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The human body is often likened to a high-performance machine. But it is so much more than that. It works 24 hours a day for decades without (for the most part) needing regular servicing or the installation of spare parts. It runs on water and a few organic compounds, is soft and rather lovely, reproduces itself with enthusiasm, makes jokes, feels affection and appreciates a red sunset. How many machines do you know that can do any of that? There is no question about it. You are truly a wonder. And how do we celebrate the glory of our existence?...

Bioprinting, or the process of creating human tissues through 3D printers, is a highly contested area of technological innovation. Theoretically it could save the economy billions on a global scale, whilst boosting weak or war-torn countries' access to more affordable health care and provision, whether producing prosthetic limbs or highly customised fully-working human organs. From a technological perspective, the rise and development of 3D printing and its capabilities will play an undeniable part in our future lives. But how does the process work? UK-based company PrinterInks has teamed up with US startup Organovo, a company specialised in designing and printing...

You'll like this video, it leaves you agog and hopeful. Alexander speaks again, after the film in the Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKyljukBE70

Research by a group of Montreal scientists calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell. Their results appear in the July issue of the journal Human Mutation. This discovery may undercut the rationale behind numerous large-scale genetic studies conducted over the last 15 years, studies which were supposed to isolate the causes of scores of human diseases.

Too bad Ginger White, a Bradenton figure artist and director of the Anna Maria Island Art League, found it necessary to go to Sarasota to exhibit her work. White experienced censorship at the Manatee County Public Library in Holmes Beach last year and had to relocate her work to the Digital 3 Gallery in Sarasota. Chalk drawings, which included bared breasts, were taken from view at the library because they were said to be too near the children's section. As if children haven't seen breasts since birth. As if children think of nudity in the same way adults do. Not...

Time may indeed be on your side. If you can just last another quarter century. By then, people will start lives that could last 1,000 years or more. Our human genomes will be modified to include the genetic material of microorganisms that live in the soil, enabling us to break down the junk proteins that our cells amass over time and which they can’t digest on their own. People will have the option of looking and feeling the way they did at 20 for the rest of their lives, or opt for an older look if they get bored. Of...

NEW DELHI: Modern science tells us that love is essentially a chemical phenomenon. All the things you feel when you're in love can be explained by the presence of certain chemicals — say, phenyl ethylamine which is associated with a feeling of bliss, or oxytocin which is found to be high in breast-feeding mothers. While research on the subject is still not conclusive, there are suggestions that religious and spiritual experiences, too, might be built into the complex circuitry of our brains. At least that's what research in two American universities appears to indicate. Research at the University of Wisconsin...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A pregnant woman lies on her side with a hand behind her head as if posing for a nude photograph. But her dead body isn't the only thing exposed. Her heart, intestines and 8-month-old fetus are visible as well. The woman was one of more than 200 people who donated their cadavers for use in "Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies," which makes its U.S. debut Friday at the California Science Center. Intended to teach people about human skeletal, cardiovascular and other systems, the final exhibit includes 25 bodies that have undergone a...