Gizmag News - Harvard team successfully reverses the aging process in mice

Welcome to the newsletter for gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine. These are the headlines for November the 30th, 2010. Harvard team successfully reverses the aging process in mice The aging process - it's undignified, unwanted, and many would say unnecessary. After all, the cells in your body are constantly replacing themselves - why can't they do it without causing progressive degradation of organs that lead to discomfort, weakness and death? Well, perhaps they can. Harvard scientists have discovered that by controlling certain genetic processes in mice, they can not only slow down the aging process, but "dramatically" reverse it throughout the body. It's a massive discovery, but it won't be able to be used in humans yet without some pretty scary consequences. Read More Wing shaped towers of Zayed National Museum act as thermal chimneys Foster + Partners, the UK-based architectural firm behind such innovative designs as Qatar’s Lusail Iconic Stadium and Masdar City, has unveiled yet another breathtaking concept with its design for the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi. The design comprises five wing-shaped solar towers sculpted aerodynamically to work like the feathers of a bird’s wing and draw cooling air currents through the museum. Read More Honda shows BRIO city car prototype Honda finally showed the smaller-than-small city car it has been developing for Asian markets - the Honda BRIO - today at the 27th Thailand International Motor Expo in Bangkok. It will be the smallest, lightest and cheapest car in the Honda range when it goes on sale in India and Thailand next year - around THB 400,000 - USD$13,300. Read More Color-changing “Blast Badge” to detect relative shockwave exposure Blast-induced traumatic brain injury from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) is the "signature wound" of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With the damage to the brain often not immediately obvious and no objective information of relative blast exposure, soldiers may not receive appropriate medical care and are at risk of being returned to the battlefield too soon. To overcome this inadequacy, researchers have developed a color-changing patch that could be worn on soldiers’ helmets and uniforms to indicate the strength of exposure to blasts from explosives in the field. Read More Computer scientists create 3D models using millions of 2D images Researchers have devised a technique that allows a computer to create three-dimensional images of famous landmarks, by combining numerous two-dimensional photos of those landmarks from Internet photo sharing sites such as Flickr. For the Building Rome on a Cloudless Day project, 3 million photos of Rome were accessed online, and used to produce 3D images of all the city’s major landmarks. Utilizing commodity graphics hardware, it took a single PC less than one day to accomplish the task. Read More Electrolux Infinity I-Kitchen takes fridges open source One of the biggest marketing miss-steps of the past decade surely has to be LG’s Internet Refrigerator that incorporated a Windows 98-based PC and 15.1-inch LCD touch display in the door, allowing users to surf the Internet for recipes, play music and videos or (theoretically) do some office work while standing at the fridge. Electrolux seems to think the world is now ready to embrace the idea and has developed an Internet fridge of its own in the form of the Linux-based Infinity I-Kitchen. Read More Whale-inspired bumps improve efficiency of ocean turbine blades The bumpy protrusions, known as tubercles, on the leading edge of humpback whale flippers have already inspired more efficient wind turbine blades that are able to produce more power at lower speeds. Now, in a seemingly obvious move, researchers have found that that same principle can be applied to underwater turbine blades to more efficiently convert low velocity ocean tidal flow energy into electricity. Read More ChouChou Electric Butterfly – weirdly-realistic fluttering butterflies in jars “Robobutterfly” may not have quite the same coolness factor as words like Robocop, Robowrestler, or even Robogecko. The fact is, however, you can now buy your own flying mechanical butterfly, and it looks pretty impressive. Marketed in Japan as the ChouChou Electric Butterfly, the fluttering electric bug-in-a-mason-jar was unveiled at this year’s Tokyo Toy Show and this month it became available to the public. Read More Mercedes-Benz BIOME Concept – could cars be grown in a lab? Get ready to have your concept of how a car is manufactured flipped upside-down and turned inside-out. Picture a production process that has plenty in common with agar jelly (used to culture organic materials in laboratories) and little in common with what we would normally think of as production-line automotive manufacturing. You are starting to get close to what the people at Mercedes-Benz have spawned with the BIOME – one of the most outlandish and ambitious concepts in this year's Los Angeles Design Challenge. Read More Yogakayak takes a new position on kayaking Inexpensive sit-on-top kayaks are great fun for the beach and the lake, although many people maintain that the conventional legs-in-front kayaking position is hard on the back. Not only is a kneeling position said to be healthier, but proponents of the C1 style of whitewater paddling (in which the paddler kneels in a specialized whitewater kayak) also state that it allows for better control of the boat. With these claims in mind, Quebec City inventor Pierre Parant created the Yogakayak. Read More Toshiba's space-saving Modular Data Center Business Toshiba has just completed the installation of a demonstration modular data center on the outskirts of Tokyo, signaling its entry into the emerging market. Rather than housing racks of data servers in dedicated buildings, the modular approach allows for the relatively quick construction of units housed in steel framed containers, which can be stacked to increase capacity without encroaching too much on the surrounding environment. In addition to reducing costs, Toshiba claims that its solution also requires less power to operate. Read More Ferrari logo adds US$10,000 to the price of Hasselblad H4D Just how much value does Ferrari's logo add to a product? Hasselblad's latest announcement seems to answer that and we're not sure if it reflects well on either brand. The EUR13,995 (US$18,531) Hasselblad H4D is the flagship product of the best known medium format imaging marque and has been purchased by tens of thousands of the world's elite photographers because it delivers digital SLR functionality with extraordinary imaging quality. Now the company has announced two identical cameras that don't come in silvery grey. For an extra EUR1000 (US$1324), you can have one of a limited run of 100 stainless steel H4Ds. There's also a Ferrari Limited Edition camera which is identical except for a carbon fiber display case, its Ferrari "rosso fuoco" color, and the unmistakable Yellow Prancing Horse Racing Shield. Hasselblad will make 499 units of the limited edition camera, selling them for EUR21,499 (US$28,473.61). That's US$9,938 more than an identical product – a premium of more than 50% extra for the display case … and the logo. Read More If you would like to refer this newsletter to a friend or colleague, please point them at our free subscription page. Please don't try to forward this email, as the formatting is unlikely to remain intact. And don't worry, we don't share email addresses. Please read our privacy policy if you are concerned. Watch for more of the best new innovations, ideas and practical technologies in your inbox. You are receiving this email because you signed up for our daily newsletter at http://www.gizmag.com. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter please click here to unsubscribe. COPYRIGHT GIZMAG (C) 2010