The Rise Of Robodoc

The Acrobot Robot, which helps orthopaedic surgeons
to carry out computer navigated partial knee replacements

From The Independent:

Many operations are becoming less invasive and more efficient due to the growth of cyber-surgery. Nina Lakhani on a British medical success story.

While surgeons are often criticised for their brusque bedside manner, few could accurately be described as robots. This is going to change as surgical consultations increasingly involve robotic systems to help diagnose, plan operations and reassure patients.

The development of robotic systems, both active and passive, is enabling surgeons to use keyhole techniques in hard-to-reach areas not previously thought possible. Britain is at the forefront of many advances. Collaborations between NHS surgeons, universities and private companies enable Britain to develop robotics more quickly and cheaply than North American and European counterparts.

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Using A Mobile Phone May Improve Memory And Stave Off Alzheimer's Disease

Mobile phones may stave off Alzheimer's Disease Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Talking on a mobile telephone can improve memory and protect the mind from Alzheimer's disease, according to new research.

Tests suggested that exposure to radiation from the devices had a beneficial effect on the mind and could even reverse the effects of Alzheimer's.

The surprise findings contradict some previous studies that have suggested mobiles can cause Alzheimer's and brain cancer.

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Solar System May Be More Compact Than Thought

A cloud of comets surrounds the main disc of the solar system - new research suggests the cloud may be more compact than previously thought (Illustration: T Pyle/SSC/JPL-Caltech/NASA)

From The New Scientist:

The solar system may be significantly more compact than previously thought, according to a new computer simulation of the cloud of comets that enshrouds the solar system. The work suggests the cloud may not contain as much material as once suspected, which could resolve a long-standing problem in models of how the planets formed.

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Galileo Space Navigation System To Be Ready In 2014

Photo: Use of basic Galileo services will be free,
while high-accuracy capabilities will be restricted to paying users

From Deutsche Welle:

After much delay, the European Commission has awarded contracts for work to start on building the highly-anticipated Galileo space navigation system. The first 14 satellites will be built by a German company.

The European Commission announced on Thursday that the long-delayed Galileo project, the European alternative to the American GPS satellite navigation system, will begin operation in 2014.

The Commission has awarded the German company OHB System AG a 566 million euro (813 million dollar) contract to build the first 14 satellites for the EU's new space-based navigation system.

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Skiff E-Reader Has Some New Tricks

From Popular Mechanics:

LAS VEGAS—The barrage of new products from CES includes a number of e-Ink devices, all lining up to dislodge the Kindle from its perch at the top of the market. Among the double fistful of readers for sale in 2010 will be the Skiff Reader, a sleek 11.5-inch device that has received a healthy share of buzz in the past few days. We've refrained from writing about Skiff until now because it's backed by Hearst, Popular Mechanics' own parent company, and because over the past year we've been sharing ideas on the device with the company's development team. (As you can see from the photo, we've created sample content for Skiff that will be shown this week in Las Vegas.)

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Tripping The Light Fantastic: 66 Black Holes Found 'Dancing' The Galactic Night Away

Hubble Space Telescope images of two small galaxies colliding to form one

From The Daily Mail:

It is the ultimate dance routine but get too close and it may be your last.

A team of astronomers have discovered 33 pairs of 'waltzing' black holes in distant galaxies which will eventually combine to form one.

Nearly every galaxy has a central super-massive black hole with a mass up to a billion times the mass of the Sun and galaxies often collide.

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97 Reasons To Quit Smoking

Image: (FOTOLIA/ISTOCKPHOTO)

From Health.com:

1. You won't have to pay more and more and more and more each year.
Yup, taxes will almost certainly continue to go up. New Jersey, Vermont, and Connecticut are among the states leaning harder on smokers for revenue, but even some tobacco-growing states are beginning to milk the coffin-nail cash cow. Lawmakers' reasoning: There is evidence that price increases cause smokers to reduce consumption. And the medical costs of smoking are astronomical—a huge burden to the states.

2. You'll inhale fewer germs.
New research suggests cigarettes are crawling with germs, which can be inhaled along with the smoke. It’s not clear if the germs can make you sick, but the yuck factor is undeniable.

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Physicists Beginning To See Data From The Large Hadron Collider

Last month the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider began recording proton-proton collisions at a record energy of 2.36 trillion electron volts. Image courtesy of the ATLAS experiment. (Credit: Image courtesy of Iowa State University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 7, 2010) — Three Iowa State University physicists who took winter trips to the Large Hadron Collider for meetings and experimental work are starting to see real data from the planet's biggest science experiment.

Finally.

The multibillion-dollar collider made international news on Sept. 10, 2008, when it sent its first beam of protons around 17 miles of underground tunnel near Geneva, Switzerland. But breakdowns in the machine's high-current electrical connections forced a complete shutdown for more than a year of repairs and tests.

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Can A Person Freeze To Death?

From Live Science:

Extremely cold weather has descended upon most of the nation this week, and this frigid air may have you feeling like you could "freeze to death." Paranoia aside, when temperatures dip, frostbite and other health risks are real concerns. And death strikes long before the body actually freezes.

Yet our bodies are pretty hardy, as we have two built-in mechanisms to protect us from the cold.

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Free Flipper! Argues Scientist

Studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future. Photo: JASON HELLER / BARCROFT MEDIA

From The Telegraph:

Dolphins should be treated as “non-human persons” and merit special rights above other animals because they are so bright, scientists claim.

Researchers argue that it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in captivity or to kill them for food.

Dolphins have long been recognised as among the most intelligent of animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old children.

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Landmark DNA Study Of 3,000 People To Unlock Mystery Of Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes, characterised by insulin resistance, can cause blindness and impotence

From Times Online:

The genetic roots of type 2 diabetes are to be explored in unprecedented depth to help to find better ways to diagnose and treat a disease that affects more than 2 million people in Britain.

