KurzweilAI.net LATEST Scientific News

Latest News On the hunt for universal intelligence January 28, 2011   Source Link: PhysOrg.com A team of Spanish and Australian researchers have taken a first step towards a scientific method to measure the intelligence of a human being, an animal, a machine or an extra-terrestrial. The authors have used interactive exercises in settings with a difficulty level estimated by calculating the so-called “Kolmogorov complexity” (they measure the number of … more… Study shows map of brain connectivity changes during development January 27, 2011   Source Link: PhysOrg.com New research conducted at The Scripps Research Institute shows that the connectome (the road atlas of the brain) undergoes constant revisions as the brain of a young animal develops, with new routes forming and others dropping away in a matter of hours. Up until now, researchers had focused their work primarily on determining how new … more… Number of Internet users worldwide reaches two billion January 27, 2011   Source Link: PhysOrg.com The number of Internet users worldwide has reached two billion and the number of mobile phone subscriptions has reached five billion, according to the secretary general of the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Grow Your Own Security: Prof Breeds Bomb-Spotting Plants January 27, 2011   Source Link: Wired With the help of the Department of Defense, a biologist at Colorado State University has taught plant proteins how to detect explosives. 10 things (and 4 outrages) techies need to know about President Obama’s State of the Union Address January 27, 2011   Source Link: ZDNet Government Writer David Gewirtz suggests ten things technical professionals need to know about the President’s speech, and how his policies might affect you, your employer, and your family well into the future. The world can be powered by alternative energy, using today’s technology, in 20-40 years January 27, 2011   If someone told you there was a way you could save 2.5 million to 3 million lives a year and simultaneously halt global warming, reduce air and water pollution and develop secure, reliable energy sources – nearly all with existing technology and at costs comparable with what we spend on energy today – why wouldn’t … more… Scientists show how to erase information without using energy January 26, 2011   Source Link: PhysOrg.com   Until now, scientists have thought that the process of erasing information requires energy (heat dissipation). But a new study by physicists Joan Vaccaro from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia and Stephen Barnett from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow shows that, theoretically, information can be erased without using any energy at all. Instead, the cost … more… Plastic artificial retina is a hit with nerve cells January 26, 2011   Source Link: New Scientist Light-sensitive plastic, flexible, biocompatible organic semiconductor materials might be key to repairing damaged retinas, researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology in Milan suggest. A Time-Lapse Movie Shot Inside the Brain January 26, 2011   Source Link: Technology Review A new type of micro-endoscope developed by Stanford University researchers lets scientists watch nerve cells and blood vessels deep inside the brain of a living animal over days, weeks, or even months. Dubbed the optical needle, it is 500 to 1,000 microns in diameter. Artificial retinas help robot balance a pencil January 26, 2011   Source Link: New Scientist One Per Cent   Researchers at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, built a pencil-balancing bot by using a pair of silicon retinas that only react to sudden changes in illumination, transmitting a simple “on” or “off” response that reduces the need for complex data processing — an approach that mimics biological vision. Placing the two sensors at a right … more… Kinect used to create holographic video of Princess Leia January 26, 2011   Source Link: New Scientist One Per Cent   Michael Bove’s group at the MIT Media Lab has recreated the famous holographic projection of Princess Leia from Star Wars by hacking the camera sensor from a Kinect gesture-recognition system for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and crunching data with standard graphics chips. The frame rate for their system has also jumped a factor of 30, from … more… Solar sail unfurled in orbit January 25, 2011   NASA’s NanoSail-D spacecraft has become unstuck and has unfurled a gleaming sheet of space-age fabric 650 km above Earth, becoming the first-ever solar sail to circle our planet. NanoSail-D spent the previous month and a half stuck inside its mothership, the Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology SATellite (FASTSAT). FASTSAT was launched in November 2010 with … more… Virtual self January 25, 2011   Your avatar may be just a virtual identity, but it can also affect how you are in the real world. “In this world of new media, people spend a lot of time interacting with digital versions of one another.” — Jeremy Bailenson If you spend a lot of time online, you may even have an … more… ‘Universal’ memory aims to replace flash and DRAM January 25, 2011   Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a single “unified” device that can perform both volatile and nonvolatile memory