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Jul 23, 2022

Inspiration or Imitation: How Closely Should We Copy Biological Systems?

Posted by in category: biological

A panel of experts agrees and disagrees on exactly which parts of biology we should be taking inspiration from for neuromorphic technologies.

Jul 23, 2022

After setting ultra-endurance record, Army Zephyr drone keeps flying, whether it wants to or not

Posted by in categories: drones, robotics/AI, solar power, sustainability

The high-flying unmanned aerial vehicle has been above Arizona for more than a month, living on batteries, solar power and a prayer.

Jul 23, 2022

Oldest stars in the universe may be revealed with new technique

Posted by in categories: cosmology, particle physics

And it would not require the James Webb Space Telescope.


Astronomers think that a new observation technique relying on the detection of faint radio signals will allow them to see the first stars that formed in the middle of thick hydrogen clouds shortly after the birth of the universe.

The technique, introduced in a new paper, looks for a type of electromagnetic radiation signature known as the 21-centimeter line, which was emitted by hydrogen atoms that filled the young universe in the first hundreds of thousands of years after the Big Bang.

Jul 23, 2022

Potential fabrication in research images threatens key theory of Alzheimer’s disease

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Neuroscientist and physician Matthew Schrag found suspect images in dozens of papers involving Alzheimer’s disease, including Western blots (projected in green) measuring a protein linked to cognitive decline in rats.

The Neuro-Network.

𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐓𝐒 𝐎𝐍 𝐀 𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐋𝐃?

Continue reading “Potential fabrication in research images threatens key theory of Alzheimer’s disease” »

Jul 23, 2022

Can robots really be companions for older adults?

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

In asking whether social robots can help social isolation among the elderly, we first need to know what older people think, say University of Melbourne experts.

Jul 23, 2022

UK’s ‘plug-in-grant’ is no more — what happened to making EVs affordable for everyone?

Posted by in categories: government, sustainability, transportation

View insights.


Since 2011, the UK government has been providing a tax-payer funded discount on the sale of battery electric vehicles. Known as the “plug-in car grant”, it was designed to help persuade motorists make the switch from diesel or petrol and commit to electric driving.

But last month the grant was scrapped with immediate effect. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, given that the amount buyers were able to claim back had gradually been whittled down from £5,000 to £1,500; or that it was recently available only for new vehicles costing less than £32,000 (the average cost of electric cars is around £43,000).

Continue reading “UK’s ‘plug-in-grant’ is no more — what happened to making EVs affordable for everyone?” »

Jul 23, 2022

Google fires engineer who claimed that company’s AI has become sentient

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Last month, there were a lot of waves in the AI community when a senior Google engineer, Blake Lemoine, alleged that the company’s AI has become sentient. The claim was made about Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) that can engage in a free-flowing way about a seemingly endless number of topics, an ability that unlocks more natural ways of interacting with technology.

Initially, Lemoine was put on paid administrative leave, but it appears that Google has now fired him.

Jul 23, 2022

An investigation across 45 languages and 12 language families reveals a universal language network

Posted by in categories: biological, evolution, neuroscience

To understand the architecture of human language, it is critical to examine diverse languages; however, most cognitive neuroscience research has focused on only a handful of primarily Indo-European languages. Here we report an investigation of the fronto-temporo-parietal language network across 45 languages and establish the robustness to cross-linguistic variation of its topography and key functional properties, including left-lateralization, strong functional integration among its brain regions and functional selectivity for language processing. fMRI reveals similar topography, selectivity and inter-connectedness of language brain areas across 45 languages. These properties may allow the language system to handle the shared features of languages, shaped by biological and cultural evolution.

Jul 23, 2022

The SLS rocket finally has a believable launch date, and it’s soon

Posted by in category: space travel

The major remaining task? Arming the rocket’s flight termination system.”

Jul 23, 2022

Critical phenomena of emergent magnetic monopoles in a chiral magnet

Posted by in category: space

Circa 2016 A great propulsion system for hoverboards and also magnetic propulsion #spacetechnology on earth 🌎😀


Phase transitions in topologically non-trivial systems are characterized by changes of topological invariants, rather than conventional order parameters. Here, the authors propose a real-space topological phase transition upon pair annihilation of emergent monopoles inherent in chiral magnet MnGe.