Science & Technology News – Page 208

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Why America is losing the toilet race

March 6, 2020

I just got back from my first trip to Japan, and I’m now in love with the country. The ramen, yakitori and sushi. The gorgeous volcanoes. The fascinating people and culture. But of all the things I fell in love with, there’s one that I can’t stop thinking about: the toilets.

Japanese toilets are marvels of technological innovation. They have integrated bidets, which squirt water to clean your private parts. They have dryers and heated seats. They use water efficiently, clean themselves and deodorize the air, so bathrooms actually smell good. They have white noise machines, so you can fill your stall with the sound of rain for relaxation and privacy. Some even have built-in night lights and music players. It’s all customizable and controlled by electronic buttons on a panel next to your seat.

In Japan, these high-tech toilets are everywhere: hotels, restaurants, bus stations, rest stops and around 80% of homes. It’s glorious. Then, I come back to the United States, and our toilets are stuck in the age of dirty coal mines and the horse and buggy. They basically have one feature: flush. No heated seats. No nice smells and sounds. No sanitizing blasts of liquid. It’s like cleaning your dishes without water. It’s gross. And it got me thinking: Why can’t we have high-tech toilets too?

Continue reading… “Why America is losing the toilet race”

Automation, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News

MIT tech lets self-driving cars “see” under surface of road

March 5, 2020

In poor visibility, your car could look for landmarks — under the surface of the road.

MIT is working on self-driving technology that allows cars to “see” through the ground up to a depth of ten feet below the surface of the road. The idea is to allow self-driving cars to figure out exactly where they are — especially when snow, heavy fog, or other bad weather obscures road markings.

Current-generation self-driving cars typically rely on cameras and light detection sensors (LIDAR) to position themselves on roadways. But once the snow starts falling and covers up lane markers, it can get tricky for the car to tell where it is — and that could spell disaster, especially at highway speeds.

A team at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab have come up with a new system they call “Localizing Ground Penetrating Radar” (LGPR) that can create a real-time map of the ground below the road’s surface.

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Amazon.com, Automation, Food, Science & Technology News, Shopping

Amazon is expanding its cashierless Go model into a full-blown grocery store

March 5, 2020

The first Amazon Go Grocery opens today in Seattle’s Capitol Hill district

Amazon is getting more serious about its brick-and-mortar retail ambitions with its first-ever Amazon-branded grocery store. The store opens today in Seattle’s Capitol Hill district, confirming reports from last year that Amazon was developing a more ambitious version of its cashier-less Go model. The new store, which The Verge toured late last week, is indeed modeled after a standard Amazon Go location, but it has been expanded to include a wide array of grocery items you’d find at, say, Amazon-owned Whole Foods.

In fact, the store does source a number of its items, including some produce and meat and other fresh food, from Whole Foods suppliers. It also carries Whole Foods’ 365 brand for certain items. But Amazon’s store offers other products, like Kellogg’s breakfast cereal and Coke products, that you won’t find at Amazon’s higher-end, organic-focused subsidiary.

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AI, Farms, Food, Science & Technology News, Shopping

In two decades, your future meals will be flavored with trendy contradictions

March 5, 2020

As Sunday morning, January 1, 2040, dawns, Coloradans will wake up to a breakfast of lab-cultured sausage, mung bean–based eggs, and tiger-nut-flour banana bread—all prepared by robots who talk like Alexa’s much smarter granddaughter. There is no kale in sight, and almond milk was banned long ago for being an environmental threat.

The first month of the year is still filled with new diets, new calendars, new dire warnings, and the traditional predictions from culinary prognosticators.

I’ve been the guy predicting the next big food thing in newspapers and magazines since the early 1980s. See how official I just sounded?

Admittedly, I’m a food data geek who soaks up stats from the market research firm NPD Group, Whole Foods, food industry insight source Technomic, Forbes, the National Restaurant Association, and similar sources. Tell me what you’ll eat, and I’ll tell you who you’ll be.

Looking forward 20 years in nutrition, there are dining, grocery shopping, and farming trends that I think will be going strong.

