Bloch sphere diagram of a quibit (WIkimedia)

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany announced yesterday, in the journal Nature, they created an elementary quantum network to transmit data via photons.

The Max Planck quantum network was comprised of two nodes in two laboratories 21 meters apart that were connected by an optical fiber. To create the quantum effect, each node placed a rubidium atom in an ”optical cavity” between a pair of reflective mirrors half a millimeter apart. After stimulating the atoms by laser, the atoms emitted a polarized photon with matching filtering controls. One photon was translated as quantum information, and transmitted by optical fiber to the recipient atom, which accepted the photon as itself.

In classical networks, i.e. our information superhighway or today’s internet, we use binary bits to transmit data. Bits are set to 0 or 1. Bits are bundled, transmitted, or encrypted using mathematically-based methods and algorithms. Our classical networks are increasingly complex, in order to provide secure solutions.

I’m coining the term “information synchronicity” to help explain in household terms the physical phenomena that occurs in quantum networks. The “information superhighway” is no longer the right analogy to describe the quantum world. In quantum computing, a “qubit” is the unit of quantum information. The value of a qubit may be 0, 1, or a superposition expression of its state. See the “Bloch spere” diagram, which depicts a qubit. When two photons across a distance are filtered to be identically polarized, a strong correlation results, and the atoms are able to recognize or “feel” each other. This is known as “quantum entanglement”. The beauty and simplicity of a quantum network is that transmission between sender and recipient is securely dedicated to their message exchange. Synchronicity enables secure data transmission because no entity may “hack” or intercept the message because they cannot adopt that same photon identity.

To get my head wrapped around all this and what it implies, I contacted Sachiko Graber, a senior Physics major and Teaching Assistant at Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa. Ms. Graber explains, “Quantum networks are a really cool new way to implement ideas of quantum physics in the ‘real world.’” Ever since the famous EPR paper and thought experiment, physicists have been researching the possibilities of quantum teleportation. (The EPR Paradox paper, written in 1936 by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, challenged quantum mechanics that it is impossible to know both the position and the momentum of a quantum particle at the same moment.) Ms. Graber says, “The high speed secure network is one possible application of the quantum networking idea. Quantum networks go one step beyond quantum cryptography, which uses quantum keys to keep data secure. A secure high speed network deploying quantum entanglement will be the next step. However, this is a very, very basic prototype. It will still be a long time before we get there.”

Quantum cryptology applications already exist in the “real world”. Since 2005, Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has supported a Raytheon/BBN and QinetiQ partnership for quantum cryptology on a network in the Boston-Cambridge, Massachusetts area. Voters in Geneva during the October 2007 Swiss parliamentary elections cast their votes securely using the process, by Id Quantique, which used secure encryption encoded by a key generated using photons.

I’m liking the term “Information Synchronicity”. Albert Einstein didn’t like the term “entanglement”. Instead he sardonically referred to entanglement as “spooky action at a distance.” In 1951, Carl Jung wrote and lectured on Synchronicity, regarding the nature of relationships and consciousness. Jung described synchronicity as an “acausal connecting principle” and drew parallels to quantum physics, and discussed it with Albert Einstein. In quantum networks, the awareness is atomic.

A quantum network is an exciting development, indeed! Future expectations are to extend applications to transmissions across space and long distance, to ships, airplanes, and satellites.

Cyberspace is a buzz about this. Nerd humor is all the rage in blog comments, such as on Engadget. Imagine, what is the next killer mobile quantum ap? What do you think? Share your comments.

Fresh off its third consecutive Emmy nomination, “Mythbusters” is back for more as the hit show returns for its fall season of Wednesdays at 9 p.m., starting September 28, Discovery Channel said Monday.

Blast interviewed hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage last year.

Fall 2011 myths will include:

• Is it impossible for humans (without a point of reference) to walk in a straight line?
• Are motorcycles better for the environment than cars?
• Can you supersize a Newton’s Cradle to epic proportions?
• If a pigeon lands on the roof of a car, which is hanging precariously over a cliff’s edge, could it provide enough force to send the car plunging over the side?
• In a standoff between a hero with a revolver and a villain with a rocket propelled grenade (as seen in the movie Red), could the bullet trigger the warhead? And would the villain be taken out by the blast?
• Was the “flying guillotine” a lethal ancient weapon — or kung-fu make believe?
• Can you use duct tape to fix a plane that has been mauled by a bear? (As odd as this one sounds, it’s a story that has inundated our fan site message boards for years!)
• Could a methane blast inside a sewer, blow manhole covers tens of feet into the air?
• Some call it indestructible, but can truck bed liners stop an animal attack? Prevent a car from being damaged? Make it bomb-proof?
• A behind-the-scenes look at the special locations MYTHBUSTERS use to in their myth-busting tests, from Alameda to Africa and from the desert to the deep blue sea.
• Explosions. Rocket sleds. More duct tape. Oh… and more explosions!

