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Nov 15, 2015

Lost And Found: Can We Restore Forgotten Memories?

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

Memories are priceless, and the plight of dementia patients highlights how important they are to forming what makes us, well us. Now a new study has provided hope we may one day be able to restore lost memories.

Clearing the mist

A paper from researchers at MIT has demonstrated the reactivation of memories in amnesia patients with optogenetics — in which cell activity is controlled by bursts of light.

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Nov 15, 2015

Asteroid Resources Could Create Space Habs For Trillions; Land Area Of A Thousand Earths

Posted by in category: space

Planet dwellers like us naturally look first to other moons and planets for colonization. Yet, asteroids have enough resources to build space habs for trillions, with the same living space per person as for Earth.

The idea is to use the materials from the asteroids and NEOs to make new habitats. This gives far more living space than the amount you get if you hollow asteroids out, and live inside them.

The Moon and Mars are our only choices for surface colonization in the near future. Neither is a second Earth; both have many issues at present, especially, the almost total lack of atmosphere. Technically, Mars does have an atmosphere, true, enough for winds and dust storms, but it is so thin it would count as a laboratory vacuum on Earth.

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Nov 14, 2015

Reports of Robots Stealing 50% of Jobs in the US and UK Are Totally Alarmist

Posted by in categories: employment, robotics/AI

It’s being reported that a Bank of England official forecasts that in the next 10 to 20 years, smart robots will steal 80 million jobs from Americans and 15 million jobs from Britons—over half the workforce of each nation. I smell BS.

In a speech delivered yesterday by Bank economist Andy Haldane at the Trades Union Congress in London, he predicted that robots could quickly “hollow out” the middle class, shrinking the need for human-only skills, especially in clerical, production, and administrative jobs.

It’s true—I think robots will appear more in those sectors. But for every “robot overload” doom-and-gloom claim, there is a calming rebuttal of reason.

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Nov 14, 2015

Single Artificial Neuron Taught to Recognize Hundreds of Patterns

Posted by in categories: education, robotics/AI

Biologists have long puzzled over why neurons have thousands of synapses. Now neuroscientists have shown they are crucial not just for recognizing patterns but for learning the sequence in which they appear.

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Nov 14, 2015

Blood-brain barrier opened non-invasively for the first time in humans, using focused ultrasound

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

Opening up the blood-brain barrier to deliver drugs (credit: Focused Ultrasound Foundation)

The blood-brain barrier has been non-invasively opened in a human patient for the first time. A team at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto used focused ultrasound to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier (BBB), allowing for effective delivery of chemotherapy into a patient’s malignant brain tumor.

Continue reading “Blood-brain barrier opened non-invasively for the first time in humans, using focused ultrasound” »

Nov 14, 2015

Disney Research-CMU design tool helps novices design 3D-printable robotic creatures

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, robotics/AI

Digital designs for robotic creatures are shown on the left and the physical prototypes produced via 3-D printing are on the right (credit: Disney Research, Carnegie Melon University)

Now you can design and build your own customized walking robot using a 3-D printer and off-the-shelf servo motors, with the help of a new DYI design tool developed by Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University.

Continue reading “Disney Research-CMU design tool helps novices design 3D-printable robotic creatures” »

Nov 14, 2015

Self-parallel parking car

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Mitsubishi Self-Driving Car


This new Mitsubishi self-driving car is so advanced it can parallel park itself.

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Nov 14, 2015

Nissan wants to bring wireless charging technology to electric cars

Posted by in category: transportation

Electric car owners get to enjoy a certain level of pride in saying that they never have to deal with gas stations and dirty fuel-filler nozzles.

Most of those owners would likely agree that not having to deal with cords and charging ports would be another great step forward, however.

Soon, if Nissan and several other automakers have their way, that day will come, as wireless (inductive) charging systems and smart charging controls will take away that “hands on” obligation—provided you park in designated charging spots.

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Nov 14, 2015

These Are the Droids We’re Looking For

Posted by in categories: futurism, robotics/AI

Could the planet’s next catastrophe be averted by R2-D2? That’s the idea behind the DARPA Robotics Challenge, a robot Olympiad designed to create autonomous machines that can go where no man can or should go—nuclear disaster sites, minefields, Montauk over Labor Day weekend—and fix all the toxic messes we make. The stakes are $3.5 million. Oh, and possibly the future of mankind.

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Nov 14, 2015

Resetting The Clock: New Enzyme Found To Repair Telomeres

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Resetting Your Biological Clock: New Enzyme Found To Repair Telomeres.

The telomere caps on the end of your chromosomes unravel bit by bit with every cell division, and if they’re not repaired division eventually stops altogether. Cells like stem cells express special enzymes to lengthen these caps, and we’ve now found another one that does the job.

A key player in aging?

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