Suza Scalora / Getty Images stock

Researchers have found ample links between a father's proximity to his children and his levels of hormones associated with nurturing.

The trick to fatherhood has a lot to do with the brain — and how close a dad gets to his kids. At least that's the message from a mounting pile of research into the neurological and hormonal cues that translate into fatherly nurturing. And what better time to keep that message in mind than on Father's Day?

"Mothers have an advantage, in that the hormones of pregnancy give them a head start and get them primed to be nurturing," said James Rilling, an anthropologist at Emory University who specializes in studying the neurological basis of social behavior. "In particular, when women give birth, there's a big surge of oxytocin, and oxytocin is also released during breastfeeding. Fathers don't have that."

Oxytocin has been called the "love hormone," even though its effect isn't always that lovely. It's thought to deepen the bond that a mom has with her newborn. But what about the dads, who don't get pregnant or breastfeed? It turns out that a father's interactions with his children produce a similar rise in oxytocin levels.

Researchers have found that emotionally involved fathers feel other hormonal effects: reduced levels of aggression-promoting testosterone; higher levels of prolactin, a lust-squelching hormone that shows up in women during breastfeeding and in men after sexual climax; and higher levels of vasopressin, a hormone linked to bonding as well as the maternal stress response.

It turns out that fathers get many of the same rushes that mothers do from parenthood — but the payoff depends on proximity and interaction. For example, researchers see the effect if the child sleeps with the parents, if the father recognizes and responds to the baby's cries, if Dad plays with the kids. When that proximity isn't present, the fatherhood effect isn't as strong.

"There seems to be some kind of fundamental social-neurobiological framework that comes into play when fathers interact with their kids," said Lee Gettler, an anthropologist at Notre Dame who worked on the prolactin study.

Why is it that the mothers and fathers come to the same hormonal response through different paths? "It may be that the most parsimonious way to engineer a paternal brain would be to take the circuitry that was already in place for maternal care, and maybe tweak that," Rilling said. "That might be the reason why there's some overlap there."

James Swain et al. / U. of Michigan

This functional magnetic resonance image shows areas of heightened brain activity when a father hears his own child's cries. Notable areas of activity include the frontal cortex, insula putamen, thalamus and superior temporal cortex.

Or it may merely be that when it comes to parenting, familiarity breeds fatherhood. University of Michigan psychiatrist James Swain has been analyzing a huge data set of MRI snapshots to see how maternal and paternal brains respond to the cries of their own babies and the children of strangers. He and his colleagues have found that brain activity patterns don't change as quickly for fathers as they do for mothers.

"I joke that this may be the physiological basis for why a father can roll over in bed when the baby's crying at 3 weeks," Swain told NBC News.

However, by the 4-month mark, "the fathers seem to catch up," Swain said. And there's some indication that the brain patterns for stay-at-home dads are more similar to the changes that moms go through. Swain and his colleagues are still trying to figure out exactly how the parenthood effect works on the neurological level — and how moms and dads get to the same place by different hormonal paths.

Rilling said the study of the fatherhood effect is a "wide open frontier."

"Humans are an alloparental species, which means mothers get help," he said. "In some cultures it's the father, but in other cultures it's the grandmother, the aunts, the older children. Fathers seem to be particularly important in modern developed Western nations like the U.S., because there are so many people who are living in isolated nuclear families, largely separated from their extended family. That limits the number of potential helpers out there. ... It's really important that fathers step up."

More about science and fatherhood:

• How fatherhood made us human
• Mice get less violent when they're dads
• Scientists see why fathers matter

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

"How We Do It" may sound like a sex manual, but it isn't: In fact, that's about the only topic you won't find addressed in anthropologist Robert Martin's book-length survey of human reproduction and what we can learn from the animal world.

There's still news you can use, however. For example, how long should mothers breastfeed their babies? The standard advice from the World Health Organization is six months to two years. But Martin, who is the curator of biological anthropology at Chicago's Field Museum, cites evidence suggesting that three years is a more natural length of time.

"Exclusive breastfeeding is probably six months to a year, then for the last two years or so, breast milk is combined with supplementary food," Martin told NBC News.

That estimate is based on comparative studies of other primates, adjusted for the human body size. It so happens that anthropological studies of tooth enamel, going back to 5,000-year-old remains, arrive at a similar estimate. "The earlier you go back, the closer you come to something like three years," Martin said.

Studies suggest that brain development is better in babies who are breast-fed, probably because of nutritional factors contained in human milk. Martin's point isn't so much that you're a bad mother if you can't breastfeed for three years. "My point is that we should find out what's in human milk that is essential," he said. "If we're going to use artificial milk, we've got to get the formula right."

Basic Books

Robert Martin's book, "How We Do It: The Evolution and Future of Human Reproduction," looks at the myths and realities surrounding reproductive research.

Other chapters delve into the facts and fictions surrounding sex. True or false?

Humans do it faster: True, to an extent. A large-scale study found that human copulation lasts five minutes on average, although it may rarely last as long as 45 minutes. That's much shorter than the 12-hour mating roundsseen in marsupial mice, or the 15-minute couplings for orangutans, but longer than the chimpanzees' eight-second trysts. The males of some species have a bone in their penis, presumably to aid with prolonged mating. (Martin advises doing a Web search for "mountain man toothpick" to find examples.)

Humans are naturally promiscuous:False, at least in comparison with chimps and bonobos, our closest modern-day evolutionary relatives. The evidence for that is in our reproductive system: Chimps' sperm is much stickier than humans', so much so that it forms a "plug" inside the female tract. Scientists believe the plug is part of a strategy known as sperm competition, aimed at preventing other males' sperm from wriggling their way to fertilization. Another tip-off is the relative size of a male chimp's testes: They're bigger than humans, and that's linked to sperm competition. Humans (as well as gorillas, which also lean toward monogamy) lack the genetic machinery for sperm competition. And as for the bonobos ... we all know they sleep around, right?

The rhythm method works: False ... or at least not as true as some people might think. When it comes to contraception, you can't always trust the "egg timer." Researchers found that sperm cells can be stored for days in the womb, probably hidden in crypts in the womb's neck. This means that intercourse leading to conception can occur 10 days or more before ovulation occurs.

Sperm counts are declining: Signs point to "true" ... and that's a worrisome development. Studies from Israel and France, published last year, suggest that average sperm counts have dropped 30 to 40 percent over the past couple of decades. "It's quite obvious that this is going to lead to more cases of infertility," Martin said. The prime suspects include BPA, a chemical found in food packaging and other plastics. Studies have also implicated dairy products, soy products, sauna visits, TV viewing and even trends in male underwear (or the lack thereof).

There's nothing unique about the way we 'do it': Mostly but not completely true. Martin says one of the goals of his book is to "demolish myths of human uniqueness that don't stand up to observation." But when it comes to childbirth and child development, our big brains require special handling. A baby's head has to go through a complex rotation just to fit through the mother's pelvis — and at birth, a human baby's brain is only a quarter of its adult size. In comparison, a newborn chimp's brain is half the adult size. "Our extended period of childhood is really unique," Martin said. "The primary reason for this is that our brains are so poorly developed at birth."

