This isn’t the science fair you remember… college and high school students from around the world are using synthetic biology to build novel forms of life. They traveled to MIT to compete in the unusual event known as iGEM- the International Genetically Engineered Machines competition.
Living on Earth's Ike Sriskandarajah attended the event and brought us this story.

Listen to the story on Living on Earth.

(Photo by iGEM and David Appleyard via Flickr/CreativeCommons)

Malaysia is a country historically known for government control over media and internet access. That changed in 2008, when an election upheaval replaced some of the ruling coalition’s seats with members of the opposition party.

Now, the prime minister of Malaysia is trying to win back the attention of his constituents, and has climbed atop the digital pulpit – reaching out through blogging, Facebook and Twitter.

From BBC’s Digital Planet, reporter Jennifer Pak brings us the story.

It was a busy news week - if you weren't following the State of the Union, you might have been rediscovering the life of J.D. Salinger. Or, if you're into tech, you may have watched the introduction of the Apple iPad, or at least the many positive and negative responses to it. Now I'm not here to judge, but I did invent my own new device this week: the bAwesome, a 12G mobile computer app device phone set that brings you awesome links wherever you are. Just another step in the building of the Here's What's Awesome brand. We don't just think different - we think awesome!

In summary, a robot that squeezes the Charmin
Reduce, reuse and recycle, the mantra goes, and with the new White Goat machine you can do all of them at once! You feed used paper into the Goat and you get a roll of 100% recycled bathroom tissue about a half hour later! The inventors say you can save something like 60 trees a year with their machine, though there are a few catches here. One is that you have to shred the paper in small batches, at least if you use the built-in shredder. The other catch is that the machine costs about a hundred thousand dollars. Even the eco-friendly tissue looks like a comparative bargain here, though it's still a pretty cool process. Maybe you can go in on one machine with everyone you've ever met in your life?

[EcoFriend]

If metal foam could cook, I'd marry it
As light as aluminum, stronger than steel. No, it's not a superhero, it's a new composite called metal foam. Developed by a scientist at North Carolina State University, the "foam" combines steel and aluminum in a way that could lead to a lot of safety-enhancing innovations - for example, she says a car bumper using steel foam would make a crash at 28 mph feel like 5 mph. Wow. Also cool on the safety front is this super-survivor drug that could help stabilize wounded soldiers and keep them from going into shock before they can get full medical treatment. [TechEBlog]

Measure twice, turn off a lightswitch 20 feet away once
This falls under the "just plain cool" category: some construction workers develop astounding precision with their tape measures:

[Boing Boing]

Now it's your turn: share an awesome link by posting in the comments, and you will develop the strength of steel foam, the dexterity of the tape measure guys, and the eco-cred of the White Goat, all at once.

Since the Christmas Day bombing attempt, airport security has boosted its efforts to keep plane travel safe. Along with x-rays and body-scan machines, now security personnel may also call on psychics to read the minds of would-be terrorists. Although this sounds a bit far-fetched, it’s not out of the realm of possibilty.

One company plans to combine the technology of sophisticated sensors with behavioral psychology. The security system developed by Israeli-based WeCU Technologies projects images onto airport screens that only a potential terrorist would recognize. The logic behind the method is that people can’t help reacting to familiar images that suddenly appear in unfamiliar places. Trained screeners and hidden cameras would then look for darting eyes, a nervous twitch or heavier breathing.

Although it may keep us safe, critics claim that the system sounds right out of the Tom Cruise film, “Minority Report.” And that merely thinking about breaking the law shouldn’t warrant arrest. How far do you think airport security should go to keep plane travel safe?

Tonic: Are Psychics in the TSA's Future?

(Photo by Josh Thompson via Flickr/CreativeCommons)

Neither animal nor vegetable nor mineral, slime is not generally thought of as an intelligent life form. As Henry Fountain explains in the New York Times, slime mold is a “single-celled amoeboid organism." What does it do? It eats. And in seeking food, slime mold builds something very appealing to modern science: efficient networks.

In two experiments, researchers placed oat flakes in a pattern – one represented major cities in England, and another mimicked the towns around Tokyo. In both cases, the slime mold’s system of tubular structures grew from flake to flake to create corridors that appeared remarkably similar to the actual UK road system and the Tokyo rail network Not only that, Fountain reports that the slime systems resembled the human ones in three important ways: “The researchers found that the slime mold network was as efficient as the rail network, it tolerated breaks in the connections just as well, and it was created at reasonable cost to the organism.”

Should we design future mass transport with slime mold? Sounds good to me - slime doesn’t run for office and isn’t motivated by money or perks. Scientists say they aren’t proposing design-by-slime, but wanted to learn more about creating adaptable systems and to understand how other natural networks – like a tumor’s blood vessels – develop. They also created a mathematical model illustrating the slime solution, so that humans might apply slime logic to network design. Models are neat, but in tough economic times, consultants who are paid in oat flakes are pretty appealing.

The New York Times: Slime Mold Proves to Be a Brainy Blob

The Economist: A Life of Slime

(Photo by oceandesetoiles via Flickr/CreativeCommons)

The West African country of Mauritania has become a transit point for African immigrants bound for Europe. Makeshift boats leave Mauritania’s coast and travel for 500 treacherous miles north to Spain’s Canary Islands. Many hopeful migrants never reach their destination.

World Vision Report’s Will Everett introduces us to a Nigerian priest who’s trying to educate immigrants on the dangers of the voyage and give them tools to find a better life back in their native countries.

Listen to the story on Public Radio Exchange.

(Photo by Dr John2005 via Flickr/CreativeCommons)