Clipmarks | wildcat's science collection

Five Innovations that Will Change Our Lives Over the Next Five Years

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:06:29 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: From IBM

IBM Reveals Five Innovations that Will Change Our Lives Over the Next Five Years

Unveiled today, the second annual "IBM Next Five in Five" is a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years.

The list is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s Labs around the world that could make these innovations possible.

In the next five years, our lives will change through technology innovations in the following ways:

It will be easy for you to be green and save money doing it:

The way you drive will be completely different:

You are what you eat, so you will know what you eat:

Your cell phone will be your wallet, your ticket broker, your concierge, your bank, your shopping buddy, and more:

Doctors will get enhanced “super-senses” to better diagnose and treat you:

Tags: ibm, innovation, technology, life, science

The Physiology And Psychology Of Voting

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:04:16 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The researchers used a multiple regression analysis to compare the effects of change in skin conductance levels in response to threatening images, gender, age, education, and income on support for socially “protective” policies such as the ones listed above. The only two statistically significant effects were those of education (less education translated into more support for conservative policies) and skin conductance. That in itself means that -- within the confines of this study -- physiology trumps gender, age and income, traditionally considered highly relevant causal factors in politics by social scientists. Moreover, the regression coefficient associated with skin conductance was more than 56 times that of education! !!!

Clip Source: www.scientificblogging.com

In case you haven’t noticed, election season is upon us! Ok, it has been upon us for almost two years, but never mind that. Pollsters are busy trying to determine why people might be voting for one candidate or another, with special attention being paid to the so-called undecided voters, on whose last-minute whim the fate of the nation -- and the world -- seems to hinge.

Two recent studies, however, provide much food for thought about why people vote one way or the other, and about the reasons they give to themselves and others. A paper by Douglas Oxley and collaborators in Science (19 September) investigated the effect of physiological reactions to a perceived threat on people’s political opinions

Oxley and colleagues discovered that people who react physiologically (as measured by changes in their skin conductance) to sudden noises or to threatening images are much more likely to support conservative issues like gun control, the war in Iraq, restrictions in immigration and so forth.

Tags: voting, education, elections, physiology, psychology

Richard Dawkins' jaw-dropping talk on our bizarre universe

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 09:41:57 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Richard Dawkins discusses the question of limits on human understanding. As a species we evolved to cope with the world within a particular range of physical dimensions. These determine our common sense view of the world. How far can the plasticity of our brains transcend this limitation?

Clip Source: ovablastic.blogspot.com

[Video]

Tags: richard dawkins, universe, understanding

Quadruped Rough Terrain Robot Prototype

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:25:53 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: The application of Boston Dynamics work is infinite and may provide alternative solutions to the physical limits of mankind.

Clip Source: physorg.com

Boston Dynamics has released a prototype of an all-terrain robot, BigDog. The quadruped robot is equipped with a computer featuring sensors that aid its movements over harsh terrain. The robot is powered by a gasoline engine that drives the hydraulic system

BigDog is the latest from the engineering geniuses at Boston Dynamics. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog is approximately 3.28-feet long and 2.30-feet tall and weighs 165-pounds. It is about the size of a small mule or big dog.

[Video]

BigDog has a computer built-in that controls locomotion. It is equipped with sensors that aid BigDog in adapting to varying conditions. The sensors provide stereo vision, joint force, joint position and ground contact that aids in continuous movement. Most importantly, the robot is equipped with a laser gyroscope that aids in balance under extreme conditions.

Tags: robotics

Searching in space and minds: New research suggests underlying link

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:43:46 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Some people might be more inclined to one search mode or the other, having a lesser ability to focus on a given task or difficulty letting go of an idea. An extreme form of the exploratory cognitive style would be someone with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. An extreme form of the exploitive cognitive style would be someone with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

New research from Indiana University has found evidence that how we look for things, such as our car keys or umbrella, could be related to how we search for more abstract needs, such as words in memory or solutions to problems.

"Common underlying search mechanisms may exist that drive our behavior in many different domains," said IU cognitive scientist Peter Todd. "If how people search in space is similar to how they search in their minds, it's a very exciting prospect to try to find the deep, underlying roots of human behavior that may be common to varied domains."

"We asked the question -- are the same mechanisms that let simpler organisms search in space for food related to how we search for things in our mind, for concepts or ideas," Todd said. "Our conclusion is that they seem to be linked at some level, which is what our priming experiment suggests."

