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Using CRISPR gene editing techniques, scientists in Germany and the United States have worked to create a corrective technique for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) mutations. The scientists say their work with CRISPR is simpler and more efficient than methods current methods trying to correct the underlying genetic basis of the disease.DMD is one of the nine types of muscular dystrophy. It generally effects boys and starts weakening muscles as early as age 3....

When we were younger, we learned that snipping the plastic six-pack rings that held our sodas together would prevent curious sea creatures from getting their appendages stuck in them—and thereby save them from dangerous entanglement. But these days, more than just plastic rings threaten our marine mammals, and the harm done goes well beyond a stuck snout. Case in point: Winter, a one-year-old bottlenose dolphin, who was found with the blood flow to her tail cut off by the buoy line of a crab trap....

The world of 1976: A high-tech wonderland of self-driving cars and smart roads, where the dapper motorist can program his destination and let his glorious land yacht handle the driving. Or so General Motors predicted in this must-be-seen-to-be-believed 1956 promotional film that the company screened back then at its traveling auto show, Motorama.If you can spare 9 minutes to watch this full clip, unearthed by Philip E. Ross at IEEE Spectrum, you won’t be sorry....

Media Platforms Design TeamToday Facebook made another big purchase, buying up virtual reality leader Oculus VR for $2 billion. The deal includes $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock. This news comes a week after Oculus revealed its Development Kit 2, which was said to be its last dev kit before releasing its commercial product.“Mobile is the platform of today, and now we’re also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a press release....

A Vietnamese fighter pilot recorded this below footage of a wasp flying around inside his $37 million dollar fighter jet. A camera caught the stinging insect emerging from the rear of the cockpit canopy. The flying insect was caught inside the cockpit by a helmet camera worn by a Vietnam People’s Air Force (VPAF) fighter pilot. The insect was trapped inside a VPAF Su-30Mk2 Flanker twin-engine heavy fighter. Vietnam has 35 Russian-made Su-30Mk2s, which can operate in both the air superiority and deep strike roles....

In every corner of the globe they lurk, scouring trade shows and science labs for imaginative new materials, processes and gadgets. They are the technology hunters. Their quarry? The most fantastical innovations on the planet, things like self-knotting rope, water-soluble glass, and odor-detecting ink. Not only are these items absolutely real, they represent just a few of the incredible finds by Inventables, a Chicago-based firm that connects the developers of unique materials with Fortune 500 companies that want to use them in their products....

With proven medical treatments for aging, brain disease, unrefreshing sleep, and low productivity years, or even decades, away, some people consider self-experimentation to be the fastest route to a healthier, happier, longer life. They call it biohacking. But does it work? For two months, I hacked myself to find out. My goal was to separate the science from the BS. But if I ended up stronger, smarter, faster, healthier, calmer, more creative, and more productive, that would be okay, too....

littleBits are fantastic little gadgets. Essentially LEGO, but for electronics, the snap together pieces let kids (and kids at heart) magnetically attach buttons to sliders to speakers to whatever else and build out circuits that range from dumb and fun to ones that are actually useful. Now, littleBit’s newest kit takes things a little further by letting you build full-on gizmos and gadgets.The new kit comes with 15 separate modules with a wireless hub that lets you control your creations from a smartphone app....

Logitech just made a gamer’s wish come true—a mouse pad that continuously charges a mouse, whether in use or not.As desktop usage declines among the general population, mice are increasingly becoming exclusive gear for dedicated gamers. There’s a certain freedom in becoming a niche market, though, one that allows companies to focus on the specific needs of a certain market, and Logitech’s Powerplay wireless mousepad and the G703 Lightspeed Mouse will make sure a gamer’s mouse never runs out of power....

Media Platforms Design TeamMORE NEW IPOD COVERAGE• ANALYSIS: How New iPod Could Kill Nintendo DS & Sony PSP• PLUS: Top 5 iPod Features Apple DIDN’T Unveil Earlier this morning, we predicted—correctly, it turns out—that the new iPod Touch from Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event today wouldn’t include any of our wish-list items. No camera, no Wi-Fi VoIP, no Bluetooth, nothin’. In fact, except for a slightly slimmer form factor and lower price point, there’s not all that much new in the iPhone’s younger cousin that Steve Jobs announced this afternoon....

