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How AI may affect urban life in 2030

September 2, 2016

(credit: AI100)

Specialized robots that clean and provide security, robot-assisted surgery, natural language processing-augmented instruction, and helping people adapt as old jobs are lost and new ones are created: these are some of the profound challenges explored by a panel of academic and industrial thinkers that has looked ahead to 2030 to forecast how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) might affect life in a typical North American city.

Titled “Artificial… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

Comments (29)

Google’s secret plan for quantum computer supremacy

September 2, 2016

UCSB Martinis Group's superconducting five-qubit array (credit: Erik Lucero)

Google* is developing a quantum computer that it believes will outperform the world’s top supercomputers, according to an August 31 New Scientist article and sourced to researchers contacted by the magazine.

Google’s ambitious goal is to achieve “quantum supremacy”— which would be achieved when “quantum devices without error correction can perform a well-defined computational task beyond the capabilities of state-of-the-art classical computers,” as the authors of an… read more

Topics: Quantum

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A cheap, long-lasting, sustainable battery for grid energy storage

Oh, and they don't explode
September 2, 2016

Zinc-ion battery (credit: Dipan Kundu et al./Nature Energy

University of Waterloo chemists have developed a long-lasting, safe, zinc-ion battery that costs half the price of current lithium-ion batteries. It could help communities shift from traditional power plants to renewable solar and wind energy production, where electricity storage overnight is needed.

The battery is water-based and uses cheap but safe, non-flammable, non-toxic materials, compared to expensive, flammable, organic electrolytes in lithium-ion batteries, which are used in the… read more

Topics: Electronics | Energy

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‘Star in a jar’ could lead to limitless fusion energy

New compact spherical tokamak design may overcome physics challenges
August 30, 2016

Spherical torus/tokamak design for fusion nuclear science facility showing magnets and other systems and structures (credit: J.E. Menard et al./Nucl. Fusion)

Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL)* are building a “star in a jar” — a miniature version of the how our Sun creates energy through fusion. It could provide humankind with near limitless energy, ending dependence on fossil fuels for generating electricity — without contributing greenhouse gases that warm the Earth, and with no long-term radioactive waste.

But that requires a… read more

Topics: Energy | Physics/Cosmology

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Mystery radio signal may be from distant star system — or a military transmitter

August 29, 2016

RATAN-600 radio telescope (credit: nat-geo.ru)

A star system 94 light-years away known as HD 164595 is a possible candidate for intelligent life, based on an announcement by an international team of researchers.

On May 15, 2015, Russian astronomers picked up a radio signal on the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Russia “in the direction of HD164595,” an international group of astronomers stated in a document* now being circulated through contact person Alexander Panov,… read more

Topics: Physics/Cosmology

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3-D-printed structures that ‘remember’ their shapes

Heat-responsive shape-memory materials may aid in controlled drug delivery and solar panel tracking, for example
August 29, 2016

In this series, a 3-D printed multimaterial shape-memory minigripper, consisting of shape-memory hinges and adaptive touching tips, grasps a cap screw. (credit: Photo courtesy of Qi (Kevin) Ge)

Engineers from MIT and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) are 3D-printing structures based on shape-memory polymers that “remember” and spring back to their original shapes when heated to a certain temperature “sweet spot” — even after being stretched, twisted, and bent at extreme angles.

That makes them useful for applications ranging from soft actuators that turn solar panels toward the sun to tiny drug capsules… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science

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Designing new ultrasound imaging tools with Lego-like proteins

Imaging specific cells and molecules deeper in the body
August 26, 2016

Protein-shelled structures called gas vesicles, illustrated here, can be engineered with Lego-like proteins to improve ultrasound methods. The gas vesicles can help detect specific cell types and create multicolor images. (credit: Barth van Rossum for Caltech)

The next step in ultrasound imaging will let doctors view specific cells and molecules deeper in the body, such as those associated with tumors or bacteria in our gut.

A new study from Caltech outlines how protein engineering techniques might help achieve this milestone. The researchers engineered protein-shelled nanostructures called gas vesicles (which reflect sound waves) to exhibit new properties useful for ultrasound technologies. In the future,… read more

Topics: Biotech

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Ultrasound jump-starts brain of man in coma

New non-invasive technique may lead to low-cost therapy for patients with severe brain injury --- possibly for those in a vegetative or minimally conscious state
August 26, 2016

The technique uses ultrasound to target the thalamus. (credit: Martin Monti/UCLA)

UCLA neurosurgeons used ultrasound to “jump-start” the brain of a 25-year-old man from a coma, and he has made remarkable progress following the treatment.

The technique, called “low-intensity focused ultrasound pulsation” (LIFUP), works non-invasively and without affecting intervening tissues. It excites neurons in the thalamus, an egg-shaped structure that serves as the brain’s central hub for processing information.

