 |
Scientists Extract Images Directly From Brain
Researchers from Japan’s ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person’s mind and display them on a computer monitor, it was announced on December 11. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people’s dreams while they sleep.
The scientists were able to reconstruct various images viewed by a person by analyzing changes in their cerebral blood flow. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, the researchers first mapped the blood flow changes that occurred in the cerebral visual cortex as subjects viewed various images held in front of their eyes. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each. While the fMRI machine monitored the changes in brain activity, a computer crunched the data and learned to associate the various changes in brain activity with the different image designs.
Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the system was able to reconstruct and display what the test subjects were viewing based solely on their brain activity.
For now, the system is only able to reproduce simple black-and-white images. But Dr. Kang Cheng, a researcher from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, suggests that improving the measurement accuracy will make it possible to reproduce images in color.
“These results are a breakthrough in terms of understanding brain activity,” says Dr. Cheng. “In as little as 10 years, advances in this field of research may make it possible to read a person’s thoughts with some degree of accuracy.”
The researchers suggest a future version of this technology could be applied in the fields of art and design — particularly if it becomes possible to quickly and accurately access images existing inside an artist’s head. The technology might also lead to new treatments for conditions such as psychiatric disorders involving hallucinations, by providing doctors a direct window into the mind of the patient.
ATR chief researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani says, “This technology can also be applied to senses other than vision. In the future, it may also become possible to read feelings and complicated emotional states.”
The research results appear in the December 11 issue of US science journal Neuron.
Via: Pink Tentacle
Big Dog
The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth
BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.
BigDog has an on-board computer that controls locomotion, servos the legs and handles a wide variety of sensors. BigDog’s control system manages the dynamics of its behavior to keep it balanced, steer, navigate, and regulate energetics as conditions vary. Sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a laser gyroscope, and a stereo vision system. Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine temperature, rpm, battery charge and others.
In separate trials, BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, and carries a 340 lb load.
BigDog is being developed by Boston Dynamics with the goal of creating robots that have rough-terrain mobility that can take them anywhere on Earth that people and animals can go. The program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).
Via: Boston Dynamics
Implants Create Insect Cyborgs
Cornell University researchers have succeeded in implanting electronic circuit probes into tobacco hornworms as early pupae. The hornworms pass through the chrysalis stage to mature into long-lived moths whose muscles can be controlled with the implanted electronics. The research was showcased at MEMS 2008, an international academic conference on Micro-Electrico-Mechanical Systems that took place from January 13-17 in Tucson, AZ.
Via: Live Science
Brain-Machine Interface Controls Movement Of Prosthetic Limb
25-year-old quadriplegic Matthew Nagel has become the first recipient of a brain implant designed to control the movements of a prosthetic limb.
Nagel, who sustained a knife injury that severed his spinal cord in 2001, has been working with neuroscientist John Donoghue of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and his team, to develop the device. He is now the first participant in a clinical trial using the BrainGate Neural Interface system.
Via: Neurophilosophy
Robot Scientist Makes Discoveries Without Human Help
A robot scientist that can generate its own hypotheses and run experiments to test them has made its first real scientific discoveries.
Dubbed Adam, the robot is the handiwork of researchers at Aberystwyth University and the University of Cambridge in the UK. All by itself it discovered new functions for a number of genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, aka brewer's yeast.
Via: New Scientist
Brain Trick Makes Robot Hand Feel Real
A BIZARRE illusion that makes people believe a false hand is part of their own body could be all it takes to imbue prosthetic limbs with a sense of touch.
Via: New Scientist
Virtual Piano Turns Any Surface Into A Keyboard
Digital Information Development (DID) has developed a highly portable virtual piano that is played with a keyboard consisting of projected laser beams.
The box-shaped device measures about 10 x 3 x 3 cm (4 x 1 x 1 in.) and weighs about 100 grams (3.5 oz.). Using a red semiconductor laser module and holographic optical element, the device projects a 25-key 2-octave keyboard onto the surface in front of it (black surfaces don’t work because they absorb the light). A CMOS camera module and infrared (invisible) red semiconductor laser module detect which keys are touched, and the corresponding notes are emitted from speakers built into the device. Chords can also be played, and DID claims it is technically possible to reproduce weighted notes (but presumably not with this version).
