World’s smallest magnetic data storage unit created
If you’re impressed with how much data can be stored on your portable hard drive, well … that’s nothing. Scientists have now created a functioning magnetic data storage unit that measures just 4 by 16 nanometers, uses 12 atoms per bit, and can store an entire byte (8 bits) on as little as 96 atoms – by contrast, a regular hard drive requires half a billion atoms for each byte. It was created by a team of scientists from IBM and the German Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL), which is a joint venture of the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY research center in Hamburg, the Max-Planck-Society and the University of Hamburg.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

DNA is often referred to as the building block of life. Now scientists from Imperial College London have demonstrated that DNA (and bacteria) can be used to create the fundamental building blocks of a computer – logic gates. Using DNA and harmless gut bacteria, the scientists have built what they claim are the most advanced biological logic gates ever created by scientists. The research could lead to the development of a new generation of microscopic biological computing devices that, amongst other things, could travel around the body cleaning arteries and destroying cancers.

While previous research had already proven biological logic gates could be made, the Imperial College scientists say the big advantage of their creations is that they behave like their electronic counterparts – replicating the way that electronic logic gates process information by either switching “on” or “off.” Importantly, the new biological logic gates are also modular, meaning they could be fitted together to make different types of logic gates and more complex biological processors.

To create a type of logic gate called an “AND gate,” the team used modified DNA to reprogram Escherichia Coli (E.Coli) bacteria to perform the same switching on and off process as its electronic equivalent when stimulated by chemicals. In a similar way to the way electronic components are made, the team demonstrated that the biological gates could be connected together to form more complex components.

The team also created a “NOT gate” and combined it with the AND gate to produce the more complex “NAND gate.” NAND gates are significant because any Boolean function (AND, OR, NOT, XOR, XNOR), which play a basic role in the design of computer chips, can be implemented by using a combination of NAND gates.

The researchers will now try and develop more complex circuitry that comprises multiple logic gates. To accomplish this they will need to find a way to link multiple biological logic gates together that is similar to the way in which electronic logic gates are linked together to enable complex processing to be carried out.

“We believe that the next stage of our research could lead to a totally new type of circuitry for processing information,” said Professor Martin Buck from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London. “In the future, we may see complex biological circuitry processing information using chemicals, much in the same way that our body uses them to process and store information.”

The team also suggests that these biological logic gates could one day form the building blocks of microscopic biological devices, such as sensors that swim inside arteries, detecting the build up of harmful plaque and rapidly delivering medications to the affected area. Other sensors could detect and destroy cancer cells inside the body, while others could be deployed in the environment to monitor pollution and detect and neutralize dangerous toxins.

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NASA has released a trove of data from its sky-mapping mission, allowing scientists and anyone with access to the Internet to peruse millions of galaxies, stars, asteroids and other hard-to-see objects.

Many of the targets in the celestial catalog released online this week have been previously observed, but there are significant new discoveries. The mission’s finds include more than 33,000 new asteroids floating between Mars and Jupiter and 20 comets.

NASA launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which carried an infrared telescope, in December 2009 to scan the cosmos in finer detail than previous missions. The spacecraft, known as WISE, mapped the sky one and a half times during its 14-month mission, snapping more than 2.5 million images from its polar orbit.

The spacecraft’s ability to detect heat glow helps it find dusty, cold and distant objects that are often invisible to regular telescopes.

The batch of images made available represents a little over half of what’s been observed in the all-sky survey. The full cosmic census is scheduled for release next (northern) spring.

“The spectacular new data just released remind us that we have many new neighbours,” said Pete Schultz, a space scientist at Brown University, who had no role in the project.

University of Alabama astronomer William Keel has already started mining the database for quasars – compact, bright objects powered by super-massive black holes.

“If I see a galaxy with highly ionized gas clouds in its outskirts and no infrared evidence of a hidden quasar, that’s a sign that the quasar has essentially shut down in the last 30,000 to 50,000 years,” Keel said.

WISE ran out of coolant in October, making it unable to chill its heat-sensitive instruments. So it spent its last few months searching for near-Earth asteroids and comets that should help scientists better calculate whether any are potentially threatening.

The mission, managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was hundreds of times more sensitive than its predecessor, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, which launched in 1983 and made the first all-sky map in infrared wavelength.

AP - Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

for machines to read thoughts

Nicky Phillips SCIENCE

January 29, 2011

Rolling debate … experts are undecided about what brain scans can reveal.

