IBM Updates Its Blade Server Lineup with PlayStation 3 Chips
	IBM has just introduced a new blade server offering for high-performance computing, powered by Cell processors. The new offering is especially targeted at financial services, digital media creation, and medical imaging, as the updated Cell processor comes with better support for floating point operations. According to the company, the new BladeCenter QS22 runs on PowerXCell 8i processors featuring the latest Cell micro-archite ... [read more >>]
	14 May 2008, 05:12GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Secret of the World's Largest Bacterium Revealed
	This is like the blue whale of the bacterial world. Epulopiscium is as big as a mountain when compared to other bacteria, having the size of a grain of salt and being a million times larger than the common E. coli bacteria: you can see it with the naked eye. A new study carried out at Cornell and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal has unveiled the secret of this gigantism: it consists in the ability of ... [read more >>]
	09 May 2008, 03:35GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Soon, Artificial Blood
	Blood supply (or lack thereof) is a real medical issue today, as there are never enough donors. A new research carried out at by a team led by Joseph DeSimone, a chemical engineer the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, could partially solve the problem, as NewScientist notes. Red blood cells transport oxygen to body tissues via the bloodstream, while also removing the toxic carbon dioxide. These cells squeeze in thr ... [read more >>]
	08 May 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Method Catches Rapists in 30 to 45 Minutes
	DNA is the irrefutable proof in many outstanding criminal cases. However, about 250,000 DNA samples aimed to detect a rapist can remain anywhere from 3 to 12 months in forensic laboratories backlogs, and this gives suspects more than enough time to make themselves disappear. The issue could be solved by Jessica Voorhees Norris, a Ph.D. candidate in forensic chemistry at the University of Virginia: her newly developed method f ... [read more >>]
	08 May 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Your Number of Fat Cells Is the Same Since Adolescence
	Whether you look like Peter Doherty or Michael Moore, there is a fixed number of fat cells in your body since adolescence, as revealed by a new research published in the journal Nature and carried out at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. This number of adipocytes (fat cells) seems to be achieved during teen years and then remains constant in life, even if bodyweight can and does vary a lot. The Swedish researchers tested sub ... [read more >>]
	05 May 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

4 Things About Foraminifera
	The Foraminifera ("Hole Bearers") represent a group of amoeba-related protozoa that produce a test (shell) which can have either one or multiple chambers, and in some cases can be extremely complex. The shells are perforated by holes through which the unicellular animal extends its "tentacles", called "pseudopodia", which are employed for both attaching and feeding, like in the case of Amoeba. In fact, Foramin ... [read more >>]
	18 April 2008, 09:59GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Toshiba's SpursEngine, Inspired by PlayStation 3's Cell Processors
	Japanese manufacturer Toshiba has begun sampling units of its SpursEngine chip, a high-performance co-processor inspired from IBM's Cell processor, that powers Sony's PlayStation 3 games console. The new chip is designed to take care of intensive applications for graphics design and image manipulation. The SpursEngine comes to complement the main processor, and not to replace it. It is extremely suitable for handlin ... [read more >>]
	08 April 2008, 09:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Red Wine Treats You of Cancer
	French are real lover boys thanks to the consumption of red wine. Resveratrol, an antioxidant polyphenol found in red wine, red grapes and pomace (winemaking residue), has been proved by many researches to boost heart health, erection and to impede prostate cancer and tooth decay, while also hampering bacterial infections. A new Rochester study published in the journal Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology explained for t ... [read more >>]
	26 March 2008, 17:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Umbilical Cord Can Regenerate Your Brain
	The umbilical cord can make more than the belly button: it regenerates your brain. Human umbilical cord blood cells (UCBC) injected into old lab rats caused an improvement in the microenvironment of the hippocampus nucleus of the brain, accompanied by a rejuvenation of neural stem cells. The study carried out at the University of South Florida (USF) was published online at BMC Neuroscience. "Brain cell neurogenesis decreases drama ... [read more >>]
	17 March 2008, 05:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How to Build Your Own Supercomputer Using A Rack Of PlayStation 3s
	The brand-new PlayStation 3 from Sony is surely one of the best recipes for having fun. If the average user would enjoy setting off into a difficult mission with Solid Snake in the Metal Gear series or smashing some alien creatures in the Alien versus Predator, some true tech geeks would put gaming consoles to new and amazing use. Astrophysics scientist Gaurav Khanna is one of the latter kind of console users. Such tech geeks ... [read more >>]
	29 February 2008, 04:17GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Solar Cells of the Future Will Mimic Moth Eyes!