More about the science of sex:

• 10 surprising sex statistics
• Real-life love potion identified
• Love and lust: Lessons from the animal kingdom

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log pageto your Google+ presence. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

AP file

Elvis Presley performs in Providence, R.I., on May 23, 1977, three months before his death. Presley's doctor says that an enlarged and impacted colon played a role in the death of "the King."

In her latest book exploring the science that surrounds life's unmentionables, Mary Roach goes for the gut. Literally.

Roach has already taken on sex ("Bonk"), death ("Stiff"), the afterlife ("Spook") and the final frontier ("Packing for Mars"). In "Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal," she surveys centuries' worth of weird and wonderful discoveries about our digestive system, from the lips all the way down to the anus (which Roach says has some of the most densely innervated tissue on the human body).

In the course of exploring the alimentary canal, Roach addresses questions about our body's oddities (What keeps our stomach from digesting itself out of existence?) as well as the chemistry of digestion (How does Beano fight flatulence? How does Devrom stop the stink?).

One of the most fascinating tales has to do with the curse of Elvis Presley's colon: He died in 1977, while straining on the stool — and through the years, experts have pointed to drug abuse as well as a bad heart as contributing causes. But Roach concentrates instead on constipation, a problem that apparently plagued Presley for much of his life. The autopsy showed Presley had an enlarged "megacolon," horribly impacted with claylike material from a barium X-ray procedure that the King went through four months earlier.

It turns out that other folks have suffered fatal cases of constipation, but there's so much ickyness surrounding the subject that you don't hear much about it.  "I doubt you'll be seeing bus posters about defecation-associated sudden death any time soon," Roach writes.

There's a similar ick factor about many of the topics touched upon in "Gulp" — but fortunately, Roach has a knack for turning the "ick" into "ooh!" "wow!" and "really!?" In an interview last week, Roach discussed the ick factor and listed some of her favorite "Gulp" moments. Here's an edited transcript of the Q&A:

W.W. Norton

"Gulp" answers questions ranging from Elvis Presley's cause of death to the frontier of fecal transplantation.

David Paul Morris

Mary Roach is the author of "Stiff," "Spook," "Bonk," "Packing for Mars" and now "Gulp."

Cosmic Log: Tell me how the book got started. How did you get into "Gulp"?

Mary Roach: Well, a couple of things: One of them was something I stumbled onto when I was writing "Packing for Mars." I came upon a rather bizarre space nutrition study at the University of California at Berkeley back in the '60s, where they were testing bacteria as an entree. Dead bacteria. They actually had subjects go into a metabolic chamber and they sat them down, and they served them a slurry of bacteria of different varieties. And it was a terrible fiasco, of course.

That got me thinking about eating, and how it's a sensual thing and something that involves the mind, something we look forward to. But underneath all that, it's a basic biological need, and a process. We have a food processor, but we don't like to think about that. So I thought, maybe I'll think about that. Maybe I'll go down the alimentary canal and have a look.

Q: You talk a lot about the taboos that are associated with eating and digestion. Could you put your finger on the silliest taboo you came across? Is there some attitude toward eating that really makes no sense?

A: The first one that comes to mind is saliva. Saliva is something that's a highly taboo substance. Once it's outside your body, your own saliva is a source of disgust. Which is quite bizarre, because you're swallowing it all the time. You generate two to three pints of it, right there in your mouth. And yet, once it leaves the body, it's an object of revulsion. It's fascinating — something that has to do with the boundaries of the self.

Q: You debunk a lot of myths in the book, too. Is there particular bit of accepted wisdom that you're proudest to show is not really true?

A: The myth that I had the most fun with was the Jonah myth. Some people take the Bible literally, and try to make the case that a human being could survive in a whale's stomach. So I looked into this and tried to figure out which whale. A sperm whale would be the most likely candidate, because it's got a big enough gullet, and it doesn't have gastric acid. What it does have, though, is a very powerful stomach that crushes whatever is in its gut. You would be tumbled around and probably have some broken bones if you were inside a sperm whale.

Q: Is there something in the book that people really should know, that they probably don't know? For example, if I ever feel like my stomach is full to bursting, I'm definitely not going to load up on bicarbonate of soda.

A: Yes, the human stomach is surprisingly resistant to bursting. It has a couple of emergency ditching maneuvers. You burp, or you regurgitate. This is your stomach's way of saying, "OK, we don't want to burst, that would be fatal. So let's get rid of some stuff." The only time a human being suffers a case of a burst stomach tends to be somebody who ate a huge meal, and then felt uncomfortable and took a whole bunch of bicarbonate of soda. A little bit of gas makes you burp, and then you feel better. But a lot of gas, generated quickly, can outpace the body's safety mechanisms and burst your stomach. So after eating a huge meal, I don't recommend a large dose of bicarbonate of soda. Proceed with caution.

Q: "Gulp" includes lots of historical tales about those who have studied the alimentary canal. Is there one story you'd point to as deserving of more attention than it usually gets?

A: One of the people that impressed me was the very first experimenter to study and document human intestinal gas. This was in 1816. A Parisian doctor, Francois Magendie, had the opportunity to dissect a couple of guillotined prisoners. Because the prisoners had a last meal, and he knew what the last meal was, he could run a controlled experiment, if you will. He knew how long they'd been digesting. So he looked at what types of gas were in what part of the alimentary canal. He even figured out the hydrogen sulfide component, which is usually only 0.2 to 0.3 parts per million. It's a trace gas, but the human nose is quite sensitive to it, so it's possible he just used, uh, his nose. That was a novel approach to studying human intestinal gas. For originality, I give Magendie a lot of points.

Q: And when it comes to the scientific frontiers for studying the alimentary canal, a lot of people talk about fecal transplants. That's something that you address in the book.

A: Yes, if you have a certain type of bacteria called C. difficile, C. diff for short, it tends to set up camp in little pockets along the intestine, and it can be difficult to get rid of. It can be a kind of lingering infection that leads to inflammation and diarrhea. It's a quite serious condition, sometimes fatal.

If you take someone else's waste, and you use a colonoscope, you can put that material in and basically "seed" the patient's bacteria with a whole different set of bacteria that takes over. You take it from a healthy person, obviously, not from someone else who has C. diff. You take it from the waste material, which is one-third bacteria by dry weight. There's a lot of bacteria in human waste. Tons! That was a surprise to me. You don't really know what that stuff is, but a lot of it is bacteria.

This has about a 90 percent cure rate for chronic C. diff infection, and there's no real down side. It's rare that medicine comes up with something that simple, that effective, and with no side effects. The problem with it is just the ick factor. It's been slow to catch on, probably because there's no device maker or drug company to push a drug through. It has to be the hard work of M.D.'s who are just trying to get it into the system. They don't even know how to bill for it, so they bill for a colonoscopy.

