MPAA and BREIN shut down 29 file-sharing sites

The MPAA and Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN have collaborated to disable the domains of 29 BitTorrent, Usenet and other file-sharing sites accused of illegally linking to music, movies, TV shows and games. Despite serving Dutch users, the sites avoided Dutch law by being hosted in the US.

"This year we have made over 600 of these sites inaccessible," said BREIN's Tim Kuik. "These 29 apparently thought that in America they could go undisturbed. That is incorrect," Kuik said, noting that BREIN could shut down sites in other countries with the aid of foreign colleagues like the MPAA.

The affected sites haven't been released as Kuik believes it would only amount to free publicity (the sites should be back online once they find a new hosting service). It's believed that hd-united.com is one of the disabled sites as it was redirecting visitors to BREIN's homepage at one point.


That last tidbit is a little troublesome. TorrentFreak suggests that, not only has a private anti-piracy outfit forced a US hosting provider to disable sites without legal intervention, but it's a foreign organization, and they were granted enough power over the domain to redirect its traffic.

Call us paranoid, but that's a slippery slope, no matter your stance on copyright infringement. What's stopping other foreign groups from making a phone call and shutting down US sites because their content (or linked content, in this case) is deemed illegal in another country?

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Congress Moves Toward Approving Tax Cut Legislation

As the House began to take up the tax deal, it hit a procedural snag. Liberal Democrats skirmished with party leaders over a proposed vote on an amendment to tax more wealthy estates and at a higher rate than was included in a provision agreed to by the Obama administration.

The liberals, many of them angry about the prospect of continuing the tax policies of President George W. Bush, complained that party leaders had structured the debate so that they could not vote in favor of the amendment to the estate tax provision without also voting in favor of the entire package.

Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, said he supported the change in the estate tax, which he said would save $23 billion. But, he complained, ?in order to do that I would have to accept the remainder of the Senate bill.?

By Thursday evening, however, an accommodation had been reached and floor action resumed. In a key test, the House voted 214 to 201 to approve the new terms of debate.

The bill extends for two years all of the income tax cuts enacted under Mr. Bush and provides a one-year payroll tax cut for most American workers, delivering what economists predict would be a needed lift for the struggling economy.

The tax deal marked the start of a new dynamic in Washington, with Republicans set to hold a majority in the House as result of their big victories in the midterm elections.

The package was negotiated directly by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has positioned himself as a broker between the White House and Republicans.

Some officials, including Mr. Obama, have hailed the tax agreement as a prototype for hard-bargained compromises in the era of divided government.

But the tax accord also showed Washington policymakers locked in an unsustainable cycle of cutting taxes and raising spending that has proved politically palatable in the short term but could seriously threaten the nation?s fiscal stability in years ahead.

?Republicans are talking a lot about certainty and there is some good data about this, that policy uncertainty is bad for an economy,? said Matthew Mitchell, a research fellow and tax policy expert at George Mason University in Virginia.

?But even if they had won some sort of a victory where they got the current tax rates written in stone,? he said, ?spending is on such an unsustainable path in terms of entitlements, it really isn?t certain at all.?

The temporary nature of the deal, however, could lend momentum to broader efforts to overhaul the tax code and tackle the long-term deficit. With the tax debate now scheduled to resume at the height of the 2012 presidential election, some lawmakers say they hope the fiscal landscape can be redrawn and the cycle of lower taxes and higher spending brought to a halt.

Or, as Herbert Stein, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford put it: ?If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.?

Some fiscal experts said they were heartened that lawmakers in both parties had expressed unhappiness with the tax agreement, and that there appeared to be an increasing recognition of a need to tackle the long-term problems.

Recently, 22 senators ? 12 Democrats, 9 Republicans and 1 independent ? signed on to a resolution pledging to ?devise a comprehensive plan for addressing the fiscal concerns of our nation? by focusing on ?tax reform, spending restraint and debt and deficit reduction? in 2011.

?The era of deficit denial is over,? said Bruce Reed, the executive director of Mr. Obama?s bipartisan commission on reducing the national debt. ?They?re just having a big year-end close-out.?

Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, for example, voted in favor of the debt commission?s plan earlier this month. But he voted against the tax deal on Wednesday even as his colleagues approved it overwhelmingly by a vote of 81 to 19. Mr. Coburn had proposed an alternative seeking to reduce the cost of the tax plan.

As the House debated the tax plan, some Democrats said it would do too much for the wealthy, and warned that the payroll tax cut could undermine the stability of Social Security. Some Republican critics said the package was too costly.

?This legislation creates too few jobs and too much debt,? said Representative Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont.

Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, said he feared the one-year cut in the Social Security payroll tax, to 4.2 percent from 6.2 percent on income up to $106,800, would weaken Social Security because Republicans would insist on the cut being made permanent, and Democrats would relent.

?We know that, politically, once you make that tax cut it will be impossible to restore it,? Mr. Nadler said.

In the Senate, Democrats on Thursday night abandoned efforts to pass a $1.2 trillion spending bill to finance the federal government through Sept. 30, and said they would accede to Republicans demands for a short-term stop-gap measure instead.

Senators said the stop-gap bill would run through the early part of next year. At that point, Republicans will control a majority in the House and six additional seats in the Senate, giving them greater leverage over any spending decisions.

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

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iPhone Review: Hook Worlds

iPhone Review: Hook Worlds

Posted on 16th Dec 2010 at 11:39 by Joe Martin with 3 comments

Hooks are a recurring motif for Rocketcat Games, it seems - as 'Cry' is to Crytek, perhaps. It's a motif that has taken center stage in both of Rocketcat's previous titles, Hook Champ and Super Quick Hook.

Now, it shows up again in Hook Worlds - albeit under three different guises.

You see, there are three games in Hook Worlds. The first of these, Curse of the Watcher, doesn't anything new or wholly unfamiliar to fans of Rocketcat's previous games. A cross between Super Quick Hook's endless Avalanche mode and Hook Champ's story-driven levels, Curse has players using rocketboots and a grappling hook to flee a pursuing ghost. The controls have changed about since Super Quick Hook, but it's still super accessible; a tap on the left or right is all you need to whip through the scenery.


The second and third games are a slightly different affair, however, and offer a radical change of pace. The first of these, Bounty Gunner, is more action-orientated than the others and casts players as Zelle, a DLC character from the original Hook Champ. Tasked with cleansing a haunted cove of the ghost pirates that possess it, Zelle constantly charges forward automatically and uses her rifle to dispatch enemies and knock down barricades. There's nobody chasing Zelle, but as she gains speed the game gets much more difficult.

The final game, Cybergnome 202X, brings another change of pace and is by far the hardest of them all, though. Set in a dystopian future where it's illegal to be a gnome, Cybergnome couples the usual grappling hook controls with the ability to invert gravity as you try to dodge the police. It's a difficult feature to get to grips with, especially when you hit a stretch of the level that forces you to grapple across the city upside down, but it's also one of the most fun and rewarding.


Unfortunately, while Hook Worlds brings some welcome changes, it's also noticeably lighter on character and charm than the previous Hook games. The dialogue that introduces each game is even lighter than it was in Hook Champ, while none of the items that players can buy with their points bring anything but cosmetic tweaks. Most of all, we miss the ability to converse with other characters in the in-game store, a feature introduced in Super Quick Hook.

The upside to this, however, is that Rocketcat has already assured fans that there'll be plenty of updates in the future - including a fourth, retro-inspired game mode and a variety of unlockable endings that will bring more humour to the game. Normally we'd hesitate before praising a game based on nothing more than promises, but Rocketcat has a history of supporting titles, so it's a safe bet.

Conclusion: Hook Worlds lacks the aesthetic variety and scope of previous titles in the series, but it compensates for these failings with it's extra game modes. We wouldn't say it's as essential as Super Quick Hook, but that could easily change after a few updates.

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LG Optimus 2X: the first dual-core smartphone

LG Electronics has unveiled the LG Optimus 2X, the world's first smartphone with a dual-core processor. The LG Optimus 2X will be available in Korea next month with countries in Europe and Asia to follow. The phone will initially be released with Android 2.2 (codenamed Froyo) and will be upgradeable to Android 2.3 (codenamed Gingerbread). The upgrade schedule to Gingerbread has yet to be announced.

