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A lot of folks who know me well; knows that I donate my time and expertise to help with the various cancer foundations such as the National Esophageal Cancer Foundation. Esophageal Cancer is one form of cancer not often caught in time due to its symptoms. However, researchers have developed a 3D Stent that is simply amazing and is bringing a lot of hope for so many. Technology and medicine together is an amazing team.

I cannot wait to share this with the foundation’s president; she lost her husband only 2 years ago to this deadly cancer, I lost a cousin, and 2 years ago doctor’s removed a lesion from my esophagus. I cannot express enough to folks (especially younger folks; this is truly a silent killer and it hits all ages (20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s). And, once you ever have a lesion or cancer; you must be diligent in your follow ups no matter what.

fauPretty much everyone I know, myself included, has lost someone to cancer, many of them far too young. Finding a cure for cancer is the lofty, ultimate goal for medical researchers, and people like to fantasize about the day when the headline suddenly appears in the paper: “Cure for Cancer Found!” No more deaths from the disease, no more painful, drawn-out treatments – just a shot or a pill that can eliminate cancer as easily as clearing up an ear infection.

In reality, will it happen like that? It probably won’t be that easy – cancer is a complicated beast, and there are so many different forms with their own unique complexities that a universal, one-off cure is a difficult proposition. However, a lot of promising recent developments do point to a near future in which treatment is much more effective and deaths much more rare. And a lot of those developments involve 3D printing.

Continue reading “3D Printed Stent May Soon Give Hope to Esophageal Cancer Patients” | >

When engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, say they are going to make you sweat, it is all in the name of science. Specifically, it is for a flexible sensor system that can measure metabolites and electrolytes in sweat, calibrate the data based upon skin temperature and sync the results in real time to a smartphone.

While health monitors have exploded onto the consumer electronics scene over the past decade, researchers say this device, reported in the Jan. 28 issue of the journal Nature (“Fully integrated wearable sensor arrays for multiplexed in situ perspiration analysis”), is the first fully integrated electronic system that can provide continuous, non-invasive monitoring of multiple biochemicals in sweat.

wristband sweat sensor

The new sensor developed at UC Berkeley can be made into “smart” wristbands or headbands that provide continuous, real-time analysis of the chemicals in sweat.

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The list of uniquely human achievements has just become shorter: Google’s AI has defeated the reigning 3-time European Go champion.

DeepMind’s program AlphaGo, masters the ancient game of Go. First ever program to defeat a human professional player!

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In a paper published in Nature on 28th January 2016, we describe a new approach to computer Go. This is the first time ever that a computer program “AlphaGo” has defeated a human professional player.

The game of Go is widely viewed as an unsolved “grand challenge” for artificial intelligence. Games are a great testing ground for inventing smarter, more flexible algorithms that have the ability to tackle problems in ways similar to humans. The first classic game mastered by a computer was noughts and crosses (also known as tic-tac-toe) in 1952. But until now, one game has thwarted A.I. researchers: the ancient game of Go.

Despite decades of work, the strongest computer Go programs only played at the level of human amateurs. AlphaGo has won over 99% of games against the strongest other computer Go programs. It also defeated the human European champion by 5–0 in tournament games, a feat previously believed to be at least a decade away. In March 2016, AlphaGo will face its ultimate challenge: a 5-game challenge match in Seoul against the legendary Lee Sedol—the top Go player in the world over the past decade.

This video tells the story so far…

Continue reading “Google DeepMind: Ground-breaking AlphaGo masters the game of Go” | >

Truly beautiful stuff! How far we’ve come from going to a dimly lit, coin op arcade filled with venerable games like PAC-Man and Afterburner! The Singularity accelerates every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day,. Being alive in this era of progress is truly a gift.

This is “Animation/FX Reel” by blurstudioinc on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who lovethem.

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The Antipode is the second hypersonic jet by Canadian inventor and engineer, Charles Bombardier. The Antipode design is a 10-seat private jet that uses rocket boosters to take off, detaches the rockets at altitude of 12km, fires its hypersonic engines to hit speeds of Mach 24 (20,000 km/h), and gets you from New York to London in 11 minutes.

To cool the jet from the heat of hypersonic travel.

It would channel some of the air, flowing at supersonic speed, through a nozzle located on the nose of the aircraft, producing a counterflowing jet of air that would induce LPM (a novel aerodynamic phenomenon called ‘long penetration mode), which would in turn lead to a drop in surface temperature due to aeroheating and a reduction of the shockwave and noise caused by breaking the sound barrier.

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