Why settle for boring old two-dimensional copies of flat pieces of paper? That’s exactly  the question that Makerbot, the makers of the Thing-o-Matic want you to ask. You might remember that a few years back, we told you about MIT’s FabLab project (WTP 48 — my, how time flies). Well, it looks like the 3D printing revolution has come a step closer to your desktop with the Thing-o-Matic. Could we really be getting close to pulling a Captain Picard in our own homes? “Tea…Earl Grey…Hot.” One can only hope, right? Well, you’ll hear more about the Thing-o-Matic in this episode of The World’s Technology Podcast. We have an interview with one of the people behind the device.

Also in this episode, you’ll find out why I am trying to expense a trip to a Maastricht casino. It was all in the name of work, I swear! Seriously, it’s a piece on some interesting technology called SelectaDNA that’s being used to help nab thieves. I won’t say too much about it, but I will tell you that it involves synthetic DNA, and also me almost getting thrown in a Belgian prison. If you’ve come here looking for pictures, then you can check those out here.

Reporter Corey Takahashi takes us on a wonderful tour of a newly opened exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. It’s called “Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing,” and you’re definitely going to want to check out Corey’s pictures.

We’ll also have an update on some of the tech angles involved in the ongoing crisis in Tunisia.

And if you’d like to weigh in on, or ask questions about, the links between corruption and earthquake deaths, then our World Science Forum is the place to be.

Remember, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

This week: New ideas about when, where, and why humans domesticated wolves, the ancestors of modern dogs. A trove of unusual creatures turns up in Papua New Guinea. We mark the 25th anniversary of genetic fingerprinting. And hospitals cope with a worldwide shortage of medical isotopes.

Man’s Best Meal?: A new study suggests that people first began domesticating wolves — the ancestors of today’s dogs — more for lunch than for loyalty. Scientists in Sweden and China have traced the genetic origins of canines to a region where dog meat has long been on the menu.
Guest: Peter Savolainen, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.

DNA Fingerprinting: A quarter century ago, a professor at Leicester University in the UK stumbled on a way to distinguish individuals based on markers in their DNA. On this anniversary, we talk to a philosopher about genetics and the nature of human identity.
Guest: Julian Baggini, author and philosopher.

Medical Isotope Shortage: The shutdown of nuclear reactors in Canada and Holland has created a severe shortage in medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other ailments. We look at what the shortage means for patients, and how two of the biggest users of the isotopes — Britain and the U.S. — found themselves dependent on other countries for their supply.
Report: By The World’s Laura Lynch in London.

Papua New Guinea’s New Creatures: You could be forgiven if you’re skeptical about the claims of an expedition team that just got back from Papua New Guinea. The scientists say they’ve discovered a camouflaged gecko, a fanged frog, and a fish that makes grunting noises. But leave your skepticism at the door. (See pictures here.)
Guest: George McGavin, Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Music: Candied Pecans, by Axleman

OK, so it’s true that mobile telecom giant Vodafone knows a thing or two about making money. The company currently operates in more than 25 countries, and has more than 250 million customers. Many of these millions are in developing countries, where things like infectious diseases and sudden natural disasters take heavy tolls. Well, the Vodafone Americas Foundation, a non-profit arm of the company, is looking for ways to help, and that’s where we start this week’s Technology Podcast (WTP 242). Vodafone just ran what it calls the Wireless Innovation Project. One hundred applicants submitted ideas that harnessed new and existing wireless technologies in pursuit of social good. The idea was to show not only great use of technology, but also a clear sense of how these products could, and would, make it to market. The three winners were recently announced at the Global Philanthropy Forum in Washington, DC. I just happened to be there, and was lucky enough to get to sit down with the three winners. Two of the projects, including the CellScope you see at right, try to capitalize on a smartphone’s imaging abilities. The CellScope works by fitting a microscope lens onto a phone’s camera, so that a field worker trying to find out if someone has tuberculosis or malaria could get lab-quality imaging of blood while out in the field. The other imaging project, the CelloPhone, dispenses with the camera lens entirely. Samples are placed directly on the cameras imaging sensors, essentially creating a hologram of the cells that are imaged. What can a cell hologram tell you? Plenty, it turns out. The third project is all about ANTs (that’s “active networked tags”). Imagine if our buildings, our bridges, our roads, even our clothes were filled with small tags that could talk to each other (and rescue teams) in the event of an emergency. Powerful ideas. I don’t know if any of this tech will save the world, but these devices might make it a little more livable for whole lot of human beings. You can see some pictures and videos of the winners here.

