Nexus - 1806 - New Times Magazine-pages

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GLOBAL NEWS echnologies" at Cambridge University, UK. One of the speakers, Professor Paolo Macchiarini, of the Karolinska nstitute in Sweden, told how he implanted a laboratory-grown windpipe into a man stricken by hroat cancer. Professor Doris Taylor of Minnesota University, USA, has already created a beating human eart by stripping dead cells from a donor organ and reseeding it with ive ones. (Source: The Daily Mail, UK, 5 September 2o11, http://tinyurl.com/3u393wr) Cambridge ave begun to translate the trillions of impulses that go on in our heads into readable data. In fact, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding a USS$4.9 million program oO reverse-engineer the human brain in an effort to mine its computational abilities. Some scientists, including Ray urzweil of Kurzweil Technologies, see a future where nano-robots will be injected into a person's bloodstream, head straight for the brain and then monitor activity...or ike Myriad Genetics, which controls he patents on the BRCAI and BRCA2 genes, to exclude others rom testing and conducting research on patented genes. The Supreme Court, the court that would hear any appeal, has long eld that products of nature are not patentable subject matter. A gene, even once removed from the cell, remains a product of nature. The patent-holder did not "invent" the embodied genetic information. Source: ACLU Blog of Rights, 30 July 2on, http://tinyurl.com/3kbsf8m) at an worse. (Source: YahooNews, 15 August 2011, http://tinyurl.com/3wuvy39) SPARE BODY PARTS GROWN IN LABORATORIES pare parts grown in laboratories could be just a few years away as scientists discover new ways of producing organs. They have already grown organs such as the bladder, urethra and windpipe, which have been implanted into patients during clinical trials. Now, scientists have set their sights on replicating more complicated organs, including the heart, kidneys, liver, pancreas and thymus. The advances could extend life expectancy and cut waiting times for transplants. The developments were detailed at a conference on "rejuvenation EXERCISE WORKOUT SENT SKYSCRAPER SHAKING Seventeen people performing a vigorous Tae Bo workout caused a resonant effect that forced the evacuation of a 39-storey South Korean skyscraper in early July. Prime Group, owner of the Techno Mart commercial-residential high- rise in Seoul, said 17 middle-aged people were exercising when their movements set the upper floors of the tower shaking for 10 minutes. Scientists recreated the event in the 12th-floor gym, and observed the vibrometer while performing the same kind of aerobic exercise that was performed at the time of the shaking which occurred on 5 July. (Source: CNN.com, 19 July 2011, http://tinyurl.com/3vo9sgy) WHO OWNS YOUR GENES? [ the USA in late July, a divided appellate court upheld patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancers. The ruling partially reverses a landmark decision by a federal district court in March 2010, which concluded that human genes cannot be patented. The appellate court did affirm the district court's invalidation of several claims on methods for comparing two genetic sequences. The decision allows companies c= SMART SKIN WITH ELECTRONIC “TATTOOS” Fintinees in the USA have developed a device platform that combines electronic components for sensing, medical diagnostics, communications and human-machine interfaces, all on an ultra-thin skin-like patch that mounts directly onto the skin with the ease, flexibility and comfort of a temporary tattoo. The circuit bends, wrinkles and stretches with the mechanical properties of skin. _— ~ “Okay, we’ve developed legs and migrated to land ... what does the app say is next?” 8 * NEXUS OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 20I1 www.nexusmagazine.com