Now people are starting to look at bacterial transplants of different kinds, as possible treatments for everything from weight loss to chronic ear infections. There's someone looking into it as a treatment for gum disease, by taking someone else's oral bacteria and giving them a dose of that. There's not a lot of down side, other than the ick factor.

Q: It strikes me that the ick factor, and how to deal with that, is a theme that runs through the book. Have you drawn any lessons about how to get over the ick factor when it hurts us rather than helps us?

A: This is one of those rare and wonderful cases where the media's fascination has been helpful. There have been a lot of articles written about fecal transplants, and that's partly because it's headline-grabbing. "Yeah, they put someone's crap in somebody else!" It gets people's attention, and they read it. But it's gotten so much coverage that now people are used to the notion of doing it, and they know that it's effective, and they know that it's useful. It's not such an intuitively horrific thing. The more people talk about it, the more they'll get used to it, and the more the ick factor dissolves. Then people with a problem feel free to go to their doctor and say, "Hey, I heard about this fecal transplant, and I wonder if maybe we can try that."

The fact that it's getting a lot of coverage, and a lot of people are talking about it, is making it OK to speak about it. And that's always a good thing.

Q: Do you feel as if "Gulp" actually serves that purpose? I realize every author feels as if his or her book is a boon to humanity, but is this a special case?

A: [Laughter] With my books, it's a little hard to make the case. But if I were to make the case, it would simply be that: I am encouraging people to talk about what's going on in the whole human food processor, from mouth to anus. It's a miraculous machine, and we owe it a little respect, instead of shame and embarrassment. I would love to see people having dialogues about it without feeling funny.

More cool facts about our food processor:

• Passing time by passing gas
• Can eating too much make your stomach burst?
• Diet and nutrition on the Body Odd blog

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 29, 2013 3:33 AM EDT

Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech researchers used a gene disruption technique to change the eye color of a mosquito, a critical step toward new strategies for disrupting the transmission of diseases such as dengue fever. The eye colors of these mosquitoes are varied because of cell-to-cell variability in the degree of gene editing.

Scientists at Virginia Tech have disrupted the genes that control eye color in mosquitoes, using a genetic-engineering technique that could also disrupt the transmission of diseases such as dengue fever.

The technique relies on two specially designed proteins that belong to a class known as transcription activator-like effector nucleases, or TALENs. The technique can target DNA at a specific site in an organism's genetic code, so precisely and efficiently that the journal Science has called the molecules "genomic cruise missiles."

Virginia Tech entomologist Zach Adelman prefers a different analogy. "They're basically a very, very fine-tuned pair of scissors," he told NBC News.

TALENs have been used to edit the genomes of animal and human cell cultures, but Adelman said the approach he and his colleagues used on the mosquito genome was different. Rather than trying to modify the function of a gene, the researchers aimed to disable a gene by snipping away at it. In the journal PLOS ONE, they describe how they targeted a gene whose protein product is essential for the production of eye pigment in Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species linked to the transmission of dengue fever.

Genetically engineered TALEN proteins were injected into the germ cells of mosquito embryos early in their development, with the intention of disrupting the coding for eye pigmentation that would be passed down to the next generation. When the targeted mosquitoes gave birth to baby bugs, a large percentage of them had light-colored eyes instead of the typical black eyes. The lack of pigment served as confirmation that the genetic code was wiped out.

The next step is to identify the genetic mechanisms in mosquitoes that play a role in virus transmission. When the right targets are found, the researchers will try to design a different set of molecular scissors to disrupt that genetic code.

Adelman said he's been working on molecular strategies to fight mosquito-borne diseases for a dozen years, and began the TALEN-based project just last May.

"To date, efforts to control dengue transmission through genetics have focused entirely on adding material to the mosquito genome. Ensuring that this added material is expressed properly and consistently has been a challenge," Adelman said in a Virginia Tech news release. "This technology allows us to pursue the same goals, namely, the generation of pathogen-resistant mosquitoes, through subtraction — for example, removing or altering a gene that is critical for pathogen replication."

More about mosquitoes:

• Gene-modified skeeters could stop dengue fever
• Key West waits on dengue mosquito experiment
• WHO: Dengue is fastest-spreading tropical disease

In addition to Adelman, the authors of the PLOS ONE paper, "TALEN-Based Gene Disruption in the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti," include Azadeh Aryan, Michelle A.E. Anderson and Kevin M. Myles. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Fralin Life Science Institute at Virginia Tech.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images file

A skull from an ancient specimen of Homo sapiens (foreground, right) is compared with a Neanderthal's skull at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington. Researchers suggest that a gene linked to the immune system played a roundabout role in brain evolution.

Scientists say our genes contain the hints of an evolutionary tug of war that took place in the wombs of our ancestors, balancing the drive to bigger brains with the need for a strong immune system.

The push and pull of these genetic variants apparently became more pronounced after pre-humans branched off from the ancestors of chimpanzees, according to biologists Peter Parham of Stanford University and Ashley Moffett of the University of Cambridge.

Two years ago, Parham and other researchers suggested that interbreeding with now-extinct cousins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans may have given early humans a boost of immunity. Parham says the same kind of cross-species hanky-panky may have played a role in the genetic diversity that he and Moffett discuss in a paper published online by Nature Reviews Immunology.

"It quite nicely dovetails with all this other stuff," Parham told NBC News. "There is an inherent instability in the way the underlying mechanism works."

How natural killers work
The two biologists focus on how particular types of white blood cells, known as natural killer cells, work in the human immune system. In addition to fighting infections and tumors, natural killer cells help regulate the growth of the placenta during pregnancy. Humans are unique among primates in having two variants of the genes that control the receptors for natural killer cells.

"B haplotypes are favored during reproduction. A haplotypes are more specialized toward defending against infections," Parham explained. "These are subtle effects. On average, if you're an individual that has two A haplotypes and no B haplotype, you're going to have a slightly more robust immune system in terms of dealing with disease."

Having two B haplotypes, in contrast, would allow for a more robust placenta. That would provide the fetus in the womb with more of the nutrients needed to grow a bigger brain. "In the course of human evolution, you had the evolution of these B haplotypes, which really did enable the brain to get bigger. ... There are correlations between the size of the brain of the baby and these genetic factors," Parham said.

A detailed analysis of human genetic diversity suggests that the genes for the B haplotype emerged in the time frame lasting from about 7 million years ago to 1.7 million years ago. That would cover a period starting with the divergence of human and chimp ancestors, and ending with the human migration out of Africa.

The A-vs.-B breakdown is found in all present-day human populations, suggesting that both variants were important to have for different situations. Parham and Moffett speculate that the A variant was important when a population was facing a disease epidemic, while the B variant became important for brain-building once the epidemic passed.

