Category: Science & Technology News

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3D Printer, Science & Technology News

NEW AI ALGORITHM UNLOCKS RAPID HIGH-RESOLUTION COLOR 3D PRINTING

Three color 3D printed models created using the team’s new ML software. Image via Charles University. 

By PAUL HANAPHY  

Researchers from Charles University’s Computer Graphics Group (CGG) have developed a machine learning (ML)-based technique that could help unlock the potential of high fidelity color 3D printing.

By continually simulating the printing process, the team have managed to train an algorithm to iteratively find the optimal parameters for limiting color bleeding, and improving part accuracy. The program is ultra-efficient too, requiring only one GPU, making it up to 300 times faster than similar AI approaches, while reducing print preparation times from tens of hours down to just a couple of minutes. 

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Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Injectable microspheres to repair failing hearts

Stem cells grown over the surface of the microspheres. Credit: University College London

by Mark Greaves , University College London

Biodegradable microspheres can be used to deliver heart cells generated from stem cells to repair damaged hearts after a heart attack, according to new findings by UCL researchers. This type of cell therapy could one day cure debilitating heart failure, which affects an estimated 920,000 people in the UK and continues to rise as more people are surviving a heart attack than ever before.

Scientists have been trying to use stem cells to repair damaged hearts for a number of years. However, these cells often don’t remain in the heart in a healthy state for long enough to provide a sustained benefit.

Now, a UCL team, funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), has grown human stem cell-derived heart cells on tiny microspheres, each only a quarter of a millimeter wide, engineered from biological material. The cells attach to and grow on the microspheres, make connections with each other and are able to beat for up to 40 days in a dish. The small size of the microspheres means they can be easily injected into the heart muscle using a needle.

The researchers have also taken this one step further by developing state-of-the-art technology to visualize the injected microspheres and confirm they remain in place. Barium sulfate (BaSO4), which shines bright on X-rays and CT scans, was added to the microspheres and injected into rat hearts. Whole body CT scans confirmed that the microspheres remained in place for up to six days after injection.

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Farming, Science & Technology News

Inventing and scaling the world’s largest urban vertical farming network

Launching a successful new business concept requires a strong purpose, a focus on research, an innovative business model, and a willingness to adapt to the market.

Starting a new business is tough for any start-up, but building a company on an entirely new business concept presents a whole other level of challenges. In a conversation with McKinsey’s Jerome Königsfeld, Infarm CEO and cofounder Erez Galonska shares his passion and vision to change the way people eat and reflects on his learnings from bringing the Infarm food-production concept to 50 percent of the world’s largest food retailers.

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Economy, Science & Technology News

Can’t find chicken wings, diapers, or a new car? Here’s a list of all the shortages hitting the reopening economy.

Juliana Kaplan and Grace Kay 

Empty shelves and shoppers at a Target store in Dublin, California, on March 15, 2020. Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

  • As the US economy increasingly reopens, it is seeing shortages of all sorts of items.
  • If you’ve tried to buy (or rent) a car or eat some chicken wings, you’ve probably noticed.
  • Insider rounded up some of the major supply shortages and why they’re lagging.
Continue reading… “Can’t find chicken wings, diapers, or a new car? Here’s a list of all the shortages hitting the reopening economy.”
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New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News

These 1,000 hexagons show how global wealth is distributed

Europe’s economic landscape: an excerpt from the nominal GDP world map.

FRANK JACOBS

A cartogram makes it easy to compare regional and national GDPs at a glance.

  • On these maps, each hexagon represents one-thousandth of the world’s economy.
  • That makes it easy to compare the GDP of regions and nations across the globe.
  • There are versions for nominal GDP and GDP adjusted for purchasing power.
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Science & Technology News, Space Flight

Richard Branson ‘could beat Jeff Bezos to space by flying two weeks before Amazon founder’

Virgin Galactic founder could fly to the edge of space over the July 4 weekend – two weeks before Amazon CEO launches with Blue Origin, report claims 

By Sam Tonkin

  • Sir Richard Branson could go to space over July 4 weekend, according to report
  • Virgin Galactic founder would fly on his VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo rocket plane
  • It would see him beat his billionaire rival, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, by two weeks
  • Bezos said on Monday he and his brother would fly with Blue Origin on July 20

It looked like Jeff Bezos was on the verge of winning the billionaire space race by revealing plans to fly to space ahead of rivals Elon Muskand Sir Richard Branson.

