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According to international treaties, no country is allowed to own things like moons or asteroids. But what about a company?

A new bill would allow space mining companies to own pieces of space. Although they couldn’t own a whole asteroid, for example, the bill would ensure that space mining businesses would legally own the resources they extract from that asteroid.

Last week the bill passed in the Senate with a few amendments, and yesterday those amendments were accepted in the House of Representatives. Now the bill is off to the Oval Office, where space policy experts predict President Obama will sign it into law.

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Transparent walls and customized cabins may be ahead, according to Airbus.

If you think in-flight Wi-Fi and lie-flat seats are cutting edge, just wait until 2050. That’s when aircraft cabins will feature holographic pop-up gaming displays and seats that adjust to each passenger’s size and shape, according to Airbus. In its vision for the future, Airbus predicts that the cabin walls of planes will be transparent, providing amazing views of the earth. Those with vertigo could block the view with an opaque hologram around their seat. Themed zones will replace first, business and economy classes, so individuals could choose areas in which to relax, play games, interact with other passengers or hold business meetings with people on the ground. This could even top the flying car.

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It’s made of just 244 atoms.

In the nearly 400 years since the first submarine was invented, these underwater machines have become incredibly sophisticated. They’re armed and they’re really stealthy. We’re even planning on sending subs to oceans on distant moons. Trippy.

But now, a submarine is going where no submarine has gone before. To the molecular level. In a paper published this month in NanoLetters, researchers announced that they’ve invented a submarine so small that it’s made out of a single molecule.

The submarine is made of just 244 atoms, and can move through fluids with molecules of approximately the same size all around it.

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“For bicycles are messengers. Picasso recognised that they carry meaning when he made a saddle and handlebars into a bull’s head, and Duchamp (in his case, non-meaning) when he put a bicycle wheel in an art gallery.”

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Researchers at the Salk Institute working on an experimental Alzheimer’s drug have discovered it may have a host of anti-aging effects too.

Building on previous work

Research had already been conducted on the drug candidate, J147, with the aim of targeting Alzheimer’s. The results showed the drug could help prevent and even regenerate; reversing memory loss and a form of inherited Alzheimer’s disease in mice subjects. While this form comprises only 1% of Alzheimer’s cases, the biggest risk factor for the remainder is old age. If you could target brain aging itself, risk factors would be significantly reduced.

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Futurist Christopher Barnatt is the author of two 3D printing books, and is well known in the 3D printing community. His latest book — “The Next Big Thing: From 3D Printing to Mining the Moon” — covers far more than additive manufacturing. But as “3D Printing” is in the sub-title, we thought we’d ask him what it is all about.

3Ders: “The Next Big Thing” is a very broad title, so can you tell us what the book covers?

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Imagine you have a bone fracture or a hip replacement, and you need bone to form, but you heal slowly – a common fact of life for older people. Instead of forming bone, you could form fat. Researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine may have found a way to tip the scale in favor of bone formation. They used cytochalasin D, a naturally occurring substance found in mold, as a proxy to alter gene expression in the nuclei of mesenchymal stem cells to force them to become osteoblasts (bone cells).

By treating – which can become fat or bone cells — with cytochalasin D– the result was clear: the stem cells became bone cells. Further, injecting a small amount of cytochalasin D into the bone marrow space of mice caused bone to form. This research, published in the journal Stem Cells, details how the scientists altered the stem cells and triggered .

“And the bone forms quickly,” said Janet Rubin, MD, senior author of the paper and professor of medicine at the UNC School of Medicine. “The data and images are so clear; you don’t have to be a bone biologist to see what cytochalasin D does in one week in a mouse.”

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