A Cambridge man was charged today with computer intrusion, fraud and data theft after he allegedly hacked into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s network to access protected JSTOR files.

Aaron Swartz, 24, was a fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, according to the Boston Globe, and could have accessed JSTOR legally for legitimate research.

Swartz allegedly broke into a restricted computer wiring closet in a basement at MIT and to access MIT’s network from a computer switch in the closet between September 24, 2010, and January 6, 2011.

He used this access to get files from JSTOR, a non-profit organization that compiles academic articles for research purposes, and download them to his computer. Swartz is charged with distributing these articles on various file sharing websites.

“Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars,” said United States District Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz. “It is equally harmful to the victim whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away.”

Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million under the charges brought against him.

The indictment claims that Swartz stole over four million articles from JSTOR. The quantity of downloads affected JSTOR’s computers, crashed some of its servers and blocked some of MIT’s computers from accessing the site.

Despite efforts from both the university and JSTOR to block Swartz’s computers, he apparently prevailed and found new ways into the systems.

“The New England Electronic Crimes Task Force has taken an aggressive stance in the investigation of computer intrusions and other cybercrimes,” said Steven D. Ricciardi, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service in New England. “Through this task force, the Secret Service and our partners on the Cambridge and MIT Police Departments demonstrate the importance of cooperation among law enforcement to focus resources and respond effectively to investigate and prevent this type of fraud.”

Swartz has previously advocated the elimination of barriers to distribution of information online, and for public distribution of information in libraries. He is a co-founder of reddit.com and the founder of Demand Progress, a non-profit political action group that opposes the “corrupting influence on big institutions.”

So far, the government is not aware of any personal information being stolen from JSTOR.

To celebrate the release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1,” the Fort Collins Museum and Discovery Science Center, located in Fort Collins, Colo., will host a series of magical events on Friday and Saturday.

All Harry Potter-related fun activities are included in the price of admission to the museum.

A special presentation by the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program, “The Owls of Harry Potter,” is scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m.

Also, Harry Potter-themed StarLab Planetarium Shows will be presented on Friday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The participants will find the stars and constellations that lend their names to Harry Potter characters.

The museum will present a special “Meet the Animals” program featuring a snake, a toad and a rat at 12 pm.

On Saturday, November 28, the Museum will additionally offer the Harry Potter StarLab Planetarium Shows at 1 and 2 p.m. During the event, participants can make “Constellation Tubes” of their favorite Harry Potter-related constellations.

Wizardology lessons will be offered 11am-2pm, featuring science experiments that resemble a Hogwart’s Spells Class.

And here is a reason why you want to go. On both days, the museum will serve you warm Butterbeer from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. You will also be able to vote for their favorite HP book and character.

“In Search of Memory,” a film by Petra Seeger chronicling neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel’s life and work, examines how one man escaped from Nazi oppression to become what one student in the film calls, "the rock star of neuroscience."

Raised in Vienna during the onset of World War II, Kandel and his Jewish family were ripped from their home by Nazi officers just after his ninth birthday. The incident left Kandel with questions he would spend the rest of his life answering through science:

What motivates us? What makes us remember certain events over others? And how does memory define us as human beings?

"I wanted to understand how cultivated, intelligent people could listen to Heiden, Mozart and Beethoven one day," he says, "and kill Jews the next."

Seeger seamlessly combines Kandel’s own recollections with archival World War II footage and old photographs. The result is a film that is part biography and part history, and an intimate glimpse into the life of one of the world’s most influential and captivating scientists.

The film takes viewers through Kandel’s childhood up through his Nobel Prize win in 2000 for his work in understanding how memories are recorded and stored in the brain.

Kandel, never without a bowtie or Muppet-sized grin, is the reason the film is must-see for science and history enthusiasts. His ability to explain complicated brain processes makes the science of the film understandable. His charm and subtle comedy make his extraordinary experiences relatable. Kandel possesses the key quality of all of the best teachers—an ability to teach viewers about the meaning of life outside of the classroom.

