Science is responsible for a lot of good things. The problem is everything in this world has a downside and science is no exception. Researchers in the United Kingdom have been given the green light to genetically modify embryos. This is one area where a lot of good things could be accomplished such as eliminating genetically caused diseases and correcting genetically caused faults. Working in this area also has tremendous risk. It seems to me there should be certain restraints put on researchers, otherwise some of this type of experimentation could cause horrible genetic deformities. We all know if you put enough scientists on a project and let them do anything they want there will be at least one or two who will do some horrific thing. Look at the terrible things which were done in World War II. What we don’t need is a repeat of life threatening experiments perpetrated on innocent embryos. Having said that correcting genetic diseases would be an incredible thing. Last year Chinese scientists said they had genetically altered human embryos causing quite a stir in the scientific community. The one thing we don’t need is a real life Island of Dr. Moreau. There are things scientists want to know such as why out of every 100 fertilized eggs just 25% actually implant themselves and why just 13 develop in the next three months. Most scientists applaud this move, because they say understanding early human embryo development will help to develop strategies to assist infertile couples and reduce miscarriages.

Some civilians think science is getting a little creepy and a new patent from IBM doesn’t allay their fears. IBM has filed a patent for a search engine. You are probably thinking so what, what is creepy about that, there are plenty of them out they are ready. The thing is there are no search engines like the one the patent is for, because this search engine is being developed to search your memory. The idea is to use a personal assistant to help you remember anything you can see and it will suggest things you might’ve forgotten based on a routine. Supposedly the machine will be able to figure out what is important to you and will help you using a screen or by audio. The inventor of the system has said that human memory is not the same as computer memory. He went on to say we don’t have pointers and we don’t have addresses where we can just look up the data we need. He said the idea was quite simple, you monitor an individual’s context whether it’s what they’re saying or what they’re doing and you predict what comes next. This sounds pretty incredible to me, but I guess we’ll wait and see how it works out. It would be nice to never forget anything again wouldn’t it?

Scientists have thought that even if our brains used electricity to transmit signals, the electricity is too weak to create waves. They recently got a shock, excuse the pun, when they found out they were wrong while checking a mouse brain, because of this they are now studying the human brain to see if they can actually pick up transmission. They are finding while the electrical fields are extremely weak they do travel across a mouse brain at about 10 centimeters per second and are consistent with an electrical field. The scientists are hoping to find out how brain waves are associated with memory, epilepsy and even healthy psychology. Let’s take a step back for a second. I think most of us know we are always looking for new weapons and to me this looks like a future opportunity to be able to read people’s minds someday. We live in a society where everything we do and say is being watched right now that all this is being done to protect us from terrorism. Will people be told in the future that everything they think has to be monitored to protect them from terrorism? I certainly hope this never comes to pass.

Scientists are conducting an experiment which if successful would change the entire face of physics. It is being called a sacrilegious hypothesis, but if it turns out to be true it will cause us to rewrite all our books on nuclear physics. The theory the scientists have is that protons can change inside the nucleus of an atom under certain conditions. It is currently believed this is impossible. One scientist said for many scientists the idea the internal structure of protons might change under certain circumstances can seem absurd even sacrilegious. He said he is interested in finding evidence to this effect, because it would explain some of the inconsistencies in theoretical physics. Protons are composed of small structures called quarks and are held together by gluons. Scientists believe today a proton inside the nuclei of an atom has the same exact structure as a free proton. The problem with this is it doesn’t quite work out for quantum chromodynamics. Chromodynamics is the theory that describes interactions between quarks and gluons.

3-D printers are getting more common every day. They haven’t taken off like regular printers have, but there are still quite a few of them around. When they create something layer by layer it has the same color as the material which is being used and many of these printers require you to finish the item after it has been printed since it is in a rough condition. A new system called the Holobuild Scanning System allows items to have perfect color and makes for perfect scans of an object. When the object is printed it needs no finishing. One of the spookiest things I have seen in a long time was a human face printed using this system. It looked exactly like the person down to the smallest detail and probably would’ve scared the heck out of anybody walking into the room. They would’ve thought they were looking at a decapitated head. This scanning system has an accuracy of 0.005 millimeters. The printer which was used was a ZPrinter 650 which costs about $65,000 and it is capable of printing 360,000 colors. Creating a face cost $250 in materials. This device could make an incredible tool for the police.

Today oil accounts for 39% of the worlds generated electricity and gas accounts for 22% with coal generating some of the rest. Those people who know are now predicting by the year 2030 the world’s primary energy source will be renewable energy. If this happens it should have some impact on global warming. One can only hope. We have been given the tools all we have to do now is use them.