Google Launches Google Social Search Amid Social-Media Battle

Google's new Social Search allows users to find postings from their friends as part of a Web search.

New Route To Nano Self-assembly Found

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found a way to induce nanoparticles to assemble themselves into complex arrays, using block copolymers with surfactants as mediator molecules.

Augmented reality system lets you see through walls

An augmented reality system has been built by Carnegie Mellon University researchers that gives the impression that one is seeing through walls.

It uses two cameras: one that captures the driver's view and a second that sees the scene behind a view-blocking wall. A computer takes the feed from the second camera and layers it on top of the images from the first so that the wall appears to be transparent.

Ultimately, the team wants to build the system into a car.

Seven questions that keep physicists up at night

What is reality really? How does complexity happen? What is everything made of?

These were among the questions discussed at the Perimeter Institute last week.

Time Travel Through the Brain

Over the last 100 years, the way we visualize and understand the complexity of the brain has evolved.


Fibers radiating from the thalamus, imaged by MRI diffusion tensor imaging (Thomas Schultz/University of Chicago)

Energy Department Aid for Scientists on the Edge

The federal Energy Department will announce on Monday 37 grants totaling $151 million for radical energy proposals with a "transformative impact," in a program directed by the new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or Arpa-e.

On Tuesday, President Obama plans to discuss $3.4 billion in spending from the stimulus package to improve the electricity grid.

Nanowire Biocompatibility In The Brain: So Far So Good

Brain "clean-up cells" (microglia) take care of nanowires injected in rat brains but that break away from their contact points, Lund University researchers have found.

One advantage of nanoscale electrodes is that they can register and stimulate the tiniest components of the brain.

Timewarp: How your brain creates the fourth dimension

By understanding the mechanisms of our brain's clock, researchers hope to learn ways of temporarily resetting its tick. This might improve our mental speed and reaction times, and since time is crucial to our perception of causality, a faulty internal clock might also explain the delusions suffered by people with schizophrenia.

Thought Translator Knows Vowels from Consonants

Researchers from Wadsworth Center in Albany, NY used electrocorticography (ECoG), recording activity from the surface of the brain, to determine what vowel and consonants a person is thinking of. The system, which has about a 50-to-70% accuracy rate, could one day be used as a neural prosthesis for people with severe paralysis, translating their thoughts into actions on a computer or prosthetic limb.

'Holy Grail' Of Cancer Therapy: Researchers Find Way To Protect Healthy Cells From Radiation Damage

A way to protect healthy tissue from the toxic effects of radiation treatment and also increase tumor death has been discovered by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

They found that blocking a molecule called thrombospondin-1 from binding to its cell surface receptor, called CD47, affords normal tissues nearly complete protection from both standard and very high doses of radiation, and delayed the regrowth of tumors in radiation-treated mice.

Study Shows Perception Of Invisible Stimuli Improves With Training

A new study at Max Planck Institute for Brain Research reveals that our brains can be trained to consciously see stimuli that would normally be invisible.

Intelligence Explained

Neuroscientists hope that brain scans used to find the brain areas and circuits involved in intelligence will provide new insights into neurological and psychiatric diseases that impair cognition, such as Alzheimer's and schizophrenia, and may also improve understanding of learning disabilities such as dyslexia and ADHD, perhaps leading to better treatments.

Green Genes

The possibility of transgenic primate models (suggested by recent research) could revolutionize medical research, offering a proving ground for new therapies that look promising in mice but seem too risky to try in humans.

If the genes associated with some cases of human illnesses such as Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Alzheimer's disease were introduced into primates, colonies of the genetically altered animals could be used to test therapies for these disorders. This would probably be far more effective than studying the effects of the genes in, say, mice or rats, because primates' brains are much closer to humans' in terms of complex motor functions and cognition.

Nanoantennas allow for high-speed optical data networks

Gold nanoantennas smaller than 100 nm that transmit and receive light have been developed by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology researchers.

The antennas could be used in new optical high-speed data networks and in chip manufacturing and photovoltaic devices, and for the study of individual biomolecules.


(LTI)

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Algae and Light Help Injured Mice Walk Again

"In theory, two-way optogenetic traffic could lead to human-machine fusions in which the brain truly interacts with the machine, rather than only giving or only accepting orders," says writer Michael Chorost.

"It could be used, for instance, to let the brain send movement commands to a prosthetic arm; in return, the arm's sensors would gather information and send it back. Blue and yellow LEDs would flash on and off inside genetically altered somatosensory regions of the cortex to give the user sensations of weight, temperature, and texture.

