Science & TechnologyS


Battery

How Computers Learn To Listen: Scientists Develop Model To Improve Computer Language Recognition


Science Daily
Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:16 UTC
We see, hear and feel, and make sense of countless diverse, quickly changing stimuli in our environment seemingly without effort. However, doing what our brains do with ease is often an impossible task for computers.

Researchers at the Leipzig Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging in London have now developed a mathematical model which could significantly improve the automatic recognition and processing of spoken language. In the future, this kind of algorithms which imitate brain mechanisms could help machines to perceive the world around them. (PLoS Computational Biology, August 12th, 2009)
Read More...
Life Preserver

Scientists Advance Understanding Of Cell Death


Science Daily
Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:12 UTC
Medical Research Council (MRC) scientists have made an important advance in understanding the biological processes involved when cells are prompted to die. The work may help scientists to eventually develop new treatments for the many common diseases and conditions which occur when cell death goes wrong.

The research, published in the journal Molecular Cell, was carried out by a team of scientists, at the MRC Toxicology Unit at the University of Leicester and a subsequent patent application has been filed by MRC Technology, the commercial arm of the MRC.
Read More...
Radar

Wobbling earth triggers climate change

Annabel McGilvray
American Broadcasting Company
Sun, 16 Aug 2009 12:23 UTC
Image
© Source: Alister Doyle/ReutersChanges in the earth's axis tilt helped bring the planet out of prehistoric ice ages, say researchers
Regular wobbles in the earth's tilt were responsible for the global warming episodes that interspersed prehistoric ice ages, according to new evidence.

The finding is the result of research led by Dr Russell Drysdale of the University of Newcastle that has been able to accurately date the end of the penultimate ice age for the first time.

The new dates, which appear in the today's edition of Science, show the end of the second last ice age occurring 141,000 years ago, thousands of years earlier than previously thought.
Read More...
Telescope

Planetary smashup leaves trail of frozen lava

Rachel Courtland
New Scientist
Sat, 15 Aug 2009 22:44 UTC
A vast mess of frozen lava and vaporised rock has been found orbiting a nearby star, evidence of a cataclysmic collision between planet-like bodies outside our solar system. Such collisions are thought to have created Earth's moon and left other scars in the solar system, but it's not yet clear how common they are around other stars.

Read More...
Camera

Mars' Victoria Crater Seen from New Angle


SPACE.com
Sat, 15 Aug 2009 22:34 UTC
Image
© NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
An image of the Victoria Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The image was captured at more of a sideways angle than earlier images of this crater. This view is similar to what would be observed by looking out the window of an airplane flying over Mars. The camera pointing was 22 degrees east of straight down (east is at the top of the image).

The most interesting features of the crater are in its steep walls, which are difficult to see from straight overhead. A bright band near the top of the crater wall is especially prominent in this view. The image's colors have been enhanced to make subtle differences more visible.

Earlier HiRISE images of the Victoria Crater supported further exploration by NASA's Opportunity rover and contributed to joint scientific studies. Opportunity explored the rim and interior of this 800-meter-wide (half-mile-wide) crater from September 2006 through August 2008. The rover's on-site investigations indicated that the bright band near the top of the crater wall was formed by diagenesis (chemical and physical changes in sediments after they were deposited). The bright band separates bedrock from the material displaced by the impact that dug the crater.
Read More...
Laptop

RFID tags get an intelligence upgrade

Kurt Kleiner
New Scientist
Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:16 UTC
You might think being able to pay in shops with a wave of your bank card or open doors with your security pass is smart. But the RFID tags that make that possible are due for an intelligence upgrade.

Today's RFID tags can only broadcast fixed data back to a reader device, whether that's details of your passport or of an endangered bird. Researchers are now working to add brains to the tags in the form of microcomputers, opening the way for much smarter applications.

Because RFID tags lack batteries and scavenge all their power from the radio transmissions from their readers, limited power makes computation a challenge. But that also has the advantage of making so-called computational RFID tags - CRFIDs - cheap, robust and long-lasting.
Read More...
Saturn

Second backwards planet found, a day after the first

Lisa Grossman
New Scientist
Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:32 UTC
Image
© Leiden ObservatoryThe planet HAT-P-7b, which is about 1.4 times as wide as Jupiter and 1.8 times as massive, seems to orbit its star in the opposite direction to the star's spin.
Just a day after the announcement of the first extrasolar planet found orbiting its star backwards, two other teams announced the discovery of a second one.

"It is funny that the two good cases for really misaligned orbits, even retrograde orbits, have come at around the same time," says Joshua Winn of MIT, lead author of one of the new papers.

Both Winn's team and another, led by Norio Narita at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, used the Japanese Subaru telescope to observe planet HAT-P-7b, a previously known planet about 1000 light years from Earth that was recently observed by NASA's new planet-hunting satellite Kepler.

Both teams found that the planet's orbit is wildly tilted with respect to its star's equator.
Read More...
Telescope

Saturn's Equinox Arrives!


Cassini Imaging
Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:59 UTC
Image
© Ciclops - CassiniThis raw, unprocessed image of Saturn's rings was taken by Cassini at equinox on Aug. 10, 2009.

The 15-year wait is over! At 00:15 Universal Coordinated Time on August 11, the moment of equinox arrived at Saturn, and Cassini was on hand to witness this spectacle of sunlight and shadow. A series of raw, unprocessed images has just beamed back from the spacecraft, and a few are posted here.
Read More...
Magnify

The Human Brain Innately Separates Living And Non-living Objects For Processing


Science Daily
Sat, 15 Aug 2009 04:44 UTC
brain model
© unknownEven in people who have been blind since birth the brain still separates the concepts of living and non-living objects, new research shows.

For unknown reasons, the human brain distinctly separates the handling of images of living things from images of non-living things, processing each image type in a different area of the brain. For years, many scientists have assumed the brain segregated visual information in this manner to optimize processing the images themselves, but new research shows that even in people who have been blind since birth the brain still separates the concepts of living and non-living objects.

The research, published in the Cell Press journal Neuron, implies that the brain categorizes objects based on the different types of subsequent consideration they demand - such as whether an object is edible, or is a landmark on the way home, or is a predator to run from. They are not categorized entirely by their appearance.

"If both sighted people and people with blindness process the same ideas in the same parts of the brain, then it follows that visual experience is not necessary in order for those aspects of brain organization to develop," says Bradford Mahon, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester, and lead author of the study. "We think this means significant parts of the brain are innately structured around a few domains of knowledge that were critical in humans' evolutionary history."
Read More...
Compass

Many people get lost every time they hit the road

Gwendolyn Richards
The Calgary Herald
Sat, 15 Aug 2009 04:15 UTC
neuroscientist Giuseppe Iaria
© Grant Black/Calgary HeraldUniversity of Calgary neuroscientist Giuseppe Iaria is studying an orientation disorder in which sufferers are unable to mentally map out their surroundings, even in familiar places.
Straight streets are the only way for Sharon Roseman to travel.

Any curve in the road--or even a hallway that bends--is enough to disorient the 62-year-old to the point where she becomes hopelessly lost.

For Roseman, that disorientation makes everything appear to shift 90 degrees--so west becomes north--leaving her confused and unable to find her way back to her home or office.

"My life is mapped out on straight streets," Roseman said.

Her condition, known as developmental topographical disorientation, was discovered last year by University of Calgary neuroscientist Giuseppe Iaria, who is continuing to study the disorder in the hope of creating a treatment.

Essentially, those suffering from the condition are unable to orient themselves, even in their own homes; once something happens to momentarily interrupt their sense of where they are, they're completely lost.
Read More...