Here is a picture of the phone and its key specifications:

  • 1Ghz Dual-core Processor (NVIDIA Tegra 2)
  • 4-inch WVGA screen
  • 8GB memory (up to 32GB via microSD)
  • 1,500 mAh battery
  • 8 megapixel rear camera and 1.3 megapixel front camera
  • HDMI mirroring that expands content on external displays to full HD quality
  • 1080p MPEG-4/H.264 playback and recording

LG boasts that Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 system-on-a-chip makes browsing, gaming, and using applications faster, lets users multitask with virtually no screen lag, and has very low power consumption but high performance for playing video and audio. The LG Optimus 2X can connect wirelessly to any DLNA-compatible digital device (most are HDTVs). The smartphone also includes an accelerometer, gyroscopic sensor, and a Micro-USB port.

"Dual-core technology is the next leap forward in mobile technology so this is no small achievement to be the first to offer a smartphone utilizing this technology," Dr. Jong-seok Park, CEO and President of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company, said in a statement. "With unique features such as HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) mirroring and exceptional graphics performance, the LG Optimus 2X is proof of LGs commitment to high-end smartphones in 2011."

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Raskin brings iOS-style interface to Mac OSX [TNW Apps]

Raskin, the great-looking, powerful alternative to Mac OSX?s native Finder app, has just been updated with some new features that make it even more of a ?must-try?. In fact, the Swiss developers are claiming it ?Brings the iOS experience to the Mac? and we?re inclined to agree.

While it?s not iOS per se, it?s close enough to ?feel? the same. If you?re a designer, photographer or anyone else who thinks ?visually?, Raskin?s built for you. The quick and easy way you can navigate the contents of your computer, scrolling and zooming around a gorgeous-looking desktop is a joy. We were impressed in our recent review of version 1.1 and version introduces a few tweaks that make it just that little bit more of a pleasure to use.

In terms of usability, you can now drag and drop to any destination and there?s autoscroll while you drag items. Appearance-wise, the ?Surface? of the app (its appearance) can be customised and it?s possible to hide selected files and folders if you see fit. In short, these tweaks have made a good product feel all the ?complete?.

Raskin 1.2 is available to download now as a free trial and costs £34.95 for a single license.

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Bit-Gamer launch competition

Bit-Gamer launch competition

Posted on 13th Dec 2010 at 11:06 by Joe Martin with 32 comments

Things have changed for bit-tech's games content recently. You might have noticed the new logo and backgrounds, not to mention the new Hall of Fame article which we'll be updating regularly in the future. You might be wondering why the name of your favourite games review site has changed from bit-tech to bit-gamer.

One other thing that?s changed but which you might not have noticed yet is that bit-gamer has its own Twitter account now too ? which is important because we?re going to start doing regular prize draws and competitions using it. More on that in a minute.

Bit-tech?s games content has changed a lot since I joined the company almost five years ago. We?ve changed our review style and the length of our articles, not to mention the type of games and platforms we cover. This last two years especially has seen a number of changes to bit-tech?s games content, with new writers working on the site and a renewed focus on features and previews. Some of my favourite articles we?ve ever done have been written in the last year, for example, while today sees the introduction of a new regular column, Critical Hit.


Over the next year, we plan to grow bit-tech?s games content even further under the title of Bit-Gamer. Moving forward we?ll be bringing you more articles, looking at more platforms and with a bundle of other new features, all without sacrificing any of the detail or quality that bit-tech has always been known for.

Naturally, we couldn?t have grown like this if it wasn?t for the support of you, our readers. We wanted to thank you ? and what better way to do that than by giving away free games. We?re going to be giving away a bunch of freebies every Monday to celebrate the launch of bit-gamer, starting today with three copies of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit for the PlayStation 3.

To be in with a chance of winning, all you need to do is follow @bit_gamer on twitter and tell us what your favourite game ever is.

We?ll be picking winners and sending out prizes later this week, but even if you don?t win then we?ll have more prizes lined up for next Monday, so stay tuned. In the mean time, you can let us know your thoughts in the forums.

