science

Genetic-testing start-up 23andMe and a dozen of its California-based peers were ordered by state health officials last week to stop selling DNA tests to consumers until their operations could be investigated for compliance with state standards, according to the Associated Press.

The California Department of Public Health sent cease and desist letters to 13 companies, including Navigenics and 23andMe, which was co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google's Sergey Brin.

The reason? Consumers have apparently complained about the cost and accuracy of direct-to-consumer genetic tests newly available from the Web. Health officials want to ensure that the companies … Read more

Biochips, or silicone (not silicon) microchips that speed up the process of traditional lab tests, can help researchers track the migration of wild salmon. Or analyze the genetic makeup of an unborn child.

They can also spark drama in the courts.

This week, South San Francisco-based Fluidigm filed a request for declaratory judgment in a U.S. District Court of New York on patents involving its BioMark system for genetic analysis, a rubber chip that can be used to analyze liquids on a nano-scale. According to the filing, Fluidigm rival Applied Biosystems had charged the company with violating its patent … Read more

NEW YORK--On Tuesday night, the Discovery Channel hosted a few hundred guests at the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium for a preview of When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, filling the audience up with cocktails called "The Liftoff" (a tequila sunrise in a rocket-like champagne glass) and then packing us all into the planetarium's theater to watch some cool retro space visuals.

The miniseries got its start when Discovery embarked upon a project to archive old NASA footage in a high-definition format as a commemoration of the agency's 50th anniversary. It evolved, … Read more

It may look like one of those iPod hats or something worse, but this baseball cap is more sophisticated--in its technology, if not fashion sense.

The cap is designed to analyze the brain's electroencephalogram (EEG) waves, determining whether you're too fatigued to drive safely. It is just one use for a device developed by researchers at various Taiwan universities and the University of California at San Diego, who hope to expand the technology for applications in myrid other facets of everyday life.

There are other devices with similarly ambitious goals, but many of them require direct contact with the scalp, … Read more

On paper, it sounds pretty good. You take the carbon dioxide pollution from paper production and transform it into a paper additive.

Carbon Sciences on Monday announced that it intends to target its carbon recycling technology toward paper manufacturers.

The company has developed a process that treats carbon dioxide gas with heat and pressure, then mixes it with other chemicals to produce calcium carbonate. For a video of the equipment in a solar-panel equipped van, click here.

Calcium carbonate, or chaulk, is used in many many industrial processes. Precipitated Calcium Carbonate, or PCC, is used to add gloss or brighten … Read more

Long after the shooting has stopped, radioactive dust particles dispersed by exploding, depleted uranium (DU) artillery and tank shells leave the contemporary battlefield a dangerous place--and there's been little hope of decontamination, until now.

Researchers from Scotland's University of Dundee have discovered that common backyard fungi may be the key to cleaning and reclaiming DU-contaminated soil in places like Iraq and Bosnia.

The team found that free-living and plant symbiotic (mycorrhizal) fungi can colonize DU metallic surfaces and geochemically transform them into uranyl phosphate minerals, stabilizing the uranium, reports a study published in the journal Current Biology.

"… Read more

NASA Ames Research Center said Thursday that it has teamed with M2Mi to develop tiny satellites called nanosats that will go into building new low-Earth orbit telecommunications systems for use in the commercial sector.

"NASA wants to work with companies to develop a new economy in space," Ames Center Director Pete Worden said in a statement.

NASA signed its third official research and development agreement with M2Mi, a software and GPS sensor company that has an office at NASA's Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif. But the space agency has been working with M2Mi for at least … Read more

High price and a strange color. No, we're not talking about a hairdo. Those are the two factors that have kept light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, from becoming a mainstream light source.

But that might change soon, said Zach Gibler, chief business development officer of Lighting Science Group, which plans to announce distribution deals with major retailers for its LED bulbs that screw into a regular socket.

LED bulbs for household use have already been around for some time, but their success has been limited. The main obstacles have been that they cost more than incandescent lightbulbs and emit a … Read more

Update: This story has been corrected to reflect that the date of the public opening of the exhibit is May 10.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--"Excuse me, Richard, we have a very large parcel."

With those words, spoken by John Shulver of London's Science Museum, a day of supreme geekery unfolded at the Computer History Museum here.

To be precise, the package in question was the delivery and installation of a difference engine, a brand new model of a 19th-century-era machine designed--but never actually built--by Charles Babbage. It was designed to be a mechanical calculator which can … Read more