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Neuroscience Methods: Optogenetics as good as electrical stimulation

Brown researchers have shown that optogenetics — a technique that uses pulses of visible light to alter the behavior of brain cells — can be as good as or possibly better than the older technique of using small bursts of electrical current. Optogenetics had been used in small rodent models. Research reported in Current Biology has shown that optogenetics works effectively in larger, more complex brains.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Neuroscientists are eagerly, but not always successfully, looking for proof that optogenetics – a celebrated technique that uses pulses of visible light to genetically alter brain cells to be excited or silenced – can be as successful in complex and large brains as it has been in rodent models. (more…)

Wegen Kostenkalkül: Fukushima ausser Kontrolle

Environment

Kritiker werfen dem Fukushima-Betreiber Tepco vor, aus Kostenkalkül auf ausreichende Sicherungsmassnahmen verzichtet zu haben. (more…)

How to Find the Rarest of the Rare in Southern Skies

Science

An interdisciplinary UA team is developing a computer program that will sort through up to 10 million alerts of astronomical objects each night from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which will begin operations in Chile in 2022

University of Arizona computer scientists are teaming up with astronomers at the National Optical Astronomical Observatory to develop a computer program that will sort through the millions of objects detected by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and create a list of priorities for astronomers to investigate. The project has recently received a three-year INSPIRE grant, worth more than $700,000, from the National Science Foundation. (more…)

Photojournalists discuss their project on a ‘sacrificial city’

Media

There’s a city in America that looks like a third-world country, according to photojournalists Brett Carlsen and Juan Madrid, who in a recent campus talk shared their hope that a project they have undertaken will inspire the American public to start talking about it.

In a Poynter Fellowship-sponsored classroom lecture at the School of Art, Carlsen and Madrid discussed their ongoing collaboration documenting life in Flint, Michigan. (more…)

Angriff aus Brüssel gegen Energiewende abwehren. EEG-Beihilfeverfahren ist erste Herausforderung für Gabriel und Merkel

Environment, Politics

Berlin: Der Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND) hat Wirtschafts- und Energieminister Sigmar Gabriel und Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel aufgefordert, das Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (EEG) und die Energiewende gegen aktuelle Angriffe der EU-Kommission zu verteidigen.

“Setzt sich die EU-Kommission durch, ist nicht nur in Deutschland die Energiewende bedroht. Denn zusätzlich zum Beihilfeverfahren will die EU-Kommission neue restriktive Vorgaben zur Förderung der erneuerbaren Energien erlassen. Das würde den Ausbau der regenerativen Energien europaweit abbremsen”, sagte der BUND-Vorsitzende Hubert Weiger. (more…)

Mitt Romney’s Face Looks Different to Republicans and Democrats

Politics

Political opinions can influence how people perceive a candidate’s facial characteristics

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study suggests that political bias can influence how people perceive the facial characteristics of a presidential candidate – even after seeing his face on TV thousands of times.

The study of Ohioans immediately before and after the 2012 presidential election showed that people’s mental representation of Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s face differed based on their political persuasion. (more…)

NASA Developing Natural Hazard Warning Systems

Environment

Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have enhanced existing GPS technologies to develop new systems for California and elsewhere to warn of hazards from earthquakes, tsunamis and extreme weather events.

The technology was demonstrated in July by forecasters at NOAA National Weather Service offices in Oxnard, Calif., and San Diego. They used it to track a summer monsoon rain event affecting Southern California and issue more accurate and timely flash flood warnings. The system uses real-time information from GPS stations upgraded with small, inexpensive seismic and meteorological sensors. (more…)

IBM Reveals Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives within Five Years

Education, Science, Technology

IBM Predicts – in Five Years Everything will Learn

ARMONK, N.Y. – 17 Dec 2013: Today IBM unveiled the eighth annual “IBM 5 in 5“ (#ibm5in5) – a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and interact during the next five years.

This year’s IBM 5 in 5 explores the idea that everything will learn – driven by a new era of cognitive systems where machines will learn, reason and engage with us in a more natural and personalized way. These innovations are beginning to emerge enabled by cloud computing, big data analytics and learning technologies all coming together, with the appropriate privacy and security considerations, for consumers, citizens, students and patients. (more…)