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thinkahol *

Citizen Scientist 2.0 - 1 views

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    What does the future of science look like? About a year ago, I was asked this question. My response then was: Transdisciplinary collaboration. Researchers from a variety of domains-biology, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, economics, law-all coming together, using inputs from each specialized area to generate the best comprehensive solutions to society's more persistent problems. Indeed, it appears as if I was on the right track, as more and more academic research departments, as well as industries, are seeing the value in this type of partnership. Now let's take this a step further. Not only do I think we will be relying on inputs from researchers and experts from multiple domains to solve scientific problems, but I see society itself getting involved on a much more significant level as well. And I don't just mean science awareness. I'm talking about actually participating in the research itself. Essentially, I see a huge boom in the future for Citizen Science.
thinkahol *

In a genetic research first, researchers turn zebrafish genes off and on - 0 views

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    ScienceDaily (May 9, 2011) - Mayo Clinic researchers have designed a new tool for identifying protein function from genetic code. A team led by Stephen Ekker, Ph.D., succeeded in switching individual genes off and on in zebrafish, then observing embryonic and juvenile development. The study appears in the journal Nature Methods.
thinkahol *

25% of US car accidents due to using gadgets | KurzweilAI - 0 views

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    Driving distractions such as cell phones and other electronic devices cause as much as 25% of all U.S. car accidents, researchers at the Governors Highway Safety Association have found, WinBETA notes. A major finding was that being distracted was the cause of 15 to 25% of all accidents, ranging from minor property damage to death. Their findings suggest that distracted driving accidents be reported in accident reports to assist in evaluating distracted driving laws and programs. They propose creating low-cost roadway measures that alert motorists when they are drifting out of their driving lane. They also propose that all cell phones be banned on the road, even hands-free versions. In another report by The New York Times, police in Syracuse and Hartford have handed out nearly 20,000 tickets for illegal use of a phone while driving - either for texting or use of a handheld phone. According to the federal government, these efforts have had the desired effect: distracted driving has fallen sharply. Their research shows that drivers talking on a phone are four times as likely to get into a crash as those not on a phone, and that the risks for motorists who text are at least twice as high. In Syracuse, handheld cellphone use and texting have each fallen by one-third. In Hartford, handheld cellphone use by drivers fell 57 percent while texting fell by 75 percent, the Times reports. Ref.: Vicki Harper. et al., Distracted Driving: What Research Shows and What States Can Do, GHSA, 2011
thinkahol *

Laser, electric fields combined for new 'lab-on-chip' technologies | KurzweilAI - 0 views

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    Researchers from Purdue University and colleagues are developing new technologies that combine a laser and electric fields to manipulate fluids and tiny particles such as bacteria, viruses, and DNA molecules for a wide range of potential applications, including medical diagnostics, testing food and water, crime-scene forensics, and pharmaceutical manufacturing.. This "hybrid optoelectric manipulation in microfluidics" technology could allow for innovative sensors and analytical devices for "lab-on-a-chip" applications, or miniature instruments that perform measurements normally requiring large laboratory equipment, the researchers said. The technology works by first using a red laser to position a droplet on a platform specially fabricated at Purdue. Next, a highly focused infrared laser is used to heat the droplets, and then electric fields cause the heated liquid to circulate in a "microfluidic vortex." This vortex is used to isolate specific types of particles in the circulating liquid, like a micro centrifuge. Particle concentrations replicate the size, location and shape of the infrared laser pattern. The technology can also be used in nanomanufacturing because it shows promise for the assembly of suspended particles (colloids), the researchers said. Ref.: Steven T. Wereley, et al., Hybrid opto-electric manipulation in microfluidics-opportunities and challenges, Lab on a Chip, 2011; 11 (13): 2135 [DOI: 10.1039/C1LC20208A]
thinkahol *

New web-based model for sharing research datasets could have huge benefits | KurzweilAI - 0 views

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    "New web-based model for sharing research datasets could have huge benefits "
thinkahol *

Researchers create self-assembling nanodevices that move and change shape on demand | K... - 0 views

