Google today launched a somewhat mysterious website called “Solve for X,” which will now be the official homepage for a conference by the same name. Solve for X, according to the description provided, seems similar in format to the series of conferences from TED, but with more of a scientific focus.
The invite-only gathering is designed to attract global innovators who present short, technology-focused presentations on topics like low-energy desalination, e-waste mining, crowd-sourced protein folding, stretchable silicon biosensers, climate change, and more.
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You might remember the scene in The Hurt Locker where some soldiers are ambushed by a sniper and must do a little return sniping. That process of spotting, adjusting the sights, and altering the bullet’s ballistic trajectory bit by bit and degree by degree may soon no longer be necessary: Sandia Labs has developed a bullet with a built-in processor that guides its own flight via tiny adjustable fins.
The idea is that the bullet would go exactly where it was meant to go, and not deviate from the target because of wind, gravity, or other factors. They say that at the range of a kilometer, a normal bullet might be off by almost 10 yards, while this guided bullet would get within 8 inches. → Read More
Science People AKA Scientists need project management, too. At least that’s what Macmillan, a major science publisher, thinks so they’ve created a new business unit, Digital Science to push their Basecamp-like lab products.
Take, for example, their new site, LabGuru. This site offers collaborative project planning and document storage for labs, allowing science people to work together on major projects like “going to Mars” and “giving diarrhea to mice” (true story! My friend does this for real in her lab!).
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figshare, originally launched in January 2011, is re-launching today with some new features. figshare aims to be a repository for scientific figures, raw datasets, videos and more. The retooled service offers AWS storage, version control, and unlimited public storage capacity. All uploaded data is made available with easy-to-use citation links (and a QR code) and is licensed under CreativeCommons terms to encourage re-use. In addition to faster uploads and an easier-to-navigate interface, figshare is also working on desktop clients.
According to their FAQ, “We are a data sharing platform where you can add figures that might otherwise go unpublished – complete with the raw data tables.” All data is organized by categorgy and tags and is readily searchable, making it easy for researchers to find the data they need. Visitors can comment on the works, too. → Read More
The LA-based Science moved into its cozy permanent space above a yoga studio in Santa Monica this week, finally giving its variety of LA-based tech talents a place to call office.
Past the smell of Patchouli and the sign designating Crispin Porter Bogusky in the lobby are the second floor offices of the Science partners — former Myspace CEO Mike Jones, designer Mike Macadaan, Ryan Sit, Tom Dare and Color co-founder Peter Pham — which currently host about seven startups. → Read More
The idea of information being presented directly to your eyes, be it by glasses, contacts, distant lasers, or brain implants, has existed for decades. But like so many sci-fi concepts, the engineering is slightly more difficult than the idea work. While we’ve seen lots of work in artificial eyes, head-mounted displays, and cortical implants, the on-eye display has remained elusive.
Progress is being made, though. Researchers at the University of Washington and Aalto University in Finland have successfully created a simple wireless contact lens display and tested it on a live eye — a proof of concept that may presage more sophisticated devices. People wonder what kind of display comes after the touchscreen; it may be something like this. → Read More
Serial entrepreneur Mike Jones has led and help found a number of companies. As CEO of Userplane, AOL acquired the company in 2006. After leaving AOL, Jones started Tsavo Media, which was acquired by Cyberplex for $75 million. And in Jones’ latest role, as CEO of flailing social network Myspace, the company was bought by Specific Media in June. Jones subsequently left, and today, is officially announcing his next venture. He’s launching a new Betaworks-like technology studio/incubator in LA, called Science.
Jones has received $10 million in backing from a number of well-known investors including Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures, Rustic Canyon, White Star Capital, The
Social+Capital Partnership, Tomorrow Ventures, Jean-Marie Messier, Philippe
Camus, Jonathan Miller and Dennis Phelps.
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A study by an international research team has shown a correlation between frequent gaming and a greater volume of grey matter in a part of the brain linked to an internal reward system associated with addiction. Take a few minutes to parse that sentence, I’ll wait. The study, published today in Nature’s Translational Psychiatry journal, describes the analysis of fMRI scans of 154 14-year-old gamers. They found that the ventral striatum, part of the dopamine system and implicated previously in addiction studies, was larger in gamers who played more frequently, though the data was strictly correlative and should not be taken as evidence of causality.
