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If you give people virtual superpowers, will they use those abilities for good or evil?

February 4, 2013

superman

Researchers at Stanford recently investigated the subject by giving people the ability of Superman-like flight in the university’s Virtual Human Interaction Laboratory (VHIL).

While several studies have shown that playing violent videogames can encourage aggressive behavior, the new research suggests that games could be designed to train people to be more empathetic in the real world.

To test this hypothesis, the group — which… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

Comments (45)

Mind-meld brain power is best for steering spaceships

February 4, 2013

bci_essex

Researchers are discovering that they get better results in some tasks by combining the signals from multiple brain-computer interface (BCI) users.

Until now, this “collaborative BCI” technique has been used in simple pattern-recognition tasks, but a team at the University of Essex in the UK wanted to test it more rigorously, New Scientist reports.

So they developed a simulator in which pairs of BCI… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Human Enhancement | Space | Telepresence/Telemedicine/Online Education

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Software predicts tomorrow’s news by analyzing today’s and yesterday’s

February 4, 2013

800px-World_newspapers_

Prototype software can give early warnings of disease or violence outbreaks by spotting clues in news reports.

Researchers have created software that predicts when and where disease outbreaks might occur, based on two decades of New York Times articles and other online data. The research comes from Microsoft and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, MIT Technology Review reports.

The system could someday help aid organizations and… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

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Meta’s AR headset lets you play with virtual objects in 3D space

February 4, 2013

meta_ar_concept_2

A new augmented reality headset from Meta puts a full twin-display digital environment — controlled by two-hand 3D tracking — in front of the user, Slashgear reports.

The prototype headset uses Epson Moverio BT-100 see-through glasses with a low-latency 3D camera mounted on top.

Both components reportedly feed into custom electronics in a separate wearable computer, which can track individual fingertips and… read more

Topics: VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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Could stem cells repair damaged cones in retinas, allowing for daylight color vision?

Yet another awesome zebrafish story.
February 4, 2013

Zebrafish cone photoreceptor mosaic (credit: Brittany Fraser et al./PLOS ONE

University of Alberta (UA) researchers have discovered that a zebrafish’s stem cells can selectively regenerate its damaged photoreceptor cells.

UA lead researcher Ted Allison says that for some time geneticists have known that stem cells in zebrafish can replace damaged vision cells.

Rods and cones are the most important photoreceptors. In humans, rods provide us with night vision while cones give us… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech

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Drug-delivery nanoparticles mimic white blood cells to avoid immune rejection

February 4, 2013

Camouflaged nanoparticles (yellow) cloaked in the membranes of white blood cells rest on the surface of an immune system cell (phagocyte, blue) without being recognized, ingested, and destroyed (credit: Methodist Hospital, Houston)

Scientists at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute have found a possible way to fool the immune system to prevent it from recognizing and destroying nanoparticles before they deliver their drug payloads.

“Our goal was to make a particle that is camouflaged within our bodies and escapes the surveillance of the immune system to reach its target undiscovered,” said Department of Medicine Co-Chair Ennio Tasciotti, Ph.D.,… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Nanotech/Materials Science | Telepresence/Telemedicine/Online Education

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Watching fish thinking

February 1, 2013

zebrafish_thinking

Neuroscientists have found a way to watch neurons fire in an independently moving animal for the first time. The study was done in fish, but it may hold clues to how the human brain works, Science Now reports.

Junichi Nakai of Saitama University’s Brain Science Institute in Japan and colleagues selected a glowing marker known as green fluorescent protein (GFP) and linked it to a compound that… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Tools of modern gunmaking: plastic and a 3D printer

February 1, 2013

30 round magazine opened in FreeCAD (credit: Distributed Defense)

Representative Steve Israel, Democrat of New York wants to extend an existing law, set to expire this year, that makes weapons that are undetectable by security scanners — like a printed all-plastic gun — illegal, The New York Times reports.

