I am going to start lumping science news and alerts into one mega post for you to peruse. Tell me what you think of doing things this way. Today, i am linking to stories on virus batteries, computers that do bench work, computers that figure out universal laws, sleep disorders, new thin speakers, and a new  study on diversity (an issue near and dear to my heart). Enjoy!

Virus-built Battery Could Power Cars, Electronic Devices (Science Daily)

At Dorkbot on Wednesday, i saw LED lights being powered by a human sweat battery. Now these MIT researchers have found a way to make a functional state-of-the-art battery using genetically modified viruses.

The new batteries, described in the April 2 online edition of Science, could be manufactured with a cheap and environmentally benign process: The synthesis takes place at and below room temperature and requires no harmful organic solvents, and the materials that go into the battery are non-toxic.

Both technologies use different sources (one the electrolytes in sweat, the other, the coating of these viruses and carbon nanotubes)  to produce the classic positive and negative ends of a battery that facilitate the march of electrons, or current. Why is this important? The batteries acheive storage capacities comparable to that of ones intended for next generation hybrid cars, and in their first prototype. For people concerned about the environment the production process is clean, and the virus is a well known strain of a bacteriaphage that does not infect humans. Of course, there is always the possibility that in the wild, this virus could mutate and cause harm, but there is no way to guage what that may be.

Here Clean Technica talks about the batteries.

Sleep Problems In Adults Linked To Increased Risk Of Suicidal Behaviors (Science Daily)

“People with two or more sleep symptoms were 2.6 times more likely to report a suicide attempt than those without any insomnia complaints,”

Don’t ignore your sleep patterns! Lady Macbeth was onto something.

Being Isaac Newton: Computer Derives Natural Laws From Raw Data (Science Daily)

With minimal rule input, a super computer scanned a massive data set of physical observations, (like the movement of a pendulum) and was able to come up with Newtons basic laws of gravity. This is a monumental moment!

The researchers have taught a computer to find regularities in the natural world that become established laws – yet without any prior scientific knowledge on the part of the computer. They have tested their method, or algorithm, on simple mechanical systems and believe it could be applied to more complex systems ranging from biology to cosmology and be useful in analyzing the mountains of data generated by modern experiments that use electronic data collection.

Think of what this may mean for understanding such massive processes like the economy, or global warming, or universe expansion. Computers can see patterns in massive datasets human brains can not comprehend…yet. For most things that need interpretation, for humans, it’s about how it is portrayed. Billions of numbers does not really mean much to us, that is why we come up with indices and bellweathers and extrapolate. This does not replace the human as researcher of existance, but it will definitely enhance it. The computer does not output equation ‘but “invariants” – mathematical expressions that remain true all the time.’

Wired’s take on this moment

Now the next story, as a former tech, freaks me out.

Robot Makes Scientific Discovery (Mostly) On Its Own (slashdot)

A science-savvy robot called Adam has successfully developed and tested its first scientific hypothesis, discovering that certain genes in baker’s yeast code for specific enzymes which encourage biochemical reactions in yeast, then ran an experiment with its lab hardware to test its predictions, and analyzed the results, all without human intervention.

This could revolutionize the drudgery of bench work. Already, the most well funded labs, have amazing setups to do tissue culture and some basic molecular biology. but this, this will make some technicians obsolete, however, it will allow them to be more involved in the actual science being done.

Adam has cost roughly $1 million to develop so far. Spending the same amount on lab techs would probably yield a more reliable system, King noted. But he added that Adam can investigate a thousand experiments a day, and still keep track of all the results better than humans can.

ScienceBlogs take on Adam.

Diversity Linked To Increased Sales Revenue And Profits, More Customers (Science Daily)

The case and need for diversity strengthens:

In one of only a few studies to empirically examine the implications of organizational diversity, sociologist Cedric Herring found that a workforce comprised of employees of both genders and varying racial backgrounds resulted in positive business outcomes.

New flat-speaker tech could make public places even louder (Engadget)

click me

How annoying is it trying to hear in the subway any announcement? Most times, it’s completely incomprehensible, and in a world where safety concerns are a premium, we have to do something about this.