Intel Makes an Ultra-Tiny Chip

Intel has made developed silicon transistors less than 80 atoms wide and 3 atoms thick, capable of switching on and off 1.5 trillion times a second, making them the world's fastest.

The research will make make possible computer processor chips with one billion transistors and 20 gigahertz speeds and memory chips that can each store four billion bits of data.

Intel scientists are saying that they can see their way at least three more generations into the future, to transistors with a 0.045-micron technology.

Race to build world's fastest bio-supercomputer

Biology is overtaking nuclear weapons as the field demanding the most sophisticated computers.



NuTec Sciences is using a 7.5-teraflops IBM machine -- the fastest supercomputer for commercial use -- for analyzing cancer patients' individual genetic profiles to find the most effective treatments.

Other tasks, such as determining the role of proteins in promoting disease, require more powerful machines. IBM's 1,000-teraflops Blue Gene will be used to predict protein folding. Compaq's 100-teraflop Red Storm will be used by Celera Genomics and Los Alamos National Labs for a broader array of life-science experiments.

It's 2001. Where Is HAL?

It is clear that AI hasn't delivered on the promises made over thirty years ago, says MIT professor Marvin Minsky. What happened?



In a preview of his upcoming book, The Emotion Machine, Marvin Minsky examines the failures of AI research and lays out directions for future development in the field.

"A decade ago, our simulations were not yet capable of rendering believable animations," he stated at Game Developers Conference 2001. "Today, our animations are convincing, but we still lack the ability to create compelling characters. What is lacking is the quality of what we call common sense knowledge and reasoning. To program such things, we need better ways to represent knowledge. We also need to develop ways to quickly switch between different knowledge and reasoning schemes.

"If we can do this well enough, our virtual worlds will become more exciting, and the characters that inhabit them will be much more attractive, lively, and engaging. Our goal should be to provide worlds that are so exciting -- such as those that we read about in the novel 'True Names' -- that our players will want to remain in the game, instead of returning to their everyday jobs."

Microphone array aids deaf in discerning speech

Dramatic improvements in speech discernment using signal processing have been developed by Stanford University professor of electrical engineering Bernard Widrow and his students.


Widrow with D-HEAR device

Dr. Widrow reported the breakhrough in a keynote speech at the recent annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.

The Directional Hearing ARray (D-HEAR) uses six tiny microphones and signal-processing electronics (worn as a necklace) to enable people with profound hearing loss to distinguish speech in a noisy room for the first time.

Microphones in the necklace pick up the sound and transmit it to signal-processing chips that use an adaptive signal processing algorithm to reduce noise by giving different weights to input sounds from the various microphones.

The user orients his or her body toward the speaker and surrounding sound is minimized. The microphone array is able to home in on the desired signal and reduce echoes and other undesirable auditory effects while increasing clarity of the dominant signal. The optimized signal is then amplified and sent through a conducting neckloop, which wirelessly transmits a magnetic signal to the telecoil in the user's hearing aid.

Widrow co-developed the least mean squared (LMS) algorithm for finding the optimal weight vector for
suppressing unknown noise, widely used in high-speed modems.

Genome Rivals' Genteel Soiree

Genome researchers find software tools for analyzing genomic data are inadequate and there's no format available to effectively exchange data.

Nanolaser is world's smallest

A nanowire nanolaser -- the world's smallest laser (1 to 10 micrometers) -- has been grown by Peidong Yang, assistant professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley.


Scanning electron microscope
picture of an array of ultraviolet
nanowire nanolasers grown on a
sapphire substrate.

The scientists painted a gold catalyst onto a piece of sapphire and placed it in a hot gas of zinc oxide. The gold, when heated, formed regularly spaced nanocrystals that stimulated the growth of extremely pure zinc oxide wires only 20 to 150 nanometers in diameter. One nanometer is about the diameter of an atom of hydrogen. The solid wires, which are hexagonal in cross section, grew to about 10 microns in length before the growth process was stopped,

Potential applications are chemical analysis on microchips, high-density information storage and photonics --transmitting information via laser light.

