by Aaron Saenz on March 22nd, 2010
TCA Cellular Therapy out of Louisiana has several FDA approved clinical trials for stem cells underway, including one for ALS.
Stem cell treatments continue to gain ground in the United States. Louisiana based TCA Cellular Therapy has 6 FDA clinical trials in progress, the latest of which is the first approved US trial to use stem cells to treat ALS (Lou Gherig’s Disease). TCA performs autologous transplants that use a patient’s own bone marrow to produce stem cells, culture them, and then inject them back into the body. This avoids the need for donor matching. Among the other FDA approved clinical trials TCA has underway are studies on heart disease and limb ischemia (blood vessel blockages in legs). According to the TCA website, while the limb ischemia trials are still in phase II and phase III of FDA approval, the company hopes to begin treating patients for the condition in 2012. If ultimately successful in all phases of these trials, TCA would be able to provide its treatments anywhere in the country, and franchise the practice to others. TCA’s work is another example that, although it is taking its sweet time, FDA approved stem cell therapies are coming to the US.
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by Aaron Saenz on March 21st, 2010
We may focus on the stories of individual genius, but it will be harnessing the intelligence of the collective that enables humanity to solve its future problems.
Do you know your IQ, that little number that’s supposed to measure how smart you are? Forget it. Individual intelligence is old news, collective intelligence (CI) is the future. And it’s already here. Google lets you access the collective records of the world via internet searches. Wikipedia assembles the shared knowledge of humanity in an ever refined research tool that anyone can access. Oh, these systems have their limits, to be sure, but they allow an individual to quickly leverage the expertise of millions in just a few seconds. That’s incredible, and that’s the promise of CI. The Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT was formed in 2006 by Thomas Malone and his colleagues. CCI tries to answer a guiding question: how can people and computers be connected so that collectively they act more intelligently than any individual, group, or computer has ever done before? Thomas Malone addressed the World Economic Forum in Switzerland earlier this year and explained the nature of collective intelligence, how we may track it, and how it could help solve problems like climate change. Check out his talk in the video below.
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by Aaron Saenz on March 20th, 2010
ABB's latest industrial robot can glide along a rail while performing complex tasks at high speed. One robot, many jobs - humans just can't win when it comes to manufacturing.
The modern factory is the natural habitat for the latest generation of industrial robots, and we’re seeing some impressive results from that environment’s natural artificial selection. One of ABB’s latest robots can glide along a horizontal rail for up to 33m while performing complex tasks or carrying a payload of 150 kg. The IRB 6620LX is a five axes robotic arm suitable for welding, grinding, assembly, or materials handling. According to its press release, it’s only been on sale since October, so I doubt its permeated through to your local factory. Still, seeing this thing in action, I can just imagine a whole plant full of these things zipping around back and forth, juggling multiple tasks on the same line. Watch the 6620LX get put through its paces in the video below, and don’t miss the “robot-view” footage starting at 0:47.
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by Aaron Saenz on March 19th, 2010
At MAGIC, teams of robot vehicles will have to work together to complete missions, like disarming roadside bombs.
Soldiers have to use teamwork to explore their surroundings and accomplish their mission. Robots, which are becoming increasingly important parts of militaries all over the world, need to have the same skills. That’s where MAGIC comes in. The Multi Autonomous Ground-robotics International Challenge seeks to encourage engineers all over the world to develop teams of autonomous robots that can work together to accomplish military tasks. MAGIC 2010 is sponsored by the US and Australian Departments of Defense and will take place in an undisclosed location near Adelaide, AUS in November. A large pool of applicants has already been narrowed down to 10, with teams from Japan, Australia, US, Turkey, and Canada. Five will receive $100,000 in funding to help complete prototypes of their bots. The top three finishers at MAGIC 2010 will receive $750k, $250k, and $100k prizes and will be given opportunities to work with the US and Australian governments to develop their bots. This competition could do for military robots what the DARPA Grand Challenge did for autonomous cars. We’ve got an interesting simulation video for you below that demonstrates the kind of robotic teamwork that MAGIC is all about. Watch it below.