The role of the birth canal
When our ancestors began walking upright, that introduced another push-pull effect for brain size. "It's difficult to document, but it's generally thought in the field of obstetrics that birthing is more difficult for humans than it is for other species," Parham said. The dimensions and layout of the human birth canal is one constraint: If a baby's skull were to get significantly bigger, it wouldn't fit through the canal.

Another constraint is pregnancy's effect on the mother's cardiovascular system. In some situations, a potentially fatal condition known as preeclampsia can occur.

"Part of the compromise is that the human population has tolerated a certain amount of death in childbirth, due to obstructed labor or preeclampsia. ... Both of these types of death in childbirth have been quite common in our species, as has been documented in so many 19th-century novels," Parham said.

The genetic record indicates that the human species passed through a series of "bottlenecks" in prehistoric times that reduced population diversity to perilously low levels. That's where interbreeding with Neanderthals could have played a part. "One way that modern humans replenished the genetic diversity lost in populations was through the selection of new variants ... another, and possibly more effective, mechanism was to acquire old variants by mating with archaic humans," Parham and Moffett write.

Today, modern medicine has leveled the evolutionary playing field. But in ancient times, all these genetic and physiological factors seem to have interacted to make our brains what they are today.

"Basically, we've got the nervous system and the brain putting pressure on the immune system and the reproductive system," Parham said.

More about human evolution:

• How sex with Neanderthals made us stronger
• Where did we get the energy for big brains?
• Brawn may have boosted the human brain

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Dominic Doyle, Frank Block / Vanderbilt

An artist's conception shows a microbrain reactor being developed at Vanderbilt University. The bioreactor is aimed at reproducing the brain's microenvironment in a device about the size of a grain of rice.

Many medications and treatments, even after years of research, fail in the final phase of review — when they're actually tested in humans. Despite having performed well in the lab, in mice, and perhaps in closer human analogues like monkeys, drugs occasionally turn out to be ineffective or toxic when used by the humans they're meant to help. To improve this process, and limit the risks to human testers, the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are together pledging up to up to $132 million for creating "organ-on-a-chip" systems, with the eventual goal of simulating the entire human body.

The tissue-chip project is a natural outgrowth (so to speak) of existing lab testing on human tissue. Each of the projects being funded is aimed at isolating a small, living piece of a human being. It may be just a few cells, but those cells would grow and function as if they were in their native habitat, the human body. And surrounding those cells would be sensors for detecting microscopic changes in the test environment.

Each type of cell and organ must be approached differently: Brain cells exist in an environment vastly different from muscles or the liver. Consequently, the funding is spread over a number of institutions and programs, some of which are specializing in just one type of tissue or organ.

Vanderbilt University, for instance, will be receiving up to $2.1 million from the NIH's $70 million allocation, for the creation of what they call a "microbrain reactor." It would put human brain cells into an artificial environment that not only keeps them alive, but simulates the physiological barriers that protect the brain from contaminants in blood and other fluids. John Wikswo, who is leading Vanderbilt's effort, is enthusiastic about the research:

"Given the differences in cellular biology in the brains of rodents and humans, development of a brain model that contains neurons and all three barriers between blood, brain and cerebral spinal fluid, using entirely human cells, will represent a fundamental advance in and of itself."

Much more information on the project and its multidisciplinary lineup of researchers can be found in Vanderbilt's news release.

Other institutions are undertaking much larger efforts. Harvard University has received a similar amount from the NIH, but Harvard's Wyss Institute could also get more than 10 times as much — up to $37 million — from DARPA to develop a device that integrates as many as 10 organs on a chip. It would be a closer and more complete representation of the human body than has ever been created — a veritable homunculus that could open the way to cheaper, quicker and safer drug testing. It would also reduce the number and variety of animals used in testing, and enable widespread, standardized techniques requiring less training.

This video of experts explaining the Wyss Institute's lung on a chip gives a more specific idea of the context and purpose of this technology:

Another double-barreled dose of funding is heading toward the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT and the Draper Laboratory, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, are set to receive up to $6.25 million from NIH to model cancer thereapies using engineered human tissue constructs. Up to $26.3 million more will be provided under an agreement with DARPA to create an "organ-on-a-chip" platform, through a new program called BIO-MIMETICS. (That's not only a word in itself, but also a mouthful of an acronym standing for "Barrier-Immune-Organ: Microphysiology, Microenvironment Engineered Construct Systems.")

If everything goes as planned, the MIT-led work with human tissue would be adapted for the BIO-MIMETICS platform. MIT's news release provides more details.

The NIH, DARPA, and the Food and Drug Administration are working in concert, but their funding is separate. (The description of DARPA's proposal is here). In addition to the grants given to Vanderbilt, Harvard and MIT, the NIH has awarded funding to 14 other projects, adding up to a potential total of $70 million over five years.

The FDA isn't kicking in any money for the researchers right now, but the fact sheet for the initiative says the FDA "will help explore how this new technology might be used to assess drug safety prior to approval for first-in-human studies."

You'll find more details about all 17 projects via the NIH's webpage on the Tissue Chip Project Awards. Here's a brief rundown on the projects and their principal researchers.

Ten awards are aimed at investigating or creating systems by which organs are simulated on an extremely small scale. The terminology differs but they are largely working in the same sphere. We've already touched on the funding going to Vanderbilt, Harvard and MIT. Here are the other seven projects:

• Microphysiological systems and low-cost microfluidic platform with analytics (Cornell University - Michael Shuler and James Hickman)

• Circulatory system and integrated muscle tissue for drug and tissue toxicity (Duke University - George Truskey)

• Human induced pluripotent stem cell and embryonic stem cell-based models for predictive neural toxicity and teratogenicity (University of Wisconsin, Madison - James Thomson)

• Disease-specific integrated microphysiological human tissue models (UC Berkeley - Kevin Healy and Luke Lee)

• An integrated in vitro model of perfused tumor and cardiac tissue (UC Irvine - Steven George)

• A 3-D biomimetic liver sinusoid construct for predicting physiology and toxicity (University of Pittsburgh - D. Lansing Taylor and Martin Yarmush)

• A tissue-engineered human kidney microphysiological system (University of Washington - Jonathan Himmelfarb)

Seven awards are for exploring stem/progenitor cells as sources for the tissues to be used in such microsystems:

• Generating human intestinal organoids with an enteric nervous system (Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center - James Wells)

• Modeling complex disease using induced pluripotent stem cell-derived skin constructs (Columbia University Health Sciences - Angela Christiano)

• Human intestinal organoids: Pre-clinical models of non-inflammatory diarrhea (Johns Hopkins University - Mark Donowitz)

• A 3-D model of human brain development for studying gene/environment interactions (Johns Hopkins University - Thomas Hartung)

• Modeling oxidative stress and DNA damage using a gastrointestinal organotypic culture system (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia - John Lynch)

• Three-dimensional osteochondral micro-tissue to model pathogenesis of osteoarthritis (University of Pittsburgh - Rocky Tuan)

• Three-dimensional human lung model to study lung disease and formation of fibrosis (University of Texas - Joan Nichols)
  

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

Alan Boyle / msnbc.com

British physicist Stephen Hawking jokes about the future discoveries that could earn him a Nobel Prize.

