Stuntmen face the last act as technology comes to replace them
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There are increasingly few areas of work and society that technology isn’t influencing, and even stuntmen aren’t immune. A new Artificial Intelligence (AI) system has been used to create computer animated stuntmen that could make action movies cooler than before. Researchers at University of...
Revolutionary brain prosthetic that boosts human memory by 35 percent unveiled
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF They say to live a full life you should experience everything life has to offer, but if you suffer from dementia remembering it all is near impossible, until now. Just months after two different teams of researchers figured out hot to edit and delete...
World’s first full body 3D scanner produces amazing live images of the human body
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Medical scanners haven’t advanced much in decades, this new scanner is faster, higher resolution and produces insights into the human body not possible using today’s technology. Recently I talked about a new innovation that lets doctors create movies of the behaviour of cells in...
Scientists have created an ultrasound patch to monitor your vital health
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Having access to ultrasound is like having a window into your body, and now it’s on a patch. Earlier this year we heard how scientists from the University of California San Diego in the US had developed a flexible ultrasound patch that allows users to see...
DARPA splashes $1.5bn to re-invent the way electronics are designed and made
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There is a concern that the lack of focus on developing new, advanced hardware will put US business and its military at a serious disadvantage in the future so DARPA is quadrupling its investments. There is now question that the electronics industry has been...
Scientists have 3D printed the world’s first physical neural network
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to print advanced and complex AI’s mean we can produce them cheaply and position them at the edge of networks where computer power might be limited. Recently a team of researchers in the US revolutionised artificial intelligence when they made the world’s first...
Scientists achieve world first by following a thought through the human brain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF If we are ever going to unravel the mysteries of the mind, and help find new treatments for cognitive diseases, we first have to understand how the brain works. A study using epilepsy patients undergoing surgery has given neuroscientists an opportunity to track in...
Researchers have read the mind of a “black box” AI using cell biology
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As we continue to endeavour to read the mind of today’s so called black box AI’s there may be more than one way to do it, and while turning to biology is unconventional, it works. The deep neural networks that power today’s Artificial Intelligence...
Editing living memories demonstrated for the first time
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We all have memories we’d like to change, keep, or even, perhaps, edit, embellish, or erase, and now the technology to do all of these and more, including correcting blindness and reversing dementia, has just been demonstrated in living subjects. Recently scientists transferred memories...
Researchers use AI to turn smartphones into lab grade microscopes
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Not everyone has access to a lab grade microscope, and if you’re a doctor in the middle of nowhere that’s an issue that will delay disease diagnosis and potentially put lives at risk, this breakthrough will revolutionise front line medicine. Today we are on...
Two breakthroughs make it impossible to fake nuclear weapon decommissioning
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Making sure countries subject to nuclear disarmament treaties are actually decommissioning real, not fake, nuclear weapons has always posed a problem, this breakthrough will no longer let the fakers get away with it. In past negotiations aimed at reducing the arsenals of the world’s...
Scientists successfully transferred memories between two snails
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The brain still has many mysteries, memory formation being one of them, but breakthroughs in epigenetics and neuroscience are starting to unravel them and it could lead to new sci-fi like capabilities and revolutionary new healthcare treatments. A lot has been going on in...
UC Berkeley’s atom thin display paves the way for truly invisible displays
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We’re traditionally used to displays being bulky and stiff, but increasingly scientists are finding new ways to create new types of displays that break the status quo, and which will open up millions of new use cases, from health monitoring to way beyond. We’ll...
Bioengineers hack biology to turn living tissue into any shape they want
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF One of the largest ascending mega trends is Synthetic Biology, and as our command and understanding of the natural world increases it will help transform our world in ways you never thought possible. It turns out that many of the complex folded shapes that...
Researchers have taught robots to predict the consequences of their future actions
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to predict the consequences of our actions is a vital human ability, and until now it’s one that robots have sorely lacked. We tell our children all the time that their actions have consequences, and today, as you’d more and more robots are capable...
MIT breakthrough creates glowing plants that could replace street lights
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Around a fifth of all the world’s energy production is consumed by lighting, but in the future glowing plants could help provide us all with an infinite, renewable source of light. Plants at the moment are getting the royal treatment. They’re being turned into...
Researchers claim new ultrasonic fingerprint scanner is unhackable
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Biometric security systems are an improvement on passwords but they’re easy to hack, now a new ultrasonic fingerprint scanner hopes to make them even more secure. As many of you have probably figured out by now the fingerprint recognition system on your phones, laptops...
New solid state coolant could spell the end of exploding batteries
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The world has an insatiable thirst for cooling, whether it’s cool fridges and freezers, or as a way to cool our gadgets increasingly powerful batteries and electronics, now solid state cooling could put an end to things that go boom in the night. There...
Google says Quantum Supremacy is just months away
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There will come a time when quantum computers will outperform even the fastest “classical” computers, and now that time could be just a few months away. The great promise of quantum computing is its ability to perform calculations of astonishing complexity that are far...
New nano material gives buildings, energy and stealth a big boost
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF A new nano material that can selectively tune out specific parts of the electromagnetic spectrum paves the way for cheaper solar power, stealthier fighter aircraft and more energy efficient buildings. A new flexible nano super material that’s been developed by a team at the University...
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