operation, with applications that could improve computer start times and energy efficiency for Internet servers. “We’ve invented a new device that may revolutionize computer memory,” says Dr. Paul Franzon, a professor of electrical and computer … more… Neurons lose information at one bit per second January 25, 2011   Information stored in the activity patterns of cerebral cortex neurons is discarded at the surprisingly high rate of one bit per active neuron per second, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization at the University of Gottingen and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Gpttingen have found. The new results obtained by … more… Making light work of artificial muscles January 24, 2011   Source Link: PhysOrg.com   A new form of self-assembling polymer film that bends and stretches when hit by light is pointing the way to a new family of functional materials. The film was developed at RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Wako and The University of Tokyo This flexing film is the first material to have been made by coaxing … more… Beaming Rockets into Space January 24, 2011   Source Link: Astrobiology   NASA is conducting a study to examine the possibility of using beamed energy propulsion for space launches. A beamed thermal propulsion system would involve focusing microwave or laser beams on a heat exchanger aboard the rocket. The heat exchanger would transfer the radiation’s energy to the liquid propellant, most likely hydrogen, converting it into a hot gas … more… Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in 8 weeks January 24, 2011 Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first … more… New BLOG POSTS The Questionable Observer Detector January 25, 2011 by Lakshmi Sandhana   Exclusive | Kevin W. Bowyer, Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana is out to create a tool to reliably identify criminals who may be hanging out at the crime scene after the event. Their Questionable Observer Detector (QuOD) can process any available video clips of … more… Book review | Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other January 24, 2011 by R.U. Sirius In 1938, existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre wrote “Hell is other people.” Sartre may never have cobbled together his existential philosophy that viewed human individuals as utterly alone — alienated, atomized beings in a vast meaningless universe — if he had grown up playing with social robots and holding others at a discreet psychological distance … more… New EVENTS Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation and Variety: The 2011 TV Summit Dates: Feb 15, 2011 – Jan , Location: Los Angeles, California more... International Symposium on Wireless and Pervasive Computing 2011 Dates: Feb 23 – 25, 2011 Location: Hong Kong, China more... PerCom 2011 Dates: Mar 21 – 25, 2011 Location: Seattle, Washington more... 6th International Conference on Grid and Pervasive Computing Dates: May 11 – 13, 2011 Location: Oulu, Finland more... Suspended Animation Conference 2011 Dates: May 20 – 22, 2011 Location: Ft. Lauderdale, Florida more... ICAIL 2011: The Thirteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law Dates: Jun 6 – 10, 2011 Location: Pittsburgh, PA more... Pervasive 2011 Dates: Jun 12 – 15, 2011 Location: San Francisco, California more... International Conference on Mobile, Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing 2011 Dates: Oct 26 – 28, 2011 Location: Bali, Indonesia more... New VIDEOS Kinect-controlled robot Colorado State University develops artificial tissue for training Colorado State University biologist rewires plants to detect pollutants, explosives Geoffrey Beene Foundation’s “Rock Stars of Science” campaign raises funds, profiles cutting edge R&D in critical areas of medical research Keynote: Don Tapscott – Zeitgeist Europe 2010 Macrowikinomics murmuration: swarming, dynamic self-organization New books The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality author Richard Panek   Amazon | In the past few years, a handful of scientists have been racing to explain a disturbing aspect of our universe: only 4 percent of it consists of the matter that makes up you, me, our books, and every planet, star, and galaxy. The rest — 96 percent of the universe — is completely unknown. Richard … more… The Winter of Our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with Her iPhone)Pulled the Plug on Their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale author Susan Maushart   Amazon | The wise and hilarious story of a family who discovered that having fewer tools to communicate with led them to actually communicate more. When Susan Maushart first announced her intention to pull the plug on her family’s entire armory of electronic weaponry for six months — from the itsy-bitsiest iPod Shuffle to her son’s … more… The Next Decade: Where We’ve Been . . . and Where We’re Going author George Friedman   Amazon | The author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Next 100 Years now focuses his geopolitical forecasting acumen on the next decade and the imminent events and challenges that will test America and the world, specifically addressing the skills that will be required by the decade’s leaders. The next ten years will be a … more…
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