A £15 million study is to read the complete DNA of 3,000 people, more than ten times more than have so far had their genomes sequenced, The Times has learnt.

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The World In 2020: Thrift, Hard Work – And No Smoking

'Labelling on all alcohol drinks was altered to proclaim 'drinking kills''. Matt Murphy

From The Independent:

What will our lives be like a decade from now? In the second part of our series, Independent writers glimpse the future.

By 2020 the people of Britain had grown accustomed to the "nanny state" telling them what to do. Smoking had been totally unacceptable for several years, after the smoking ban had been extended to outdoor public spaces such as parks, beaches and playgrounds. There was even talk of banning smoking in blocks of flats.

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One In Ten Stars 'Have Solar Systems Like Ours'

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the
American Astronomical Society in Washington DC Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

One in ten stars in the universe may host solar systems like the Sun's family of planets, astronomers believe.

Potentially hundreds of millions of stars may have solar systems that could harbour life-supporting Earth-like planets.

Our solar system has far-flung gas-giant planets with small rocky worlds such as the Earth and Mars nearer the parent star.

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Chilling Out In The Coldest Place on Earth

Just when you think it can't get any colder (Image: Michael Studinger/Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory/Columbia University)

From New Scientist:

VOSTOK Station in Antarctica currently holds the crown for the coldest place on the planet. It recorded -89.2 °C on 21 July 1983. But it could get even colder, with temperatures dropping to about -96 °C, if "perfect" cold-weather conditions prevail.

John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey and colleagues analysed the weather conditions that brought about the record chill and found it was caused by an unusual, near-stationary atmospheric vortex. "This isolated Vostok and prevented the waves of warm air that normally come up from the ocean," says Turner. After that big chill, the temperature bounced up by over 20 °C in one day (Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, DOI: 10.1029/2009JD012104).

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The Top 4 Sites To Land On Mars And Their Biggest Mysteries

Holden Crater

From Popular Mechanics:

The Spirit Rover is nearly history, stuck deep in sand, and while Opportunity travels on, it's not likely that it will travel much farther. Now, scientists are building the next rover to be sent to Mars. But before they fuel the rockets, researchers have to pick a spot to explore. Here are NASA's frontrunners.

Call it the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's version of the Final Four. Scientists at the Pasadena, Calif.–based NASA research center will decide within the next two years where to send the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover after it launches in the fall of 2011. MSL's mission is to scour the Red Planet for environments that may once have harbored, or may still harbor, microbial organisms. Such an environment would have to contain the basic ingredients of life—including water, organic carbon and a source of energy to sustain the microbes' metabolism.

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Nearby T Pyxidis Supernova Could Destroy Life On Earth

Too Close for Comfort T Pyxidis, a star on the verge of growing too massive and collapsing into a type Ia supernova, was discovered to be closer to Earth than previously thought – close enough to end life here when it finally explodes. NASA

From Popular Science:

Doomsdayers and 2012 blog-keepers, take note. Astronomers at this week's American Astronomical Society meeting revealed that a massive white dwarf star in the throes of multiple nova is much closer to our solar system than once thought. When it does finally collapse into a type Ia supernova -- okay, if it collapses into a type Ia supernova -- the resulting thermonuclear blast will destroy life on earth. Seriously.

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NASA's Kepler Finds Its First Five Planets - An Odd Assortment

Kepler's first five exoplanets are compared to those in our
solar system in this illustration from NASA. NASA

From Christian Science Monitor:

NASA's Kepler space telescope is just beginning its three-year mission to find Earth-like planets in habitable zones around stars. The first new planets it has found, announced Monday, include two so hot they would melt iron.

NASA's planet-hunting telescope Kepler has bagged its first quarry: five new planets Neptune's size and larger, including one with the density of Styrofoam, making it one of the lightest planets yet found.

In addition to the new planets, Kepler results suggest that the light output from two-thirds of some 43,000 sun-like stars in its field of view is virtually as stable as the sun's output.

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'Ferropaper' Is New Technology For Small Motors, Robots

Purdue researchers have created a magnetic "ferropaper" that might be used to make low-cost "micromotors" for surgical instruments, tiny tweezers to study cells and miniature speakers. Babak Ziaie, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering, holds a miniature birdlike shape made from the material. The wings move slowly, but the structure is not capable of flight. (Credit: Purdue University photo/Andrew Hancock)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 6, 2010) — Researchers at Purdue University have created a magnetic "ferropaper" that might be used to make low-cost "micromotors" for surgical instruments, tiny tweezers to study cells and miniature speakers.

The material is made by impregnating ordinary paper -- even newsprint -- with a mixture of mineral oil and "magnetic nanoparticles" of iron oxide. The nanoparticle-laden paper can then be moved using a magnetic field.

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Mystery of World's Biggest Beasts Possibly Solved

The primitive whale Mammalodon colliveri might have sucked up prey from seafloor mud, suggesting the origin of today's giant filter-feeding whales. Credit: Brian Choo, Museum Victoria

From Live Science:

The origins of the largest animals in the world, the baleen whales, might be rooted in the mud, which they potentially sucked up like vacuum cleaners, analysis of a bizarre extinct dwarf whale now suggests.

The baleen whales include the largest animal to have ever lived, the blue whale. Instead of teeth, they use baleen to feed — plates with frayed edges in the upper jaw that filter seafood from the water.

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Milky Way's Dark Matter 'Turned On Its Side'

From New Scientist:

The cloud of dark matter that is thought to surround the Milky Way may be shaped like a squashed beach ball. This halo of invisible matter also seems to sit at an unexpected angle – which could be a strike against a theory that challenges Einstein's account of gravity.

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