Tags: mind, space, objects, ideas

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:08:58 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Video games are reshaping how we perform and promote science. A review by Seed Mag

Clip Source: www.seedmagazine.com

The digital revolution now engulfing our world emerged from the events during and immediately after the Second World War, when intellectual titans such as Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, and Claude Shannon roamed the Earth. Many of the predictions they made for the future in those early days are now reality, or something close to it. Turing foresaw computers as artificial intelligences. Neumann imagined machines that could reproduce themselves. Wiener guessed at a merging of biology and technology, and Shannon predicted the primacy of pure information over physical matter. But were these "founding fathers" to somehow see the state of modern computer science, they might be surprised that some of their wildest dreams are being fulfilled not under the explicit auspice of research, but of recreation

Emergence & Complexity
Spore

www.spore.com

Brain-Computer Interaction
Emotiv Systems' EPOC headset

Crowdsourcing
Foldit

Science Education
Immune Attack

3D Virtual Creature Evolution

Tags: video games, digital revolution

Who says C3PO and R2D2 can't come from the open source community?

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:25:47 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: ostatic.com

If you happen to own a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, you already have a robot in your life. (I have a Roomba, and highly recommend it--available at Target.) Roomba is a classic example of how a robot doesn't have to be humanoid to be useful. In the open source community, though, there are several efforts to develop robots that look and/or act like humans, performing interesting and useful tasks. They're not C3PO at this stage of their development, but they show tremendous promise, especially if more open source contributions are made to the projects. Here are a couple of good examples to take a gander at.

Willow Garage is an open source robotics project that originated at Stanford University. Robots being developed with the project run ROS (Robot Operating System) software. The operating system comes complete with tutorials, a developer's guide, and more--all at the link just provided.

Who says C3PO and R2D2 can't come from the open source community?

Tags: robotics, open source

The Future Of Code, Digital And Genetic Continued

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:15:56 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: spectrum.ieee.org

Simonyi talked about his “intentional software” concept. If the human genome can be encoded in a program that takes up less than 1 gigabyte, he asked, why does Windows require 15 or 16? So, instead of building software according to elaborate blueprints that detail every programming step, Simonyi is following what he called a recipe approach. His team at Intentional Software creates a set of programming tools, writes a very specific description of the problem they are attempting to solve, and then uses the tools to generate a software solution. It sounds like a software version of the directed self-assembly techniques used in chemistry and nanotechnology.

Over on the in vivo side of the house, Harvard’s George Church, biotechnologist and founder of the Personal Genome Project; Drew Endy, of Stanford University and a founder of the BioBricks Foundation; and Rodney Brooks, of MIT and iRobot, discussed what’s being called synthetic biology or synthetic life research.

Tags: future, code, digital, genetic

Say wow! the flying jellyfish

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:49:00 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: airshipworld.blogspot.com

Last year Festo surprised everyone with their amazing prototype of the Air_ray a manta ray that swims through the air and the b-IONIC Airfish. We reported on it in a great post which was titled "Airships are just like fish in the sky" Festo is currently at the Hannover Messe 2008 and they brought an just as stunning new project with them. We present the Air Jelly, a jellyfish that swims through the air. Currently the information about the AirJelly is only available in German at the Festo Website but the pictures speak for them self, of course we also provide you with a direct link to the autotranslated Page in English about the AirJelly
The Video on the Website of Festo did not work for me so I uploaded it to YouTube just in case you can not see the "Flim" on the Festo website:

Tags: robotics, jellyfish

Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of the Human Mind

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:50:26 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Subtle refinements in brain architecture, rather than large-scale alterations, make us smarter than other animals

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

The human brain lacks conspicuous characteristics—such as relative or absolute size—that might account for humans’ superior intellect.

Researchers have found some clues to humanity’s aptitude on a smaller scale, such as more neurons in our brain’s outermost layer.

Human intelligence may be best likened to an upgrade of the cognitive capacities of nonhuman primates rather than an exceptionally advanced form of cognition.

As far as we know, no dog can compose music, no dolphin can speak in rhymes, and no parrot can solve equations with two unknowns. Only humans can perform such intellectual feats, presumably because we are smarter than all other animal species—at least by our own definition of intelligence.

Of course, intelligence must emerge from the workings of the three-pound mass of wetware packed inside our skulls

Thus, researchers have tried to identify unique features of the human brain that could account for our superior intellectual abilities

Tags: brain, mind, evolution, intelligence

Gene linked to commitment-phobia

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:40:08 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: commitment-phobia, everybody has it..

Clip Source: www.sciencenews.org

Men with a common gene variation for "bonding" hormone report more marital strife

There’s news for women who want a man who bonds instead of a James Bond: Scientists have identified a common genetic variation that appears to weaken a man’s ability to emotionally attach to one partner.

The study, to appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to try to examine whether a hormone that encourages monogamy in animals plays a similar role in male humans. Before getting ideas about a DNA-fidelity test, though, women should consider that the study wasn’t designed to determine how much — or even whether — the gene in question is responsible for monogamy in humans.

“We can’t with any accuracy predict effects on behavior,” says Hasse Walum of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. “A lot of different things determine how happy you will be in a relationship.”

But women can now wonder, “What about his vasopressin 1a receptor subtype?”

