The Guardian says it has acquired top-secret documents about the NSA datamining tool, called Boundless Informant, that details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks.
The focus of the internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or… read more
A study in the journal Cell reveals that a significant number of new neurons in the hippocampus — a brain region crucial for memory and learning — are generated in adult humans.
“It was thought for a long time that we are born with a certain number of neurons, and that it is not possible to get new neurons after birth,” says senior study author Jonas Frisén of the Karolinska Institute.… read more
Researchers in the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering have developed a new noninvasive system that allows people to control a flying robot using a brain-computer interface.
The study has the potential to help people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases.
The open access study was published in IOP Publishing’s Journal of Neural Engineering.
Five subjects (three female and two… read more
New MIT analysis should enable development of improved color displays and biomedical monitoring systems.
Tiny particles of matter called quantum dots, which emit light with exceptionally pure and bright colors, have found a prominent role as biological markers. In addition, they are realizing their potential in computer and television screens, and have promise in solid-state lighting.
New research at MIT could now make these… read more
Researchers from the University of Louisville in Kentucky are developing new materials and production methods using modified quantum dots and inkjet printing to make organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) more cheaply and easily.
For home lighting applications, OLEDs hold the promise of being both environmentally friendly and versatile. Though not as efficient as regular light-emitting diodes (LEDs), they offer a wider range of material choices and are… read more
Lawrence Livermore (LLNL) scientist Nir Goldman and University of Ontario Institute of Technology colleague Isaac Tamblyn have found that icy comets that crashed into Earth billions of years ago could have produced life-building organic compounds.
Comets contain a variety of simple molecules, such as water, ammonia, methanol, and carbon dioxide, and an impact event with a planetary surface would provide an abundant supply… read more
Purdue University researchers have demonstrated a method for “temporal cloaking” of optical communications, representing a potential tool to thwart would-be eavesdroppers and improve security for telecommunications.
“More work has to be done before this approach finds practical application, but it does use technology that could integrate smoothly into the existing telecommunications infrastructure,” said Purdue graduate student Joseph Lukens, working with … read more
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have reported the first observation of the “spin Hall effect” in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a cloud of ultracold atoms.
As one consequence, they made the atoms, which spin like a child’s top, curve off to one side or the other, by an amount dependent on the spin direction.
They say the phenomenon is… read more
UPDATE June 9, 2013: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations — The Guardian, June 9, 2013
The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other U.S. Internet giants, according to a top secret document, dated April 2013, obtained by the Guardian.
UPDATE June 8, 2013: “Sources challenge reports alleging National Security Agency is ‘tapping directly into the central… read more
Engineers in the Coordinated Robotics Lab at the University of California, San Diego have developed new image processing techniques for rapid exploration and characterization of structural fires by small Segway-like robotic vehicles.
A sophisticated on-board software system takes the thermal data recorded by the robot’s small infrared camera and maps it onto a 3D scene constructed from the images taken by a pair of stereo… read more
A University of South Florida researcher is part of a team that determined that life-producing phosphorus was carried to Earth by meteorites.
USF Assistant Professor of Geology Matthew Pasek and researchers from the University of Washington and the Edinburg Centre for Carbon Innovation, revealed new findings that explain how the reactive phosphorus that was an essential component for creating the earliest life forms came to Earth.… read more
You can manipulate an existing memory simply by suggesting new or different information, Iowa State University researchers have shown.
The key is timing and recall of that memory, said Jason Chan, an assistant professor of psychology at Iowa State.
“If you reactivate a memory by retrieving it, that memory becomes susceptible to changes again. And if at that time, you give people new contradictory… read more
Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have designed a new type of nitrogen-doped carbon-nanotube catalyst that could pave the way for reliable, economical next-generation batteries and alkaline fuel cells, providing for practical use of wind- and solar-powered electricity, as well as enhanced hybrid electric vehicles.
The new material has the highest oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity in alkaline media of any non-precious metal catalyst developed to date. This activity… read more
Vijay Pande, professor of chemistry at Stanford and colleague, Balaji Srinivasan, both with strong research and entrepreneurial backgrounds, taught a traditional classroom course in software engineering winter quarter aimed at future chief technology officers.
It was so successful they’re now going to go virtual, and starting June 17 they will begin teaching a 10-week massive open online course titled Startup Engineering. The idea is to reach thousands… read more
At the COMPUTEX conference in Taiwan Tuesday, Intel Corporation executives detailed progress toward the company’s vision to integrate human-like sensing technology into devices, ultimately delivering more natural, intuitive and immersive computing experiences.
To help realize this vision, Intel Capital, Intel’s Global Investment and M&A Organization, announced a $100-million investment fund over the next 2–3 years to accelerate the development of software and applications — touch applications, imaging,… read more