As we get older our ability to replace damaged cells weakens. For blood cells the trigger seems to be age-induced changes that occur in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that makes us less capable of fighting of diseases like leukemia. Just like somatic and embryonic stem cells can regenerate differen

It may seem counter intuitive but RoWheels has reinvented the way you use a wheelchair by using a rowing motion to move forward. The inventor is Salim Nasser, a mechanical engineer at NASA in Florida. Salim, who suffered paralysis from an accident a number of years ago, studied wheelchair mobility a

Headlines that caught my eye in the last week:   Private Company Launch Gets Ready to go to ISS and It’s Not SpaceX; Crowdfunding Raises $2.7 Billion for New Ventures in 2012; Advanced Biofuels Beginning to See Production Scale Up; V2B, V2H and V2G Technology Evolving in the Energy Mix; &

Most of you, my readers, are too young to remember the old Perry Como song “Catch a Falling Star” but I think the lyric captures the mission that NASA is proposing. Described as a “capture and redirect” of an asteroid by a robotic spacecraft followed by a visit to the asteroi

In the past couple of weeks there have been several research studies projecting environmental consequences to rising global temperatures. It is an interesting mix of good and bad. Let’s start with the good. Climate change studies of the southern and eastern parts of Africa show a short benefit

I have been reading Al Gore’s The Future over the last few days. He talks about the emergence of a global paradigm that puts into question the survival of nation states as we know them today. Of course he sees the world through an American lens and therefore projects its primacy and influence

Hydrogen is a $100 billion industry. What do we use it for commercially today? It is certainly not a commonly used fuel except in a few places like Iceland. It isn’t easy to produce, in fact, we have to extract it from natural gas. And when we use it, it is not for energy but for manufacturing

How life first originated on Earth is always an interesting subject. A structural biologist and his team of researchers at Florida State University College of Medicine have identified 10 amino acids that existed on our planet for 4 billion years. These amino acids exhibit foldable behavior capable o

I recently came across a machine called the Solar Sinter. First tested as a prototype in 2011 in Morocco, Solar Sinter is a 3D printer that uses silica sand found in world deserts as the material source. Its inventor, Markus Kayser, is a German product designer who wanted to produce an eco-friendly,

Headlines that caught my eye in the last week:   Astronomers Predict 100 Billion Earth-Like Planets Inhabit the Milky Way; Bladeless Wind Energy Technology Debuts in Delft; Micro Hydro-Electricity and Mini-Grids a Cost Effective Option; Post-Sandy New York Builds Steel Wall to Protect Subway; N