NASA researchers have joined forces with Stephen Hawking to build a nano-starship that can travel one-fifth the speed of light.
If successful, the ship, called “StarChip” could reach Earth’s closest star system, Alpha Centauri, in 20 years.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are predicted to be part of the next industrial revolution and could help business and industry save billions of dollars by the next decade.
The tech giants Google, Facebook, Apple, IBM and others are applying artificial intelligence to all sorts of data.
Machine learning methods are being used in areas such as translating language almost in real time, and even to identify images of cats on the internet.
Continue reading “Why artificial intelligence has not yet revolutionised healthcare” »
Some of the biggest names in the business are teaming up to secure the future of virtual reality.
Google, Sony, Oculus, Samsung, Acer and HTC have combined their efforts in order to create a healthy and equal industry for virtual reality hardware and software to develop and expand. The result is the Global Virtual Reality Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the growth of the virtual reality industry by providing educational resources, connecting developers with necessary resources and much more.
“The organization will foster dialogue between public and private stakeholders in VR around the world and make education and training material available to the public. Working groups will be organized around important topics for the industry, enabling us to produce relevant research and guidance. We will also host and participate in international discussions on important topics in VR to shape the public discussion on the technology. Ultimately, the group will develop best practices and share them openly.”
Wild.
The expression “once bitten, twice shy” is an illustration of how a bad experience can induce fear and caution. How to effectively reduce the memory of aversive events is a fundamental question in neuroscience. Scientists in China are reporting that by transplanting mouse embryonic interneurons into the brains of mice and combining that procedure with training to lessen fear, they can help to reduce the fear response. The study is being published December 8 in Neuron.
“Anxiety and fear-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] cause great suffering and impose high costs to society,” says Yong-Chun Yu, a professor at the Institutes of Brain Science at Fudan University in Shanghai and the study’s senior author. “Pharmacological and behavioral treatments of PTSD can reduce symptoms, but many people tend to relapse. There’s a pressing need for new strategies to treat these refractory cases.”
Continue reading “Transplanted interneurons can help reduce fear in mice” »
Those “sell by” or “best by” dates that you see on food packaging? They’re so last century. In the future, built-in sensors in food labels will not only tell you when a product is going bad but also if you’re storing it correctly. Some might even be able to give you a breakdown of its nutritional data. All this is thanks to developments in the burgeoning world of printable electronics. Now researchers at MIT have invented a printing process that could turn a lot of the potential breakthroughs, such as electricity-generating clothing and smart sutures we’ve been seeing in this space, into an inexpensive reality.
“There is a huge need for printing of electronic devices that are extremely inexpensive but provide simple computations and interactive functions,” says A. John Hart, an associate professor in contemporary technology and mechanical engineering.
While some researchers have been studying the possibility of using inkjet printing and rubber stamping, these techniques have produced mixed results at best, often resulting in fuzzy, coffee-ring patterns or incomplete circuits due to the difficulty of controlling ink flow at such small scales.
