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ICYMI: Trekkie health scanner, car vending machine and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-924600{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-924600, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-924600{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-924600").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A vending machine for cars (by Carvana) just launched in Nashville, removing the necessity of talking to a car salesman -- or anyone, really -- before driving off in a new ride. Stanford engineers made a health scanner device that can detect a tumor in your body based on the energy vibration that it sends out. And two crowdfunded devices aim to help snoring sleepers put a sock in it. The first, Nora, comes with a pillow that deflates or otherwise moves, to reposition the offending sleeper's head. The other, Silent Partner, is a nose wearable that allegedly creates a quiet zone around the sleeper by sending out canceling sound waves.
Stanford scientists get a little closer to a medical tricorder
Being able to identify problems with a person's body without subjecting them to invasive procedures is the fantasy of all Star Trek doctors. There's even a prize offering a fortune to anyone who can effectively recreate the tricorder technology out in the real world. Now, Stanford scientists think that they've developed a system that, in time, could be used to spot cancerous tumors from a foot away.
Studying jellyfish is the key to better underwater crafts
Jellyfish and lamprey have been swimming in the same hypnotic way for millions of years. It has taken a Stanford-lead team of scientists to figure out how they do this so efficiently and the results show our assumptions have been way off this whole time. It turns out these ancient animals don't push against the water behind them to propel forwards but instead suck water towards themselves to maximize distance and exert as little energy as possible. Pockets of low pressure water form in the bends of the animal's body and when water rushes to these areas; it sucks them forward as a result.
Computer Science is the most popular major for women at Stanford
Stanford reportedly has 214 female students enrolled in its Computer Science major -- that's 30 percent of the major's total enrollment -- making it the most popular major with women at the university for the first time. Women constitute 49 percent of the school's total student body and Computer Science accounts for 20 percent of the university's total enrollment. Computer Science did just barely eke out the previous title-holder, human biology, for the top spot by a mere six students.
Swans help create smoother camera drone videos
The next time you see a graceful, dramatic video shot by a camera drone, you may have a swan to thank for the absence of any jittery footage. Stanford University researchers are developing camera suspension technology inspired by whooping swans, whose heads remain remarkably still even when they're making aggressive in-flight maneuvers. Thanks to a blend of high-speed video and computer modeling, the scientists discovered that the swan's neck acts much like a vehicle's suspension, passively countering the effects of flapping wings or headwinds. It'll likely take a while before the nature-inspired design reaches something you can buy, but you may well see a day where drones are producing sharp, stable video even when they're traveling at high speeds or facing strong gusts. [Image credit: AP Photo/Sergei Grits]
Researchers reduce VR sickness by letting your eyes focus
Virtual reality has unlimited potential, but it could make you sick. Stanford researchers are trying to solve that problem by tapping another new tech, light-field cameras. You see, VR devices can cause fatigue and nausea because of the "flat plane" 3D images they produce. Since those images don't contain any depth information, your eyes can't focus on near and far objects like you would in real life. Our brains want physical actions (like focusing) to jibe with what we see, so any disconnect can make us sick. And if companies can't solve this "VR sickness," the tech may go the way of 3D TVs.
PotBotics: better cannabis recommendations through science
Medical cannabis, recreational cannabis; it's getting hard to tell the two apart -- even in states where only the former is allowed. Just look at your local dispensary. If it's anything like my local weed shop, your cannabis choices are governed more by the brand name and relative THC content than they are the other active cannabinoids -- you know, the ones with the actual medical benefits. This is great for your average stoner recuperating from a backiatomy, but for patients who really do need these complementary cannabinoid effects, guessing whether Blue Dream or Vallejo Sour Diesel will best help alleviate the effects of their chemo simply won't do. That's why the Bay Area startup PotBotics is working to put some real science -- from a curation of existing scholarly articles and independent studies -- behind cannabis recommendations.
#ICYMI: A flying roto-car, HoloLens in space and more
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-974561{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-974561, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-974561{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-974561").style.display="none";}catch(e){} Today on In Case You Missed It: Our Jetson's dreams (kinda) came true with the invention of this flying single-seater; Astronauts at the International Space Station are about to receive Microsoft's HoloLens for AR projects and general bragging-rights (take that kids, Poppa got one way before you) and Stanford scientists managed to make hydrogen gas in an entirely new way that's cheaper and more efficient. Fuel for flying cars, perhaps?
Crazy fast X-ray laser catches chemical reactions in the act
Scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC laboratory have taken a "molecular movie" of a chemical reaction for the first time. The results of their research could give new insights into to how chemical bonds form, helping researchers better understand biological processes. To give you an idea of the difficulty of the feat, the critical part of the reaction -- the breaking apart of a ring-shaped gas molecule -- takes a mere 200 femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second). To record such a rapid process, the researchers used the two mile long Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) to fire X-ray laser pulses a mere 25 quadrillionths of a second in duration.
Stanford researchers find a cheaper, better way to make hydrogen gas
A team of researchers from Stanford University unveiled an easier and more efficient way to strip hydrogen atoms from water molecules on Thursday. It's still the same electrolysis method that's been in use for years. But instead of using two different kinds of material for the cathode and anode, like conventional electrolysis procedures, Stanford is incorporating a pair of identical nickel-iron oxide catalysts. When a 1.5V current is applied, the system operates at 82 percent efficiency -- many times more than what its conventional equivalent can make with the same charge. It could be precisely the production breakthrough that the hydrogen fuel economy needs to actually take off.
