Soon after Jeff Bezos returned from the edge of space, the billionaire-turned-astronaut delivered a warning to everyone he’d briefly left behind on Earth.“We live on this beautiful planet,” Amazon.com Inc.’s founder — and, until recently, chief executive — said Tuesday. “When you get up there and you see it, you see how tiny it is and how fragile it is.”“We need to take all … [Read more...] about As Jeff Bezos stresses climate change, Amazon promotes books saying it’s fake
New organ-on-a-chip finds crucial interaction between blood, ovarian cancer tumors
In the evolving field of cancer biology and treatment, innovations in organ-on-a-chip microdevices allow researchers to discover more about the disease outside the human body. These organs-on-chips serve as a model of the state an actual cancer patient is in, thus allowing an opportunity to finding the correct treatment before administering it to the patient. At Texas A&M … [Read more...] about New organ-on-a-chip finds crucial interaction between blood, ovarian cancer tumors
New simulator helps robots sharpen their cutting skills
Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) Department of Computer Science and NVIDIA have unveiled a new simulator for robotic cutting that can accurately reproduce the forces acting on a knife as it slices through common foodstuffs, such as fruit and vegetables. The system could also simulate cutting through human tissue, offering potential applications in … [Read more...] about New simulator helps robots sharpen their cutting skills
Topology in biology
When can we say that a certain property of a system is robust? Intuitively, robustness implies that, even under the effect of external perturbations on the system, no matter how strong or random, said property remains unchanged. In mathematics, properties of an object that are robust against deformations are called topological. For example, the letters s, S, and L can be … [Read more...] about Topology in biology
Column: This California bill would protect our medical data from Big Tech (Hi, Amazon!)
There’s a race on between the tech industry and lawmakers over your medical privacy.Big Tech is moving as fast as it can to embed its increasingly intrusive devices into people’s homes before policymakers can summon the political will to put much-needed consumer protections into place.The latest example of such intrusiveness, as I reported last week, is Amazon receiving federal … [Read more...] about Column: This California bill would protect our medical data from Big Tech (Hi, Amazon!)
Exoskeletons have a problem: They can strain the brain: The devices can be ‘like bad dance partners,’ new study suggests
Exoskeletons -- wearable devices used by workers on assembly lines or in warehouses to alleviate stress on their lower backs -- may compete with valuable resources in the brain while people work, canceling out the physical benefits of wearing them, a new study suggests. The study, published recently in the journal Applied Ergonomics, found that when people wore exoskeletons … [Read more...] about Exoskeletons have a problem: They can strain the brain: The devices can be ‘like bad dance partners,’ new study suggests
Team streamlines neural networks to be more adept at computing on encrypted data
This week, at the 38th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 21), researchers at the NYU Center for Cyber Security at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering are revealing new insights into the basic functions that drive the ability of neural networks to make inferences on encrypted data. In the paper, "DeepReDuce: ReLU Reduction for Fast Private Inference," the team … [Read more...] about Team streamlines neural networks to be more adept at computing on encrypted data
Personalized immunotherapy: Rapid screening of therapeutic combinations
An innovative testing platform that more closely mimics what cancer encounters in the body may allow for more precise, personalized therapies by enabling the rapid study of multiple therapeutic combinations against tumor cells. The platform, which uses a three-dimensional environment to more closely mirror a tumor microenvironment, is demonstrated in research published in … [Read more...] about Personalized immunotherapy: Rapid screening of therapeutic combinations
Gaming graphics card allows faster, more precise control of fusion energy experiments
Nuclear fusion offers the potential for a safe, clean and abundant energy source. This process, which also occurs in the sun, involves plasmas, fluids composed of charged particles, being heated to extremely high temperatures so that the atoms fuse together, releasing abundant energy. One challenge to performing this reaction on Earth is the dynamic nature of plasmas, which … [Read more...] about Gaming graphics card allows faster, more precise control of fusion energy experiments
Researchers develop tool to drastically speed up the study of enzymes
For much of human history, animals and plants were perceived to follow a different set of rules than the rest of the universe. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this culminated in a belief that living organisms were infused by a non-physical energy or "life force" that allowed them to perform remarkable transformations that couldn't be explained by conventional chemistry or … [Read more...] about Researchers develop tool to drastically speed up the study of enzymes


