Gripping stuff: the world's first bionic fingers go on sale

The world's first bionic fingers which allow users with damaged hands to pick up a glass, hold cutlery and even write have been developed by British scientists.

Phil Newman, Director of Marketing at Touch Bionics in Livingston near Edinburgh, demonstrates the new bionic fingers Photo: PA The custom-made motorised digits, which cost between £35,000 and £45,000, are directly controlled by the brain and yet require no surgery.

Those fitted with the device can bend, touch, pick up and point, simple actions which can be impossible with absent fingers and thumbs.

They can also write and grip thanks to a special sensor that allows the fingers to detect when they have closed around an object.

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Brain-Computer Interface Allows Person-to-person Communication Through Power Of Thought

New research from the University of Southampton has demonstrated that it is possible for communication from person to person through the power of thought -- with the help of electrodes, a computer and Internet connection.

Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI) can be used for capturing brain signals and translating them into commands that allow humans to control (just by thinking) devices such as computers, robots, rehabilitation technology and virtual reality environments.

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The DNA Mystery: Scientists Stumped By "Telepathic" Abilities

Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA. The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.

Even so, research published in ACS’ Journal of Physical Chemistry B, shows very clearly that homology recognition between sequences of several hundred nucleotides occurs without physical contact or presence of proteins. Double helixes of DNA can recognize matching molecules from a distance and then gather together, all seemingly without help from any other molecules or chemical signals.

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Fingernails Growing Faster

The speed of finger and toenail growth has surged by nearly a quarter over the past 70 years, a new study has revealed.

And the modern diet – rich in protein from readily available fish, meat, eggs and poultry – may be behind the spurt.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina compared results to a study of nail growth published by Oxford University in 1938 and another study from the Fifties.

The results revealed that big toenails now grow by more than 2mm a month, compared with 1.65mm in the Thirties.

Read more here.

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