“In Search of Memory” will open Friday at the Kendall Square Cinema. Advance tickets are available online for $10 general admission, $8 for students.

Dear EarthTalk: Some time ago there were issues with Native American tribes storing nuclear waste on their land, something that was both unhealthy to the communities and caused considerable controversy among tribal leaders. Where is this issue today? — M. Spenser, via e-mail

Native tribes across the American West have been and continue to be subjected to significant amounts of radioactive and otherwise hazardous waste as a result of living near nuclear test sites, uranium mines, power plants and toxic waste dumps.

And in some cases tribes are actually hosting hazardous waste on their sovereign reservations—which are not subject to the same environmental and health standards as U.S. land—in order to generate revenues. Native American advocates argue that siting such waste on or near reservations is an "environmental justice" problem, given that twice as many Native families live below the poverty line than other sectors of U.S. society and often have few if any options for generating income.

"In the quest to dispose of nuclear waste, the government and private companies have disregarded and broken treaties, blurred the definition of Native American sovereignty, and directly engaged in a form of economic racism akin to bribery," says Bayley Lopez of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He cites example after example of the government and private companies taking advantage of the "overwhelming poverty on native reservations by offering them millions of dollars to host nuclear waste storage sites."

The issue came to a head—and Native advocates hope a turning point—in 2007 when public pressure forced the Skull Valley band of Utah’s Goshute tribe to forego plans to offer their land, which is already tucked between a military test site, a chemical weapons depot and a toxic magnesium production facility, for storing spent nuclear fuel above ground. The facility would have been a key link in the chain of getting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, the U.S. government’s proposed permanent storage facility.

In February 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced intentions to scale back efforts to make Yucca Mountain the nation’s sole repository of radioactive nuclear waste and to look into alternative long-term strategies for dealing with its spent nuclear fuel. The National Congress of American Indians, in representing the various tribes around the region, no doubt breathed a sigh of relief.

The issue essentially goes much deeper: As long as we continue to make use of nuclear energy—and many in Congress are looking to expand its role to get away from fossil fuels—the waste and spent nuclear fuel will keep coming and need to be stored somewhere. Groups like Honor the Earth, founded by author and activist Winona LaDuke to promote cooperation between Native Americans and environmentalists, are trying to persuade tribes that availing their land to nuclear power and other toxic industries isn’t worth the potential long-term damage to the health of their citizens. Honor the Earth helped convince the Goshutes to turn down a lucrative deal to store waste on their land, and is working with dozens of other tribes to try to do the same.

CONTACTS: DOE, www.doe.gov; Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, www.indian.utah.gov/utah_tribes_today/goshute.html; National Congress of American Indians, www.ncai.org; Honor the Earth, www.honorearth.org.

Dear EarthTalk: What is the potential for carbon "nanotubes" in battery technology? I heard them referred to as the biggest battery breakthrough to come along in years. And what else can we expect to see in terms of new battery technology in coming years? — R.M. Koncan, via e-mail

The rechargeable lithium-ion batteries now so common in everything from iPods to hybrid cars can store twice the energy of similarly sized nickel-metal hydride batteries and up to six times as much as their lead-acid progenitors. But these advances are only a small evolutionary step from the world’s first battery designed by Alessandro Volta in 1800 using layers of metal and blotting paper soaked in salt water.

With battery technology advances long overdue, researchers are racing to develop more efficient ways to store power. One hopeful option is in the use of carbon nanotubes, which can store much more electricity by weight than lithium-ion batteries while keeping their charge and remain durable for far longer.

But what are carbon nanotubes, and how can they be used to store energy? Technicians skilled in working with matter at the molecular (nano) level can arrange pure carbon molecules in cylindrical structures that are not both strong and flexible. They have significantly higher energy density and can store more electricity than any currently available technology. These tubes, each only billionths of a meter wide, essentially become highly efficient, electrically conductive pipes for storing and providing power.

Electrical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have formed carbon molecules into tiny springs that store as much electricity as same sized lithium-ion batteries but can maintain a charge while dormant for years and work well in temperature extremes. Stanford University researchers have created ink made from carbon nanotubes that can be drawn onto paper where it serves as a high-capacity rechargeable energy storage medium. And University of Maryland scientists have created nanostructures able to store and transport power at 10 times the energy density of lithium-ion batteries.

