Researchers at the HarvardSchool of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed an inexpensive but sensitove tactile sensor for robotic hands.
Designed by researchers in the Harvard Biorobotics Laboratory at SEAS, the sensor, called TakkTile, is intended to put what would normally be a high-end technology within the grasp of commercial inventors, teachers, and robotics enthusiasts.
TakkTile takes… read more
Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) have discovered a hormone that holds promise for a dramatically more effective treatment of type 2 diabetes, a metabolic illness afflicting an estimated 26 million Americans.
The researchers believe that the hormone might also have… read more
Dr. Dmitry Itskov, founder of the 2045 Initiative and Global Future 2045 congress (GF2045), announced Thursday that he will unveil Dr. David Hanson’s latest android, the Dmitry Avatar-A head — the “world’s most human-like android head” — at the GF2045 congress, scheduled for June 15–16 at Lincoln Center in New York City.
The new android, a robotic replica of Itskov’s head, is being created by… read more
A doctor says people can be revived several hours after they have seemingly died, BBC News reports. Should this change the way we think about death?
“While 45 minutes is absolutely remarkable and a lot of people would have written her off, we now know there are people who have been brought back, three, four, five hours after they’ve died and have led remarkably good quality lives,”… read more
Lab-grown livers have come a step closer to reality thanks to a 3D printer loaded with cells, New Scientist reports.
Created by Organovo in San Diego, California, future versions of the system could produce chunks of liver for transplant.
The mini-livers that Organovo made are just half a millimeter deep and 4 millimeters across but can perform most functions of the real thing.… read more
Today’s Internet runs on linked silicon chips, but a future quantum version might be built from diamond crystals, Nature News reports.
Physicists report in Nature that they have entangled information kept in pieces of diamond 3 meters apart, so that measuring the state of one quantum bit (qubit) instantly fixes the state of the other — a necessary step for exchanging quantum information over large distances.… read more
Two European Physical Journal D papers challenge established wisdom about the nature of vacuum.
In one paper, Marcel Urban from the University of Paris-Sud and colleagues identified a quantum-level mechanism for interpreting vacuum as being filled with pairs of virtual particles with fluctuating energy values.
As a result, the inherent characteristics of vacuum, such as the speed of light, may not be a constant… read more
Resistive memory cells (ReRAM) are actually not purely passive components but must be regarded as tiny batteries, researchers at Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA) have demonstrated and published in Nature Communications (open access).
Unlike the building blocks of conventional hard disk drives and memories, ReRAM cells are regarded as a promising solution for future generations of computer memories. They promise to dramatically reduce the energy… read more
![Nano-suit: images of a larva protected by electron-beam-irradiated Tween 20. The small white square in C are is shown magnified (D), with high resolution. [Scale bars: 0.3 mm (C) and 1 μm (D)]](http://www.kurzweilai.net/images/nano-suit.png "nano-suit")
Put a fruit fly larva in a spacelike vacuum, and within minutes, the animal will collapse into a crinkled, lifeless husk.
Now, researchers have found a way to protect the bugs: bombard them with electrons, which form a “nano-suit” around their bodies, according to an open-access paper in Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The advance could help scientists take high-resolution photographs of tiny living… read more
Linden Lab intends to integrate the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset with Second Life, Wagner James Au reports on New World Notes.
“The Oculus could become Second Life’s killer app, but only if Linden Lab is willing to go all in,” said Au. “Sounds like they are doing just that, in an official capacity.
We’ll get to experience Second… read more
“So what we plan to do is unleash swarms of hundreds of microscopic ‘grippers’ into your colon and let them just snip away at you, OK?” — Future gastroenterologist to patient
By using swarms of untethered grippers, each as small as a speck of dust, Johns Hopkins engineers and physicians have devised a new way to perform biopsies that could provide a more effective way… read more
Mars One has launched its astronaut selection program for the first humans to set foot on Mars and make it their home.
Mars One invites would-be Mars settlers from anywhere in the world to submit an online application — the first of the four rounds in the selection procedure.
Round One will run for over five months and end on 31st August… read more
Three “PhoneSats” rode to space Sunday aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Science Corp.’s Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia.
The goal of NASA‘s PhoneSat mission is to determine whether a consumer-grade smartphone — such as the Nexus One phones running Android, used here — can be used as the main flight avionics of a capable, yet very inexpensive,… read more
Sophisticated genetic circuits allow an individual bacterium within a colony to act on its own while also ensuring that the colony pulls together in hard times, striking a balance between selflessness and selfishness,.researchers from Rice University’s Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP), Tel Aviv University, and Harvard Medical School have shown.
“Our findings suggest new principles for collective decisions that allow both random behavior by… read more
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a way to turn bone marrow stem cells directly into brain cells.
Current techniques for turning patients’ marrow cells into cells of some other desired type are relatively cumbersome, risky and effectively confined to the lab dish.
The new finding points to the possibility of simpler and safer techniques.
Cell therapies derived from patients’… read more