Sleep is important. Okay, maybe eight isn't the magic number anymore, but sleep is important. Now, it seems that medical research into the nature of sleep is paying off as the UK Daily Mail reports scientists are working on a "Sleep Machine."

It is not made of magic sand and run by a guy named Sandman.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison believe that it is possible to induce or "stimulate" the brain into going to sleep mode. It revolves around making the brain produce "slow-wave activity" which is typical of deep, non-dream state (no rapid eye movement or REM) sleep.

These researchers used harmless magnetic pulses to produce these waves. The effect is to produce a deep-sleep power nap, equivalent, they say, to the restorative effects of eight hours of rest.

There is some skepticism regarding its therapeutic use. One sleep expert contends that the real challenge is getting insomniacs to sleep in the first place. Although this is the claimed objective of the U. of Wisconsin-Madison research, perhaps the contention is that it's not enough to simply trigger slow-wave activity and induce the effects of sleep... The patient has to actually sleep in the first place and not merely simulate it.

Two ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: cut down on its production, the direct approach, or see if you can salvage the byproduct... could this be considered the indirect approach?

University of California-San Diego scientists have unveiled a device which they hope will be able to make a dent on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere - and get something economically useful out of it. It's a catalytic converter that strips CO2 into carbon monoxide (CO), and oxygen (O). And, making Mother Earth smile even more, it's designed to use sunlight to power the catalysts.

Now the device is not yet optimal, so it requires a little extra juice from an external power source to complete the reaction. Still, it is a promising start. Now, carbon monoxide ain't exactly a breath of fresh air, but when captured, it does have some useful chemical and industrial uses. It can also be converted into liquid fuel (And so as long as it doesn't get into the atmosphere, well, we should be safe).

Currently the scientists are experimenting with gallium-phosphide materials for the solar-energy half of their catalytic converter. Because it can convert more solar energy into electrical energy, they believe that it should supply enough juice to complete the splitting reaction. Hey, it's a start, and it's way better than bellyaching.

Wonders never cease. A study in the British medical journal The Lancet demonstrates the surprising ability of a new class of anti-HIV drugs to, in combination with other treatment, reduce the presence of the retrovirus and boost immunity in the study's trial patients. The drug is called raltegravir, an integrase inhibitor.

Backgrounder: integrase is one of three enzymes needed by HIV to replicate. Stop the integrase, negatively affect the ability of the insidious little bug to reproduce itself (which is what viruses do). Up until now, there has been no successful integrase inhibitor that could do the job, the news report in the online Sydney Morning Herald (via AFP) explains.

The study showed that, among 178 patients divided into four groups, in 65% of those taking various doses of raltegravir, the amount of HIV-genetic material "dropped below a measurable threshold... nearly five times as many as the placebo group." The study's authors are hopeful that, should the drug show no long-term side effects, and if HIV doesn't develop a resistance to the drug, raltegravir could play a major role in HIV treatment.

It's not that all those probes and rovers have been looking in the wrong place. The polar ice caps aren't part of the search range for signs of Martian water ('cause, doi, they're ice caps). But recent estimates by scientists from a joint-NASA Italian Space Agency experiment show that there's even more water than previously thought.

There's more ice down south than previously thought. Enough to cover Mars with a layer of water approximately 11 meters/36 feet deep. Hope you guys brought some swim bladders.

Says Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Jeffrey Plaut, "The south polar layered deposits of Mars cover an area bigger than Texas. The amount of water they contain has been estimated before, but never with the level of confidence this radar makes possible." These calculations were conducted with readings off the European Space Agency's Mars Express' radar system, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS).

This discovery is part of the research into the geological (and potential biological) history of the Red Planet, however. Along with those aquifers and the occasional breakout of Martian acne water, researchers try to discover if Mars had ever supported life in the past - and how all that water ultimately retreated underground and to the poles.

You've seen Neubit's Acidmod of Chotto Shotto into an IR-based night vision camera, and suffice to say, you pray one's not looking down on you as you sleep. Keep praying. F00 f00 tells us that Neubit got around to posting in Acidmods, Part One of his how to turn Sony's Chotto Shotto into an invasion of privacy lawsuit waiting to happen a night-vision camera.

We'll leave it as a Read link for the technically inclined to work on, that they may have dark-room recording capabilities, too. We can explain some of the details of the mod (Part One), not to mention how night-vision works, so that people who are still confused as to how night-vision devices (NVD) work will understand the mechanics behind this mod.

This mod falls under the category of active IR NVDs: they use infrared light (e.g., a remote control IR diode) as a "flashlight" to light up the night. The NVDs you might be more used to are passive NVDs used in the military, such as the one pictured left. They rely on low-light amplification with image intensifiers to lift the blanket of the night. IR NVDs are not normally used in military applications, as the opposition can detect the IR flashlight with their own IR NVDs.