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by Aaron Saenz on March 18th, 2010
This robot journalist can explore its surroundings, take pictures, interview people, perform internet searches, and publish online. Ok, I'm about to lose my job.
Robots are after my job. Researchers at the Intelligent Systems Informatics Lab (ISI) at Tokyo University have developed a journalist robot that can autonomously explore its environment and report what it finds. The robot detects changes in its surroundings, decides if they are relevant, and then takes pictures with its on board camera. It can query nearby people for information, and it uses internet searches to further round out its understanding. If something appears newsworthy, the robot will even write a short article and publish it to the web. Charlie Catlett, from Argonne National Labs, seemed impressed with the bot, and it made a splash at the most recent meeting of the Information Processing Society of Japan. By combining real world and internet research, the journalist robot is taking a step beyond other automated systems. Give it enough time, and robots like these could become a valued asset for news feeds everywhere.
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by Aaron Saenz on March 18th, 2010
Gymnast robot No. 7 comes with automatic gripping hands. It wants that bar so badly!
Robot enthusiast Hinamitetu (aka Taro Tetubou) is on the road to building the perfect artificial gymnast. It’s a long journey. His last creation, the No. 6, was able to do a full release somersault (kovacs) on the high bar. The next iteration in robot gymnastics, the No. 7, has fully automatic hands. Place a bar in there, and the 3kg bot latches on with amazing speed. That’s a skill that comes in handy when you tumbling through the air. As always, watching a Hinamitetu bot in action is as much about the comedy as it is about the gymnastic prowess. I love the evil robot eyes and the defiant stare. Check out No. 7’s successful performance in the video below. We’ve also included some of the blooper footage to give you a chuckle. Keep up the good work Hina-san, I want to see the No. 8 stick a dismount!
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by Aaron Saenz on March 18th, 2010
Genes from microorganisms allow neurons to be controlled by light pulses via fiber optics.
What do you get when you combine microorganisms and fiber optics? Mind control over mice and rats. Karl Deisseroth and his team at Stanford University have been making serious inroads into discovering how the brain works through optogenetics. The genes of certain algae and archae are spliced into rodent neurons, making them respond to light. Blue light turns the neuron on. Yellow light turns the neuron off. A fiber optic cable is connected into a living mouse or rat with the spliced genes allowing scientists to expose different neurons to different lights. The results are astounding. Stimulate the right hemisphere of a mouse, and it runs in circles to the left. Check it out in the video below!
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by Aaron Saenz on March 18th, 2010
Touch Revolution's NIM1000 could put an Android touchscreen into any appliance. Anybody want to browse the web on my microwave?
The Android platform is reaching beyond mobile phones and is poised to conquer all the electronic machines in your home. San Francisco based Touch Revolution has created a seven inch touchscreen module, the NIM1000, that can be easily adapted into major appliances. At CES 2010, TR debuted prototypes for a washing machine, office printer, office phone, and even a microwave. These Android enabled devices would function like normal except with touchscreen commands, endless Apps, and USB, Ethernet, or WiFi connectivity. On the microwave, for instance, a user may want to download recipes, look up nutritional information, or just listen to Pandora while they cook. If successful, products like these may be a sign that every object in our lives is on the path to becoming a droid. Check out a video of the Touch Revolution prototypes in the video from CNN Money below (skip to 1:11).
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by Aaron Saenz on March 17th, 2010
Mark Roth gave a great talk at TED describing how hydrogen sulfide may be the key to putting humans into suspended animation.
