Obesity: Scientists identify a protein that promotes the burning of body fat – “When given to mice the protein increases the production of brown fat cells – which burn calories. The discovery could lead to the development of new therapies for tackling obesity…”

Smokestack heat: Fuel of the future? – “How’s this for a tantalizing possibility: rather than install solar panels on your roof, the lost heat from your furnace could power your home…”

5 of the World’s Greatest Model Railways

One Sleepless Night Increases Dopamine In The Human Brain – “Just one night without sleep can increase the amount of the chemical dopamine in the human brain, according to new imaging research in the August 20 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Because drugs that increase dopamine, like amphetamines, promote wakefulness, the findings offer a potential mechanism explaining how the brain helps people stay awake despite the urge to sleep…”

Too many cores, not enough brains – “There are only two groups that want multicore…”

Quantum Weirdness: Two Times Zero Doesn’t Always Equal Zero – “In a surprising discovery released this week, physicists have announced that two times zero does not always equal zero…”

Portal to Maya Underworld Found in Mexico? – ” A labyrinth filled with stone temples and pyramids in 14 caves—some underwater—have been uncovered on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, archaeologists announced last week…”

At Conference on the Risks to Earth, Few Are Optimistic – “More than 120 scientists, engineers, analysts and economists from 30 countries were hunkered down here for the 40th annual conference on “planetary emergencies.””

Texas Company Patents Biomass Biofuel Technology – “Byogy Renewables Inc., a Texas company, has licensed the production of what it says is the Holy Grail of biofuel and will open a plant in the near future to create 95-octane gasoline from biomass…”

The Haptic Radar Cap – “We are developing a wearable and modular device allowing users to perceive and respond to spatial information using haptic cues in an intuitive and unobstrusive way…”

Human exoskeleton suit helps paralyzed people walk – “Paralyzed for the past 20 years, former Israeli paratrooper Radi Kaiof now walks down the street with a dim mechanical hum….”

Seeing in four dimensions – “There is the minor difficulty that our nervous systems are only equipped to conjure images in three dimensions. But that doesn’t stop Étienne Ghys of the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon, France, from visualizing the four-dimensional dynamical systems he studies: “I live in dimension four,” he says…”

[See previous IR]