From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Tue Jun 22 1999 - 22:11:41 MDT
_THE Nanogirl News______________________________________
Ant-size robot developed for plant repair, inspection
TOKYO (AP) - Japanese electronics companies have developed a tiny robot the
size of an ant that can crawl around thin pipes, inspect and even fix
problems at power plants, officials said Monday.
The machine has a pair of round connectors on both sides that can be linked
up with other robots for more extensive assignments.
With a weight of only about one-hundredth of an ounce, the robot can move at
a speed of 6 inches per minute, said Koji Hirose, spokesman for the Ministry
of International Trade and Industry.
Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. and Matsushita
Research Institute Tokyo, Inc. developed the machine under the government's
$206 million "micro machine" project that began in 1989, Hirose said.
The robots, which can crawl into the tiniest gaps around bundles of pipes,
are expected to speed up inspection and repairs at electric and nuclear
power plants because they can be sent in while the plant keeps running.
Scientists are working to add new functions to them so the robots can climb
up and down a pipe while connected to other machines. They also plan to
develop robots with motors and problem-detecting sensors.
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Rats control robot arm through brain activity
NEW YORK (AP) - Scientists have gotten rats to control a simple robot arm
through the activity of their brain cells. That might be a step toward
letting paralyzed people control prosthetic limbs.
Six rats learned at first to press a lever to make the arm move back and
forth like a windshield wiper. Then scientists implanted electrodes in the
animals' brains, to detect the pattern of brain cell activity that made the
animals' legs press the lever.
Finally, the scientists switched control of the arm to a device that
monitored the rats' brains and moved the arm when the appropriate brain
activity appeared. Four animals were able to continue controlling the arm in
this way.
The work is reported in the July issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience by
scientists at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and
elsewhere.
Recently, scientists have reported that paralyzed people can learn to use
their brain waves to control the movement of a cursor on a computer screen.
The brain activity was picked up by electrodes that had been implanted or
placed on the scalp.
By moving the cursor, the paralyzed people were able to communicate.
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_
Two private efforts under way to clone human embryos
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
A team of American researchers has quietly begun trying to create the
world's first batches of cloned human embryos, and another team has resumed
its controversial cloning of embryos that are part human and part cow,
according to scientists involved in the work.
The privately funded work is part of a surge of human embryo research aimed
at developing novel treatments for diseases - but which some scientists
believe could be inadvertently paving the way to the first births of cloned
babies.
The work is a vivid reminder that while Congress, the National Institutes of
Health and a presidentially appointed bioethics commission debate the finer
points of whether federal dollars should be spent on certain types of human
embryo research, the private sector is rapidly moving forward to capitalize
on the potentially lucrative field.
The two companies that have started the programs to grow their own embryos,
[ Geron Corp. ] of Menlo Park, Calif., and Advanced Cell Therapeutics of
Worcester, Mass., are not trying to make full-grown human clones or
human-cow hybrids. Rather, the goal is to use the newly cloned embryos as
sources of embryonic stem cells, a recently discovered kind of cell that is
thought to have the potential to treat a host of chronic ailments, including
diabetes and Parkinson's disease.
Nonetheless, the two programs are the first openly concerted efforts to
create human embryos by cloning. They also appear to be the first instances
of scientists creating human embryos explicitly for the purpose of
harvesting medically useful cells, a practice President Clinton banned among
federally funded researchers 4 1/2 years ago but that remains legal in the
private sector.
Adding to the contentious nature of the work is the widely held suspicion
that the experiments will inevitably, and perhaps very quickly, help others
overcome the remaining technical hurdles to cloning human beings.
That uncomfortable link between stem cell research and human cloning is
raising difficult questions about how to draw legal and ethical distinctions
between cloning human embryos - essentially balls of a few hundred cells -
for medical research, and cloning human beings as a reproductive
alternative.
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_
China Working on Cloning Panda
Associated Press
BEIJING (AP) -- Scientists have taken a step toward cloning a giant panda by
growing an embryo that contains a dead animal's genes -- a development China
hailed as a possible breakthrough in efforts to save the endangered species.
Scientists from the government-funded Chinese Academy of Sciences grew the
embryo by introducing cells from a dead female panda into the egg cells of a
Japanese white rabbit, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.
The embryo was nurtured over 10 months and scientists are now trying to
implant it in a host animal's uterus.
"If it works, they will possibly have created the world's first cloned
panda," Xinhua said.
Although scientists have cloned other large animals, notably the sheep
Dolly, the cloning has required repeated efforts -- with many failed
pregnancies.
Earlier, China announced plans to try to clone a giant panda within three to
five years.
But Chen Dayuan, who leads the government-backed panda cloning project, said
scientists now believe they will need less time, Xinhua reported.
It hailed the development as a potentially "critical and exciting
breakthrough" for saving the species, which is unique to China.
Only about 1,000 pandas live in the wild, with another 100 in zoos. Experts
have warned that the animal could become extinct in a couple of dozen years.
(this may help save them from extinction)
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_
In an effort to defend against frequent cyber attacks, the Pentagon is
considering building a new computer network to handle e-commerce and public
web pages, cutting off existing connections to the Internet. This follows an
increase in the rate of successful attacks on the Non-Classified Internet
Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET). While a separate network sounds like a
good idea in theory the practicalities of completely separating NIPRNET from
the Internet will not be easy. (Good luck, there's a hack behind every new
program!)
Federal Computer week article
http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1999/0621/fcw-newsnetwork-6-21-99.html
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_
JAPANESE WIVES are turning to off-the-shelf forensic science to catch their
cheating husbands. Private detectives are selling them special chemical
sprays that highlight telltale traces of semen in their spouse's underwear.
(silly ain't it!)
New Scientist Planet article
http://www.newscientist.com/cgi-bin/pageserver.cgi?/ns/19990619/newsstory4.h
tml
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Scientific Team Identifies Gene Critical In Embryonic Development
Science Daily Magazine article
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990622061323.htm
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_
Peering through a Hole in the Sky
NASA/Marshall scientists will probe an unlikely 50-year old mystery during
the August 11, 1999 total solar eclipse (does it effect gravity?)
NASA's article
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast17jun99_1.htm
____________________________________________________________________________
_
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
Web:
http://www.nanoindustries.com
E-mail:
nanogirl@halcyon.com
Alternate E-mail
echoz@hotmail.com
"Nanotechnology: solutions for the future."
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