer processors may soon have one fundamental aspect in common with their owners – a structure composed largely of carbon, rather than silicon.

After announcing last April a method for growing exceptionally long, straight, numerous and well-aligned carbon cylinders only a few atoms thick, a Duke University-led team of chemists has now modified that process to create exclusively semiconducting versions of these single-walled carbon nanotubes.(Read Full Story)

Researchers at Rice University have demonstrated a new data storage medium made out of a layer of graphite only 10 atoms thick.The technology could potentially provide many times the capacity of current flash memory and withstand temperatures of 200 degrees Celsius and radiation that would make solid-state disk memory disintegrate...Continue

Researchers at The University of British Columbia have discovered why the brain loses its capacity to re-grow connections and repair itself, knowledge that could lead to therapeutics that “rejuvenate” the brain...Continue

Suppose you want to build a computer that operates like the brain of a mammal. How hard could it be? After all, there are supercomputers that can decode the human genome, play chess and calculate prime numbers out to 13 million digits...Continue

It's probably the most sophisticated teddy bear ever designed, but that doesn't stop MIT's companion robot called "the Huggable" from being pretty adorable, as well. The Huggable is the latest project to come from the MIT Media Lab, and could one day be used for healthcare, education, and social communication applications...Continue

People naturally group information by topic and remember relationships between important things, like a person and the company where she works. But enabling computers to grasp these same concepts has been the subject of long-standing research. Recently, this has focused on the Semantic Web, but a European endeavor called the Nepomuk Project will soon see the effort take new steps onto the PC in the form of a "semantic desktop."...Continue

Quantum entanglement, which Einstein dubbed "spooky action at a distance", would be the perfect way to communicate data – if technical hurdles could be overcome...Continue

Researchers in Pennsylvania are reporting for the first time that nanoparticles 1/5,000 the diameter of a human hair encapsulating an experimental anticancer agent, kill human melanoma and drug-resistant breast cancer cells growing in laboratory cultures. The discovery could lead to the development of a new generation of anti-cancer drugs that are safer and more effective than conventional chemotherapy agents, the scientists suggest. The research is scheduled for the Dec. 10 issue of ACS' Nano Letters...Continue

Artificial 'injectable bone' that flows like toothpaste, and hardens in the body, has been invented by British scientists...Continue

For the past three years, a startup called M2Z Networks has been figuring out a way to blanket the nation with a free wireless broadband network to ensure all Americans have access to basic high-speed Internet connections...Continue

When a car's underbody or a ship's hull begins to corrode, it usually ends up junked. New protective coatings developed at the University of Illinois heal over their own scratches with no external intervention, protecting the underlying metal. The self-healing elements, enclosed in microcapsules that rip open when the coating is scratched, are compatible with a wide range of paints and protective coatings. The coatings, being marketed by Autonomic Materials of Champaign, IL, may be on the market in as soon as four months...Continue

IBM has seen the future of computing and it may not involve silicon. Instead the company has been looking at graphene, the single atom-thick sheets of carbon that has materials scientists entranced by its dazzling array of amazing properties...Continue