Google Fiber installations kick off
November 19, 2012
After months of building a brand new Fiber infrastructure, Google is starting to connect homes in Kansas City, Google Fiber Blog reports, offering some tips on what to expect.
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These bots were made for walking: cells power biological machines
November 19, 2012
They’re soft, biocompatible, about 7 millimeters long — and, incredibly, able to walk by themselves. Miniature “bio-bots” developed at the University of Illinois are making tracks in synthetic biology.
Designing non-electronic biological machines has been a riddle that scientists at the interface of biology and engineering have struggled to solve. The walking bio-bots demonstrate the Illinois team’s ability to forward-engineer functional machines using only hydrogel,… read more
This is your brain on freestyle rap
November 19, 2012
Researchers in the voice, speech, and language branch of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the brain activity of rappers when they are “freestyling” — spontaneously improvising lyrics in real time.
Published online in the November 15 issue of the journal Scientific Reports (open access), the findings… read more
The library of Utopia
November 19, 2012
Google’s ambitious book-scanning program is foundering in the courts. Now a Harvard-led group is launching its own sweeping effort to put our literary heritage online, MIT Technology Review reports.
Robert Darnton. A distinguished historian, prize-winning author, and director of Harvard’s library system, has an ardent desire to see a universal library established online, a library that would, as he puts it, “make all knowledge available… read more
Stanford physicists take first step toward quantum cryptography
November 19, 2012
Quantum mechanics promises the potential to create absolutely secure telecommunications networks by harnessing a fundamental phenomenon of quantum particles.
Now, a team of Stanford physicists has demonstrated a crucial first step in creating a quantum telecommunications device that could be built and implemented using existing infrastructure.
The work done… read more
The Last Pictures launches with EchoStar XVI satellite
November 19, 2012
On November 20, Creative Time will launch an archival disc created by artist Trevor Paglen called The Last Pictures into outer space from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Made of ultra-archival materials, the disc is expected to orbit the earth for billions of years affixed to the exterior of the communications satellite EchoStar XVI.
To create the artifact, Paglen micro-etched one hundred photographs selected to… read more
A warning system for the planet
November 20, 2012
There is no centralized system to monitor and report changes in the Earth’s life-support systems. So scientists in 77 nations have established the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the Group on Earth Observation Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON), which integrates existing data streams into one platform to provide a global warning system for Earth’s… read more
How to create an animated character from your facial expressions in real time
An avatar reproduces your facial expressions in real time. You move, it moves. You smile, it smiles.
November 20, 2012
Faceshift, announced Monday, is software that uses Kinect and similar cameras to read your face and create a moving avatar from it. It could enhance the future of video games and make video chats more fun, says Thibaut Weise, founder of Faceshift, a spinoff of EPFL’s Computer Graphics and Geometry Laboratory.
The software needs only ten minutes to recognize your face as you create basic expressions requested by the program:… read more
Breakthrough nanoparticle halts multiple sclerosis, diabetes, allergies
November 20, 2012
Northwestern Medicine researchers have developed a biodegradable nanoparticle that stealthily delivers an antigen that tricks the immune system into stopping its attack on myelin and haltd a model of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) in mice, according to new research.
The nanoparticles can also be applied to other immune-mediated diseases, including Type 1 diabetes, food allergies, and asthma.
In… read more
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, a professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, and postdoctoral scholar Melissa Warden, PhD, have isolated the neurons that carry the split-second decisions to act, from the higher brain to the brain stem. In doing so, they have provided insight into the causes of severe brain disorders such as depression.
In organisms… read more
How to optimize light sources for vision
November 20, 2012
Vision researchers at Barrow Neurological Institute have made a groundbreaking discovery into the optimization of light sources to human vision. By tuning lighting devices to work more efficiently with the human brain, the researchers believe billions of dollars in energy costs could be saved.
The research, conducted by Stephen Macknik, PhD, of Barrow’s Laboratory of Behavioral Neurophysiology, and Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD, of Barrow’s Laboratory of… read more
A 3D light switch for the brain
New device for delivering light to individual neurons could one day help treat Parkinson's disease, epilepsy; aid understanding of consciousness, how memories form
November 21, 2012
A new fiber-optic device created by MIT biologists and engineers is the first tool that can deliver 1000 precise points of light to a 3D section of living brain tissue matter smaller than a sugar cube.
This is a step forward for a technique called optogenetics, which uses gene treatments to turn individual brain cells on and off with light.
Scientists can use this new 3D… read more
The highest-resolution immersive visualization facility ever built
November 21, 2012
Stony Brook University (SBU) recently unveiled its new Reality Deck, with 1.5 billion pixels total on 416 super-high-resolution screens in a four-walled surround-view theater — the highest-resolution immersive display ever built — and driven by a 220 TFLOPs graphic supercomputer.
Its purpose and primary design principle is to enable scientists, engineers, and physicians to tackle current problems that require the visualization of vast amounts of… read more
Rice unveils super-efficient solar-energy technology
November 21, 2012
Rice University scientists have unveiled a revolutionary new technology that uses silicon dioxide/gold nanoshells and N115 carbon nanoparticles to convert solar energy directly into steam. The new “solar steam” method from Rice’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) is so effective it can even produce steam from icy cold water.
The technology has an overall energy efficiency of 24 percent. Photovoltaic solar panels, by comparison, typically have… read more