http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=16358 .. A previous study had looked at using fMRI scans of parts of the brain linked to shape identification to correctly guess the a viewed image from a series of stock images. Jack Gallant, a University of California, Berkeley neuroscientist who led the current effort, describes this previous work as similar to “the magician’s [...]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7543089.stm
BBC News – Nasa’s Kepler planet-hunter detects five worlds. Nasa’s Kepler Space Telescope has detected its first five exoplanets, or planets beyond our Solar System.
DailyTech – Nanoparticle Combination Painkiller to Save Lives at Home and on the Battlefield. Morphine + special new drug + polymer nanoparticles = a lifesaver. With injury, chronic or sudden, comes pain. The severity of pain can cause a variety of detrimental effects and dangers. One of the most common pain-relievers, used both on battlefields [...]
DailyTech – Mission Success: NASA Announces “Significant” Amount of Moon Water Discovered. The Shepherding Rocket then flew through the over 350 tons of excavated material, relaying readings back to Earth, before making its own crash-landing on the Lunar surface. After a month of analysis, NASA announced the results at a triumphant press conference at NASA’s [...]
DailyTech – Commercial Plasma Rocket Reaches 200 KW, an Important Milestone . Developed by former astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz, the engine could change a lot about how we interact with space. The new rocket, driven by plasma, is able to use cheaper fuels like neon, argon, or hydrogen, while providing finer control over thrust and [...]
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Engineering Earth ‘is feasible’. A UK Royal Society study has concluded that many engineering proposals to reduce the impact of climate change are “technically possible”. Such approaches could be effective, the authors said in their report. But they also stressed that the potential of geo-engineering should not divert [...]
DailyTech – International Space Updates, September 2009. Japanese companies Mitsubishi and IHI have agreed to join a $21 billion project that aims to create a solar-power generator in space that can send electricity back to Earth. “It sounds like a science-fiction cartoon, but solar power generation in space may be a significant alternative energy source [...]
DailyTech – Researchers Create World’s Smallest Semiconductor Laser. The new laser breakthrough may one day usher in a new era in computing power by providing CPU makers with the ability to use light rather than electronic circuitry in processors. The key breakthrough was a method that the researchers devised to squeeze the light into a [...]
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | We’re all mutants, say scientists. Each of us has at least 100 new mutations in our DNA, according to research published in the journal Current Biology. Scientists have been trying to get an accurate estimate of the mutation rate for over 70 years. However, only now has it [...]
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Galaxy’s ‘cannibalism’ revealed. The vast Andromeda galaxy appears to have expanded by digesting stars from other galaxies, research has shown. When an international team of scientists mapped Andromeda, they discovered stars that they said were “remnants of dwarf galaxies”.
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Single molecule’s stunning image. The detailed chemical structure of a single molecule has been imaged for the first time, say researchers. The physical shape of single carbon nanotubes has been outlined before, using similar techniques – but the new method even shows up chemical bonds. Understanding structure on [...]
Technology Review: The Smallest Laser Ever Made. Researchers have demonstrated the smallest laser ever, consisting of a nanoparticle just 44 nanometers across. The device is dubbed a “spaser” because it generates a form of radiation called surface plasmons. The technique allows light to be confined in very small spaces, and some physicists believe that spasers [...]
BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | A step closer to ‘synthetic life’. In what has been described as a step towards the creation of a synthetic cell, scientists have created a new “engineered” strain of bacteria. A team successfully transferred the genome of one type of bacteria into a yeast cell, modified it, and [...]
DailyTech – Bionanoelectronic Devices Could Speed Up Electronics, Processing. Mixing living cells with microscopic electronics may yield a new breed of processing power. Though computer engineers and scientists have been repeatedly breaking speed barriers with new supercomputers, they still pale in comparison to the information processing power of complex biological systems. IBM’s Roadrunner supercomputer, presently [...]
