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Jan 16, 2017

Scientists snap mice brains, making them killing machines

Posted by in category: genetics

Hmmm; not sure that I like what they did here.


The behavior didn’t occur when they stimulated the mice’s other brain parts. It’s a mechanism common to all higher animals, including humans.

The researchers expected to find these hunting circuits in mice because many mice kill and eat insects. The study relied on the technique optogenetics, in which neurons can be artificially activated using light, effectively allowing scientists to switch the killer instinct on and off at will.

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Jan 16, 2017

Teleport Brain Control

Posted by in categories: education, internet, mobile phones, robotics/AI

http://aubot.com/

Teleport is a telepresence robot that can be used by people with a disability to attend school or work remotely. It can be controlled using an internet browser, Android phone, and now brain control.

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Jan 16, 2017

Could you recruit a ‘mind reader’ for Facebook?

Posted by in categories: computing, neuroscience

Many who worked closely with me at Microsoft use to say I had a Crystal ball and was psychic; maybe I have met my match for a career — LOL.


A number of job adverts suggest that Facebook is taking social networking to a different level of science fiction.

The social networking giant has advertised for a Haptics Engineer, a Neural Imaging Engineer, a Signal Processing Engineer and a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Engineer – leading people to think Facebook is working on mind reading technology.

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Jan 16, 2017

DARPA’s Latest Tech May Make Human Pilots a Thing of the Past

Posted by in categories: military, robotics/AI

That’s been the plan for a while.


The Pentagon’s Defense Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA), the agency responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military, has facilitated the development of a robotic system to take over flying duties from military pilots. According to DARPA, the program, known as Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) was to produce “a tailorable, drop-in, removable kit that would promote the addition of high levels of automation into existing aircraft, enabling operation with reduced onboard crew.”

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Jan 16, 2017

Do Those With Social Anxiety & High IQs Have A Rare Psychic Gift?

Posted by in category: futurism

The science behind this is fascinating!

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Jan 15, 2017

China to set up gravitational wave telescopes in Tibet

Posted by in category: physics

Good for China.

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Jan 15, 2017

Israel to hire foreign hi-tech workers to stave off manpower drought

Posted by in category: education

Six-year program aims to boost the number of higher education students by 40%, encourage women, Arabs, and ultra-Orthodox to enter sector.

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Jan 15, 2017

2 Days From China To Europe

Posted by in category: transportation

Russia is not only talking about developing a sophisticated network of high-speed passenger trains but a trans-continental high-speed cargo rail line as well.

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Jan 15, 2017

New 5D technique may help diagnose diseases from cell phone images

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, mobile phones

Very cool.


Scientists have developed a new 5D technique for analysing images, an advance that may make it easier to quickly find tell-tale signs of diseases from pictures taken using cell phones. Called “Hyper-Spectral Phasor” analysis, or HySP, it is much faster and far less expensive than current techniques, and may be useful for diagnosing and monitoring diseases by using cell phone images, researchers said.

Through the new imaging technology, researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) in the US have used fluorescent imaging to locate proteins and other molecules in cells and tissues. It works by tagging the molecules with dyes that glow under certain kinds of light – the same principle behind so-called “black light” images.

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Jan 15, 2017

What Do Single Neurons Know

Posted by in categories: computing, neuroscience

But, the larger question remains as to how these individual dendrites and neuron outputs are used by the circuit and the brain as a whole. These findings are considerably different than sequences needing a group of neurons working in order and in a circuit. Even more unusual is the fact that (even young childrens’) brains are able to analyze and respond to information that is, in fact, so complex that the most advanced super computers cannot. Can individual cells do this as well?

Another new set of research shows that in a monkey brain, these responses of individual neurons are correlated somewhat with the final decision of the animal. This research used very limited visual information and showed that the final decisions of the animal using billions of neurons was perhaps relevant even to this small amount of information input given to individual cells.

It could be that the local neuron responded to the decision that was made by the larger circuits and brain. But, it doesn’t answer the question as to how the individual neuron relates to the brain.

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