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How touch and movement neurons shape the brain’s internal image of the body

Implications for the future design of neuroprosthetic devices controlled by brain-machine interfaces
September 10, 2013

wbkgrd

The brain’s tactile and motor neurons, which perceive touch and control movement, may also respond to visual cues, according to researchers at Duke Medicine.

The phenomenon has some similarity to the “McGurk effect,” where visual cues dominate sound.

The study in monkeys provides new information on how different areas of the brain may work together in continuously shaping the brain’s internal image… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Human Enhancement

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Breakthrough in cryptography could result in more secure computing

September 10, 2013

(Credit: iStockphoto)

New research to be presented at the 18th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS 2013) this week could result in a sea change in how to secure computations.

The collaborative work between the University of Bristol and Aarhus University (Denmark) will be presented by Bristol PhD student Peter Scholl from the Department of Computer Science.

The SPDZ protocol… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Survival/Defense

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NSF awards $25 million to MIT-based center to advance brain understanding

September 10, 2013

new_ai_research_mit

To help encourage progress in learning how the brain performs complex computations, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $25 million to establish a Center for Brains, Minds and Machines at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The center is one of three new research centers funded this year through NSF’s Science and Technology Centers:… read more

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

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How to use DNA to assemble a transistor from graphene

September 10, 2013

Stanford chemical engineering professor Zhenan Bao and her co-authors have revealed a plan to build smaller field-effect transistors (FETs) that use less power but operate faster,* using ribbons of single-layer graphene laid side-by-side to create semiconductor circuits.

(Graphene, laterally confined within narrow ribbons less than 10 nanometers in width, exhibits a bandgap, meaning it can function as a semiconductor.)

Given the material’s tiny dimensions… read more

Topics: Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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New junction between stacked solar cells can handle max energy of 70,000 suns

September 10, 2013

The discovery means solar cell manufacturers can create stacked solar cells that can handle high-intensity solar energies without losing voltage at the connecting junctions, potentially improving conversion efficiency. Click to enlarge. (Photo: NC State University)

North Carolina State University researchers have come up with a new technique for improving the connections between stacked solar cells, which should improve the overall efficiency of solar energy devices and reduce the cost of solar energy production, the researchers say.

The new connections can allow these cells to operate at theoretical solar concentrations of 70,000 “suns”* worth of energy without losing much voltage as… read more

Topics: Electronics | Energy

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Another breakthrough in replacing silicon in transistors

Promises to increase transistor performance, reduce size and heat
September 10, 2013

molybdenum disulfide --- and found that manipulating it with gold atoms improves its electrical characteristics (credit: Kansas State University)

Manipulating a three-atom-thick material — molybdenum disulfide — with gold atoms improves its electrical characteristics, Kansas State University chemical engineer Vikas Berry, William H. Honstead professor of chemical engineering,, and his research team have discovered.

The research may advance transistors, photodetectors, sensors and thermally conductive coatings, Berry said. It could also produce ultrafast, ultrathin logic and plasmonics devices.

Berry’s laboratory has… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics

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Prion-like proteins drive several diseases of aging, say leading neurology researchers

September 9, 2013

prion-like brain disease

Many of the brain diseases associated with aging, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, are caused by specific proteins that misfold and aggregate into harmful seeds — similar to what happens with prions.

That’s a new hypothesis that two leading neurology researchers — Mathias Jucker and Lary Walker — have proposed.

These seeds behave very much like the pathogenic agents known… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Recording and replaying human touch: the next user-interface revolution?

September 9, 2013

haptic output

University of California, San Diego researchers have demonstrated a new user interface technology: electronic recording and replay of human touch.

“Touch was largely bypassed by the digital revolution, except for touch-screen displays, because it seemed too difficult to replicate what analog haptic [touch] devices can produce,” said Deli Wang, a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in UC San Diego’s… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Human Enhancement

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How to control fruit flies by putting designer drugs in their food

Don't tell Alex Jones about this, whatever you do!
September 9, 2013

Drosophila melanogaster aka fruit fly (credit: Mr.checker/ Wikimedia Commons)

So scientists at LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans have figured out how to control fruit-fly behavior and physiology by spiking their food with a designer drug called (we’re not making this up) DREADD (Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs).

The idea is to give them Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, epilepsy, ALS, and mental illness.

That’s all we need, crazed… read more

Topics: Biotech

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Who did you hear, me or your lying eyes?

(With apologies to Richard Pryor)
September 8, 2013

Richard Pryor

Our understanding of language may depend more heavily on vision than previously thought, University of Utah bioengineers have discovered.

Video credit: Three Gun Rose Productions

What did you hear?

“For the first time, we were able to link the auditory signal in the brain to what a person said they heard when what they actually heard was something different. We found… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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‘Seeing’ faces through touch

September 6, 2013

haptically_explored_face

Perceiving faces can be enhanced by touch, says  researcher Kazumichi Matsumiya of Tohoku University in Japan.

The face aftereffect

In a series of studies, Matsumiya took advantage of a phenomenon called the “face aftereffect” to investigate whether our visual system responds to nonvisual signals for processing faces.

In the face aftereffect, we adapt to a face with a particular expression — happiness, for example —… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Human Enhancement

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Achieving quantum-based secure communication

A solution for intrusive government spying?
September 6, 2013

MDI-QKD featured

University of Calgary scientists say they have overcome the “Achilles’ heel” of quantum-based secure communication systems, using a new approach that safeguards secrets.

The team’s research — published in the journal Physical Review Letters back-to-back with similar work by a group from Hefei, China — also removes a big obstacle to realizing future applications of quantum communication, including a fully functional quantum network.

“I hope… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Quantum

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Elon Musk designs real-world Iron Man gesture interface and 3D modeler

The future of design
September 6, 2013

(Credit: SpaceX)

Elon Musk has released a video demonstrating SpaceX’s new custom 3D design interface, inspired by Iron Man.

It includes use of Leap Motion control, free-standing glass projections (from Iron Man), 3D projections using glasses, and the Occulus Rift VR headset.

After generating and manipulating the 3D model, Musk then 3D-prints an actual titanium metallic rocket-engine part from the model.

“I believe we are on the… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Nanotech/Materials Science | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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Training the older brain in 3D: video game enhances cognitive performance

Geezers totally p0wn novice 20-somethings
September 6, 2013

NeuroRacer

UC San Francisco scientists have found a way to reverse some of the negative effects of aging on the brain, using a video game designed to improve cognitive performance in healthy older adults.

In the game (developed by the UCSF researchers), participants race a car around a winding track while a variety of road signs pop up. Drivers are instructed to keep an eye out… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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NSA cracks most Internet encryption, inserts back doors, The New York Times reveals

September 6, 2013

NSA

The NSA has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats, and phone calls of Americans and others around the world, The New York Times reports.

The agency, according to documents provided  to The Times and ProPublica by Edward J. Snowden… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Internet/Telecom | Social Networking/Web | Survival/Defense

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