A water droplet computer is more useful than you think
Scientists have built a computer out of water droplets, but why? It's not the first computer we've seen built with analog materials, and obviously runs at a tiny fraction of an electronic circuit's speed. It turns out, however, that it could be very handy to have water droplets run preset programs, because they can simultaneously do tasks like transporting chemicals. That was the "aha" moment for Stanford University researcher Manu Prakash, a fluid mechanics major who has been thinking about a water-powered computer for the last ten years.
White House launches the Police Data Initiative
Following the police-shooting death of Michael Brown and subsequent riots in Ferguson, MO, the Obama administration assembled a task force charged with somehow easing the adversarial relationship between law enforcement and the citizenry. The White House released those findings this morning and also announced that it is launching the Police Data Initiative, a 21-city pilot program designed to fast track solutions to the task force's suggestions.
These tiny gecko-inspired robots can lift over 100x their weight
Beware the tiny robot uprising, which at this point are taunting us with the equivalent of superhuman strength. Researchers at Stanford have created several tiny bots that can move things more than 100 times their weight, reports New Scientist. They're the latest example of the university's research into mimicking the climbing abilities of geckos. The robots feet contain adhesives that manage to hold onto the wall even when they're carrying heavy loads, and easily detach when they need to move. And as you can see in the video below, the bots' movement is also inspired by nature, going forward one step at a time like an inchworm. One nine gram robot can lift something that weighs a kilogram (in the video it's hoisting Stanford's 2006-era "StickyBot"), while an astonishingly small 20 milligram bot can lift something 500 milligrams (a small paperclip).
How cheap VR helped a Stanford professor bring his dream to Tribeca
Last year, the Tribeca Film Festival began highlighting new mediums being used in storytelling, and that trend has translated over to 2015. Virtual reality is, naturally, a big part of this movement, as filmmakers start creating more content for consumer-grade devices like the Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard. This is why the current edition of the event is hosting Stanford's Virtual Human Virtual Interaction Lab, a venture started in 2003 by Jeremy Bailenson, who's a professor at the university and has been working on digital human representation since 1999. It features a set of VR experiences that attendees can check out, all with the same goal of transporting you into another reality.
Scientists can build an early-warning system for trolls
Almost every website with comments suffers from trolls, people who like to spout obnoxious and irrational gibberish just to offend others. Since you can't just ask people to behave like human beings, a lot of time and effort is spent monitoring and policing this idiocy. Thankfully, the internet's long national nightmare may now be at an end after researchers from Stanford and Cornell developed an early warning system for trolls. After conducting a study that examined close to 40 million comments, it was found that trolls can be algorithmically identified before they've written 10 posts.
Stanford's aluminum battery fully charges in just one minute
Lithium-ion batteries have been a boon for the modern world -- they've replaced the heavier, single-use alkaline type in everything from wristwatches to jumbo jets. Unfortunately, these rechargeable cells are already struggling to keep up with our ever-increasing energy needs. But a new type of aluminum-ion battery developed at Stanford University is not only less explode-y than lithium, but also can be built at a fraction of the price and recharges completely in just over a minute. Best of all, "Our new battery won't catch fire, even if you drill through it," Stanford chemistry professor Dai Hongjie boasted in a recent release.
The mother of all tech demos becomes an avant garde opera
1968 is when it all changed. On December 9 that year, Douglas Engelbart, a computer scientist at Stanford Research Center, made a 90-minute video presentation that revolutionized the world of computers. He didn't show up on stage at the Computer Conference in San Francisco, instead, he teleconferenced from his research lab 30 miles away -- an unprecedented feat at the time. Now almost half a century later, "the mother of all demos" is being resurrected as an avant garde opera called The Demo. Composers Mikel Rouse and Ben Neill re-imagine Engelbart's demo and the defining moments in his life that led up to it through a hybrid theater performance.
Stanford scientists make leukemia 'grow up' and eat itself
A team at Stanford's School of Medicine has reportedly uncovered a potent new treatment method for combating one of leukemia's most aggressive forms -- and they did it pretty much by accident. While survival rates for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a particularly nasty form of white blood cell cancer, have risen to about 85 percent over the past decade thanks to the advent of stem cell therapies, the prognosis for this disease in the presence of a Philadelphia chromosome mutation remains quite poor. But thanks to a chance observation by Dr. Scott McClellan, the Stanford team believes it's figured out way to neutralize the disease using its own cancerous cells against it.
Apple's medical research kit gets thousands of sign-ups (and concerns)
Apple built its ResearchKit platform in part to get many more people signing up for medical studies, and it appears to be delivering on that promise in spades. The early partners tell Bloomberg that they got thousands of volunteers within a day of launch, including 11,000 for a Stanford University cardiovascular trial -- for context, Stanford says that it would normally take a national year-long effort to get that kind of scale. The flood of data will theoretically improve the quality of the findings, especially since the automatic, phone-based tracking should prevent people from fibbing about their activity levels.
Obama's executive order urges companies to share cyberthreat data
Attacks on the computers of large corporations were constantly in the headlines last year and now President Obama is taking steps that he says will help fight back. A month ago he announced a push for new legislation that would lay out ways for companies to share information about hacking activity so it can be investigated, while also protecting the privacy of consumers. Pushing that through Congress has been a failure since 2011, so he's following up with an executive order that mandates companies to do so. "There's only one way to defend America from these cyberthreats, and that is with government and [private] industry working together, sharing appropriate information," Obama said at today's White House cyber security summit at Stanford. The announcement comes just a few days after the President unveiled a new cyber warfare agency intended to "quickly assess and deter cyberthreats."
