Sharing genetic information from millions of cancer patients around the world could revolutionize cancer prevention and care, according to a paper in Nature Medicine by the Cancer Task Team of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH).
Hospitals, laboratories and research facilities around the world hold huge amounts of this data from cancer patients, but it’s currently held in isolated “silos” that don’t talk to each other, according to… read more
University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered that a gene called Oct4 — which scientific dogma insists is inactive in adults — actually plays a vital role in preventing ruptured atherosclerotic plaques inside blood vessels, the underlying cause of most heart attacks and strokes.
The researchers found that Oct4 controls the conversion of smooth muscle cells into protective fibrous “caps” inside plaques, making the plaques less likely to… read more
British researchers and Google have independently developed revolutionary concepts for Lego-like modular interactive mobile devices.
The British team’s design, called Cubimorph, is constructed of a chain of cubes. It has touchscreens on each of the six module faces and uses a hinge-mounted turntable mechanism to self-reconfigure in the user’s hand. One example: a mobile phone that can transform into a console when a user launches a game.… read more
Carnegie Mellon University roboticists have developed an algorithm that helps robots cope with a cluttered world.
Robots are adept at picking up an object in a specified place (such as in a factory assembly line) and putting it down at another specified place (known as “pick-and-place,” or P&P, processes). But homes and other planets, for example, are a special challenge for robots.
When a person reaches… read more
Researchers at Washington State University are using ideas from animal training to help non-expert users teach robots how to do desired tasks.
As robots become more pervasive in society, humans will want them to do chores like cleaning house or cooking. But to get a robot started on a task, people who aren’t computer programmers will have to give it instructions. “So we needed to provide a… read more
A new electronic material created by an international team headed by Penn State scientists can heal all its functions automatically, even after breaking multiple times. The new material could improve the durability of wearable electronics.
Electronic materials have been a major stumbling block for the advance of flexible electronics because existing materials do not function well after breaking and healing.
“Wearable and bendable electronics are subject to mechanical… read more
Stanford University School of Engineering | This easy-to-assemble black box is part of an experimental urinalysis testing system designed by Stanford engineers. The black box is meant to enable a smartphone camera to capture video that accurately analyzes color changes in a standard paper dipstick to detect conditions of medical interest.
Two Stanford University electrical engineers have designed a simple new low-cost, portable urinalysis device that could allow patients… read more
Scientists at IBM Research have demonstrated — for the first time (today, May 17), at the IEEE International Memory Workshop in Paris — reliably storing 3 bits of data per cell in a 64k-cell array in a memory chip*, using a relatively new memory technology known as phase-change memory (PCM). Previously, scientists at IBM and elsewhere successfully demonstrated the ability to store only 1 bit per cell in… read more
Australian physicists have used an online optimization process based on machine learning to produce effective Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in a fraction of the time it would normally take the researchers.
A BEC is a state of matter of a dilute gas of atoms trapped in a laser beam and cooled to temperatures just above absolute zero. BECs are extremely sensitive to external disturbances, which makes them ideal for research… read more
MIT researchers and associates have developed a tiny “origami robot” that can unfold itself from a swallowed capsule and, steered by a physician via an external magnetic field, crawl across the stomach wall to operate on a patient. For example, it can remove a swallowed button battery or patch a wound.
Every year, 3,500 swallowed button batteries are reported in the U.S. alone. Frequently, the batteries are… read more
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has announced plans to co-host four public workshops to spur public dialogue on artificial intelligence and machine learning, and to learn more about the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence, according to Ed Felten, a Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer.
These four workshops will be co-hosted by academic and non-profit organizations; two will also be co-hosted by the… read more
Researchers at the Universities of Bristol and Western Australia have demonstrated a practical use of a “primitive” quantum computer, using an algorithm known as “quantum walk.” They showed that a two-qubit photonics quantum processor can outperform classical computers for this type of algorithm, without requiring more sophisticated quantum computers, such as IBM’s five-qubits cloud-based quantum processor (see IBM makes quantum computing available free on IBM Cloud).
Quantum… read more
Moogfest 2016, a four-day, mind-expanding festival on the synthesis of technology, art, and music, will happen this coming week (Thursday, May 19 to Sunday, May 22) near Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, with more than 300 musical performances, workshops, conversations, masterclasses, film screenings, live scores, sound installations, multiple interactive art experiences, and “The Future of Creativity” keynotes by visionary futurist Martine Rothblatt, PhD. and virtual… read more
A human-safe lifelike telepresence robot with the delicacy and precision needed to pick up an egg without breaking it or thread a sewing needle has been developed by researchers at Disney Research, the Catholic University of America, and Carnegie Mellon University.
The secret: a hydrostatic transmission that precisely drives robot arms, offering extreme precision with almost no friction or play.
The hybrid transmission design also makes it possible… read more
Google has just released two powerful natural language understanding tools for free, open-source use by anyone. These tools allow machines to read and understand English text (such as text you type into a browser to do a Google search).
SyntaxNet is a “syntactic parser” — it allows machines to parse, or break down, sentences into their component parts of speech and identify the underlying meaning).… read more