On Thursday March 20, The Millennium Project, a global participatory think tank, will launch the “2013–14 State of the Future” report at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from about 12:20 to 1:30 pm EDT, with an open-access webcast.
The “State of the Future” is a comprehensive annual overview of the present global situation and prospects for humanity. It integrates forecasts, trends,… read more
A new ultra-fast, ultra-small optical switch could advance the day when photons replace electrons in consumer products ranging from cell phones to automobiles. It was developed by a team of scientists from Vanderbilt University, University of Alabama-Birmingham, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Described in the March 12 issue of the journal Nano Letters, the new optical device can turn on and off trillions of times per second.… read more
Researchers from the BICEP2 telescope collaboration announced Monday the first direct evidence for cosmic inflation.
The inflation theory posits that almost 14 billion years ago, the universe we inhabit burst into existence in an extraordinary event that initiated the Big Bang. In the first fleeting fraction of a second, the universe expanded exponentially, stretching far beyond the current view of our best telescopes.
Their data also… read more
From genetic and genomic testing to new techniques in human assisted reproduction, various technologies are providing parents with more of a say about the children they have and “stirring the pot of designer baby concerns,” writes Thomas H. Murray, President Emeritus of The Hastings Center, in a commentary in Science.
Murray calls for a national conversation about how much discretion would-be parents should have. “Preventing a lethal… read more
UC San Francisco neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, is hoping to paint a fuller picture of what is happening in the minds and bodies of those suffering from brain disease with his new lab, Neuroscape, which bridges the worlds of neuroscience and high-tech.
Gazzaley aims to eliminate the need to immobilize subjects inside big, noisy machines or tether them to computers — making… read more
Researchers in EPFL’s Signal Processing 5 Laboratory (LTS5), working with PSA Peugeot Citroën, have developed an emotion detector based on the analysis of facial expressions in a car, using an infrared camera placed behind the steering wheel.
The researchers say they can read facial expressions and identify which of the seven universal emotions a person is feeling: fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, surprise, or… read more
LionsGate Technologies (LGTmedical), a Vancouver-based social enterprise, has secured its first major financial backers to scale up development of the Phone Oximeter.
This is an app and medical sensor that turns a non-specialist, community-level health worker’s smartphone, tablet computer or laptop into an affordable and simple but sophisticated medical-grade diagnostic tool that is typically only available, in the developing world, in some hospitals.
The… read more
University of Maryland researchers have created the world’s highest-density hydrogen storage system, using “graphene origami.” (The stored hydrogen could be used in a fuel cell during peak hours, as system backup, or for portable, transportation, or industrial applications.).
Shuze Zhu and Teng Li, of the Department of Mechanical Engineering found that they can make tiny squares of graphene (the world’s thinnest material, at just one-carbon-atom… read more
With rising public interest in what developers refer to as the “privacy economy,” researchers from the MobiSocial Lab at the Stanford School of Engineering have announced at SXSW a new type of social network, called Omlet that allows users to control their own personal data.
Omlet “shields users from the monetization of their personal lives by giving them total and unquestioned control of their personal… read more
Purdue University researchers have created a new type of “ultracold” molecule, using lasers to cool atoms to about one thousandth of degree above absolute zero using lasers and then gluing them together, a technology that might be applied to quantum computing, precise sensors, and advanced simulations.
At these temperatures, atoms are brought to a near standstill, making possible new kinds of chemical interactions that are predominantly quantum… read more
An international team has demonstrated a form of quantum cryptography that can protect people doing business with others they may not know or trust – a situation encountered often on the Internet and in everyday life — for example, at a bank’s ATM.
“I expect that quantum technologies will gradually become integrated with existing devices such as smartphones, allowing us to do things like identify ourselves securely or generate… read more
Researchers from Empa and ETH Zurich have developed a prototype of a selective vibration-damping material that they claim “could change the world of mechanics forever” as a step toward “programmable materials.”
Described in the journal Advanced Materials, this “material of the future” can damp mechanical vibrations completely or selectively suppress specific vibration frequencies or ranges of frequencies.
The one-dimensional working model consists of a… read more
Using a few perforated sheets of plastic and extensive computation, Duke University engineers have demonstrated the world’s first three-dimensional acoustic cloak.
The new device reroutes sound waves to create the impression that both the cloak and anything beneath it are not there.
The acoustic cloaking device works in three dimensions, no matter which direction the sound is coming from or where the observer is located, and holds potential… read more
Researchers from the University of Surrey and Philips have identified a new transistor design that could make flexible electronics such as roll-up tablet computers available in the near future.
As reported in a study published in Nature Scientific Reports (open access), they further developed their “Source Gated Transistor” (SGT) to work with next-generation digital circuits.
Previously, the researchers found that SGTs could be applied to many… read more
Researchers at UC Berkeley found that an electrical current can be used to orchestrate the flow of a group of cells, an achievement that could establish the basis for more controlled forms of tissue engineering and for potential applications such as “smart bandages” that use electrical stimulation to help heal wounds.
In the experiments, described in a study published this week in the journal Nature Materials, the… read more