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Tech Tip: Tool Up and Regain Control of your Gmail Inbox

How many times have you set out to get your inbox organized only to postpone it a few minutes later out of boredom or sheer laziness? Well, if you are a Gmail user in need of some help to tackle email overload and cut down the time required to keep things organized there are a bunch of services that may be right up your alley.

Today we'll cover four useful tools that are available free of charge and won't take more than a few minutes to setup. Read on to find more about Googles own Priority Inbox feature, OtherInboxs Organizer, AwayFind, and a clever extension called 0Boxer that turns the tedious task of dealing with your inbox into a rewards-driven game.

Priority Inbox uses an adaptive algorithm to prioritize emails that are important to you. Essentially, this feature will divide your inbox into three sections: the top one contains the most important and unread messages, the middle one has messages that have been 'starred' by users for future reference, and the last section keeps everything else. The filtering process for placing messages into their corresponding section is done automatically by Google based on a variety of criteria -- people you interact with regularly will go up the ladder, for example.

Since its likely Google wont be 100% accurate right off the bat you're also able to manually identify which emails are important by increasing or decreasing the priority of certain emails using plus and minus buttons, which in turn will tune the system to your preference over time. You can enable the priority inbox from the Settings page and it will appear as an additional opt-in view of inbox messages, so you wont have to give up the standard inbox view.

The service has been mostly accurate in categorizing emails based on a few weeks of use. Youll be able to speed through your inbox faster, but depending on the volume of email you receive on a daily basis, keeping an eye out for the occasional message that can mistakenly get buried into the "everything else" section might prove inconvenient for some.

Google does a remarkable job of filtering out spam and keeping inboxes clean, but even after getting rid of all the stuff you dont want, youre often left with a significant amount of emails from business and web services that you actually want to read, just not right away. OtherInbox Organizer is a service for Gmail and Yahoo mail that aims to reduce the clutter in your inbox by dealing with incoming messages and organizing them in a way that makes better sense.

The beauty of it is that you dont have to do any of the work. After connecting your email account with the service, simply sit back and watch as messages are labeled and archived into Shopping, Travel, Business, and other predetermined categories. Emails sent from the contacts you deal with the most are left in your inbox, so you can read the important stuff first and deal with the rest later.

In some ways its similar to the Priority Inbox feature, but the two services actually complement each other: Priority Inbox keeps the emails you really want at the top while Organizer can keep any automated emails out of your inbox altogether. Additionally you can set it to organize shipping information, payment reminders and upcoming sales into your calendar, or create multiple disposable email addresses you can use when registering to a new website -- making it easy to determine where the spam is coming from and block those messages with the click of a button.

Frankly, I had long-lost hope of keeping Gmail organized with my own filters and labels, but OtherInbox Organizer makes separating "real" correspondence from the flood of automated emails hitting my account every day much easier.

AwayFind is a web-based application designed to keep you from compulsively checking your inbox by offering an alert system of sorts for the most important messages. Using a set of user-defined filters this tool will watch your inbox in the background and notify you through a number of ways whenever an important person or subject comes in. You can choose to be notified with a call, SMS, IM, or even delegate or route certain messages to someone else.

You can download a Chrome or Firefox extension to facilitate the process of creating filters from within the Gmail interface. You can also setup an auto-response message with a contact form link in case you plan to be away for an extended period of time while traveling, for example. The idea behind AwayFind is rather simple, giving you the freedom of handling email when your schedule permits, with the peace of mind that anything urgent will be dealt with in time. The service recently came out of beta and is available in both free and paid ($12.50/mo.) versions.

Just as I was wrapping up this article Google announced a new addition to its Gmail service that is definitely worth a mention: Email delegation. The feature has been available to paid Google Apps users for a while and it basically lets you grant other Gmail users access to your account (without them having to sign out of theirs). This person will be able to view and respond messages on your behalf, but not chat and modify your password or certain configuration settings.