But it appears the Virgin Galactic founder might still beat the Amazon CEO to the punch, with a report claiming he plans to make a suborbital flight two weeks before Bezos and his brother.

But it appears the Virgin Galactic founder might still beat the Amazon CEO to the punch, with a report claiming he plans to make a suborbital flight two weeks before Bezos and his brother.

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AI, Science & Technology News

Here’s how new artificial intelligence algorithm can treat sleep disorder

A new breakthrough study develops artificial intelligence algorithm that will serve to help doctors and researchers around the world to learn more about sleep disorders in the future and help treat difficulty in sleeping, sleep apnea and narcolepsy

In a new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Computer Science have collaborated with the Danish Center for Sleep Medicine at the Danish hospital Rigshospitalet to develop an artificial intelligence algorithm that can improve diagnoses, treatments, and our overall understanding of sleep disorders.

Difficulty sleeping, sleep apnea and narcolepsy are among a range of sleep disorders that thousands of Danes suffer from. Furthermore, it is estimated that sleep apnea is undiagnosed in as many as 200,000 Danes.

“The algorithm is extraordinarily precise. We completed various tests in which its performance rivalled that of the best doctors in the field, worldwide,” states Mathias Perslev, a PhD at the Department of Computer Science and lead author of the study, recently published in the journal npj Digital Medicine (link).

Today’s sleep disorder examinations typically begin with admittance to a sleep clinic. Here, a person’s night sleep is monitored using various measuring instruments. A specialist in sleep disorders then reviews the 7-8 hours of measurements from the patient’s overnight sleep.

The doctor manually divides these 7-8 hours of sleep into 30-second intervals, all of which must be categorized into different sleep phases, such as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, light sleep, deep sleep, etc. It is a time-consuming job that the algorithm can perform in seconds.

“This project has allowed us to prove that these measurements can be very safely made using machine learning– which has great significance. By saving many hours of work, many more patients can be assessed and diagnosed effectively,” explains Poul Jennum, professor of neurophysiology and Head of the Danish Center for Sleep Medicine.

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Robots, Science & Technology News

Healthcare robots pitch in to help fight Covid-19

Humanoid robot Grace, developed by Hanson Robotics and designed for the healthcare market to interact and comfort the elderly and isolated people, especially those suffering during the coronavirus disease pandemic.

The Hong Kong team behind celebrity humanoid robot Sophia is launching a new prototype, Grace, targeted at the healthcare market and designed to interact with the elderly and those isolated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reports.

Dressed in a blue nurse’s uniform, Grace has Asian features, collar-length brown hair and a thermal camera in her chest to take your temperature and measure your responsiveness. She uses artificial intelligence to diagnose a patient and can speak English, Mandarin and Cantonese.

“I can visit with people and brighten their day with social stimulation … but can also do talk therapy, take bio readings and help healthcare providers,” Grace told Reuters as she stood next to her “sister”, Sophia, in creator Hanson Robotics’ Hong Kong workshop.

Grace’s resemblance to a healthcare professional and capacity for social interaction is aimed at relieving the burden of front-line hospital staff overwhelmed during the pandemic, said founder David Hanson.

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Engineering, Science & Technology News

New Quantum Microscope Can See Tiny Structures in Living Cells

An artist’s depiction of the quantum microscope at work.Illustration: The University of Queensland

By Isaac Schultz

The microscope exploits quantum entanglement to avoid destroying what it’s trying to observe.

A team of researchers in Germany and Australia recently used a new microscopy technique to image nano-scale biological structures at a previously unmanageable resolution, without destroying the living cell. The technique, which employs laser light many millions of times brighter than the Sun, has implications for biomedical and navigation technologies.