British physicist Stephen Hawking has lived longer and achieved more than most quadriplegics have, but he's not done yet: The 70-year-old theoretician is still waiting for experimental evidence to launch him toward a Nobel Prize.

Hawking used his Nobel aspirations as a punch line more than once during his Saturday-night talk at Seattle's Paramount Theater, during a Seattle Science Festival symposium that also featured systems biology pioneer Leroy Hood and paleontologist Jack Horner. The "Luminaries Series" presentation also featured evolutionary rap and modern dance, but Hawking was clearly the headliner.

Part of Hawking's appeal is that he just keeps going, and going, and going, despite his disability. He's lived for decades with a progressively paralyzing form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. His entourage includes a nurse practitioner and an aide who looks after the high-tech system that translates his cheek twitches into speech. (He and his team have been testing a more advanced system that can turn brain-wave patterns into words.)

All this work to overcome adversity wouldn't have taken Hawking so far, however, if it weren't for his crazy smarts and his sharp wit. Both were in evidence during Saturday's talk, titled "Brane New World." Hawking laid out his perspective on what he thinks could be the ultimate theory of the universe, known as M-theory.

"We have been searching for the Theory of Everything for the past 30 years, and now we think that we have found a candidate," he said.

M-theory is a "mother" theory that fuses together several strains of string theory, and allows for dimensions of space beyond the three we're familiar with. For a long time, Hawking was reluctant to accept the idea of unseen extra dimensions, but on Saturday he said everything else about M-theory made so much sense that he couldn't resist.

Ted S. Warren / AP

Stephen Hawking composes his conversations with face movements, aided by a sophisticated sensor and computer system hooked up to his wheelchair.

"I feel to ignore it would be like claiming that God put fossils in the rocks to trick Darwin into believing in evolution," Hawking said.

The big question is, why haven't we detected those darn dimensions? M-theory's proponents suggest that some forms of energy, such as light, are confined to our three-dimensional space (known as a "brane," as in membrane). Gravity, however, just might leak out of our brane — and that effect could be theoretically be detected.

The key word is "theoretically." Picking up evidence of the extradimensional effect would require high-resolution measurements of high-energy phenomena, such as the clash of binary pulsars in outer space or the smash of subatomic particles at velocities near the speed of light. No such evidence has yet come to light, despite the best efforts of gravitational-wave observatories in the U.S. and elsewhere, as well as the Large Hadron Collider on the French-Swiss border.

If astronomers were ever able to observe the behavior of black holes, that could point to the effect of extra dimensions, Hawking said. One of the biggest achievements of his career was to lay out the theory for how black holes can eventually fizzle out, due to a phenomenon known as Hawking radiation. If black holes emitted part of their energy into extra dimensions, in a form Hawking called "dark radiation," that could explain why astronomers have not yet seen the expected gamma-ray burst from a dying black hole. The alternative would be that low-mass black holes are so rare that virtually none of them have gotten small enough to die out.

"That would be a pity," he said, "because if a low-mass black hole were discovered, I would get a Nobel Prize." At that point, a giant image of the Nobel Prize medallion flashed above the stage.

It might also be possible to detect the leakage of energy into extra dimensions by creating microscopic black holes at the Large Hadron Collider, Hawking said. That phenomenon hasn't yet been observed at the LHC. Before the collider started up, there was a huge flap (and a federal court case) over fears that such micro-black holes, if created, might gobble up the planet. But Hawking said that would never happen.

"Instead, the black hole would disappear in a puff of Hawking radiation — and I would get a Nobel Prize," he said.

Before his talk, Hawking answered a few questions that were submitted by journalists (including yours truly) in advance. The topics covered some of the physicist's favorite topics, including time travel and the potential threat of an alien invasion. He also referred to his family life, which was a big part of his agenda in Seattle. One of his three children lives in the area, and over the past few days, Hawking and his family took in the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center, a boat cruise on Elliott Bay and a circus-dinner performance at Teatro Zinzanni. It all made for a great Father's Day visit to the Emerald City.

Here's the Q&A from the pre-talk press conference:

Q: What would it take to make time travel a reality, and how would that affect our present reality?

A: "We are all traveling forward in time anyway. We can fast-forward by going off in a rocket at high speed, and returning to find everyone on Earth much older or dead. Einstein's general theory of relativity seems to offer the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that we could travel back in time. However, it is likely that the warping would trigger a bolt of radiation that would destroy the spaceship, and maybe the space-time itself.

"I have experimental evidence that [backward] time travel is not possible. I gave a party for time travelers, but I didn't send out the invitation until after the party. I sat there a long time, but no one came."

Ted S. Warren / AP

Physicist and best-selling author Stephen Hawking, right, answers questions from reporters as people waiting for his public appearance look on at left at Seattle's Paramount Theater on Saturday. Hawking was taking part in a Seattle Science Festival symposium focusing on the topic of evolution. Science editor Alan Boyle ... or at least the back of his balding pate ... can be seen in the foreground.

Q: If M-theory is the only candidate for a complete theory of the universe, what’s the best evidence that you think will be found to support the theory? Lacking that evidence, isn’t M-theory merely another kind of religion?

A: "M-theory is the only theory that seems to have all the properties that we would expect of a complete and consistent theory of everything, but that may just reflect our lack of imagination. If M-theory is correct, it predicts that every particle should have a superpartner. So far we have not observed any superpartners, but the hope is that they will be found at the LHC. If they are discovered, that will be strong evidence for M-theory. On the other hand, if they are shown not to exist, that will be exciting, because then we'll learn something new."

Q: How would you describe your quality of life? What do you miss most from before the onset of ALS?

A: "Although I'm severely disabled and on a ventilator, my quality of life is pretty good. I have been very successful in my scientific work, and have become one of the best-known scientists in the world. I have three children, and three grandchildren so far. I travel widely, have been to Antarctica and have met the presidents of Korea, China, India, Ireland, Chile and the United States. I have been down in a submarine, and up in a zero-gravity flight in preparation for the flight into space that I'm hoping to make on Virgin Galactic. 

"Despite my disability, I have managed to do most things I want. My main regret is that it has prevented me from playing with my children and grandchildren as fully as I want." 

Q: John Gribbin recently argued that we are almost certainly the only intelligent life in the Milky Way –  do you think he’s right or wrong, and why? Also, SETI astronomer Seth Shostak argues that even if there are other intelligent civilizations out there, it’s too late for us to keep quiet about our existence, because it’s possible to pick up the signals we’ve sent out over the past 70 years. So isn’t it too late for us to keep quiet, and shouldn’t we be thinking about upgrading our defenses against the alien hordes?