Other technologies in development include batteries using zinc-air, lithium-air and other combinations of elements to provide longer run-times between recharges. Others still are working on prototype nuclear batteries, the trick being to make them small enough to be practical, let alone safe.

Of course, the accelerating growth of nanotechnology itself, which has not yet been thoroughly tested to evaluate potential down sides, has some health advocates worried. Animal studies have shown that some nanoparticles, if inhaled or ingested, can harm the lungs and also cross the blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from toxins in the bloodstream.

And then there are fuel cells, created in 1839 but only recently commercialized. Not batteries per se, fuel cells generate, store and dispense power by forcing a reaction between a fuel (hydrogen from water, methanol) and oxygen, creating usable non-polluting electricity. One major hurdle for fuel cell makers is making them small enough to be able to work in laptops and other small personal electronics.

CONTACTS: "Researchers fired up over new battery," MIT News, http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/batteries-0208.html; "Carbon Nanotubes Turn Office Paper into Batteries," Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carbon-nanotubes-turn-off.

Hearts are everywhere on Valentine’s Day. You can see them up and down the streets and in countless store displays. But why is there this constant homage to an organ that has very little to do with love? Maybe it’s that speeding heart people get when they see someone they love. But Dr. Richard Siegel of Tufts Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism Division, shows that this feeling doesn’t relate to the heart, but to the brain.

According to Siegel, there are a number of hormones and neurotransmitters that are secreted from the hypothalamus in the brain, and a large number of those hormones are associated with love. A rush of dopamine and phenyl ethylamine (PEA) explains that "love at first sight" feeling. Dopamine also causes pleasure when there’s physical contact. And that racing heart feeling is caused by a release of norepinephrine.

The brain also has a way of regulating these hormones when men and women become couples.

"Testosterone will go down in men, and go up in women when they are in love," said Siegel. "It kind of evens things out. Oxytocin is known as the ‘cuddling hormone’ and that is also known for calming people down."

All scientific explanations aside, love is that feeling that no one can describe with certainty. On Valentine’s Day, no one will be able to think scientifically with all the roses, heart-shaped chocolate boxes and love songs. So enjoy the holiday that takes all the credit from your brain, and give it to your heart.

Be sure to tune to Blast’s Sci-Tech Heretic blog for Mark Baard’s “10 New England Esotericists to Watch in 2010″

Here’s an example:

1. Marc Abrahams. Few can match the wit, charm and energy of this singular Cambridge, Mass. personality. Abrahams is the publisher of the uproarious Annals of Improbable Research, and organizer of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes awards ceremony, which honors  "research that makes people laugh and then think." He also writes a weekly column about wacky science (think bras that double as gas masks, and astrology charts for bacteria), for the UK Guardian.

Manning the post as the only on-screen female MythBuster, Kari Byron is doing more than just solving burning questions of curious viewers around the world. A newly wed wife and mother of a newborn baby, Byron has traveled near and far solving the most controversial myths and loving every minute of it.

A San Francisco native, Byron, 34, ended up on the show as somewhat of an accident. Interning for M5 Industries, Kari was first utilized for her "behind” for an early episode about a woman getting stuck on an airplane toilet. Since then, she has shown off more than just her romper with risqu© photos in FHM Magazine, becoming one of the most fantasized about engineers of all time.

BLAST: Can you describe your first TV show experience?

KARI BYRON: I was in kindergarten, I Was on the news. In kindergarten I had this crazy teacher, Mrs. Peck. Crazy and most amazing classroom she got to play Mother Nature in our school play. Other than that, pretty much “Mythbusters” is it.

BLAST: How long have you been on the “Mythbusters?”

KB: Pretty much since it started. I wanted to try to get into special effects and I love sculpture, so I wanted to apply it and actually make some money out of it other than in the arts. And so I came to Jamie in the shop, M5 Industries and asked for an internship. Got an internship with Jamie, and it turns out my first day as an intern was the first day Mythbusters started filming there. They had a little project that they needed a girl for. He did this story called airplane toilet where a larger woman was using an airplane toilet and flushed before standing up and got sucked into it. That’s the myth at least. They needed to make a mold of a behind for the experiment and I just happened to let them volunteer mine. It was sort of a trade off. They did a 3D scan of mine and I was able to work on it on a computer sculpturing software so I could learn the program. I thought no one would see this because it was just a silly little cable show. Didn’t know it would end up being the first thing you see when you Google my name six years later.

BLAST: “Mythbusters” is really growing. It’s everywhere.

