Menu

Blog

Archive for the ‘biological’ category: Page 110

Dec 31, 2021

This years biggest breakthroughs in longevity science!!

Posted by in categories: biological, life extension, science

A year in review.


This video is sponsored by ResearchHub — https://www.researchhub.com/?ref=eleanorsheeky.

Continue reading “This years biggest breakthroughs in longevity science!!” »

Dec 30, 2021

Integrated Photonics Meets Electron Microscopy in Unconventional Collaboration

Posted by in categories: biological, computing

The transmission electron microscope (TEM) can image molecular structures at the atomic scale by using electrons instead of light, and has revolutionized materials science and structural biology. The past decade has seen a lot of interest in combining electron microscopy with optical excitations, trying, for example, to control and manipulate the electron beam by light. But a major challenge has been the rather weak interaction of propagating electrons with photons.

In a new study, researchers have successfully demonstrated extremely efficient electron beam modulation using integrated photonic microresonators. The study was led by Professor Tobias J. Kippenberg at EPFL and by Professor Claus Ropers at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and the University of Göttingen, and is published in Nature.

The two laboratories formed an unconventional collaboration, joining the usually unconnected fields of electron microscopy and integrated photonics. Photonic integrated circuits can guide light on a chip with ultra-low low losses, and enhance optical fields using micro-ring resonators. In the experiments conducted by Ropers’ group, an electron beam was steered through the optical near field of a photonic circuit, to allow the electrons to interact with the enhanced light. The researchers then probed the interaction by measuring the energy of electrons that had absorbed or emitted tens to hundreds of photon energies. The photonic chips were engineered by Kippenberg’s group, built in such a way that the speed of light in the micro-ring resonators exactly matched the speed of the electrons, drastically increasing the electron-photon interaction.

Dec 30, 2021

After ALS struck, he became the world’s most advanced cyborg

Posted by in categories: biological, cyborgs, robotics/AI

At this point, Scott-Morgan is almost completely “locked-in,” unable to move except for his eyes and a few facial muscles. His sense of smell and taste are gone, and he can’t breathe on his own, but his brilliant mind is fully intact.

Scott-Morgan now relies on a synthetic version of his biological voice and has had his face scanned to produce a 3D animated avatar, which he wears on a screen on his chest when speaking publicly. After a series of operations to extend his life, including a total laryngectomy, he uses technologies like GPT-2, OpenAI’s generative deep-learning model for text, pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human.

Dec 28, 2021

A Weird Paper Tests The Limits of Science

Posted by in categories: biological, science

Been saying this for years!


A summary of decades of research on a rather ‘out-there’ idea involving viruses from space raises questions on just how scientific we can be when it comes to speculating on the history of life on Earth.

Continue reading “A Weird Paper Tests The Limits of Science” »

Dec 27, 2021

Is Reality a Controlled Hallucination? — with Anil Seth

Posted by in categories: biological, computing, neuroscience

How does our biology give rise to the experience of consciousness?
Anil’s new book “Being You” is available now: https://geni.us/anil.
Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/JZS39CaODTs.

Anil Seth argues, using innovative combinations of theory and experiment, that our brains are prediction machines inventing our world and correcting our mistakes by the microsecond. Anil’s new perspective on consciousness has shed light on the nature of the self, free will, the intimate relationship between being alive and being aware — and the possibility of conscious machines.

Continue reading “Is Reality a Controlled Hallucination? — with Anil Seth” »

Dec 24, 2021

Entanglement between superconducting qubits and a tardigrade

Posted by in categories: biological, chemistry, quantum physics

Quantum and biological systems are seldom discussed together as they seemingly demand opposing conditions. Life is complex, “hot and wet” whereas quantum objects are small, cold and well controlled. Here, we overcome this barrier with a tardigrade — a microscopic multicellular organism known to tolerate extreme physiochemical conditions via a latent state of life known as cryptobiosis. We observe coupling between the animal in cryptobiosis and a superconducting quantum bit and prepare a highly entangled state between this combined system and another qubit. The tardigrade itself is shown to be entangled with the remaining subsystems. The animal is then observed to return to its active form after 420 hours at sub 10 mK temperatures and pressure of $6\times 10^{-6}$ mbar, setting a new record for the conditions that a complex form of life can survive.

Dec 23, 2021

AI Researchers Fight Noise by Turning to Biology

Posted by in categories: biological, neuroscience, robotics/AI

Tiny amounts of artificial noise can fool neural networks, but not humans. Some researchers are looking to neuroscience for a fix.

Dec 22, 2021

Flexible tentaclelike robotic manipulators inspired by nature

Posted by in categories: biological, robotics/AI

Traditional robots can have difficulty grasping and manipulating soft objects if their manipulators are not flexible in the way elephant trunks, octopus tentacles, or human fingers can be.

In Applied Physics Reviews, investigators from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China developed a type of multiple-segment soft manipulator inspired by these . The soft manipulators are based on pneu-nets, which are pneumatically actuated elastomeric structures.

These structures have a tentaclelike shape and consist of a series of connected internal chambers which can be inflated pneumatically, blowing them up like a balloon. One side of the tentacle is highly flexible while the other is stiffer. Increasing air pressure to the chambers causes the to bend toward the stiff side.

Dec 21, 2021

Meet the worm with a jaw of metal

Posted by in categories: biological, particle physics

So the bristle worm jaw is both metal-like and yet not. As Zelaya-Lainez puts it, “Here we are dealing with a completely different material, but interestingly, the metal atoms still provide strength and deformability there, just like in a piece of metal.”

Observing the creation of a metal-like material from biological processes is a bit of a surprise and may suggest new approaches to materials development. “Biology could serve as inspiration here,” says Hellmich, “for completely new kinds of materials. Perhaps it is even possible to produce high-performance materials in a biological way — much more efficiently and environmentally friendly than we manage today.”

Dec 20, 2021

Where does consciousness come from? And how do our brains create it? A look at one of life’s biggest mysteries

Posted by in categories: biological, chemistry, neuroscience

General anesthesia doesn’t just work on your brain or on your mind. It works on your consciousness. By altering the delicate electrochemical balance within the neural circuitry inside your head, the basic ground state of what it is to “be” is — temporarily — abolished. In this process lies one of the greatest remaining mysteries in science, and in philosophy too.

Somehow, within each of our brains, the combined activity of billions of neurons, each one a tiny biological machine, is giving rise to a conscious experience. And not just any conscious experience, your conscious experience, right here, right now.