Tech

No software-based technique can fully replace the bulk collection of signals intelligence, but methods can be developed to more effectively conduct targeted collection and to control the usage of collected data, says a new report from the National Research Council. Automated systems for isolating collected data, restricting queries that can be made against those data, and auditing usage of the data can help to enforce privacy protections and allay some civil liberty concerns, the unclassified report says.

Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists have developed a brain-imaging technique that may be able to identify children with autism spectrum disorder in just two minutes.

This test, while far from being used as the clinical standard of care, offers promising diagnostic potential once it undergoes more research and evaluation.

"Our brains have a perspective-tracking response that monitors, for example, whether it's your turn or my turn," said Read Montague, the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute professor who led the study.

Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego have tested a temporary tattoo that both extracts and measures the level of glucose in the fluid in between skin cells. This first-ever example of the flexible, easy-to-wear device could be a promising step forward in noninvasive glucose testing for patients with diabetes.

Complications involving the brain's unique waste removal system, which has only recently been brought to light, may thwart efforts to identify biomarkers that detect traumatic brain injury (TBI). That is because proteins that are triggered by brain damage are prevented from reaching the blood system in levels necessary for a precise diagnosis.

In a laboratory first, Duke researchers have grown human skeletal muscle that contracts and responds just like native tissue to external stimuli such as electrical pulses, biochemical signals and pharmaceuticals.

The lab-grown tissue should soon allow researchers to test new drugs and study diseases in functioning human muscle outside of the human body.

The study was led by Nenad Bursac, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University, and Lauran Madden, a postdoctoral researcher in Bursac's laboratory.

The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 11:24 p.m. EST on Jan. 12, 2015. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

A new algorithm could enable household robots to better identify objects in cluttered environments.

For household robots ever to be practical, they'll need to be able to recognize the objects they're supposed to manipulate. But while object recognition is one of the most widely studied topics in artificial intelligence, even the best object detectors still fail much of the time.

The picture is awesome but are you risking your health? Steve Marcus/Reuter

By Andrew Maynard, University of Michigan

For years, pathogens' resistance to antibiotics has put them one step ahead of researchers, which is causing a public health crisis.

In a new Nature paper, Northeastern University Distinguished Professor Kim Lewis and colleagues present a newly discovered antibiotic that eliminates pathogens without encountering any detectable resistance, which holds great promise for treating chronic infections like tuberculosis and those caused by MRSA.

Researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a simple new fabrication technique to create beautiful and complex 3-D micro- and nanostructures with many advantages over 3-D printing.

For over a half-century, games have been test beds for new ideas in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the resulting successes have marked significant milestones - Deep Blue defeated Kasparov in chess and Watson defeated Jennings and Rutter on Jeopardy! However, defeating top human players is not the same as actually solving a game, and for the first time researchers in the Computer Poker Research Group at the Faculty of Science, University of Alberta in Canada, have essentially solved heads-up limit hold'em poker.

What will it take to create an affordable emissions-free car?

Heavy, expensive batteries and hybrids are not really a solution yet. The rich can buy a Tesla but they also have multiple cars in case it's not charged.

If you're sitting in a coffee shop, tapping away on your laptop, feeling safe from hackers because you didn't connect to the shop's wifi, think again. The bad guys may be able to see what you're doing just by analyzing the low-power electronic signals your laptop emits even when it's not connected to the Internet.

And smartphones may be even more vulnerable to such spying.

A 12-year study of two measles-containing vaccines, published today in Pediatrics, found that seven main adverse outcomes were unlikely after either vaccine.

The study, conducted by the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center, included children aged 12 to 23 months from January 2000 through June 2012 who received measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) or separately administered, same-day measles-mumps-rubella and varicella (MMR + V) vaccines. A total of 123,200 MMRV doses and 584,987 MMR + V doses were evaluated.

To stay warm when temperatures drop outside, we heat our indoor spaces -- even when no one is in them. But scientists have now developed a novel nanowire coating for clothes that can both generate heat and trap the heat from our bodies better than regular clothes. They report on their technology, which could help us reduce our reliance on conventional energy sources, in Nano Letters.