Technology

TheSkyNet, a community computing project dedicated to astronomy that was initiated by the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth, Western Australia,  is celebrating its two year anniversary today with the official launch of a new research project, called T2 – Transform 2.   By using the idle processing power of thousands of computers connected to the Internet, theSkyNet simulates a powerful single machine and processes data collected by telescopes around the world. T2 is a new version of the website that brings new citizen science and membership…

Robotic researchers are refining control algorithms for robotic swarms based upon data from five free online games that anyone can play. In the games, players use simple commands to move groups of robots through mazes and around obstacles. Sometimes the goal is to push a larger object to a particular spot. Other times the goal is to move the collective to a target or to have it assume a specific shape.  Each time a game is played, the website collects information about how the task was completed. Becker said the data will be used to develop new control algorithms for robot swarms. "What…

Medicine of the 21st century is getting a hand from an idea Henry Ford had in the 19th century and implemented in 1908 - the concept of continuous mass production. Billions of tablets, capsules and other forms of medicine that people take each year are still made made batch-wise.   A batch of ingredients typically undergoes a series of batch-wise reactions with isolation of solid intermediates before finally being isolated and drummed into bulk containers. The active pharmaceutical ingredient then moves on to the next step, processing into a granular form, followed by…

While the Plantagenets are getting all of the attention in England these days due to the discovery of Richard III's remains (though the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family currently holding the monarchy also got a lot of attention thanks to a new baby), the Tudors are not done in Leicester. Two Tudor tomb monuments originally intended to stand in Thetford Priory, Norfolk, are in an exhibition at the Ancient House Museum, Thetford, Norfolk, today until 29 March 2014. The elaborate tombs were planned by Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk – one for himself, and another for Henry VIII’s…

Bruce Schneier needs to watch the movie "Battleship" more desperately than any moron in history.  He may know a lot about security systems in technology but his efforts to undermine the US government and its allies' efforts to track Al Qaeda's operatives on the Internet clearly demonstrate a severe lack of strategic thinking.Assuming the Guardian succeeds in persuading governments around the world to pull their snooping systems out of the Edward Snowden quagmire, there can only be one logical outcome: they will dig deeper, probe farther, and integrate more tightly with new technologies.…

If you have ever been trading a flurry of text messages with someone and there was an awkward pause, don't assume they are doing some work or have a life, you probably should be suspicious. An analysis has determined that when people lie in digital messages – texting, social media or instant messaging – they take longer to respond, make more edits and they write shorter responses than usual. According to Tom Meservy, Brigham Young University professor of information systems and co-author of the paper, humans can detect lies about 54 percent of the time accurately – not much better than a coin…

A new control suite with a microprocessor, wireless radio, GPS receiver, and an attitude and heading reference system gives lazy dog owners  a way to command their pets with a remote control, or a smart phone, or even with out hands at all - the new system provides autonomous guidance of the canine using an embedded command module with vibration and tone generation capabilities. Tests in a structure and non-structured environment show obedience accuracy up to almost 98%. That old "best friend" can get a bit tiresome, all that rolling over, shaking paws, long walks and eating every crumb…

Syphilis has become a serious health issue (again) in Latin American countries, with 3 million cases. Every year 330,000 pregnant women with syphilis receive no treatment, resulting in 110,000 children born with congenital syphilis and a similar number of miscarriages. Commercial kits for early syphilis detection are too expensive to use in a systematic screening of all pregnancies in Latin American countries where, in some areas, there are five new cases daily. The proteins needed for the test come from the bacterium that causes syphilis. And reducing the price of the tests requires…

With increased regulation, the overwhelming chance of failure and lawsuits looming for each new treatment, it's little surprise that the private sector is abandoning medical research - or at least wanting to share the costs. One of the four founding tenets of Science 2.0 since its inception, along with publication, communication and public participation, has been collaboration. In medicine, for example, the Science 2.0 vision for collaboration would drug companies and government regulators from an early stage. But the culture is not really ready yet - a team of rivals may work in politics but…

A technique from Case Western Reserve University seeks to address two challenges inherent in brain-implantation technology; gaging the property changes that occur during implantation and measuring on a micro-scale.  The authors seek to make some progress down the bioengineering path — crafting a device that can withstand the physiological conditions in the brain for the long-term.  "We created an instrument to measure the mechanical properties of micro-scale biomedical implants, after being explanted from living animals," explained principal investigator, Dr. Jeffrey R. Capadona. By…