Researchers at UCLA have constructed a machine that takes X-ray images using a roll of Scotch tape. When pulled apart, tape generates electromagnetic waves through simple friction. The researchers discovered in a vacuum, sticky tape also sends out strong enough X-rays to image your finger.

Pretty neat, considering getting your hands on some Scotch tape isn’t too hard. Imagine if giving yourself an X-ray were as easy as purchasing Scotch tape. It’d be X-rays for everyone! Unfortunately, it only works in a vacuum which crushes any hopes we have of DIYing our own X-rays. What a drag.

Link [via]

Three scientists have won the Nobel Prize for chemistry. Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien and Japan’s Osamu Shimomura discovered and successfully developed a fluorescent protein found in jellyfish. Jellyfish will glow under blue and ultraviolet light because of this protein which the three scientists have become known for.

It might not sound like much, but this jellyfish protein has been widely used to study the spread of cancer, how brain cells develop and bacterial growth. Still don’t think it’s a big deal?

The academy compared the impact of the protein on science to the invention of the microscope, saying that for the past decade the protein has been ‘a guiding star for biochemists, biologists, medical scientists and other researchers’.

Yes, this is a big deal.

Link

We haven’t covered much cloaking technology and that’s a shame because it’s starting to come into its own. Stefan Enoch at the Fresnel Institute in Marseille, France says that established cloaking principles, such as steering microwave light around an object, could be applied to ocean waves. Because cloaking technology is still in its infancy, scientists are still working on tackling 3-D objects, but we’ve got 2-D down. This works in our favor because waves are essentially 2-D.

To put this theory to the test, researchers built a prototype. The image above is the said prototype which is tested in a wave pool. Acting like a whirlpool, the device produces forces which pull the water along the concentric corridors as a result of the waves repelling off the pillars. This causes all the water to go everywhere except the center of the cloak. Think of the possibilities.

Link

Remember that Large Hadron Collider, which was supposed to figure out all the unsolved mysteries of existence or something? Less than two days after it was started up last week, the $10 billion atom smasher was damaged when a faulty electrical connection cause a mechanical failure. Oops.

Repairs will take a few months because scientists have to carefully warm the damaged area past the particle collider’s normal operating temperature of absolute zero. The hadron collider is located in a 17-mile long tunnel under the border between France and Switzerland.

This delay must be disappointing to researchers who hoped to use the collider to replicate the big bang and analyze antimatter in order to learn about the “hidden dimensions of space and time.” If they want to figure out the secrets of the universe they really need to start with learning proper wiring techniques.

Link

In a land down under, there were plenty of new creatures found.

The Earth is billions of years old and still it continues to impress and evolve. Scientists researching an Australian reef system have found hundreds of new creatures in the ocean. New corals were found in addition to unknown life-forms.

Among the creatures researchers found were about 130 soft corals — also known as octocorals, for the eight tentacles that fringe each polyp — that have never been described in scientific literature, and scores of similarly undescribed crustaceans, including tiny shrimp-like animals with claws longer than their bodies.

The Australian researchers conducted three expeditions, one each in the waters off the Great Barrier Reef’s Lizard and Heron islands, and one in the Ningaloo Reef, on Australia’s northwest coast. Thousands of samples were collected during the three-week research trips, which took place between April and September.

Can’t wait to see what Disney comes up with in 15 years thanks to this discovery.

Link

Blood transfusions used to be a silly business involving long waits for donors that required compatible blood types. Thanks to stem cell research, waiting for these donors is no longer necessary. Scientists have used embryonic stem cells to generate blood which could eventually lead to an unlimited supply of type O-negative blood, the most sought after blood for transfusions.

“We literally generated whole tubes in the lab, from scratch,” said Robert Lanza, chief science officer at Advanced Cell Technologies.

Unbelievable, but don’t stop donating blood just yet, Lanza and his colleagues at the Mayo Clinic and University of Illinois devised this method of blood creation but have yet to test it on animals, much less humans.

“At this stage, the work is very promising, but has not progressed to the stage where the cultured cells are fully equivalent” to natural cells, said the organization in a statement. “Much more work will yet be needed before this becomes a practical reality.”

Well, I guess it’s back to the Red Cross donation center for me.  With an immunity to AIDS just a gene edit away and a cure for cancer just over the horizon, the future is looking bright for all of mankind.

Link (via)

While the image might suggest that this man is taking violent measures to extract information out of this dummy baby, there is actually a scientific story to go with this awkward image. Though we wish there wasn’t. It would make the picture so much more entertaining.

This $28,200 (€19,000) crash test dummy baby will help scientists better understand the trauma that occurs when infants are shaken, which account for 1,000 baby deaths and another 1,000 brain damage incidents per year. No word on who won the intense fight between fake baby and psycho researcher. At least the dummy doesn’t look like spokesperson bot for NAMBLA. As happy as that might have made us, it sure has hell would have added a element of scariness to the project. — Andrew Dobrow

Link

Here is another case of birds being tortured by humans in the name of tech. A research team at the University of Oxford is trying to get a better idea of how crows behave in the wild. And what better way to accomplish this than to attach cameras near its ass.

The ass camera already discovered that crows use tools, such as sticks and leaves, more than was previously thought. Crows were even seen toting their favorite tools around with them from tree to tree. — Andrew Dobrow

Link [via]