I usually disapprove of genetic manipulation, especially when I heard about the glow-in-the-dark cats last year, but I'm actually not against this new project from Mars (the chocolate company, not the planet). Mars wants to decode the genetic structure of the cacao tree. That is, the plant where chocolate comes from. Story in the full article.

Meep meep. The PlayStation 3's powerful hardware does it again, contributing its powerful Cell Broadband Engine to create the world's fastest supercomputer, er... again. Named the Roadrunner, this new supercomputer runs at speeds exceeding one petaflop - that is, one thousand trillion calculations per second. Let's see Wile E. Coyote try to catch up with that. Watch a mini-documentary of the supercomputer in the full article.

A new technology being developed by IBM can potentially expand your favorite media storage device to over 500,000 songs or around 3,500 movies. Using a special "racetrack" memory technology, the new storage device will have the capability to store more data in the same amount of space possible with lightning fast boot times and lower production costs. For more details regarding this new technology, read more about it in our full article.

Apparently, scientists have been able to do something simply astounding with Linden Labs' MMOPRG. They were able to create artificial life in the form of a child-like intelligence in Second Life, named Eddie. Read more on this by heading over to the full article.

Ever wondered about atoms? Well, you're not alone. IBM scientists have taken their thoughts on atoms to whole new level. In fact, they were able to measure the force needed to push a single atom through the use of a tuning fork. Find out more in the full article.

We know that you are already proud of the Cell Broadband Engine that can be found in PlayStation 3 units. Aside from providing you with the most exciting gameplay experience, the chip is also responsible for bringing about medical breakthroughs.

Today, we learned that Mayo Clinic and IBM decided to collaborate yet again to help improve medical imaging technology. At the heart of this project is the unassuming chip. Know more after the jump!

Moving beyond being a more-than-capable multimedia player, Sony's PlayStation 3 has proven itself to be very useful even in the field of science. Eight PS3s clustered together are helping scientist Dr. Gaurav Khanna investigate the gravity waves that are supposed to emerge once a massive black hole swallows up a star.

Khanna said that the PS3 was an ideal tool for his research due to the fact that it can run Linux, and that its powerful Cell processor - which is also used by IBM's fastest supercomputer Blue Gene/P - is more than capable of doing the computations needed to solve the mystery of the gravity waves.

Prior to getting eight PS3 units, Khanna was used supposed to get a supercomputer. But since a supercomputer cost US$ 5,000 in grant money, the scientist figured that he can save more by buying eight 60GB PS3 units (worth US$3,200) and clustering them together, calling them his "gravity grid".

Khanna was able to petition Sony to grant him the PS3 units, which were given to him free of charge. "Once I was able to get to the point that I had this kind of performance from a single PS3, I think that's when Sony started paying attention," Khanna said.

So how are the PS3 units - the gravity grid - faring in his research? "I don't have to use that supercomputer anymore, which is a good thing," he said. It tells a lot on how powerful the PS3 can get.

Programming and 3D graphics professionals from IBM Zurich recently announced that they can create a Google Earth for the human body. That is, they can come up with a way to create a program that browses the human body using layers and layers of 3D images. The program is called Anatomic and Symbolic Mapper Engine (ASME).

Such an application could come very handy in revolutionizing how today's medical practitioners write medical records. Instead of mere text and numerical values, graphics could be viewed displaying the human body with the ability to point ti any given part and learn everything about it using sights, sounds, and numbers.

The proposal is a welcome one and is considered a huge leap in 3D-imaging application to everyday life, but some are questioning how the whole project would turn out when push comes to shove. Website Realityme says there's quite a few challenges that must be hurdled by IBM Zurich before they can truly be convincing.

First is the disparity in the comparison of human body imaging techniques to that of Google Earth. Realityme says that these are two different subjects that will be approached differently. Where Google Earth only shows the Earth's surface using height, length, and width, the human body is volumetric and has complex sections and organs inside.

Attempting to do this with hopes of doing everything as "real-time" as possible would be fairly difficult. Considering how unique human bodies are in measure, even getting your particulars digitized could run up big costs.

In conclusion, Realityme says that the project is by all means feasible, though it might be a little early to issue foregone conclusions. Still, it's interesting to think that the future of medicine can be so in touch with the precision of computers. Let's just hope our 3D medical images won't be as open to the public as Google Earth.

This could be the most credible proof that the PlayStation 3 possesses formidable hardware: IBM's fastest supercomputer to date, Blue Gene/P, is juiced up by the same kind of processing chip that was originally designed for the Sony PS3.

Blue Gene/P is approximately 100,000 more powerful than a PC, just enough to make PlayStation 3 owners feel proud about their powerful machine. IBM's latest supercomputer can run about 1,000 trillion calculations per second, also termed as "petaflops".

Blue Gene/P's predecessor, the Blue Gene/L, is  used to protect nuclear weapons stockpile, and has already reached a calculating speed of 280.6 teraflops or trillions of calculations. "Blue Gene/P marks the evolution of the most powerful supercomputing platform the world has ever known," said Dave Turek, vice president of IBM's deep computing, about Blue Gene/P.

IBM possesses a remarkable supercomputer manufacturing portfolio: they have produced about 50% of existing 500 supercomputers, as well as providing CELL processors for PlayStation 3 and for the Blue Gene/P. IBM also has notable competition in the supercomputing industry with the likes of Sun, maker of the Constellation machines.

The first batch of Blue Gene/P are slated for use at the following institutions: the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council, and two unnamed US laboratories.

Peter Hofstee is one of the brilliant minds behind the Cell that powers our PlayStation 3 (PS3) video game consoles. Designs for the technology, which started seven years ago, include multiple uses aside from playing video games. And the fruits of his labor, including those of Microsoft's and IBM Corp.'s, are beginning to be realized today.

Aside from the Folding@Home Project that has received a very warm welcome within the gaming community, the Cell technology is being used quite differently in Rochester, Minnesota. Mayo Clinic researchers are currently using an IBM Cell blade server and the clinic's own software to accelerate the processing of 3D medical images such as magnetic resonance imaging.

Germany Fraunhofer Institute scientists, on the other hand, used several Cell servers to reconstruct a 3D image of a beating human heart from MRI scans. The importance of this is that it allowed doctors to view the organ with special glasses and make virtual incisions in real time.

Also, the University of Washington in Seattle utilized the technology last year by demonstrating how the Cell technology can improve the quality and speed of ultrasound scans. "In the future, you might be operating on somebody and repairing their heart valve while only making minimal incisions and not even having to string a camera inside," commented Hofstee.

Hofstee's own PS3 is one of the 30,000 units newly lined up to participate in the Folding@Home project. Currently, more than 270,000 systems are actively helping, two-thirds of which are PS3 units.