Also in this week’s technology podcast, we take an in-depth look at Britain’s DNA database. It’s supposed to hold DNA samples of British criminals, but it turns out that many innocent people are also in there, and that has privacy advocates up in arms.

Thanks to everyone who sent in their swine flu questions. We’ve got a segment that hopefully will answer some of them. Listen in for the great discussion between risk expert Peter Sandman and health journalist and blogger Christine Gorman. Good stuff.

And we end with another competition. Airbus is looking for interesting, even outlandish, ways to save money. So it’s asked engineering teams to submit ideas. Our favorites among the finalists: the windowless cabin, and having groups of commercial planes fly in an inverted “V” formation…like migrating birds. Yowzah!

This week, we have two stories about alternative energy in Spain. Over the last decade, Spanish companies like Iberdrola and Gamesa have become top wind energy producers. This success has laid the groundwork for more renewable tech; solar is next, with projects like the Solúcar solar platform.

But big business brings corruption—and renewable energy is no exception. The town of La Muela allegedly got greedy. La Muela grew rich on wind power—but its mayor, María Victoria Pinilla, is now in jail on bribery charges.The scandal began with the wind energy boom and rising property values. Another wind-related scandal is playing out in the town of Bigastro.

Of course, renewable energy isn’t always big business. The British charity Forum for the Future just awarded a $75,000 prize to inventor Jon Bohmer for his work on a cheap cardboard solar oven. Bohmer hopes to spread the technology across the world as a way to save lives, fight global warming, and conserve the environment. Similar ovens have been around for decades, but Bohmer has come up with a way to make and distribute them cheaply and quickly.

Also this week, Chinese scientists challenged textbook tenets when they reported that old female mice may still be able to produce eggs. New research indicates that inbreeding killed off a Spanish royal family, the Hapsburgs, in 1700. And scientists have made a surprising discovery about how DNA molecules can improve vision.

Music:

Three Dog Night, Never Been to Spain
June Carter Cash, Keep on the Sunny Side

This week we focus on malaria, which sickens hundreds of millions of people a year, mostly in developing countries in Africa and Asia. The disease is caused by a parasite that is spread by mosquitoes. The World Health Organization says a key anti-malaria drug may be losing its power. We travel to Cambodia, where the malaria parasite seems to be developing resistance to the drug.

We also have a malaria story from the United States, which eradicated the disease in the 1940s. We take a historical look at how the U.S. accomplished that feat. The story originally ran as part of a fantastic series in 2005.

We check in on the Mosquito Barcode Initiative. It is trying to catalogue the DNA of every mosquito species in the world. Researcher Yvonne-Marie Linton is leading the project. It’s a rough job—often, researchers catch the mosquitoes by using themselves as bait.

In astronomy news, last October scientists spotted an asteroid hurtling through space on a collision course with earth. It wasn’t big enough to cause mass extinction, but it offered a rare opportunity for scientists. Peter Jenniskens, an astronomer at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, tells us about his effort to recover pieces of the meteoroid from Sudan.

For years there’s been a debate over which animal is the closest living relative to whales. The top two contestants have been hippos and pigs. New research out this week from the University of Calgary and Georgia Southern University gives the edge to hippos. This rebuts a study of prehistoric bones done two years ago by another group of researchers. The latest work focused on DNA.

Music:
Ros Serey Sothea, I’m Sixteen

President Obama has signed an executive order that lifts a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. The ban was put in place by President Bush eight years ago. Stephen Minger, a senior lecturer in stem cell biology at King’s College, London, talks about how the new policy will affect research in the U.S. and abroad.

The EU will soon adopt much tougher controls on pesticides. Those who make and use pesticides argue the plan will hurt Europe’s food supply.

NASA has launched the Kepler Space Telescope. Astronomers hope the mission will find other habitable planets in our galaxy. We take the opportunity to remember Johannes Kepler.

Hundreds of scientists gathered this week in Copenhagen for a major climate conference. Some experts there said the latest research on global warming doesn’t bode well for the future of our planet. They urged diplomats to draft a strong climate treaty at another meeting to be held in Copenhagen later this year.

Archaeologists now believe that horses were domesticated a thousand years earlier than previously thought. Exeter University researchers have found evidence in Kazakhstan that people were riding horses as early as 5500 years ago. Dr. Alan Outram, one of the researchers, explains the findings.

For decades, historians suspected that on July 17, 1918, Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their children were shot by their Bolshevik captors in Yekaterinburg, Russia, yet rumors have circulated that two of the family’s five children had escaped. Results of new DNA testing now confirm that all five children were killed.

Music:
Laid Back, Ride the White Horse
Echo and the Bunnymen, Bring on the Dancing Horses

download