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Exploring the frontiers of neuromodulation, neurostimulation, and neural interfaces.

Neuromodulation is defined as “the alteration of nerve activity through targeted delivery of a stimulus, such as electrical stimulation or chemical agents, to specific neurological sites in the body”. It is carried out to normalize – or modulate – nervous tissue function.

Neuromodulation is an evolving therapy that can involve a range of electromagnetic stimuli such as a magnetic field, an electric current, or a drug instilled directly in the sub-dural space (i.e. intra-thecal drug delivery).

Emerging applications involve targeted introduction of genes or gene regulators and light (optogenetics), but most clinical experience has been with electrical stimulation.

Existing and emerging neuromodulation treatments also include application in medication-resistant epilepsy, chronic head pain conditions, and functional therapy ranging from bladder and bowel or respiratory control, to improvement of sensory deficits, such as hearing and vision.

Continue reading “Dr. Amilcar dos Santos MD — Exploring Far Frontiers of Neural, Spinal, and Brain-Computer Interfaces” | >

We all have images in our mind of rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station hurtling astronauts into space and satellites into orbit.

But those launches may be a thing of the past as a new generation of drones that can do the same job cheaper, safer and better steps into play.

Alabama-Based Aevum unveiled its Ravn X Autonomous Launch Vehicle Wednesday that it says is the world’s largest unmanned aircraft system.

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From ultra high speed levitating trains to lifesaving MRI machines, superconductors are key to some of the world’s most cutting edge technology. But they require extremely low temperatures to work and have remained too expensive for everyday use. Now that could be about to change. With superconductors that work at room temperature, our technological ability is posed to make a giant leap forward.

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WASHINGTON — Blue Origin has achieved a new milestone in the development of the engine that will power the lunar lander it seeks to provide for NASA’s Artemis program.

The company announced Dec. 4 that it started a fourth series of hotfire tests of the thrust chamber for the BE-7 engine. That thrust chamber was fired for 20 seconds on a test stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where the company did previous tests of the engine.

“This thrust chamber test measured the ability to extract energy out of the hydrogen- and oxygen-cooled combustor segments that power the engine’s turbopumps, the key to achieving high engine performance,” said John Vilja, senior vice president of engines at Blue Origin, in a company statement.

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Elon Musk’s Boring Company has released the first images teasing the first passenger station of the Las Vegas Loop ahead of its launch.

A Boring Company Loop system consists of tunnels in which Tesla autonomous electric vehicles travel at high speeds between stations to transport people within a city.

The first system is being deployed at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCVA), which is paying $50 million for the system, but we recently learned that the Boring Company plans to connect the convention center’s Loop to casinos on the strip in order to eventually create a city-wide Loop in Las Vegas.

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It’s my firm belief that the AI revolution we’ve all been so excited about simply has not happened yet. In the next two to three years however, as the hardware that enables “real” AI power makes its way into more and more hands, it will happen. As far as predicting the change and disruption that will come from widespread access to the upper echelons of powerful ML and AI — there are few ways to make confident predictions, but that is exactly the point!

Much like cellphones put so much power in the hands of regular people everywhere, with no barriers to entry either technical or financial (for the most part), so will the coming wave of software-defined hardware that is flexible, customizable and future-proof. The possibilities are truly endless, and it will mark an important turning point in technology. The ripple effects of AI democratization and commoditization will not stop with just technology companies, and so even more fields stand to be blown open as advanced, high-powered AI becomes accessible and affordable.

Much of the hype around AI — all the disruption it was supposed to bring and the leaps it was supposed to fuel — will begin in earnest in the next few years. The technology that will power it is being built as we speak or soon to be in the hands of the many people in the many industries who will use their newfound access as a springboard to some truly amazing advances. We’re especially excited to be a part of this future, and look forward to all the progress it will bring.

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A team of scientists has now found a way to create a clear image from scattered infrared light emitted from a laser, even after it’s passed through a thick layer of bone.

‘Our microscope allows us to investigate fine internal structures deep within living tissues that cannot be resolved by any other means,’ said physicists Seokchan Yoon and Hojun Lee from Korea University.

Seeing what the heck is going on inside of us is useful for many aspects of modern medicine. But how to do this without slicing and dicing through barriers like flesh and bone to observe living intact tissues, like our brains, is a tricky thing to do.

Thick, inconsistent structures like bone will scatter light unpredictably, making it difficult to figure out what’s going on behind them. And the deeper you wish to see, the more scattered light obscures fine and fragile biological structure.

There are plenty of options for researchers who are keen to watch living tissues do their thing, using clever optical tricks to turn scattered photons moving at certain frequencies into an image. But by risking tissue damage or operating only at shallow depths, they all have drawbacks.

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Astronomers have mapped about a million previously undiscovered galaxies beyond the Milky Way, in the most detailed survey of the southern sky ever carried out using radio waves.

The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (or RACS) has placed the CSIRO’s Australian SKA Pathfinder radio telescope (ASKAP) firmly on the international astronomy map.

While past surveys have taken years to complete, ASKAP’s RACS survey was conducted in less than two weeks — smashing previous records for speed. Data gathered have produced images five times more sensitive and twice as detailed as previous ones.

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A congressional investigation into the 2016 U.S. presidential election has unearthed evidence that major banks processed $2 trillion in transactions despite suspecting they were connected to illegal activity.

So-called suspicious activity reports, filed by banks with government regulators, indicate the banks were concerned the transactions would help suspected terrorists, drug dealers, corrupt foreign officials and other bad actors move trillions of dollars around the world, as well as perpetuate investment frauds. The private reports, which covered 1999 through 2017, were obtained by BuzzFeed News and shared with the nonprofit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The two organizations published their investigations into the documents over the weekend, but did not publish the complete reports. Both also declined to make public most of the information contained in the reports, including the customers who the banks suspected of illegal activity.

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Scientists have recovered DNA from a well-preserved horned lark found in Siberian permafrost. The results can contribute to explaining the evolution of sub species, as well as how the mammoth steppe transformed into tundra, forest and steppe biomes at the end of the last Ice Age.

In 2018, a well-preserved frozen bird was found in the ground in the Belaya Gora area of north-eastern Siberia. Researchers at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, a new research center at Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History, haves studied the bird and the results are now published in the scientific journal Communications Biology. The analyses reveals that the bird is a 46,000-year-old female horned lark.

“Not only can we identify the bird as a horned lark. The genetic analysis also suggests that the bird belonged to a population that was a joint ancestor of two sub species of horned lark living today, one in Siberia, and one in the steppe in Mongolia. This helps us understand how the diversity of sub species evolves,” says Nicolas Dussex, researcher at the Department of Zoology at Stockholm University.

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