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AI Can Now Detect Cancer

AI cancer detection may be able to provide doctors the ability to recognize and treat the disease before it spreads.

It’s no secret that artificial intelligence (AI) has been rapidly developing over the past few years.

With Siri and Amazon Alexa, self-driving cars, targeted advertisements, chatbots, and automated customer service representatives, the infiltration of AI into our daily lives is anything but subtle.

Researchers create ‘intelligent’ interaction between light and material

A collaboration between McMaster and Harvard researchers has generated a new platform in which light beams communicate with one another through solid matter, establishing the foundation to explore a new form of computing.

Their work is described in a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Kalaichelvi Saravanamuttu, an associate professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at McMaster, explains that the technology brings together a form of hyrdrogel developed by the Harvard team with manipulation and measurement techniques performed in her lab, which specializes in the that respond to light.

FAA to Begin Certification Process for Civilian, Delivery Drones

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Government regulators plan to review drone designs in the same way they review other aircraft, a major step toward allowing routine drone deliveries and other flights over congested cities.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Feb. 3 announced it’s seeking comment from the public and the drone industry on what criteria should be used for determining whether these novel new devices are safe.

Robot bartender serves up drinks in Japanese pub

TOKYO – Japan’s first robot bartender has begun serving up drinks in a Tokyo pub in a test that could usher in a wave of automation in restaurants and shops struggling to hire staff in an aging society.

The repurposed industrial robot serves drinks in is own corner of a Japanese pub operated by restaurant chain Yoronotaki. An attached tablet computer face smiles as it chats about the weather while preparing orders.

The robot, made by the company QBIT Robotics, can pour a beer in 40 seconds and mix a cocktail in a minute. It uses four cameras to monitors customers to analyze their expressions with artificial intelligence (AI) software.

Lasers etch a ‘perfect’ solar energy absorber

The University of Rochester research lab that recently used lasers to create unsinkable metallic structures has now demonstrated how the same technology could be used to create highly efficient solar power generators.

In a paper in Light: Science & Applications, the lab of Chunlei Guo, professor of optics also affiliated with Physics and the Material Sciences Program, describes using powerful femto-second pulses to etch with nanoscale structures that selectively absorb light only at the solar wavelengths, but not elsewhere.

A regular surface is shiny and highly reflective. Years ago, the Guo lab developed a black metal technology that turned shiny metals pitch black. “But to make a perfect solar absorber,” Guo says, “We need more than a black metal and the result is this selective absorber.”

Ocean-Studying Satellite to Launch from Vandenberg AFB Gets Familiar Name

Spacecraft’s new moniker honors NASA’s retired Earth Science Division leader Michael Freilich.

An artist’s concept depicts the Sentinel-6A satellite, which NASA and several partners have renamed in honor of noted earth scientist Michael Freilich, who retired from the space agency but oversaw many missions from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich is set to launch this fall from the Central Coast. (NASA illustration)