67419019
submission
concertina226 writes:
Computer scientists at the University of Bristol have developed invisible 3D object holograms in mid-air that can be felt and seen using ultrasound, which could one day be used to help surgeons "feel a disease" in a CT scan.
The UltraHaptics technology works by pulsing high-frequency sound waves from tiny speakers that exert pressure on a person's hand to create the feel of haptic holograms, i.e. an object that can be touched by applying forces, vibrations or motions to the user.
The system also makes use of a Leap Motion sensor that can track the position of a person's hand in order to decide where in the air to create the object.
In order to be able to actually see the objects, the researchers projected the sound waves onto a thin layer of oil, and the depressions of the shapes and how the shapes move can clearly be seen on the surface.
67157767
submission
concertina226 writes:
Scientists working together from several international universities have discovered that it is possible to block a pathway in the brain of animals suffering from neuropathic pain, which could have a huge impact on improving pain relief in humans.
So far, the most successful ways to treat chronic pain from a pharmacological point of view are to create drugs that that interact or interfere with various channels in the brain to decrease pain, including adrenergic, opioid and calcium receptors.
However, there is another way – a chemical stimulator called adenosine that binds to brain receptors to trigger a biological response.
Adenosine has shown potential for killing pain in humans, but so far, no one has managed to harness this pain pathway successfully without causing a myriad of side effects.
Led by Dr Daniela Salvemini of SLU, the researchers discovered that by activating the A3 adenosine receptor in the rodents' brains and spinal cords, the receptor was able to prevent or reverse pain from nerve damage (the cause of chronic pain).
67142003
submission
concertina226 writes:
Wales-based aerospace and defence technology firm Torquing Group has developed an incredibly intelligent, autonomous flying helicopter nano drone that is surprisingly so small it can fit into the palm of your hand.
Zano is a quadcopter nano drone now on Kickstarter that measures just 6.5cm x 6.5cm. It can be controlled by a smartphone app to hover in the air from a great height to take selfies and capture HD videos, for example if the user wants to capture himself performing extreme sports like diving from a cliff or skiing down a mountain.
"The intelligence is in the firmware – we're able to get all the sonar, biometric sensors, infrared camera, GPS to operate in seamless cohesion using data-fusing algorithms," Torquing Group's head of marketing Reece Crowther told IBTimes UK.
"Everyone else in the world hasn't been able to streamline their data-fusing algorithms. They're not thinking about it correctly."
Although Zano hasn't yet been launched, Torquing Group says it has already had huge interest from intelligence agencies like the FBI, CIA and MI6, and has been invited to present its drone technology to the Pentagon and the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD).
67064223
submission
concertina226 writes:
Computer scientists at from the University of Luxembourg have demonstrated that it is possible to figure out the IP address and therefore the identity of individuals who pay for transactions anonymously online using bitcoins.
Virtual currency has come into vogue this year, particularly as it can be used to anonymously pay for potentially illegal items, and numerous underground markets have sprung up selling drugs and firearms through the Tor Anonymity network (known as the dark web or deep web).
Unfortunately, the researchers say Tor is not really able to protect a bitcoin user's identity from a would-be hacker, as the bitcoin's built-in denial of service (DoS) protection can be exploited.
The authors say: "We figured out that very short messages may cause a day IP ban, which can be used to separate a given node or the entire network from anonymity services such as proxy servers or Tor. If the Bitcoin community wishes to use Tor, this part of the protocol must be reconsidered."
67051243
submission
concertina226 writes:
Kim Dotcom has spoken out about his long battle over copyright with the US government and his regrets about the events that have led to his arrest ahead of his bail breach hearing on Thursday that could see him return to jail in New Zealand.
"Would I have done things differently? Of course. My biggest regret is I didn't take the threat of the copyright law and the MPAA seriously enough," Dotcom said via live video link from his mansion in Auckland, New Zealand at the Unbound Digital conference in London on Tuesday.
"I thought that due to court decisions we were monitoring from our competitors like RapidShare who did exactly what we did and were winning in civil court proceedings, and YouTube was winning against Viacom – our sense was that we were protected by the DMCA law.
"We never for a minute thought that anyone would bring any criminal actions against us. We had in-house legal counsel, we had three outside firms working for us who reviewed our sites, and not once had any of them mentioned any form of legal risk, so I wish I had known that there was a risk."
66871847
submission
concertina226 writes:
Scientists at Thomas Jefferson University have discovered that blocking certain types of proteins in the brain may help drugs that have so far failed to treat Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to be able to work.
Currently there is only one drug in the world, called Riluzole, that is approved for treating ALS. Riluzole works by suppressing the activity of glutamate – a chemical messenger in the central nervous system.
Unfortunately, Riluzole has been shown to lose its effectiveness in patients as the disease progresses, and it only prolongs the lives of ALS patients for between three to six months.
The researchers decided to analyse the brains of mice infected with ALS, instead of analysing healthy animals. They identified two specific pumps in the brain that interact with Riluzole, namely P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and breast-cancer resistant protein.
When they blocked these two types of proteins by treating the mice with an experimental compound called Elacridar together with Riluzole, the scientists found that the treatments extended the life span of the mice and alleviated some of the disease's symptoms, such as improving and preserving muscle strength.
66801853
submission
concertina226 writes:
You may have heard the news today that a British-led consortium backed by lots of well-known scientists wants to launch the first ever crowdfunded space mission, and that members of the public will be able to send digital memories and even human DNA in the form of a strand of hair to the moon.
However, one of the most exciting aspects of this space mission is not so much that DNA or drilling robots will be going to the moon, but more what the scientists hope to achieve once they get there.
"In the future, it will probably be better to launch planetary missions from the moon than the Earth," Lunar Missions Ltd and Lunar Missions Trust founder David Iron tells IBTimes UK.
