We’re in the midst of a bionic revolution, yet most of us don’t know it. (CNN)

How do you make an electronic brain prosthesis that could restore a person’s ability to form long-term memories? Recent experiments by Theodore Berger and his colleagues, including Sam Deadwyler at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and researchers at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, have begun to describe how it might be done. (MIT Technology Review)

Cancer patients may soon have their course of treatment chosen by a computer rather than a doctor after scientists devised mathematical formulas that are better than humans at predicting how sufferers will respond to chemotherapy. (The Telegraph)

Despite the advances made against many types of cancer, pancreatic cancer remains grimly resistant to treatment. Only about 4% of patients survive for 5 years, mainly because of the disease’s vicious ability to metastasize, or spread to other parts of the body. Now, a group of researchers has hit upon a novel way to halt its spread: delivering radiation directly to the cancer cells using genetically modified bacteria. (Wired)

Computer chips and silicon micromachines are ready for your body.  It’s time to decide how you’ll take them: implantable, ingestible, or intimate contact.  Every flavor now exists.  Some have FDA approval and some are seeking it.  Others are moving quickly out of the research lab stage. (Forbes)

U.S. scientists built functional replacement kidneys — artificial kidneys — on the structure of donor rat organs from which living cells were stripped. (UPI)

Baidu calls its lab The Institute of Deep Learning, or IDL. Much like Google and Apple and others, the company is exploring computer systems that can learn in much the same way people do. (Wired)

The visible brain has arrived — the consistency of Jell-O, as transparent and colorful as a child’s model, but vastly more useful. Scientists at Stanford University reported on Wednesday that they have made a whole mouse brain, and part of a human brain, transparent so that networks of neurons that receive and send information can be highlighted in stunning color and viewed in all their three-dimensional complexity without slicing up the organ. (New York Times)

The biggest thing in operating rooms these days is a million-dollar, multi-armed robot named da Vinci, used in nearly 400,000 surgeries nationwide last year — triple the number just four years earlier. But now the high-tech helper is under scrutiny over reports of problems, including several deaths that may be linked with it, and the high cost of using the robotic system. (ABC News)

UK scientists have embarked on a six-year project to map how nerve connections develop in babies’ brains while still in the womb and after birth. (BBC)

Groundbreaking work conducted at the University of Newcastle is creating the next revolutionary contraceptive…They have developed a world first: a chemical contraceptive that kills sperm as well as the bacteria that cause sexually transmitted infections. (ABC.net.au)

Cell therapies have the potential to address critical, unmet needs in the treatment of some of the deadliest diseases, including diabetes, cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases, the scientists said. (Nanowerk)

Scientists have rediscovered a centuries-old procedure for supercharging your brain. Depending on how it’s used, it could improve anything from focus to motor control to mathematical or even moral reasoning. It’s simple. It’s relatively cheap. The known side effects are minimal. And it’s so easy that you can do it in your own home, anytime you want. All you need are a pair of electrodes and a power source. (Slate)

Sensory disorders can have a profound effect on health and quality of life—but gene therapy may be coming to the rescue. Gene therapy’s success in treating  blindness disorders –many are in late stage trials—gave hope to a field deterred by early missteps. And now gene therapy researchers are expanding their gaze to focus on all manner of sensory diseases. (The Scientist)

From the Darmouth Conferences to Turing’s test, prophecies about AI have rarely hit the mark. But there are ways to tell the good from the bad when it comes to futurology. (Wired UK)

If you thought personalised advertising based on your Facebook status updates, Gmail content or online browsing behaviour was creepy, just you wait. The era of genetics-based advertising is coming, and it could be just as profitable. (Wired UK)

An 18th Century automaton that could beat human chess opponents seemingly marked the arrival of artificial intelligence. But what turned out to be an elaborate hoax had its own sense of genius, says Adam Gopnik. (BBC)

Is transhumanism—the possibility of enhancing human intellectual, physical and psychological capacities through biotechnology —a brave new world that we should welcome with open arms? (Forbes)

National survey finds three out of four adults have heard little or nothing about the emerging technology. (Sacramento Bee)

A new wonder material that can generate hydrogen, produce clean water and even create energy. (Nanowerk)

Kranthi Kiran Vistakula developed technology that can keep your body comfortable in outside temperatures that range from -50 to 50 degrees Celsius. (Popular Science)