	The idea of solar cells is so cool! They would come with such cheap energy, and everybody would be a Captain Planet fighting pollution. But what many people still do not understand is that they are so inefficient at this moment. A new research published in "Applied Physics Letters" could come with a step further to the moment when solar energy will be most of the energy we use daily. "Some of that inefficiency is due to ... [read more >>]
	23 February 2008, 06:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Montalvo Cooks Opteron and Cell Hybrid Processor, Takes Intel Down
	Montalvo Systems is secretly designing a new breed of energy-efficient multicore processor. The company has finished the design of a chip aimed at mobile computing. When it gets finished, it will be compatible with all the x86 software that can run on both AMD and Intel chips. Despite the software compatibility, the chips built by Montalvo systems will be radically different from any existing chip design. For instance, its cor ... [read more >>]
	15 February 2008, 03:38GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

No More Men for Reproduction: Sperm from Female Cells!
	One day, man's job in the family may be just to cut the lawn and change the light bulb when necessary. This is because researches like this one made at the University of Newcastle could put them out of the reproductive business. The team led by Professor Karim Nayernia has now created spermatogonia (the cells from which sperm cells come, in other words, proto-sperms), starting with human female bone marrow cells! Previously, the t ... [read more >>]
	01 February 2008, 05:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Did Life Appear?
	Life is subdued to a continuous development. With each new generation, advantages increase, while disadvantages are removed, and new possibilities are exploited. An ancestral species forms several new species and can disappear, or to survive in its original form adapting to its own niche in the system. The result is a complicated network of relationships connecting living organisms on Earth to ancient disappeared ancestors. Remains of ... [read more >>]
	28 January 2008, 10:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Beating Lab Made Hearts!
	Broken feelings may not be repaired through engineering, but broken hearts can be. In fact, heart attack kills annually 50,000 people, only in US, and it is experienced by 550,000. A new research published in "Nature Medicine" and carried on at the University of Minnesota is the first ever to have built a beating heart tissue in the lab, through the process of decellularization, using dead rat and pig hearts. "The idea wo ... [read more >>]
	14 January 2008, 02:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Cell-phone Conversations Slow Down the Traffic
	Until now, it has been well known that talking on your cellphone while driving could get dangerous. A new survey shows that talking on your mobile while in traffic may cause some delays as well. That's pretty logical as the one who's driving has to focus his ... [read more >>]
	03 January 2008, 09:59GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A New Way to Die
	There are cases when death can be a really good thing. Imagine, for instance, the cancer cells. However, so far, only two ways of cell death have been known: apoptosis (when the cell destroys itself) and phagocytosis (when the cell is digested by another cell). Now a new type of cell death has been found: entosis, when a cell crawls inside other cells to be destroyed. The phenomenon has been spotted 25 years ago, but its signi ... [read more >>]
	03 December 2007, 05:44GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Scientists Achieve Embryonic Stem Cells from the Skin!
	In the end, there may be no need to kill human embryos for getting stem cells, as two teams have achieved embryonic stem cells from human skin cells. The newly induced pluripotent cells could turn into various cell types of the human organism. "The advantage of using [such] reprogrammed skin cells is that any cells developed for therapeutic purposes can be customized to the patient. They are probably more clinically relevant than ... [read more >>]
	21 November 2007, 02:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Technology Watches Brain Cells Multiplying
	A few months ago few would have agreed that the adult brain keeps on forming new brain cells. But after researches confirmed the discovery first made in 1998, now they have at their disposal a technology to view stem cells in the brains of living animals (humans included) allowing the researchers to watch neurogenesis (brain cells genesis). "I was looking for a method that would enable us to study these cells through[out a] life ... [read more >>]
	20 November 2007, 05:22GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Best Stem Cells - Discovered in the Menstrual Blood!
	Cloning poses a huge ethic debate. That's why scientists have been focusing on various sources for getting stem cells, necessary for technologies of organ replacing. We have witnessed tests made on stem cells coming from skin, fatty tissue, bones, testicles, and now, from an unsuspected source: menstrual blood! The thickened womb wall during a woman's menstrual cycle has been found to comprise stem cells, as mentione ... [read more >>]
	19 November 2007, 04:43GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Breakthrough: Mind-Reading Software Could Make Paralyzed People Speak!