KB: I know. It is in almost every country and everywhere we go. My uncle has said it’s been translated in Spanish, Chinese and seen as far as Costa Rica. I get emails from everywhere from Prague to Botswana.

BLAST: Do people come up to you randomly on the street and ask you ridiculous questions expecting you to know the answer?

KB: Absolutely, every single time. They come up to all of us. The cool thing about this job is we get to take on these little strange questions and investigate them to the fullest extent. We have 4-5 researchers who work around the clock on these weird stories. You should really hear some of their phone calls. They get to call people and ask, “So where can I find a full size engine we can throw a hand into,” or “where can I find a stomach with all the acids still in it.” I got lucky, I get to be on the end with all the hands on fun stuff.

BLAST Who’s idea was it to build a cannon out of duct tape?

KB: That one we actually found through the viewers website. We have discovery.com/mythbusters, where we have a message board where you can send in your ideas, or if you’ve read something in a history book that sounds totally absurd, and you want to see if its true. You give us the myth ideas, and then they might just make it on the show. So since we had so many people send us myths about duct tape, we decided to just got for it. We just picked out a few that we liked. It was so popular, that that’s one that people keep stopping me on the street to tell me new ideas about. And in fact, it was so popular that we might be doing a Duct Tape 2 episode in the future. We were so excited to do these, they were so great.

BLAST: What is the step by step process of a myth getting onto the show?

KB: Well, you know its kind of a random mix of when we can do these, how easily we can do them and even the weather. We find different myths from us scouring the internet, people submitting ideas on the message boards, talking to us on the street, and viewers sending in stuff. We also have a master list we have been building since Mythbusters inception in 2003. We have a lot to pick from. If it just so happens that we have access to a huge wind machine, we might just do something with hurricanes. It’s really just depends on what were interested in and how easy it is to do. We also look at what is going on in the media at that time, for instance, balloon boy. If we decided to do that, we might do it sooner than later. Then we break it apart to see what the process is to do it. Then we have a story meeting that breaks it down and we figure out the process using the scientific method as our outline: how we will go through the process itself. Then we break up the projects, film it, and then it goes into editing. It usually takes between 3 and 6 months before the show goes to air.

BLAST: Is there a lot of editing that goes into it?

KB: Oh yea. Well, we can’t fake anything. We don’t have a huge staff of people that come in and do all the work for us. We are basically doing it with minimal help. We aren’t faking the science. If it takes three days to come up with a number to calibrate a cannon; it takes three days. You guys get to see the ten-seconds it gets edited down to when it might have taken 100 hours to film.

Its funny, I almost feel stronger, more organized. I sweat the small stuff less. You don’t have time for wasting time. It’s a full day. You wake up in the morning, take care of baby, go to work, take care of Mythbusters, go home, take care of baby. Every minute is accounted for. It’s so much more fun and fulfilling and I just don’t waste time anymore. Going back to work, is kind of fun. At home I am taking care of baby and of mom, but at work, I am taking care of Kari. It is really fulfilling to be a mom. It is hard work but it is so worth it. I have the support of my husband and my girlfriend who takes care of my baby when I am at work.

BLAST: How is married life?

KB: Oh rad. I have the most adorable husband ever.

BLAST: Does he watch you on TV and is just shocked that you get to do what most boys would love to do?

KB: I don’t know, half the stuff I do, he’s like “I cant believe you even wanted to do that stuff, that’s nuts! He is a little bit of an adventurer himself. He does all sorts of things that boys want to do as well. He races motorcycles and is a tattoo artist and is just generally a bad-ass.

BLAST: Are there any myths you really want to bust that haven’t been on the show?

KB: Upside down race cars. That is something we would all just love to do. It is basically that the race car can move so fast and have so much downwind force that it can drive upside down on the track. All we need is a track and a Formula 1 race car, which you know, we can’t find anyone who wants to lend us one. So unless we can find the budget of $1 million dollars to pay for one, we have to wait to do that one. It’s not impossible its just expensive.

BLAST: Are most things really expensive?

KB: The amazing part of our support structure here at “Mythbusters” is they can get so much stuff for free, or for trade or for the most minute amount of money. They are wheelers and dealers. Since the show is getting more popular, people have been offering us stuff more and more. We work with bomb squads, police and fire companies. They always help us out a little bit. People call and say, “Hey do you want to blow up our car?” We keep it at a pretty low cost. We have the lowest possible cost because the people we work with are doing a little bit of the hustle for us.

