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Dec 6, 2016

Rhythm of breathing affects memory and fear

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered for the first time that the rhythm of breathing creates electrical activity in the human brain that enhances emotional judgments and memory recall.

These effects on behavior depend critically on whether you inhale or exhale and whether you breathe through the nose or mouth.

In the study, individuals were able to identify a fearful face more quickly if they encountered the face when breathing in compared to breathing out. Individuals also were more likely to remember an object if they encountered it on the inhaled breath than the exhaled one. The effect disappeared if breathing was through the mouth.

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Dec 6, 2016

Ukrainian Scientist Creates Battery That Can Power Smartphones for 12 Years

Posted by in categories: chemistry, mobile phones, transportation

Ukrainian scientist Vladislav Kiselev claims that he has developed a type of battery that can power gadgets like smartphones and even cars for up to 12 years, without having to be recharged.

Kiselev, a senior researcher at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry and Petrochemistry in Kiev, and professor at Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, unveiled his intriguing battery prototype during the 2016 edition of Sikorsky Challenge, a prestigious international competition for research projects. The matchbox-like device looks fairly unimpressive, but the Ukrainian scientist claims that it has been continuously powering electrical devices for a year and four months without a single recharge, and will continue to do so for the next 11 years. That’s because his “battery” produces energy instead of simply storing it.

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Dec 6, 2016

Google Says It Will Run Entirely on Renewable Energy in 2017

Posted by in categories: internet, solar power, sustainability

The internet giant has spent years migrating the source of electric power at its giant data centers to sources like wind turbines and solar panels.

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Dec 6, 2016

BERNSTEIN: China’s insane spending on robotics is fundamentally changing capitalism

Posted by in categories: economics, robotics/AI

‘The age of industrialization is coming to an end,’ due to the rise of robotics and China’s modernising economy, argues Bernstein.

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Dec 6, 2016

New journal Science Robotics is established to chronicle the rise of the robots

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, science

Robots have been a major focus in the technology world for decades and decades, but they and basic science, and for that matter everyday life, have largely been non-overlapping magisteria. That’s changed over the last few years, as robotics and every other field have come to inform and improve each other, and robots have begun to infiltrate and affect our lives in countless ways. So the only surprise in the news that the prestigious journal group Science has established a discrete Robotics imprint is that they didn’t do it earlier.

Editor Guang-Zhong Yang and president of the National Academy of Sciences Marcia McNutt introduce the journal:

In a mere 50 years, robots have gone from being a topic of science fiction to becoming an integral part of modern society. They now are ubiquitous on factory floors, build complex deep-sea installations, explore icy worlds beyond the reach of humans, and assist in precision surgeries… With this growth, the research community that is engaged in robotics has expanded globally. To help meet the need to communicate discoveries across all domains of robotics research, we are proud to announce that Science Robotics is open for submissions.

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Dec 6, 2016

The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, internet

New report: rise of the machines: the dyn attack was just A practice run.

As the adversarial threat landscape continues to hyper-evolve, America’s treasure troves of public and private data, IP, and critical infrastructure continues to be pilfered, annihilated, and disrupted. The Mirai IoT botnet has inspired a renaissance in adversarial interest in DDoS botnet innovation based on the lack of fundamental security-by-design in the Internet and in IoT devices, and based on the lack of basic cybersecurity and cyber-hygiene best practices by Internet users.

http://icitech.org/icit-publication-the-rise-of-the-machines…ctice-run/

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Dec 6, 2016

Germany’s Wildly Complex Fusion Reactor Is Actually Working

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

The Wendelstein 7-X reactor, which uses a complex design called a stellerator, is performing just like it was predicted to.

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Dec 6, 2016

Self-Healing Transistors for Chipscale Starships

Posted by in categories: computing, space travel

Transistor-design would help chip ship survive radiation of 20-year trip to Alpha Centauri.

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Dec 6, 2016

Scientists find that for stem cells to be healthy, telomere length has to be just right

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

The Goldilocks zone with telomere length is the key.


Ever since researchers connected the shortening of telomeres—the protective structures on the ends of chromosomes—to aging and disease, the race has been on to understand the factors that govern telomere length. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have found that a balance of elongation and trimming in stem cells results in telomeres that are, as Goldilocks would say, not too short and not too long, but just right.

The finding, which appears in the December 5, 2016, issue of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, deepens our understanding of and could help advance stem cell-based therapies, especially related to aging and regenerative medicine.

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Dec 6, 2016

Microsoft launches its latest artificial intelligence chatbot on Kik

Posted by in categories: food, robotics/AI

The chatbot can answer questions and respond to prompts, while using teenage slang, and emoji.

The bot could even use puns, such as ‘I want a pizza that action’, when chatting about food.

But after chatting with Zo for a while, the bot seemed to get easily confused and go off tangent.

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