A: "We think that life developed spontaneously on Earth, so it must be possible for life to develop on suitable planets elsewhere such as the Earth. But we don't know the probability that a planet develops life. If it is very low, we may well be the only intelligent life in the galaxy. Another frightening possibility is, intelligent life is fairly common, but that it destroys itself when it reaches the stage of advanced technology.

"Evidence that intelligent life is rare or short-lived is that we don't seem to have been visited by extraterrestrials.I am discounting claims that UFOs contain aliens. Why would they appear only to cranks and weirdos? Nor do I believe that there is some government conspiracy to conceal the evidence, and keep for themselves the advanced technologies the aliens have. If that were the case, they aren't making much use of it. Further evidence that there isn't any intelligent life within a few hundred light-years comes from the fact that SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, hasn't picked up their television quiz shows. 

"It is true that we advertise our presence by our broadcasts. But given that we haven't been visited for 4 billion years, it is unlikely that aliens will come anytime soon." 

Updates on the 'Chicken-saurus'
Hawking may have been the headliner, but he wasn't the only luminary at Saturday's "Luminaries Series" symposium on the theme of evolution. Jack Horner, who's based in Bozeman at Montana State University's Museum of the Rockies and has served as an adviser for the "Jurassic Park" movies and the "Terra Nova" TV series, brought the sellout crowd at the Paramount up to date on his quest to create a "Chicken-saurus."

"We're basically going to turn a chicken into a dinosaur," Horner said.

The idea is that the genetic code in chicken cells may still carry the instructions for producing traits that are associated with the dinosaurs from which they descended. "Birds are dinosaurs, so we don't have to 'make' a dinosaur — we already have them," Horner said. He and his colleagues are looking for ways to express those long-buried traits, known as atavisms. Even humans can express atavisms. For example, there have been cases of children born with tails.

"You don't have to do any magic," Horner told me. "You just have to find the atavisms in the genes."

Some researchers have already found the genes to produce chicken teeth, and Horner and his colleagues are methodically checking chicken embryos for avenues that could be used to create birds with long, dino-like tails or three-fingered claws like the ones sported by the velociraptors in "Jurassic Park." Horner told me that one of his students compared the effort to the Apollo moonshots.

"It's more than possible," Horner said. "It's just going to take a lot of money."

The future of medicine
In his talk, biologist Leroy Hood outlined his vision of the medical frontier. As the founder of Seattle's Institute for Systems Biology, Hood champions an approach to health care he calls P4 — predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory medicine. He said P4 medicine will arise from the convergence of revolutions in genetic analysis and data processing.

"Ten years in the future, each and every one of you will have your complete genome sequenced," Hood said. If quintillions of bytes' worth of genomic data can be used to nail down the linkages to disease factors as well as the factors that lead to wellness, it should be possible to get health care that's better as well as cheaper.

But getting the payoff from that promise depends on making the genomic data available to researchers, most likely on an anonymized basis, as well as developing the computational firepower to make sense out of a massive cloud of that data. "None of the IT companies have looked at this seriously," Hood said.

To get the ball rolling, Hood said he and his colleagues are talking with four small countries to implement P4 health-care programs in the next two or three years. Although Hood didn't name the countries, his institute already has a partnership with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to work on P4 initiatives.

"I have thought about going to small countries because I think the health-care system in the U.S. is too fragmented and disjointed to have any coordinated kind of change, but if you see that another country has done it very well, then that will be quite convincing," he said.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

J. Craig Venter Institute

A genetically transformed strain of bacteria takes on a bluish cast as a signal that synthetic coding was incorporated into the cell's genetic machinery.

Someday, microbiomes just might give us a world where crude oil is grown like a crop, where vaccines for new flu strains can be produced in days instead of months, and where physicians can tweak the bacteria in your gut to cure what ails you. At least that's the promise held out by genomics pioneer Craig Venter and others at a symposium conducted this week at Seattle's Institute for Systems Biology.

A decade ago, Venter was among a cadre of researchers who first decoded the human genome — in Venter's case, his own. Today, as the head of the J. Craig Venter Institute, he's among a cadre of researchers who are not only working out the implications of that genetic code for our daily lives, but also studying how to tweak the genetic codes of the myriad microbes that surround us — and in some cases, live within us. The makeup of those microbial communities is what scientists refer to a "microbiome."

A decade ago, the main challenge facing geneticists was to translate the "analog" information of cellular chemistry into a digital database, Venter told attendees. Today, the main challenge is to reverse course and make the "digital to analog" conversion, so that innovations in genetic code can be applied to the real world.

How's that done? Venter and his colleagues made a start on that task just a few years ago, by pioneering a process to synthesize DNA and insert it into a strain of bacteria. The daughter cells reflected the artificially altered programming instead of their forebears' natural genetic code.

Now Venter and others are putting synthetic biology to work. Here are just a few of the examples cited at the Seattle symposium, titled "Systems Biology and the Microbiome":

• Novartis, a major pharmaceutical company, is working with Venter on techniques to crack the genetic code of an influenza virus strain and pass it along to the vaccine-makers within five days. A quick turnaround is the key to containing the spread of deadly flu strains like the one that killed tens of millions in 1918. "We think we're actually pandemic-ready," Venter said.
• Several commercial ventures, including Sapphire Energy, are tweaking algae to produce oil-like compounds at a price that's cheaper than the cost of crude oil. Sapphire CEO Jason Pyle pointed out that based purely on commodity costs, corn is a cheaper energy source than oil (though not as cheap as natural gas). If genetically modified algae could be grown in mass quantities as cheaply as corn, it could become a renewable energy source that's much closer to carbon-neutral than fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide could come to be seen as "the raw material of the future," Venter said.

• Algae strains could also be reprogrammed to produce foodstuffs, Venter said. Such genetic twists could outpace today's chemical-heavy agricultural methods, which are increasingly being seen as too wasteful for the planet's rising population. "Ultimately, the elimination of agriculture as we know it should be a goal of modern science," Venter said. However, harnessing synthetic algae cells is "not a short-term project," he cautioned.
• Unraveling the human microbiome, particularly in our digestive system,. ranks among the top priorities for microbiologists. Physicians are already experimenting with "fecal transplants" — a gross-sounding procedure that involves injecting material from a donor's intestines into the gut of a patient who needs a healthier bacterial community. Having your digestive bacteria analyzed, and tweaked if necessary, may someday become part of a routine physical. (However, MIT's Eric Alm noted that it wouldn't have to be done annually, because your gut's microbiome doesn't usually change that quickly.)
• The bacteria in our bowels may even play a role in space exploration: If we ever get to the point of sending astronauts to Mars, Venter said one of the first items on the agenda should be to replace the astronauts' Earth-centric gut bacteria with a selection more suited to the Mars trip. Venter has said other bacteria cold be engineered to create fuel and food from raw materials on Mars, including the carbon dioxide in its atmosphere.

This all sounds like a science-fiction utopia, but some believe there's the potential for a sci-fi nightmare instead. Last month, an international environmental consortium called for a moratorium on the commercial use of synthetic organisms, and an outright ban on the application of synthetic biology to the human genome or the human microbiome.

