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Boeing missile zaps electronic devices in first test flight

October 29, 2012

Boeing

A recent weapons flight test in the Utah desert may change future warfare after the missile successfully defeated electronic targets with little to no collateral damage.

Boeing and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., successfully tested the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) during a flight over the Utah Test and Training Range.… read more

Topics: Electronics | Survival/Defense

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Seniors to robots: don’t get too familiar

October 29, 2012

robots_at_home

Seniors (ages 65 to 93 years) preferred robotic more than human help for chores such as cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry and taking out the trash, but not for help getting dressed, eating and bathing, or for social activities, a Georgia Institute of Technology study found.

“It seems that older people are less likely to trust a robot with decision-making tasks than with monitoring or physical assistance,” said… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Unleash your inner Asimov

October 28, 2012

science_fiction_prototyping_book

Writing science-fiction stories about encounters with imaginary worlds and futuristic devices could have a decisive influence on innovation, G. Pascal Zachary, writer and professor at Arizona State University, suggests in IEEE Spectrum.

David Brian Johnson, Intel’s staff futurist, even insists in a recent book, Science Fiction Prototyping, that by writing stories about future products, engineers can do a better job of actually making them, he… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | Innovation/Entrepreneurship

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The consequences of machine intelligence

October 28, 2012

race_against_the_machine

In their 2011 book, Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy, authors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argued that “technological progress is accelerating innovation even as it leaves many types of workers behind,” says Rice University professor of computational engineering Moshe Y. Vardi in The Atlantic.

“While the loss of millions of jobs over the past… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Singularity/Futures | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Singularity Summit videos posted

October 27, 2012

summitvideos

The Singularity Institute has just posted videos here for all sessions at the recent Singularity Summit 12. (To view the videos, click on the preview video, and scroll down to WATCH FULL PROGRAM.)

Topics: AI/Robotics | Biomed/Longevity | Biotech | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience | Electronics | Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Internet/Telecom | Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology | Singularity/Futures | Social Networking/Web/Education | Synthetic Biology | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics

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The island where people forget to die

October 26, 2012

Ikaria

For a decade, with support from the National Geographic Society, I’ve been organizing a study of the places where people live longest, Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones, writes in The New York Times.

The project grew out of studies by my partners, Dr. Gianni Pes of the University of Sassari in Italy and Dr. Michel Poulain, a Belgian demographer. In 2000, they identified a region of… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity

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Living power cables discovered

Multicellular bacteria transmit electrons across relatively enormous distances
October 26, 2012

Electrifying_microbial_filaments

A multinational research team has discovered filamentous bacteria that function as living power cables that transmit electrons thousands of cell lengths away.

The Desulfobulbus bacterial cells, which are only a few hundreds of a nanometer long each, are so tiny that they are invisible to the naked eye. And yet, under the right circumstances, they form a multicellular filament that can transmit electrons across a distance as large as 1 centimeter… read more

Topics: Biotech | Energy | Environment/Climate

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Tiny pores in graphene could form a membrane

New membranes may filter water, separate biological samples, or deliver drugs
October 26, 2012

sem_graphene_hole

By assembling large membranes from single sheets of graphene grown by chemical vapor deposition, researchers from MIT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and elsewhere have found that graphene has intrinsic defects, or holes, in its atom-sized armor.

In experiments, the researchers found that small molecules like salts passed easily through a graphene membrane’s tiny pores, while larger molecules were unable to penetrate.

The researchers found… read more

Topics: Nanotech/Materials Science

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ProtoHouse

October 26, 2012

ProtoHouse (credit: Softkill Disign)

Softkill Design‘s ProtoHouse project investigates the architectural potential of the latest Selective laser sintering technologies, testing the boundaries of large scale 3D printing by designing with computer algorithms that micro-organize the printed material itself.

With the support of Materialise, Softkill Design produced a high-resolution prototype of a 3D printed house at 1:33 scale. The model consists of 30 detailed fibrous pieces that can be assembled into one… read more

Topics: Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Nanotech/Materials Science

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Brainwave training boosts brain network for cognitive control

October 25, 2012

eeg_amplitide_change_during_feedback

Researchers at  University of Western Ontario and the Lawson Health Research Institute have found that functional changes within a key brain network occur directly after a 30-minute session of noninvasive, neurofeedback training.

Background

Dysfunction of this cognitive-control network has previously been implicated in a range of brain disorders including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

During neurofeedback, users learn to… read more

Topics: Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Safer bioimaging of cancer cells without biopses

October 25, 2012

A new fluorescent glucose-amine probe can make identification of cancer cells (green) using two-photon microscopy easier and safer (credit: Guan Wang/National University of Singapore)

Early detection of soft-tissue diseases, such as breast cancer, typically requires invasive biopsies. Now, a new self-assembled nanoparticle developed by Bin Liu at the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering and co-workers may soon make biopsies obsolete.

The team’s material significantly enhances the safety of two-photon microscopy (TPM) — a technique that uses fluorescent probes to generate three-dimensional pictures of cancer cell structures in… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology

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A biology-friendly robot programming language

October 25, 2012

PaR-PaR-robot1

For researchers in the biological sciences, however, the future training of robots has been made much easier thanks to a new program called “PaR-PaR” (Programming a Robot).

Nathan Hillson, a biochemist at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), led the development of PaR-PaR, a simple high-level, biology-friendly, robot-programming language that allows researchers to make better use of liquid-handling robots… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Biotech | Synthetic Biology

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Parkinson’s breakthrough could slow disease progression

October 25, 2012

688px-Protein_CACNA1D_PDB_2be6

Northwestern University scientists have developed a new family of compounds that could slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s, the second most common neurodegenerative disease, is caused by the death of dopamine neurons, resulting in tremors, rigidity and difficulty moving. Current treatments target the symptoms but do not slow the progression of the disease.

The compounds work by blocking calcium. The compounds target and shut a relatively… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Can diabetes devices be damaged by airport security scanners?

October 25, 2012

Insulin pump, showing an infusion set loaded into spring-loaded insertion device. A reservoir is attached to the infusion set (shown here removed from the pump).(Credit: Jacopo Werther/Wikimedia Commons)

Full-body or X-ray scanners used for airport security screening may affect the function of insulin pump or continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices.

Andrew Cornish and H. Peter Chase, MD, University of Colorado, Denver, caution that the motor of an insulin delivery pump or glucose monitoring device may experience electromagnetic malfunctioning when passed through an airport security scanner.

“Given the increased use of insulin pump therapy around the world, with hundreds… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Social/Ethical/Legal | Survival/Defense

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American schools go on utterly insane hiring spree since 1950. Kids shrug, continue to do poorly on tests

October 25, 2012

2011-03-01-studentspendvsachievement

A new study from the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice finds that America’s public schools saw a 96 percent increase in students but increased administrators and other non-teaching staff a staggering 702 percent since 1950. Teaching staff, in comparison, increased 252 percent, Reason reports.

If non-teaching personnel had grown at the same rate as student population, American public schools would have an additional $24.3… read more

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

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