Thanks to money from the Defense Advanced Research Project Administration (DARPA), Chiang began developing this surface morphing technique to improve the aerodynamics of helicopter blades by altering the airfoil shape.

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Dell Computer (nasdaq: DELL - news - people ), SBC Communications (nyse: SBC - news - people ) and Belo (nyse: BLC - news - people ), have all made use of the technique, according to a Texas House research organization report.

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Last month, Prof Wilmut announced that he was abandoning the cloning of human embryos in stem cell research in favour of a new technique developed in Japan.

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This is a continuation of research published three years ago, when the team used the same technique to establish initial contact with a patient diagnosed as vegetative.

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The new study's lead researcher Dr Tomas Cizmar, research fellow in the School of Medicine at the University of St Andrews, said while the technique is very new, it had huge potential.

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What has struck many isn't her use of science but her use of art to illustrate obscure research known as "genetic surveillance, " the technique isn't new but it remains unknown to many.

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Dr Bilham and Vinod Gaur, from the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation in Bangalore, writing late last year in Current Science, said that until recently Indian seismological research has neglected a technique known as geodesy, which measures the strains accumulating in, and distorting the surfaces of, plates.

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