A professor of solid and structural mechanics at the University of Trento in Italy has come up with a way of combining natural spider silk and artificial graphene-based nanoparticles to produce a lightweight material three times stronger than steel. What’s more, this material is spun naturally by the spiders themselves, bypassing the need for problematic manufacturing processes.
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A new, non-invasive technique has been developed by researchers working for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that can boost the brain’s cognitive ability by up to 40 percent.
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In a recent interview with Russian News Service TASS, cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov discussed the presence of microbes that were found on the outside of the hull of the International Space Station, that were not present after the launch of the ISS’s modules. According to Shkaplerov, "it turns out that somehow these swabs reveal bacteria that were absent during the launch of the ISS module."
"That is, they have come from outer space and settled along the external surface."
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Medical researchers have saved the life of a seven-year-old boy by growing genetically-modified replacement skin for him. The young German boy suffered from a deadly congenital condition called epidermolysis bullosa, a condition that cases the sufferer’s skin to tear and blister, as if it had been burned. The procedure not only saved his life, but he’s now able to participate in sports with his classmates.
By 2015 the patient had been admitted to the burns unit at Bochum Children’s Hospital in Germany: at that point, two-thirds of his skin was either was either badly damaged or outright missing, and traditional treatments failed to yield results, including skin grafts from a donor.
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