@R29k. Lol, no. I don't over complicate it, it is common that pseudo scientific articles are simplifying complex matters and propagate 'stunning' expectations. All to get more readers... It is the term thought that is disturbing. "a practical way to control TVs, computers, or wheelchairs with their thoughts." This is populist BS, honestly spoken...thought commands required to achieve these and bioelectric transmissions are very different... When you walk along the street and you move your feet one by one, right, left, right....do you send thought commands?! Or are it bioelectric impulses? It also speaks of brain-computer interface, not of artificial peripheries....prostheses which can be controlled via brain impulses. Here we can do a lot already, for instance to connect nerve ends with an artificial leg... @nodnar Paralysis is also a complex matter. It starts at psychological induced paralysis and ends at paraplegia ('irreversible' damage at the medulla spinalis). We can stimulate processes which form new nerve connections which can do the 'job' again (here is a huge potential to develop medication)....and the CNS is very complex.....it can affect motor function or cognitive functions (for instance Alzheimer's disease). Training has a huge potential for recovery, more than originally assumed. We have here a huge potential for research.
@Yen Of course the articles are simplified, if they used the normal jargon then very few people would understand. However you said something very puzzling, you are differentiating thought commands and the mechanical movement of your body ?! I'm no expert on this but I was under the impression that our thoughts are bioelectric ! You are implying something very different. ... and the article
@Yen: The brain does the work of interpretation for you and sends the results to the Motor Cortex. That part of the brain is what controls our limbs and other parts of our bodies. Since the brain is, by far, the most sophisticated adaptive computer system in existence today, it is possible that the brain "notices" the interface, realizes the need to communicate with it (for the better of the body) and "helps" the person by making the connections work. Perhaps a variant of the placebo effect? (The brain knows it has to heal, and a symbolic gesture coerces the brain into healing itself) @Nodnar: My brother suffered from Bells Palsy. It "magically" healed itself. :Miki
Well I don't know, but I think people are associating 'thoughts' with language (I should have mentioned this at the very first time to avoid confusions). Finally all that is measured is bioelectrical response. Todays way to measure is not sufficient to gather the complexity/selectivity of a thought. (Not to speak of coloring with different emotions which surely alter the patterns..in short the relativity of the individual's 'condition'. Commands are not absolute....). When reading the article it implies to most that one can 'think' TV on, channel 42 and it can work (when reading the headlines). The difference is that the pattern has to be determined, transmitted and translated properly elsewhere and there is the crux of the matter. At a healthy organism all is inside of it and has left back a huge evolutionary process. The result is 'our' body today. Besides of that we have also the autonomic nervous system. But science has the tendency to isolate the brain to be a CPU that sends commands to the peripherals which are executing them. I had posted already (don't want to go spiritual, though), not the brain is responsible for intelligence, the intelligence/consciousness which is indeterminable has created the brain. That what Michaela said "magically' is the work of this intelligence, but humans have the tendency to determine the place of healing... Either way when dealing with artificial prostheses which are connected at nerve ends, the human has to learn to control them and the receiver has to be adjusted many times, this is a very time consuming process and one needs a strong will...you cannot think: Left foot up!!! And it works.... Considering this fact to transmit a thought command like switch on TV is science fiction. If people don't associate thought with language (as I am assuming), then I am completely wrong of course .
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC90351/ http://digestivehealthinstitute.org...eria-eating-viruses-alternatives-antibiotics/ http://www.technologyreview.com/news/409905/using-viruses-to-kill-bacteria/ http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...ll-the-end-for-hospital-superbug-8884846.html Fear not!!! The Gorgians are here...
