Information & Communication

Picture this: you’ve somehow come across a super-advanced, sophisticated crafting station from the far future. You can take components, including state-of-the-art semiconductors, and integrate them into devices to make fantastic high-tech equipment. Now imagine you’ve made a selection of quantum dots, silicon wafers and graphene to do just that.

2013 and 2014 were years of extreme weather events. There were heat waves, cold snaps, droughts, monstrous storms and days of extraordinary rain at various locations around the world. These may have ultimately been the product of atmospheric disruption caused by global warming.

Hacking a computer using a strand of DNA sounds like something out of a science-fiction movie, but believe it or not, this isn’t taken from the script of the latest Hollywood blockbuster, but instead from the laboratories of the University of Washington.

Many people have negative psychological effects that are associated with getting dental work done, or even in some cases, merely going to the dentist. This may be based on memories of fear, anxiety or pain that were experienced in a dental surgery. In some cases, these can develop into genuine phobias, or psychological disorders that cause those affected to avoid dental treatment at all costs.

Disasters in ‘safety-critical’ industries like the military, nuclear power, shipping, energy extraction and mining are a cause of concern as they can be life-changing and endanger individuals and the environment as a whole.

Social animals often establish “pecking orders” or social hierarchies. In crowded social situations one individual must wait patiently while another eats or occupies a choice perch. Rather than fight a bloody and dangerous battle every time access to a resource is being contested, they establish early on who will have priority in any pairing.

There has much discussion on the potential risks of genetically modified crops. However, Yukio Tosa’s research group at Kobe University has recently shown that more conventional modification of crops can also lead to problems.

Back in 2014, Intel signed a deal with Oakley’s parent company, Luxottica, to create an innovative, personal training device for athletes, based on Oakley’s famous sunglasses. In January 2016, Craig Alexander, the three-time Ironman Hawaii champion, tested the result of this collaboration, called the Radar Pace, in the streets of Las Vegas.

How would it feel to be able to participate in research against Alzheimer’s? A new online game allows the general public to contribute to the scientific community and help them search for a cure. Anyone, with zero knowledge on the subject, can now help scientists spot clogged capillaries, or stalls, where blood is no longer flowing.

The internet, one of man’s greatest discoveries, is now literally at our fingertips. Though it is highly developed and talks of a progressive society, there are some downsides too: cyber-crimes that affect the lives of many. It has recently come to light that such issues can also extend into areas of medicine.

Cognitive Computing is a new and evolving research area, which broadly refers to both hardware and software technologies that attempt to mimic the capabilities and functioning of the human brain. While at its base is the major disciplines of Artificial Intelligence and Signal Processing, this new discipline exhibits certain features common to the human brain model:

Facial recognition systems have recently been able to pick the same face, from millions of others, with great accuracy. The importance of this is huge, because of its wide number of potential applications.