In this month’s special edition of Physics World, focusing on quantum physics, Thomas Jennewein and Brendon Higgins from the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, Canada, describe how a quantum space race is under way to create the world’s first global quantum-communication network.
The field of quantum communication — the science of transmitting quantum states from one place to another… read more
The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future, edited by Max More and Natasha Vita-More, will be published April 29, 2013.
It is the “first authoritative and comprehensive survey of the origins and current state of transhumanist… read more
Scientists of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) have successfully performed cryopreservation — freezing and thawing oocytes (egg cells) from different cat species at minus 196 degrees Celsius.
Successful cryopreservation of ovarian tissue of wild cats is a key element for the establishment of genome resource banks, an important tool for the preservation of genetic diversity. All felid species except for the… read more
Last summer, six scientists proposed a project they compared in scope and ambition to the Human Genome Project: to map the activity of the human brain. In February, news media reported that the Obama administration plans to move forward with that effort, known as the Brain Activity Map.
One of those six scientists was George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School… read more
Transplanted eyes located far outside the head in tadpoles can give them vision without a direct neural connection to the brain, biologists at Tufts University have found.
The research sheds new light (literally) on one of the major questions in regenerative medicine, bioengineering, and sensory augmentation research.
“Our research reveals the brain’s remarkable ability, or plasticity, to process visual data coming from misplaced eyes,… read more
A team of neuroengineers at Brown University has developed a fully implantable and rechargeable wireless brain sensor capable of relaying real-time broadband signals from up to 100 neurons in freely moving subjects.
Several copies of the novel low-power device, described in the open-access Journal of Neural Engineering, have been performing well in animal models for more than year, a first in the brain-computer interface field.… read more
“Google Glass might change your life, but not in the way you think. There’s something else Google Glass makes possible that no one — no one — has talked about yet, and so today I’m writing this blog post to describe it,” says Mark Hurst on Creative Good.
“It’s lifebits, the ability to record video of the people, places, and events around you, at all times. with a… read more
Researchers have discovered prebiotic (pre-life) molecules in interstellar space that may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars.
The molecules were detected in a giant cloud of gas some 25,000 light-years from Earth, near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy — specifically, the star-forming region Sagittarius(Sgr) B2(N), which is the richest interstellar chemical environment currently known.
One of the newly-discovered molecules, called… read more
At TED 2013 Thursday, Diana Reiss, Peter Gabriel, Neil Gershenfeld, and Vint Cerf launched the idea of the “interspecies internet.”
Diana Reiss, a cognitive psychologist, has been been teaching dolphins to communicate through an underwater keyboard of symbols that correspond to whistles and playful activities.
Through this keyboard, the dolphins learned to perform activities on demand, and also to express their desire for them. (Also see… read more
A team of researchers at UC San Francisco has uncovered the neurological basis of speech motor control, the complex coordinated activity of tiny brain regions that controls our lips, jaw, tongue and larynx as we speak.
The work has potential implications for developing brain-computer interfaces for artificial speech communication and for the treatment of speech disorders. It also sheds light on this ability, which is… read more
Researchers at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley have mapped the three-dimensional global connections within the brains of seven adults who have genetic malformations that leave them without the corpus callosum, which connects the left and right sides of the brain.
These “structural connectome” maps, which combine hospital MRIs with the mathematical tool known as network analysis, reveal new details about the condition known as… read more
The DARPA Tactical Technology Office is soliciting proposals on the design, development and demonstration of a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) experimental aircraft (X-Plane) with exceptional performance in vertical and cruise flight, and operational capability through transition from vertical to forward flight
Higher speeds, increased efficiency, elegant designs are the focus of DARPA’s new VTOL X-Plane.
The versatility of helicopters and other vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft… read more
At the TED conference in Los Angeles, architect and computer scientist Skylar Tibbits showed how the process allows objects to self-assemble, BBC News reports.
It could be used to install objects in hard-to-reach places such as underground water pipes, he suggested.
It might also herald an age of self-assembling furniture, said experts.
Smart materials
“We’re proposing that the fourth dimension is time… read more
The hawk moth’s wings are a blur of mottled gray motion as it hovers tethered to a steel rod in large white plastic orb. Outside the orb in the darkened room, a projector casts moving patterns of dimmed light onto the sphere’s surface, illuminating the moth’s field of vision with oscillating stripes. …
These changing light patterns create altered visual environments for the moth inside to simulate real-world visual… read more
Researchers have electronically linked the brains of pairs of rats for the first time, enabling them to communicate directly to solve simple behavioral puzzles.
They even brain-linked two animals thousands of miles apart — one in Durham, North Carolina and one in Natal, Brazil.
The researchers think linking multiple brains could form the first “organic computer.”
“Our previous studies with brain-machine interfaces had convinced us… read more