Continue reading… “In two decades, your future meals will be flavored with trendy contradictions”

Health & Fitness, Healthcare, Medicine, Science & Technology News

We are nearing ‘longevity escape velocity’ — where science can extend your life for more than a year for every year you are alive

March 4, 2020

Technological convergence in 8 areas is taking direct aim at the limits of human lifespan

By Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler

Technology hasn’t just improved our lives; it’s also extended them — considerably.

For most of history, humans lived about 25 years. Real acceleration emerged at the turn of the 20th century, when everything from the creation of antibiotics to the implementation of better sanitation to the increased availability of clean water, and the ability to tackle killers like cancer and heart disease has us living routinely into our 80s. But many scientists believe we’re not stopping there.

Technological convergence is fueling this conviction. The intersection of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, networks, sensors, robotics, massive datasets, biotechnology and nanotechnology is taking direct aim at the limits of human lifespan.

Continue reading… “We are nearing ‘longevity escape velocity’ — where science can extend your life for more than a year for every year you are alive”

Analysis, China, DNA, Healthcare, Medicine, Science & Technology News

You’re likely to get the Coronavirus

March 4, 2020

Most cases are not life-threatening, which is also what makes the virus a historic challenge to contain.

In May 1997, a 3-year-old boy developed what at first seemed like the common cold. When his symptoms—sore throat, fever, and cough—persisted for six days, he was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong. There his cough worsened, and he began gasping for air. Despite intensive care, the boy died.

Puzzled by his rapid deterioration, doctors sent a sample of the boy’s sputum to China’s Department of Health. But the standard testing protocol couldn’t fully identify the virus that had caused the disease. The chief virologist decided to ship some of the sample to colleagues in other countries.

At the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the boy’s sputum sat for a month, waiting for its turn in a slow process of antibody-matching analysis. The results eventually confirmed that this was a variant of influenza, the virus that has killed more people than any in history. But this type had never before been seen in humans. It was H5N1, or “avian flu,” discovered two decades prior, but known only to infect birds.

By then, it was August. Scientists sent distress signals around the world. The Chinese government swiftly killed 1.5 million chickens (over the protests of chicken farmers). Further cases were closely monitored and isolated. By the end of the year there were 18 known cases in humans. Six people died.

This was seen as a successful global response, and the virus was not seen again for years. In part, containment was possible because the disease was so severe: Those who got it became manifestly, extremely ill. H5N1 has a fatality rate of about 60 percent—if you get it, you’re likely to die. Yet since 2003, the virus has killed only 455 people. The much “milder” flu viruses, by contrast, kill fewer than 0.1 percent of people they infect, on average, but are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths every year.

Continue reading… “You’re likely to get the Coronavirus”

Big Problems, Business, China, Science & Technology News

Millions of Chinese firms face collapse

March 4, 2020

A closed Apple store in China

Brigita, a director at one of China’s largest car dealers, is running out of options. Her firm’s 100 outlets have been closed for about a month because of the coronavirus, cash reserves are dwindling and banks are reluctant to extend deadlines on billions of yuan in debt coming due over the next few months. There are also other creditors to think about.

“If we can’t pay back the bonds, it will be very, very bad,” said Brigita, whose company has 10,000 employees and sells mid- to high-end car brands such as BMWs. She asked that only her first name be used and that her firm not be identified because she isn’t authorised to speak to the press.

With much of China’s economy still idled as authorities try to contain an epidemic that has infected more than 75,000 people, millions of companies across the country are in a race against the clock to stay afloat.

Continue reading… “Millions of Chinese firms face collapse”

Automation, Employment, Future, Science & Technology News

14 jobs that could be automated within the next decade

March 3, 2020

Automation is firmly established in the workplace, and many businesses have benefited greatly from this rapidly evolving technology. Tedious, repetitive tasks—such as data entry and scheduling—that once ate up valuable hours in an employee’s day can now be streamlined with the right automation processes.

Now that the business world has seen the power of automation, the question has become, “What’s next?” The members of Forbes Technology Council are constantly looking out for new tech trends, and they believe the next jobs to be impacted by automation might not be the ones people expect.

