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Jul 17, 2016

Researchers say an Alzheimer’s vaccine is possible within 5 years

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

The potential vaccine would address a protein buildup that occurs when two proteins, amyloid-beta (a-beta) and tau, die and create plaques that block connections between brain nerve cells, says the study from researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide Australia in partnership with a research team at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, and University of California, Irvine. Autopsies have shown that these plaques are always present in the brains of deceased Alzheimer’s patients, although Medical News Today reported that it is not clear if there are other underlying processes also contributing to the disease.

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“Essentially what we have designed is a vaccine that makes the immune system produce antibodies, and those antibodies act like tow trucks so they come to your driveway, they latch on to the breakdown protein or car and they pull it out of the driveway,” said Flinders University medicine professor Nikolai Petrovsky, ABC News reported.

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Jul 17, 2016

Nintendo Is Bringing Back the NES This Fall

Posted by in category: entertainment

Nintendo fans may be anxiously awaiting next March’s supposed NX launch (and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild), but the Japanese gaming giant has a little something up its sleeve in the meantime: a re-release for the iconic NES. Dubbed the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition, the console comes in the form of a miniaturized, HDMI-equipped take on the original and comes with 30 games built right in. Said Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime:

We wanted to give fans of all ages the opportunity to revisit Nintendo’s original system and rediscover why they fell in love with Nintendo in the first place. The Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition is ideal for anyone who remembers playing the NES, or who wants to pass on those nostalgic memories to the next generation of gamers.

Players will even be able to pick up a second controller for just $10 USD when the revamped NES drops this fall. And best of all? The mini console will only run you $60 USD.

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Jul 17, 2016

Primitive Quantum Computers Are Already Outperforming Current Machines

Posted by in categories: computing, information science, particle physics, quantum physics

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jg8iCnQTLfM

A team has used simple quantum processors to run “quantum walk” algorithms, showing that even primitive quantum computers can outperform the classical variety in certain scenarios—and suggesting that the age of quantum computing may be closer than we imagined.

By now, most readers of Futurism are probably pretty well acquainted with the concept (and fantastic promise) of quantum computing.

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Jul 16, 2016

Hololens Galaxy Exploring

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, space

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcg6gCbFBWY&feature=youtu.be

Exploring our Holographic Galaxy with my Hololens DevKit.


Shared from my #HoloLens #YawLife.

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Jul 16, 2016

Exploring Rome In 360 degrees on Hololens

Posted by in category: augmented reality

From the real world to Rome with Holograms on my Hololens DevKit.


#YawLife #Hololens #DevKit

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Jul 16, 2016

Marschitect Vera Mulyani Dreams of Cities on Mars

Posted by in category: space

SPACE editor, Heather D’Angelo, spoke with Marschitect Vera Mulyani about her dreams to build Mars’ first ever self-sustaining cities.

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Jul 16, 2016

DARPA Invests $7.5 Million for Implantable Biosensor that are 3 millimeters long and 500 microns in diameter

Posted by in categories: chemistry, health, internet, military

Profusa (South San Francisco, CA) has won a $7.5 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Office for further development of its tissue integrated biosensor technology, the company said Tuesday.

The U.S. military sees value in the technology improving mission efficiency through real-time monitoring of combat soldier health status.

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Jul 16, 2016

Deep Learning Algorithm Automatically Colorizes Photos

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI

This is one of those sites you’re going to want to try yourself. Take any black and white image, feed it to the algorithm, and watch as it spits out its best guess at a color version, which is often quite convincing.

Using a deep learning algorithm developed by Richard Zhang, Phillip Isola, and Alexei Efros of UC Berkeley, the process was trained on one million images. Though it currently fools humans only 20% of the time, that’s still a significantly higher rate than previous iterations and represents an exciting step forward, and further training should only increase that rate. Imagine a time when Photoshop can colorize a photo in one step, leaving the end-user to just tweak a few hues here and there. Such a capability would be huge for restoring old family photos and the like.

I played with it a bit today, and the results were rather interesting. It struggles a bit with skin tones, which may be due to dataset bias (meaning the team may have trained it more with landscape-style images), but often the results are fairly good and definitely close enough that they could be tweaked to believability without a lot of effort.

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Jul 16, 2016

China Might Float Nuclear Reactors in Disputed Waters

Posted by in category: nuclear energy

China aims to launch a series of offshore nuclear power platforms to promote development in the South China Sea, state media said again on Friday, days after an international court ruled Beijing had no historic claims to most of the waters.

Sovereignty over the South China Sea is contested by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, and any move to build nuclear reactors is bound to stoke further tension in the region.

The China Securities Journal said 20 offshore nuclear platforms could eventually be built in the region as the country seeks to “speed up the commercial development” of the South China Sea.

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Jul 16, 2016

Gravity doesn’t care about quantum spin

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics, space

Physics, as you may have read before, is based around two wildly successful theories. On the grand scale, galaxies, planets, and all the other big stuff dance to the tune of gravity. But, like your teenage daughter, all the little stuff stares in bewildered embarrassment at gravity’s dancing. Quantum mechanics is the only beat the little stuff is willing get down to. Unlike teenage rebellion, though, no one claims to understand what keeps relativity and quantum mechanics from getting along.

Because we refuse to believe that these two theories are separate, physicists are constantly trying to find a way to fit them together. Part-in-parcel with creating a unifying model is finding evidence of a connection between the gravity and quantum mechanics. For example, showing that the gravitational force experienced by a particle depended on the particle’s internal quantum state would be a great sign of a deeper connection between the two theories. The latest attempt to show this uses a new way to look for coupling between gravity and the quantum property called spin.

I’m free, free fallin’

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