Lifeboat Foundation

The menagerie of bacterial and fungal species living among us is ever growing — and this is no exception in low-gravity environments, such as the International Space Station (ISS).

Researchers from the United States and India working with NASA have now discovered four strains of bacteria living in different places in the ISS – three of which were, until now, completely unknown to science.

Three of the four strains were isolated back in 2015 and 2016 – one was found on an overhead panel of the ISS research stations, the second was found in the Cupola, the third was found on the surface of the dining table; the fourth was found in an old HEPA filter returned to Earth in 2011.

BeeWize has invented a new kind of beehive that can help prevent colony collapse — which is threatening pollination across the world.

GUANGZHOU, China — Baidu has raised money for its artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor business at a valuation of $2 billion, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

It comes as the Chinese search giant looks to diversify its revenue streams.

The funding round was led by CPE, a Chinese asset management and private equity firm, the person said. Venture capital companies IDG and Legend Capital were also involved. A fund under Chinese investment company Oriza Holdings also participated in the round.

Negative ions migrate to dendrite tips.

Summary: When the ventral tegmental area was stimulated, monkeys were better able to identify details associated with subconscious visual stimuli they were exposed to.

Source: KU Leuven.

Researchers uncovered for the first time what happens in animals’ brains when they learn from subconscious, visual stimuli. In time, this knowledge can lead to new treatments for a number of conditions.

The internet of things boom in the enterprise is driving edge computng, and a pilot program in Texas will focus on processing data at scale.

The debate holds a special interest for neuroscientists; since computer programming has only been around for a few decades, the brain has not evolved any special region to handle it. It must be repurposing a region of the brain normally used for something else.

So late last year, neuroscientists in MIT tried to see what parts of the brain people use when dealing with computer programming. “The ability to interpret computer code is a remarkable cognitive skill that bears parallels to diverse cognitive domains, including general executive functions, math, logic, and language,” they wrote.

Since coding can be learned as an adult, they figured it must rely on some pre-existing cognitive system in our brains. Two brain systems seemed like likely candidates: either the brain’s language system, or the system that tackles complex cognitive tasks such as solving math problems or a crossword. The latter is known as the “multiple demand network.”

The tool looked for inconsistencies in the reflections in both of a person’s eyes to determine whether the image was real or fake.

At microscopic scales, picking, placing, collecting, and arranging objects is a persistent challenge. Advances in nanotechnology mean that there are ever more complex things we’d like to build at those sizes, but tools for moving their component parts are lacking.

Now, new research from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science shows how simple, microscopic robots, remotely driven by magnetic fields, can use capillary forces to manipulate objects floating at an oil-water interface.

This system was demonstrated in a study published in the journal Applied Physics Letters on January 28, 2020.