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Oct 1, 2015

Bioengineers Make “Mini-Brains” of Neurons and Supporting Cells

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, neuroscience

New research from Brown University details a relatively accessible method for making a working (though not thinking) sphere of central nervous system tissue.

If you need a working miniature brain — say for drug testing, to test neural tissue transplants, or to experiment with how stem cells work — a new paper describes how to build one with what the Brown University authors say is relative ease and low expense. The little balls of brain aren’t performing any cogitation, but they produce electrical signals and form their own neural connections — synapses — making them readily producible testbeds for neuroscience research, the authors said.

“We think of this as a way to have a better in vitro [lab] model that can maybe reduce animal use,” said graduate student Molly Boutin, co-lead author of the new paper in the journal Tissue Engineering: Part C. “A lot of the work that’s done right now is in two-dimensional culture, but this is an alternative that is much more relevant to the in vivo [living] scenario.”

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Oct 1, 2015

Russian Scientist Claims He Knows The Secret To Eternal Life

Posted by in category: life extension

Call me skeptical. That said, who knows? It’s worth keeping an eye out for updates, at least.


Most of us might pray that the key to living forever will be found in our lifetime and, well, it has — according to one Russian scientist.

Anatoli Brouchkov reckons he has found the key to eternal life — but selfishly he isn’t going to let the rest of us try it out for ourselves.

Continue reading “Russian Scientist Claims He Knows The Secret To Eternal Life” »

Oct 1, 2015

Glu reinvents James Bond with a mobile strategy game — By Dean Takahashi | VentureBeat

Posted by in category: mobile phones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYdXLRHHXsA

“Glu Mobile is doing something completely different with the mobile strategy title James Bond: World of Espionage. Instead of a Pierce Brosnan-style shoot-em-up, this game takes into account the thinking and serious nature of current Bond actor Daniel Craig, said Niccolo De Masi, the chief executive of Glu, in an interview with GamesBeat.”

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Oct 1, 2015

RoboCab: Driverless Taxi Experiment to Start in Japan

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Japan’s cabinet office, Kanagawa prefecture and Robot Taxi Inc. on Thursday said they will start experimenting with unmanned taxi service beginning in 2016. The service will be offered for approximately 50 people in Kanagawa prefecture, just south of Tokyo, with the auto-driving car carrying them from their homes to local grocery stores.

According to the project organizers, the cabs will drive a distance of about three kilometers (two miles), and part of the course will be on major avenues in the city. Crew members will be aboard the car during the experiment in case there is a need to avoid accidents.

Robot Taxi Inc., a joint venture between mobile Internet company DeNA Co. and vehicle technology developer ZMP Inc., is aiming to commercialize its driverless transportation service by 2020. The company says it will seek to offer unmanned cabs to users including travelers from overseas and locals in areas where buses and trains are not available.

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Oct 1, 2015

Did Google’s quantum computer just get the biggest processor upgrade in history?

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

If all the claims are true, this highly specialized processor is unimaginably fast at certain specific operations.

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Oct 1, 2015

“Artificial Blood Vessels” Are Becoming A Reality

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Scientists have created artificial blood vessels that can grow on their own.

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Oct 1, 2015

New Maps of Ceres Highlight Mysterious Bright Spots, Giant Mountain

Posted by in category: space

New maps of Ceres show the dwarf planet’s mysterious bright spots and huge, pyramid-shaped mountain in a new light.

The new maps of Ceres come courtesy of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which has been orbiting the heavily cratered dwarf planet since March. The maps highlight the compositional and elevation differences across Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

For example, one new topographic map focuses on an odd mountain dubbed “the Pyramid,” which rises about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) into space from Ceres’ surface. And another map zeroes in on the 56-mile-wide (90 km) Occator crater, whose floor features the most luminescent of the dwarf planet’s enigmatic bright spots. [Ceres’ Mysterious Bright Spots Coming Into Focus (Video)].

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Oct 1, 2015

Stephen Hawking says nomadic aliens might crush us

Posted by in categories: alien life, physics

Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach,” Hawking told El Pais. “To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”

It’s funny how math can make you paranoid. Even if it’s entirely reasonable paranoia. The discovery of water on Mars is, for the non-mathematical at least, the first indication that something out there might be alive or might once have been alive.”


Technically Incorrect: The famed physicist says that simple math makes him believe there are aliens out there.

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Sep 30, 2015

Thanks to a new breakthrough, we’re now one step closer to 3D printing replacement organs

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, biotech/medical

http://voc.tv/1cRrjAQ

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Sep 30, 2015

To Make Robot Hands More Like Ours, MIT Built These Softer, Smarter Fingers

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

It’s easy to forget how amazing the dexterity and anatomy of our own hands are–until you learn how difficult they are to replicate for machines. MIT has made big strides in robotic hands this year, and now it’s published a new one.

This week at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Bianca Homberg, Daniela Rus (the director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) and their colleagues are showing off the latest advance in robotic digits: Modular fingers made of silicone and embedded with sensors, dexterous enough to pick up everything from soft toys to single pieces of paper without needing to be programmed to understand what it’s gripping.

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