Category: Science Dogmatism
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Self-programming software. Self-blinded humans.
DeepMind Technologies, a London-based artificial-intelligence firm acquired by Google this year, has revealed that it is designing computers that combine the way ordinary computers work with the way the human brain works. They call this hybrid device a Neural Turing Machine. The hope is it won't need programmers, and will instead program itself. (1) We…
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Reading robots' mind? Not.
In a darkened, hangar-like space inside MIT's Building 41, a small, Roomba-like robot is trying to make up its mind. Standing in its path is an obstacle — a human pedestrian who’s pacing back and forth. To get to the other side of the room, the robot has to first determine where the pedestrian is,…
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Bacteria. Viruses. Good. Bad...
Normally, you wouldn't want to have anything to do with Clostridium novyi. The rod-shaped bacterium is commonly found in soil, manure or under rotting leaves. When it invades a human body, it releases flesh-eating toxins. The last place you would hope to find it is in a hospital. But researchers used a modified version of…
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Brain as a TV. Science as a dogma.
Scientists in Cambridge have found hidden signatures in the brains of people in a vegetative state, which point to networks that could support consciousness even when a patient appears to be unconscious and unresponsive. The study could help doctors identify patients who are aware despite being unable to communicate. The researchers showed that the rich…
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Light. Right. Left.
How can a beam of light tell the difference between left and right? Tiny particles have now been coupled to a glass fiber. The particles emit light into the fiber in such a way that it does not travel in both directions, as one would expect. Instead, the light can be directed either to the…
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