Singularity Summit videos posted
October 27, 2012
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.)
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The island where people forget to die
October 26, 2012
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
Living power cables discovered
Multicellular bacteria transmit electrons across relatively enormous distances
October 26, 2012
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
Tiny pores in graphene could form a membrane
New membranes may filter water, separate biological samples, or deliver drugs
October 26, 2012
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
ProtoHouse
October 26, 2012
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
Brainwave training boosts brain network for cognitive control
October 25, 2012
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
Safer bioimaging of cancer cells without biopses
October 25, 2012
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
A biology-friendly robot programming language
October 25, 2012
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
Parkinson’s breakthrough could slow disease progression
October 25, 2012
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
Can diabetes devices be damaged by airport security scanners?
October 25, 2012
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
American schools go on utterly insane hiring spree since 1950. Kids shrug, continue to do poorly on tests
October 25, 2012
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
University of California, Davis researchers for the first time have looked inside gallium manganese arsenide, which could open up an entirely new class of faster, smaller devices based on an emerging field known as “spintronics.”
Materials of this type might be used to read and write digital information not by using the electron’s charge, as is the case with today’s electronic devices, but by using… read more
Sequencing the Connectome
Genetic barcoding to trace the brain's wiring down to the neuron level
October 25, 2012
A team of neuroscientists led by Professor Anthony Zador, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have proposed a revolutionary new way to create a connectivity map (“connectome”) of the whole brain of the mouse at the resolution of single neurons: high-throughput DNA sequencing.
The only current method for obtaining the connectome with high precision relies on laboriously examining individual cell-to-cell contacts (synapses) in electron microscopes, which is slow, expensive… read more
Identifying the brain’s own facial recognition system
October 25, 2012
The ability to recognize faces is so important in humans that the brain appears to have an area solely devoted to the task: the fusiform gyrus in the temporal lobe, Science Now reports.
Brain imaging studies consistently find that this region of becomes active when people look at faces. Skeptics have countered, however, that these studies show only a correlation, but not proof, that activity in this… read more
3D Systems partners with Singularity University to develop creative uses of 3D printing
October 24, 2012
3D printer leader 3D Systems announced today that it plans to provide Singularity University (SU) with several of its 3D printers.
“We are excited to be part of Singularity’s visionary initiative to democratize access to 3D content-to-print solutions that will enable greater entrepreneurialism and inventiveness,” said Abe Reichental, President and CEO of 3D Systems.
“SU has shown a great deal of foresight and leadership in… read more