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Category: mapping – Page 3

That ordinary smartphone in your pocket could be a powerful tool for investigating outer space. In a new study, researchers at Google and CU Boulder have transformed millions of Android phones across the globe into a fleet of nimble scientific instruments—generating one of the most detailed maps to date of the uppermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere.

The group’s findings, published Nov. 13 in the journal Nature, might help to improve the accuracy of GPS technology worldwide several-fold. The research was led by Brian Williams of Google Research and included Jade Morton, professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder.

“These phones can literally fit in your palm,” Morton said. “But through crowdsourcing, we can use them to change the way we understand the space environment.”

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A new way of mapping activity and connections between different regions of the brain has revealed fresh insights into how higher order functions like language, thought and attention, are organized.

Traditional models of activity represent interactions in pairs between two different brain regions. This is because modeling methods have not developed sufficiently to describe more between multiple regions.

A new approach, developed by researchers at the University of Birmingham is capable of taking signals measured through neuroimaging, and creating accurate models from these to show how different are contributing to specific functions and behaviors. The results are published in Nature Communications.

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To demonstrate the capabilities of their diamond storage system, the researchers encoded a famous sequence of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge.

“The team then stored images by mapping the brightness of each pixel to the brightness levels of specific sites inside the diamond,” New Scientist reported.

Interestingly, the system achieved a remarkable level of accuracy and completeness, successfully storing and retrieving the images with 99%.

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Nuclear microreactors in remote areas require robust monitoring for safe operation.

A team of researchers at the University of Michigan has developed a groundbreaking real-time, 3D temperature mapping system for nuclear microreactors.

This innovation promises to enhance safety monitoring and pave the way for wider adoption of these compact power sources.

Continue reading “Nuclear microreactor’s safety enhanced with live 3D temperature mapping” | >

Kuhn’s taxonomy of consciousness connects various theories to deep questions about human existence and AI, based on his extensive dialogue with over 200 experts.

“Out of meat, how do you get thought? That’s the grandest question,” said philosopher Patricia Churchland to Robert Lawrence Kuhn, the producer and host of the acclaimed PBS program Closer to Truth and member of FQxI’s scientific advisory council.

Kuhn has now published a comprehensive taxonomy of proposed solutions and theories regarding the hard problem of consciousness. His organizing framework aims to assess their impact on meaning, purpose, and value, as well as on AI consciousness, virtual immortality, survival beyond death, and free will. His work, titled ‘Landscape of Consciousness,’ appeared in the August 2024 issue of the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology.

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Researchers have explained how the regularly structured topographic maps in the visual cortex of the brain could arise spontaneously to efficiently process visual information. This research provides a new framework for understanding functional architectures in the visual cortex during early developmental stages.

A KAIST research team led by Professor Se-Bum Paik from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has demonstrated that the orthogonal organization of retinal mosaics in the periphery is mirrored onto the and initiates the clustered topography of higher visual areas in the brain.

This new finding provides advanced insights into the mechanisms underlying a biological strategy of brain circuitry for the efficient tiling of sensory modules. The study was published in Cell Reports on January 5.

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Researchers have explained how visual cortexes develop uniquely across the brains of different mammalian species. A KAIST research team led by Professor Se-Bum Paik from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has identified a single biological factor, the retino-cortical mapping ratio, that predicts distinct cortical organizations across mammalian species.

This new finding has resolved a long-standing puzzle in understanding visual neuroscience regarding the origin of functional architectures in the visual cortex. The study, published in Cell Reports on March 10, demonstrates that the evolutionary variation of biological parameters may induce the development of distinct functional circuits in the visual cortex, even without -specific developmental mechanisms.

In the (V1) of mammals, neural tuning to visual stimulus orientation is organized into one of two distinct topographic patterns across species. While primates have columnar orientation maps, a salt-and-pepper type organization is observed in rodents.

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