From an article at nanowerk.com: Microtubules are architectural struts in nerves. They have dynamic parts that constantly assemble and disassemble, but also stable parts that remain assembled. In recent years, researchers working in neurobiology have been intrigued by the idea of microtubule-stabilizing drugs as a therapy to augment nerve regeneration. "Previous authors proposed that damaged [...]

DNA is the stuff of life, but it is also the stuff of nanotechnology. Because molecules of DNA with complementary chemical structures recognize and bind to one another, strands of DNA can fit together like Lego blocks to make nanoscale objects of complex shape and structure. But researchers need to work with much larger assemblages [...]

From an article by Julie Barr (via Robotics Daily): What are the legal rights of a robot? This is one of the many questions MIT Media Lab researcher Kate Darling contemplates as part of her work in robot ethics. Robots have been working for decades in manufacturing, but now robots that focus on human interaction [...]

From an article by AZOnano: The 2010 Nobel Prize-winning, carbon-based material known as graphene will likely play a large role in our future, yet very few people outside the scientific community have heard of it. Graphene is a two-dimensional layer of carbon that conducts electricity better than copper; it is the thinnest material on the [...]

From an article by Max Tegmark, PhD at kurzweilai.net: In his new book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, MIT physicist and AI researcher Max Tegmark explores the future of technology, life, and intelligence. The question of how to define life is notoriously controversial. Competing definitions abound, some of which include highly specific [...]

The International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS 2017) will be held on October 11-12, 2017 at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, Las Cruces, New Mexico. ISPCS has set the industry standard for commercial space conferences. ISPCS offers an intimate setting that fosters unrivaled networking, an agenda rich in content, and [...]

From an article by By Sarah Lewin, Space.com Associate Editor: Researchers have used brain-like "neural networks" to analyze key distortions in space-time 10 million times faster than conventional methods can do so. The new study trained an artificial-intelligence system to examine features called gravitational lenses in images from the Hubble Space Telescope as well as simulated [...]

When environmental and soil chemist Baoshan Xing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst began reading in 2014 that a new, two-dimensional material known as layered black phosphorous (BP) was gaining the attention of biomedical researchers for use in drug delivery systems and tumor photothermal therapy, he was both intrigued and concerned. "I am not only [...]

From futurism.com: Researchers have started developing artificial intelligence with imagination – AI that can reason through decisions and make plans for the future, without being bound by human instructions. Another way to put it would be imagining the consequences of actions before taking them, something we take for granted but which is much harder for [...]

From an article by Sarah Knapton: Nanomachines which can drill into cancer cells, killing them in just 60 seconds, have been developed by scientists. The tiny spinning molecules are driven by light, and spin so quickly that they can burrow their way through cell linings when activated. In one test conducted at Durham University the nanomachines took [...]