BEFORE the US presidential election in 2008 scientists reported they had, quite literally, peered into the minds of swinging voters.

When a group of people were shown the words ”Democrat” or ”Republican” while undergoing a brain scan they showed high levels of activity in a region called the amygdala.

The scientists concluded that because this region was associated with anxiety, the participants felt that way about the political parties.

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The conclusion was strongly resisted by a group of rival neuroscientists who published a response to the study several days after it was reported in The New York Times.

It was not possible to determine whether a person was anxious simply by looking at the activity in a particular brain region, they said. ”This is because brain regions are typically engaged by many mental states, and thus one-to-one mapping between a brain region and a mental state is not possible.”

This stand-off typifies the rolling debate over what brain scans can really show.

To date, many studies claim to have found the regions of the brain for things as diverse as love, sarcasm, sex drive and even voting choice, fuelling the idea that the brain is made up of modules and individual parts.

Brain scans are generally taken with functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which has, for the first time, allowed scientists to watch the flow of activity in the brain in real time without cutting open the skull.

But despite the clarity that comes with fMRI, it does not take photographs.

An American psychologist, Diane Beck, said the highlighted region of the brain in an fMRI did not show not a direct measure of that region’s activity.

”The construction of the colourful images we see in journals and magazines are considerably more complicated, and considerably more processed, than the photo-like quality of the images might lead one to believe,” said Dr Beck, of the University of Illinois.

So has fMRI really bridged human understanding of how the thoughts, emotions and feelings of our mind are linked to the soggy, 1.5-kilogram mass of tissue inside the skull?

The debate around fMRI’s powers for probing the mind came to a head in 2009 when an American review found almost half of fMRI studies of emotion and personality had overstated their data linking a specific brain region to an emotion or personality trait.

In a recent article published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, an American psychologist Gregory Miller agreed. ”The rush in recent decades to construe a host of psychological events as being biological events is, at best, premature,” he wrote.

Ulrich Schall, a psychiatrist and psychologist at the University of Newcastle, said fMRI did not directly measure brain activity; instead it measured blood flow in the brain, which increased as neurons became active, and was therefore an indirect measure of their activity.

When someone was performing a specific mental task it was not possible to clearly identify the biological basis of that task in the brain, Associate Professor Schall said. That was just the interpretation of a scientist.

And unless studies were well designed, he said, the interpretation might be meaningless.

But fMRI clearly had a role in studying the brain. It was good for measuring brain development and studying people with mental disorders, he said.

Associate Professor Schall said scientists were confident of the function of primary processing regions of the brain, such as the areas associated with speech, vision and movement.

But scientists were still far away from understanding the basis of more complex cognitive functions such as numeracy, social interactions, intentions of people and planning, he said. ”These things are certainly not localised and need the combination of many parts of the brain.”

Like many scientists, he believed everything that people experienced in their minds, such as thoughts and feelings, had a physical or biological origin.

”But I use the word believe because I don’t have final proof of that,” he said.

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to simpler and more

robust computer network systems

Over the years science has gleaned an enormous amount of knowledge from the humble fruit fly. Drosophila melanogaster was used to provide the post-Mendelian foundations for our understanding of genetics and has also been used extensively in neuroscience research. The latest fruit fly-inspired innovation could simplify how wireless sensor networks communicate and stands to have wider applications for computing.

This is not the first time computing systems have been compared to biological systems. Learning from a comparison between Linux and E.coli and using fly’s eyes to help develop faster visual receivers for robots are just two examples. This time round researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have discovered a highly efficient system of organizing cells in the fruit fly’s nervous system develops that stands to have applications in computer networking.

Without communication with surrounding cells or prior knowledge of what these other cells are doing the fly’s developing nervous system is able to organize itself so that a small number become leader cells or sensory organ precursor cells (SOP), while the rest become ordinary nerve cells. The SOPs which connect to adjoining nerve cells do not connect with other SOPs, but instead to the ends of the nervous system that are attached to tiny hairs for interacting with the outside world. What is extraordinary about how this hierarchy of cells organizes itself is the fact that the right number and combination of SOP cells and nerve cells form without the need for complicated information exchange.

The fly’s nervous system uses a probabilistic method to select the cells that will become SOPs. The cells have no information about how they are connected to each other but as various cells self-select themselves as SOPs, they send out chemical signals to neighboring cells that inhibit those cells from also becoming SOPs. This process continues for three hours, until all of the cells are either SOPs or are neighbors to an SOP, and the fly emerges from the pupal stage.

