Researchers at MIT and U.C. Irvine have developed a new algorithm that can detect actions in video much better than past efforts could. It does by applying the lessons of natural language grammar computer scientists have parsed for computers.
Advances in exponential technology happen fast — too fast for Singularity Hub to cover them all. This weekly bulletin points to significant developments to...
Why does the factory of life rely exclusively on four machines, the DNA bases A, G, C and T? To get an answer, scientists at Scripps Research Institute tried working with a host of other potential base molecules. Recently, they succeeded in inserting an extra set of bases into the DNA of an E. coli bacterium, and managed to get it to reproduce with the extra DNA bases in tact.
In William Gibson’s sci-fi novel, Neuromancer, hackers jack-in to an internet-like virtual world called the matrix. Instead of working with lines of code, they’re...
an Diego-based Cue is bringing DIY health care to new heights, with an at-home lab kit that runs five standard tests and displays the results in a mobile app. The lab tests inflammation via C-reactive protein, vitamin D levels, female fertility based on Luteinizing hormone, influenza virus, and testosterone levels.
In the movie Her, an intelligent operating system called Samantha composes a piece of music to describe her romantic relationship with human companion, Theodore...
In The Princess Bride, the always sagacious Miracle Max—aka Billy Crystal—points out “there’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.” And he wasn’t wrong.
Death...
Wireless energy transmission has been possible since Thomas Edison’s time, and in the last several years, especially, with robots gaining mobility and electric vehicles building consumer demand, we’ve heard almost daily promises that the days of tangled power cords are numbered. So why do the vast majority of EV drivers and smartphone users, not to mention robots, remain tethered to plug-in chargers and cables?
Because one of the formulas for innovation is combining two useful technologies to see if the whole might be greater than the sum of its parts, it was only a matter of time before someone mounted a 3D printer to a drone. Mirko Kovac, an aerospace engineer at the Imperial College London, has done just that.
Stanford researchers found that simply by producing stem cells from adult male skin cells and putting them in the sperm-making tubes of mice, they could obtain partly developed germ cells, the cells that produce sperm. The researchers hypothesized that if the cells had been placed in human testes, with their distinct and roomier topography, they would likely have resulted in functional sperm.
A proposal to power the entire United States with solar energy, without wires or solar farms, by using solar cells to pave roads and parking lots, is certainly a big idea. It comes from the Idaho couple, Scott and Julie Brusaw, yet it’s promising enough to have received finding from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. Now their company, Solar Roadways, is looking for another $1 million in funding on Indiegogo to manufacture the product commercially.
For years, Boston Dynamics has been the undisputed heavyweight champ of viral robot videos. Four-legged robots, like BigDog, LS3, Cheetah, and Wildcat were their...
Geckos are the ultimate climbers. Microscopic hairs on their toes enable the lizards to climb just about anything using the molecular attraction (or Van...
Space travel is a dangerous business. Astronauts are hurled into space in a tiny life support bubble. Contact with Earth is severed. Whatever they’ve...
Amy Purdy, who lost her legs below the knee after a bout with bacterial meningitis and sepsis in 1999, scored two 10s and a 9 this week for a lively dance with Derek Hough performed on blade prosthetics similar to those made famous by the runner Oscar Pistorius.
“We’re very close.”
In just three words, Palmer Luckey of OculusVR fame, perfectly summarized not only where virtual reality stands, but perhaps the entire neurogaming...
The idea that blood is the basic stuff of life dates back to well before the scientific method. Yet, in a pair of new studies, researchers have found that blood — and specifically a growth factor in it known as GDF-11 — spurs the brains, muscles, skeletons and hearts of older mice to look and perform like those of younger mice.
A team of Stanford University engineers has developed a circuit board, and its underlying chips, that simulates the activity of the human brain 9,000 times faster than a personal computer and is 100,000 times more energy efficient.
Chilean not-for-profit Socialab runs competitions for technology-based business proposals that address some of the major problems wrought by poverty in the region: food insecurity, lack of clean drinking water, struggling public education and so on. Then it taps its virtual community of 300,000 users to identify the best ideas and fine-tune them.
Since first becoming available in 2005, 28 people have undergone a full or partial facial transplant—a procedure described by Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez as the...
The social gaming venture EyeWire lured citizen scientists to follow retinal neurons at the back of the eye with the chance to level up and outperform competitors. With their help, EyeWire has solved a longstanding mystery about how mammals perceive motion.
Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Nissan, Audi—major car companies say they’re working to make cars drive themselves. But all are lagging behind Google. The internet company...
Small cracks that develop within the fiberglass bodies of modern cars and planes can quickly turn into irreversible damage, which undermines their structural integrity. Unfortunately, the materials...
Escape Dynamics is proposing that we do away with fiery rockets altogether in order to make a much more dramatic attack on the exorbitant cost of space flight.
U.N. goals whittle child and maternal death rates; computer solves word problems so you don't have to; the Milky Way gets an MRI; making fuel out of nothing.
The mother’s nutrition at the time of conception can permanently and fundamentally affect physical characteristics of her offspring, according to a study just published in Nature Communications, by influencing the child's epigenome.
CNBC and Singularity University are partnering to present Exponential Finance, a two-day summit to explore upcoming, game-changing technologies and their imminent implications for the financial world.
Financial...
In design, a robot or animated character tends to evoke an increasingly positive emotional response as it more closely approximates human characteristics—but too close,...
There’s something a little creepy-sounding about the phrase “lab-grown organs,” but producing human organs in the lab could have a range of such powerful...
While the Internet of Things continues to grow, its adoption is progressing much more slowly than that of, say, smartphones. The trouble may go back to Steve Jobs’s famous talking point: The Internet of Things lacks a common platform that “just works” the way the iPhone did. Freeboard and Dweet, two modular products from New York-based Bugs Labs, are trying to solve that problem.
Disney is taking animation into three-dimensions to restore its ability to wow audiences. A research team affiliated with the company recently presented a swarm of 75 watch-sized robots whose colors and formations can be controlled with a drawing app.
Collaborating German and Japanese scientists have studied mice lacking a gene that plays a central role in energy metabolism. Their findings? The mice maintain their normal...
Researchers have successfully produced skin in the lab that reproduces the skin barrier. The advance presents a viable alternative to animal testing for cosmetics.
