• Technology

    DARPA's "Programmable Matter" Project Creating Shape-Shifting Materials

    By Dan Smith Posted on 6.8.2009 9 Comments

    "Programmable matter" is such a far-out concept that it’s difficult to imagine it even existing outside the movies. But, thanks to some creative work done by scientists funded by DARPA (who else?), it might actually become a reality, creating materials that can be programmed to alter themselves at the molecular level into various shapes and then disassemble to form entirely new ones.

    6.8.2009 at 11:36pm - Comment by JFeatherston

    Huh, they must have copied this technology from that cube they have underground in area 51. Now we can make our own decepticons and autobots!

  • Science

    The Latest Man-Made Organs

    By Elizabeth Svoboda Posted on 9.18.2008 6 Comments

    Almost 100,000 people languish on organ-transplant waiting lists. But new tissue-fabrication techniques should make swapping in a man-made liver as easy as snapping Lego bricks into place. Blood vessels Method: 3-D printer When: 5 years Gabor Forgacs, a tissue engineer at the University of Missouri, is making blood-vessel networks by culturing three types of vessel cells and loading them into a fridge-size bioprinter. This machine prints out the cells to build capillaries in preprogrammed patterns.

    9.25.2008 at 11:56pm - Comment by JFeatherston

    could we possibly be able to create new super organs? like replace our ribs with the webbed rib cages on Indiana Jones or have like a super heart that filters out cholesterol or something?



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December 2009: Best of What's New

In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.

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