Author: Jonas D.

Handheld Cancer Pen Can Detect Tumors During Surgery in 10 Seconds

Researchers at the University of Texas say they have invented a handheld tool that can identify cancerous tissue in 10 seconds during a surgical procedure.  The team at the University of Texas at Austin published in Science Translational Medicine say the “MasSpec Pen” works in real time, and is at least as accurate as removing a tissue sample and sending it to a pathologist and speeds the testing process by as much as 150 times. The way it works is based on the notion that each type of cancer has its own molecular structure that acts as a distinct “fingerprint.” Cancer...

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Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Pod Breaks Another Speed Record

Elon Musk’s proposed Hyperloop will consist of two airless massive tubes extending from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The Hyperloop pods would take passengers the 380 miles from LA to San Francisco in 30 minutes, which is half the time it takes a plane and presumably without all the added headaches of air travel. In theory, pods carrying passengers or cargo through the Hyperloop would eventually travel through the tubes at speeds topping out at 700 mph. While the current Tesla Hyperloop prototype pod is not going anywhere near that fast yet, it did just beat the current speed record of 201 mph just set...

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Non-Electronic Rover Being Prototyped For Future Venus Exploration Mission

Venus’s extremely hostile surface environment, of crushing atmospheric pressure and temperatures of hundreds of degrees make survival a challenge for man or machine.  Venus is the second largest terrestrial planet and Earth’s closest neighbor, but we have not sent a rover to explore the surface of craters, mountains, volcanoes and big lava plains for good reason.  Sending a rover like the kind that is currently roaming around Mars is just not an option as the electronics onboard would melt almost instantly after landing on the inhospitable surface with 800 degrees Fahrenheit temperature and clouds of sulfuric acid.  The Soviet Venera 13 lander that touched down in...

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Hackers Using Facebook Messenger to Distribute Malware

David Jacoby a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, is trying to get the word out that Facebook Messenger is now being used to spread malware.   Where these things start is often hard to tell but once the malware finds a victim it spreads by causing users of Facebook Messenger without them knowing to send out personalized hoax messages to their contacts that include a virus-ridden link. The messages are structured with the recipient’s name, the word ‘video,’ a shocked emoji, followed by a shortened URL link as well.  Since the message appears to be being sent by a friend,...

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MIT’s Robogami Enables Non-Experts to Custom Design & Assemble 3D Printable Robots

Robots are starting to become a part of our daily lives as they take on tedious tasks like cleaning our carpets and weeding our gardens. But while there are some special kits to make a specific type of robot the idea of making one’s own custom bot is beyond the reach of most. Some technophiles are getting into designing and modeling robots on 3D printers but the process is very complicated and costly. Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artifical Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are changing this situation by designing a system that will allow non-experts to customize their own...

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