The keyboard has 3 other voices in addition to piano — organ, pipe organ and harpsichord. It is scheduled for release in Japan in November 2006 and is expected to cost around 15,000 yen (US$130).
DID says that a virtual 88-key grand piano can be created by increasing the size of the device.
Via: Pink Tentacle
Metal Injections Make A Spider Silk that Spiderman Would Envy
Scientists have managed to make extra-strength spider silk—already notable for having a tensile strength higher than many alloys of steel, even though its comprised entirely of proteins [Ars Technica]—by incorporating small amounts of metal into it. A research team at the Max Planck Institute was inspired by studies showing traces of metals in the toughest parts of some insect body parts. The jaws of leaf-cutter ants and locusts, for example, both contain high levels of zinc, making them particularly stiff and hard [Reuters]. The researchers wanted to try adding metals into existing biological materials, and decided to start with the Araneus spider.
The researchers, whose work is published in Science, used atomic-layer deposition to pulse zinc, titanium, and aluminum ions into spider silk [Technology Review]. The process is used normally to apply a thin film layer of one material onto another, but the researchers found that the metal ions had actually penetrated and reacted with the protein structure of the silk, yielding a material significantly stronger than natural spider silk, though they don’t quite understand how the integration occurred. One of the researchers, Mato Knez, attributes the strengthening effect to the metal’s displacement of hydrogen bonds within the silk’s protein structure…. The team were also able to show that the outer metal coating of the silk was of minor importance in the improvement of strength, and therefore that the phenomena was caused by the metals imbedded in the protein fibres [Chemistry World].
The technique may be useful for manufacturing super-tough textiles and high-tech medical materials, including artificial bones and tendons. “It could make very strong thread for surgical operations” [Reuters], said another of the researchers, Seung-Mo Lee.
Via: Discover Magazine
DJ Needs A Phone Too
Are you one of those musically inclined people who love to jam at the drop of a hat? Designer Jose Tomas DeLuna thinks that there is a market for the creative music junkies who like to mix their music on the go. As a result he has conceptualized KRE8, which is mobile phone but has plenty of musically enhanced features. It’s a device that bridges musical creativity and communication.
First lets talk about the physical features: KRE8 splits into two and uses sensors and accelerometers to figure out the gestures you are making. Broadly there are three modes in the system: Instrument Mode (guitar, drums, violin), Mix Mode and Record Mode. So based on the gesture inputs, the system automatically slips into any one of the Instrument Modes and follows your jam. The output is recorded as MIDI Signal and can be shared with others via 3G, which can broadcast publicly or privately giving you the option to let people jam/mix along with you.
A glass touchscreen allows editing on the fly and more than makes up for the loss of knobs, toggles and sliders used for such kind of work.
What all can this device do?
The music that you create (KRE8…got the connection?) on the device can be transmitted via wireless networks and can be broadcasted to allow any other KRE8 user to listen to the composition or add to it.
The completed mixes can be stored on the wireless network and tagged with GPS coordinates. This way when another KRE8 user comes in proximity to where the original user had tagged their mixes/jams, they’ll get a notification that a creative piece was left there, and can listen, or add to it.
I listen to music but don’t make any, so I don’t know how helpful such a device will be for those who create it. However, for what its worth I think this idea is swell and will be excellent for those who make music on the go!
Designer: Jose Tomas DeLuna
Via: Yanko Design
All On The Mind
Prepare for drugs that will improve memory, concentration and learning
FOR thousands of years, people have sought substances that they hoped would boost their mental powers and their stamina. Leaves, roots and fruit have been chewed, brewed and smoked in a quest to expand the mind. That search continues today, with the difference only that the shamans work in pharmaceutical laboratories rather than forests. If asked why, the shamans reply that they are looking for drugs to treat the effects of Alzheimer's disease, attention-deficit disorder, strokes, and the dementias associated with Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia—and that is the truth. But by creating compounds that benefit the sick, they are offering a mental boost to the healthy, too.
Via: Economist