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Engineering, Inventions, new technology, Science & Technology News

Researchers combine lasers and terahertz waves in camera that sees ‘unseen’ detail

March 3, 2020

The time-resolved nonlinear ghost imaging camera uses a nonlinear crystal to convert standard laser light to terahertz patterns, allowing the reconstruction of complex samples using a single terahertz pixel.

A team of physicists at the University of Sussex has successfully developed the first nonlinear camera capable of capturing high-resolution images of the interior of solid objects using terahertz (THz) radiation.

Led by Professor Marco Peccianti of the Emergent Photonics (EPic) Lab, Luana Olivieri, Dr. Juan S. Totero Gongora and a team of research students built a new type of THz camera capable of detecting THz electromagnetic waves with unprecedented accuracy.

Images produced using THz radiation are called ‘hyperspectral’ because the image consists of pixels, each one containing the electromagnetic signature of the object in that point.

Continue reading… “Researchers combine lasers and terahertz waves in camera that sees ‘unseen’ detail”

Biotech, Energy, Engineering, Farming, Science & Technology News

5 incredible synthetic biology holy grails that could change the world

March 3, 2020

Investors are still waiting for next-generation biotech to deliver on its enormous promise and potential, but just one of these Holy Grails would make the wait worth it.

Biotechnology has come a long way since 1978, when Herbert Boyer successfully demonstrated that human insulin could be produced from bacteria engineered with recombinant DNA. The breakthrough technology pushed a little-known company called Genentech into the spotlight and forever changed the world. Genentech was acquired by Roche for $46.8 billion in 2009. The American bioeconomy — biotech crops, biochemicals, and biologic drugs — generated an estimated $324 billion of gross domestic product in 2012. And millions of people worldwide today rely on insulin and other biologic drugs daily.

You could argue that recombinant DNA was the first Holy Grail technology delivered by the field. Several more have followed. In fact, we’ve recently been treated to the development and ongoing commercialization of the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR — a true game-changer for the biotech ecosystem. Headache-inducing legal entanglements aside, CRISPR promises to help synthetic biology deliver on its enormous potential and could even be an integral tool needed to produce several other world-changing Holy Grails. Some are closer to reality than investors may think.

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Business, Employment, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News, Startup, Trending

Are Millennials the new entrepreneurs?

March 2, 2020

The next generation of leaders are making headlines for their entrepreneurial attitude – are millennials driving a new startup revolution?

Millennials came of age in a world powered by the products of rockstar entrepreneurs – Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Alexis Ohanian. TV Shows like Shark Tank, highlighting the aspirations and potential success of entrepreneurs, drew audiences of over 6 million. Meanwhile, the 2008 recession threw the stability of traditional career paths into question. It’s no wonder, then, that millennials seem to look very favorably upon entrepreneurship. But is this younger generation actually more entrepreneurial than preceding generations? The data is split. In this final article in my series on how millennials are transforming the workforce, I explore what entrepreneurship really means to millennials.

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Healthcare, Medicine, New Discoveries, Science & Technology News, Stem cells

Experimental study speeds up bone healing with 2 common medications

March 2, 2020

In rat experiments the duo of drugs increased levels of circulating stem cells and sped up healing of a spinal fracture

A new proof-of-concept study has found a combination of two drugs, already approved by the FDA for other uses, may boost the release of stem cells from bone marrow and accelerate the healing of broken bones. Only demonstrated in animals at this stage, the researchers suggest clinical trials could progress rapidly considering the drugs have already been demonstrated as safe in humans.

“The body repairs itself all the time,” says corresponding author on the study Sara Rankin. “We know that when bones break they will heal, and this requires the activation of stem cells in the bone. However, when the damage is severe, there are limits to what the body can do of its own accord.”

A great deal of current research is focusing on mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapies. MSCs are a type of adult stem cell that can grow into a variety of different cell types including muscle, fat or bone. Many current MSC treatments in development involve extracting a small number from a patient, growing them in laboratory conditions, then injecting them back into the patient.

Continue reading… “Experimental study speeds up bone healing with 2 common medications”