As anyone who reads science fiction will tell you, suspended animation is where your body is put into a state of preservation, not really living, but not dead either. It’s like a chemically induced version of hibernation, and it could help you stay alive on the way to a hospital after getting seriously hurt. Mark Roth was part of a larger DARPA initiative to extend soldier survivability after injury on the battlefield. From that research, Roth discovered that hydrogen sulfide (H2S), in small quantities, would put mammals in what was essentially a state of suspended animation. Hydrogen sulfide is toxic (it was used in chemical warfare in WWI) but in the right doses it can actively bond to oxygen receptors in your body. Replacing the need for oxygen allows mammals to lower their metabolic rates to absurdly low levels, but once the H2S is removed animals recover without any nasty side effects. Roth has found then what seems to be the perfect formula for keeping people alive after trauma. His newly formed company, Ikaria, is currently in phase II clinical trials for a liquid hydrogen sulfide product. In just a few years, suspended animation may be a common tool in hospitals and trauma centers all over the world. It almost sounds too incredible to believe. Watch Roth give an enthusiastic and really enjoyable talk at TED 2010 in the video below that explains his work and its amazing potential.
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by Aaron Saenz on March 17th, 2010
Inside this fMRI machine a test subject in Kyoto is having his mind read to determine which image he sees.
If you had to nominate one modern technology as a mind reading device, the fMRI looks like a good bet. By measuring blood flow fMRI can track activity in your brain, and this opens the window to your mind – it may even allow us to figure out what your eyes are seeing at any given moment. The ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan is able to show a geometric pattern to a test subject and then have a computer program recreate that image by analyzing brain activity gathered by fMRI (NIPS 2009). Scientists at UC Berkeley have used fMRI to study the visual cortex to encode images as brain activity and decode brain activity into images. In other words, for a given image they know how your brain will react, and for a given brain reaction they know the image that would cause it. Researchers at UCB have even managed to do the same with video – their decoding system can create a rough facsimile of what a subject was watching at the time. This is incredible! I had a chance to talk with Jack Gallant of UC Berkeley about these attempts to see what the brain sees. While this technology is still in its very early stages, the work already finished is truly astounding. Check out a video discussing ATR, and pics of research from UCB after the break.
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by Michael Bennett Cohn on March 17th, 2010
QR Stuff makes it easy to place a matrix code where anyone can scan it: on your chest.
Matrix codes are like bar codes on steroids. To the naked eye, they look deceptively like a series of dots in a rectangular pattern. They’re being used by Japanese companies to identify buildings, by zany German engineers to greet the world via Google Earth using crop circles, and in augmented reality, to tell the viewing device how to create the imaginary object in the user’s field of vision. But one of the most exciting applications is individual users’ ability to encode URLs or other information of their own choosing into articles of clothing. QR Stuff, for example, allows the user to generate a code indicating a personal URL (say, a blog, or a Facebook profile), and print it on a t-shirt. When a code-savvy stranger recognizes that you’re wearing a matrix code, they can take a picture of it with their phone and translate it into the related URL with a free app like NeoReader. You could have a whole wardrobe of augmented clothing; some days you wear a shirt that indicates your Facebook profile, and some days it’s your Twitter page. The services are (mostly) free, and the code is (mostly) in the public domain. The only thing you have to pay for is the shirt.
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by Aaron Saenz on March 16th, 2010
Justin Bieber rose quickly from YouTube to world wide fame due to the strength of his talent and accelerating media. Others are sure to follow faster and faster.
Two years ago almost no one knew who he was, now he’s had an ongoing run of Top 40 hits, a platinum album, and a throng of adoring teenage fans. Justin Bieber is the 16 year old poster-child for the modern version of a meteoric rise to fame. He was discovered from his videos on YouTube, and his managers helped him build a rabid radio, internet, and video following. His first album went on sale in November 2009 and went platinum just two months later. By Christmas, he was singing for the Obamas at the White House on national television. The thing is, Bieber’s story may be remarkable now, but it won’t be for long. Besides his considerable talent, the pop star was the beneficiary of some powerful trends: the viral nature of YouTube videos, the ability for memes to spread rapidly through social networking, and the self-referencing and amplifying attention of the major media. We’ve seen rises to fame before but the speed at which they happen are accelerating. The forces that turn an unknown into a celebrity have strengthened in the past decade, and will continue to swell in the years ahead. Other performers that can tap into these powers will experience the same sort of exponential rise in fame. In other words, ladies and gentleman, the Biebers are coming.
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