	In movies, machines and people can read your mind. Till we achieve that, a first step could be done, which would be quite a breakthrough: translate the thoughts of a paralyzed person into speech in a pioneering experiment. Jonathan Brumberg from Boston University revealed the results of his team at the meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, California last week. The researchers made their investigation with Eri ... [read more >>]
	16 November 2007, 05:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Type O Blood Protects People Against Malaria!
	500 million people in the tropics are infected by malaria, a disease caused by a protozoa spread by the female of the Anopheles mosquito. The parasite triggers fever, shivering, articulation pains, severe headache and vomit. Each year, 1.5 million people die of malaria, a child every 30 seconds. It is endemic in 101 countries, mainly tropical, in Africa, Asia and America, and perhaps this one killed most people in history, of all infec ... [read more >>]
	09 November 2007, 03:25GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Odd Blood
	The sickle cell anemia is one of the worst hereditary conditions connected to the African race. The mutant gene that causes it is delivered by both parents. In Nigeria, out of a population of 120 million, 1 million people suffer of the sickle cell anemia and 60,000 die annually of it. Haematids or blood's red cells have the role of transporting oxygen from lungs to tissues and carbon dioxide from tissues to lungs. They do this wit ... [read more >>]
	01 November 2007, 03:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Does the Retina Turn Light into Brain Visual Images?
	90 % of the information we get about our environment comes through our eyes. Humans are visual beings. But how light turns into visual sensations is hard to explain. A new research published in Neuroscience sheds light on how the human and primate retinas turn light into signals going to the brain. The team funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) discovered a cell type in the output (ganglion cell) layer of the retina ... [read more >>]
	30 October 2007, 08:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Memory's Cell Base Discovered!
	There is an intensive hunt for finding what's behind the memory, the very chemical of the recalling. Now a team at Georgia Institute of Technology has found some molecular interactions on cell surfaces that could work like the "memory", changing the way the cells will interact in the future. The paper has been published on October 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Sequentially repeated te ... [read more >>]
	30 October 2007, 07:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Toshiba Displays an Alternative to the Cell CPU
	Sometimes developing a new piece of technology in the computer hardware industry takes more resources that are available to a single company and then alliances and partnerships are formed, just like it was the case with the Cell processing units which were developed through a joint effort by IBM, Sony and Toshiba. This processor find itself a use almost immediately in the hugely popular PlayStation 3 game console and while it looks that So ... [read more >>]
	21 September 2007, 11:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Waterproof Glue of the Future?
	These are more than simple Amoebas: the single-celled animals called Foraminifera, floating in the plankton, are amongst the most abundant organisms in the ocean's organic mass. Many produce bioluminescence seen in the ocean during the night and the largest species, even if they do not oversize a fingernail (which is already extraordinary, as there is just one cell), can catch and ingest creatures many times bigger than their own[ADMA ... [read more >>]
	19 September 2007, 07:03GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

IBM Boosts Blade Servers' Performance
	The blade server design is one of the most popular and successful designs around the server market as it allows a greater degree of flexibility than other models and comes with several practical advantages like decreased price, ease of expandability and so on while maintaining a high performance. In order to maintain is high status on the server market IBM announced the launch of a new generation of blade servers which are based on the ... [read more >>]
	31 August 2007, 09:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Playing God: Scientists Could Create Synthetic Life in the Next 3 Years
	Some scientists are playing God, and they're getting increasingly closer to actually succeeding in this game. Within 3 to 10 years, some research team could even create man-assisted "wet artificial life." "We’re talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways — in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Ital ... [read more >>]
	22 August 2007, 03:10GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Breakthrough: New Microscope Makes 3-D Movies of the Live Cells
	Now, porn really can go down to a very low level. Scripts can include sperm cells and eggs or bacteria if you want. A MIT team has designed a microscope that acts like a camera generating three-dimensional movies of live cells. The device functions like a cellular CT scanner, giving researchers the opportunity to see how cells really behave in real time. The new technique is more than a combination between resolution and live action, ... [read more >>]
	14 August 2007, 03:49GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Green Tea Found to Be a Dandruff Slayer
	That famous healthy British skin has its secret: green tea. Now, green tea could lead to a new treatment for skin disorders like psoriasis and dandruff, as found by a team at the Medical College of Georgia. The researchers performed tests on an animal model to study the inflammatory skin diseases, characterized by patches of dry, red, flaky skin due to inflammation and overproduction of skin cells. Animals treated with green t ... [read more >>]
	09 August 2007, 07:15GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

By 2008, No More Implants: Stem Cells for Bigger Boobs
	It's cleat that breasts are rather a sexual ‘mark’ than having a clear breastfeeding purpose in humans. Because otherwise it's hard to explain 300,000 breast augmentations and reconstructions performed in the US only in 2006, a triple number compared to 1997: any woman wants to feel attractive. But the classical implant technique posses many complications and dangerous consequences for one’s health. Clinical data shows that 56,17 ... [read more >>]
	06 August 2007, 14:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New World Speed Record for Cell-Powered Vehicle
	There are many advocates for the cell-powered vehicles as an environmentally friendly alternative to the standard gas and other oil-based fuel burning vehicles. But others say that the market won't embrace this variant as these vehicles would be too slow. Now, a group of Japanese students has come to prove the contrary: they ran a dry cell-powered vehicle at an average speed of 105.95 km (65.83 mi) per hour on Saturday, ... [read more >>]
