Category: Science

As reported on The Verge. By Carl Franzen New techniques could help with neurological disease, but how far should they go? If we had the technology to rewire our brains to help remember certain things and forget others, it could help millions of people struggling with neurological conditions, from Alzheimer’s to post-traumatic stress disorder. But it also raises the frightening possibility — depicted over and over again in sci-fi — that someone would be able to…

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As reported on Engadget. By Nicole Lee The brain is an incredibly complicated thing, so much so that scientists have spent years trying to decipher its inner workings. IBM is one such institution attempting to crack the code of the human mind. In collaboration with DARPA’s SyNAPSE program, it developed a “neurosynaptic computing chip” back in 2011 designed to simulate some of the brain’s functions and successfully simulated 530 billion neuronslast year thanks to the world’s second fastest supercomputer. Today, the…

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As reported on Wired. BY JOE HANSON Some scientists might pride themselves on their finesse with a pipette or their mathematical expertise. But for others, part of the appeal of scientific research is getting to play with very powerful toys. And naturally, some of those toys are guns.   Only these aren’t your grampa’s shotgun. From physics to astronomy to biology, researchers have come up with some pretty awesome ways to propel something from point A…

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As reported on The Verge. By Nathan Olivarez-Giles A DARPA-funded project has built contact lenses that can zoom in and out in to aid those with degrading eyesight. A group of researchers — from the UC San Diego and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) — said in a report that it has built a 2.8x zoom contact lens that could eventually fit on human eyes. The group’s telescopic lens currently relies on a set of 3D…

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As reported on Engadget. By Joseph Volpe “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland I’ve been to see ALICE — though there was no looking glass to jump through, just a retina scanner and one very long elevator ride down into the earth. I’ve toured a CMSthat has nothing to do with online publishing. I’ve even gently laid my body on the most powerful particle accelerator in the world…

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As reported on The Verge. By Jeff Blagdon An Italian neuroscientist believes he’s figured out how to do a full human head transplant. Or body transplant, depending on your perspective. In a recent paper, Dr. Sergio Canavero of the University of Turin explains how the procedure would work, describing how a “clean cut” with an “ultra-sharp blade” could leave the two severed spinal cords in the condition to be re-attached. “It is my contention that the technology…

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As reported on The Verge. By Vlad Savov Proton beams, cryogenics, superconductors, and massive underground labs — welcome to CERN! “You’re pushing the Higgs too much.” Such has been Peter Higgs’ admonishment to the CERN communications department in recent times. The British theoretical physicist, who has contributed both his work and name to the prediction of an elementary particle called the Higgs boson, is unhappy to have the Large Hadron Collider so closely associated with the…

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As reported on TechCrunch. by JOHN BIGGS There are few things as satisfying – and dangerous – as burning through stuff with a laser. Drake Anthony AKA Styropyro is a young man who enjoys making DIY lasers out of things, and he recently completed a 3000mW laser made from the diode of an old DLP projector that can blow out a beam so hot that it burns paper, plastic, and electric tape in seconds. Considering the most powerful…

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As reported on Wired. BY GREG MILLER Photo: Flickr/trindade.joao   Just about everyone wishes they were better at math. But studying and practicing is so difficult and boring that very few people do it. If only there were an easier way. Now there may be, suggests a new study in which scientists stimulated volunteers’ brains with mild electric current while they learned new arithmetic operations based on made-up symbols. People who received brain stimulation during training…

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