Here’s an innovative idea: create new proteins by simply “sewing” together pieces of existing proteins. That’s exactly what researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine have done to design new “cellular machines” needed to understand and battle diseases.
Published today in the journal Science, the new technique, called SEWING, was inspired by natural evolutionary mechanisms that also recombine portions of the 100,000 different known… read more
Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials in China have used a combination of machine learning, supercomputers, and experiments to speed up discovery of new materials with desired properties.
The idea is to replace traditional trial-and-error materials research, which is guided only by intuition (and errors). With increasing chemical complexity, the possible combinations have become too large for those trial-and-error… read more
Medical error is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. after heart disease and cancer — an estimated 210,000 to 400,000 deaths a year among hospital patients — say experts in an open-access paper in the British Medical Journal — despite the fact that both hospital reporting and death certificates in the U.S. have no provision for acknowledging medical error.
MIT scientists and associates have developed a new material that can temporarily protect and tighten skin, and smooth wrinkles. With further development, it could also be used to deliver drugs to help treat skin conditions such as eczema.
The material is a silicone-based polymer that could be applied on the skin as a thin, imperceptible coating, mimicking the mechanical and elastic properties of healthy, youthful skin.
In tests… read more
EPFL researchers have restored the ability of mice organs to regenerate and extend life by simply administering nicotinamide riboside (NR) to them.
NR has been shown in previous studies to be effective in boosting metabolism and treating a number of degenerative diseases. Now, an article by PhD student Hongbo Zhang published in Science also describes the restorative effects of NR on the functioning of stem cells… read more
Two implantable devices developed by American and Chinese researchers are designed to dissolve in the brain over time and may eliminate several current problems with implants.
University of Pennsylvania researchers have developed an electrode and an electrode array, both made of layers of silicon and molybdenum that can measure physiological characteristics (like neuron signals) and dissolve at a known rate (determined by the material’s thickness). The team used the… read more
A computer model of how bees use vision to avoid hitting walls could be a breakthrough in the development of autonomous drones.
Bees control their flight using the speed of motion (optic flow) of the visual world around them. A study by Scientists at the University of Sheffield Department of Computer Science suggests how motion-direction detecting circuits could be wired together to also detect motion-speed, which is crucial… read more
Columbia University engineering researchers have developed a new “circulator” technology that can double WiFi speed while reducing the size of wireless devices. It does this by requiring only one antenna (instead of two, for transmitter and receiver) and by using conventional CMOS chips instead of resorting to large, expensive magnetic components.
Columbia engineers previously invented a “full-duplex” radio integrated circuit on… read more
Can a robot handle the slippery stuff of soft tissues that can move and change shape in complex ways as stitching goes on, normally requiring a surgeon’s skill to respond to these changes to keep suturing as tightly and evenly as possible?
A Johns Hopkins University and Children’s National Health System research team decided to find out by using their “Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot” (STAR)… read more
The results of two Yale University psychology experiments suggest that what we believe to be a conscious choice may actually be constructed, or confabulated, unconsciously after we act — to rationalize our decisions. A trick of the mind.
“Our minds may be rewriting history,” said Adam Bear, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology and lead author of a paper published April 28… read more
Astronomers have detected three exoplanets just 40 light years from Earth whose sizes and temperatures are comparable to those of Earth. The planets may be the best targets found so far for the search for life outside the solar system.
The results were published Monday (May 2) in the journal Nature.
Because the system is relatively close to Earth, co-author Julien de Wit, a postdoc at MIT, says scientists… read more
IBM Research has announced that effective Wednesday May 4, it is making quantum computing available free to members of the public, who can access and run experiments on IBM’s quantum processor, via the IBM Cloud, from any desktop or mobile device.
IBM believes quantum computing is the future of computing and has the potential to solve certain problems that are impossible to solve on today’s supercomputers.
The… read more
University of Cambridge researchers have developed the world’s tiniest engine, capable of a force per unit-weight nearly 100 times higher* than any motor or muscle.
The new nano-engines could lead to nanorobots small enough to enter living cells to fight disease, the researchers say.
Professor Jeremy Baumberg from the Cavendish Laboratory, who led the research, has named the devices “actuating nanotransducers” (ANTs). “Like real ants, they produce large… read more
By Paul Cohen
Harold Cohen, artist and pioneer in the field of computer-generated art, died on April 27, 2016 at the age of 87. Cohen is the author of AARON, perhaps the longest-lived and certainly the most creative artificial intelligence program in daily use.
Cohen viewed AARON as his collaborator. At times during their decades-long relationship, AARON was quite autonomous, responsible for the composition, coloring and other aspects… read more
German researchers have developed a biometric system called SkullConduct that uses bone conduction of sound through the user’s skull for secure user identification and authentication on augmented-reality glasses, such as Google Glass, Meta 2, and HoloLens.
SkullConduct uses the microphone already built into many of these devices and adds electronics (such as a chip) to analyze the frequency response of sound after it travels through the user’s skull. The… read more