Spinning wheels carry a lot of potential to generate power, even as a vehicle is slowing down. But most of the energy used to brake a car’s wheels is converted into heat and wasted. At least, that was true until automakers got serious about using regenerative braking systems to capture that waste and convert it into electricity. Those systems primarily have been relegated to cars, from mild hybrids such as the BMW 3-Series to gasoline-electric hybrids like the Prius to full-blown EVs like the Chevy Bolt....

We continue to explore the island of knights and knaves and spies, where there are three types of people: knights, who always tell the truth; knaves, who always lie; and spies, who can lie or tell the truth at will. ProblemOn the island of knights and knaves and spies, you come across three people. One wears blue, one wears red, and one wears green. You know that one is a knight, one is a knave, and one is a spy....

It begins as something that looks like a grub gorging on goo, but in the span of just a minute, a wriggling, jiggling, hairy baby bee emerges. Okay, in real time what you’re seeing here is really the first 21 days in the life of the insect, but Anand Varma sped up his footage in the video seen here to capture the strange and marvelous birth of a bee.Media Platforms Design TeamVarma was contracted by National Geographic to photograph bees, and so he began keeping them in his backyard in Berkeley, CA....

SpaceX has not had a very good week. Initially things were looking good with the successful launch of their Falcon Heavy, and the company even managed to land all three first-stage boosters this time around. However, a few days later the company announced they had lost the center booster at sea after a set of rough waves.Then over the weekend, SpaceX announced that their Crew Dragon capsule—the vehicle SpaceX plans to use one day to ferry astronauts to space, experienced some sort of fiery ‘anomaly,’ according to a company statement....

A group of Swedish skaters found four wild pigs struggling to traverse an icy lake. They used the tools at their disposal to give the swine a little push, and in the process may have invented a new, not-so-PETA-approved sport. Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you Vildsvinscurling, or pig curling.View full post on VimeoPosted on Vimeo three weeks ago, the video shows a boar struggling to get across a lake and away from a small island, where it’s speculated that the group of pigs had run out of food....

In 1953, it was still unclear how nuclear weapons would change the modern battlefield and pretty much every major army in the world was grappling with the question. The explosive power unleashed on the city of Hiroshima, the equivalent of 16,000 tons of TNT in a single bomb, was a turning point in history for sure, but how would it change tactics on the battlefield? You find out, as this YouTube video by Plainly Difficult explains, by nuking a tank and seeing what happens....

Whether you end up on #TeamCap or #TeamIronMan, there’s one thing that’s certain in Captain America: Civil War. Everyone ends up on #TeamThatWasAwesome. Frankly, we’re surprised it’s not a trending topic yet.This latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (episode 13 with at least nine more planned) is a little darker than most. Considering that our four-color friends spend much of the film beating the enhanced snot out of each other, that shouldn’t be a surprise....

Capt. Mike Kanaan woke up at 3 A.M. with an idea. The 29-year-old U.S. Air Force intelligence officer had been mulling a familiar challenge, the problem of finding coders and computer-savvy airmen, who are in high demand and short supply all across the Pentagon. His wee-hour solution: Treat computer coding skills like the service does any other mission-critical foreign language.The Air Force prides itself on its global reach, and so the service fosters and rewards foreign language skills....

The Permian Extinction, 200 million years ago, was the single greatest species die-off in the history of the world. Over 90 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species died. Despite being such a large event, its direct cause has eluded scientists so far. Theories range from asteroid impacts to volcanic eruptions to increased ocean acidification. A new study submitted to the journal Global and Planetary Change provides new evidence for a different option: too much burning coal....

Every six to eight years, massive dust storms can envelop Mars’s whole surface. NASA’s Martian probes are currently watching one unfold over the Red Planet. Scientists saw a small-scale dust storm begin on May 30th, and by June 20th, it’d gone “global,” engulfing the whole planet. For the NASA Opportunity rover, visibility dropped from that of a sunny day to an overcast one. Because the rover runs on solar energy, researchers suspended it to preserve its batteries....