IR-wavelength light is invisible, so our eyes can't pick them up. The Chotto Shotto camera can pick up IR light, but an IR light filter in the assembly filters out the IR spectrum. Part One of the mod involves taking this filter out of the picture, which (in low-light conditions) turns the Chotto Shotto into an active IR-ready NVD. Part Two, when Neubit posts it, will cover the IR flashlight built into the mod, but even with Part One, you could probably use a remote control as a mobile flashlight for your purposes, if it's powerful enough.

Now if that purpose involves videos that may require HideMov/HideMedia BETA II video file stealthing... you did not get this idea from us.

Thanks, F00 f00, for getting this idea to us, but we swear we're not getting any ideas (on how to use this thing)!

 

Time for a daily serving of the bizarre, and no, this isn't about giant squid that will make tire-sized calamares... although this story could be related to using stem cells to pump up the dirty pillows. The Korea Times reports on efforts by a team at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology to farm stem cells from (and we embolden text as emphasis) combining monkey cells with cow egg cells.

Er... didn't you guys watch or read The Island of Dr. Moreau when you were children or something?

The exact term is "interspecies nuclear transfer" - transferring genetic material from one species into the cells of another species. In this case, last month, monkey DNA was successfully infused into cow ova (egg cells) whose nuclei have been removed. While the resulting blastocyst cells, from which stem cells are extracted, failed to thrive, the team was confident they were on a roll in their research.

The future application of this tech - if society would allow them, the research team warned - would be to make human stem cells (with human genetic material) with animal ova, so as to sidestep ethical concerns governing the use of human embryos. Er, well and good on the intention department, but does anyone have a scientific guess as to any potential side effects of this move? Okay, how about some wild animal guesses? We're not kidding. Never mind the ethics: human DNA in animal egg cells. Like we said: didn't anyone watch The Island of Dr. Moreau?

 

It had to be a record launch for the space agency. As reported by the Associated Press, NASA launched the most number of satellites in a rocket - FIVE - last Saturday. This was part of a mission to study geomagnetic substorms in the Earth's atmosphere. The satellites are collectively known as THEMIS, for Time History of Events and Macroscale Interaction during Substorms (not to be confused with THEMIS, the Thermal Emission Imaging System on the Mars Odyssey orbiter).

Scientists believe that geomagnetic substorms help intensify aurora displays (which is a good thing), as well as short out communications satellites, knock out power grids, and nuke airline passengers and spacewalking astronauts with high levels of radiation (definitely not good). And they don't know how they occur. Definitely not good either, considering what they could do to airline passengers.

The mission team at the University of California-Berkeley ground station confirmed that THEMIS was working fine after launch.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared and approved the sale of the Hairmax Lasercomb, a product designed to combat men's thinning hair with lasers. Not that its manufacturer/distributor, Lexington International LCC, would have needed FDA approval to sell the product, but FDA's endorsement kind of lends a lot of... er, official weight to a potential cure for baldness, or at least thinning hair.

Hey, if the FDA says it works... Hairmax Lasercomb works by striking the scalp with a low-power laser while you brush (what little remains of) your hair to promote the growth of thick hair. The technology developed out of the use of lasers for skin and hair therapy in Australia, miniaturized and commercialized into a sold-for-US$ 545.00 (full payment, not including shipping and handling) package.

Now we ask: Is that hair? VANITY!

More pictures from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) show more signs of abundant and flowing water on Mars... once upon a time. These new pictures, such as the one used by National Geographic in reporting this, show cracks on the Martian surface that look like aquifers.

Yeah, this adds to the body of evidence that Mars had water once, but what's new about this? Scientists are theorizing that the same cracks might exist underneath the surface of Mars. With this in mind we have the potential explanation for the signs of water erosion they saw back last year with the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS).

Now that water on Mars is somewhat established by the evidence, some NASA scientists are suggesting that the search for life on Mars should shift from the current strategy of looking in places where there are signs of water, to something more focused. One suggestion is to focus more intently on the geology of Mars, studying rocks to find signs of microbial activity there. They believe that these microbes could live by harnessing chemical energy from the rocks, as some Earth-bound bacteria do.

The boss won't like this article. Recent research has proven that napping on the job reduces the risk of developing heart problems. Now, this should be obvious, considering that jobs often are a source of heart problems, and besides, have you ever seen pre-kindergarten tots stressing out like Dilbert?

Science demands greater rigor in proof, though, and to that end 23,681 healthy Greeks were observed in what is the largest study to date on health napping, reports a CBS New York affiliate. Results? Those who snoozed for half an hour three times weekly had a 37% lower risk of dying from cardiac illnesses than workaholics who charged through the workday. Workers claimed improved productivity when they were given a chance to grab blanky, suck thumbs, and get a gold star for afternoon napping.

The concept of siesta ain't exactly de rigeur across the US or in other places around the world, but this might change the bosses' mind. Some companies have in fact embraced the concept and built dedicated napping rooms. This writer would settle for a pillow on the table. The keyboard ain't exactly designed to ergonomically support the head.