The corrugated galaxy: Milky Way may be much larger than previously estimated The Milky Way galaxy is at least 50 percent larger than is commonly estimated, according to new findings that reveal that the galactic disk is contoured into several concentric ripples. The research, conducted by an international team led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Heidi Jo Newberg, revisits astronomical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey which, in 2002, established the presence of a bulging ring of stars beyond the known plane of the Milky Way. "In essence, what we found is that the disk of the Milky Way isn't just a disk of stars in a flat plane—it's corrugated," said Heidi Newberg, professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy in the Rensselaer School of Science. "As it radiates outward from the sun, we see at least four ripples in the disk of the Milky Way. While we can only look at part of the galaxy with this data, we assume that this pattern is going to be found throughout the disk." ...more
Chinese Team Reports Gene-Editing Human Embryos In an ethically charged first, Chinese researchers have used gene editing to modify human embryos obtained from an in vitro fertilization clinic. The 16-person scientific team, based at the Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China, set out to see whether it could correct the gene defect that causes beta-thalassemia, a blood disease, by editing the DNA of fertilized eggs. The team’s report showed the method is not yet very accurate, confirming scientific doubts around whether gene editing could be practical in human embryos and whether genetically engineered people are going to be born anytime soon. The authors’ report appeared on April 18 in a low-profile scientific journal called Protein & Cell. The authors, led by Junjiu Huang, say there is a “pressing need” to improve the accuracy of gene editing before it can be applied clinically—for instance, to produce children with repaired genes. The researchers did not try to establish a pregnancy and say that for ethical reasons they did their tests only in embryos that were abnormal. “These authors did a very good job pointing out the challenges,” says Dieter Egli, a researcher at the New York Stem Cell Foundation in Manhattan. “They say themselves this type of technology is not ready for any kind of application.” The paper had previously circulated among researchers and had provoked concern by highlighting how close medical science may be to tinkering with the human gene pool (see “Engineering the Perfect Baby”). In March, an industry group called for a complete moratorium on experiments of the kind being reported from China, citing risks and the chance they would open the door to eugenics, or changing nonmedical traits in embryos, such as stature or intelligence (see “Industry Body Calls for Gene-Editing Moratorium”). Other scientists recommended high-level meetings of experts, regulators, and ethicists to debate whether there are acceptable uses for such engineering (see “Scientists Call for a Summit on Gene-Edited Babies”). The Chinese team reported editing the genes of more than 80 embryos using a technology called CRISPR-Cas9. While in some cases they were successful, in others the CRISPR technology didn’t work or introduced unexpected mutations. Some of the embryos ended up being mosaics, with a repaired gene in some cells but not in others. Parents who are carriers of beta-thalassemia could choose to test their IVF embryos, selecting those that have not inherited the disease-causing mutation. However, gene editing opens the possibility of germ-line modification, or permanently repairing the gene in an embryo, egg, or sperm in a way that is passed onto the offspring and to future generations. That idea is the subject of intense debate, since some think the human gene pool is sacrosanct and should never be the subject of technological alteration, even for medical reasons. Others allow that germ-line engineering might one day be useful but needs much more testing. “You can’t discount it,” says Egli. “It’s very interesting.” The Chinese team performed the gene editing in eggs that had been fertilized in an IVF clinic but were abnormal because they had been fertilized by two sperm, not one. “Ethical reasons precluded studies of gene editing in normal embryos,” they said. Abnormal embryos are widely available for research, both in China and in the United States. At least one U.S. genetics center is also using CRISPR in abnormal embryos rejected by IVF clinics. That group described aspects of its work on the condition that it would not be identified, since the procedure remains controversial. Making repairs using CRISPR harnesses a cell’s own DNA repair machinery to correct genes. The technology guides a cutting protein to a particular site on the DNA molecule, chopping it open. If a DNA “repair template” is provided—in this case a correct version of the beta-globin gene—the DNA will mend itself using the healthy sequence. The Chinese group says that among the problems they encountered, the embryo sometimes ignored the template, and instead repaired itself using similar genes from its own genome, “leading to untoward mutations.” Huang said he stopped the research after the poor results. “If you want to do it in normal embryos, you need to be close to 100 percent,” he told Nature News. “That’s why we stopped. We still think it’s too immature.” Source
Use your smartphone for biosensing An Australian research team has shown that smartphones can be reconfigured as cost-effective, portable bioanalytical devices, with details reported in the latest edition of the Open Access Journal 'Sensors'. The team, from the Centre for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (CNBP), an Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence, created a simple, portable and economic biosensing device that allows for immediate diagnostic testing of arthritis, cystic fibrosis, acute pancreatitis and other clinical diseases... more
with all due respect for the folks downunder, i just do not believe a word of it! smartphones are completely useless, imho, and never cost-effective at any time!
