What does a robot feel when it touches something? Little or nothing until now. But with the right sensors, actuators and software, robots can be given the sense of feel -- or at least the ability to identify different materials by touch.
Researchers at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering published a study June 18 in Frontiers in Neurorobotics showing that a specially designed robot can outperform humans in identifying a wide range of natural materials according to their textures, paving the way for advancements in prostheses, personal assistive robots and consumer product testing. |  |
British researchers create robot that can learn simple words by conversing with humans (w/ Video)
In an attempt to replicate the early experiences of infants, researchers in England have created a robot that can learn simple words in minutes just by having a conversation with a human.
The work, published this week in the journal PLoS One, offers insight into how babies transition from babbling to speaking their first words. The three-foot-tall robot, named DeeChee, was built to produce any syllable in the English language. But it knew no words at the outset of the study, speaking only babble phrases like "een rain rain mahdl kross." |  |
The Rich Legacy of Alan Turing
Alan Turing achieved more in the space of a few decades than anyone could hope to achieve in a lifetime. His ability to imagine the unimaginable and put these lofty theories down on paper, and then into practice, show a highly disciplined character capable of becoming an expert in pretty much anything he had an interest in. Turing went from drawing up a basic model for all computers to breaking down the constructs of complex chemical reactions with enviable ease.
Turing’s achievements may not all be war-winning discoveries like the Enigma-cracking Bombe, but each theory or invention paved the way for generations of researchers to develop, adapt and improve upon his ideas. Here, Wired.co.uk breaks down some of the most significant contributions Turing made to modern science. |  |
Theory Explains the Quantum Weirdness of Exotic Materials
The universe has no shortage of bizarre materials. Superfluids are liquids that can flow straight up walls, Bose-Einstein condensates are gasses that will vibrate eternally, and neutron stars are essentially city-sized subatomic particles.
Physicists have now developed a mathematical theory that describes how collective quantum mechanical weirdness leads to the strange properties of these materials. While previous work has focused on each individual system, the new theory unites the behavior for many materials, including magnets, superfluids, and neutron star matter. |  |
Landsat Sets the Standard for Maps of World's Forests
NASA's Earth-observing fleet of satellites provides a worldwide and unbiased view with standardized scientific data -- information crucial for tracking the health of the world's forests.
Countries like Brazil are using data from NASA satellites to track and measure their forests in advance of a United Nations effort to reduce climate change by providing "carbon credits" for protected land. The concept is known as REDD+, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. It includes monitoring forest degradation and efforts in conservation and sustainable management. |  |
Scientists Reconstruct Pre-Columbian Human Effects On the Amazon Basin
Small, shifting human populations existed in the Amazon before the arrival of Europeans, with little long-term effect on the forest.
That's the result of research led by Crystal McMichael and Mark Bush of the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT). The finding overturns the idea the Amazon was a cultural parkland in pre-Columbian times with large human populations that transformed vast tracts of the landscape. |  |
Pollutant turns fly-traps veggie
Predator plants may cut back on flies if they can access key nutrients elsewhere, according to research.
Scientists studying carnivorous sundew plants in Swedish bogs found that nitrogen deposition from rain reduced how many insects the plants trapped. Pollution from transport and industry causes nitrogen-rich rain, meaning more reaches the ground in some areas. "If there's plenty of nitrogen available to their roots, they don't eat as much" says Dr Jonathan Millett. |  |
A Career Waiting for E.T. to Phone
Jill Tarter once complained to me that she had no poetry in her soul.
It was 1990, and NASA was getting ready to undertake a survey of the 1,000 nearest stars, looking for radio signals from aliens. Dr. Tarter, then 46 and a researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., was in charge of it. “I can’t say what they will be like,” she sighed, when asked to speculate about the nature and motives of these putative aliens. |  |
Vatican accuses media of "imitating Dan Brown"
The Vatican's number 2 accused the media on Monday of trying "to imitate Dan Brown" in their coverage of the VatiLeaks scandal and said the Roman Catholic Church's latest travails were part of the Devil's attempt to destabilize it.
The interview with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who ranks second only to Pope Benedict in the Vatican's hierarchy, was the latest attempt at damage control by senior Vatican officials since the leaks scandal began in January. |  |
Texas Democratic Party Platform Endorses Decriminalization Of Marijuana
Texas Democrats came together at their state convention earlier this month and agreed to adopt a plank to their party platform calling for the decriminalization of marijuana.
From the party's website: This decriminalization of marijuana does not mean we endorse the use of marijuana but it is only a call to wiser use of law enforcement and public health policy. Prohibition of marijuana abdicates the control of marijuana production and distribution to drug cartels and street gangs. Such prohibition promotes disrespect for the law and reinforces ethnic and generational divides between the public and law enforcement. |  |
Google reports 'alarming' rise in censorship by governments
There has been an alarming rise in the number of times governments attempted to censor the internet in last six months, according to a report from Google.
Since the search engine last published its bi-annual transparency report, it said it had seen a troubling increase in requests to remove political content. Many of these requests came from western democracies not typically associated with censorship. |  |
Carpet of lush flora once ringed icy Antarctica
The few plants that live in Antarctica today are hardy hangers-on, growing just a few weeks out of the year and surviving poor soil, lack of rain and very little sunlight. But long ago, some parts of Antarctica were almost lush.
New research finds that between about 15 million and 20 million years ago, plant life thrived on the coasts of the southernmost continent. Ancient pollen samples suggest that the landscape was a bit like today's Chilean Andes: grassy tundra dotted with small trees. |  |