BLAST: What does it feel like being the only girl on the show?

KB: You know I am only the only girl on camera, but off camera we have female researchers, producers and coordinators. There are tons of women. You only see me on screen, but it’s a huge team effort behind the camera, so it doesn’t feel like I am the only girl in any way.

BLAST: What was it like to pose for FHM Magazine?

KB: Now that I had a kid, I am really glad I did it back then. It was really fun and funny because we don’t have makeup and hair on the show, so getting prettied up and getting all that attention was really great. And the pictures weren’t that racy. In fact I think I am wearing less on the shark special.

BLAST: There has been some speculation surrounding your relationship with one of your co-build team members Tory Belleci. Is there any relationship other than strictly a professional one?

KB: No. My husband was my boyfriend starting on the show. Tory and I never had any relationship other than a friendship. It’s more of a sibling relationship, we pick on each other a lot. I think the reason the show has been so successful is that we all have a natural chemistry. We weren’t cast, we are all just real people who have worked on screen before. All the boys worked either at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) or at Jamie’s shop and they all knew each other previous to this. It makes the day better.

BLAST: Do you have any parting words of wisdom?

KB: Don’t have time to waste time.

Kari has solved myths from duct tape cannons to a shark’s sense of smell. You can catch her on “Mythbusters” every Wednesday at 9 p.m. on the Discovery Channel.

Lizards are born with a nifty adaptation. When too much stress is put on the joint between their body and tail “" like say when a predator grabs the lizard’s tail “" the two separate, hopefully giving the lizard the chance to run away. Over the span of a couple weeks, the lizard will actually regrow all the different vascular, nervous, and structural tissues, forming a completely new tail. It’s an impressive feat, and one that humans are quite incapable of.

The ability to grow new tissues in a lab is an area of much fervor. The long list of people waiting for an organ transplant certainly could use it, as could land mine victims. One of the largest hurdles in tissue engineering is the development of bone, which requires certain chemical signals to grow. While researches have long known what these signals are, they have yet to be able to deliver them in a way that leads to proper bone growth.

Now, researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed a new technology meant to aide the human body in growing new bone. The scientists developed a flexible scaffolding of soluble fibers that promote the growth by trapping the growth-stimulating drugs within the scaffold, preventing them from being metabolized too quickly by the body, and holding them in specific locations to dictate the growth pattern of the new bone.

While the technology is far from being ready to test in human subjects, the scientists predict that the technology could be used at first to grow new bone for dental implants. Further developments could eventually allow the technology to be adapted for cosmetic surgeries, allowing patients to grow their own implants.

“Our fibers provide all the advantages that clinicians in tissue regeneration are calling for,” says Professor Meital Zilberman. “Being thin, they’re ideal when delicate scaffolds are called for. But they can also be the basic building blocks of bones and tissues when bigger structures are needed.”

Further research will be aimed at growing new types of tissues, and eventually developing complete sets of tissues. We may never be able to grow a new arm on our own, but science may give us a way in the future.

Micrograph showing HIV fusing with a cell membrane on entry. ‚© 2002 by Bruce Alberts et al.

Scientists in Thailand have announced the first success, though limited, of its kind in the development of an HIV vaccine last night.

AIDS is a serious disease, as we’re sure you know. In 2007, AIDS killed approximately 2.1 million people “" not exactly a small population. With million of new diagnoses each year, every major worldwide health organization has declared AIDS to be a pandemic.

Currently, the only medications available are highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimens. Developed with a patient’s doctor, three or four drugs are prescribed in combination to be taken together, in which the drugs and dosing are optimized for each patient. Those without access to industrialized medicine are without the benefits of these drugs. So, the best bet we have to defeating HIV is to prevent infection from occurring in the first place.

A vaccine that prevents HIV from infecting health immune cells or from spreading beyond them is the ultimate goal of research programs, but to date, every one has failed. The most recent program even showed an increase in HIV infection in those who received the vaccine, leading to an early termination of the program. Many scientists have actually called for HIV vaccine programs to be called off entirely, assuming that none of them would ever show any promise.

The vaccine under development is a combination of two previous vaccines that did show any benefit when used singularly. However, used together, the vaccines were able to prevent about thirty percent of HIV infections over the placebo treatment, a result that surprised

The vaccine works by shuttling three genes that code for proteins on the HIV virus in side a different, benign virus in an attempt to get the body to start producing antibodies against the HIV proteins, priming the immune system to attack HIV upon entry.

