Still waiting for your metaphorical flying car? Author and disciplined futurist Charles Stross wants a few words with you: Assuming we avoid a systemic collapse, there'll probably be a moon base, by and by. Whether it's American, Chinese, Indian, or Indonesian is anybody's guess, and probably doesn'...

Biotech, VC, Life Sciences Luke Timmerman wrote: There are easier things to do these days than trying to organize a biotech investing conference in Seattle. The local cluster has taken its share of body blows, the weather is usually pretty gray in late winter, and investors aren’t in the mood ...

Biotech, Drugs, Life Sciences Stewart Lyman wrote: Seattle’s biotech community used to be among the top-ranked in the nation. But as some 2,500 layoffs have piled up in the local biotech sector since 2002, Seattle has tumbled in the rankings. We need to face up to this fact first, before we ca...

Guess which city in the province of Ontario, Canada has the best record of entrepreneurial start ups over the recent period? Toronto? Wrong! Waterloo. Off the mark! Give up? Well its Oshawa, the city that has been hard hit by auto sector layoffs [hat tip to Andrew Maxwell for the stats] Unempl...

Tiny doll made of living cells According to an announcement made on January 22, the researchers created the tiny figurine by cultivating 100,000 cell capsules -- 0.1-millimeter balls of collagen, each coated with dozens of skin cells -- together inside a doll-shaped mold for one day. After the cell ...

As regular SHSers know, I love non controversial biotechnology. Here's another good example. If it works, it will be a case of life imitating, well not art exactly, but schlock. Scientists have invented a mini robot that might be injected into a stroke patient's blood stream with which to perform de...

Imagine new treatments for heart disease or muscle loss that direct the body to repair damaged tissue rather than helping it cope with a weakened condition. That's not hard to do thanks to Canadian researchers, who for the first time, have developed an organic substance that attracts and supports ce...

Biotech, Devices, people Luke Timmerman wrote: Washington state’s life sciences trade group has a new boss, Chris Rivera, who has made a career in the high-pressure world of sales and marketing of new biotech drugs. Rivera’s new challenge, starting this month, is to help strengthen this ...

Immortalist Jason Silva on the tyranny of aging and death: I've been healthily preoccupied with the assumed inevitability of death for at least half my life. Elsewhere, I've summarized my own thoughts on the dilemma: Any humans around a thousand years from now should have the ability to reinvent lif...

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