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    Harvard researchers have created nanodevices made of DNA that self-assemble and can be programmed to move and change shape on demand. The nanodevice structure is based on the principle of tensegrity: its strength and stability results from the way it distributes and balances the counteracting forces of tension and compression. This new technology could lead to nanoscale medical devices and drug delivery systems, such as virus mimics that introduce drugs directly into diseased cells. Or it could one day be used to reprogram human stem cells to regenerate different kinds of injured organs and tissue.
Todd Suomela

Public's Knowledge of Science and Technology | Pew Research Center for the People and t... - 3 views

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    "The public's knowledge of science and technology varies widely across a range of questions on current topics and basic scientific concepts, according to a new quiz by the Pew Research Center and Smithsonian magazine."
thinkahol *

YouTube - Think faster focus better and remember moreRewiring our brain to stay younger... - 0 views

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    October 24, 2008 - Google Tech Talks June 16, 2008 ABSTRACT Explore the brain's amazing ability to change throughout a person's life. This phenomenon-called neuroplasticty-is the science behind brain fitness, and it has been called one of the most extraordinary scientific discoveries of the 20th century. PBS had recently aired this special, The Brain Fitness Program, which explains the brain's complexities in a way that both scientists and people with no scientific background can appreciate. This is opportunity to learn more about how our minds work-and to find out more about the latest in cutting-edge brain research, from the founder of Posit Science and creator of the Brain Fitness Program software, Dr. Michael Merzenich. Speaker: Dr. Michael Merzenich, Ph.D. Michael M. Merzenich, PhD: Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Merzenich leads the company's scientific team. For more than three decades, Dr. Merzenich has been a leading pioneer in brain plasticity research. He is the Francis A. Sooy Professor at the Keck Center for Integrative Neurosciences at UCSF. Dr. Merzenich is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including the Ipsen Prize, Zulch Prize of the Max Planck Institute, Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award and Purkinje Medal. Dr. Merzenich has published more than 200 articles, including many in leading peer-reviewed journals, such as Science and Nature. His work is also often covered in the popular press, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time and Newsweek. He has appeared on Sixty Minutes II, CBS Evening News and Good Morning America. In the late 1980s, Dr. Merzenich was on the team that invented the cochlear implant, now distributed by market leader Advanced Bionics. In 1996, Dr. Merzenich was the founding CEO of Scientific Learning Corporation (Nasdaq: SCIL), which markets and distributes software that applies principles of brain plasticity to assist children with language
thinkahol *

Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research - 0 views

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    The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program, which flourished for nearly three decades under the aegis of Princeton University's School of Engineering and Applied Science, has completed its experimental agenda of studying the interaction of human consciousness with sensitive physical devices, systems, and processes, and developing complementary theoretical models to enable better understanding of the role of consciousness in the establishment of physical reality.
thinkahol *

Deb Roy: The birth of a word | Video on TED.com - 0 views

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    MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn.
thinkahol *

How to draw pictures in midair | KurzweilAI - 0 views

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    A unique optical multitouch sensing technology using infrared sensors has been developed by researchers at the Interface Ecology Lab at Texas A&M University. ZeroTouch allows users to literally draw pictures in midair. It provides zero-force, zero-thickness, high-frame-rate, high-resolution, transparent multitouch sensing. ZeroTouch's new forms of free-air interaction are more precise than the Microsoft Kinect, the researchers said. ZeroTouch was demonstrated at the recent ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Vancouver, B.C. Ref: Moeller, J. and Kerne, A., ZeroTouch: A Zero-Thickness Optical Multi-Touch Force Field, CHI 2011 Ref: Moeller, J., Lupfer, N., Hamilton, B., Lin, H., Kerne, A., intangibleCanvas: Free-Air Finger Painting on a Projected Canvas, CHI 
thinkahol *

DNA can discern between two quantum states, research shows - 0 views

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    ScienceDaily (June 4, 2011) - Do the principles of quantum mechanics apply to biological systems? Until now, says Prof. Ron Naaman of the Institute's Chemical Physics Department (Faculty of Chemistry), both biologists and physicists have considered quantum systems and biological molecules to be like apples and oranges. But research he conducted together with scientists in Germany, which appeared recently in Science, shows that a biological molecule -- DNA -- can discern between quantum states known as spin.
thinkahol *