Ziv Bar-Joseph, associate professor of machine learning and computational biology at CMU and author of the report noted that the probability that any cell will self-select increases not as a function of connections, as with a maximal independent set (MIS) algorithm used in computer networking, but as a function of time. The researchers believe that computer networks could be developed using this innovative system creating networks which are much simpler and more robust.

“It is such a simple and intuitive solution, I can’t believe we did not think of this 25 years ago,” said co-author Noga Alon, a mathematician and computer scientist at Tel Aviv University and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

Bar-Joseph, Alon and their co-authors – Yehuda Afek of Tel Aviv University and Naama Barkai, Eran Hornstein and Omer Barad of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel – developed a new distributed computing algorithm using their findings. The resulting network was shown to have qualities that are well suited for networks in which the number and position of the nodes is not completely certain including wireless sensor networks, such as environmental monitoring, or where sensors are dispersed. They also believe this could be used in systems for controlling swarms of robots.

“The run time was slightly greater than current approaches, but the biological approach is efficient and more robust because it doesn’t require so many assumptions,” Bar-Joseph said. “This makes the solution applicable to many more applications.”

The research was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

to get excited about

January 20, 2011 – 11:08AM

This post was originally published on Mashable.com

Apple was granted 563 patents in 2010, some of which will show up in future products and might well change the consumer technology landscape just like the iPod, iPhone, App Store and now the iPad have.

Apple patent expert Jack Purcher of Patently Apple has been monitoring the company’s patents since 2006. Mashable asked him why he thought Apple is such an innovative company.

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“Many have asked me why I think that Apple is more innovative than others. I usually answer that question the same way each time,” says Purcher. “I’m not sure that they are on a technical level. The difference is that Apple has an inspired leader and CEO who, for decades, has had a real vision of where technology should go.”

Mashable has taken a look at some of Apple’s recent patent applications to see what exciting developments might be in store for the future – as any one of these patents could be the next step in Steve Jobs’s master plan or vision. As Purcher puts it:

“Jobs’s vision for the digital lifestyle a decade ago is still on a roll. It’s innovation at its finest. But it began with a vision – and that’s the difference.”

1. iBike

Apple’s smart bike concept is like the Nike+ running system, but for those on two wheels. In addition to seeing pertinent data from you (heart rate, etc.) and the bike (speed, distance, etc.) on your iPod or iPhone, the system could be used as a tool for group communication when biking with others.

2. Wand remote

Is gesture control the next big thing to follow touch? It seems Apple might think so with this patent for the Apple TV that sees the home entertainment gadget shipped with a Wiimote-like motion controller. Besides managing the on-screen cursor via movement, the “remote wand” could be used to browse through and control media.

3. Solar-powered iPhone

Is gesture control the next big thing to follow touch? It seems Apple might think so with this patent for the Apple TV that sees the home entertainment gadget shipped with a Wiimote-like motion controller. Besides managing the on-screen cursor via movement, the “remote wand” could be used to browse through and control media.

2. Wand Remote

2

Apple has come up with a way – in theory anyway – of adding solar tech to its portable devices without spoiling the all-important aesthetics. By integrating the photocells into the touchscreen, future iPods, iPads and iPhones could soak up the power of the sun via their displays, making for greener gadgetry.

4. Touchscreen iMac

Apple has come up with a way — in theory anyway — of adding solar tech to its portable devices without spoiling the all-important aesthetics. By integrating the photocells into the touchscreen, future iPods, iPads and iPhones could soak up the power of the sun via their displays, making for greener gadgetry.

3. Solar-Powered iPhone

3

This clever concept gives the desktop PC iPad-esque functionality. While the monitor is upright, it’s a common iMac running Apple’s full operating system controlled with a mouse, but flip it horizontally and it switches to the iOS and the touch controls take over.

5. iKey

This clever concept gives the desktop PC iPad-esque functionality. While the monitor is upright, it’s a common iMac running Apple’s full operating system controlled with a mouse, but flip it horizontally and it switches to the iOS and the touch controls take over.

4. Touchscreen iMac

4

Chances are your iPhone has already replaced your compact camera, MP3 player and handheld gaming console, but Apple could take the convergence a step further and replace your keys. The Cupertino company has patented the idea that your iPhone could unlock your car and home with a proximity-based PIN code system.

6. iHeadset

Chances are your iPhone has already replaced your compact camera, MP3 player and handheld gaming console, but Apple could take the convergence a step further and replace your keys. The Cupertino company has patented the idea that your iPhone could unlock your car and home with a proximity-based PIN code system.

