University of Hong Kong students have designed and trained neural networks that can correctly identify the genre of a song, based on features such as tempo and harmony, with greater than 87 percent accuracy — considered a very hard problem in computer science.
International School for Advanced Studies combine high-speed videography with neural recordings from somatosensory cortex to show that it is possible to use firing patterns to predict the decisions of rats as they contact textures in their environment.
With a milliseconds-long flash of blue light, Yale University researchers have regulated a critical type of signaling molecule within cell membranes.
The study is one of the first to use light to regulate metabolic activity in the membranes of cells.
Optogenetics uses of genetically encoded probes to make cell functions sensitive to light to manipulate cell functions and thus to study mechanisms of disease.
“The… read more
A heart patient’s own skin cells soon could be used to repair damaged cardiac tissue thanks to pioneering stem cell research by University of Houston biomedical scientist Robert Schwartz.
Aneeve Nanotechnologies is working to create low-cost hormone sensors that can be made with off-the-shelf ink-jet printers and carbon-nanotube ink, to create a system as convenient as glucose meters.
University of Calgary researchers have succeeded in mounting two entangled photons on top of one another to construct a variety of quantum states of light.
Quantum physicist Stefano Pirandola from the University of York has demonstrated that quantum light can read digital data using very few photons, an ability that could lead to faster digital readers and optical memories with larger storage capacities.
Pirandola calculates that the enhancement provided by quantum light can be quite large — even up to one bit per storage cell, which corresponds to the extreme situation where only quantum… read more
Researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Surrey have developed a more effective method for making proteins crystallize, using “smart materials” that remember the shape and characteristics of the molecule.
The process of developing a new drug normally works by identifying a protein that is involved in the disease, then designing a molecule that will interact with the protein to stimulate… read more
As the universe expands, it is continually subjected to energy shifts, or “quantum fluctuations,” that send out little pulses of “sound” into the fabric of spacetime. In fact, the universe is thought to have sprung from just such an energy shift.
A recent paper in the journal Physical Review Letters reports a new mathematical tool that should allow one to use these sounds to help reveal the shape of… read more
MIT researchers have engineered T cells with tiny pouches that can carry cytokines, which are gradually released from the pouches, enhancing the longevity of the T cells that carry them.
In a study published in the journal Nature Medicine in August, Irvine and Stephan used their modified T cells to treat mice with lung and bone marrow tumors. They are now working on ways to more easily synthesize the pouches… read more
Researchers have developed software that enables people to use large visual displays and touch screens interactively over the Internet for business and homeland security applications.
Tabletop touch-operated displays are becoming popular with professionals in various fields, said Niklas Elmqvist, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University.
“These displays are like large iPhones, and because they are large they invite collaboration,”… read more
Virginia Tech researchers have developed a guide for using low-intensity, pulsed ultrasound to noninvasively stimulate intact brain circuits, which may one day lead to first-line therapies in combating life-threatening epileptic seizures.
They said the major advantage of using ultrasound for brain stimulation is spatial resolution at millimeter precision while being focused through the skull to deep-brain regions without the need for invasive brain surgery. It… read more
The heat in microprocessors can be converted from a problem to a solution, due to an thermoelectric effect recently discovered in nanoelectronic magnetic tunnel structures by researchers at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB).
Magnetic tunnel structures are used, for example, as magnetic storage cells in non-volatile magnetic memory chips (“MRAMs” or magnetic random access memories) or as highly sensitive magnetic sensors to read out the data stored… read more
Researchers at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston believe they have uncovered the Achilles heel in the HIV virus: the HIV envelope protein gp120.
They have engineered antibodies with enzymatic activity (“abzymes”), which can attack the Achilles heel of the virus in a precise way. The next step is to confirm the theory in human clinical trials.
Researchers at University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Engineering envision a day when clothing will become a second skin. “Smart Skin” (“distributed flexible microsensor array”) bridges nanotechnology and micro-mechanical systems.
The goal is sensors that can sense touch and air flow in addition to heat. “Smart Skin” suits could warn people when they have entered an area of toxic gases. A T-shirt on a diabetic could monitor insulin… read more