“It’s almost as if we were jump-starting the… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Implantable cell-size ‘neural pixel’ device senses and blocks epileptic seizures

August 26, 2016

A biochemical pathway for reducing chemically induced epileptic activity by delivering the natural neurotransmitter GABA via PEDOT:PSS electrodes, which also sensed the epileptic attack and recorded the subsequent electrophysiological activity to confirm effecctiveness (credit: Amanda Jonsson et al./PNAS)

Researchers at Linköping University in Sweden and in France have developed a “neural pixel” device that when implanted in a mouse hippocampus brain slice detects the initial signal of an epileptic attack and also locally administers the exact dose of the natural neurotransmitter GABA needed to stop the attack.

The researchers used a conducting polymer called poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) doped with poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) for electrodes. It has ten times… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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‘We are probably one of the last generations of Homo sapiens’ — Yuval Noah Harari

August 25, 2016

(credit: Cognitive)

Historian and author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari predicts the future of humanity.

“We are probably one of the last generations of Homo sapiens,” he tells BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.

Animation by Cognitive.

Topics: AI/Robotics | Evolutionary Biology

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The first autonomous soft robot powered only by a chemical reaction

The 3D-printed "octobot" is powered by oxygen released from hydrogen peroxide and controlled by microfluidics --- no electronics
August 24, 2016

The octobot is powered by a chemical reaction and controlled with a soft logic board. A reaction inside the bot transforms a small amount of liquid fuel (hydrogen peroxide) into a large amount of oxygen gas, which flows into the octobot's arms and inflates them like a balloon. The team used a microfluidic logic circuit, a soft analog of a simple electronic oscillator, to control when hydrogen peroxide decomposes to gas in the octobot. SD card shown for scale only. (credit: Lori Sanders)

The first autonomous, untethered, entirely soft 3-D-printed robot (powered only by a chemical reaction) has been demonstrated by a team of Harvard University researchers and described in the journal Nature.

Nicknamed “octobot,” the bot combines soft lithography, molding, and 3-D printing.

“One longstanding vision for the field of soft robotics has been to create robots that are entirely soft, but the struggle has always been in replacing… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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A possible habitable planet is only four light-years away, astronomers discover

Proxima b's estimated temperature would allow for a liquid state on its surface, placing it within the "habitable zone" around the star (assuming water is present) --- Hawking's $100 million Breakthrough Starshot vindicated
August 24, 2016

Artist's impression shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image to the upper-right of the star Proxima. (credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser)

A rocky planet called Proxima b — the closest exoplanet to us — is in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Solar System, a team of astronomers has found after painstaking observation and data analysis.

The new world orbits its cool red-dwarf parent star every 11.2 days and has a temperature suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. A paper describing… read more

Topics: Physics/Cosmology | Space

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Beyond Wi-Fi

Two low-energy innovations that promise to transform home and business data communications
August 22, 2016

A nanocrystal-based material converts blue laser emission to white light for combined illumination and data communication. (credit: KAUST 2016)

Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have developed a system that uses high-speed visible light communications (VLC) to replace slower Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, allowing ceiling lights, for example, to provide an internet connection to laptops.

“VLC has many advantages compared with lower frequency communications approaches (including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth), such as energy efficiency, an unregulated communication spectrum, environmental friendliness, greater security, and no… read more

Topics: Electronics | Internet/Cloud/Telecom

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Neuroscientists identify cortical links to adrenal medulla (mind-body connection)

May help explain why meditation and exercises such as yoga and Pilates can be helpful in dealing with stress
August 19, 2016

Cortical pathways to the adrenal medulla. Cortical areas on the lateral surface and the medial wall of the hemisphere are the source of neurons that influence the adrenal medulla. (credit: Richard P. Dum et al./PNAS)

Neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh have identified the neural networks that connect the cerebral cortex to the adrenal medulla — the inner part of the adrenal gland, located above each kidney, which is responsible for the body’s rapid response in stressful situations.

These findings, reported in the online Early Edition of the journal … read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Mayo Clinic, collaborators working to advance aging research via clinical trials

Aging is the largest risk factor for most chronic diseases, and care for the elderly currently accounts for 43 percent of the total health care spending in the U.S. --- about 1 trillion dollars a year
August 19, 2016

(credit: iStock)

Mayo Clinic and other members of the Geroscience Network* have developed strategies for taking new drugs to clinical trials — specifically, drugs that target processes underlying multiple age-related diseases and disabilities. And they’ve written six supporting articles that appeared Wednesday Aug. 17 in The Journals of Gerontology: Series A – Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences.

The Geroscience Network consists of 18 academic aging center, with the participation… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity

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