Learning Changes Brain Cell Connectivity

Wa'd Abuzurayk

A new discovery has been achieved in the world of neurology. Scientists have made progress in better understanding what happens inside our brains when we learn or remember information. According to the University of British Columbia research team, molecular changes are observed in the brain when one learns or remembers. Such changes occur in the brain’s chemistry as fatty acids attach to delta-catenin (a protein important for normal cognitive development- Wikipedia) upon learning new things, which ultimately alters brain cell connectivity coupled with learning and memory. The study was conducted…

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Ghost Knifefish Inspired Autonomous Underwater Vehicle: Biomimicry

Neha Shukla

In an attempt to design an underwater vehicle that can go into the depths of ocean, which are not, accessible or not safe for humans to dive in, scientists are studying the Ghost knifefish method of locomotion. The fish are known to hunt in the murky water of the Amazon basin with precision and to sense the environment, rely on the current that they pass through the water and whirl their long fin for smooth motion to move both horizontally (forward and backward) as well as vertically. 

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Predictive User Interface for Cars: The Next Revolution

Pooja Kashyap

In the last 150 years, there has been tremendous escalation in terms of economic and innovative growth in the paraphernalia of automobiles. There are auto-manufacturing companies that are taking giant steps towards the next revolution, and lately Mitsubishi has hit the news with such a breakthrough effort. In an attempt to revolutionize the driving experience in car, Mitsubishi Electric is trying to come up with a predictive user interface. The technology would be able to predict the route of the driver as per the past driving history. In case there…

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Flowing Water on Mars: Still Hard to Prove

Neha Shukla

Presence of water on Mars has been always a topic of discussion for the researchers. Even though it is still not confirmed, whether the Red planet ever possessed water. Since 2011, peculiar strips (possibly water) have been noticed to appear and then disappear from the planet’s surface. Lujendra Ojha, the then scholar at the University of Arizona, first discovered these mysterious strips. 

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Biomimicry: Robotic Bats Might Fill the Skies Soon

Pragati Kashyap

According to a recent study, the manner in which bats flap their wings could actually be the source of inspiration for the upcoming designs of flying robots. The researchers investigated the way the fruit bats made use of their wings for manipulating the air around them. By developing the correct understanding of the functioning of these processes in nature, the engineers could practically come up with the design of small flying robo machines called the micro air vehicles. According to Danesh Tafti, from Virginia Tech, bats comprise of varied shapes…

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Global WiFi Soon Directly From the Orbit: The Outernet Project

Pooja Kashyap

Within a year, prototype satellites would be deployed in orbit to broadcast free internet data across the globe. New York’s Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) is bankrolling the project, called the “Outernet”. CubeSat, a miniaturized satellite is expected to launch around Jan next year provided the prototype, which is being sent to space this June works well. Soon enough Earth would be encircled with such tiny satellites that would be sending internet signals back to Earth and then there would be no such thing called the censored web, as is…

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Super Ball Bot: NASA’s Latest Space Rover

Neha Shukla

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) keep coming up with new era robots that can be sent to space for exploration. There are certain limitations in each design such as time taking research, clumsy motions and prone to damage. Therefore, NASA is trying to design a bot that can transform the traditional way robots perform work assigned to them here on our planet or in the space. They are aiming to build a Super Ball Bot, which looks more like a motor fitted in between a mesh of rods…

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Toro-Bots: The Movable Garden Lamps in Your Garden

Neha Shukla

We all have seen beautifully maintained gardens with flowers, plants, colored pots, lamps statues and so on. But I am sure no one might have seen a garden with robots moving around and also taking care of it. The adorable looking robots with lights on the top and too many limbs are known as Toro Bots, created by the Japanese, are basically garden lamps that are capable of moving around in your garden of their own. And they are surely going to turn heads and attention towards your garden. 

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Air, The Next Fuel For Cars!

Pooja Kashyap

It’s always been a far-fetched dream for engineers to build a car that requires air as a fuel. It not only will give pollution free environment but also would be a preferred choice because it is found everywhere, without any traces of dirt and is free unlike the present fuels. The main huddle, which an air base car might encounter, would be the ability of storing energy since the air must be compressed within the mechanics of car, which is quite a tricky business. However, a team of two engineers…

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Machines Would Guard Drainage Tunnel: Fight Against Drug Peddlers

Neha Shukla

Most of us may not be aware that the drainage system that lay beneath our city and carry sewage, are also being actively used for drug smuggling. The underground system that runs between the Mexico and the United States are among the frequently used routes by the drug smugglers. Till date officers from U.S. Border Patrol were responsible to keep an eye on these activities going inside these filthy drains. These officers guarding the city used to crawl through these rotting, smelling puddles and completely counting on their instinct to…

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On Road Traffic Controller: Humanoids Take Over Streets

Neha Shukla

Robotics is one such area, which many people think can pose threat to human jobs. Bots could be seen everywhere, from automatizing work in mega factories to performing daily household chores. For instance, after the bar tending robot, now we would be witnessing a machine taking the charge of a traffic cop. 

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Dogs and Humans Both Have Dedicated Voice Areas: A Research

Wa'd Abuzurayk

A recent Hungarian study proved that dog’s brains, similarly to humans’, have areas that are dedicated to recognizing emotional cues in voice. The study was conducted by Attila Andics of the MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group in Hungary. Anidcs said that “Dogs and humans share a similar social environment,” “Our findings suggest that they also use similar brain mechanisms to process social information.” “This may support the successfulness of vocal communication between the two species,” he added. The study was made possible by training 11 dogs to lay still throughout the…

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Eating Seasonal Fruits Gives Cognitive Edge: A Research

Neha Shukla

Fruits are good for maintaining a healthy body as well as a healthy mind, is a fact that almost everyone knows. A research conducted to understand the genesis of intelligence in the primates also confirms the same. Researchers have found that the lemurs gorging heavily on fruits show better cognitive abilities than the lemurs that feed on a variety of food such as leaves, insects, seed and so on. The finding supports the notion that eating seasonal fruits or fruits that are difficult to get, gives certain cognitive edge to…

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Researchers Leverage Lattice Dynamics to Conserve Thermoelectric Energy

Pooja Kashyap

It’s been quite some time since researchers were working on the property of thermoelectric material and lately, they were able to develop a prototype that allows electricity to pass through while heat transfer but maintains insulation at the same time. They were able to do this by placing an arrangement of nanopillars on top of the thermoelectric material; to conduct the experiment the material they took was a thin film of silicon. Effect that thermoelectricity produces refers to a phenomena, where electricity is produced due to the temperature variation between…

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Meet Dr Gideon Greenspan: Developer, Entrepreneur and Lecturer

Pooja Kashyap

Today, we’d like to present before you an interview of an amazing person and one of the inspiring entrepreneur, Dr Gideon Greenspan. He is the man behind many successful and of course profitable online ventures including Carbon Catalog, now part of Ecosystem Marketplace, Giga Alert, Magic Baby Names, Family Echo, Siteliner, Question2Answer, Web Sudoku, Copyscape a plagiarism search engine and Cloudlook. Currently he is working on a new idea related to bitcoin called Bitcoin Colors. He is PhD in Computer Science from the Technion and teaches software entrepreneurship to undergraduate…

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