But there are also major technical obstacles to creating an entire gun on a 3-D printer, not the least of which is that a plastic gun would… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science | Survival/Defense

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First artificial enzyme created by evolution in a test tube

February 1, 2013

3-D structure of the evolved enzyme (an RNA ligase), using 10 overlaid snapshots. In the top region, the overlays show the range of bending and folding flexibility in the amino acid chain that forms the molecule. The two gray balls are zinc ions. (Credit: University of Minnesota)

There’s a wobbly new biochemical structure in Burckhard Seelig’s lab at the University of Minnesota that may resemble what enzymes looked like billions of years ago, when life on earth began to evolve.

Seelig created the fledgling enzyme by using directed evolution in the laboratory.

Working with team members, he subsequently determined its structure.. Lab tests show that the enzyme… read more

Topics: Biotech | Synthetic Biology

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Bio-inspired catalyst to lower cost of producing hydrogen

February 1, 2013

Bioinspired iron-based catalyst. Key atoms and groups are indicated. The color convention throughout is Fe atoms, brown; S atoms, yellow; P atoms, violet; C atoms, gray; N atoms, blue; O atoms, red; and H atoms, white. (Credit: Patrick H.-L. Sit et al./PNAS)

Hydro­gen has tremen­dous poten­tial as an eco-friendly fuel, but it is expen­sive to pro­duce. Now researchers at Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity and Rut­gers Uni­ver­sity have moved a step closer to har­ness­ing nature to pro­duce hydro­gen.

The team, led by Prince­ton chem­istry pro­fes­sor Annabella Sel­l­oni, takes inspi­ra­tion from bac­te­ria that make hydro­gen from water, using enzymes called di-iron hydro­ge­nases.

Cheap components = cost-effective

They used… read more

Topics: Biotech | Energy | Environment/Climate

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Building a lunar base with 3D printing

February 1, 2013

Lunar base made with 3D printing (credit: ESA)

Setting up a lunar base could be made much simpler by using a 3D printer to build it from local materials.

Renowned architects Foster + Partners have joined with ESA to test the feasibility of 3D printing using simulated lunar soil (regolith).

The architects devised a weight-bearing “catenary” dome design with a cellular structured wall to shield against micrometeoroids and space radiation, incorporating a… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science | Space

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Creating a near-living crystal structure from colloids

February 1, 2013

Living crystals assembled from a homogeneous distribution under illumination by blue light

New York University physicists have developed a method for moving microscopic particles, using a blue light to prompt colloids to move and then assemble — much like birds flock and move together in flight.

The method could enhance the design of a range of industrial products, including the architecture of electronics.

The work addresses a fundamental question in nature — what causes flocks and… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology | Synthetic Biology

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First true 3D microchip created: Cambridge scientists

February 1, 2013

(Credit: iStockphoto)

University of Cambridge scientists have created a new type of microchip that allows information to travel in three dimensions, enabling additional storage capacity on chips.

Currently, microchips can only pass digital information in a very limited way — from either left to right or front to back, the researchers say.

In the future, a 3D microchip would enable additional storage capacity on chips by… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

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‘Intelligent’ micro- and nanomotors based on enzymes discovered

Enzymes may have a new role as “intelligent” micro- and nanomotors with applications in medicine, engineering and other fields
February 1, 2013

A schematic of the microfluidic setup used to study the directed migration of enzymes towards a substrate, which serves as fuel (credit: Samudra Sengupta et al./American Chemical Society)

Two common enzymes, catalase* and urease*, show movement in the presence of their respective substrate (hydrogen peroxide or urea, which act as fuel),  Pennsylvania State University researchers Peter J. Butler, Ayusman Sen, and colleagues have found in experiments.

The finding has “important implications in areas ranging from biological transport to the design of ‘intelligent,’ enzyme-powered, autonomous nano- and micromotors, which are expected to find applications in bottom-up assembly… read more

Topics: Biotech | Nanotech/Materials Science

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A step towards repairing the central nervous system

January 31, 2013

Researchers at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and the University of Barcelona in Spain have discovered a biomaterial that can  generate new differentiated neural stem cells, as part of a project to develop an implant that allows brain repair and regeneration.

The team tested different types of polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable material allowing neural cell adhesion and growth. They found that PLA with… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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