science + technology news

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Tiny fibers open new windows into the brain

March 2, 2017

A multifunctional flexible fiber for brain research (credit: Seongjun Park et al./Nature Neuroscience)

Imagine a single flexible polymer fiber 200 micrometers across — about the width of a human hair — that can deliver a combination of optical, electrical, and chemical signals between different brain regions, with the softness and flexibility of brain tissue — allowing neuroscientists to leave implants in place and have them retain their functions over much longer periods than is currently possible with typical stiff, metallic fibers.

That’s what… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

Join the around-the-world 24-hour conversation on the future to celebrate World Future Day March 1

March 1, 2017

Futurists from the 55 Millennium Project nodes worldwide, other organizations, and the public will go online March 1 to exchange ideas about the future

Futurists worldwide plan to celebrate March 1 as World Future Day with a 24-hour conversation about the world’s potential futures, challenges, and opportunities.

At 12 noon your local time on March 1, you can click on a Google hangout at goo.gl/4hCJq3 and join the conversation* (log in with a Google account).  It starts at 12 noon (midnight in New York) in Auckland, New Zealand and moves across the world,… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures

Brain-imaging headband measures how our minds mirror a speaker when we communicate

February 28, 2017

This is a cartoon image of brain 'coupling' during communication (credit: Drexel University)

Drexel University biomedical engineers and Princeton University psychologists have used a wearable brain-imaging device called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure brain synchronization when humans interact. fNIRS uses light to measure neural activity in the cortex of the brain (based on blood-oxygenation changes) during real-life situations and can be worn like a headband.

(KurzweilAI recently covered research with a fNIRS brain-computer interface that allows completely locked-in patients to… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Social/Ethical/Legal

Billionaire Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son plans to invest in singularity

February 27, 2017

Masayoshi Son (credit: Softbank Group)

Billionaire Softbank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son revealed Monday (Feb. 27) at Mobile World Congress his plan to invest in singularity. “In next 30 years [the singularity] will become a reality,” he said, Tech Crunch reports.

“If superintelligence goes inside the moving device then the world, our lifestyle dramatically changes,” he said. “There will be many kinds. Flying, swimming, big, micro, run, 2 legs,… read more

Topics: Singularity/Futures

Neural networks promise sharpest-ever telescope images

May improve existing and future images of the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets recently discovered by NASA
February 27, 2017

astrophysical images of a galaxy ft

Swiss researchers are using neural networks to achieve the sharpest-ever images in optical astronomy. The work appears in an open-access paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The aperture (diameter) of any telescope is fundamentally limited by its lens or mirror. The bigger the mirror or lens, the more light it gathers, allowing astronomers to detect fainter objects, and to observe them… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Physics/Cosmology

An ultra-low-power artificial synapse for neural-network computing

Brain-like device with 500 states instead of binary could one day communicate with live neurons, merging computers with the brain
February 24, 2017

ENODe synapse

Stanford University and Sandia National Laboratories researchers have developed an organic artificial synapse based on a new memristor (resistive memory device) design that mimics the way synapses in the brain learn. The new artificial synapse could lead to computers that better recreate the way the human brain processes information. It could also one day directly interface with the human brain.

The new artificial synapse is an… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Computers/Infotech/UI

Why you should eat 10 portions of fruit or vegetables a day

February 24, 2017

image credit | iStock

Eating 800 grams a day (about ten portions*) of fruit or vegetables could reduce your chance of heart attack, stroke, cancer, and early death, scientists from Imperial College London conclude from a meta-analysis of 95 studies on fruit and vegetable intake.

The study, published in an open-access paper in the International Journal of Epidemiology, included 2 million people worldwide and assessed up to 43,000 cases… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity

Brain-computer interface advance allows paralyzed people to type almost as fast as some smartphone users

Coming next: controlling personal computers, phones, and tablets --- and reaching out via the internet
February 24, 2017

Braingate ft

Stanford University researchers have developed a brain-computer interface (BCI) system that can enable people with paralysis* to type (using an on-screen cursor) at speeds and accuracy levels of about three times faster than reported to date.

