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Science is examining the brain’s neural activity for applications ranging from innovative therapies for brain-related injuries and disease to computational learning architectures for artificial intelligence and deep neural networks.

A research team has developed a tool that lets researchers see more of a live mouse’s brain, to make discoveries that can advance research into the neural circuit mechanisms that form the underlying behavior of the human brain. The tool overcomes the drawback of traditional brain probes—the small amount of tissue they can access, which limits their ability to image neurons of interest.

The innovation is to insert an imaging probe with side-viewing capabilities into a previously inserted optically matched channel—an ultrathin-wall glass capillary—to convert deep brain imaging into endoscopic imaging. The operator can freely rotate the probe to image different , getting a 360-degree view for imaging along the entire length of the inserted probe. This large-volume imaging enables an increase of about 1,000 times in access volume, compared with what is available for imaging at the tip of typical miniature imaging probes.

The pharmaceuticals firm GSK has struck a five-year partnership with King’s College London to use artificial intelligence to develop personalised treatments for cancer by investigating the role played by genetics in the disease.

The tie-up, which involves 10 of the drug maker’s artificial intelligence experts working with 10 oncology specialists from King’s across their labs, will use computing to “play chess with cancer”, working out why only a fifth of patients respond well to immuno-oncology treatments.

GM has unveiled its latest series of new electric motors that will power its future electric vehicles, starting with the Hummer EV.

With the Bolt EV coming out in 2,016 GM has been selling electric vehicles for a long time, but the automaker has also been stuck on older EV technology.

GM is finally starting to release its latest EV technology, Ultium, in a series of new electric vehicles.

There are many parts of the world which lack infrastructure, but that get a lot of sunlight … which makes buildings uncomfortably hot. A new system could help, as it uses a combination of sunlight and salt water – but no electricity – to produce a cooling effect.

Currently being developed at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), the experimental setup takes advantage of a natural “phase-change” phenomenon in which energy is absorbed as salt crystals dissolve within water. This means that if salt is added to warm water, that water rapidly cools as the salt dissolves.

After some experimentation with different types of salt, it was found that one known as ammonium nitrate worked best. Mainly because it’s highly water-soluble, its cooling power is four times greater than that of the next-best salt, ammonium chloride. As an added bonus, ammonium nitrate is already widely utilized in fertilizer, and is quite inexpensive.

Protons populate the nucleus of every atom in the universe. Inside the nucleus, they cling tightly to neighboring protons and neutrons. However, it may be possible to knock out protons that are in a smaller size configuration, so that they interact less with nearby particles as they exit the nucleus. This phenomenon is called color transparency. Nuclear physicists hunting for signs of color transparency in protons recently came up empty handed.

The Impact.

The theory that describes the behavior of particles made of quarks is called quantum chromodynamics (QCD). QCD includes many common subatomic particles, such as protons and neutrons. It also predicts the phenomenon of color transparency. Physicists have observed color transparency in simpler, two-quark particles called pions. If physicists can observe or rule out color transparency for protons, a more complicated three-quark system, they would gain important clues regarding the differences between two-and three-quark systems in QCD.

A quantum computer made by researchers in China has solved a calculation in 4.2 hours that would take a classical computer thousands of years. This demonstration of what the researchers call “quantum computational advantage” was made using 6 more qubits – quantum bits – than the computer used by the Google team that first demonstrated the feat in 2019.