pseudotensor - Slashdot User

Human Sperm Produced In the Laboratory 368

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @02:20PM from the that's-not-starting-from-scratch dept.

duh P3rf3ss3r writes "The BBC is carrying a report from a team of researchers at Newcastle University who claim to have developed a the first 'artificial' human sperm from stem cells. The research, reported in the journal Stem Cells and Development, involved selecting meristematic germ cells from a human embryonic stem cell culture and inducing meiosis, thus producing a haploid gamete. The authors claim that the resulting sperm are fully formed, mature, human sperm cells but the announcement has been greeted with mixed reaction from colleagues who claim the procedure is ethically questionable and that the gametes produced are of inferior levels of maturation."

Comment In charge of the obvious (Score 0, Troll) 398

by pseudotensor on Saturday July 04, 2009 @04:59PM (#28582549) Attached to: Hawking Says Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution

Who put Hawking in charge of the obvious?

Java Program Uses Neural Networks To Monitor Games 100

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday May 14, 2009 @02:13AM from the automating-the-automation dept.

tr0p writes "Java developers have used the open source Neuroph neural network framework to monitor video game players while they play and then provide helpful situational awareness, such as audio queues when a power-up is ready or on-the-fly macros for combo attacks. The developers have published an article describing many of the technical details of their implementation. 'There are two different types of neural networks used by DotA AutoScript. The first type is a simple binary image classifier. It uses Neuroph's "Multi-Layer Perceptron" class to model a neural network with an input neurons layer, one hidden neurons layer, and an output neurons layer. Exposing an image to the input layer neurons causes the output layer neurons to produce the probability of a match for each of the images it has been trained to identify; one trained image per output neuron.'"

Comment Noise allows brain to impress upon stimulus (Score 1) 743

by pseudotensor on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @07:52PM (#27159587) Attached to: Young People Prefer "Sizzle Sounds" of MP3 Format

I think the guy's conclusion is biased and uninsightful. Clearly this is a go-get-it type of research, not testing hypothesis but performing experiments and then digging or picking favorite conclusions. More likely is the background noise allows the brain to believe there is more essence to the song than there really is. It's similar with some video games and vision -- the latest graphics can actually appear worse because our internal impression was filling in the essence within the low resolution frames. Clearly there is an element of getting used to things and it would be hard to go to a low res game or recording that you weren't at all used to. But moving forward into perfect clarity always leaves the human less impressed because it dissolves the human input to the stimulus.

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