With its Kinect for Windows program, Microsoft wants to make it common to wave your arms at or speak to a computer, Technology Review reports.
“We’re trying to encourage [software] developers to create a whole new class of app controlled by gesture and voice,” says Peter Zatloukal, head of engineering for the Kinect for Windows program.
Zatloukal says the result will be on a par with other… read more
Cold viruses generally get a bad rap — which they’ve certainly earned — but new findings by a team of scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies suggest that these viruses might also be a valuable ally in the fight against cancer.
Adenovirus, a type of cold virus, has developed molecular tools — proteins — that allow it to hijack a cell’s molecular machinery,… read more
Researchers at the University of Leeds have identified a crucial stage in the life cycle of simple viruses like polio and the common cold that could open a new front in the war on viral disease.
The team is the first to observe at a single-molecule level how the genetic material (genome) that forms the core of a single-strand RNA virus particle packs itself into… read more
Scientists in the Texas Medical Center believe that there may be a way to use mental images to help some of the estimated 39 million people worldwide who are blind.
Scientists in the laboratories of Michael Beauchamp, Ph.D., an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School, and Daniel Yoshor, M.D., an associate… read more
The Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) has published the report of the Whole Genome Analysis (WGA) Working Group of the AMP Clinical Practice Committee in the November 2012 issue of The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics (JMD).
Titled Opportunities and Challenges Associated with Clinical Diagnostic Genome Sequencing, the open-access report provides an overview of the landscape of next generation sequencing (NGS) technology, its clinical relevance, and its… read more
Scientists from Aalto University in Finland and the University of Washington have demonstrated how to create complex 3D structures at nanoscale by combining ion processing and nanolithography.
The fabrication of many objects, machines, and devices rely on the controlled deformation of metals by industrial processes such as bending, shearing, and stamping. Is this technology transferrable to nanoscale? Can we build similarly complex devices and machines with… read more
In new research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), researchers have invented self-assembled, multifunctional, near-infrared-light-responsive nanoparticles to treat cancer.
The nanoparticles can deliver a chemotherapy drug specifically targeted to cancer cells and selectively release the drug in response to an external beam of light. They can also create heat for synergistic thermo-chemo-mediated anti-tumor effects.
Excitement around the potential for targeted nanoparticles (NPs) that can be controlled… read more
In a key step toward creating a working quantum computer, Princeton University researchers have developed a method that may allow for quick, reliable transfer of quantum information throughout a computing device.
The finding, by a team led by Princeton physicist Jason Petta, could eventually allow engineers to build quantum computers consisting of millions of quantum bits, or qubits. So far, quantum researchers have only been able to… read more
Twitter has become a new literary format that is improving student learning, according to Christine Greenhow, assistant professor of education at Michigan State University, who found that college students who tweet as part of their instruction are more engaged with the course content and with the teacher and other students, and also have higher grades.
Twitter use among U.S. teens has doubled in less… read more
Biologists have teamed up with mechanical engineers from the the University of Texas at Dallas to conduct cell research that provides information that may one day be used to engineer organs.
The research, published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (open access), sheds light on the mechanics of cell, tissue, and organ formation. The research revealed basic mechanisms about… read more
A pioneering technology capable of atomic-level precision is now being developed to detect what so far has remained imperceptible: gravitational waves or ripples in space-time caused by cosmic cataclysmic events, including even the Big Bang itself.
A team of researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Stanford University, and AOSense, Inc. recently won funding under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program to advance atom-optics technologies.… read more
Shapeways, a Netherlands-based online 3D printing company, has opened a “factory of the future” in Queens, New York that plans to house 50 high-resolution industrial 3D printers and print custom-designed products a year, Popular Science reports.
The company will allow customers to upload custom 3D designs, and then prints them using materials including acrylic, nylon, glass, gypsum, ceramic, and sandstone, and precious metals such as silver, and ships the… read more
Dale J. Stephens‘ Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.
In Hacking Your Education, Stephens speaks to a new culture of “hackademics” who think college diplomas are antiquated.
Hackademics abandon society’s linear path to success and bend institutions to fit their own reality.… read more
Traumatic memories can be manipulated in sleeping mice to reduce their fearful responses during waking hours. The finding, announced by Stanford University researchers at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, suggests that sleep-based therapies could provide new options for treating conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Nature News Blog reports.
Currently, one of the most common treatments for PTSD requires the… read more