New system could make censorship of Internet sites virtually impossible - 0 views

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    Chinese citizens could once again enjoy LOL Cats on YouTube - as well as content critical of the communist government - if a new system developed by researchers at the University of Michigan (U-M) and the University of Waterloo (UW) in Canada were implemented. The researchers claim the system, called Telex, would thwart Internet censorship and make it virtually impossible for a censoring government to block individual sites by essentially turning the entire web into a proxy server.
thinkahol *

Scientists Disarm AIDS Virus' Attack on Immune System | Health | English - 0 views

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    Scientists say they have found a way to disarm the AIDS virus in research that could lead to a vaccine.  Researchers have discovered that if they eliminate a cholesterol membrane surrounding the virus, HIV cannot disrupt communication among disease-fighting cells and the immune system returns to normal.  
Todd Suomela

On Being a Scientist: Third Edition - 0 views

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    The scientific research enterprise is built on a foundation of trust. Scientists trust that the results reported by others are valid. Society trusts that the results of research reflect an honest attempt by scientists to describe the world accurately and without bias. But this trust will endure only if the scientific community devotes itself to exemplifying and transmitting the values associated with ethical scientific conduct.
thinkahol *

Researchers close in on technology for making renewable petroleum - 0 views

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    ScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 2011) - University of Minnesota researchers are a key step closer to making renewable petroleum fuels using bacteria, sunlight and carbon dioxide.
Todd Suomela

Amateur Science and the Rise of Big Science | Citizen Scientists League - 0 views

  • Several trends came together to increase the professional nature of scientific work. First was the increasing cost of scientific work and its complexity. Scientific equipment became more precise and expensive. Telescopes, like those by Herschel, became bigger and bigger. Also, the amount of knowledge one needed to gain to contribute became increasingly daunting.
  • Second, the universities changed. Pioneered by the German states, which at the beginning of the 19th century was dismissed as a scientific backwater, universities began offering focused majors which trained students in a specific discipline rather than classical education as a whole. This was pioneered by Wilhelm von Humboldt, brother of the famous scientist Alexander von Humboldt, who was the Prussian Minister of Education.
  • Germany, once united, also provided impetus to two other trends that accelerated their dominance of science and the decline of amateurs. First, was the beginning of large-scale state sponsorship of science through grants which were first facilitated through the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (now the Max Planck Institute). This eventually supplanted prizes as the dominant large-scale source of scientific funding. Countries like France that relied on prizes began to fall behind. Second, was the intimate cooperation between industrial firms like BASF and universities.
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  • he final nail in the coffin was undoubtedly the Second World War. The massive mobilization of scientific resources needed to win and the discovery of war-winning inventions such as the atomic bomb and self-correcting bomb sight (with help from Norbert Wiener of MIT) convinced the nations of the world that the future was in large-scale funding and support of science as a continuous effort. Vannevar Bush, former president of MIT, and others pioneered the National Science Foundation and the military also invested heavily in its own research centers. Industrial labs such as those from Bell Labs, GE, Kodak, and others began dominating research as well. Interestingly, the first military investment in semiconductors coupled with research from Bell Labs led to what is now known as Silicon Valley.
Todd Suomela

SAO/NASA ADS: ADS Home Page - 0 views

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    The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. The ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 6.9 million records: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and arXiv e-prints. The main body of data in the ADS consists of bibliographic records, which are searchable through highly customizable query forms, and full-text scans of much of the astronomical literature which can be browsed or searched via our full-text search interface. Integrated in its databases, the ADS provides access and pointers to a wealth of external resources, including electronic articles, data catalogs and archives. We currently have links to over 7.6 million records maintained by our collaborators.
thinkahol *

Researchers create light from 'almost nothing' - 0 views

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    (PhysOrg.com) -- A group of physicists working out of Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, have succeeded in proving what was until now, just theory; and that is, that visible photons could be produced from the virtual particles that have been thought to exist in a quantum vacuum. In a paper published on arXiv, the team describes how they used a specially created circuit called a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) to modulate a bit of wire length at a roughly five percent of the speed of light, to produce visible "sparks" from the nothingness of a vacuum.
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