] "Science fiction often depicts robots of the future as
] machines that look like people and feel, or at least
] hanker after the ability to feel, human emotions.
] A team at Vanderbilt University is turning this notion on
] its head by developing a robotic assistant whose goal is
] not to develop emotions, but rather respond to the moods
] of its human master. "

Wired News: Feeling Blue? This Robot Knows It

] "In his experiment, Potter places a droplet of solution
] containing thousands of rat neuron cells onto a silicon
] chip that's embedded with 60 electrodes connected to an
] amplifier. The electrical signals that the cells fire at
] one another are picked up by the electrodes which then
] send the amplified signal into a computer. The computer,
] in turn, wirelessly relays the data to the robot.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Technology Review - Rat-Brained Robot

"Bing Fung and colleagues at the University of Oklahoma found that the 19 hydrogen atoms in a lone liquid crystal molecule can store at least 1024 bits of information. The data are stored in the complex interaction of the protons' magnetic moments."

Freakin cool

New Scientist - Digital Image stored in single molecule

this is elonka's talk on steganography from phreaknic. elonka is a bad ass cypher freak. the slides are well worth 15 minutes of your time. some reasonable thought about the likelyhood that al-q actually used stegaNography in images tO conceal Their plans for 911. jonnyx's goggled face offers clear evidence that universities that have searched for stego on the web and not found it simply have not tried hard enough. the reader is left to ponder the possible.

Elonka.Com - Steganography

Simply put, it's time to quit Slashdot, once and for all."

Woo Hoo! Use Memestreams!

Quit Slashdot.org Today!

"We are not now developing, nor do we have any plans to develop, anything other than an external, wearable device."

Statement last winter by the company that just received FDA approval to begin implanting tracking chips in people. This whole thing will sound like the worst sort of conspiracy theory, but just THINK about these things. They are real. They are here.

Anything that can be implanted can be carried without bother. What is the advantage of implanting? What are the applications where this is required functionality?

politechbot.com: More on FDA permitting use of implantable ID chips in humans

Researchers at the Forsyth Institute said their successful experiment suggests the existence of dental stem cells, which could one day allow a person to replace a lost or missing tooth with an identical tooth grown from his or her own cells.
The research may signal that the days of synthetic dental implants--dentures, bridges and crowns--are numbered. "

[W1ld sent me this: *start rant* I just wanted to say that I think that it is interesting that they are calling these "dental stem cells". When it comes right down to it, all cells are "stem cells", we just don't have enough knowledge of genomics quite yet to make that a reality. Every cell in your body (excluding red blood cells) contain a copy of your entire genetic code. The only difference is that early in development, some genes are turned off never to be turned on again, while others get promoted, based on what that cell is destined to be. Once we know more about our genome (thanks to the human genome project and other projects stemming off of it), and once we know more about developmental genetics (how cells develop into specific tissues via protein expression and how to turn genes on and off when we want to), we will be able to harness this information to turn one cell into another or grow specific cells and tissues. Ahem. *end rant* Have a nice day:)

Yahoo! News - Scientists Grow Pig Teeth in Rat Intestines

"A transparent token the size of a postage stamp and costing just a penny to make can be used to generate an immensely powerful cryptographic key."

Tom, your a security guru...what are your thoughts on this?

New Scientist - Transparent token is cryptographic key

This book is freely available online. Here are a few of the chapter topics:

Miniature Spy Planes: The Next Generation of Flying Robots
Toward Micromechanical Flyers
Design Challenges for Future Wireless Systems
Next-Generation Mobile Wireless Internet Technology
Service Architectures for Emerging Wireless Networks
Wireless Integrated Network Sensors
Reengineering the Paralyzed Nervous Systems
Merging Living Cells and Microsystems Engineering

[Originally from Jeremy. I really enjoyed looking at this book, especially the chapter on Merging Living Cells and Microsystems Engineering. The frontier of engineering, technology, and science is a really interesting place to see bleeding edge kind of ideas pop up. This book is very rad, and you should all take a look! - Nano]

Symposium on the Frontiers of Engineering | National Academies

Jeremy Munday and Bill Robertson made a 120-metre-long cable by alternating six- to eight-metre-long lengths of two different kinds of coaxial cable, each with a different electrical resistance. They hooked this hybrid cable up to two signal generators, one of which broadcast a fast wave, the other a slow one. The waves interfere with each other to produce electric pulses, which can be watched using an oscilloscope.

Wow....go MTSU;)

New Scientist