The notion that police can identify a suspect based on the tiniest drop of blood or trace of tissue has long been a staple of TV dramas, but scientists at Harvard have now taken the idea a step further. Using just a single human cell, they can reproduce an individual’s entire genome.
The researchers developed a method — dubbed MALBAC, short for Multiple Annealing and… read more
Qualcomm and AT&T want to make the process of creating Internet of Things (IoT) devices and applications easier, ReadWrite Mobile reports.
The companies announced a joint project called the Internet of Everything development platform to decrease time to market for IoT projects
It’s based on Qualcomm’s QSC6270-Turbo chipset and Gobi modem for 3G connections, and… read more
Short interruptions — such as the few seconds it takes to silence that buzzing smartphone — have a surprisingly large effect on one’s ability to accurately complete a task, according to new research by Michigan State University psychologists.
The study found that interruptions averaging 2.8 seconds long doubled the error rate, while interruptions averaging 4.4 s long tripled the error rate.
Brief interruptions are ubiquitous… read more
Toshio Ando and co-workers at Kanazawa University have developed and used high-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM) to achieve direct visualization of dynamic structural changes and processes of functioning biological molecules in physiological solution — creating microscopic movies of unprecedented sub-100-ms temporal resolution and submolecular spatial resolution.
To produce an image, HS-AFM acquires information on sample height at many points by tapping the sample with the sharp tip of a tiny cantilever and… read more
Lego is back with another generation of MindStorms, the company’s consumer robotics line aimed at introducing application programming to a younger generation, TechCrunch reports.
The new kit includes directions for up to 17 different robots, most of which look like scary-style animals, such as snakes and scorpions.
Mindstorms EV3 marks the first time that users can program directly onto the… read more
The production of new neurons in the adult normal cortex in response to the antidepressant fluoxetine is reported in a study published online this week in Neuropsychopharmacology.
The research team, which is based at the Institute for Comprehensive Medical Science, Fujita Health University, Aichi, has previously demonstrated that neural progenitor cells exist at the surface of the adult cortex, and, moreover, that ischemia enhances the generation of… read more
Scientists have identified the key molecular pathway leading to depression, revealing potential new targets for drug discovery, according to research led by King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry.
The study reveals for the first time that the “Hedgehog pathway” regulates how stress hormones, usually elevated during depression, reduce the number of brain cells.
Depression affects approximately 1 in 5 people in the UK at some point in… read more
We are all being watched, whether we like it or not.
It is a battle between you and the government — like Mad Magazine’s Spy vs. Spy comic, but it’s gSpy vs. iSpy, Andy Kessler, author of Eat People, writes in The Wall Street Journal.
There are thousands of toll booths at bridges and turnpikes across America recording your license plate. There are 4,214 red-light cameras… read more
As verbal interaction between humans and computers becomes more prominent in daily life — from Siri, Apple’s voice-activated assistant technology, to speech-based search engines to fully automated call centers — demand has grown for “social computers” that can communicate with humans in a natural way.
Teaching computers to grapple with humor is a key part of this equation, author Alex Stone writes in The New York Times Sunday Review.… read more
Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) will reveal an advanced active safety research vehicle at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) today (Jan. 7).
Lexus (a Toyota sales division} plans to explore the use of autonomous technologies and high-level driver assistance systems related to TMC’s Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) research and development, which includes vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications technology.
Also highlighted at CES will be the new 2013 Lexus LS, equipped with the… read more
How many planets are in our galaxy?
Billions and billions of them at least. That’s the conclusion of a new study by astronomers at the California Institute of Technology, which provides yet more evidence that planetary systems are the cosmic norm.
The team made their estimate while analyzing planets orbiting a star called Kepler-32 — planets that are representative, they say, of the vast majority… read more
New research in the FASEB Journal by NIH scientists suggests that a small molecule called TFP5 rescues plaques and tangles by blocking an overactive brain signal, thereby restoring memory in mice with Alzheimer’s — without obvious toxic side effects.
“We hope that clinical trial studies in AD patients yield an extended and a better quality of life, as observed in mice upon TFP5 treatment,” said Harish C.… read more
The information communications and technology (ICT) industry, which delivers Internet, video, voice and other cloud services, produces more than 830 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually — about 2 percent of global CO2 emissions — the same proportion as the aviation industry produces. This is expected to double by 2020.
Now researchers from the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) and Bell Labs are reporting new models of emissions and… read more
New cyberthreats that will emerge in 2014 include the use of Internet-connected devices to carry out physical crimes, including murders, and cybercriminals leveraging mobile-device Near Field Communications (NFC) to wreak havoc with banking and e-commerce, predicts IID (Internet Identity, a provider of technology and services that help organizations secure their Internet presence,
With nearly every device, from healthcare to transportation, being controlled or communicated with in… read more
NASA is mulling over a plan to build a robotic spacecraft to grab a small asteroid and place it in high lunar orbit, according to researchers with the Keck Institute for Space Studies in California.
The mission would cost about $2.6 billion and could be completed by the 2020s, New Scientist reports.
The Obama administration has said it also wants to send astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid. One… read more