Science & TechnologyS


Powertool

Reverse-Engineering of Human Brain Likely by 2020

Priya Ganapati
Gizmodo
Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:20 UTC
brain scan
© IBMA graphic overlay shows neural connections on a scan of IBM researcher Dharmendra Modha's brain
Reverse-engineering the human brain so we can simulate it using computers may be only a decade away, says Ray Kurzweil, artificial intelligence expert and author of the best-selling book The Singularity is Near.

It would be the first step toward creating machines that are more powerful than the human brain. These supercomputers could be networked into a cloud computing architecture to amplify their processing capabilities. Meanwhile, algorithms that power them could get more intelligent. Together these could create the ultimate machine that can help us handle the challenges of the future, says Kurzweil.

This point where machines surpass human intelligence has been called the "singularity." It's a term that Kurzweil helped popularize through his book.
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Syringe

Saving the Brain's White Matter With Mutated Mice


Science Daily
Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:00 UTC
Vanishing White Matter (VWM) disease is a devastating condition that involves the destruction of brain myelin due to a mutation in a central factor. To understand the disease and test potential treatments that could apply to other disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, Prof. Orna Elroy-Stein of Tel Aviv University's Department of Cell Research and Immunology is leading a scientific breakthrough by developing laboratory mice which carry the VWM mutation -- an important new tool.

The mice harbor a mutation of the eIF2B enzyme, which regulates protein synthesis in every cell throughout the body. The key to the new development, says Prof. Elroy-Stein, was the use of genetically-engineered embryonic stem cells to introduce the mutation.

The brain is made up of two components: grey matter, or nerves, and white matter, or glial cells which support the nerves and produce myelin, which wraps around and protects nerve extensions. Recently described in the journal Brain, the creation of these mutated mice allows for new research on VWM diseases, which trigger loss of myelin in the brain, leading to paralysis and possible death.
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Sun

Extended solar minimum linked to changes in Sun's conveyor belt

Mausumi Dikpati, Peter Gilman, Giuliana de Toma, & Roger Ulrich
University Corporation for Atmoshperic Research
Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:26 UTC
Image
© UCAR
Boulder - A new analysis of the unusually long solar cycle that ended in 2008 suggests that one reason for the long cycle could be a stretching of the Sun's conveyor belt, a current of plasma that circulates between the Sun's equator and its poles. The results should help scientists better understand the factors controlling the timing of solar cycles and could lead to better predictions.

The study was conducted by Mausumi Dikpati, Peter Gilman, and Giuliana de Toma, all scientists in the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and by Roger Ulrich at the University of California, Los Angeles. It appeared on July 30 in Geophysical Research Letters. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor, and by NASA's Living with a Star Program.

The Sun goes through cycles lasting approximately 11 years that include phases with increased magnetic activity, more sunspots, and more solar flares, than phases with less activity. The level of activity on the Sun can affect navigation and communications systems on Earth. Puzzlingly, solar cycle 23, the one that ended in 2008, lasted longer than previous cycles, with a prolonged phase of low activity that scientists had difficulty explaining.
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Laptop

Passwords Need at Least 12 Characters to Be Safe, Study Finds

Stuart Fox
TechNewsDaily
Tue, 17 Aug 2010 08:22 UTC
Thanks to rapid increases in computing power, your confidential information is probably not safe unless you use a 12-digit randomized password, experts say.

Recent research from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) indicates that to defeat a new generation of encryption cracking software, passwords need a length of at least 12 randomized characters consisting of letters, numbers and symbols. Anything else - a keyword, a birthday or a pattern of symbols - makes you an easy mark.
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Binoculars

Chain of Human Pylons Planned for Iceland

Matthew Moore
The Telegraph
Tue, 17 Aug 2010 03:49 UTC
Image
© Choi + ShineHuman pylons
A proposal to install a chain of human-shaped pylons across Iceland - transforming an ugly utility into something of remarkable beauty - has won a leading architecture award.

The "Land of Giants" plan would have seen dozens of metallic figures erected across the island's volcanic landscape.

Each humanoid electricity pylon could be twisted into a different posture, allowing the structures to project moods fitting with their surroundings.