"It is our obligation to safeguard the future, to be wise in our development and use of technologies which could threaten humans and the Earth," said Carolyn Raffensperger, executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. The results of an online survey on synthetic biology are due to be released next month.

What do you think about the idea using genetically altered microbes to produce fuel, food and medicine? Is it a panacea, a Pandora's Box, or something in between? Feel free to register your opinion in the online poll above, or in the comment space below.

More about the microbiome and synthetic biology:

• Scientists map the world's microbes
• What's living on your smartphone?
• Bacteria prefer prime real estate
• Renewable rubber highlights new economy
• One-third of Americans back ban on synthetic biology

Yamada et al. / Nature Communications

Functional magnetic resonance imaging indicates regions of the brain in which activity correlated with increased sympathy toward a convicted criminal facing sentencing (green) and an inclination to reduce punishment (red). Common areas were found in a region known as the precuneus (yellow).

Sympathetic jurors show a characteristic pattern of brain activity when they decide to be lenient on a criminal, and the strength of that pattern can vary from juror to juror, researchers report. Such findings aren't of merely academic interest: Someday, this kind of neuroscience could well have an impact on the legal process itself.

The latest study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, is consistent with earlier research into the neurological roots of moral cognition. It's also in line with the well-supported view that mitigating circumstances can make a big difference when people consider how other people should be punished. This study, led by Makiko Yamada of Japan's National Institute of Radiological Sciences, bridges the gap by investigating how the brain turns information about mitigating circumstances into a legal outcome.

"Jurors are really like workers," Caltech neuroscientist Colin Camerer, one of the study's co-authors, told me. "They're chosen and instructed to do things with quite a bit of restraint. It's like you're 'hiring' these workers to do something that's literally life and death. But almost nothing is known about whether they're using their tools — brain activity — in an appropriate way."

To study that question, Yamada and her colleagues recruited 26 subjects to read 32 real-life stories about Japanese defendants facing sentences for murder. Half of the stories presented scenarios that were likely to elicit sympathy — for example, tales of life in poverty, or victimization by domestic violence, or a struggle with disease. The other half were "no-sympathy" scenarios.

After reading the stories, the subjects were put into MRI scanners and asked to modify a 20-year sentence for each defendant, either up or down. Then they rated themselves on how much sympathy they felt for the defendants, and how empathetic they considered themselves to be. Readings from three of the subjects were not included in the analysis because they moved excessively during the brain scans, and one subject fell asleep during the experiment. That left 22 people in the study.

The MRI results showed that brain areas known as the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, the precuneus and temporo-parietal junction were activated during a sympathetic response, and that the precuneus and anterior cingulate cortex were activated during sentencing. These regions are generally associated with mental deliberation and moral conflict, as well as emotional pain.

The jurors who were more inclined to be lenient tended to show more activity in the right middle insula, an area known to be involved in the mental perception of visceral states. Camerer said the most sympathetic subject, as measured by brain activity, exhibited a 28-year range in sentencing: six years for the most forgivable murderer, and 34 years for the least forgivable. The jurors with the least sympathetic brains kept their sentences in a 10-year range — for example, from 15 to 25 years.

"This kind of variability is similar [but] probably much less than that seen in experimental studies of translating moral judgments to large dollar sums in punitive-damage tort cases," Camerer said.

The researchers said the variability in brain function could become a factor in future court cases. "Not every brain maps sympathy to prison sentences in the same numerical way. ... Differences in these brain circuits between individuals suggest that differential juror responses might need to be considered unequally," they wrote.

Camerer said another intriguing issue has to do with how individual jurors activate or deactivate their emotions during a criminal case. When they deliberate over a defendant's guilt or innocence, jurors are expected to hold their emotions in check. But when jurors consider the sentence of a convicted criminal, their emotional response to mitigating circumstances should become part of the  process.

"I could imagine where, on appeal, the argument would be that some of these jurors didn't override their emotions adequately," Camerer said. "If that's permitted as a legal issue, how do you know? We say, don't ask the person, ask the brain."

In the future, will jurors find themselves subjected to brain scans before or after a trial? If you were a defense lawyer, wouldn't you want to know you had 12 sympathetic brains on your side? If you were a prosecutor, wouldn't you want to make sure that jurors didn't let their right middle insula unduly influence their right temporo-parietal junction? Or does all this sound way too Orwellian? Feel free to weigh in with your verdict below.

More on your moral brain:

• Behaving badly? Blame your brain
• How monkeys handle moral outrage
• Judges are less lenient when they're hungry
• Study: Morality can be altered with magnets
• Brain's 'cheat sheet' makes moral decisions easier
• Flash interactive: Road map to the brain
• Mental health coverage on msnbc.com
• Cosmic Log archive on the brain

In addition to Yamada and Camerer, the authors of "Neural Circuits in the Brain That Are Activated When Mitigating Criminal Sentences" include Saori Fujie, Motoichiro Kato, Tetsuya Matsuda, Harumasa Takano, Hiroshi Ito, Tetsuya Suhara and Hidehiko Takahashi.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

JCVI via Science/AAAS

Scientists took a type of bacteria known as Mycoplasma capricolum and transplanted a custom-written version of the genome from a different type of bacteria, Mycoplasma mycoides. The synthetic genome included coding for the production of a blue compound, which served here as a signal that the bacteria were "synthetic cells."

More than 100 environmental and social-action groups say synthetic organisms shouldn't be sent out into the world until governments create a new framework to regulate them. Their recommendations for such a framework are outlined in a statement of principles issued today.

Synthetic biology aims to create new genetic strains of microbes, such as algae that are tailor-made to produce biofuels, or bacteria that are engineered to fight medical maladies ranging from infections to cancer. Researchers estimate that the global market for synthetic biology was $1.1 billion in 2010, and is on track to increase to $10.8 billion in 2016.

Critics, however, say that the technology could lead to environmental hazards of Frankensteinian proportions, including new strains of unstoppable invasive species and unpredictable hazards to human health. The 111 groups behind today's statement, including Friends of the Earth, the International Center for Technology Assessment and the ETC Group, are on the critical side of the spectrum.

"We are calling for a global moratorium on the release and commercial use of synthetic organisms until we have established a public interest research agenda, examined alternatives, developed the proper regulations and put into place rigorous biosafety measures," Carolyn Raffensperger, executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, said in a news release. "It is our obligation to safeguard the future, to be wise in our development and use of technologies which could threaten humans and the Earth."

The groups call for an outright ban on the use of synthetic biology on the human genome, or on the human microbiome — that is, the wide assortment of microbes that are found inside us or on our skin. They say the current systems in place to regulate genetic engineering are inadequate for the task ahead. 

"Self-regulation of the synthetic biology industry simply won't work. Current laws and regulations around biotechnology are outdated and inadequate to deal with the novel risks posed by synthetic biology technologies and their products," said Andy Kimbrell, executive director of the International Center for Technology Assessment.

