Lifeboat Foundation

In the drive to miniaturize electronics, solenoids have become way too big, say Rice University scientists who discovered the essential component can be scaled down to nano-size with macro-scale performance.

The secret is in a spiral form of atom-thin graphene that, remarkably, can be found in nature, according to Rice theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and his colleagues.

“Usually, we determine the characteristics for materials we think might be possible to make, but this time we’re looking at a configuration that already exists,” Yakobson said. “These spirals, or screw dislocations, form naturally in graphite during its growth, even in common coal.”

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Electrocorticography (ECoG) was pioneered in the early 1950s by Wilder Penfield and Herbert Jasper, neurosurgeons at the Montreal Neurological Institute. The two developed ECoG as part of their groundbreaking Montreal procedure, a surgical protocol used to treat patients with severe epilepsy. The cortical potentials recorded by ECoG were used to identify epileptogenic zones – regions of the cortex that generate epileptic seizures. These zones would then be surgically removed from the cortex during resectioning, thus destroying the brain tissue where epileptic seizures had originated. Penfield and Jasper also used electrical stimulation during ECoG recordings in patients undergoing epilepsy surgery under local anesthesia. This procedure was used to explore the functional anatomy of the brain, mapping speech areas and identifying the somatosensory and somatomotor cortex areas to be excluded from surgical removal. This week we learned that Google has filed a patent relating to this medical field titled “Microelectrode Array for an Electrocorticogram.”

Google’s patent FIG. 6 noted above shows an application of the microelectrode array 1 according to the invention when recording an electrocorticogram of a human being. The microelectrode array is wirelessly connected to an electronic control device 10, which comprises in particular an amplifier for the electrode signals and a data acquisition system. The microelectrode array, implanted e.g. below the patient’s scalp, has an energy receiving coil 60 and an antenna 61 for bidirectional data transfer between the microelectrode array 1 and the electronic control device. It is also possible for the energy receiving coil simultaneously to be used as an antenna, such that no separate antenna is required.

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Madrid, Spain (Scicasts) — A novel way to count white blood cells without a blood test, simply by applying a small device on the fingertip, is being developed by a team of young bioengineers.

The technology, that combines an optical sensor with algorithms, has already three prototypes on the go and is specially designed to be used on chemotherapy patients, who could know their immune system levels in real time. It could also serve to detect serious infections.

A group of young bioengineers from various countries, including Spaniard Carlos Castro, is developing a portable device capable of counting white blood cells in real time, without requiring a blood test. The system includes an innovative optics sensor through the skin that can observe white cells as they flow past a miniature lens. This new device could be applied to improve the treatment of patients who are left immunosuppressed after chemotherapy treatments and to prevent sepsis.

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A team of scientists from the University of Chicago and the Pennsylvania State University have accidentally discovered a new way of using light to draw and erase quantum-mechanical circuits in a unique class of materials called topological insulators.

In contrast to using advanced nanofabrication facilities based on chemical processing of materials, this flexible technique allows for rewritable ‘optical fabrication’ of devices. This finding is likely to spawn new developments in emerging technologies such as low-power electronics based on the spin of electrons or ultrafast quantum computers.

The research is published today in the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s new online journal Science Advances, where it is featured on the journal’s front page.

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Light’s compact L16 camera has 16 camera modules on its front, and is gunning to kill DSLRs.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=FzZSpiqvb1Q

Socks are the hardest. For a future washing machine that washes, dries and then folds the results, it’s one of the small barriers that remains in that latter stage. But as a research project that started back in 2008, Laundroid is finally getting there. Next year, the collaboration between housing firm Daiwa House, electronics company Panasonic and Seven Dreamers will start offering preorders, the year after that ‘beta’ machines, then folding machines for big institutions, with event full retail planned the year after that — we’ll be in 2019 by then. (That said, the all-in-one model is still at the in-development stage). There’s no price and the presentation we saw added in a bunch of mosaic filtering on top as the shirt gradually got folded so you couldn’t see how the thing actually works. But that’s okay. We can wait. It’s not going to stop us waiting our chore-dodging dreams to come true.

While the video teaser above gives you pretty much nothing of substance, at the on-stage demonstration, we saw a just-washed tee take a matter of minutes for the internal tech to sort, identify and fold. The tech involved is separated into two very separate parts: image analysis and robotics. With a hypothetical bundle of clothes, each item demands different folding (we’re going to say) techniques, so the machine needs to figure what that soft lump of cloth is, then prime it for folding. The presentation here at CEATEC elaborated (if only lightly) on the stages it’s taken to get to here: it’s been a pretty long journey.

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Blue Brain Project supercomputer recreates part of rodent’s brain with 30,000 neurons connected by 40m synapses to show patterns of behaviour triggered, for example, when whiskers are touched.

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A new type of “quasiparticle” theorized by Caltech’s Gil Refael, a professor of theoretical physics and condensed matter theory, could help improve the efficiency of a wide range of photonic devices—technologies, such as optical amplifiers, solar photovoltaic cells, and even barcode scanners, which create, manipulate, or detect light.

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