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Energy-efficient computer memory using magnetic materials

MeRAM is up to "1,000 times more energy-efficient than current technologies"
December 19, 2012

MeRAM_bit

By using electric voltage instead of a flowing electric current, researchers from UCLA‘s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have made major improvements to an ultra-fast, high-capacity class of computer memory known as magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM).

The UCLA team’s improved memory, which they call MeRAM for magnetoelectric random access memory, has great potential to be used in future memory… read more

Topics: Electronics | Energy | Nanotech/Materials Science

Comments (6)

A display that makes interactive 3D seem mind-bogglingly real

The Z Space display could be revolutionary for designers and animators, but might also inspire innovation in computer gaming and augmented reality
December 19, 2012

z-space1

The “Z Space” display, developed by Californian company Infinite Z, tracks a user’s eye and hand movements and adjusts the 3-D image that he or she sees in real-time, MIT Technology Review reports.

The resulting effect is stunning. Unlike the 3-D video seen in a movie theater or on a 3-D TV, you can move your head around an object — to look it from… read more

Topics: VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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Earlier cancer diagnosis by detecting biomarkers in urine

Nanoparticles amplify tumor signals, making them much easier to detect
December 19, 2012

These nanoparticles created by MIT engineers can act as synthetic biomarkers for disease. The particles (brown) are coated with peptides (blue) that are cleaved by enzymes (green) found at the disease site. The peptides then accumulate in the urine, where they can be detected using mass spectrometry.<br /> Image: Justin H. Lo

Specific proteins secreted by cancer cells circulating in the bloodstream could help diagnose cancer earlier, but the quantity of these biomarkers is so low that detecting them has proven difficult.

Now MIT researchers, led by Sangeeta Bhatia, have developed nanoparticles that interact with cancer proteins to produce thousands of biomarkers that can be easily detected in the patient’s urine.

This biomarker amplification system could also be… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Is the US health care system a target for cyberterrorism?

December 19, 2012

(Credit: iStockphoto)

Cyber threats are on the rise, and U.S. health care organizations must be better prepared to deal with them, according to an open-access article in Telemedicine and e-Health.

The health care system in the U.S. is a $2.5 trillion industry and depends heavily on communication and the transfer of information via the Internet. This puts it at ever-increasing risk of a cyberterrorism attack, which could… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Internet/Telecom | Survival/Defense

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Studying ethical questions as the brain’s black box Is unlocked

Excerpt from The New York Times
December 18, 2012

MRI Head

S. Matthew Liao, director of the bioethics program at New York University, has a singular title: neuroethicist.

Some researchers claim to be near to using fMRIs to read thoughts. Is this really happening?

The technology, though still crude, appears to be getting closer. For instance, there’s one research group that asks subjects to watch movies. When they

… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Tissue engineering at MIT: where it’s going

Modeling human disease, testing potential new drugs are hot research areas at MIT
December 18, 2012

Researchers at MIT and the University of Pennsylvania successfully grew blood vessels within liver tissue grown in the lab. The red circle is a cross-section of the vessel, and endothelial cells (red) sprout from the surface of the tube.<br /> Image courtesy of the researchers/Nature Materials

Tissue engineering research at MIT is now largely focused on creating tissue that can be used in the lab to model human disease and test potential new drugs.

MIT professor Sangeeta Bhatia recently developed the first stem-cell-derived liver tissue model that can be infected with the hepatitis C virus. She has also designed thin slices of human liver tissue that can be implanted in mice, enabling rapid… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech

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A powerful microscale actuator for microrobotics and drug delivery

Can deliver a force 1000 times greater than human muscle of the same weight
December 18, 2012

transforms from a metal into an insulator at a critical temperature near room temperature

A powerful new microscale actuator that can flex like a miniature beckoning finger has been developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley.

