NewsTrust - Most Recent Stories

What's the Future of Synthetic Biology?

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Katherine Bourzac - Jun. 20 (News) - Last July, scientists created the first " synthetic cell ," an organism that's controlled by a chemically synthesized genome edited on a computer and stitched together in the lab. One year later, biologists at the Fifth Annual Synthetic Biology conference at Stanford University are still struggling to take the next step in the field.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Web Is Reborn - Technology Review

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:24:14 -0700

MIT Technology Review - Oct. 27 -

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Mapping the Brain on a Massive Scale

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Emily Singer - Sep. 28 (News) - A massive new project to scan the brains of 1,200 volunteers could finally give scientists a picture of the neural architecture of the human brain and help them understand the causes of certain neurological and psychological diseases.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.6 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Generating Power from a Heart

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Prachi Patel - Jun. 04 (News) - A tiny, nearly invisible nanowire can convert the energy of pulsing, flexing muscles inside a rat's body into electric current, researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have shown. Their nano generator could someday lead to medical implants and sensors powered by heartbeats or breathing.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Russian Nuclear Reactor May Supply Unlimited Electricity

Tue, 25 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Phil McKenna - May. 25 (News) - If the Italian-Russian project is successful it could prove to be a roadmap for self-sustaining hydrogen fusion reactors to provide unlimited power. Skeptics say it's more of the same "pie-in-the-sky" as in space solar power that beams down electricity from satellites via lethal microwaves, as described in Sunstroke by David Kagan.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.0 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Technology Review: Hacking the Smart Grid

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Robert Lemos - Apr. 05 (News Report) - Components of the next-generation smart-energy grid could be hacked in order to change household power settings or to spoof communications with a utility's network, according to a study of three pilot implementations.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

U.S. Solar Market to Double in the Next Year

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Feb. 08 (News) - In a few years, the United States is likely to be the world's largest market for solar power, eclipsing Germany, which has taken the lead as a result of strong government incentives in spite of the relative paucity of sunlight in that country. A number of factors could make growth possible in the United States--especially changes in legislation that give utilities incentives to create large solar farms.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average - 6 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Using Carbon Dioxide to Extract Geothermal Energy

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By Peter Fairley - Nov. 16 (News Report) - Carbon dioxide generated by power plants may find a second life as a working fluid to help recover geothermal heat from kilometers underground. Such a system would not only capture the carbon dioxide and keep it out of the atmosphere, it would also be a cost-effective way to use the greenhouse gas to generate new power.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Adding Trust to Wikipedia, and Beyond

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Erica Naone - Sep. 04 (News Report) - The official motto of the Internet could be "don't believe everything you read," but moves are afoot to help users know better what to be skeptical about and what to trust. A tool called WikiTrust, which helps users evaluate information on Wikipedia by automatically assigning a reliability color-coding to text, came into the spotlight this week with news that it could be added as an option for general users of Wikipedia. Also, last week the Wikimedia Foundation announced that changes made to pages about living people will soon need to be vetted by an established editor. These moves reflect a broader drive to make online information more accountable. And this week the World Wide Web Consortium published a framework that could help any Web site make verifiable claims about authorship and reliability of content.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Solar Industry: No Breakthroughs Needed

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Aug. 03 (News Report) - The solar industry says incremental advances have made transformational technologies unnecessary.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.3 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

A Biofuel Process to Replace All Fossil Fuels

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Jul. 29 (News Report) - Joule Biotechnologies grows genetically engineered microorganisms in specially designed photobioreactors. The microorganisms use energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into ethanol or hydrocarbon fuels (such as diesel or components of gasoline). The organisms excrete the fuel, which can then be collected using conventional chemical-separation technologies.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.1 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Light Repels Light

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Anne-Marie Corley - Jul. 20 (News Report) - The repulsive side of an optical force could lead to ultra-fast telecommunications.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Technology Review: Broad Use of Brain Boosters?

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Emily Singer - May. 18 (News Analysis) - Off-label use of stimulants, such as Ritalin, is on the rise among college students. Studies show that 5 percent to 15 percent of students use prescription drugs as study aids, and surveys suggest the practice may be common among academics as well. The trend has sparked debates over how and when these cognitive enhancers should be used.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Videos: A Lifelike Prosthetic Arm

Mon, 04 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Michael Rosenwald - May. 04 (News Report) - A new surgical technique, developed by scientists at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, allows patients who have lost arms to use residual nerve signals to control a prosthetic limb.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

A New Processing Scheme for Algae Biofuels

Fri, 01 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Monica Heger - May. 01 (News Report) - OriginOil, an algae biofuel company based in Los Angeles, has developed a simpler and more efficient way to extract oil from algae.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Does Anyone Understand Geo-Engineering?

