In 1968, Philip K. Dick posed a question through the title of one of his many famed works: “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Close to 50 years later, Google somewhat answered that question when it asked its artificial neural networks what it saw in an image of clouds, or to produce a pattern it found in white noise. The results were often psychedelic.
Now, Google announced it will continue to explore if artificial intelligence can indeed be creative. According toPopular Science, the company plans on launching the project, dubbed Magenta, on June 1.
The project will see whether machine intelligence can produce original music, videos, images, and text.
RLV-TD moving towards launch pad. Source: ISROThe Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) accomplished a milestone on Monday.
The organization successfully launched an un-manned reusable rocket approximately 43 miles into the air, which was followed by a descent back to Earth at five times the speed of sound landing in the Bay of Bengal, according toPopular Science. ISRO released a statement explaining this test launch validated technologies like autonomous navigation, reusable thermal protection systems and re-entry mission management.
Engadgetnoted this model was only 7 meters long, which is why it won’t be offering passenger flights anytime soon.
Lab-engineered human capillaries (in green) derived from stem cells are “making contact” with the sprouts protruding from a rat aorta (in red).Growing tissues and organs in the lab for transplantation into patients could become easier after scientists discovered an effective way to produce three-dimensional networks of blood vessels, vital for tissue survival yet a current stumbling block in regenerative medicine.
In addition the technique to grow the blood vessels in a 3D scaffold cuts down on the risk of transplant rejection because it uses cells from the patient. It was developed by researchers from the University of Bath's Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, working with colleagues at Bristol Heart Institute.
The study is published in Scientific Reports.
So far the shortage of adequate patient-derived scaffolds that can supportblood vessel growth has been a major limitation for regenerative medicine andtissue engineering.
When light falls on a very thin, uniform layer almost all of it is reflected (right-hand arrows). By etching thin grooves in the film, the light is directed sideways and almost all of it is absorbed (left-hand arrows) even though the amount of material is very small. Insets show electron micrographs of the structuring. The absorbing layer is only 0.041 μm thick. Credit: Dr Thomas P. White, Australian National University.A breakthrough by an Australian collaboration of researchers could make infrared technology easy to use and cheap, potentially saving millions of dollars in defense and other areas using sensing devices, and boosting applications of technology to a host of new areas, such as agriculture.
Infra-red devices are used for improved vision through fog and for night vision and for observations not possible with visible light; high-quality detectors cost approximately $100,000 (including the device at the University of Sydney) some require cooling to -200°C.
Now, research spearheaded by researchers at the University of Sydney has demonstrated a dramatic increase in the absorption efficiency of light in a layer of semiconductor that is only a few hundred atoms thick - to almost 99 percent light absorption from the current inefficient 7.7 percent.
The hippocampus is a region of the brain largely responsible for memory formation. (Credit: Salk Institute)Unique connections in the adolescent brain make it possible to easily diminish fear memories and avoid anxiety later in life, according to a new study by Weill CornellMedicine researchers. The findings may have important implications for the treatment of trauma and anxiety disorders.
In a study of mice, the researchers found that the prefrontal cortex, which controls fear and anxiety, goes through a rearrangement during adolescence where it forms a significant number of new connections with the hippocampus, the region of the brain that controls spatial memory.
"This implies that during this developmental period, there is this strong link between how fear is experienced and remembered and memory of where the fearful event took place," said study author Dr. Francis Lee, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine and co-research director for the NewYork-Presbyterian Youth Anxiety Center. "So we wondered if we could use this connection to desensitize adolescent mice to fearful events."
Three-month-old Esther Kamilly has her head measured by Brazilian and U.S. health workers from the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at her home in Joao Pessoa, Brazil, as part of a study on the Zika virus and the birth defect microcephaly. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
As the international epidemic of Zika virus disease has unfolded and led to devastating birth defects for at least 1,300 children in eight countries, an agonizing question has persisted: What is the chance that an infected pregnant woman will have a baby with these defects?
Researchers don't yet have a complete answer, but they are slowly homing in on one.
The largest study to ever look at the question says the risk of one especially severe type of birth defect is "substantial" — in the range of 1 percent to 14 percent. It also reinforces the understanding that women infected in the early stages of pregnancy face the greatest risk.
The range is so unusually wide because researchers are relying on imprecise and incomplete information as they to try to quickly estimate the level of risk in advance of what they say is likely transmission of Zika by mosquitoes in the U.S. later this year.
The study focused on what was seen in just one place, a state in northeast Brazil. And it looks only at microcephaly, a condition in which a baby's skull is much smaller than expected because the brain hasn't developed properly. But health officials say Zika can cause other birth defects, too.
In 1968, Philip K. Dick posed a question through the title of one of his many famed works: “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Close to 50 years later, Google somewhat answered that question when it asked its artificial neural networks what it saw in an image of clouds, or to produce a pattern it found in white noise. The results were often psychedelic.