Simply by imagining their own hand movements, one participant was able to type 39 correct characters per minute (about eight words per minute); the other two participants averaged 6.3 and 2.7… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Internet/Cloud/Telecom

NASA announces Wed. news conference on ‘discovery beyond our solar system’

February 21, 2017

Artist's concept exoplanet Kepler-452b, the first near-Earth-size world to be found in the habitable zone of a star similar to our Sun. (credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle)

NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 22, to present new findings on exoplanets — planets that orbit stars other than our sun. As of Feb. 21, NASA has discovered and confirmed 3,440 exoplanets.

The briefing participants are Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington; Michael Gillon, astronomer at the University of Liege in Belgium; Sean… read more

Topics: Space

Manipulating silicon atoms to create future ultra-fast, ultra-low-power chip technology

February 17, 2017

Artist’s illustration of a study to create a future electronic circuit at the atomic level, showing interaction between tip and silicon-surface atoms (credit: Wolkow Lab)

Imagine a hybrid silicon-molecular computer that uses one thousand times less energy or a cell phone battery that lasts weeks at a time.

University of Alberta scientists, headed by University of Alberta physics professor Robert Wolkow, have taken a major step in that direction by visualizing and geometrically patterning silicon at the atomic level — using an innovative  atomic-force microscopy* (AFM) technique. The goal: chip technology that performs… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

How to build your own bio-bot

Building blocks for the biomachines of the future
February 14, 2017

Bio-bot design inspired by the muscle-tendon-bone complex found in the human body, with 3D-printed flexible skeleton. Optical stimulation of the muscle tissue (orange), which is genetically engineered to contract in response to blue light, makes the bio-bot walk across a surface in the direction of the light. (credit: Ritu Raman et al./Nature Protocols)

For the past several years, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have reverse-engineered native biological tissues and organs — creating tiny walking “bio-bots” powered by muscle cells and controlled with electrical and optical pulses.

Now, in an open-access cover paper in Nature Protocols, the researchers are sharing a protocol with engineering details for their current generation of millimeter-scale soft robotic bio-bots*.

Using 3D-printed skeletons, these… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Biomed/Longevity | Electronics

Terahertz wireless could lead to fiber-optics speed in-flight and mobile metropolitan internet

February 14, 2017

Terahertz wireless links to spaceborne satellites could make gigabit-per-second connection speeds available to anyone anytime, anywhere on the face of the earth, on the ground or in flight (credit: Fujishima et al./Hiroshima University)

Hiroshima University researchers and associates have developed a terahertz* (THz) transmitter capable of transmitting digital data over a single channel at a speed of 105 gigabits per second (Gbps), and demonstrated the technology at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2017 conference last week.

For perspective, that’s more than 100 times faster than the fastest (1 Gbps) internet connection in the U.S. or more than 3,000… read more

Topics: Electronics

Scientists create first 3-D synchronized-beating heart tissue

February 8, 2017

3-D tissue imaged using 3-D fluorescent imaging, where many cells laid down sequentially to make attached layers of alternating cell types like membranes in the human body. (credit: York University)

York University scientists have created the first in vitro (lab) 3D heart tissue made from three different types of cardiac cells that beat in synchronized harmony. It may lead to better understanding of cardiac health and improved treatments.*

The researchers constructed the heart tissue from three free-beating rat cell types: contractile cardiac muscle cells, connective tissue cells, and vascular cells. No external scaffold was used and the… read more

Topics: Biotech

New machine-learning algorithms may revolutionize drug discovery — and our understanding of life

February 8, 2017

A new set of machine learning algorithms developed at U of T Scarborough that can generate 3-D structures of tiny protein molecules may revolutionize the development of drug therapies for a range of diseases. (credit: Structura Biotechnology Inc)

A new set of machine-learning algorithms developed by researchers at the University of Toronto Scarborough can generate 3D structures of nanoscale protein molecules that could not be achieved in the past. The algorithms may revolutionize the development of new drug therapies for a range of diseases and may even lead to better understand how life works at the atomic level, the researchers say.

Drugs work by binding to a… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Biotech

First stable semisynthetic organism created

Scientists hope to "impart life with new forms and functions"
February 3, 2017

DNA --- now with a new base pair! (credit: Romesberg Lab)

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed the first stable semisynthetic organism — a bacterium with two new synthetic bases (called X and Y) added to the four natural bases (A, T, C, and G) that every living organism possesses. Adding two more letters to expand the genetic alphabet can be used to make novel proteins for new therapeutics, according to the researchers.

All life… read more

Topics: Biotech

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