It’s worth considering for a moment because studies like this always end up hitting network news after a day or two, with ridiculous simplifications and ominous speculations. Are Violent Video Games Literally Warping Our Children’s Brains? Find out — after this message! → Read More
It’s no secret that batteries are holding back mobile technology. It’s nothing against the battery companies, which are surely dedicating quite a lot of R&D to improving their technology, hoping to be the first out of the gate with a vastly improved AA or rechargeable device battery. But battery density has been improving very slowly over the last few years, and advances have had to be in processor and display efficiency, in order to better use that limited store of power.
Researchers at Northwestern University claim to have created an improved lithium ion battery that not only would hold ten times as much energy, but would charge ten times as quickly.
It’s probably safe to call it a breakthrough. → Read More
We’re big fans of the home 3D printer here. It’s a truly disruptive technology, though for now the cost is still a bit too high, and the uses aren’t quite practical enough, for it to be a household item just yet. But that hasn’t stopped people from putting it to good use.
Project Shellter is one of the most interesting applications of the technology I’ve seen. The project aims to produce artificial shells for hermit crabs using a MakerBot, which would otherwise have to be supplied by harvesting spare shells from the ocean. It sounds a bit precious, yes, but it’s indicative of a promising trend of using fabrication tech for novel and helpful purposes. → Read More
Back in March, we heard about a breakthrough from MIT: an “artificial leaf” that produces pure oxygen and hydrogen gas, powered entirely by sunlight. The technology was described in yesterday’s edition of Science, and the team has released a video showing one of the devices in action. → Read More
The Technical University of Denmark has put together a portable EEG system consisting of a low-cost scalp monitor and a smartphone app. It’s not the biggest technical breakthrough, but I find it comforting to see these pocket computers, more powerful than our PCs were a few years ago, being used for something other than social media and finding the nearest Starbucks.
The team at milab, part of the Cognitive Systems Section at DTU, is focused on “mobile context awareness, media modeling, and user experiences.” So it’s natural that they’d want to put together something like a handheld EEG unit. Check out the video inside, it’s pretty great. → Read More
Researchers at Tufts University have put together a “molecular motor” that is only about a nanometer across. It’s not the first single-molecule motor ever made, but this one, unlike others, can be activated singly by the minute tip of a scanning electron microscope. They’re working with Guinness to get certified as the smallest motor in the world. → Read More
Antennas are a bit like like underwear. Everybody needs them, but you generally want to conceal them, and when you have troubles with them, it gets embarrassing. Ever since we lost the pull-out and nub antennas of yesteryear on our phones and radios, the antenna has been more and more integrated with the designs of devices, but sometimes it isn’t practical to do so.
Take our clothing, for instance. Generally, getting antennas to play nice with bending and reshaping has led to poor performance (and then there are these things). But work being done at Ohio State University might have taken the next big step towards creating a sweater transmitter. → Read More
Researchers at UCLA have created a twist on traditional LCDs that would allow displays to reclaim wasted photons from the backlight, or even act as a normal solar cell. Normal LCDs rely on an always-on backlight, but because of the way LCDs work, most of that light never escapes. This inherent inefficiency hasn’t stopped us from getting bright displays, but the power necessary to make them so is usually what runs down your battery.
But what if we could recycle that wasted light? Enter UCLA materials science professor Yang Yang and his team of engineers. → Read More
Researchers at Stanford University have put together an interesting new battery technology that combines two theoretically coveted attributes: transparency and flexibility. The method of making the battery transparent is rather clever, and while the resulting product is far less energy-dense than its opaque relatives, it’s still an interesting development.
The secret is organizing the components in a certain way on a microscopic scale. The electrode material isn’t see-through, but there’s no reason it has to be a solid block instead of something less substantial. Materials Science professor Yi Cui figured out a way to organize the active materials in a way that’s nearly invisible to the naked eye. → Read More
HumansInvent has an interesting piece on a laboratory at Oxford University that can “grow” electronics using a process called Molecular Beam Epitaxy. The system, which uses devices straight out of Dr. Bizarro’s Lab, creates a thin substrate of molecules and then builds it up over time, creating circuit boards, solar panels, and the like with lasers. → Read More
Research at Columbia Engineering School has yielded a material that is literally unlike any other known. Everything in the universe (that we can see) affects light one way or another. Slows it down, speeds it up, spreads it out, diffuses it in a certain way, whatever. Even man-made materials with “negative refractive indexes,” themselves unlike anything else in the universe, do something to the light. Not this stuff. → Read More
And I thought this salt-grain-sized camera was small. Cornell researchers have created an even tinier imaging device that does away with the last holdout features of traditional digital cameras. → Read More
