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Spinal cord injury (SCI) is of significant concern to the Department of Defense. Of the 337,000 Americans with serious SCIs, approximately 44,000 are veterans, with 11,000 new injuries occurring each year.1 SCI is a complex condition – the injured often face lifelong paralysis and increased long-term morbidity due to factors such as sepsis and autonomic nervous system dysfunction. While considerable research efforts have been devoted toward restorative and therapeutic technologies to SCIs, significant challenges remain.

DARPA’s Bridging the Gap Plus (BG+) program aims to develop new approaches to treating SCI by integrating injury stabilization, regenerative therapy, and functional restoration. Today, DARPA announced the award of contracts to the University of California-Davis, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Pittsburgh to advance this crucial work. Multidisciplinary teams at each of these universities are tasked with developing systems of implantable, adaptive devices that aim to reduce injury effects during early phases of SCI, and potentially restore function during the later chronic phase.

“The BG+ program looks to create opportunities to provide novel treatment approaches immediately after injury,” noted Dr. Al Emondi, BG+ program manager. “Systems will consist of active devices performing real-time biomarker monitoring and intervention to stabilize and, where possible, rebuild the neural communications pathways at the site of injury, providing the clinician with previously unavailable diagnostic information for automated or clinician-directed interventions.”

Continue reading “DARPA Awards Contracts for Work on Spinal Cord Injury Treatment” | >

The final €85 billion budget is €1.5 billion more than first proposed by the European Commission in 2018, but €5 billion is reserved for applied research and support for small tech firms under a postpandemic recovery fund. The remaining budget is a little larger than the current program, Horizon 2020, but European agencies receive less in the early years of a 7-year budget. That means basic science organs such as the European Research Council (ERC) could have less money in 2021 than in 2020, depending on further negotiations over the budget breakdown, to be held in the coming weeks.

European Parliament wins concessions to bring Horizon Europe budget to €85 billion—but research advocates remain unimpressed.

Admitting he was both nervous and excited about the upcoming launch aboard the Crew Dragon capsule on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the 55-year-old said, “There are risks and a fear of failure when challenging oneself but I believe the benefits far outweigh that fear.”

Noguchi will be among four astronauts, including crew commander Michael Hopkins, aboard the Crew Dragon capsule to be launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday.

He juxtaposed the mission to the Japanese hit manga and anime series “Demon Slayer,” in which astronauts use and maximize their “individual strengths” toward a “common goal.” The series follows the story of a boy who, along with his comrades, fights human-eating demons after his family is killed by them.

Continue reading “Japanese astronaut hopes upcoming mission will pave way for ‘new future’” | >

What we pay attention to shapes our opinions and views and our opinions and views shape our actions—well beyond clicks and taps on a screen.

But this is only the beginning. The internet and its enabling tools were the last great generation of technology. New generations are already making their presence known. In coming decades, technology will more compellingly seduce our attention, will escape its silicon-and-glass cage, will animate the inanimate, and even shape our biology.

The answer isn’t to do away with technology. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle—nor should we want to. Besides negative outcomes, technology remains a powerful tool for good too. But as individuals, as a society, we need to become far more aware of how we interact with technology, to keep a closer eye on business incentives, and to consciously employ our tools in ways that firmly align with our goals.

Continue reading “What Two Billion People Pay Attention to Is Still in the Hands of a Few Companies” | >

A new study lead by GSI scientists and international colleagues investigates black-hole formation in neutron star mergers. Computer simulations show that the properties of dense nuclear matter play a crucial role, which directly links the astrophysical merger event to heavy-ion collision experiments at GSI and FAIR. These properties will be studied more precisely at the future FAIR facility. The results have now been published in Physical Review Letters. With the award of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for the theoretical description of black holes and for the discovery of a supermassive object at the center of our galaxy, the topic currently also receives a lot of attention.

But under which conditions does a black hole actually form? This is the central question of a study lead by the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt within an international collaboration. Using , the scientists focus on a particular process to form namely the merging of two stars.

Neutron stars consists of highly compressed dense matter. The mass of one and a half is squeezed to the size of just a few kilometers. This corresponds to similar or even higher densities than in the inner of atomic nuclei. If two neutron stars merge, the matter is additionally compressed during the collision. This brings the merger remnant on the brink to collapse to a black hole. Black holes are the most compact objects in the universe, even light cannot escape, so these objects cannot be observed directly.

Continue reading “Black hole or no black hole: On the outcome of neutron star collisions” | >

A team of researchers at Samsung has developed a slim-panel holographic video display that allows for viewing from a variety of angles. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes their new display device and their plans for making it suitable for use with a smartphone.

Despite predictions in science-fiction books and movies over the past several decades, 3D holographic players are still not available to consumers. Existing players are too bulky and display video from limited viewing angles. In this new effort, the researchers at Samsung claim to have overcome these difficulties and built a demo device to prove it.

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Nanographene is a material that could radically improve solar cells, fuel cells, LEDs and more. Typically, the synthesis of this material has been imprecise and difficult to control. For the first time, researchers have discovered a simple way to gain precise control over the fabrication of nanographene. In doing so, they have shed light on the previously unclear chemical processes involved in nanographene production.

Graphene, one-atom-thick sheets of carbon molecules, could revolutionize future technology. Units of graphene are known as ; these are tailored to specific functions, and as such, their fabrication process is more complicated than that of generic graphene. Nanographene is made by selectively removing from organic molecules of carbon and hydrogen, a process called dehydrogenation.

“Dehydrogenation takes place on a such as that of silver, gold or copper, which acts as a catalyst, a material that enables or speeds up a reaction,” said Assistant Professor Akitoshi Shiotari from the Department of Advanced Materials Science. “However, this surface is large relative to the target organic molecules. This contributes to the difficulty in crafting specific nanographene formations. We needed a better understanding of the catalytic process and a more precise way to control it.”

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Even with decades of unprecedented development in computational power, the human brain still holds many advantages over modern computing technologies. Our brains are extremely efficient for many cognitive tasks and do not separate memory and computing, unlike standard computer chips.

In the last decade, the new paradigm of neuromorphic computing has emerged, inspired by neural networks of the brain and based on energy-efficient hardware for information processing.

To create devices that mimic what occurs in our brain’s neurons and synapses, researchers need to overcome a fundamental molecular engineering challenge: how to design devices that exhibit controllable and energy-efficient transition between different resistive states triggered by incoming stimuli.

Continue reading “Scientists uncover secrets to designing brain-like devices” | >