For their typical use I would agree with you. We see increases in computing power to push the same increasingly bloated software. But what if they found more useful functionality to utilize all that computing power. In that case I disagree with you totally.
my good ol`desktop can can beat the holy sh*t out of any smartphone, without being taken for a ride by any big companies, or by federal institutions..within reason. much cheaper too.. it leaves an illusion of control, if you see what i mean..
Sure it can beat a smartphone for computing power. However is it portable and does it come with loads of sensors that enable it to take on a host of other functionalities. For example Gravitometer , Compass , Pedometer , Heart Rate Monitor , GPS etc .... Forgot to mention, most of the higher range phones come with pretty decent cameras.
oh, maybe i can agree on portability.. even sensors.. but i have got a vitrine full of voigtlaender and zeiss ikon and pentax cameras here. when it comes to storing information, those phones have got a few decades to go yet.. it just costs silver..
I bet you have your pentax available most of the time you're out and about ! Also a few decades for storage, no! My phone has a 128 GB MicroSD in it and enough data to get me jailed for about 50 years by the RIAA. In under 5 years I bet a 1 TB MicroSD will be possible. I remember in 2008 buying a flash drive with 512 MB storage, now I have a couple 64 GB flash drives. In 7 years the technology improved 128x ! Imagine what you can have a few decades from now.
Water: the strangest chemical in the universe – video Water: the strangest chemical in the universe – video
Reality doesn’t exist until we measure it, quantum experiment confirms Australian scientists have recreated a famous experiment and confirmed quantum physics's bizarre predictions about the nature of reality, by proving that reality doesn't actually exist until we measure it - at least, not on the very small scale. That all sounds a little mind-meltingly complex, but the experiment poses a pretty simple question: if you have an object that can either act like a particle or a wave, at what point does that object 'decide'? Our general logic would assume that the object is either wave-like or particle-like by its very nature, and our measurements will have nothing to do with the answer. But quantum theory predicts that the result all depends on how the object is measured at the end of its journey. And that's exactly what a team from the Australian National University has now found. "It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it," lead researcher and physicist Andrew Truscott said in a press release. Known as John Wheeler's delayed-choice thought experiment, the experiment was first proposed back in 1978 using light beams bounced by mirrors, but back then, the technology needed was pretty much impossible. Now, almost 40 years later, the Australian team has managed to recreate the experiment using helium atoms scattered by laser light. "Quantum physics predictions about interference seem odd enough when applied to light, which seems more like a wave, but to have done the experiment with atoms, which are complicated things that have mass and interact with electric fields and so on, adds to the weirdness," said Roman Khakimov, a PhD student who worked on the experiment. To successfully recreate the experiment, the team trapped a bunch of helium atoms in a suspended state known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, and then ejected them all until there was only a single atom left. This chosen atom was then dropped through a pair of laser beams, which made a grating pattern that acted as a crossroads that would scatter the path of the atom, much like a solid grating would scatter light. They then randomly added a second grating that recombined the paths, but only after the atom had already passed the first grating. When this second grating was added, it led to constructive or destructive interference, which is what you'd expect if the atom had travelled both paths, like a wave would. But when the second grating was added, no interference was observed, as if the atom chose only one path. The fact that this second grating was only added after the atom passed through the first crossroads suggests that the atom hadn't yet determined its nature before being measured a second time. So if you believe that the atom did take a particular path or paths at the first crossroad, this means that a future measurement was affecting the atom's path,explained Truscott. "The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behaviour was brought into existence," he said. Although this all sounds incredibly weird, it's actually just a validation for the quantum theory that already governs the world of the very small. Using this theory, we've managed to develop things like LEDs, lasers and computer chips, but up until now, it's been hard to confirm that it actually works with a lovely, pure demonstration such as this one. The full results have been published in Nature Physics. SOURCE