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Apr 11, 2019

Brain scans may reveal concussion damage in living athletes

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Researchers may be closing in on a way to check athletes while they’re alive for signs of a degenerative brain disease that’s been linked to frequent head blows. Experimental scans found higher levels of an abnormal protein tied to the disease in a study of former National Football League players who were having mood and thinking problems.

It’s the first time a major study has tested these scans for detecting chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which is only diagnosed now after death, with brain autopsies.

Doctors are searching for a way to tell when players, veterans or others with concussions or other head injuries are at risk for permanent damage. It’s too soon to know if the scans will enable that — so far they only show that these athletes are different as a group; they can’t be used to say a particular player does or does not have CTE.

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Apr 11, 2019

Vaak’s AI theft-detection system is already 81% accurate

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, security

Already deployed in over 50 stores around Japan, the VaakEye system constantly monitors security camera footage, detects suspicious activities and alerts staff, who can instantly review the footage and act on it. And the company is getting ready to launch Amazon-style auto-checkout as well.


Apr 11, 2019

Building a Higgs boson factory: China’s race to the frontier of physics

Posted by in category: particle physics

While Wang’s team was the first in the world to unveil a detailed concept design for an LHC successor, there are three other competing proposals – one in Japan and two from CERN.


One team in Beijing is leading the charge to create the next generation of giant particle colliders to unlock the mysteries of the fundamental forces of the universe.

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Apr 11, 2019

Nuclear fusion breakthrough breathes life into the overlooked Z-pinch approach

Posted by in categories: innovation, nuclear energy

Nuclear fusion holds untold potential as a source of power, but to recreate the colliding atomic nuclei taking place inside the Sun and generate inexhaustible amounts of clean energy scientists will need to achieve remarkable things. Tokamak reactors and fusion stellarators are a couple of the experimental devices used in pursuit of these lofty goals, but scientists at the University of Washington (UW) are taking a far less-frequented route known as a Z-pinch, with the early signs pointing to a cheaper and more efficient path forward.

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Apr 11, 2019

A New Treatment for Alzheimer’s? It Starts With Lifestyle

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, information science, neuroscience

Armed with big data, researchers turn to customized lifestyle changes to fight the disease.

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Apr 11, 2019

Fancy a gelato delivered to your door? Google launches world-first commercial drone business

Posted by in categories: business, drones, habitats

Google’s parent company has launched a world-first commercial air delivery business in Canberra’s north, delivering gelato and golfing equipment by drone directly to homes.

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Apr 10, 2019

A Regulatory Framework for the Internet

Posted by in category: internet

Regulators need to stop blindly regulating “the Internet” and instead understand that every part of the Internet stack is different, and only one part is suffering from market failure.

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Apr 10, 2019

You can now buy a bean-bag onesie so you can stay seated wherever you go

Posted by in category: futurism

O, o.


The green onesie has a fluffy bean-bag chair attached at the rear so you can sit almost anywhere. It’s currently available on ThinkGeek for $89.99.

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Apr 10, 2019

Water that never freezes

Posted by in category: materials

O.o.


Can water reach minus 263 degrees Celsius without turning into ice? Yes it can, say researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, if it is confined in nanometre-scale lipid channels.

Making ice cubes is a simple process: you take a plastic ice-cube tray like you’d find in most households, fill it with water and put it in the freezer. Before long, the water crystallises and turns to ice.

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Apr 10, 2019

Radical Fecal Transplant Therapy in Kids Has Reduced Their Autism Severity

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Transforming the microbial environment in the guts of children diagnosed with autism could significantly ease the severity of their condition’s signature traits, according to newly published research.

A study on the effects of a form of faecal transplant therapy in children on the autism spectrum found participants not only experienced fewer gut problems, but continued to show ongoing improvements in autism symptoms two years after the procedure.

Arizona State University researchers had already discovered a dose of healthy gut microflora caused characteristics associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to ease or vanish for at least a couple of months after treatment ended.

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