Scientists were disappointed however to see that those who received the virus yet became infected did not show lower viral loads than those who did not receive the virus. Also, vaccines licensed by the FDA in the US usually show about an eighty percent efficacy rate, so it’s very doubtful that the vaccine will ever come to market.This is why scientists stress that the study is an important starting point for the further development and optimization of a better HIV vaccine.

"Damn Scientists" t-shirt at Threadless.com

If we were to make a list to things that we were supposed to have because this is the future, right behind our personal jetpack would be a levitation device. While we’re still waiting on that jetpack, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA has invented a device capable of floating a mouse in midair.

In everyday terms, the scientists created a magnet so strong that it could repel water molecules, which only react to magnetism is the strongest of magnetic fields. In scientific terms, the group using a superconducting, supercooled electromagnet to create a magnetic field of 17 teslas, 10,000 times stronger than the Earth’s average magnetic field. Because water molecules are diamagnetic, all of the water molecules generate a magnetic field of their own that opposes the field that generated them. The result is a force capable of levitating the mouse in midair.

Scientists have previously levitated objects and animals like grasshoppers and frogs, but this is the first time that they have used a mammal. Mice are also used as model organisms in the vast majority of medical research, hence the “gravity” of the accomplishment. (And sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves.)

The scientists plan to use the device to study the long-term effects of microgravity on the mice. While the first mice put in the device flipped around and became disoriented, adjustments have allowed the scientists to keep the mice in place, and even feed them, allowing them to basically live inside the field. Studying the physical effects of low gravity was (obviously) only possible during space flight. Now, this land-based research will prove useful for future space exploration where astronauts might have to live for extended periods of time in space.

Image produced of a single pentacene molecule.

Scientists have managed to do something thought impossible. Even though that actually happens every day because that’s kind of the point of science. Nevertheless, scientists at IBM have managed to produce an image of a single molecule.

Even though microscopes come in many different forms, they all work via the same premise. Light microscopes use light waves, electron microscopes use waves of electrons. Specimens reflect those waves, which our eye perceives or computers interpret. All waves have a certain wavelength, or size. Anything smaller than that wavelength is unable to reflect the wave back, just like how waves at the beach continue to wash past you when you’re standing alone, but a sea wall will stop them in their tracks.

Diagram of how atomic force microscopy forms its images.

Simple compounds, like the molecule of pentacene that the group at IBM imaged, are much smaller than any wavelengths of light we can currently use to image them. Pentacene is about 0.7 nanometers across; a typical grain of sand is about 2,000,000 nanometers across.

The scientists used an “atomic-force microscope” which uses what is essentially a ridiculously tiny tuning fork with a single molecule of carbon monoxide at the end to poke at the molecule. The tuning fork returns different vibrations above the atoms of the molecule than above the surface the molecule was on. To eliminate any stray gas molecules or vibrations from interfering with the measurements, the experiment was performed in a vacuum at -450 degrees.

The resulting image actually shows the structure, including the carbon and hydrogen atoms of the molecule. The scientists hope to further refine the technique, where it will prove very useful in the further development of nanotechnology.

More often than not, it takes the metaphorical equivalent of a snow shovel to peel us out of bed in the mornings, and we suspect that it is likely the same with many of you. We’ve always just blamed it on not being a morning person, but it turns out that the amount of sleep that you need may be written in your genes.

While all mammals need sleep, most species have different sleep needs. For example, your average housecat sleeps around 13 to 16 hours a day, while human adults usually need between 8 and 10 hours.

Ying-Hui Fu, a neurologist at the University of California at San Francisco, recently conducted a survey of sleep patterns in a large sample of people. In this group were a mother-daughter pair who were initially indentified as “morning people.”

However as the study went on, Fu noticed that the two actually were sleeping around five hours a night”"almost half the usual sleep need. Further study revealed that the two actually didn’t have any sleep related problems, as one would have assumed with someone getting so little sleep. The two women just didn’t need as much sleep as most of us do.

Fu hypothesized that their suppressed sleep needs might be due to a mutation to the DEC2 gene that they both shared. Scientists have long known that the DEC2 gene is partly responsible for governing our biological clocks, determining when we should be awake or asleep. To test this, Fu developed transgenic mice that had the corresponding mutation in the mouse’s Dec2 gene. Sure enough, the mice slept less than their counterparts without the mutation. They also recovered more quickly after sleep deprivation.

