Imagine being able to check your email on any blank wall, simply by drawing an @ sign in the air with your finger, or being able to check the time by using that same finger to draw a circle, which produces the image of an analog watch right on your wrist.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7997961.stm

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Stem cells that could be used to restore hearing have been successfully created, scientists have said.

A Sheffield University team took stem cells from embryos and converted them into cells that behave like sensory hair cells in the human inner ear.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7974795.stm

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My Child, I know the Moon, when the sweet water rises, and when to plant. I am Pharaoh.

My birth tribe believed that The Couple was the source. To believe otherwise was forbidden.

In my youth, I gathered pebbles, each one a rabbit. Once I told a Hunter that my pile was his catch. He beat me, called me witch. I was banished. I wandered for the summer of my life, gathering pebbles for each sunrise and large moon. I learned the rhythm in all.

My River People now prosper; I am loved.

Come let me teach you the Pebbles.

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AUSTIN, Texas — Physicists at The University of Texas at Austin have designed a new system that, when fully developed, would use fusion to eliminate most of the transuranic waste produced by nuclear power plants

"We have created a way to use fusion to relatively inexpensively destroy the waste from nuclear fission," says Mike Kotschenreuther, senior research scientist with the Institute for Fusion Studies (IFS) and Department of Physics. "Our waste destruction system, we believe, will allow nuclear power—a low carbon source of energy—to take its place in helping us combat global warming."

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/01/27/nuclear_hybrid/

Additional links on this topic.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/12/proposed-laser-ignition-fusionfission.html

BBC Video of how it works

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7972865.stm

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ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2009) — Flexible display screens and cheap solar cells can become a reality through research and development in organic electronics. Physicists at Umeå University in Sweden have now developed a new and simple method for producing cheap electronic components. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090325092201.htm ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2009) — A groundbreaking new loudspeaker -- less than 0.25mm thick -- has been developed by University of Warwick engineers. It's flat, flexible, could be hung on a wall like a picture, and its particular method of sound generation could make public announcements in places like passenger terminals clearer, crisper, and easier to hear. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090401102239.htm

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ScienceDaily (Mar. 31, 2009) — Chemists reported development of what they termed the first economical, eco-friendly process to convert algae oil into biodiesel fuel — a discovery they predict could one day lead to U.S. independence from petroleum as a fuel.

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TAMPA, Fla.--Want to learn to sing? Now, your computer can coach you to carry a tune.

Ashley West is learning to sing and her vocal coach is a computer program called Singing Coach.

Chief technology officer Ken Spiegel works behind the scenes with this new Singing Coach software. Spiegel, Vice President and General Manager of Electronic Learning Products, Inc. in Tampa, Fla., says: "Your vocal chords vibrate. They create a pitch and frequency that's measured by the computer." It's plotted in real-time on a graph and the goal is to stay in the blue box.

"It's great to see the box and visually stay in it," West says

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2006/0202-singing_coach.htm

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The idea with this approach is that men with an incurable disorder or disease could have a biopsy of their testes, which Dym says is a common procedure in patients suspected of having testicular cancer. Testes stem/progenitor cells – those cells that can go on to produce sperm – would be removed from the biopsy tissue, and grown in the laboratory with the addition of certain chemicals and growth factors. This causes the cells to revert back into a pluripotent state, which could then be driven into chosen cell types.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090323134307.htm

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