We’ve always had a soft spot for supernumerary robotic limbs here at The Verge, but this latest example of the genre is one of the most impressive we’ve seen to date. Designed by researchers at the Université de Sherbrooke in Canada, it’s a hydraulic arm that sits on the wearer’s hip and uses a three-fingered manipulator to carry out a range of tasks.
Someday, we might be able to carry around tiny, AI brains that can function without supercomputers, the internet or the cloud. Researchers from MIT say their new “brain-on-a-chip” design gets us one step closer to that future. A group of engineers put tens of thousands of artificial brain synapses, known as memristors, on a single chip that’s smaller than a piece of confetti.
In a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, the researchers explain how their brain-inspired chip was able to remember and recreate a gray-scale image of Captain America’s shield and reliably alter an image of MIT’s Killian Court by sharpening and blurring it. Those tests may seem minor, but the team believes the chip design could advance the development of small, portable AI devices and carry out complex computational tasks that today only supercomputers are capable of.
“So far, artificial synapse networks exist as software. We’re trying to build real neural network hardware for portable artificial intelligence systems,” says Jeehwan Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “Imagine connecting a neuromorphic device to a camera on your car, and having it recognize lights and objects and make a decision immediately, without having to connect to the internet.”
Lipitoids, which self-assemble with DNA and RNA, can serve as cellular delivery systems for antiviral therapies that could prevent COVID-19 and other coronavirus infections. Credit: Illustration courtesy of R.N. Zuckermann.
Over the years I have been covering electric vehicles, I’ve seen several companies attempt to add value to EVs by using swappable battery packs.
The idea is that if charging takes longer than refueling a tank of gas, we could just swap a battery pack for a fully charged one.
A startup called Better Place built its entire business model around it and went bankrupt.
Mentions aging!
Obesity affects more than 40 percent of adults in the United States and 13 percent of the global population. With obesity comes a variety of other interconnected diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and fatty liver disease, which makes the disease one of the most difficult—and most crucial—to treat.
“Obesity is the biggest health problem in the United States. But, it is hard for people to lose weight and keep it off; being on a diet can be so difficult. So, a pharmacological approach, or a drug, could help out and would be beneficial for all of society,” said Webster Santos, professor of chemistry and the Cliff and Agnes Lilly Faculty Fellow of Drug Discovery in the College of Science at Virginia Tech.
Santos and his colleagues have recently identified a small mitochondrial uncoupler, named BAM15, that decreases the body fat mass of mice without affecting food intake and muscle mass or increasing body temperature. Additionally, the molecule decreases insulin resistance and has beneficial effects on oxidative stress and inflammation.
Persistently engaging in negative thinking patterns may raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, finds a new UCL-led study.
In the study of people aged over 55, published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, researchers found ‘repetitive negative thinking’ (RNT) is linked to subsequent cognitive decline as well as the deposition of harmful brain proteins linked to Alzheimer’s.
The researchers say RNT should now be further investigated as a potential risk factor for dementia, and psychological tools, such as mindfulness or meditation, should be studied to see if these could reduce dementia risk.
Warped Structure
When scientists say the universe is flat, it doesn’t necessarily mean it resembles an infinitely-expanding sheet of paper. More study, for instance, is needed to determine whether the universe could be bent into a torus — a donut-like shape still considered “flat” by cosmological models.
“This result shows the power of galaxy surveys to pin down the amount of dark energy and how it evolved over the last billion years,” Portsmouth cosmologist Seshadri Nadathur said in a press release. “We’re making really precise measurements now and the data is going to get even better with new surveys coming online very soon.”
The asteroid is estimated to be 1,100 ft. in diameter, while the Empire State Building stands at approximately 1,400 ft. tall.
Posted in health
Has glucose monitor: 3.
With a new Always-On Retina display, Apple Watch Series 5 is always there for you. To monitor your health, help you stay fit, and keep you connected.
SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk says that after accomplishing its first human launch, the company’s primary focus going forward will be developing Starship, its next-generation spacecraft. According to an internal email seen by CNBC, Musk said that Starship is job one for the company, with the exception of ensuring that everything goes well with the forthcoming return of the Crew Dragon capsule from the International Space Station, which will be carrying NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on their homeward bound trip.
Starship has been in development at a SpaceX production and testing site in Boca Chica, Texas, since 2019, and was also originally being developed by a second team in parallel in Florida. SpaceX combined the efforts and focused prototype builds in Texas late last year and has been building a number of Starship prototypes using a model of rapid iteration.
The spacecraft is designed to be a fully reusable vehicle that can support both crew and cargo configurations that can make trips to both Earth orbit and deep space destinations including the moon and Mars when paired with the forthcoming SpaceX Super Heavy rocket booster. SpaceX eventually wants to replace both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy with Starship, which should reduce costs by unifying its production lines and offering full reusability.