5. iKey

5

This is one patent we could definitely see coming to market. Apple has designed a Bluetooth headset with standalone media playback functionality. This could well be a future version of the iPod Shuffle – small, wearable and, thanks to the Bluetooth features, multi-tasking.

7. Shareable apps

This is one patent we could definitely see coming to market. Apple has designed a Bluetooth headset with standalone media playback functionality. This could well be a future version of the iPod Shuffle — small, wearable and, thanks to the Bluetooth features, multi-tasking.

6. iHeadset

6

How would you like to be able to beam your latest App Store download to a buddy? Apple has come up with the idea of an “application seed” system whereby developers could choose to make their apps shareable via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It’s a fantastic concept for content providers who are looking to spread the word as far and wide as possible. Additionally, trial version options could be a great word-of-mouth money maker.

8. Video game comic books

How would you like to be able to beam your latest App Store download to a buddy? Apple has come up with the idea of an “application seed” system whereby developers could choose to make their apps shareable via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It’s a fantastic concept for content providers who are looking to spread the word as far and wide as possible. Additionally, trial version options could be a great word-of-mouth money maker.

7. Shareable Apps

7

If you want to relive that last level of Mass Effect that you aced, Apple might offer a way to do so in the future. This unusual patent allows you to describe your progress through a video game, record it, and then turn it into a book or e-book in comic style.

9. Magnetic lenses

If you want to relive that last level of Mass Effect that you aced, Apple might offer a way to do so in the future. This unusual patent allows you to describe your progress through a video game, record it, and then turn it into a book or e-book in comic style.

8. Video Game Comic Books

8

iPhotography is hot, and its potential is limited only by hardware restrictions. Although Apple has steadily improved the iPhone’s camera, it’s still just a point-and-shooter. This patent describes a way of enhancing a portable device’s camera functionality with a magnetic zoom or macro lens attachments.

10. MacBooks with built-in projectors

iPhotography is hot, and its potential is limited only by hardware restrictions. Although Apple has steadily improved the iPhone’s camera, it’s still just a point-and-shooter. This patent describes a way of enhancing a portable device’s camera functionality with a magnetic zoom or macro lens attachments.

9. Magnetic Lenses

9

This exciting idea could see future Apple laptops coming with built-in projectors. Just think how handy it would be to be able to share what’s on your laptop screen – whether that’s a movie or a presentation – with a group of others by simply clicking a mouse.

Spourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

It may not be a jet powered car, but it’s definitely one we’ve seen in sci-fi movies before – the ability to converse with a life-size holographic image of another person in real time. 3d movies are just the start of it and ther’s more to come.

The futurists at IBM point to recent advances in 3D cameras and movies, predicting that holography chat (aka 3D telepresence) can’t be all that far behind. Already, the University of Arizona has unveiled a system that can transmit holographic images in near-real-time.

It is also predicted that 3D visualization could be applied to data, allowing researchers to “step inside” software programs (wasn’t that just in a movie?), computer models, or pretty much anything else that is limited by a simple 2D screen. IBM compares it to the way in which the Earth appears undistorted when we experience it first-hand in three dimensions, yet it appears pinched at the top and bottom when we see it on a two-dimensional world map.

Maybe travelling inside the blood vessels of the human body is not so silly after all.We will see….

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha

The way it is presently, most scientific data must be gathered by scientists, who have to go out in the field and set up sensors or other data recording devices. Within five years, however, a lot of that data could be gathered and transmitted by sensors in our phones, cars, wallets, computers, or just about anything else that is subjected to the real world. Such sensors could be used to create massive data groups used for everything from fighting global warming to tracking invasive species. IBM also sees custom scientific smartphone apps playing a part in “citizen science,” and has already launched an application called Creek Watch, that allows us citizens to update the local water authority on creek conditions.

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Just as Mapquest is valuable and other online mapping services are to many of us, apparently it’s just the tip of the iceberg. In the not-so-distant future, says IBM, sensors and other data sources (such as the aforementioned citizen scientists, perhaps?) will provide a continuous stream of information on traffic conditions, road construction, public transit schedules, and other factors that could affect your commute. When you inquire about the quickest way of getting from A to B, computer systems will do more than simply consulting a map – they will also take into account all the variables unique to that day and time, combine them with mathematical models and predictive analytics technologies, and advise a route accordingly. It is also possible that, utilizing such data, traffic management systems could learn traffic patterns, and self-adjust themselves to minimize congestion.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha