There are many neurons, especially in brain regions that perform sophisticated functions such as thinking and planning, that react in different ways to a wide variety of things.
MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller first noticed these unusual activity patterns about 20 years ago, while recording the electrical activity of neurons in animals that were trained to perform complex tasks.
“We started noticing early on that… read more
Google has launched an open source course building web application for the growing list of K-12 and big-name universities developing online classes.
In July, Research at Google ran a large open online course, Power Searching with Google, taught by search expert, Dan Russell. The course was successful, with 155,000 registered students. Through this experiment, we learned that Google technologies can help bring education to… read more
Look closely and you can find digital graffiti — videos, animations, and comments superimposed on buildings and streets around the world.
They are created using apps for smartphones or tablets to edit augmented reality (AR) YouTube videos, New Scientist reports.
Most major cities are teeming with these digital annotations. You just need to identify a tagged location using your smartphone’s map, and watch through the… read more
Two EPFL researchers have designed a device that combines holographic microscopy and computational image processing to observe living biological tissues at the nanoscale.
Going beyond conventional microscopes, they can acquire images of living cells in just a few minutes at a resolution of less than 100 nanometers — without using contrast dyes or fluorescents, to avoid distortion by the presence of foreign substances.
Being… read more
The news last week that a concerted scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence by the SETI Institute in California has resumed raises fundamental questions: If we made contact, what would we say? And what answers would we anticipate?
The SETI Institute has begun an online outreach program called Earth Speaks to solicit messages. Dimitra Atri, a physics professor at the University of Kansas, and several colleagues recently created… read more
Science fiction author Charlie Stross announced Friday on his blog that The Rapture of the Nerds: A Tale of The Singularity, Posthumanity, and Awkward Social Situations, a new science fiction novel co-authored by Cory Doctorow, has been published by Tor Books.
The book is available now from Amazon and will soon be available for free download under a Creative… read more
University of Nebraska-Lincoln materials engineers have developed a structural nanofiber that is both strong and tough, a discovery that could transform everything from airplanes and bridges to body armor and bicycles.
“Whatever is made of composites can benefit from our nanofibers,” said the team’s leader, Yuris Dzenis, McBroom Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and a member of UNL’s Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience.… read more
(Registration required) SpaceX founder Elon Mush says that he can put a human on Mars in 10 to 20 years’ time for $5 billion — or even $2 billion, thanks to the fully reusable rockets he’s determined to build.
Musk wants to put 10,000 people on Mars. “Ultimately … millions.”
He says a reusable version of SpaceX’s newest launch vehicle, the Falcon Heavy, scheduled for testing in early… read more
A mysterious region deep in the human brain could be where we sort through the onslaught of stimuli from the outside world and focus on the information most important to our behavior and survival, Princeton University researchers have found.
The researchers report that an area of our brain called the pulvinar regulates communication between clusters of brain cells as our brain focuses on the people and… read more
Researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Bath in the UK have called into question Darwin’s principle that only the fittest survive, says Professor Robert Beardmore and colleagues.
Together with a group from San Diego State University, the researchers tested Darwin’s principle by constructing very simple environments in the lab to see what happens after hundreds of generations of bacterial evolution,… read more
Astronomers at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics have developed an AI algorithm to help them chart and explain the distribution of dark matter with unprecedented accuracy.
The algorithm starts with the fluctuations in the density of the universe seen in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR), then models the way matter collapses into today’s galaxies over the subsequent 13 billion years. The results of the algorithm are… read more
A new powered exoskeleton that enables people with severe spinal cord injuries to stand, walk, sit and climb stairs has been developed by Vanderbilt University’s Center for Intelligent Mechatronics. Its light weight, compact size, and modular design promise to provide users with an unprecedented degree of independence.
Parker Hannifin Corporation has signed an exclusive licensing agreement to develop a commercial version of the device, which it plans to introduce in… read more
With its Materials with Controlled Microstructural Architecture (MCMA) program, DARPA seeks breakthroughs or dramatic improvements in strength, weight and other properties of materials.
MCMA is combining engineering principles developed for large structures with emerging fabrication techniques to engineer and control the architecture of a material’s microstructure down to the micron level.
Microstructure refers to the arrangement of the constituents that make up a material at the… read more
Not for Amit Bandyopadhyay, professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University, and colleagues, who recently published a paper in Rapid Prototyping Journal demonstrating how to do just that.
Bandyopadhyay and Susmita Bose, professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, are well known researchers in the area of three-dimensional printing, creating bone-like materials for orthopedic implants.
The… read more
Engineers at Oregon State University have made a breakthrough in the performance of microbial fuel cells that can produce electricity directly from wastewater, opening the door to a future in which waste treatment plants not only will power themselves, but will sell excess electricity.
The new technology developed at OSU uses new concepts — reduced anode-cathode spacing, evolved microbes and new separator materials — and can… read more