	06 August 2007, 05:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Are Raw / Undercooked Beans Toxic?
	Do you like Mexican chili? Hot and spicy... But if you think the problem posed by the beans is the "jet propulsion", you're wrong. Lectins, a type of proteins with natural insecticide qualities and found in abundance in raw legumes and grains, can have more severe temporary effects. Lectins strongly adhere to carbohydrates found on the cell surfaces, especially the heavy-sugary coats of epithelial cells on the gastrointes ... [read more >>]
	02 August 2007, 04:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Sony Shows a Cell Computing Board
	Sony announced a prototype computer board based on the Cell processor architecture, a processor that is very close to the chip found in the gaming console PlayStation 3, and that prototype computer board will be shown at a conference in the U.S. The Cell processors were developed during a joint research program by IBM, Sony and Toshiba and each Cell chip consists of a main processor and eight sub-processors that add up to an impr ... [read more >>]
	01 August 2007, 10:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What Is The Link Between Termites, Cows and Cars?
	Although not very obvious, there is a link between termites, cows and cars: bacteria. Some of these little critters are helping cows and termites digest cellulose, and some can produce electrical current and could be used in fuel cells that could power up future ecological cars. A group of researchers at Penn State University came up with the idea of carefully pairing these bacteria in a fuel cell that consumes cellulose and produces el ... [read more >>]
	28 July 2007, 04:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Do Muscles Get Tired?
	The strong and prolonged contraction of a muscle during exercising causes sooner or later muscle fatigue. Researches showed that the fatigue increases while the glycogen stored in the muscles decreases. The glycogen is a glucose polymer, like an animal starch. When the muscle needs glucose to burn, the glycogen cuts off from its large macromolecule small molecules of glucose. The glucose is burned with oxygen brought by the b ... [read more >>]
	17 July 2007, 12:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Does Our Immune System Work?
	Our immune system cannot be turned on or off like a light switch. On the contrary, it responds to an invasion of bacteria, viruses or parasites through a combination of defensive weapons which adapt smoothly to the situation. The simplest reaction of the immune system is for example that triggered by a mosquito bite: an inflammation. When the insect has bitten, the immune system sends cell groups that do not have any special defensive ... [read more >>]
	16 July 2007, 14:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Breakthrough: Lab Grown Vaginas!
	You won't believe it, but there are women born with no vagina! A genetic condition, called Mayer-von Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome (MRKHS), affecting one in 5000 women, induces the lack of vagina development during embryogenesis. These patients can have a normal uterus, ovaries and external secondary sexual development, like breasts, but they cannot have sexual intercourse or give birth. If their ovaries are normal, ... [read more >>]
