Researchers say they are closer to developing a vaccine to give life-long protection against any type of flu, after promising trials in animals. Two separate US teams have found success with an approach that homes in on a stable part of the flu virus. That should remove the problem with current flu vaccines which must …
Nextbigfuture has covered the 28 page benchmarking paper and the developments, applications and algorithms for the Dwave systems. Highlights * the Dwave system is broadly 15 times faster than commercial multi-core solvers * the Dwave system can be 600 times faster * Dwave is doubling the number of qubits every year or two * there …
By combining complementary mindsets on the leading edges of electronic and radiofrequency device engineering, a pair of researchers in DARPA’s Young Faculty Award program has devised ultratiny, electronic switches with reprogrammable features resembling those at play in inter-neuron communication. These highly adaptable nanoscale switches can toggle on and off so fast, and with such low …
Adam Crowl provides a summary of the EMdrive research and the recent hype. EMdrive could enable a huge leap in travel around the solar system and interstellar travel and possibly even open up exotic warp or hyperspace physics. Adam Crowl is writing on a broad variety of interstellar and SETI topics while changing day-jobs. Adam …
Stephen Hsu at Information Processing reports on a paper where the authors use machine learning techniques to build sparse predictors based on grey/white matter volumes of specific regions. Correlations obtained are ~ 0.7 A separate UCLA paper show that brain size alone correlates 0.4 with IQ. Also, a notable genetic sequence, located within the HMGA2 …
Paul March indicates that Eagleworks NASA has started the build of their 1.2kW magnetron powered EM-Drive prototype in a tetter-totter balance system. It is being built to replicate the thrust magnitudes of the Shawyer tests and the Chinese replication of same. Estimated build time should in the 2 month time period with the limited manpower …
Medical implants, complex interfaces between brain and machine or remotely controlled insects: Recent developments combining machines and organisms have great potentials, but also give rise to major ethical concerns. In their review entitled “Chemie der Cyborgs – zur Verknüpfung technischer Systeme mit Lebewesen” (The Chemistry of Cyborgs – Interfacing Technical Devices with Organisms), KIT scientists …
When companies are looking to hire people, they scan through the résumés they get in the mail and their first step is to throw out all the résumés of people who’ve been unemployed for a long time. This is research based on pretty well-designed experiments that control for other variables beyond long-term unemployment. Rand Ghayad …
Hitachi has developed an all-in one, container-type energy storage system as a core energy product for ensuring the stable use of distributed renewable energy such as wind and solar power, while maintaining the power supply-demand balance. This energy storage system fuses Hitachi’s electricity grid control technologies built up in the Hitachi Group and Hitachi Chemical …
A new MIT spinoff company, SolidEnergy says it has materials that can increase the amount of energy that lithium-ion batteries store by 30 percent or more and lower costs enough to make electric vehicles affordable. SolidEnergy replaces the graphite electrode used in conventional lithium-ion batteries with a high-energy lithium-metal one. That’s been tried before, but …
Business Week has a detailed look at 2014. They have a detailed look at 55 global industries, from tech to banking and energy to retail. The Aakash 4, a 7-inch Android tablet developed by British manufacturer Datawind and India’s Ministry of Human Resources Development. Datawind Chief Executive Officer Suneet Tuli said at a Wired conference …