Responsible for the majority of marijuana's psychological effects-including the high-THC can also be use to treat symptoms of HIV infection
and cannabidiol-another active compound that has shown promise as a medical treatment-told The New york times. Back in August, researchers from the University of California,
Now, researchers from the Technical University of Dortmund in Germany have outlined in the journal Biotechnology Letters how they looked into
As Jonathan Page, an adjunct professor at the University of British columbia in Canada who helped sequence the THC
"Right now, we have a plant that is essentially the Ferrari of the plant world when it comes to producing the chemical of interest.
Cannabis is hard to beat.""The idea instead is to offer up an alternative for places such as Europe,
where medicinal compounds from marijuana would be welcomed if they didn come in the form of a plant that could be farmed illegally.
What yeast could also offer is the potential to more efficiently test the medicinal properties of specific active compounds in marijuana,
which have shown promise in treating everything from seizures and inflammation to cancer and parkinson disease.
a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at Icahn School of medicine at Mount sinai, told Tech Insider that using all the compounds in marijuana simultaneously is like"throwing 400 tablets in a cocktail
'"rather than figuring out which component of that cocktail is really beneficial for the specific disease.
"Marijuana is embraced increasingly as medicine, yet there is limited evidence that it is effective against many of the conditions for
Those in developing nations have far less money to play around with, which is why a newly invented and ultra-cheap water cleaning process is looking so promising.
Developed by a team of researchers at Alexandria University in Egypt, the procedure uses a desalination technique called pervaporation to remove the salt from sea water
and the vaporisation part of the process doesn't require any electricity. This means the new method is both inexpensive and suitable for areas without a regular power supply-both factors that are very important for developing countries.
The researchers combined expertise in oceanography, chemical engineering, agricultural engineering and biosystems engineering to come up with the solution
and their work has now been published in the journal Water Science and Technology.""The technology implemented in the study is much better than reverse osmosis,
a professor of water contamination at Egypt National Research Centre, told Scidev. net.""It can effectively desalinate water with high concentration of salt like that of the Red sea, where desalination costs more and yields less."
"Unfortunately for those who are waiting for this type of technology, a lot of work is required before it can be put into action:
the academics working on the project have to set up a pilot test that proves their theories correct on a large scale.
There's also the issue of how to deal with the waste produced from the process.
is composed of an extremely thin layer of gold nanoantennae that form a tiled coat only 80 nanometres thick.
At its current dimensions, it can be draped over very small objects the size of a few biological cells (1, 300 square microns in area),
said Xiang Zhang, director of Berkeley Lab Materials sciences Division, in a press release. ur ultra-thin cloak now looks like a coat.
The cloak works by employing specially devised metamaterials, which unlike natural materials can bend or curve the reflection of light via their physical structure rather than their chemical composition,
advancements in metamaterial layers have resulted now in the first real invisibility cloak technology that could be scaled up to hide actual people (as long as everybody stands perfectly still, that is.
"said Zhang. f you want to cloak people, that is possible with this new work. i
#This AI can beat almost anyone at chess after 72 hours of learning When talk turns to robotics,
-but perhaps the grand masters of chess should be the ones looking over their shoulders.
A computer scientist in the UK has invented a new type of chess artificial intelligence that's able to get up to the International Master level after just 72 hours of tuition.
Chess-playing computers aren't new of course-IBM's Deep Blue scored the first AI triumph over a human world champion by beating Garry Kasparov in 1997-but Lai's approach works differently.
This neural network approach adapts over time and mimics the human brain. Essentially, modern day chess programs use'brute force'to beat human players,
In contrast, the Giraffe AI developed by Matthew Lai from the University college London assesses the current state of the board instead, hence the accelerated learning time.
with minimal hand-crafted knowledge given by the programmer";"he also says it's"the most successful attempt thus far at using end-to-end machine learning to play chess".
"The trick is being able to narrow down the number of potential avenues that need exploring
so Giraffe could help point the way towards artificial intelligence that operates more like our own brains do.
Right now, Giraffe's main drawback is that it takes longer than other computer players to make a move,
his research may help computers get better at teaching themselves to do everything from driving a car to making an omelette,
#New light-based memory chip is the first ever to permanently store data Scientists in the UK have developed the first ever memory chip that entirely light-based
and can store data permanently, and it could one day allow us to send and receive data at the speed of light.
Light-based computers are increasingly looking like our best shot at clearing the biggest roadblock to faster computers:
the Von-neumann bottleneck. Right now, the speed at which our computers transmit data is slower than the speed at
which they can process it, because wee hit the limit for how fast electrons can travel between the processor and the memory."
"There no point using faster processors if the limiting factor is the shuttling of information to-and-from the memory-the so-called Von-neumann bottleneck,"one of the researchers,
engineer Harish Bhaskaran from the University of Oxford, said in a press release.""But we think using light can significantly speed this up."
