Students have always faced distractions and time-wasters. But computers and cellphones, and the constant stream of stimuli they offer, pose a profound new challenge to focusing and learning.
Researchers say the lure of these technologies, while it affects adults too, is particularly powerful for young people. The risk, they say, is that developing brains can become more easily habituated than adult brains to constantly switching tasks - and less able to sustain attention.
Good discussion of different types of card used throughout the world."Cards containing chips, called smart cards, simply cannot match something that's supposedly dumb and has been around since the 1970s: ordinary credit cards with magnetic stripes running across their backs. The dumb cards don't need a brain of their own: the network supplies the necessary smarts."
stereotactic radiosurgery, or SRS, is one of the fastest-growing radiation therapies, a technological innovation designed to target tiny tumors and other anomalies affecting the brain or spinal cord, while minimizing damage to surrounding tissue.
Because the radiation is so concentrated and intense, accuracy is especially important. Yet, according to records and interviews, the SRS unit at Evanston lacked certain safety features, including those that might have prevented radiation from leaking outside the cone.
The mistakes in Evanston involve linear accelerators - commonly used for standard radiation therapy - that were redesigned by the manufacturer, Varian Medical Systems, so they could also perform SRS. As the devices became more versatile and complex, problems arose when vital electronic components could not communicate with one another.
Podcast and transcript. Explains how credit card transactions are checked before being authorised in an attempt to reduce fraud. Essentially this is a neural network combined with a huge database of prior transactions. A good example to show students how AI is used in the "real world" every day.
A man who lost both of his arms in an accident is getting some high-tech help with an innovative artificial limb that controls movements by thought. \n
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