	14 July 2007, 05:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Stem Cells to Bring Boobs Back!
	Breasts represent femininity. Having small breasts can turn into an obsession for many women. You can imagine what losing them means for a woman! And this is exactly what happens in many cases of breast cancer. Many doctors have tried to take fat from other body parts (breasts are made mainly of fatty tissue) to build up breasts, but such reconstructions often fail as the fat is just reabsorbed. Now, the stem cell technology, ... [read more >>]
	13 July 2007, 14:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

IVF Presents Increased Risk of Delivering Twins
	Couples undergoing IVF are struggling for years to have a baby and when this happens, it comes in a number bigger than 1, in at least 40 % of the cases. In fact, the latest cases of sextuplets are the result of IVF treatments. But the issue is that multiple pregnancies have worse outcomes and in many cases these babies are born prematurely and over 100 of them die annually only in UK, not mentioning the fact that the mother& ... [read more >>]
	05 July 2007, 06:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Human Stem Cells from Animal Eggs
	It is clear that stem cells research could boom the medical advance. Currently stem cells are extracted from human embryos, but there is a major ethical issue around this theme: the stem cells' extraction destroys the embryos. In US, this type of research does not receive federal funds. Ian Wilmut, famous for cloning Dolly the sheep in 1996, is calling on researchers to use the injected human DNA into animal egg ce ... [read more >>]
	13 June 2007, 03:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Stem Cells Directly from Adults
	Stem cells promise everything: from new hearts to new testes or eyes. Now, researchers have announced major advances in stem cell research: directly reprogramming fetal mouse cells to be indistinguishable from embryonic stem (ES) cells. This way scientists could get cell lines tailored to individual patients without any need for eggs or embryos. By inserting various combinations of genes related to pluripotency active in ... [read more >>]
	08 June 2007, 03:42GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Does HIV Infection Spread Inside the Body?
	HIV, the virus causing AIDS, impairs our immune system and it does it so well that till now, no cure has been found. A new Hopkins research explains how the virus manages to spread itself inside the body, infecting new cells. The findings reveal how unwittingly the organism implies in auto-infecting itself, not leaving the job just for the virus, in the case of HIV and other retroviruses. "It appears that cells make H ... [read more >>]
	05 June 2007, 15:21GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Fuel Cells Twice as Efficient as Generators
	A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device. It produces electricity from external supplies of fuel (on the anode side) and oxidant (on the cathode side). These react in the presence of an electrolyte. Generally, the reactants flow in and reaction products flow out while the electrolyte remains in the cell. Fuel cells can operate virtually continuously as long as the necessary flows are maintained. Now, a new t ... [read more >>]
	05 June 2007, 15:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Most Effective Solar Cells Surpass the 40% Efficiency Milestone
	A real breakthrough has been made by a team of scientists in the field of solar energy converters. The new discovery is a fuel cell that, for the first time, surpassed the 40% efficiency milestone, the highest efficiency achieved for any photovoltaic device. Solar cells have many applications. They have been used for a long time in situations where electrical power from the grid is unavailable, such as in remote area power systems, Ear ... [read more >>]
	04 June 2007, 15:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

For Both Vegans and Meat-Eaters: Lab Grown Meat
	This could satisfy both vegans and meat-eaters: lab grown meat. A Dutch team is trying to grow pork in a lab with the aim of delivering meat for millions without raising and slaughtering animals. "We're trying to make meat without having to kill animals," said Bernard Roelen, a veterinary science professor at Utrecht University. "Although it is in its early stages, the idea is to replace harvesting m ... [read more >>]
	04 June 2007, 15:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Boeing Want Fuel Cells on Their Aircraft
	One of the giants of the aircraft industry is considering the possibility of installing a hydrogen-powered fuel cell which would provide backup power in aircrafts in emergency situations when the main power goes offline. Boeing started a collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories to examine the feasibility of using the alternative fuel source on commercial and military aircraft, which currently use a variety of techniqu ... [read more >>]
	31 May 2007, 04:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Low Temperature Laser Creates Powerful Silicon Solar Cells
	Harvesting solar energy is a clever way to make use of a clean and renewable fuel. You don't need to dig the ground for it, there are no pipes and powerplants, and best of all, it's ecological. Unfortunately, existent solar cells are not too efficient and can't convert more than 10 percent of the solar energy into electricity of heat and they don't exactly come cheap, either. A new technique developed by Researchers ... [read more >>]
	30 May 2007, 10:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Insulin Obtained from Adult Stem Cells
	After four years of research, researchers have discovered a way to engineer adult stem cells from human umbilical cord blood to synthesize insulin. This could lead to a revolutionary treatment against diabetes. "This discovery tells us that we have the potential to produce insulin from adult stem cells to help people with diabetes. (This research) is just the first step up the rung of the ladder." said senior author Dr. Randa ... [read more >>]
	28 May 2007, 03:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia