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The U.S. government is planning to review the environmental effects of operations at one of the nation’s prominent nuclear weapons laboratories, but its notice issued Friday leaves out federal goals to ramp up production of plutonium cores used in the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

The National Nuclear Security Administration said the review—being done to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act—will look at the potential environmental effects of alternatives for operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next 15 years.

That work includes preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons worldwide and other projects related to national security and global stability, the notice said.

Big scientific breakthroughs often require inventions at the smallest scale. Advances in tissue engineering that can replace hearts and lungs will require the fabrication of artificial tissues that allow for the flow of blood through passages that are no thicker than a strand of hair. Similarly, miniature softbotic (soft-robot) devices that physically interact with humans safely and comfortably will demand the manufacture of components with complex networks of small liquid and airflow channels.

Advances in 3D printing are making it possible to produce such tiny structures. But for those applications that require very small, smooth, internal channels in specific complex geometries, challenges remain. 3D printing of these geometries using traditional processes requires the use of support structures that are difficult to remove after printing. Printing these models using layer-based methods at a high resolution takes a long time and compromises geometric accuracy.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a high-speed, reproducible fabrication method that turns the 3D printing process “inside out.” They developed an approach to 3D print ice structures that can be used to create sacrificial templates that later form the conduits and other open features inside fabricated parts.

Wearable sensors are ubiquitous thanks to wireless technology that enables a person’s glucose concentrations, blood pressure, heart rate, and activity levels to be transmitted seamlessly from sensor to smartphone for further analysis.

Most wireless sensors today communicate via embedded Bluetooth chips that are themselves powered by small batteries. But these conventional chips and power sources will likely be too bulky for next-generation sensors, which are taking on smaller, thinner, more flexible forms.

Now MIT engineers have devised a new kind of wearable sensor that communicates wirelessly without requiring onboard chips or batteries. Their design, detailed in the journal Science, opens a path toward chip-free wireless sensors.

NeuRRAM, a new chip that runs computations directly in memory and can run a wide variety of AI applications has been designed and built by an international team of researchers. What sets it apart is that it does this all at a fraction of the energy consumed by computing platforms for general-purpose AI computing.

The NeuRRAM neuromorphic chip brings AI a step closer to running on a broad range of edge devices, disconnected from the cloud. This means they can perform sophisticated cognitive tasks anywhere and anytime without relying on a network connection to a centralized server. Applications for this device abound in every corner of the globe and every facet of our lives. They range from smartwatches to VR headsets, smart earbuds, smart sensors in factories, and rovers for space exploration.

Not only is the NeuRRAM chip twice as energy efficient as the state-of-the-art “compute-in-memory” chips, an innovative class of hybrid chips that runs computations in memory, it also delivers results that are just as accurate as conventional digital chips. Conventional AI platforms are much bulkier and typically are constrained to using large data servers operating in the cloud.

Our perception of our bodies is not always correct or realistic, as any athlete or fashion-conscious person knows, but it’s a crucial factor in how we behave in society. Your brain is continuously preparing for movement while you play ball or get dressed so that you can move your body without bumping, tripping, or falling.

Humans develop our body models as infants, and robots are starting to do the same. A team at Columbia Engineering revealed today that they have developed a robot that, for the first time, can learn a model of its whole body from scratch without any human aid. The researchers explain how their robot built a kinematic model of itself in a recent paper published in Science Robotics, and how it utilized that model to plan movements, accomplish objectives, and avoid obstacles in a range of scenarios. Even damage to its body was automatically detected and corrected.

The world’s first portable brain computer interface (BCI) is being developed by Blackrock and University of Pittsburgh so patients can undergo research trials at home. Rapid Robotics releases fastest and easiest robotic arm setup in requiring no code at all. New AI using light performs 1,000x faster at classifying data.

AI News Timestamps:
0:00 First Portable Brain Computer Interface.
2:29 Rapid Robotics Fastest Robot Arm Setup.
5:03 New AI Using Light Is 1,000x Faster.

Continue reading “Rapid Robotics Fastest Robot Arm Setup” »

Reaching the golden years doesn’t always feel so golden. Growing older introduces a range of health challenges, including being at increased risk for developing chronic diseases and having reduced immunity to infection. But while scientists have traditionally viewed the unpleasant aspects of aging as inevitable, new research could reveal how to substantially delay aging and improve the health of older individuals.

Chronic inflammation, one of the major hallmarks of aging, is thought to be partly caused by senescent cells that may accumulate in older individuals. Now, Yale researchers have received a grant [U54-AG079759] from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund’s Cellular Senescence Network Program (SenNet) to study these specialized cells. The grant will further scientists’ knowledge of the mechanisms behind aging and potential therapies for dampening inflammation associated with old age. The SenNet is based on ‘Geroscience,’ an approach that intersects basic aging biology, chronic disease, and health to understand the cellular mechanisms that make aging a major risk factor for common chronic conditions of older people. Support by the NIH Common Fund shows the NIH’s commitment to Geroscience as a complex, high priority topic in biomedical research.

“A number of diseases that increase in older people may have a unifying underlying mechanism having to do with senescence,” says Ruth Montgomery, PhD, professor of medicine and of epidemiology (microbial diseases), and co-PI of the project. “If we are able to understand and address this, we may be able to reduce the incidence of a number of diseases, including cancers and heart diseases.”

According to NASA’s database, a space rock will approach Earth in the following days at a speed of about 30,000 miles per hour.

Nuclear power will be capable of generating 38.4 percent of Poland’s electric power needs by 2043, and should raise the country’s GDP by over 1 percent, a report by the Polish Institute of Economics (PIE) has forecast.

The report, titled “Economic aspects of nuclear investment in Poland — influence on business, the labor market and local communities,” also says that the nuclear energy program will generate 40,000 jobs over the next five decades.

According to the most optimistic scenario, 70 percent of the value of the investments in nuclear energy should be realized by Polish companies, and the total investment realized by them could reach close to $40 billion.