The quantum optical microscope is an example of how the strange principle of quantum entanglement can feature in real-world applications. Two particles are entangled when their properties are interdependent—by measuring one of them, you can also know the properties of the other.

The sensor in the team’s microscope, described in a paper published today in Science, hinges on quantum light—entangled pairs of photons—to see better-resolved structures without damaging them.

“The key question we answer is whether quantum lightcan allow performance in microscopes that goes beyond the limits of what is possible using conventional techniques,” said Warwick Bowen, a quantum physicist at the University of Queensland in Australia and co-author of the new study, in an email. Bowen’s team found that, in fact, it can. “We demonstrate [that] for the first time, showing that quantum correlations can allow performance (improved contrast/clarity) beyond the limit due to photodamage in regular microscopes.” By photodamage, Bowen is referring to the way a laser bombardment of photons can degrade or destroy a microscope’s target, similar to the way ants will get crispy under a magnifying glass.

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3D Printer, Science & Technology News

Wake Forest teams win a NASA prize for 3D printing human liver tissue

By A. Tarantola

Skinks think they’re just sooooo cool. Through no shortage of effort on our part, humans still lack the physiological capacity to regrow lost limbs and damaged organs. Well, we didn’t until this week, at least. A pair of research teams from Wake Forest University’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine have topped NASA’s long-running Vascular Tissue Challenge by 3D printing a biologically viable chunk of human liver.

The teams, respectively dubbed Winston and WFIRM, each managed to produce a centimeter-square hunk-o-meat capable of surviving and nominally operating for a span of 30 days, albeit using divergent methodologies. Yeah, granted, even NASA admits that both teams relied on similar “3D printing technologies to create gel-like molds, or scaffolds, with a network of channels designed to maintain sufficient oxygen and nutrient levels to keep the constructed tissues alive,” they differed on their printing designs and materials. 

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City Planning, Science & Technology News

Toyota Plans to Test Hydrogen-Based Transportation in Fukushima Futuristic City

By Otilia Drăgan

Toyota is taking another important step that contributes to Japan’s overall goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. After successfully initiating the Woven City project earlier this year, the company is now discussing with several partners the opening of a hydrogen-based city in the Fukushima Prefecture.

Sustainability is the word on everybody’s lips these days, but not too many can dream of a sustainable city prototype and actually bring it to life. This future society would be centered around hydrogen, another power-word in today’s automotive industry. The hydrogen will be locally produced and then used for clean transportation. These are the plans for Toyota’s next pioneering, sustainable city.

Toyota partnered with Isuzu and Hino to build a hydrogen-based city in the Fukushima Prefecture, with which they are currently discussing the future project. The prefecture will be the energy supplier, by producing hydrogen at several local sites, including the Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field (FH2R).

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new technology, Science & Technology News

Researchers create self-sustaining, intelligent, electronic microsystems from green material

This illustration captures the essence of the newly developed electronic microsystem. Credit: UMass Amherst

by Mary Dettloff , University of Massachusetts Amherst

A research team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst has created an electronic microsystem that can intelligently respond to information inputs without any external energy input, much like a self-autonomous living organism. The microsystem is constructed from a novel type of electronics that can process ultralow electronic signals and incorporates a device that can generate electricity “out of thin air” from the ambient environment.

The groundbreaking research was published June 7 in the journal Nature Communications.

Jun Yao, an assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering (ECE) and an adjunct professor in biomedical engineering, led the research with his longtime collaborator, Derek R. Lovley, a Distinguished Professor in microbiology.

Both of the key components of the microsystem are made from protein nanowires, a “green” electronic material that is renewably produced from microbes without producing “e-waste.” The research heralds the potential of future green electronics made from sustainable biomaterials that are more amenable to interacting with the human body and diverse environments.

This breakthrough project is producing a “self-sustained intelligent microsystem,” according to the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory, which is funding the research.

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