Also see Nanolaser Tag.

Caution advised in release of genetically modified organisms

Scientists and governments should proceed with caution as they release genetically modified organisms into the environment, according to researchers at the Ecological Society of America.

Researchers are concerned that an organism can persist without human intervention and exchange genetic material with unaltered organisms. Other concerns include creating new or more vigorous pests and pathogens, exacerbating the effects of existing pests through hybridization with related transgenic plants or animals, harm to non-target species, such as soil organisms, non-pest insects, birds and other animals, disruptive effects on biotic communities, and irreparable loss or changes in species diversity and genetic diversity within a species.

Brownian Motion: The Secret Of Life?

Brownian (random) motion powered by thermal energy may play a vital role in moving enzymes and other chemicals inside cells, according to a paper by Georgia Institute of Technology physicist Ronald Fox published in the May issue of Physical Review E.

The movement of kinesin proteins along microtubules uses "rectified Brownian motion... We're arguing that Brown really had discovered the secret of life," said Fox. "When you get into this sub-cellular level on the nanometer scale, the dynamics and vitality of protein molecules is really due to thermal motion."

Fox hopes the paper leads nanotechnology researchers to think about heat and motion in a new way.

Nanoscience suffers from lack of scientists

The U.S. military's research efforts in nanoscience are being hampered by social attitudes about foreign-born scientists and a continued shortage of U.S. citizens trained in physical sciences, experts and university officials said.

Throughout the 1990s, the number of U.S. citizens getting graduate degrees in physics and related physical science fields has been going down. The military doesn't have a sufficiently large pool of postdoctoral students to meet the growing demands of nanoscience. Lavish salaries in a strong economy lure holders of bachelor's degrees directly into the job market, but the recent dot-com bust could reverse the trend.

Laser Locates Molecule's Poles

University of Rochester have figured out a way to assess the axial alignment of individual molecules, using radial-polarized light.

The laser light radiates outward in several planes, enabling researchers to create a tiny, three-dimensional electric field and scan a molecule from all conceivable angles.

Uses include optimized solar panels to absorb solar energy most efficiently and tracking molecular movements such as folding of proteins.

Internet-everywhere access by satellite

The Internet can now be accessed from every part of the globe, says Iridium.

Iridium uses a constellation of 66 low-earth orbiting satellites operated by Boeing to deliver communications services anywhere on the globe at 10 kilobytes per second -- very slow but accessible on oceans, polar regions and mountaintops.

Bill Joy promos Sun's new P2P scheme

Bill Joy, Sun Microsystems' co-founder and chief scientist, pitched Sun's new JXTA peer-to-peer networking "core architecture" at the JavaOne conference.

A new JXTA app called the PeerSwitch "turns clients into routers" -- people running this program can give others access to content they've downloaded from the Web.

Thanks to JXTA, the Sun execs said, we'll soon be seeing hordes of peer-to-peer Java programs available on the Web.

'Brain, Biology, Machine' initiative launched

The University of Oregon is launching a "Brain, Biology, Machine" initiative with a $10 million donation from two alumni that "will provide major, ongoing support for research that could lead to major discoveries about the human brain," says UO President Dave Frohnmayer.

An extension of the UO's Brain Development Lab, the initiative brings together researchers in cognitive neuroscience, molecular biology, genetics, optics, materials science, and computational science. Plans include a functional MRI facility to permit imaging of brain function and brain tissue to allow UO scientists to better correlate the brain's anatomy with human thought and behavior, a small-animal fMRI facility to study effects of gene transplantation on brain function and behavior, and a "neuroinfomatics center" to analyze data.

This research could lead to new ways of teaching children languages to new, more effective treatments for stroke victims, according to a UO statement.

Radical revision of molecular-structure theory

In some molecules, quantum forces trump the traditional explanation. Ethane's stable ("staggered") conformation of atoms is in fact caused by hyperconjugation (the electrons of one methyl group jump over to the other methyl group), not by textbook steric effects (close carbon-hydrogen bonds crowd each other, thereby raising the molecule's overall energy), researchers at Rutgers University report in Nature May 31.