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Apr. 23 (News Analysis) - Geo-engineering schemes fall broadly into two categories: those designed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and those designed to shade the earth and reflect sunlight back into space to cool the planet. Some researchers, for example, have proposed seeding the oceans with iron particles to fertilize carbon-dioxide-consuming algae. Others, including the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, have suggested injecting sulfurous particles into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, where they would block a small fraction of sunlight that reaches the earth. Other proposals range from the extremely simple--painting roofs white to reflect sunlight--to the extremely costly and elaborate: assembling sunshades in space.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Energy and Climate Bill Advances

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Apr. 14 (News Report) - Congress is moving forward on legislation that would address both energy efficiency and climate change in a single bill, creating requirements for the use of renewable energy and introducing a cap on carbon dioxide emissions.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

arXiv blog: The evolution of scientific ideas

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By arXiv - Apr. 13 (News Report) - Science is an evolving discipline. . . . how exactly are these fields changing? And what does it tell us about the evolution of ideas and the changing nature of science?

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Solar-Power Breakthrough

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Jul. 31 (News Report) - Researchers have made a major advance in inorganic chemistry that could lead to a cheap way to store energy from the sun. In so doing, they have solved one of the key problems in making solar energy a dominant source of electricity. Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry at MIT, has developed a catalyst that can generate oxygen from a glass of water by splitting water molecules. The reaction frees hydrogen ions to make hydrogen gas. The catalyst, which is easy and cheap to make, could be used to generate vast amounts of hydrogen using sunlight to power the reactions. The hydrogen can then be burned or run through a fuel cell to generate electricity whenever it's needed, including when the sun isn't shining.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

A Concrete Fix to Global Warming

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:07:05 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Tyler Hamilton - Jul. 24 (News Report) - "Battling global warming leads to fewer mental health beds," Nigel Hannaford, Opinion, July 12. Nigel Hannaford has weighed in again on global warming. He should have checked his facts first. Like Stephane Dion and a carbon tax, Hannaford has changed his opinion on whether people are causing global warming -- in Hannaford's case, from denial to acceptance to ambivalence. Hannaford's current position is that "climate change may be real and humanity may be part of the problem."

NewsTrust Rating: 3.0 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Secrets of Anti-Aging Genes

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Emily Singer - Jul. 17 (News Report) - An ambitious plan to sequence 100 genes in 1,000 healthy old people could shed light on genetic variations that insulate some people from the ailments of aging, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, allowing them to live a healthy life into their eighties and beyond. Rather than focusing on genetic variations that increase risk for disease, scientists plan to focus on genes that have previously been linked to health and longevity.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Internet Gridlock

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Larry Hardesty - Jul. 01 (News Analysis) - The idea that the Internet should be fair--that it shouldn't pick favorites among users, service providers, applications, and types of content--is generally known as net neutrality. And it's a principle that has been much in the news lately, after its apparent violation by Comcast, the second-largest ISP in the United States.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Ethanol's Forecast

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Kevin Bullis - Jun. 14 (News Report) - In recent months, demand for corn used to make increasing amounts of ethanol has driven up corn prices, and to some extent food prices. But now bad weather in the Midwest, which has delayed corn crops, could further drive up corn prices and lead to significantly more expensive food, particularly meats. The weather problems could also cause some ethanol plants to shut down.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.7 average - 5 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Scheduling Wind Power

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

MIT Technology Review - By Peter Fairley - Apr. 18 (Special Report) - As wind power becomes more common, its unpredictability becomes more of a problem. Sudden drops in wind speed can send grid operators scrambling to cover the shortfall and even cause blackouts; unexpected surges can leave conventional power plants idling, incurring costs and spewing pollution to no purpose.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 9 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Solar without the Panels

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

MIT Technology Review - By Peter Fairley - Feb. 29 (News Report) - This month, in the latest in a string of recent deals, Spanish solar-plant developer Abengoa Solar and Phoenix-based utility Arizona Public Service announced a 280-megawatt solar thermal project in Arizona. By contrast, the world's largest installations of photovoltaics generate only 20 megawatts of power.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer