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Jun 13, 2019

How to Build a Self-Conscious Machine

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

To replicate ourselves in AI, we first have to embrace human error—and as sci-fi writer Hugh Howey argues, we probably shouldn’t.

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Jun 13, 2019

Sensitive Whiskers Could Make Small Drones Safer

Posted by in categories: drones, robotics/AI

Animals of all shapes and sizes have whiskers of some sort. Cats and dogs and rodents have them. Seals have them too. Some birds have them, as do insects and fish. Whiskers have shown up across such a diversity of animals because they’re an efficient and effective method of short range sensing. Besides just being able to detect objects that they come into direct contact with, whiskers can also sense fluid flows (like the speed and direction of moving air or water), and they work even if it’s dark or foggy or smoky.

While we’ve seen some research on whiskers before—I’m sure you remember the utterly adorable ShrewBot—there hasn’t been too much emphasis on adding whiskers to robots, likely because lidar and cameras offer more useful data at longer ranges. And that’s totally fine, if you can afford the lidar or the computing necessary to make adequate use of cameras. For very small, very cheap drones, investing in sophisticated sensing and computing may not make sense, especially if you’re only interested in simple behaviors like not crashing into stuff.

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Jun 13, 2019

Electric scooter recharges in 5 minutes with StoreDot’s new battery tech

Posted by in category: transportation

Range and recharge times are perhaps the two biggest issues currently facing electric vehicles. But StoreDot is ready to solve at least one of those. The company just showed off its fast charging batteries by topping up an empty electric scooter battery in just 5 minutes.

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Jun 13, 2019

Rare Genetic Mutation Raises Pain Tolerance To Superhuman Levels

Posted by in category: genetics

Scientists have found a genetic mutation that cranks up someone’s pain tolerance to the superhuman level.

New research describes an Italian family with a rare gene that turns down their pain sensitivity and might offer clues in the development of pain treatments, particularly those who experience chronic pain. The six members of this family, who are from three different generations, have “a distinctive pain response that has not been identified in any other people,” University College London explained. The low-pain condition is called congenital analgesia and has been connected to a couple of other genetic mutations as well, but the studied family has a unique set of symptoms.

“The members of this family can burn themselves or experience … bone fractures without feeling any pain,” lead study author James Cox said in the university statement. “Their nerves are all there, they’re just not working how they should be. We’re working to gain a better understanding of exactly why they don’t feel much pain.”

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Jun 13, 2019

CRISPR-Cas9 Therapy May Suppress Aging

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics, life extension, neuroscience

Age is a leading risk factor for a number of conditions such as heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease among others, such conditions make a real need for development of anti-aging therapies urgent. Salk Institute researchers may have developed a new gene therapy to help decelerate the aging process, as published in the journal Nature Medicine.

CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing therapy has been shown by the Salk Institute team to suppress the accelerated aging observed in mice with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome; and provided insight into the molecular pathways involved in accelerated aging, and how to reduce toxic proteins via gene therapy.

Having an early onset and fast progression progeria is a severe form of degenerative disorder caused by LMNA gene mutations; signs of accelerated aging include DNA damage, cardiac dysfunction, and dramatically shortened lifespan. LMNA genes produce lamin A and lamin C inside a cell, progeria shifts production of lamin A to progerin which is a toxic shortened form of lamin A that accumulates with age and becomes exacerbated with the condition.

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Jun 13, 2019

Brain surgery using sound waves

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Doctors in London have used sound waves to successfully operate deep inside the brain.

They treated a man from Cornwall who suffered from uncontrollable tremors in his right hand.

The ultrasound machine Exablate Neuro, is produced by Insightec, a technology firm based in Israel. Their graphic explains how it works.

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Jun 13, 2019

The world’s largest set of brain scans are helping reveal the workings of the mind and how diseases ravage the brain

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

ENIGMA consortium’s probe of many brain disorders finds common structural changes in diverse kinds of epilepsy.

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Jun 13, 2019

Taiga Motors launches new electric snowmobiles with impressive specs

Posted by in category: transportation

Taiga Motors is one of the rare companies working to bring to market an all-electric snowmobile, which is actually a segment of transportation that desperately needs cleaner solutions.

The startup is unveiling today its new lineup of electric snowmobiles with some impressive specs.

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Jun 13, 2019

The illusion of time

Posted by in category: physics

Andrew Jaffe probes Carlo Rovelli’s study arguing that physics deconstructs our sense of time.

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Jun 13, 2019

Mysterious Majorana quasiparticle is now closer to being controlled for quantum computing

Posted by in categories: computing, particle physics, quantum physics

As mysterious as the Italian scientist for which it is named, the Majorana particle is one of the most compelling quests in physics.

Its fame stems from its strange properties—it is the only particle that is its own antiparticle—and from its potential to be harnessed for future quantum computing.

In recent years, a handful of groups including a team at Princeton have reported finding the Majorana in various materials, but the challenge is how to manipulate it for quantum computation.

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