Ethane molecule's staggered
(left) and less-stable
eclipsed (right) conformations

Based on five years crunching calculations with a supercomputer, the research has broad implications, since it involved the "benchmark molecule," ethane, a gas used for fuel. This is a simple molecule considered basic to understanding the structure of complex molecules, including proteins that are the building blocks of all living things.

Thinking 'drains the brain'

Concentration drains glucose from a key part of the brain, based on University of Illinois research on rats. The effect was more dramatic in older rats, whose brains also took longer to recover.

Researchers said the findings may have implications for the way schools schedule classes and meals.

Robots May Challenge Human Claims to Uniqueness

A merger between humans and robots is coming, says Rodney Brooks, Director of the MIT AI Lab, based on two trends: humans are gradually incorporating machines within themselves, from cochlear implants to 24-hour Internet virtual existence; and the possibilities of robots built from biological materials.

The comments were made at "Flesh and Machines," a recent public lecture sponsored by AAAS's Program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER).

Diagonal wiring speeds chips

A diagonal chip wire routing scheme may result in 10 percent chip performance improvement, 20 percent reduction in power consumption, and 30 percent more chips per wafer.

Simplex Solutions and Toshiba are claiming a semiconductor breakthrough as significant as copper interconnects. The diagonal routing scheme enables a 20 percent average reduction in wire length compared to traditional 90-degree routing.

Tech firms unite to map human proteome

Mapping the human proteome--the collection of the more than 300,000 human proteins and their interactions--is the goal of a new company, Myriad Proteomics, a joint venture of Myriad Genetics, Friedli Corporate Finance, Hitachi and Oracle.

Nanowires Sniff Out Bombs

Silicon polymer nanowires may cheaply and effectively detect traces of TNT and picric acid in water and air, researchers say.


TNT shows up as
darkened silhouette

The nanowire consists of a long string of silicon atoms surrounded by organic molecules. By tweaking the polymer, chemists at the University of California at San Diego were able to make it cease conducting electricity and glowing whenever it came into contact with TNT or picric acid.

AI game programming book articles solicited

Charles River Media is launching the "AI Game Programming Wisdom" book series. The book publisher of Game Programming Gems 1 & 2 is soliciting articles for the first book in the series, covering topics such as designing agent personalities, expert systems, genetic algorithms, and fuzzy state machines. Article proposals are due June 15.

Robots Square Off for Firefighting Title

An annual robot firefighting competition has led to big improvements in speed and smarts in fighting house fires at the recently held annual Trinity College event in Hartford, Connecticut.

It took robots about five minutes to find a fire in the first year of the contest. In this year's event, some of the robots did the job within 10 seconds under far more complicated conditions.

'Nanotech corridor' emerging in Texas

Seed funding for the new NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas has been announced by the Texas legislature.

The $500,000 state funding measure complements a $2.5 million donation by James Von Ehr II, the founder and CEO of Zyvex, a Texas-based molecular manufacturing firm.

To establish the research center, the University of Texas at Dallas announced it has hired two nanotechnology pioneers
-- Dr. Ray Baughman, an aerospace fellow at Honeywell International in Morristown, New Jersey, and his colleague, Dr. Anvar Zakhidov, a senior principal scientist at Honeywell. Baughman originated the concepts of using carbon nanotubes for artificial "muscles" and energy harvesting.

Three internationally known nanotechnology researchers have agreed to join Baughman and Zakhidov at UTD: Dr. Alan Dalton of Trinity University in Dublin, Ireland, Dr. Igor Efimov of Russia from Leicester University in the U.K. and Dr. Edgar Munoz of the University of Saragossa in Spain.

READ MORE

Tycoon wants to launch private space station

A Las Vegas hotel tycoon wants to launch his own space station and is seeking FAA approval.

