science + technology news

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This deep-learning method could predict your daily activities from your lifelogging camera images

A future smart personal assistant --- or "pre-crime" tracker?
October 12, 2015

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Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have developed a deep-learning method that uses a wearable smartphone camera to track a person’s activities during a day. It could lead to more powerful Siri-like personal assistant apps and tools for improving health.

In the research, the camera took more than 40,000 pictures (one every 30 to 60 seconds) over a six-month period. The researchers taught a computer to categorize these pictures across… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics

Stephen Hawking on AI

October 9, 2015

Stephen Hawking on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (credit: HBO)

Reddit published Stephen Hawking’s answers to questions in an “Ask me anything” (AMA) event on Thursday (Oct. 8).

Most of the answers focused on his concerns about the future of AI and its role in our future. Here are some of the most interesting ones. The full list is in this Wired article. (His answers to John Oliver below are funnier.)
The real risk with… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Physics/Cosmology

A realistic bio-inspired robotic finger

Initial use is in underwater robotics
October 9, 2015

Bio-Inspired Robotic Finger-ft

A realistic 3D-printed robotic finger using a shape memory alloy (SMA) and a unique thermal training technique has been developed by Florida Atlantic University assistant professor Erik Engeberg, Ph.D.

“We have been able to thermomechanically train our robotic finger to mimic the motions of a human finger, like flexion and extension,” said Engeberg. “Because of its light weight, dexterity and strength, our robotic design offers… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science

A soft, bio-friendly ’3-D’ brain-implant electrode

Can capture signals from single neurons in the brain over a long period of time --- without causing brain-tissue damage
October 9, 2015

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Researchers at Lund University have developed implantable multichannel electrodes that can capture signals from single neurons in the brain over a long period of time — without causing brain tissue damage, making it possible to better understand brain function in both healthy and diseased individuals.

Current flexible electrodes can’t maintain their shape when implanted, which is why they have to be attached to a solid chip. That… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

A new way to create spintronic magnetic information storage

May lead to a more practical way to create data storage, replacing current hard-drive technology
October 9, 2015

A magnetized cobalt disk (red) placed atop a thin cobalt-palladium film (light purple background) can be made to confer its own ringed configuration of magnetic moments (orange arrows) to the film below, creating a skyrmion in the film (purple arrows). The skyrmion, which is stable at room temperature, might be usable in computer memory systems. (credit: Dustin Gilbert / NIST)

Exotic ring-shaped magnetic effects called “skyrmions*” could be the basis for a new type of nonvolatile magnetic computer data storage, replacing current hard-drive technology, according to a team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and several universities.

Skyrmions have the advantage of operating at magnetic fields that are several orders of magnitude weaker, but have worked at only very low temperatures until now. The… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Physics/Cosmology

Neuroscientists simulate tiny part of rat brain in a supercomputer

82 scientists and engineers simulate 37 million synapses in massive Blue Brain Project
October 8, 2015

A virtual brain slice in the rat neocortex (credit: Henry Markram et al./Cell)

The Blue Brain Project, the simulation core of the European Human Brain Project, released today (Oct. 8) a draft digital reconstruction of the neocortical microcircuitry of the rat brain.

The international team, led by Henry Markram of École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (EPFL) and funded in part by the Swiss government, completed a first-draft computer reconstruction of a piece of… read more

Gartner identifies the top 10 strategic IT technology trends for 2016

October 8, 2015

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At the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo today (Oct. 8), Gartner, Inc. highlighted the top 10 technology trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2016 and will shape digital business opportunities through 2020.

The Device Mesh

The device mesh refers to how people access applications and information or interact with people, social communities, governments and businesses. It includes mobile devices, wearable, consumer and home electronic devices, automotive devices,… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Internet/Cloud/Telecom | Singularity/Futures

Smaller silver nanoparticles more likely to be absorbed by aquatic life, UCLA study finds

Effects on marine life of the more than 2,000 consumer products that contain nanoparticles are largely unknown
October 7, 2015

Deposits of 20-nanometer silver nanoparticles in zebrafish gill filaments (outlined in red) (credit: Olivia J. Osborne et al./ACS Nano)

A study led by UCLA scientists has found that smaller silver nanoparticles entered fish’s bodies more deeply and persisted longer than larger silver nanoparticles or fluid silver nitrate.

