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The findings showed that the shrinking of the hippocampus — brain region associated with learning and memory — actually precedes the onset of a change in behaviour — namely the loss of memory. “Until now, no one knew the evolution of these changes. Does the hippocampus shrink before or after memory loss? Or do the two happen handin- hand,” said Sumantra Chattarji, Professor at National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bengaluru, Karnataka, in a statement.

Using rats as a model system which reacts to stress much as humans do, the team studied how the brain changes in structure during stress. The results showed that when under stress, rats develop anxiety-related behaviours and their ability to form memories are affected. In the study, rats were subjected to stress for two hours every day over 10 days. The brains were examined with MRI scans on several days over the course of the study, and their ability to form memories were assessed repeatedly.

After just three days of stress, the hippocampus of every stressed rat had shrunk. “Normally structural changes are seen in the brain after a long time — say 10 to 20 days. Three days doesn’t even count as chronic stress,” Chattarji added. Five days after stress exposure, the rats’ hippocampus-based ability to make memories was tested again. The stressed rats were found to perform almost as well as unstressed rats, the researchers said. “Volume loss and shrinkage has happened, yet spatial memory is still holding up,” Chattarji said.

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I see many uses for this such as provider services including front office & hospital admissions, security in assessing people in line or trying to gain entry, etc.

Machines are taking over more and more tasks. Ideally, they should also be capable to support the human in case of poor performance. To intervene appropriately, the machine should understand what is going on with the human. Fraunhofer scientists have developed a diagnostic tool that recognizes user states in real time and communicates them to the machine.

The camera firmly focuses on the driver’s eyes. If they are closed for more than one second, an alarm is triggered. This technique prevents the dangerous micro-sleep at the wheel. “It is not always as easy for a machine to detect what state the human is in, as it is in this case,” says Jessica Schwarz from the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE in Wachtberg, just south of Bonn.

Holistic model feeds real-time diagnosis

Continue reading “Computers will be able to assess humans’ state of mind” | >

WOW — now that’s an engineering feat.

While Dubai is keen to become a 3D printing world leader with their Dubai 3D Printing Strategy, they are by no means the only Middle Eastern nation to look into this technology. Last week a delegation of Chinese WinSun officials traveled to Riyadh, the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to discuss construction 3D printing. Among others, the Chinese construction 3D printing pioneers were invited to 3D print up to 1.5 million housing units over the next five years.

WinSun is the company that made construction 3D printing a practical reality. Back in 2014, the Shanghai-based company created headlines all over the internet for building not one, but ten 3D printed houses in less than 24 hours. Since then, Shanghai WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co., to give its full name, has been building on that initial achievement with one 3D printed concrete creation after another. Back in March, they even unveiled two gorgeous 3D printed Chinese courtyards.

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Big Data and 3D.

3D printing remains one of those technological areas that holds a great amount of fascination. What began as a type of niche market has expanded rapidly in the past few years to encompass nearly every industry out there, from the medical field to manufacturing.

The outlook is a positive one in terms of 3D printing’s future, with Gartner predicting the amount of spending on 3D printers to exceed more than $13 billion in 2018. While 3D printing has always held a lot of promise, one of the factors truly taking the concept to the next level is big data.

In much the same way that big data has benefited businesses of all types and sizes, it has proven to play a pivotal role in the growth of 3D printing. As more organizations get a firm grasp on how best to use both big data analytics and 3D printing capabilities, the two areas will form a more established and interdependent relationship.

Continue reading “Big Data’s Role in 3D Printing” | >

A single photon can excite two or more atoms at the same time, scientists found. And the light particle would do so in a very counterintuitive way, by summoning one or more companion photons out of nothingness.

If you think of particles of light, or photons, as billiard balls, it makes intuitive sense that a single photon can excite a single atom.

The new, less intuitive finding depends on the strange nature of quantum mechanics, and might help improve advanced machines known as quantum computers, researchers said. Prior work suggested that such machines could simultaneously perform more calculations in one instant than there are atoms in the universe. [Warped Physics: 10 Effects of Faster-than-Light Travel].

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Electronic computer technology has moved from valves to transistors to progressively more complex integrated circuits and processor designs, with each change bringing higher levels of performance. Now the advent of quantum computers promises a huge step increase in processor performance to solve certain types of problems.

Quantum computers are much faster than the world’s fastest supercomputers for some applications. In 1994 Peter Shor, an applied mathematician at Bell Laboratories, gave the encryption world a shock when he demonstrated an algorithm showing that quantum computers could threaten conventional prime number based encryption methods.

If an adversary conducts successful espionage raids on encrypted information stored in present technology computer installations, possibly through a compromised or issue-motivated individual who transfers it to portable media, it could become vulnerable to decryption by that rival’s quantum computers.

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Excellent write up on a paper submitted to the International Association for Cryptologic Research, by a group of UK and Belgian researchers are offering up a dig-sig scheme to assist in the addressing of Digital signatures (one of the fundamental parts of cryptography) in a post-quantum world. Expect the heat to rise on QC security as China’s launch date nears for the new Quantum Satellite.

Boffins smokin’ idea to share parts of keys to cook quantum-proof crypto.

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