A simulated world that can be explored simply by thinking about putting one foot in front of the other might offer new rehabilitation possibilities for disabled patients.
This is the vision behind a project that connects a brain-computer interface (BCI) to an immersive virtual world.
Project Entropia, a 3D futuristic role-playing game set in a virtual online world in which players can earn and spend real money, will launch on January 30.
The first professional scientific organization based entirely in virtual worlds, the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), has been formed by scientists from the California Institute of Technology, Princeton, Drexel University, and MIT.
In addition to getting people together in a free and convenient way, virtual worlds can offer new possibilities for multi-dimensional data visualization.
Experts agree that virtual worlds have a big future for business collaboration and as a new channel for conducting business, despite factors holding back virtual worlds, including poor proprietary front-end interfaces, difficult sign-up processes, limited bandwidth, and processing power needed on users’ computers.
William Sims Bainbridge — co-director of Human-Centered Computing at the National Science Foundation (NSF) — wrote in a review paper published in last week’s Science that virtual worlds would be ideal for performing sociological experiments.
Cited benefits include tapping into an unusually large population of subjects, acquiring lots of quantitative data about everyday activities, and repeating experiments under near identical circumstances.
A few pioneering researchers, such as Mary… read more
The U.S. Air Force is developing a body suit for pilots who fly remote-controlled aircraft such as the Predator. Using a system of electromagnets and magnets that apply pressure to the suit, it will give pilots feedback from the plane’s motions. The technology could also be used in the future for improved arcade games.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Crew Station Evaluation Facility
A new virtual-reality simulator — including sophisticated 3D graphics and tactile feedback — provides allows neurosurgery trainees to practice essential skills and techniques for brain cancer surgery.
The prototype system, called “NeuroTouch,” uses 3D graphics and haptic (sense of touch) technology to provide a realistic look and feel for practice in performing common tasks in brain cancer surgery. Lead author Sébastien Delorme, PhD, of the National Research Council… read more
Scientists are using a virtual-reality, three-dimensional video game that challenges spatial memory as a new tool for assessing the link between depression and the hippocampus, the brain’s memory hub.
The terrifying new movie, “28 Days Later,” shows that microbial plagues have displaced nuclear winter in the public’s mind as the way the world will end.
However, the “Rage” virus, which produces dramatic effects within 20 seconds, transforming its victims into enraged, wild-eyed, indiscriminate killers and quickly spreading worldwide, is unrealistic.
A new type of digital memory device has been created by incorporating inorganic platinum nanoparticles into the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV).
The TMV is a 300 nm tube consisting of a protein capsid (outer shell) and RNA core. According to the researchers, the TMV’s thin, wire-like structure makes it suitable for attaching nanoparticles. In this case, it allowed them to add an average of sixteen positive platinum ions per… read more
The detailed changes in the structure of a virus as it infects an E. coli bacterium have been observed for the first time.
To infect a cell, a virus must be able to first find a suitable cell and then eject its genetic material into its host.
This robot-like process has been observed in a virus called T7 and visualized by Ian… read more
Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Brown University have showed how self-assembly mechanisms that bring together charged membranes and oppositely charged polymers like biological molecules can be understood in terms of simple rules, and have applied the rules to make virus-membrane complexes with pore sizes that can be used to organize molecules.
These complexes are made from alternating layers of membranes and viruses. They could be… read more
MIT scientists have designed a quick method to build a microbattery using a genetically engineered virus called M13, the first time a battery device has been stamped.
Each virus is a semi-rigid fiber a few nanometers in diameter and about a micron long, which tends to pack tightly into a whorl that looks similar to a fingerprint.
The device could be used to power microdevices for… read more
University of California at Riverside researchers have developed a new type of non-volatile memory device made by attaching individual viruses to quantum dots.
The hybrid material could be used to develop biocompatible electronics and offer a cheap and simple way to make high-density memory chips.
In the future, the hybrids “could act like nanomachines or nanorobots built for treating disease,” Mihri Ozkan of the University of California at… read more