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(PhysOrg.com) — Sometimes total electrical isolation is a good thing — and that’s the idea behind a power-over-fiber (PoF) communications cable being developed by engineers at Sandia National Laboratories.

It’s common to isolate communications between systems or devices by using fiber optic cables, said Steve Sanderson of Sandia’s mobility analysis and technical assessment division. But when power also is required, sending it down a copper wire can at times be a safety issue, and substituting it with battery power may not be suitable or practical, he said.

Continue reading “Developing power-over-fiber communications cable: When total isolation is a good thing” »

North American robot sales continued to set records for year-over-year growth, according to the Association for Advancing Automation. FANUC also saw strong demand.

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By Thomas Frey | Sep 1, 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007, no one understood at the time how disruptive that device would be to existing technology. Now with rumors of Apple launching their augmented reality (AR) smart glasses products next year, people are speculating about how disruptive this technology will be.

Since iPhones are one of Apple’s primary revenue streams, they may be cautious about releasing a product that may encroach on their own turf. However, as we’ll suggest below, it may not be an either/or situation for users.

Using the Large Phased Array (LPA) radio telescope of Pushchino Radio Astronomy Observatory (PRAO) in Russia, astronomers have detected seven new pulsars and determined their basic parameters. The finding is reported in a paper published August 18 on the arXiv pre-print repository.

Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars emitting a beam of electromagnetic radiation. They are usually detected in the form of short bursts of radio emission; however, some of them are also observed via optical, X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes.

Now, a group of Russian astronomers led by PRAO’s Sergey Tyul’bashev reports the detection of seven new pulsars. The discovery was made with LPA as part of a daily sky survey conducted in a test mode, covering a full day in right ascension and 50 degrees in declination. The new pulsars were detected at a frequency of 111 MHz.

De novo microbial biosynthesis of vindoline and catharanthine using a highly engineered yeast and in vitro chemical coupling to vinblastine is carried out, positioning yeast as a scalable platform to produce many monoterpene indole alkaloids.

Two massive galaxies are set to collide within the next few years revealing surprising details about galactic mergers.

TOKYO (AP) — A small robot with a clip-like hand and enough smarts to know which drinks are popular is part of an effort to make convenience stores even more convenient.

On a recent day in Tokyo, the robot named TX SCARA slid back and forth behind the refrigerated shelves in the back of a FamilyMart store.

The hand on the end of its mechanical arm grasped a bottle or can from the stacks to the side, then the robot slithered to the right spot and placed the drink on the shelf — in a place chosen after its artificial intelligence and tiny cameras matched the kind of beverage to what’s running short.

In a study published in Cell Reports, we present a novel algorithm for the digital generation of neuronal morphologies, based on the topology of their branching structure. This algorithm generates neurons that are statistically similar to the biological neurons, in terms of morphological properties, electrical responses and the connectivity of the networks they form.

This study represents a major milestone for the Blue Brain Project and for the future of computational neuroscience. The topological neuron synthesis enables the generation of millions of unique neuronal shapes from different cell types. This process will allow us to reconstruct brain regions with detailed and unique neuronal morphologies at each cell position.

The topological representation of neurons facilitates the generation of neurons that approximate morphologies that are structurally altered compared to healthy neuronal morphologies. These structural alterations of neurons are disrupting the brain systems and are contributing factors to brain diseases. The topological synthesis can be used to study the differences between healthy and diseased states of different brain regions and specifically, what structural alterations of neurons are causing important problems to the networks they form.