Gene Identified That Causes Obesity in Mice: Deleting Gene Eliminates Obesity, Could Work for Humans

Mar. 5, 2013 — Researchers have discovered that deleting a specific gene in mice prevents them from becoming obese even on a high fat diet, a finding they believe may be replicated in humans.

"When fed a diet that induces obesity these mice don't get fat," said Prof. James McManaman, Ph.D., lead author of the study and vice-chairman of research for Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "It may be possible to duplicate this in humans using existing technology that targets this specific gene."
The two-year study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was published last month in the Journal of Lipid Research.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130305131304.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

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A New Large-scale Bitcoin Merchant Sets Out to Teach Amazon A Lesson

BitcoinStore, an online electronics mega-store that deals exclusively in bitcoins went live this last week. It's not the first company to trade electronics for bitcoins; BitElectronics opened just a couple of weeks ago. But BitcoinStore is doing it at cutthroat prices on an inventory of 500,000 items, ranging from laptops to motion sensors to binoculars.
Company representatives claim that by not having to pay credit card fees, they will be able to keep prices 1 to 10 percent lower than the top competitors. And by doing so, they are hoping the company will be so successful that it eventually fails. 
You see, profit is not the main goal of the project. Roger Ver, the founder of the site, launched it to serve as a high-level demonstration for companies like Amazon and NewEgg, a lesson in the benefits of Bitcoin. If any of these companies begin taking payments in Bitcoin, representatives at BitcoinStore say they will close shop in triumph.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/bitcoin-gives-an-edge-to-amazon-competitors 

Brown University creates first wireless, implanted brain-computer interface

Researchers at Brown University have succeeded in creating the first wireless, implantable, rechargeable, long-term brain-computer interface. The wireless BCIs have been implanted in pigs and monkeys for over 13 months without issue, and human subjects are next.
We’ve covered BCIs extensively here on ExtremeTech, but historically they’ve been bulky and tethered to a computer. A tether limits the mobility of the patient, and also the real-world testing that can be performed by the researchers. Brown’s wireless BCI allows the subject to move freely, dramatically increasing the quantity and quality of data that can be gathered — instead of watching what happens when a monkey moves its arm, scientists can now analyze its brain activity during complex activity, such as foraging or social interaction. Obviously, once the wireless implant is approved for human testing, being able to move freely — rather than strapped to a chair in the lab — would be rather empowering.



http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/149879-brown-university-creates-first-wireless-implanted-brain-computer-interface

Pessimists May Live Longer

Low expectations for a happy future might actually propel you into old age.
Compared with their counterparts with a sunnier outlook, older Germans who are more pessimistic tend to live longer, healthier lives, a group of researchers found.
"Our findings revealed that being overly optimistic in predicting a better future was associated with a greater risk of disability and death within the following decade," researcher Frieder R. Lang, of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, said in a statement. "Pessimism about the future may encourage people to live more carefully, taking health and safety precautions."

 http://www.livescience.com/27554-pessimism-might-help-you-live-longer.html

"Everything Beautiful Is Far Away"

 

 

 

Dynamic Robot Manipulation

BigDog handles heavy objects. The goal is to use the strength of the legs and torso to help power motions of the arm. This sort of dynamic, whole-body approach to manipulation is used routinely by human athletes and will enhance the performance of advanced robots. Boston Dynamics is developing the control and actuation techniques needed for dynamic manipulation with funding from the Army Research Laboratory's RCTA program.

Pentagon's DARPA researchers learn to control rat's brain over Internet

Government mind control may not be as farfetched as it sounds: after 15 years of research, scientists have found a way to transmit information from one brain to another, thereby controlling the thoughts of its test subject.
Scientists have successfully captured the thoughts of a rat in Brazil and electronically transmitted them through the Internet to the brain of a rat in the US. The Brazilian rat had been energetically running around in a lab. When the American rat received the brain waves of its South American counterpart, it immediately began to mimic the behavior – despite the thousands of miles between them, Reuters reports.
Scientists refer to the technique as a “brain link”. The $26 million study of brain-machine interfaces was funded by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which ultimately hopes to have this technology available to humans.

http://rt.com/usa/rat-brain-darpa-pentagon-645/ 

 

Scientists Uncover Invisible Motion in Video

A 30-second video of a newborn baby shows the infant silently snoozing in its crib, his breathing barely perceptible. But when the video is run through an algorithm that can amplify both movement and color, the baby’s face blinks crimson with each tiny heartbeat.
The amplification process is called Eulerian Video Magnification, and is the brainchild of a team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
The team originally developed the program to monitor neonatal babies without making physical contact. But they quickly learned that the algorithm can be applied to other videos to reveal changes imperceptible to the naked eye. Prof. William T. Freeman, a leader on the team, imagines its use in search and rescue, so that rescuers could tell from a distance if someone trapped on a ledge, say, is still breathing.
“Once we amplify these small motions, there’s like a whole new world you can look at,” he said.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/27/scientists-uncover-invisible-motion-in-video/ 

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