More than 2,000 consumer products today contain nanoparticles — particles so small that they are measured in billionths of a meter. Manufacturers use nanoparticles to help sunscreen work better against the sun’s rays and to make athletic apparel better at wicking… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Nanotech/Materials Science

Detecting infectious and autoimmune antibodies with a DNA nanomachine

Aims to replace the current slow, cumbersome, expensive diagnostic process
October 7, 2015

New research may revolutionize the slow, cumbersome and expensive process of detecting the antibodies that can help with the diagnosis of infectious and auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and HIV. An international team of researchers have designed and synthesized a nanometer-scale DNA "machine" whose customized modifications enable it to recognize a specific target antibody. Their new approach, which they described this month in Angewandte Chemie, promises to support the development of rapid, low-cost antibody detection at the point-of-care, eliminating the treatment initiation delays and increasing healthcare costs associated with current techniques. The light-generating DNA antibody detecting nanomachine is illustrated here in action, bound to an antibody. (credit: Marco Tripodi)

An international team of scientists has developed a nanomachine using synthetic DNA for rapid, sensitive, low-cost diagnosis of infectious and auto-immune diseases, including HIV, at the point of care. It aims to replace the current slow, cumbersome, and expensive current process of detecting the protein antibodies used for diagnosis.

An antibody causes a structural change (or switch) in the device, which generates a light signal. The sensor does not… read more

Topics: Biotech

DARPA selects research teams for its ElectRx neuron-sensing/stimulation program

October 6, 2015

ElectRx ft

DARPA announced Monday (Oct. 5, 2015) that it has selected seven teams of researchers to begin work on a radical new approach to healing called Electrical Prescriptions (ElectRx). It would involve a system that stimulates peripheral nerves to modulate functions in the brain, spinal cord, and internal organs, according to program manager Doug Weber.

DARPA envisions a closed-loop system aimed at monitoring and treating conditions such as chronic… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Electronics

A fast cell sorter shrinks to cell phone size

October 6, 2015

An artist's conception of an acoustic cell sorter is the cover image on the current issue of Lab on a Chip. (credit: Huang Group/Penn State)

Penn State researchers have developed a new lab-on-a-chip cell sorting device based on acoustic waves that is capable of the kind of high sorting throughput necessary to compete with commercial fluorescence activated cell sorters, described in the cover story in the current issue of the British journal Lab on a Chip.

Commercial fluorescence activated cell sorters have been highly successful in the past 40 years at rapidly and… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity

Sleep may strengthen long-term memories in the immune system

New evidence shows that lack of sleep puts your body at risk
October 6, 2015

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Deep (slow-wave*) sleep, which helps retain memories in the brain, may also strengthen immunological memories of encountered pathogens, German and Dutch neuroscientists propose in an Opinion article published September 29 in Trends in Neurosciences.

The immune system “remembers” an encounter with a bacteria or virus by collecting fragments from the microbe to create memory T cells, which last for months or years and help the body… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

How the brain’s wiring leads to cognitive control

The human brain resembles a flock of birds
October 5, 2015

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How does the brain determine which direction its thoughts travel? Looking for the mechanisms behind cognitive control of thought, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, University of California, Riverside and Santa Barbara and United States Army Research Laboratory have used brain scans to shed new light on this question.

By using structural imaging techniques to convert brain scans into “wiring diagrams”… read more

First two-qubit logic gate built in silicon

Overcomes crucial hurdle in quantum computing, making silicon quantum computers a reality
October 5, 2015

This is an artist's impression of the two-qubit logic gate device developed at UNSW. Each electron qubit (red and blue in the image) has a 'spin', or magnetic field, indicated by the arrows. Metal electrodes on the surface are used to manipulate the qubits, which interact to create an 'entangled' quantum state. (credit: Tony Melov/UNSW)

University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Keio University engineers have built the first quantum logic gate in silicon, making calculations between two qubits* of information possible and clearing the final hurdle to making silicon quantum computers a reality.

The significant advance appears today (Oct. 5, 2015) in the journal Nature.

“What we have is a game changer,” said team leader Andrew… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Quantum

Fusion reactors ‘economically viable’ in a few decades, say experts

Could replace nuclear reactors and fossil fuels
October 5, 2015

An illustration of a tokamak with plasma (credit: ITER Organization)

Fusion reactors could become an economically viable means of generating electricity within a few decades, replacing conventional nuclear power stations, according to new research at Durham University and Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire, U.K.

The research, published in the journal Fusion Engineering and Design, builds on earlier findings that a fusion power plant could generate electricity at a price similar to that of a fission plant… read more

Topics: Energy

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