Choi + Shine, the US architecture practice behind the proposal, said that the humanoid towers would be "powerful, solemn and variable", and represent a modern take on the ancient Easter Island statues.

According the proposals submitted to an Icelandic energy company, the pylons would stand around 150ft tall and be constructed from steel, glass and concrete.
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War Whore

Prototype semi-hovership delivered to Commandos

Lewis Page
The Register
Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:16 UTC
Aluminium air-riding catamarans for Royal Marines

Blighty's elite Royal Marine Commandos have just taken delivery of a prototype semi-aircushion hover assault craft, intended to speed up the amphibious landings of the future.

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Bulb

New Battery for Cheap Electric Vehicles

Kevin Bullis
TechnologyReview.com
Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:53 UTC
Image
© Yet-Ming ChiangBattery pioneer: Yet-Ming Chiang has a new battery design that could make electric vehicles much cheaper.
A new startup company will attempt to solve the biggest roadblock facing electric vehicles today--the cost of their batteries.

The new company, called 24M, has been spun out of the advanced battery company A123 Systems. It will develop a novel type of battery based on research conducted by Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor of materials science at MIT and founder of A123 Systems. He says the battery design has the potential to cut those costs by 85 percent.

The battery pack alone in many electric cars can cost well over $10,000. Cutting this figure could make electric vehicles competitive with gasoline-fueled cars.
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Robot

Researchers Create Nanoscale Particles For Ultrasound Applications

Levi Beckerson
DailyTech
Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:33 UTC
Nanoparticle could peek inside cells or ferret out chemicals using sound waves.

Ultrasonics have many uses in an array of industries. In medicine, ultrasound is used to peek at babies to measure their development, or to detect and sometimes destroy various types of crystalline "stones" in organs. In manufacturing, ultrasonics can pinpoint microscopic stress fractures that may introduce flaws or weaknesses to a structure, or accurately measure surface and sub-surface topographies.

Various ultrasound machine refinements have come across the DailyTech desks in the past, but a new type of device may herald a new approach to ultrasonic devices as well as dramatically expand their uses. Researchers at the University of Nottingham have created not a machine, but nanoscale particles capable of acting as transducers. Along with the amazingly small size of the multilayer particle, the simplicity of the system is also quite surprising.
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Info

Physicists Say Cosmic Rays Affect the Length of Day


Physics Central
Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:15 UTC
Cosmic Rays
© Physics Central
If your Monday is dragging on too long, you might try blaming it on cosmic rays. In a paper published Friday by the journal Geophysical Research Letters, physicists from Paris and Moscow propose that the high energy protons and nuclei might have a surprising influence on Earth's length of day. The team claims that a previously noticed relationship between fluctuations in the length of day and the 11-year solar-cycle are actually caused by cosmic rays.

One of the team members, Vincent Courtillot of the Institute of Geophysics of Paris, says they examined the length of day -- as defined by the speed of the earth's rotation in a reference frame fixed with respect to the stars -- using a series of daily values over a 40 year period. They claim that up to 30-percent of changes could be directly related to the 11-year sunspot cycle.

Of course, 30-percent of that change only amounts to a few tenths of a millisecond, so you'd never actually notice it, but what's more compelling (read 'very highly controversial') is the potential for cosmic-rays to have such a profound effect.

Courtillot and his colleagues have been among those championing a radical theory that cosmic rays can impact the formation of clouds and in turn, play a major part in climate changes. But how could cosmic rays possibly change the speed of our planet's rotation?
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HAL9000

Hawking's big-bang team harness SGI super power

Timothy Prickett Morgan
The Register
Fri, 13 Aug 2010 03:46 UTC
A precise science demands big hardware

Cambridge University cosmologists working with physicist Stephen Hawking are getting their first real taste of supercomputing power as they upgrade to Silicon Graphics' Altix UV parallel supers.

The UK Computational Cosmology Consortium, which was established in 1997 by Hawking to probe the structure of the universe in the immediate wake of the hot Big Bang, now has over 30 researchers from ten different universities around the country.

COSMOS, as the consortium and its systems are both known, has been an SGI customer since day one, starting out with a 32-processor Origin 2000 parallel system back in 1997 when that was still pretty cool iron.
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