Conventional computers, even those running artificial intelligence programs, plod through calculations by sending ones and zeros along electronic pathways, one after the other. In contrast, the brains of mammals think and remember by activating networks of neurons, or brain cells, which then activate and communicate with similar networks across the brain. That’s what neuromorphic computers...
Category: TRENDS IN HI-TECH SCIENCE
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REAL MUSCLES FOR ROBOTS
Scientists at Washington University have been trying to make muscle-like structures for soft robots with surfaces that resemble skin. After some frustrating experiments, they decided to use real muscles—or, more accurately, real muscle proteins. Harvesting muscle from mammals wouldn’t work, so the team decided to recruit microbes to make it. First, the researchers genetically engineered...
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HOW THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD
After decades of research and failed attempts, the tire industry has demonstrated something almost as good as a gas tank that’s always full—an airless tire. The challenge has been to design a tire that needs no air but is still squishy enough to maintain a solid grip on the road. Michelin calls its creation the...
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NO WORKERS? NO PROBLEM. WE GOT ‘BOTS.
The reluctance of workers to return to low-skill, low-wage jobs post-COVID is speeding the adoption of robots throughout the economy. One warehousing company reported hiring 26,000 people to finally staff 13,000 jobs; half the people quit or were fired after the first few days, the Financial Times reported. “In the 1980s, the main reason for...
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NEW CRISPR GENE EDITOR EDITS MORE BETTER
CRISPR, the Nobel-winning gene editing technology, has gotten upgrades that enable the tool to do more—and more detailed—remodeling of a person’s DNA. CRISPR works by using proteins and ribonucleic acids (RNA) to break the bonds of DNA. Using the right combination of molecules, scientists can break off a specific, precisely defined length of a DNA...
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BMW PLANS COMPLETELY RECYCLABLE CAR
Don’t junk that old beater. Drop it off at the recycling center. OK, not yet, but BMW plans to make a car by 2040 that can be disassembled and recycled down to the tail light LEDs. The dashboard is made from wood, the carpet and velvet-like upholstery from recycled plastic, the tires from sustainably harvested...
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CAN HEAR EARLY ALZHEIMER’S ONSET
Although some progress has been made, Alzheimer’s Disease has always been difficult to diagnose with certainty. The most accurate tests tend to be expensive and health insurance policies don’t always cover them. Now researchers at McCann Healthcare Worldwide Japan and Kyoto University seem to have found something simpler and cheaper: listening to people as they...
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VACCINES IN FOOD?
Contribution by John Fraim One of the greatest developments in the current Covid vaccine war appears in the form of a relatively harmless looking 9/16/21 press release from the University of California at Riverside (UCR). The press release begins, “The future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in...
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SPECIAL UPDATE: HOW AND WHEN ELECTRIC VEHICLES WILL GO MAINSTREAM
Polls show four key obstacles standing between car buyers and electric vehicles (EVs). According to a Morning Consult poll released last February, the median price consumers would pay for an EV is $25,000, about the price of a very basic 2021 Toyota Camry. The average sticker price of a new vehicle in the U.S. is...
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RESEARCHERS ACHIEVE ROOM-TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTIVITY—MAYBE
Like perpetual motion, superconductivity—transmitting electricity without losing any to resistance or “friction” in the wires that carry it—is one of science’s alluring, impossible goals: it would save billions of dollars worth of power as well as vast amounts of fuel burned to no purpose at generating plants. Discovered in 1911, the phenomenon of superconductivity was...
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