Because these finding are very new, scientists are only willing to posit that our sleep needs have some sort of genetic hardwiring. From these experiments, it’s not possible to tell whether the DEC2 mutation allows those with it to get by on less sleep or if the mutation itself is actually causing them to sleep less. Clearing, something as complicated as your biological clock is going to be controlled by much more than a single gene.

Either way, you can feel just a little bit less bad about being lazy when you have to wake up knowing it’s not your fault. Plus you can tell your friends who need less sleep that they’re mutated.

The mystery of the deformed frogs is a news story that pops up every now and then on the evening news or PBS “" supposedly, we like to be reminded every few months about how each of us is personally responsible for slowly but surely ruining the entire planet. Up until this point, scientists had proposed that the chemicals we were leeching into the environment and therefore into the frogs’ watery homes was interfering with their development, causing frogs to be born without limbs, with extra limbs, or other abnormalities.

While in pictures these malformed frogs were obviously eye catching for the environmentalist crowd, it turns out there’s actually a much more benign and biological explanation beyond all the fear mongering. The missing limbs and the extra limbs actually have two completely separate causes. While some scientists are still firmly entrenched in the “chemical cause” camp, biologists Stanley Sessions and Brandon Ballengee observed tadpoles in the wild for a few years, and noted that the tadpoles were actually being predated on by dragon fly nymphs.

The scientists observed back in their lab that the dragon fly nymphs would, more often than not, eat only parts of the tadpoles, usually just removing a limb. The tadpoles would then return back, and grow up, sans said limb. Despite missing parts of their bodies, many of the tadpoles were still able to grow up, metamorphosizing into frogs, who managed to live quite a long time.

While frogs with missing limbs have a rather mundane explanation, the frogs with extra limbs have a much more exotic explanation. Sessions established that the frogs had been infested by small parasitic flatworms called Riberoria trematodes. These works burrowed into the rapidly developing tadpoles and actually rearranged the cellular structure of the frogs as they were developing, resulting in their leg precursor cells to actually spawn multiple limbs.

Of course, the fact that this problem turned out not to be our fault doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. Pollution is still a problem, even if its effects aren’t as obvious as a three-legged frog.

I know the robot revolution is becoming a played out meme on the internet these days, but that’s mostly because the world around us is actually becoming more and more automated. Our GPS units are learning about us as we drive. In February, the L train in New York started overnight operations with a fully computer-controlled conductor. Now, my day job as a scientist could be replaced soon by automated workstations.

A group at Aberystwyth University in the UK has developed a completely automated workstation, which is capable of developing scientific hypotheses and then designing future experiments to verify them, all without any intervention from scientists. Using this workstation, named “Adam,” the scientists discovered the genetic coding for an orphan enzyme than had no known parent gene. While this may not sound like quite an accomplishment, this is actually an impressive feat that would have been rather labor-intensive and time-consuming for the scientists to carry out by hand.

The workstation is basically a fully fleshed-out molecular biology laboratory. It’s controlled by four computers, and comes with centrifuges, spectrophotometers to measure cell growth, automated liquid handlers and freezers among many different tools. The workstation can carry out 1,000 experiments simultaneously, each lasting five days, while making measurements every thirty minutes on each sample. The software then compiles all of the data it collects, makes statistical inferences, and then designs future experiments, and again carries them out in an iterative process. The human scientists simply added laboratory consumables and removed waste — Adam carried out the rest of the work.

Science is no stranger to automation. The vast majority of drug discovery work is done on liquid handing robot. However, the vast majority of this work is just brute force. For example, in the case of drug discovery, each well of a 384 well plate is loaded with a slightly different version of a molecule to see which version has the most activity. The most promising candidates are selected (in a process called hit-picking), and then further developed. Adam performed a similar process, determining which of the 1,200 known coding regions in the yeast genome actually coded a certain gene. But whereas, in drug development, scientists try every version of a drug they can synthesize, Adam was able to intelligently select which avenues of development were the most promising, eventually determining that three separate genes actually coded together for the one final product.

Clearly a lot of human work went into developing the software and logic algorithms that controlled Adam, so scientists aren’t going to be replaced by robots anytime soon. Adam didn’t design himself, after all. However, work of this kind could accelerate scientific discovery and development. As computers become more powerful, we’ll be able to analyze larger and larger data sets, finding patterns that would otherwise be too difficult for the human mind to tease out. The work done by this group is pioneering, and could be changing the face of science as we know it.