The option is intended for people whod like their assistants to handle their email messages, but its also quite useful for anyone with multiple Gmail accounts of his own, as you can view them simultaneously or switch between them quickly from the top of the Gmail window. To start using it, simply login to your Gmail account, go to settings and add another email account under the Accounts tab then click Grant Access.

This clever extension for Googles webmail client encourages you to read and archive your messages, rewarding you with points and badges for reaching inbox zero. Granted, it doesnt sound too exciting, but if you need an incentive to get control of your never-ending pile of emails it may be a useful productivity hack. With everyone else giving you rewards these days -- Foursquare for going out to places, Miso for watching TV shows, Xbox Live for beating a game level -- why not add that element of gameplay and make clearing out your inbox rewarding and fun at the same time, right?

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Time picks Alan Wake as top game of 2010

With only two weeks left in 2010, you can expect the usual influx of yearly "best of" nominations and compilations. Along with naming Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg "Person of the Year," Time Magazine has published its picks for top 10 video games of 2010, with Alan Wake selected as this year's number one title.

Developed by Remedy Entertainment, the Xbox 360 exclusive hit store shelves on May 14 in the EU and May 18 in the US. It received an average rating between 8 and 9 out of 10, with numerous positive reviews praising its graphics, atmosphere and pacing. A sequel is rumored, but no details are available.


Angry Birds, an addictive casual game for smartphones, earned second place on Time's list. Third went to Red Dead Redemption, which was followed by Halo: Reach and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Indie titles Limbo and Super Meat Boy ranked sixth and seventh on Time's list, while Super Street Fighter IV took eighth.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty occupied the ninth slot, while Mass Effect 2 was positioned dead last in Time's picks. We disagree with some of the magazine's decisions and we assume many of you do too. If you could recompile the list, what would it look like? What titles would you add, remove, or shift around?

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Political Memo: The Hottest Race Around: G.O.P. Leadership Fight

The campaign for Republican chairman has emerged as the hottest competition in town, prompting an array of party stalwarts, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, to bet on a candidate in the race, and others, like Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, to try to influence the outcome.

The contest is doing far more than simply filling a void that the midterm elections have left behind. It is serving as a fresh reminder that Republicans do not believe they can rely on outsourcing the nuts and bolts of their politics ? as they did to a certain degree this year ? if they hope to reclaim the White House.

Sarah Palin can have a major voice in the nation?s political discourse with little more than a Facebook posting. Candidates find it easier to raise money from and communicate with supporters using the Internet. Grass-roots movements like the Tea Party not only exist outside traditional party structures, they are also disdainful of them. Independent groups like those affiliated with Karl Rove in the 2010 election cycle can fulfill many of the functions of party committees, including singling out races and helping to turn out voters.

For all that, establishment Republicans still believe they need a well-organized, well-financed party machine if they hope to achieve their goal of limiting President Obama to one term. To them, the lesson of the midterm elections was that a conservative grass-roots movement is important, but only if accompanied by the solid foundation that an old-school political party provides.

They see the battle over the party?s leadership ? once a sleepy, internal affair ? as a major conflict with outsized implications for the 2012 presidential election, as well as a chance for the party?s presidential hopefuls to gain some control over the party?s direction.

A day after Michael Steele announced that he had no intention of stepping aside as chairman, the criticism of his two-year tenure at the committee intensified. Some of his rivals who are challenging him for his position fanned out across the country, paying face-to-face visits to the 168 members who will elect the next chairman when the committee convenes on Jan. 14.

?One of Michael Steele?s legacies is that he made the R.N.C. largely irrelevant in the 2010 election cycle,? said Tom Fetzer, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party. ?The next chairman is going to have to work really hard to restore the committee to relevancy and fix the financial disaster that Michael Steel has left in his wake.?

The outbreak of activity in Republican circles on Tuesday, which stretched from coalition to coalition, underscored the notion that the party chairmanship remained a highly desired platform, even in an era where political figures have learned that they no longer need to rely on a rigid hierarchy to find success.

The central apparatus of the Republican Party, which for years was seen as the gold standard of politics that even Democrats envied for its organizational abilities, has steadily slipped into the background.

