Lifeboat Foundation

Bias in juries pose a serious challenge for judges and attorneys to conduct fair, equal and impartial trials. A recent paper published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience considers the overlap between social cognitive processes such as cultural and racial stereotyping and brain activity associated with bias against defendants accused of severe crimes.

R. McKell Carter, one of the paper’s co-authors, is an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is an expert on social cognition: the processes of the brain that interpret the actions, intentions and expectations of others.

Carter’s study examines the role of social cognition in crime-type bias, when jurors perceive the prosecutor’s case stronger based on the severity of the charges against the defendant. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans on mock jurors, researchers mapped out regions of the brain that activated when jurors were presented with fictional case narratives and evidence.

Scientists from the Tsukuba Research Center for Energy Materials Science at the University of Tsukuba demonstrated a simple method to produce ionic liquid microdroplets that work as flexible, long-lasting, and pneumatically tunable lasers. Unlike existing “droplet lasers” that cannot operate under atmosphere, this new development may enable lasers that can be used in everyday settings.

Lotus plants are prized for their beauty, and have a remarkable self-cleaning property. Instead of flattening on the surface of a lotus leaf, water droplets will form near-perfect spheres and roll off, taking dust with them. This “lotus effect” is caused by microscopic bumps in the leaf. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Tsukuba have taken advantage of an artificial lotus effect to create liquid droplets that can act like lasers, while remaining stable for up to a month. Currently available “droplet lasers” cannot be used under ambient conditions, since they will simply evaporate unless enclosed inside a container.

In this new research, an ionic liquid called 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (EMIBF₄) was mixed with a dye that allows it to become a laser. This liquid was chosen because it evaporates very slowly and has a relatively large surface tension. Then, a quartz substrate is coated with tiny fluorinated silica nanoparticles to make the surface repel liquids. When the EMIBF₄ is deposited on it from a pipette, the tiny droplets remain almost completely spherical. The researchers showed that the droplet could remain stable for 30 days at least.

Welcome to the first issue of Rushing Robotics with brief overviews of each section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5BpjzCsYfk&t=3s

Not for public use; if you see this and you’re not supposed to, someone has been bad!

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A demo could come as soon as March.

In 2011, scientists found something unexpected hiding beneath the Amazon. There, 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) beneath the earth was an enormous body of water almost long enough to rival the Amazon and much wider.

River Hamza, as Brazil’s National Observatory unofficially named the beast, acts like drainage for the region and was discovered after Petrobras (an oil company) drilled hundreds of wells. They were drilled back in the 70s and 80s, but when scientists later took a look inside they discovered the monstrous waterway that was hiding underneath. It was after the leader of this team of researchers that the underground waterway was named.

It begins under the Andes in the Acre region and winds its way on through to the Solimões, Amazonas and Marajó basins before slipping out unseen into the Atlantic Ocean. The flowing river Amazon speeds along at around 5 meters (16 feet) per second. By comparison, the painfully slow-trickling Hamza moves along at a casual 1 millimeter (0.04 inches) per hour, writes The Guardian.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=EKCcLkKiDTQ

David Guetta is bringing the topic of artificial intelligence to the forefront after proving just how well the new technology works at replicating the voices of pop artists.

Last week, the French DJ and producer shared a video of him playing a song during one of his sets that used AI technology to add the “voice” of Eminem to one of his songs.

Continue reading “David Guetta Replicated Eminem’s Voice in a Song Using Artificial Intelligence” »

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

A new type of material can learn and improve its ability to deal with unexpected forces thanks to a unique lattice structure with connections of variable stiffness, as described in a new paper by my colleagues and me.

The new material is a type of architected material, which gets its properties mainly from the geometry and specific traits of its design rather than what it is made out of. Take hook-and-loop fabric closures like Velcro, for example. It doesn’t matter whether it is made from cotton, plastic or any other substance. As long as one side is a fabric with stiff hooks and the other side has fluffy loops, the material will have the sticky properties of Velcro.

A team of Stanford scientists claims to have tested a new brain-computer interface (BCI) that can decode speech at up to 62 words per minute, improving the previous record by 3.4 times.

That’d be a massive step towards real-time speech conversion at the pace of natural human conversation.

Max Hodak, who founded BCI company Neuralink alongside Elon Musk, but wasn’t involved in the study, called the research “a meaningful step change in the utility of implanted BCIs” in an email to Futurism.