“Moore’s Law and neural networks can collude to address a grand challenge: understanding the World Wide Web. Virtual machines can be made atomic, real-time, and ‘smart,’” says computer scientist B. Torrent, in “An Improvement of DHTs Using Beild,” published today in the Journal of Internet Analytics.
“To accomplish this purpose, we use read-write archetypes to validate that the little-known collaborative algorithm for the improvement of forward-error correction… read more
Japanese researchers at the National Institute for Materials Science and Shinshu University have developed a way to shrink capacitors — key components that store energy — further, which could accelerate the development of more compact, high-performance next-gen electronic devices. The study appears in the journal ACS Nano.
Takayoshi Sasaki and colleagues note that current technology has almost reached its limit in terms of materials and processing, which in turn… read more
A team of researchers at MIT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and in Saudi Arabia succeeded in creating subnanoscale pores in a sheet of graphene, a development that could lead to ultrathin filters for improved desalination or water purification. Their findings are published in the journal Nano Letters.
The new work, led by graduate student Sean O’Hern and associate professor of mechanical engineering Rohit Karnik, is the first… read more
Yes. A space elevator appears possible and space elevator infrastructure could indeed be built via a major international effort, a study conducted by experts under the auspices of the International Academy of Astronautics has found, Space.com writer Leonard David reports.
Two technologies pacing the development of the space elevator are an ultra-strong space tether and other space elevator components, and lightweight solar cells, according to study lead… read more
“The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed,” William Gibson famously said. Future Day aims to do something about that.
The global event begins at noon March 1 in New Zealand (6 PM Friday Feb. 28 in New York), when Stephanie Pride of the World Futures Studies Federation launches the Future Day Google Hangout, and continues in cities around the… read more
For scientists to determine if a cell is functioning properly, they must destroy it (with X-rays), possibly giving false accounts of how the cell actually works.
Now, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have created a new probe that freezes cells to “see” at greater detail without damaging the sample.*
Traditional X-ray fluorescence methods look at cells that have either been… read more
Piedmont, California near Oakland will be the traditional setting for a radical “deep-future” symposium titled “TRANSHUMAN VISIONS 2.0 — East Bay” on Saturday March 1. Inside the 50′s-era Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium perched above the town’s Police Department, there will be 12 hours (9 am — 9 pm) of serious brain-boosting ideas, keynoted by eminent transhumanists Natasha Vita-More and Max More.
Here’s how event producer Hank Pellissier… read more
NASA’s Kepler mission announced Wednesday the discovery of 715 new planets. These newly-verified worlds orbit 305 stars, revealing multiple-planet systems much like our own solar system.
Nearly 95 percent of these planets are smaller than Neptune, which is almost four times the size of Earth. This discovery marks a significant increase in the number of known small-sized planets more akin to Earth than previously identified exoplanets (planets… read more
Johns Hopkins researchers have trained the immune systems of mice to fight melanoma, a deadly skin cancer, by using nanoparticles designed to target cancer-fighting immune cells, The experiments, described in ACS Nano February 24, represent a significant step toward using nanoparticles and magnetism to treat a variety of conditions, the researchers say.
“By using small enough particles, we could, for the first time, see a key difference… read more
Richard Kramer of the University of California, Berkeley and his colleagues have invented a “photoswitch” chemical named DENAQ that confers light sensitivity on normally light-insensitive retinal ganglion cells, restoring light perception in blind mice.*
An earlier photoswitch investigated by the researchers in 2012 (reported by KurzweilAI) called AAQ requires very bright ultraviolet light, which can be damaging; and AAQ dissipates from the eye within a… read more
Using an inexpensive 3-D printer, Washington University biomedical engineers have developed a custom-fitted, implantable device with embedded sensors that could transform treatment and prediction of cardiac disorders.
Igor Efimov, PhD, at the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis and an international team of biomedical engineers and materials scientists have created a 3-D elastic membrane made of a soft, flexible,… read more
On March 1, Future Day, six international futurist organizations will come together to conduct a 24-hour conversation about the world’s potential futures, challenges, and opportunities, according to Millennium Project CEO Jerome Glenn and Humanity+ Secretary Adam A. Ford.
In addition to The Millennium Project, the organizations are: Association of Professional Futurists, Club of Amsterdam, Humanity+, World… read more
Computer simulations by Stanford Professor Mark Z. Jacobson have shown that offshore wind farms with thousands of wind turbines could have sapped the power of three real-life hurricanes, significantly decreasing their winds and accompanying storm surge, and possibly preventing billions of dollars in damages.
For the past 24 years, Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, has been developing a complex computer model… read more
Feng Zhao of Michigan Technological University (MTU) has persuaded fibroblasts — cells that make up the extracellular matrix in the body — to make a well-organized nanopatterned scaffold (support structure). This discovery could have major implications for growing engineered tissue to repair or replace virtually any part of our bodies.
In all multicellular organisms, including people, cells make their own extracellular matrix, a… read more
One factor that makes glioblastoma cancers so difficult to treat is that malignant cells from the tumors spread throughout the brain by following nerve fibers and blood vessels to invade new locations.
Now, Georgia Tech and Emory University researchers have learned to hijack this migratory mechanism, turning it against the cancer by using a film of nanofibers to lure tumor cells away.
Instead of invading new… read more