Tags: genetics, commitment-phobia

Telepresence Robot TiLR at the X PRIZE Foundation

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:21:36 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: revolutionary technology

Clip Source: www.prweb.com

RoboDynamics is an innovative robotics company that develops enterprise Robotic Telepresence platforms such as TiLR. By using TiLR the X Prize Foundation is shifting the paradigm of face to face communications whereby a person can now transport himself instantly to their offices without actually being at their office. This new mode of collaboration will dramatically reduce downtime, increase productivity, and eliminate travel. The robot is installed at the Google Lunar X Prize offices within the X Prize Foundation.

Robotic Telepresence provides the ability to instantly transport a person to a remote location without the person actually going there. Robotic Telepresence is similar to video conferencing in that there is a real time audio/video link, but also provides the means for the user to commandeer the robot and move about the remote location as though the user was actually there.

For more information please visit www.robodynamics.com

Tags: telepresence, robot, tilr, x prize foundation

The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:24:50 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Storytelling is a human universal, and common themes appear in tales throughout history and all over the the world.

These characteristics of stories, and our natural affinity toward them, reveal clues about our evolutionary history and the roots of emotion and empathy in the mind.

By studying narrative’s power to influence beliefs, researchers are discovering how we analyze information and accept new ideas.

Popular tales do far more than entertain, however. Psychologists and neuroscientists have recently become fascinated by the human predilection for storytelling. Why does our brain seem to be wired to enjoy stories? And how do the emotional and cognitive effects of a narrative influence our beliefs and real-world decisions?

Storytelling is one of the few human traits that are truly universal across culture and through all of known history. Anthropologists find evidence of folktales everywhere in ancient cultures, written in Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Chinese, Egyptian and Sumerian

Tags: storytelling, human universals

Surge in Food Nanotechnology Worries Consumers

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:09:20 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Davies quoted David Rejeski of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, who advocates a U.S. investment of $150 million a year in such research by 2010, to benefit from an industry that will involve “15 percent of globally manufactured goods, worth $2.6 trillion, by 2014.”

Clip Source: www.findingdulcinea.com

As more foods produced by nanotechnology are making their way to the public, some consumers worry about the health implications of the largely unregulated industry.

Companies say that so-called nanofoods could be more flavorful and healthier than regular food. There’s even indication that a juicy hamburger could taste the same minus the fat and cholesterol, and peanuts could one day provide an innocuous snack for those with peanut allergies, for example.

Nanotechnology alters the characteristics of materials by manipulating their atoms and molecules, which generally measure only about 1–100 nanometers. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, and a single human hair measures 100,000 nanometers wide.

Nanotechnology has already brought advances in medicine, weaponry, construction, and consumer products, including lightweight tennis rackets, bicycles, certain sunscreens, washing machines and containers for food

Tags: nanotech, food, future

What's wrong with science as religion

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:44:19 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: "Piercing a Communion wafer with a nail and throwing it in the garbage, as one crusading biologist recently did, does science no favors"

Clip Source: www.salon.com

Jul. 31, 2008 | PZ Myers is a true believer, a science crusader with the singled-minded enthusiasm of a televangelist. A biologist at the University of Minnesota at Morris and a columnist for Seed magazine, Myers has earned notoriety with his blog, Pharyngula, in which he reports on new developments in biology and indiscriminately excoriates those he views as hostile to science, a pantheon of straw men and women that includes theologians, journalists and churchgoers. He is Richard Dawkins without the fame or felicitous prose style.

Religion is dangerous, he wrote; it breeds hatred and idiocy. It is our job to advance humanity's knowledge "by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality." There is no wisdom in our dogmas, Myers warned, just "self-satisfied ignorance." We find truth only in science, looking at the world "with fresh eyes and a questioning mind."

Tags: science, vs, religion

Clipmarks | wildcat's science collection

Five Innovations that Will Change Our Lives Over the Next Five Years

IBM Reveals Five Innovations that Will Change Our Lives Over the Next Five Years

The Physiology And Psychology Of Voting

Richard Dawkins' jaw-dropping talk on our bizarre universe

Quadruped Rough Terrain Robot Prototype

Searching in space and minds: New research suggests underlying link

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Emergence & Complexity Spore

Brain-Computer Interaction Emotiv Systems' EPOC headset

Crowdsourcing Foldit

Science Education Immune Attack

Who says C3PO and R2D2 can't come from the open source community?

The Future Of Code, Digital And Genetic Continued

Say wow! the flying jellyfish

Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of the Human Mind

Gene linked to commitment-phobia

Telepresence Robot TiLR at the X PRIZE Foundation

The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn

Surge in Food Nanotechnology Worries Consumers

What's wrong with science as religion

Emergence & Complexity
Spore

Brain-Computer Interaction
Emotiv Systems' EPOC headset

Crowdsourcing
Foldit

Science Education
Immune Attack