Science and research

Scientists release first 'cinematic MRI' of live birth

Let's get one thing straight up front: the term "cinematic" does not in this instance mean it's time to order up some popcorn. There's no color, no dramatic score, no super slow-mo to announce the climax. This is gritty black-and-white footage of a woman giving birth.

But don't let the grit fool you into thinking it's low tech. The world's first birth in an MRI machine was announced by scientists at Charite University Hospital in Berlin back in December 2010, and they're only now releasing the 25-second video, which was made … Read more

Google scientists find evidence of machine learning

Google scientists working in the company's secretive X Labs have made great strides in using computers to simulate the human brain.

Best known for inventing self-driving cars and augmented-reality eyewear, the lab created a neural network for machine learning by connecting 16,000 computer processors and then unleashed it on the Internet. Along the way, the network taught itself to recognize cats.

While the act of finding cats on the Internet doesn't sound all that challenging, the network's performance exceeded researchers' expectations, doubling its accuracy rate in identifying objects from a list of 20,000 items, according … Read more

Professor to 'hack' into Stephen Hawking's brain

There are several things I find hard to understand. Tennis' Williams sisters, for example. Or why diesel prices can be $1 a gallon different a mere five miles apart.

The things that go around Stephen Hawking's highly sophisticated brain, I wouldn't even try to fathom.

However, scientists at Stanford, led by Dr. Phillip Low (who is also CEO of Neurovigil), are working with him in order to access his brainwaves directly.

The tool they are using they call iBrain. It is designed to take brainwaves and have them be communicated on a computer. It consists of a black … Read more

3D computer model helps screen millions of chemo drugs

Researchers have long used still images of proteins known to be related to recurring cancers in an attempt to understand exactly why these proteins make some chemotherapies fail.

Now, biochemists at Southern Methodist University are using a 3D computer model of the human protein P-glycoprotein -- believed to play a pivotal role in the failure of chemotherapy in many recurring cancers -- to screen more than 8 million potential drug compounds in the hunt for one that will help stop this failure.

"This has been a good proof-of-principle," biochemist John G. Wise said in a school news release. &… Read more

Nick Bilton gave me a case of the (e-book) blues

The fog has lifted making for a gorgeous day in San Francisco. Thank you Nick Bilton for screwing it all up for me.

Actually, Bilton wrote a terrific piece today in The New York Times today, recounting his state of mind after frequenting a clutch of bookstores during a trip to Manhattan. It also left me feeling low as I nodded in agreement as he recounted the bittersweet price Kindle (and other digital) converts are paying perhaps without realizing the cost.

So I went inside, pushing open the large wooden door, which creaked like a prop borrowed from a horror-movie … Read more

Internet usage patterns may signal depression, study finds

The amount and type of online activity Internet users exhibit may be indicators of depression, findings a group of researchers hopes will lead to software tools to help identify depressive behavior.

People who showed symptoms of depression tended to use the Internet differently than those who didn't show signs of depression, researchers said in a New York Times opinion piece today. Some of that behavior included obsessively checking e-mail, watching lots of videos, and switching frequently among multiple apps, according to a new study by researchers from the Missouri University of Science and Technology.

The researchers asked 216 college … Read more

MIT video tech could be a remote pulsometer -- or a lie detector

In the Fox TV show "Lie to Me," Dr. Cal Lightman was able to tell whether someone was lying by observing what he called "micro expressions" on their faces. The twitch of an eye, the quickening of a pulse, the beads of sweat on a brow -- he looked for clues too subtle for most of us to catch.

Now, researchers out of MIT are developing a video technology they call Eulerian Video Magnification that could do that and more -- by amplifying the motion in a standard video sequence to detect information not visible to … Read more

How to watch online as a huge asteroid flies by Earth today

A ginormous space asteroid about the size of a full city block is heading our way today, and you can secure a front row seat online to watch as it zips past the Earth later.

The asteroid, known to astronomers as 2012 LZ1, is expected to pass within 14 lunar distances of Earth, or roughly 3.35 million miles. In space terms, that's a relatively close call, though still far enough way so as not to ruin your summer plans.

The Slooh online skywatching service, which has a telescope set up on the Canary Islands, plans to stream the … Read more

New flu detection test can be carried in a first aid kit

After the H1N1 "swine flu" virus jumped from pigs to human in 2009, more than 18,000 people died and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called it the first global pandemic in more than 40 years.

Today, biomedical engineers out of Brown University and Memorial Hospital in Rhode Island hope that their prototype flu detector biochip will help contain the next major flu outbreak by enabling the quickest, most accurate, and most affordable diagnosis possible.

The team's assay, which they call SMART (short for A Simple Method for Amplifying RNA Targets), consists of a series … Read more