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Science Historian Cracks the ‘Plato code’

A science historian at The University of Manchester has cracked “The Plato Code” – the long disputed secret messages hidden in the great philosopher’s writings.

Plato was the Einstein of Greece’s Golden Age and his work founded Western culture and science. Dr Jay Kennedy‘s findings are set to revolutionise the history of the origins of Western thought.

Dr Kennedy, whose findings are published in the leading US journal Apeiron, reveals that Plato used a regular pattern of symbols, inherited from the ancient followers of Pythagoras, to give his books a musical structure. A century earlier, Pythagoras had declared that the planets and stars made an inaudible music, a ‘harmony of the spheres’. Plato imitated this hidden music in his books.

The hidden codes show that Plato anticipated the Scientific Revolution 2,000 years before Isaac Newton, discovering its most important idea – the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. The decoded messages also open up a surprising way to unite science and religion. The awe and beauty we feel in nature, Plato says, shows that it is divine; discovering the scientific order of nature is getting closer to God. This could transform today’s culture wars between science and religion.

“Plato’s books played a major role in founding Western culture but they are mysterious and end in riddles,” Dr Kennedy, at Manchester’s Faculty of Life Sciences explains.

“In antiquity, many of his followers said the books contained hidden layers of meaning and secret codes, but this was rejected by modern scholars.

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Researchers Develop World’s First Plastic Antibodies

UC Irvine researchers have developed the first “plastic antibodies” successfully employed in live organisms – stopping the spread of bee venom through the bloodstream of mice.

Tiny polymeric particles – just 1/50,000th the width of a human hair – were designed to match and encase melittin, a peptide in bee venom that causes cells to rupture, releasing their contents. Large quantities of melittin can lead to organ failure and death.

The polymer nanoparticles were prepared by “molecular imprinting” a technique similar to plaster casting: UCI chemistry professor Kenneth Shea and project scientist Yu Hoshino linked melittin with small molecules called monomers, solidifying the two into a network of long polymer chains. After the plastic hardened, they removed the melittin, leaving nanoparticles with minuscule melittin-shaped holes.

When injected into mice given high doses of melittin, these precisely imprinted nanoparticles enveloped the matching melittin molecules, “capturing” them before they could disperse and wreak havoc – greatly reducing deaths among the rodents.

“Never before have synthetic antibodies been shown to effectively function in the bloodstream of living animals,” Shea says. “This technique could be utilized to make plastic nanoparticles designed to fight more lethal toxins and pathogens.”

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last update: May 17, 2012

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New Rubber Compound May Bring an End to Flat Tires

Scientists at the Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI) in Paris have developed a new rubber compound that is capable of mending itself. The new material can be torn, ripped, cut, or punctured, and can repair itself using hydrogen bonding. This new compound would come in handy for a multitude of applications, including the need to replace tires due to punctures, etc.

The compound is actually just a manipulation of current rubber compounds. Today’s rubber can provide elasticity through covalent, ionic, and hydrogen bonding. This new development, however, uses only hydrogen bonding, which can bring itself back to original strength simply by adding a little bit of pressure at room temperature.

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Japan Wants Mind-Reading Robots by 2020

A few weeks ago, an article in Japan’s largest business newspaper cast an exciting and somewhat startling vision of the future — Japan’s goal to make mind-reading devices and robots commercially available by 2020. These robots would act as personal assistants using Artificial Intelligence that could determine whether you are hungry, tired, hot or cold, or in need of assistance.

Brain-Machine Interface devices currently exist in the U.S. and abroad and involves something called an EEG (Electroencephalography) sensor synced with a computer which can be controlled by thought. We’re talking about turning on your coffee machine just by thinking about it or changing the channel on your television, or applying the brakes on your car.

We’re years away from making these technologies commercially available, but trials are promising and the thought of mind-reading AI bots is exciting. Right now, prototypes include headbands, helmets, and actual brain implants to interpret brainwaves.

Thought Controlled Wheelchair:


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First Solar Cells to be Printed on Paper

We’re in one of the most fascinating times for the development of technology. We’re harvesting electricity from algae, and steering vehicles with our eyes. And now, according to professionals at MIT, we’re printing solar cells directly onto paper.

Basically, an organic semiconductor material is applied to the paper using a technique similar to that of a standard inkjet printer. This new technology would transform solar cells from large, heavy and expensive products to something you could staple anywhere. Though the technology is not yet ready for commercial markets, the ability to print solar cells is quite exciting.

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Li-ion Battery That Lasts 10 Years From Hitachi

The current average lifespan of a rechargeable lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery is roughly 5 years. Hitachi has just announced that they think they will be able to produce a Li-ion battery with almost twice the life span. Working with Shin-Kobe Electric Machinery they’ve been able to make versions for small applications like cameras, cellphone and laptops. They hope to eventually make them larger for use in hybrids, EVs and even for storing excess energy produced by wind farm generators.

For those who are interested in the specifics, the new battery uses more manganese for the positive electrode and reduces the use of the far more expensive cobalt. The new cathode material is the composite oxide lithium manganese spinel (LIMn2O4), a crystalline material that is much more stable than the previous cathode material. This is what makes the the longevity possible, it reduces the leaching of the cathode material into the electrolyte. In addition, the new batteries will be cheaper due to the reduced amount of cobalt.

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Printed Origami Offers New Technique for Complex Structues

Although it looks small and unassuming, the tiny origami crane sitting in a sample dish in University of Illinois professor Jennifer Lewis’ lab heralds a new method for creating complex three-dimensional structures for biocompatible devices, microscaffolding and other microsystems. The penny-sized titanium bird began as a printed sheet of titanium hydride ink.

The team will publish their novel technique in the April 14 online edition of the journal Advanced Materials.

Small, intricate shapes made of metals, ceramics or polymers have a variety of applications, from biomedical devices to electronics to rapid prototyping. One method of fabricating such structures is by direct-write assembly, which the Lewis group helped pioneer. In this approach, a large printer deposits inks containing metallic, ceramic or plastic particles to assemble a structure layer by layer. Then, the structure is annealed at a high temperature to evaporate the liquid in the ink and bond the particles, leaving a solid object.

However, as more layers are added, the lower layers tend to sag or collapse under their own weight – a problem postdoctoral researcher Bok Yeop Ahn encountered while trying to manufacture titanium scaffolds for tissue engineering. He decided to try a different approach: Print a flat sheet, then roll it up into a spiral – or even fold it into an assortment of shapes.

Folding the printed sheets is not as easy as it would first seem.

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Researchers Find Electrical Current Stemming From Plants

In an electrifying first, Stanford scientists have plugged in to algae cells and harnessed a tiny electric current. They found it at the very source of energy production – photosynthesis, a plant’s method of converting sunlight to chemical energy. It may be a first step toward generating “high efficiency” bioelectricity that doesn’t give off carbon dioxide as a byproduct, the researchers say.

“We believe we are the first to extract electrons out of living plant cells,” said WonHyoung Ryu, the lead author of the paper published in the March issue of Nano Letters. Ryu conducted the experiments while he was a research associate for mechanical engineering professor Fritz Prinz.

[photo via InfraNet Lab]

The Stanford research team developed a unique, ultra-sharp nanoelectrode made of gold, specially designed for probing inside cells. They gently pushed it through the algal cell membranes, which sealed around it, and the cell stayed alive. From the photosynthesizing cells, the electrode collected electrons that had been energized by light and the researchers generated a tiny electric current.

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