The debate over synthetic biology has intensified since geneticist J. Craig Venter and his colleagues announced the development of the "first synthetic cell" in 2010. In the wake of that announcement, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues said there was no need to halt research into synthetic biology or establish an entirely new regulatory framework. Instead, the commission called for a combination of industry self-regulation, closer coordination by existing regulatory agencies and further research into the potential for risk.

When that report was released, the ETC Group's Jim Thomas said it was "disappointingly empty and timid." Thomas' group is one of the principal backers of the proposed principles issued today.

A spokesman for the Biotechnology Industry Organization told ScienceInsider's Elizabeth Pennisi that the principles issued today were not helpful to policymakers or the public, due to "the shrillness of its tone and its lack of objectivity." He said "there are a lot of safeguards in place" today, while acknowledging that the existing regulations may eventually need to be upgraded.

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has established its own project to study the policy implications of synthetic biology. One of the leaders of that project, senior research associate Todd Kuiken, told me that the principles issued today were "not that much different" from the presidential commission's recommendations, although he said the tone was a bit more strident. "The word 'moratorium' is a little strong," he said.

"There are potential risks there, and we need to look at these issues before we start putting these things out there," Kuiken said. "I don't think anything they said is that surprising to folks, nor is the response from industry that surprising."

The center's Synthetic Biology Project has voiced concern about the implications of genetic technology for the past 18 months. In a recent Nature commentary, Kuiken and four colleagues urged scientists and officials to take additional steps to avoid "a synthetic-biology disaster."

"Public agencies must link basic and environmental risk research by co-funding projects and requiring grant recipients to work with environmental agencies from the start," they wrote. "Given the complexity of the research questions, the economic and social value of successful synthetic-biology applications and the potential impact of errors, we think that a minimal investment of $20 million to $30 million over 10 years is appropriate."

Today, the Synthetic Biology Project is kicking off an online survey to gauge public opinion on the ethical, legal and social implications synthetic biology. The center said results from the survey would be compiled into a report to be released in May. To take the survey, click here. But first, register your opinion in our own unscientific poll at right.

More about synthetic biology:

• First synthetic life form holds promise and peril
• One-third of Americans back ban on synthetic biology
• Synthetic life could help humans colonize Mars
• DNA chip is 'printing press' for synthetic biology
• Yeast adds vitamins to bread

X Prize Foundation

The medical diagnostic tool envisioned by the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize may well look much like a smartphone running an app with wireless sensing capability, as shown in this artist's concept.

Qualcomm and the X Prize Foundation have laid out a $10 million plan to spur the development of medical diagnosis devices like the ones seen on "Star Trek" science-fiction shows — not by the 23rd century, but by mid-2015.

The Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize is the latest multimillion-dollar competition designed to serve as an incentive for technological breakthroughs, following in the footsteps of X Prizes for private-sector spaceflight, ultra-efficient automobiles. low-cost genome sequencing and robotic moon missions.

"There is a generation of exponentially growing technologies ... that are coming together to empower us to make real the 'Star Trek' technology of a medical tricorder," Peter Diamandis, the X Prize Foundation's CEO, told me today.

Tricorders are the hand-held props that have been used by "Star Trek" characters dating back to the 1960s to check a crew member's vital signs — with the aim of keeping Bones from having to tell Captain Kirk, "He's dead, Jim." The old ones looked like cassette recorders with mini-TV screens, while the later models looked like flip phones gone wild.

The tricorder envisioned for the X Prize would be a hand-held wireless device like a smartphone, weighing no more than 5 pounds. It'll have to record health indicators such as blood pressure, respiratory rate, pulse and temperature, and diagnose a set of 15 diseases to be named later. Diamandis said the diseases on the list would probably include respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.

Details still to be determined
The X Prize specifications still have to be filled out, along with the scale to be used for judging the various models in the competition, but the foundation says "teams will have to consider tradeoffs amongst weight, functionality, power requirements, battery life, screen resolution, A.I. engine location, diagnosis capability, end consumer cost, and so on."

The schedule calls for the initial draft of the competition guidelines to be made public later this month, and massaged into their final form by September or so. The teams that seek the prize will show off their prototypes during a qualifying round in mid-2014, and the top 10 teams will compete in a final round in mid-2015. That final round will require teams to use their devices to diagnose 15 to 30 consumers over the course of three days. The teams will be judged based on the diagnoses as well an assessment of consumer experience and proof of adequate high-frequency data logging.

The top team will win $7 million, and there'll also be a $2 million second prize and a $1 million third prize, all put up by the Qualcomm Foundation.

"Health care today certainly falls far short of the vision portrayed in 'Star Trek,'" Paul Jacobs, who is Qualcomm's chairman and CEO as well as chair of the Qualcomm Foundation, said today in a news release. "By sponsoring the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize competition, the Qualcomm Foundation will stimulate the imaginations of entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists and doctors to create wireless health services and technologies that improve lives, increase consumer access to health care and drive efficiencies in the health care system. This competition will accelerate the development of tools that can empower consumers to take charge of their own bodies and manage their own care."

The competition's formal kickoff came today during Jacobs' keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It follows up on last May's announcement that Qualcomm, a global company focusing on wireless network technology, would sponsor the competition.

Tricorders galore
Whether or not you call it a tricorder, the hand-held medical diagnostic device definitely seems to be an idea whose time has come. Just last month, the Canadian government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $38.5 million initiative to further the development of such devices, as well as the medical tests and protocols that would run on them. Also last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its approval to the first hand-held device to detect brain bleeding.

Meanwhile, a startup called Scanadu is working on a "tricorder" that parents can use to monitor their kids' health, and there are so many medical monitoring apps for smartphones that the FDA is working on regulatory guidelines for them.

Like other X Prizes, the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize is intended to provide an extra incentive for innovators rather than a profitable venture in itself. The Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight serves as an example: Software billionaire Paul Allen spent upwards of $25 million to win the $10 milllion prize in 2004. But that venture opened the way for what could be more profitable space ventures to come, including Virgin Galactic and Stratolaunch.

Diamandis said the Tricorder X Prize competition was open to ventures that were already involved in the medical-device market, although he emphasized that the eligibility rules had not yet been put in their final form. He also emphasized that the winning device won't be the final word in the future history of the "Star Trek" tricorder.

"The target here is Tricorder 1.0," he told me. "It's about demonstrating the diversity of different diseases or conditions that can be diagnosed with a mobile, user-friendly, hand-held device."

Does it sound as if we're at a turning point for medical technology, or will this turn out to be just one more chapter in a science-fiction novel about more affordable health care? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

More about tricorder dreams:

• From 2000: Medicine meets the final frontier
• From 2008: Trekkie tricorder detects ailments
• From 2011: iPhones turn into medical imagers
• Gallery: Reality check for 'Star Trek' tech

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.