Frontierist News

BBC News

Scientists have found new autism genes by scanning the largest collection of families with multiple cases of autism ever assembled.

The monumental task of studying the 1,200 families took more than 120 scientists from more than 50 institutions across 19 countries.

The work, described in Nature Genetics, implicates a region of chromosome 11 and a specific gene called neurexin 1.

[...]

Neurexin belongs to a family of genes that help nerve cells communicate and the scientists now believe these play a critical role in autism spectrum disorders.

CNN

This summer, scientists are planning to see whether the powdered pig extract can help injured soldiers regrow parts of their fingers. And a large federally funded project is trying to unlock the secrets of how some animals regrow body parts so well, with hopes of applying the lessons to humans.

Desktop Fabricator [found], originally uploaded by frontierist.

Autoblog

It’s called Fab@Home, and it’s an open-source, desktop size fabrication rig; essentially a [3-D] printer. What the system allows you to do is fabricate complex parts with a simple, low cost rig. All you need are the materials and the geometric information

[...]

The Fab@Home project is an undertaking of Cornell University, with the goal of democratizing innovation. Just as the desktop computer revolution was driven by innovation from all quarters, the Fab@Home system is a low-cost system that should be easily customized as it gets used for different materials and functions.