Robert Bigelow said he anticipates that his Bigelow Aerospace division will be able to launch a full-size space station module into orbit within 30 months.

Bigelow said the private space station would be a destination for space tourists and could be used by drug firms and other manufacturers who benefit from a zero-gravity environment.

Neural networks diagnose cancer

Artificial neural networks have succeeded in diagnosing cancers based on gene expression signatures for the first time, according to a National Institutes of Health study published in the June issue of Nature Medicine.

Using data from gene chips (wafers filled with DNA that are analyzed to identify which genes are expressed, or turned on), the researchers fed the neural network software 6,000 genes containing 88 types of cancer. They taught the neural system to recognize 65 of them.

The researchers then presented the computer with 25 additional cancer types that the computer hadn't seen before to see if it could categorize them accurately. It did.

A tool based on this research could be available in less than three years, the researchers said.

First FDA-approved robotic bypass operation

The first FDA-approved robotic heart surgery bas been performed at Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus.

Using a 3-D display with a ten-times magnified view, surgeons remotely controlled a telerobotic arm to perform the bypass operation. The robotic arm ensures higher precision, smaller incision, and faster recovery. Trials are under way to robotically repair heart valves, place pacemaker wires, stabilize irregular heartbeats, and perform fetal-heart surgery.

Terrorists could easily make an atomic bomb from MOX fuel

Terrorists could easily make a crude atomic bomb from MOX fuel produced at British Nuclear Fuels' new plant in England, according to nuclear physicist Frank Barnaby in a report prepared for the British government.

MOX is a mixture of plutonium dioxide and uranium oxide. A primitive bomb could be made by separating the plutonium dioxide and then following instructions on the Internet, says Barnaby.

British Nuclear Fuels is trying to get the British government's go-ahead to make MOX for reactor operators in Europe and Japan, exposing it to theft by terrorists, Barnaby warns.

How the brain 'sees'

Neurons in the human visual cortex can detect patterns that are too fine to be consciously perceived, based on research by Sheng He, assistant professor of psychology, University of Minnesota.

Inability to see the too-fine lines is due to a blurring that occurs after the visual cortex receives input.

AI Software to Command NASA Mission

AI software will make real-time decisions on a NASA satellite mission in 2002, NASA JPL announced today.

NASA's Continuous Activity Scheduling, Planning Execution and Replanning (CASPER) software will guide three identical miniature satellites, which will be launched from the Space Shuttle and fly in formation as part of the Three Corner Sat mission.



CASPAR will make decisions based on the images it acquires and will send back only those images that it deems important, such as a volcanic eruption or solar flare. The goal: eliminate the need for scientists to preview thousands of low-priority images, reduce data transmit time, free up power, and allow the spacecraft to concentrate on other important tasks.

NASA is also planning to use CASPER in autonomous spacecraft, autonomous rovers, ground communications station automation, and uninhabited aerial vehicles.

Tiny 'big bang' performs quantum computations

A fractal interference pattern emerging from quantum waves (a "tiny big bang") can perform useful calculations, says University of Arkansas physics professor William Harter, who predicted bucky balls in 1986.

"If you pump the electron, say by hitting it with a laser, you can force it to simultaneously occupy more and more of these ascending energy states," says Harter. If all the stored energy is released in a "pop," a microscopic big bang occurs. Plotting the electron's location after the big bang results in a blur of uncertainty due to the Heisenberg law, but a plot of where the electron is not located produces a fractal interference pattern that appears to perform useful calculations.

Advantages: calculations result automatically and instantaneously regardless of integer size and the fractal pattern is repeated over and over for easy readout, unlike other approaches to quantum computers, which have to rely on very small and error-prone effects that are very difficult to observe.

Humanoid robots: A thing of the past?

Robots that recreate human methods of assembly are flexible but inefficient and not cost-effective for specific tasks, say researchers in the Modular Automation Research Group at Curtin University of Technology.

Using reusable automation building blocks, modular automation lets designers create dedicated assembly machines quickly and easily -- the industrial version of Lego.