?The R.N.C. cannot misfire on fund-raising again and hope someone else will do the job for us,? said Reince Priebus, chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, and a former ally of Mr. Steele, who is among the candidates for national chairman. ?We cannot run the risk of a second term of President Obama and his liberal companions with a weakened R.N.C.?

For contenders like Mr. Priebus, who has emerged as a leading alternative to Mr. Steele, the public campaign for chairman is a delicate one.

Not only have the candidates refrained from aggressively criticizing Mr. Steele ? there is plenty of criticism to go around from other Republican officials ? they also are inclined to try and remain friendly with as many committee members as possible because the balloting takes place in a series of consecutive rounds and being someone?s second-choice could be nearly as important as being the first.

Gentry Collins, who resigned as the committee?s political director last month after issuing a blistering assessment of Mr. Steele?s financial oversight at the R.N.C., is seeking to accentuate the positive as he competes with his former boss for the top job. He unveiled his Web site on Tuesday, which makes no specific mention of Mr. Steele, and posted a picture on Twitter as he arrived in Pennsylvania to meet with Republican officials.

Ann Wagner, a longtime Republican leader from Missouri and a former ambassador to Luxembourg under President George W. Bush, welcomed Mr. Steele to the race. She added, ?But this is not about Michael Steele ? it is about a fully funded, fully functional R.N.C. and winning in 2012.?

Mr. Steele did not respond to interview requests on Tuesday, but he unveiled a Web site that outlines the party?s accomplishments in the midterm elections.

?We are better, stronger and prouder,? said Mr. Steele, who is believed to have secured the support of at least 40 members of the committee ? more than most of his rivals ? but about half of the votes he would need to win.

The chairman?s race is unfolding just as Republican leaders had hoped to restore a sense of order, cohesion and discipline to the party after a raucous midterm election season that often pitted the party establishment against grass-roots activists and the Tea Party movement.

Republican leaders in Congress and prospective 2012 Republican presidential candidates were preparing to quietly weigh in on the race, but purposefully avoiding being seen as crowning a favorite for fear of dooming their candidacy.

Maria Cino, a veteran Republican operative who served in Mr. Bush?s administration and was the guest of a fund-raising event sponsored last week by Mr. Cheney, argued that a new direction was urgently needed for the party. She said the committee was besieged by ?very serious issues: massive debt, outdated technology, diminished donor support and a non-existent voter registration program.?

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Cell-Seeded Sutures to Repair the Heart

Over the last decade, scientists have experimented with using stem cells to heal or replace the scarred tissue that mars the heart after a heart attack. While the cells do spur some level of repair in animals, human tests have resulted in modest or transient benefits at best. Now researchers have developed a new kind of biological sutures, made from polymer strands infused with stem cells, that might help surmount two major obstacles to using stem cells to heal the heart: getting the cells to the right spot and keeping them there long enough to trigger healing.

Scientists from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Massachusetts, have shown that cells derived from human bone marrow, known as mesenchymal stem cells, can survive on the threads and maintain their ability to differentiate into different cell types after being sewn through a collagen matrix that mimics tissue. Preliminary tests in rats suggest that the technology helps the cells survive in the heart.

"This is an out-of-the-box approach," says Charles Murry, a director of the Center for Cardiovascular Biology at the University of Washington, who was not involved in the study. "Putting cells on thread?once you hear it, it seems simple. But I've been in this field for 15 years, and I never thought of it."

One major challenge has been to get an adequate number of cells to remain in the area of injury. For example, in human studies of injected mesenchymal stem cells, only one percent to about 10 percent of injected cells remained at the site after injection. "Presumably the cells will be much happier if they have something to adhere to than if you just put them in and left them to fend for themselves," says Murry.

Glenn Gaudette and collaborators at Worcester Polytechnic created the sutures with hair-thin threads made of fibrin, a protein polymer that the body uses to initiate wound healing and a common ingredient in tissue engineering. The microthread technology was developed by George Pins, associate professor of bioengineering at the institute.

The strands are transferred to a tube filled with stem cells and growth solution; the tube slowly rotates, so the stem cells can adhere to the full circumference of the suture. Once populated by cells, the suture is attached to a surgical needle.

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