An exercise in autonomous robotics with two model-size planes could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans.
The automated, unpiloted planes worked on their own, with no human guidance, no hand on any control. After 20 minutes, one of the aircraft, carrying a computer that processed… read more
Robot movies coming out include The Matrix Reloaded (5/15), Terminator 3 (7/2), The Matrix Revolutions (11/11), and I, Robot (7/2/2004). Also next year, watch for Terminator 4, Robocop 4, StarTrek 11, Star Wars III, a Westworld remake, and yes, Tron 2.0.
“The flowers in Cynthia Breazeal’s garden are like no blossoms you’ve ever seen. Fashioned of metal and silicon and embedded with electronic sensors, they are actually robots that react to light and body heat by bobbing, swaying, spinning and changing color….”
The Cyberflora Installation is now showing at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, through January 2004.
Zhongguancun (in Beijing), China’s closest equivalent to Silicon Valley, is host to electronics super malls, research centers, publicly-listed tech giants, and hundreds of startups, and is surrounded by top universities.
Other up-and-coming hubs include Hangzhou, Shanghai, Dalian, Chengdu, and Xi’an.
See also: China’s parallel online universe
Young people with a apolipoprotein E gene variant that increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s tend to be smarter, more educated and have better memories than their peers, Rush University Medical Center researchers have found.
By disabling a gene involved in an important biochemical signaling pathway involving a protein called target of rapamycin (TOR), scientists have discovered a way to mimic the anti-aging benefits of caloric restriction, allowing mice to live longer and healthier lives.
This finding offers a promising drug target for combating the many health problems associated with aging.
Researchers from multiple institution have identified a genetic link associated with dry macular degeneration, which they say may lead to treatments for the debilitating disease.
Daniel Tammet is an autistic savant who can perform mind-boggling mathematical calculations at breakneck speeds.
He can also describe how he does it. Now scientists are asking whether his exceptional abilities are the key to unlock the secrets of autism.
An Israeli company called Brainsway has developed a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) method using multiple coils that stimulates areas deeper areas in the brain associated with depression and other neurological disorders, providing a possible treatment for patients with major depression who fail to respond to antidepressants.
Brainsway is designing different coils to tackle brain regions associated with other conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, autism, and drug… read more
A single giant interneuron tracks in real time the activity of several tens of thousands of neurons in an olfactory center of a locust and feeds inhibition back to all of them to control their collective output, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt have discovered.
The researchers tested how neurons (Kenyon cells) in the insect brain’s mushroom bodies respond with great… read more
Physicists hope the Large Hadron Collider giant particle accelerator at Cern will recreate conditions that last prevailed when the universe was less than a trillionth of a second old.
Scientists are uncovering clues that may eventually allow them to prevent, slow or even reverse Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers have found evidence suggesting that statins, drugs taken to lower cholesterol levels, may also protect against Alzheimer’s. Other researchers have hypothesized that medications that reduce inflammation might prove useful or that Alzheimer’s may result from “multiple hits” from a stroke, high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
Lighting experts expect the pace of change in developing light-emitting diodes to pick up as researchers shrink the chips to microscopic size, improve their already impressive energy efficiency and increase their brightness. The chips are expected to move into the general home and office lighting market as early as 2007.
The eventual result, the experts say, will be savings of billions of dollars annually in energy and maintenance costs… read more
Haptic interfaces, which add the sense of touch to virtual-reality systems, are becoming commerically available but are still expensive.CyberGrasp from San Jose-based Immersion consists of a lightweight mechanical exoskeleton that fits over a motion capture glove. It lets users manipulate virtual objects in a computer-generated world and creates the illusion of touching and grasping objects.
Woburn, MA-based SensAble Technologies makes touch-based modeling systems for industrial designers. Its FreeForm system… read more