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Category: futurism – Page 1,121

Hidden conflicts? Pharma payments to FDA advisers after drug approvals spark ethical concerns

Brilinta fits a pattern of what might be called pay-later conflicts of interest, which have gone largely unnoticed—and entirely unpoliced. In examining compensation records from drug companies to physicians who advised FDA on whether to approve 28 psychopharmacologic, arthritis, and cardiac or renal drugs between 2008 and 2014, Science found widespread after-the-fact payments or research support to panel members. The agency’s safeguards against potential conflicts of interest are not designed to prevent such future financial ties.

Science investigation of journal disclosures and pharmaceutical funding records shows potential influence on physician gatekeepers.

New cloaking technique lets light pass right on through

The concept of an invisibility cloak sounds like pure science fiction, but hiding something from view is theoretically possible, and in some very-controlled cases it’s experimentally possible too. Now, researchers have developed a new device that works in a completely different way to existing cloaking technology, neatly sidestepping some past issues and potentially helping to hide everyday objects under everyday conditions.

We see objects because light bounces off them in a particular way before landing on your retinas, and they get their colors by reflecting more light of that particular color. The basic concept of cloaking objects involves finding ways to disrupt that process and build them into devices or metamaterials.

Look, up in the sky! It’s Disney’s new autonomous acrobatic robot

Disney’s animatronics are coming a long way from drunken pirates waving flagons of ale or hippos that wiggle their ears. In the (relatively) near future, robotic versions of Iron Man or Buzz Lightyear could be performing autonomous acrobatics overhead in Disney theme parks, thanks to the newly-unveiled Stuntronics robot.

Animatronic characters have populated Disney parks for more than half a century, albeit often just looping a specific movement over and over. In recent years Disney Research has tried to make the robots more agile and interactive, developing versions that can grab objects more naturally, and even juggle and play catch with visitors.

Back in May the company unveiled a prototype called Stickman. Basically a mechanical stick with two degrees of freedom, the robot could be flicked into the air like a trapeze artist, where it used a suite of sensors to tuck and roll in midair, perform a couple of backflips, and unfurl for landing.

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