It is based on a material that expands and contracts dramatically in response to a small (15 degrees C) temperature variation. It is smaller than the width of a human hair and… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Biomed/Longevity | Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Nanotech/Materials Science

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IBM reveals five innovations that will change our lives within five years

The era of cognitive systems: when computers will, in their own way, see, smell, touch, taste and hear
December 18, 2012

IBM announced today the seventh annual “IBM 5 in 5” — a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and interact during the next five years, based on market and societal trends as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s R&D labs. This one is focused on cognitive systems.

Touch

In the next five years, industries… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Biomed/Longevity | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Computers/Infotech/UI | Human Enhancement | Innovation/Entrepreneurship

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An information-processing approach to the origin of life

New perspective would allow for living systems instantiated in different chemical substrates --- including potentially non-organic substrates
December 17, 2012

Is life based on software and information? (Plants in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda; credit: Wikimedia Commons)

A novel approach to the question of life’s origin, proposed by two Arizona State University scientists — Paul Davies, an ASU Regents’ Professor and director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, and Sara Walker, a NASA post-doctoral fellow at the Beyond Center — in an open-access Journal of the Royal Society Interface paper, attempts to dramatically redefine the problem.

The authors shift… read more

Topics: Biotech | Computers/Infotech/UI

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Using light to remotely trigger biochemical reactions

Deep-sea microbes that thrive in high temperatures are key to light-activated catalysis
December 17, 2012

Chemical processes can be activated by light without the need for bulk heating of a material through a process developed by researchers at Rice University. The technique involves coating nanorods with thermophilic enzymes that are activated at high temperatures. Lighting the plasmonic gold nanorod causes highly localized heating and activates the enzyme. (Credit: Lori Pretzer/Rice University)

A method for turning light into heat to trigger specific biochemical reactions remotely on demand has been developed by Rice University researchers. It uses materials derived from thermophile microbes, which thrive at high temperatures but shut down at room temperature.… read more

Topics: Biotech | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Aerobic exercise boosts brain power in elderly

December 17, 2012

Prefrontal Cortex

Evidence for the importance of physical activity in keeping and potentially improving cognitive function throughout life was found in an open-access literature review in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review by Hayley Guiney and Liana Machado from the University of Otago, New Zealand.

  • Cognitive functions such as task switching, selective attention, and working memory appear to benefit from aerobic exercise. Studies in older adults reviewed

… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Head-mounted cameras could help robots understand social interactions

What is everyone looking at?
December 17, 2012

gaze

Robots (and some people) have trouble understanding what’s going on in a social setting.

But it may become essential for robots designed to interact with humans, so researchers at Carnegie Mellon University‘s Robotics Institute have developed a method for detecting where people’s gazes intersect.

The researchers tested the method using groups of people with head-mounted video cameras. By noting where their gazes converged in… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Social Networking/Web/Education | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Kurzweil joins Google to work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing

December 14, 2012

Google logo

Ray Kurzweil confirmed today that he will be joining Google to work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing.

“I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining Google as Director of Engineering this Monday, December 17,” said Kurzweil.

“I’ve been interested in technology, and machine learning in particular, for a long time: when I was 14, I designed software that wrote original music,… read more

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The UN fought the Internet — and the Internet won

December 14, 2012

Main Conference room at Day 4, WCIT 2012, Dubai, UAE (credit: ITU)

For the last two weeks some of the planet’s most oppressive regimes have faced off against some of the most powerful Internet advocates in an effort to rewrite a multilateral communications treaty that, if successful, could have changed the nature of the Internet and altered the way it is governed, Forbes reports.

On Thursday night that effort failed, as a U.S.-led block of dissenting countries refused to… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Tweet while you speak

December 14, 2012

backdraft

Are you freaked out by distracting tweets while you’re giving a speech or lecturing? Introducing a new free iPad app called Backdraft.

The app, developed by Purdue University for its instructors, allows speakers to write tweets in advance and release them at appropriate moments during a talk by double tapping on the Tweet. The messages may contain links, photos or video clips to provide additional information… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Social Networking/Web/Education

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