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Mar 13, 2022

US Regulators No Longer Require Fully Autonomous Vehicles to Have Human Controls

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

US regulators have devised a set of new rules specifically targeting automated driving system (ADS) vehicles that do not feature human controls.

Mar 13, 2022

The next generation of robots will be shape-shifters

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, physics, robotics/AI

Physicists have discovered a new way to coat soft robots in materials that allow them to move and function in a more purposeful way. The research, led by the UK’s University of Bath, is described today in Science Advances.

Authors of the study believe their breakthrough modeling on ‘active matter’ could mark a turning point in the design of robots. With further development of the concept, it may be possible to determine the shape, movement and behavior of a soft solid not by its natural elasticity but by human-controlled activity on its .

The surface of an ordinary soft material always shrinks into a sphere. Think of the way water beads into droplets: the beading occurs because the surface of liquids and other soft material naturally contracts into the smallest surface area possible—i.e. a sphere. But active matter can be designed to work against this tendency. An example of this in action would be a rubber ball that’s wrapped in a layer of nano-robots, where the robots are programmed to work in unison to distort the ball into a new, pre-determined shape (say, a star).

Mar 13, 2022

Training robots with realistic pain expressions can reduce doctors’ risk of causing pain during physical exams

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

A new approach to producing realistic expressions of pain on robotic patients could help to reduce error and bias during physical examination.

A team led by researchers at Imperial College London has developed a way to generate more accurate expressions of pain on the face of medical training robots during of painful areas.

Findings, published today in Scientific Reports, suggest this could help teach trainee doctors to use clues hidden in patient to minimize the force necessary for physical examinations.

Mar 13, 2022

Effective new target for mood-boosting brain stimulation found

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Researchers have found an effective target in the brain for electrical stimulation to improve mood in people suffering from depression. As reported in the journal Current Biology on November 29, stimulation of a brain region called the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) reliably produced acute improvement in mood in patients who suffered from depression at the start of the study.

Those effects were not seen in patients without symptoms, suggesting that the brain stimulation works to normalize activity in mood-related neural circuitry, the researchers say.

“Stimulation induced a pattern of activity in connected to OFC that was similar to patterns seen when patients naturally experienced positive mood states,” says Vikram Rao, of the University of California, San Francisco. “Our findings suggest that OFC is a promising new stimulation target for treatment of mood disorders.”

Mar 13, 2022

This Month in Physics History

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

Many people say that Einstein failed because he was simply ahead of his time. The knowledge and tools needed to complete a unified theory simply hadn’t been developed before Einstein died in 1955.

Today, many physicists are taking up his quest. The most promising approach appears to be string theory, which requires 10 or more dimensions and describes all elementary particles as vibrating strings, with different modes of vibration producing different particles.

String theory has not yet made any testable predictions, and some scientists worry that string theorists have, like Einstein in his later years, strayed too far from physical reality in their obsession with beautiful mathematics. But many others believe string theory does indeed hold the key to completing Einstein’s quest, and researchers are hoping to find ways to test some of the predictions of string theory.

Mar 13, 2022

AI Overcomes Stumbling Block on Brain-Inspired Hardware

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI

Algorithms that use the brain’s communication signal can now work on analog neuromorphic chips, which closely mimic our energy-efficient brains.

Mar 13, 2022

If You Could, Would You Live Forever? David Sinclair on Extending Lifespan

Posted by in category: life extension

This starts with Tyson’s deathism quote, but I’m still a fan. I do wonder if he’ll take a treatment when he sees everyone else rejuvenating around him.

Mar 12, 2022

Delta-omicron hybrid variant identified for the first time

Posted by in category: futurism

Scientists say they will need to conduct studies to find out the severity of the new variant.

Mar 12, 2022

Time crystals on a quantum computer reach a record size

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

To classify as a DTC, a system also needs to be truly many-body, and its coherence times (that is, the time over which fragile quantum states persist without being destroyed by interactions with their environment) must be long enough that its periodic variations are not mistaken for a short-term system change. Finally, one must be able to prepare the system in arbitrary initial states and show that all of them result in similar DTC behaviour.

A major milestone

The Melbourne team’s work, which is described in Science Advances, builds on earlier reports of DTCs that used quantum processors based on nine nuclear spins in diamond and 20 superconducting qubits. As in these previous experiments, the team turned a quantum computer into an experimental platform — a quantum simulator – in which all the requirements of DTCs could be met.

Mar 12, 2022

Scientists May Have Found a Way to Treat All Cancers…

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

A universal cure for cancer would be a truly historic achievement in medicine, and it seems that scientists may have found it… by accident.

Go to http://Brilliant.org/SciShow to try out Brilliant’s Daily Challenges. The first 200 subscribers get 20% off an annual Premium subscription.

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