"We can use the top layer of the moon to create fuel and oxygen and water to help sustain a permanent manned lunar base at the south pole of the moon, [while] the moon and its vicinity can be used as a stepping point to help launch interplanetary missions."
There will in fact be three stages of funding for Lunar Mission One – a Kickstarter campaign, a reservation service for individuals or companies that want to store information on the moon, and a global marketing campaign.
66787997
submission
concertina226 writes:
An Austrian industrial design student has invented a water bottle that fills itself during cycling journeys by converting humidity in the air into safe drinking water.
The Fontus system was developed by Kristof Retezár, an industrial design student at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna who is a Dyson Awards finalist.
Designed to be attached to a bicycle frame, Fontus consists of a condenser unit powered by a solar panel that is attached to a bottle.
When the bike is in motion, moist air is blown into a channel in the condenser unit where it cools and condenses.
The water droplets then roll into the water bottle, and at present the prototype is able to produce a drop of water a minute in air that features approximately 50% humidity at temperatures of at least 20C (68F).
66532419
submission
concertina226 writes:
The 1,000-year-old tomb of a rich nobleman from the Liao Dynasty (907-1125 AD) has been discovered in Datong City, Shanxi Province in northern China, featuring beautiful murals, ceilings covered in constellations of stars and a statue of the tomb's occupant.
The tomb, known as M1, was discovered by archaeologists from the Datong Municipal Institute of Archaeology in April 2011, buried 1.5m below ground level near the Datong-Taiyuan Railway line. It is circular in shape and made from brick, consisting of three components – an entrance corridor, a passageway with stairs and a burial chamber.
The walls of the tomb chamber are lime plaster covered with several large murals depicting the daily domestic life of a noble during the Liao Dynasty (also known as the Khitan Empire), which lasted from 907-1125 AD.
The Khitan people were normadic people from Mongolia and Manchuria who dominated parts of China during the Liao Dynasty and rules over the Han Chinese. Very few relics of their reign have survived till today.
66479651
submission
concertina226 writes:
Computer science researchers from Boston's Northeastern University have proved that e-commerce sites are tracking the online shopping habits of people and will charge individuals different prices, depending on what type of device they are using to access a website.
300 participants ran product searches earlier this year on the websites of 16 big US and international retailers, online travel agencies and car rental companies.
Their search results showed that retailers like Home Depot, Sears, JC Penneys, Macy's, Cheaptickets, Orbitz, Priceline, Expedia and Travelocity have been charging higher prices to users on Macs or Android devices, and some retailers had been giving out secret discounts to users on certain devices.
66395209
submission
concertina226 writes:
Scientists from three UK universities have found a way to fine-tune the electrical conductivity of glass, which could finally pave the way for optical light-based computers that harness the power and speed of light to transfer data.
Researchers working together from the University of Surrey, the University of Southampton and Cambridge University used a technique known as "ion doping" on amorphous chalcogenides, a type of material made from glass that is widely used in CD and DVD solid-state memory technology.
The ion doping technique was able to accommodate several different computing functions into one all-optical system by fine-tuning the electrical conductivity of the material, which has never been possible before.
66386645
submission
concertina226 writes:
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Medical School and the University of Nebraska have discovered an algae virus that makes us more stupid by infecting our brains.
The researchers were conducting a completely unrelated study into throat microbes when they realised that DNA in the throats of healthy people matched the DNA of a chlorovirus virus known as ATCV-1.
ATCV-1 is a virus that infects the green algae found in freshwater lakes and ponds. It had previously been thought to be non-infectious to humans, but the scientists found that it actually affects cognitive functions in the brain by shortening attention span and causing a decrease in spatial awareness.
For the first time ever, the researchers proved that microorganisms have the ability to trigger delicate physiological changes to the human body, without launching a full-blown attack on the human immune system.
66109005
submission
concertina226 writes:
A group of young entrepreneurs from the US is offering to take peoples' sequenced DNA, convert it into data, and then back it up using the cryptocurrency bitcoin to keep it safe for future genetic engineering and even cloning. It's the stuff of dystopian nightmare futures with clone armies marching around demanding bitcoin for your life.
The Genecoin service will offer users an easy-to-use DNA sampling kit which can be sent back to the startup through the mail. The firm will then perform the necessary DNA tests and then upload the genome data into a bitcoin storage network.
The creators, based in the Pacific Northwest, say that using bitcoin blockchain technology as a storage tool has great potential for the future far beyond being merely a ledger for bitcoin transactions.
65862317
submission
concertina226 writes:
Scientists from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have genetically analysed 900 violent offenders in Finland and discovered that those with two particular genes are 13 times more likely to have a history of repeated violent behaviour.
The group of criminals had committed a total of 1,154 murders, manslaughters, attempted homicides and batteries. The researchers created a profile for each criminal according to their offences, classifying them as either violent or non-violent.
Their research, Genetic Background of Extreme Violent Behavior, is published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
The scientists discovered at least 4-10% of all violent crime in Finland was committed by people who had the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene and a variant of the cadherin 13 (CDH13) gene.
65723353
submission
concertina226 writes:
The UK branch of global defence firm General Dynamics is working on a futuristic state-of-the-art smart-tank to replace the British Army's ageing armoured vehicle fleet, to be delivered to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 2020.
The Scout SV armoured vehicle is the first fully-digitised armoured fighting vehicle to have been built for the British Army, and is far bigger and more durable than any of its existing tanks, which are now at least 20 years old.
The tank comes in six variants that can be customised with a tools for different missions, and has numerous sensors, cameras, and sights to offer real-time intelligence on weather conditions, target acquisition, and reconnaissance — all crucial battlefield data required by commanders to access and direct situations.
