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Scientists raise ethical concerns as the brain cells of decapitated pigs are kept alive for 36 hours.

The development of Israel-based Urban Aeronautics’ Cormorant prototype is well underway, with hopes of launching a full-scale development of the aircraft in the near future.

DeepMind’s latest breakthrough could change our understanding of both AI and the way mammal’s brains work. A spontaneous development in the company’s neural network could solve neuron-based mystery.

The Vision Fund model is disruptive, then. But is it good for innovation and consumers? Mr Son’s project certainly has its attractions. It is shaking up the cosy world of Silicon Valley venture capital. And it may nurture competition against the tech giants. The fund offers founders of startups an alternative to cashing out to the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon; its massive chequebook also gives those entrepreneurs a better shot at competing with the titans. The fund may perform a similar function in China, where nearly half of all unicorns are by now backed by one of the country’s four tech giants, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent or

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Science fiction is powerful because it brings the future to life. Using a methodology called SciFi D.I., we can leverage science fiction to look 10 to 15 years into the future to redefine what’s possible today. When we can clearly imagine what the future might be like, we can begin to see a path to it.

Giant lasers may indeed launch fleets of spacecraft to Alpha Centauri, given breakthroughs in the science behind extraordinarily thin, incredibly reflective sails that can catch this laser light, a new study finds.

Hadley Wickham is the most important developer for the programming language R. Wes McKinney is among the most important developers for programming language Python. The two languages, which are free to use, are often seen as competitors in the world of data science. Wickham and McKinney don’t think the rivalry is necessary. In fact, they think that by working together, they can make each other’s languages more useful for their millions of users.

Last month, McKinney announced the founding of Ursa Labs, an innovation group intended to improve data-science tools. McKinney will partner with RStudio—Wickham’s employer, which maintains the most popular user interface for R—on the project. The main goals of Ursa Labs are to make it easier for data scientists working in different programming languages to collaborate, and avoid redundant work by developers across languages. In addition to improving R and Python, the group hopes its work will also improve the user experience in other open-source programming languages like Java and Julia.

R and Python are essential tools for data scientists working at tech platforms like Google and Facebook, researchers, academic researchers, and data journalists (Quartz is a big user of both). A common problem for coders is that it’s hard to collaborate with colleagues who use one of the other languages. Ursa Labs will try to make sharing data and code with someone using another data science language easier, by creating new standards that work in all of them. Developers call this an improvement to “interoperability.” Wickham and McKinney have already worked together to create a file format that can used in both Python and R.

Continue reading “R and Python are joining forces, in the crossover event of the year” »

The breakthrough is in its mobile joints that accurately mimic human kinetics.

Toyota has been working on humanoid robots for a while. It recently unveiled the THR-3 that’s built to test specific joints and movements by putting together a full body that can be controlled by a human operator. The robot can mimic a variety of human movements in real time. Apr.23.2018

If you’re like most people, the first biological cell you ever saw was flat: a diagram in a book, or maybe a microscope image on a slide if you were lucky. Same goes for scientists. It’s hard enough to zoom in on something so small, much less capture a 3D image of the thing. As a result, it’s easy to imagine that there are a multitude of two-dimensional discs filling your blood vessels and fighting your infections. That’s why this new development is so eye-opening. Researchers have made an imaging breakthrough that lets them capture 3D footage of cells doing their thing inside the body — and it may look nothing like what you imagined.

The video below depicts the inner ear of a zebrafish — you know, that little inch-and-a-half (4-centimeter) striped thing you see in pet store fish tanks? Suffice it to say, the objects in this footage are very, very small. Here, a fiery yellow immune cell rolls on through gobbling up bright-blue particles of sugar.

Continue reading “Watch the First-Ever HD Footage of a Cell Moving Through the Body” »