MIT spinoff Empatica, which is developing a medical-quality wearable device to monitor epileptic seizures* and alert caregivers, has launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to fund its development.
“When people that have epilepsy wear Embrace, they will get an alert when an unusual event happens, like a convulsive seizure,” the Indiegogo site says. “It will go via their smartphone to parents, roommates or caregivers, so somebody can check… read more
An international team of scientists has developed a fast, low-cost way of making low-cost medical electronic touch sensors by printing conductive silver nanowire inks directly on paper, using a 2D programmed printing machine.
Anming Hu of the University of Tennessee Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering and colleagues point out that paper, which is available worldwide at low cost, makes an excellent surface for lightweight, foldable “paper electronics: that… read more
New observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile have revealed alignments over the largest structures ever discovered in the Universe. A European research team has found that the rotation axes of the central supermassive black holes in a sample of quasars are parallel to each other over distances of billions of light-years. The team has also found that the rotation axes of these quasars tend to… read more
A novel robotic walker that helps patients carry out therapy sessions to regain their leg movements and natural gait has been invented by a team of researchers led by assistant professor Yu Haoyong from the National University of Singapore Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Survivors of stroke or other neurological conditions such as spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries and Parkinson’s disease often struggle with mobility. To regain… read more
China and “one or two others” can shut down the U.S. electric grids and other critical infrastructure and is performing electronic reconnaissance on a regular basis, said NSA director Admiral Michael Rogers, testifying Thursday (Nov. 20) at a House Select Intelligence Committee hearing on U.S. efforts to combat cybersecurity.
“All of that leads me to believe it is only a matter of when, not if, we are going to… read more
Georgia Tech associate professor Mark Ried has developed a new kind of “Turing test” — a test proposed in 1950 by computing pioneer Alan Turing to determine whether a machine or computer program exhibits human-level intelligence.Most Turing test designs require a machine to engage in dialogue and convince (trick) a human judge that it is an actual person. But creating certain types of art also requires intelligence, leading Reid to consider… read more
Northwestern University scientists have demonstrated a simple but powerful tool called NanoFlare that can detect live cancer cells in the bloodstream, potentially long before settling somewhere in the body and forming a dangerous tumor.
The NanoFlare technology is the first genetic-based approach that is able to detect live circulating tumor cells out of the complex matrix that is human blood — no easy feat. The NanoFlares are tiny spherical nucleic… read more
Computer software only recently became smart enough to recognize objects in photographs. Now, Stanford researchers using machine learning have created a system that takes the next step, writing a simple story of what’s actually happening in any digital image.
“The system can analyze an unknown image and explain it in words and phrases that make sense,” said Fei-Fei Li, a professor of computer science and director of the… read more
University of Michigan scientists have come up with a possible explanation for the impressive ability of neurons to perform a wide range of functions.
They explored this using the C. elegans* roundworm. They found that a single neuron in C. elegans regulates both the speed and direction in which the worm moves, shedding light on how the human brain works, say investigators in the lab of… read more
Neuroscientists have discovered mechanisms that enable certain brain cells to persuade others to create “the wave” (a wave of standing spectators that travels through a crowd*), which may help understand more about neurocognitive disorders such as dementia, the researchers say.
Inhibitory neurons** can persuade networks of other neurons to imitate their vibrations, setting off global synchronous oscillations in the brain. The neuroscientists, at Imperial College London and the… read more
ETH Zurich researchers have developed a novel gene regulation method that allows specific brainwaves to control gene expression (conversion of a gene into a protein) for therapeutic purposes.
The concept is a thought-controlled implant that could one day help combat neurological diseases, such as chronic headaches, back pain, and epilepsy.
An EEG-based BCI (brain-controlled interface) would detect the patient’s related brainwave patterns, which would be used to trigger… read more
A new study shows for the first time that playing action video games improves learning capabilities more generally, not just the skills taught in the game.
According to Daphne Bavelier, a research professor in brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, our brains keep predicting what will come next when listening to a conversation, driving, or even preforming surgery. “To sharpen its prediction skills, our brains constantly… read more
Is it possible to rapidly increase (or decrease) the amount of information the brain can store?
A new international study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) suggests it may be. Their research has identified a molecule that improves brain function and memory recall is improved. Published in the latest issue of Cell Reports, the study has implications for neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases, such as autism… read more
Queen Mary University of London researchers have developed a Google Play app called Phoney based on a mind-reading card trick, part of a research exploration into what can be achieved when human intelligence is replaced or assisted by machine intelligence.
The app arranges a deck of playing cards in such a way that a specific card picked by an audience member can be… read more
Researchers at the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a way to double the useful bandwidth in wireless communications by enabling full-duplex functionality in the same frequency band (channel).
“Full-duplex” refers to the ability to transmit and receive signals simultaneously, as in cell-phone conversations.
The new innovation is the creation of a magnetic-free radio wave “circulator” that could be… read more