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Sep 7, 2016

Parkinson’s Disease Diagnosed with help from Virtual Reality

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience, virtual reality

I cannot wait to see how we can use VR for obtaining additional insights on other central nervous system diseases and disorders such as MS, Dystonia, GBM, etc.


Medical applications for VR continue to spread. Just a few weeks ago I wrote about how Paraplegics can learn to walk again with help from Virtual Reality. Scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University and the Siberian State Medical University, in Russia, believe that it could be the future of diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.

Methods to diagnosis many of these conditions is accomplished by visual assessment in most parts of Russia. The brain scanning technology such as a CAT scan or MRI to confirm the diagnosis is only available in a handful of cities. The VR system being developed would be cheap and easy to roll out across the country.

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Sep 7, 2016

Surprisingly, Plant Microbes May Be An Answer To Our Growing Food Needs

Posted by in categories: biological, food, sustainability, transportation

By Sveta McShane: Organizations as diverse as the United Nations and Monsanto are in agreement that we need to double our food production globally by 2050 to feed the world’s population…

Awaken

But our current agricultural process is one of the biggest contributors to global warming. It emits more greenhouses gases than all the world’s cars combined and is a major consumer and polluter of our precious water resources.

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Sep 7, 2016

3 Big Trends Shaking Up the Energy Industry

Posted by in categories: energy, singularity, transportation

We are at the cusp of an energy revolution.

This post is a look at how three technologies — solar, batteries, and electric vehicles (EVs) — are poised to disrupt a $6 trillion energy industry over the next two decades.

I had the chance to sit down with Ramez Naam, chair of Energy and Environmental Systems at Singularity University and acclaimed author of the Nexus series, to discuss these major forces and their implications.

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Sep 7, 2016

Device Detects Malignant Melanoma Type to Prescribe Proper Medication

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, nanotechnology

NICE.


Scientists at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute, the University of Basel, and the University Hospital Basel have developed and have been testing a device that can screen people with malignant melanoma for a spcific genetic mutation. About half of malignant melanoma cases involve the BRAF gene that results in rapid cell division and drugs targeting this type of cancer are available. The problem is that without knowing if a patient exhibits the mutation, it is dangerous to prescribe the medications since they will not work and will only cause additional problems.

The new device was used to analyze malignant melanoma tissue samples and to find whether the relevant genetic sequence is present. It relies on microscopic cantilevers, some of which have a coating to which the particular genetic sequence sticks to. Other cantilevers have a coating without the sequence. RNA isolated from the biopsy samples was then introduced into the device and the molecules that stuck to the cantilevers made them bend. This bending can be detected, pointing to the presence of the searched for mutation.

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Sep 7, 2016

University of Waterloo grads develop nano ink to help identify counterfeit goods

Posted by in category: futurism

Wish the US FDA would hurry up.


University of Waterloo grads develop nano ink to help consumers identify counterfeit goods.

CBC News Posted: Sep 07, 2016 3:11 PM ET Last Updated: Sep 07, 2016 3:11 PM ET

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Sep 7, 2016

Effective rehabilitation of phantom limb pain with virtual reality

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, virtual reality

A group of researchers at the University of Tokyo and their collaborators showed that using a virtual reality system to treat phantom limb pain by creating the illusion that patients are moving their absent limbs by will and having them repeat this exercise helped ease their perceived pain.

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Sep 7, 2016

Russia’s airship plan is crazy — and cunning

Posted by in category: economics

To save the economy, the Kremlin entertains an airy idea.

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Sep 7, 2016

Patients to Receive Injection from Distance

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Iranian researchers built a device that can automatically give injections to patients from distance.

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Sep 7, 2016

15-second flash charging comes to Swiss buses

Posted by in categories: computing, transportation

Electric bus that recharges in 15 seconds!


It takes these electric buses less time to recharge than it does to pick up passengers thanks to flash charging technology developed by ABB.

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Sep 7, 2016

The Next Wave of Deep Learning Architectures

Posted by in categories: computing, cosmology, robotics/AI

Intel has planted some solid stakes in the ground for the future of deep learning over the last month with its acquisition of deep learning chip startup, Nervana Systems, and most recently, mobile and embedded machine learning company, Movidius.

These new pieces will snap into Intel’s still-forming puzzle for capturing the supposed billion-plus dollar market ahead for deep learning, which is complemented by its own Knights Mill effort and software optimization work on machine learning codes and tooling. At the same time, just down the coast, Nvidia is firming up the market for its own GPU training and inference chips as well as its own hardware outfitted with the latest Pascal GPUs and requisite deep learning libraries.

While Intel’s efforts have garnered significant headlines recently with that surprising pair of acquisitions, a move which is pushing Nvidia harder to demonstrate how GPU acceleration (thus far the dominant compute engine for model training), they still have some work to do to capture mindshare for this emerging market. Further complicating this is the fact that the last two years have brought a number of newcomers to the field—deep learning chip upstarts touting the idea that general purpose architectures (including GPUs) cannot compare to a low precision, fixed point, specialized approach. In fact, we could be moving into a “Cambrian explosion” for computer architecture–one that is brought about by the new requirements of deep learning. Assuming, of course, there are really enough applications and users in a short enough window that the chip startups don’t fall over waiting for their big bang.

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