"The limb would feel like a real arm. Of course, this kind of cyborg technology is not exactly around the corner. But it has suddenly leapt from the realm of wild fantasy to concrete possibility."

Google Unveils Social Search

Google's Social Search, to be launched in a few weeks, integrates information created by people in a searcher's Google network (one's list of Google Contacts) into Google search results, reflecting a shift from the information Web to the social Web.

Self-assembly Used To Make Molecule-sized Particles With Patches Of Charge

University of Pennsylvania researchers have demonstrated a novel method for the controlled formation of patchy particles, using charged, self-assembling molecules that may one day serve as drug-delivery vehicles to combat disease and perhaps be used in small batteries that store and release charge.

U.S. Spies Buy Stake in Firm That Monitors Blogs, Tweets

In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media, part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using open-source intelligence.

Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon.

Google Envisions 10 Million Servers

Google is preparing to manage as many as 10 million servers in the future, with a new storage and computation system called Spanner for automated allocation of resources across "entire fleets of machines," according to Google engineer Jeff Dean.

Gartner: Brace yourself for cloud computing

Shared computing services accessible over the Internet that can expand or contract on demand topped Gartner's list of the 10 top technologies that information technology personnel need to plan for.


(Gartner)

Barnes & Noble Unveils Kindle-Killing, Dual-Screen 'Nook' E-Reader

Barnes and Noble announced a new Android-based eBook reader Tuesday called Nook, featuring a color multitouch screen, to be used as a keyboard or to browse books, built-in WiFi, 2GB of internal storage, MP3 player, and the ability to share books with friends for 14 days.

Hydrogen muscle silences the domestic robot

University of Nevada researchers are developing artificial muscles for robots that run on hydrogen from metal hydride compounds, instead of noisy compressed-air pumps or electric motors.

What's Next In Augmented Reality?

At this week's International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, researchers will present systems designed to push the boundaries of AR--allowing users to interact with and manipulate virtual data, share real and virtual space with others, and see real time information around them.

Massive Gene Database Planned in California

Plans for genetic analyses of 100,000 older Californians--the first time genetic data will be generated for such a large and diverse group--will accelerate research into environmental and genetic causes of disease, Kaiser Permanente researchers say.

Decoding the Brain with Light

Molecular "light switches" can reveal exactly which neurons are involved in creating a memory, allowing scientists to trigger that memory using only light.

This an example of how a novel technology called optogenetics being used by hundreds of labs is allowing scientists to tackle major unanswered questions about the brain, including the role of specific brain regions in the formation of memory, the process of addiction, and the transition from sleep to wakefulness.

To make neurons sensitive to light, scientists genetically engineer them to carry a protein adapted from green algae. When the modified neuron is exposed to light, via the fiber-optic implant, the protein triggers electrical activity within the cell that spreads to the next neuron in the circuit. The technology allows scientists to control neural activity much more precisely than previous methods.


(Karl Deisseroth)

See also: Scientists give flies false memories

New robotic hand 'can feel'

A team of scientists from Italy and Sweden has developed what is believed to be the first artificial hand that has feeling.

It works by connecting nerve endings in the arm with 40 tiny electronic sensors, and four motors allow for manipulating objects. An implantable version is planned.

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Smart Rat 'Hobbie-J' Produced By Over-expressing A Gene That Helps Brain Cells Communicate

Over-expressing the NR2B gene lets brain cells communicate just a fraction of a second longer and makes a smarter rat, report researchers from the Medical College of Georgia and East China Normal University.

The finding further validates NR2B as a drug target for improving memory in healthy individuals as those with Alzheimer's or mild dementia, the scientists say.

NR2B is a subunit of NMBA receptors, which are like small pores on brain cells that let in electrically-charged ions that increase the activity and communication of neurons.

Intelligent System To Help Autistic Children Recognize Emotions

Computer scientists from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore are developing a facial expression recognition system to help autistic children understand people's emotions.

Scientists Create Robot Surrogate For Blind Persons In Testing Visual Prostheses

Scientists at the California Institute of Technology have created a remote-controlled robot that is able to simulate the "visual" experience of a blind person who has been implanted with a visual prosthesis, such as an artificial retina using a silicon chip with electrodes that directly stimulate retinal nerve cells. The system allows for testing new prosthetic technologies.


(Caltech/Wolfgang Fink, Mark Tarbell)

Placebo effect caught in the act in spinal nerves

Using fMRI scanning of a section of the spinal cord, researchers at University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf have found that pain-related activity in the spinal cord is strongly reduced under placebo.

They speculate that higher brain areas affected by the placebo belief trigger the release of endogenous opioids that may reduce spinal cord activity.