"Making light-based computers isn as simple as replacing electrons with light particles-or photons-in current computers.
While this speeds up the rate at which we can send data significantly, the silicon chips we have now still require the photons to be converted back to electrons
when the data reaches our computer. This slows everything back down again and consumes a whole lot of extra energy,
which actually makes it less efficient than if we just used electrons in the first place. Instead, we need to completely redesign the way our computers work,
running them on light instead of electricity, and this new light-based computer chip brings us one step closer to that goal.
Known as photonic memory, light-based memory is not a new concept, but it posed quite a challenge to engineers in the past.
Not only have previous attempts at light-based computer chips turned out to be quite volatile, theye all required power to store data,
and unless wee prepared to keep our computers on, you know, forever, that not exactly practical.
Bhaskaran and his colleagues have announced now what theye calling"the world first all-photonic nonvolatile memory chip".
"It stores data using the same material that found in rewritable CDS and DVDS-a phase-change alloy of germanium-antimony-tellurium known as GST."
"This material can be made to assume an amorphous state, like glass, or a crystalline state,
like a metal, by using either electrical or optical pulses, "the press release explains.""These two states have very different physical properties,
"Bhaskaran explained to Jamie Condliffe at Gizmodo.""And that means you can store information in the state of the material."
"The chip is built by placing on a small section of GST on top of a silicon nitride ridge-known as the waveguide
"Think of the waveguide as a kind of miniature fibre optic cable that can carry light: pulses of a laser can be sent down the guide,
Publishing in Nature Photonics this week, the team explained how they could send intense pulses of light through the waveguide to change the state of the GST,
a much lower intensity pulse of light is sent through the waveguide, and the amount of light that transmitted from one end to the other will depend on
"This is the first ever truly nonvolatile integrated optical memory device to be created,"one of the team,
"And wee achieved it using established materials that are known for their long-term data retention-GST remains in the state that it placed in for decades."
"The team is now trying to figure out how to redesign the rest of the computing architecture
so their light-based memory chips can directly interact with the other components using light, rather than electrical signals."
#Scientists figure out how to make flexible materials 3 times stronger than steel Australian scientists have published an'instruction manual'that makes it a whole lot easier and cheaper to create metallic glass-a type of flexible
but ultra-tough alloy that's been described as"the most significant materials science innovation since plastic".
but when it cools it's three times stronger than steel. Researchers have been dabbling with the creation of metallic glass-or amorphous metal-for decades,
and have made a range of different types by mixing metals such as magnesium, palladium, or copper-but only after an expensive and lengthy process of trial and error.
Now, for the first time, Australian scientists have created a model of the atomic structure of metallic glass and it will allow scientists to quickly
"Until now, discovering alloy compositions that form these materials has required a lengthy process of trial and error in the laboratory,
"lead researcher Kevin Laws from the University of New south wales (UNSW) said in a press release.""With our new instruction manual we can start to create many new useful metallic glass-types
"The difference between metallic glasses and regular metals is their atomic structure. Normal metals are crystalline when solid,
which means their atoms are arranged in a highly organised way. Metallic glass alloys, on the other hand, have disordered a highly structure,
with their atoms arranged irregularly. The new model, which is described in Nature Communications, looks at the atomic structure of different metals and identifies
whether they'd be able to create a metallic glass. Using this model, the UNSW researchers have predicted already successfully more than 200 new metallic glass alloys based on magnesium, silver,
copper, zinc, and titanium.""We will also be able to engineer these materials on an atomic scale
What's really exciting about it is that it might finally make the bulk production of these awesome materials commercially viable. etallic glass alloys are expensive to manufacture
such as ejector pins for iphones, watch springs for expensive hand-wound watches, trial medical implants,
They are planned also for use in the next Mars rover vehicle, "said Laws.""But if they become easier and cheaper to make,
including as exceptionally strong components in personal electronic devices, in space exploration vehicles, and as hydrogen storage materials in next generation batteries,"he added.
Last year, scientists used metallic glass to create an iphone case that was 50 times harder than plastic.
You can see the process in action below: That's cool enough, but it's only the beginning.
we'll see a whole range of these types of innovations hitting the market in the years to come-imagine the back of your iphone being made out of metallic glass instead of just a case.
Or cars made from the material. Because, let's face it, plastic is great and all but we could all use a little more durability in our lives v
#Scientists create new shape-shifting material from 1 billion tiny magnets A synthetic material made from 1 billion nanomagnets has displayed the rare ability to change states
when exposed to temperature fluctuations. Just like water has a gaseous, liquid, and solid state, this magnet material displays physical phase transitions when gradually cooled right down to almost freezing."
"We were surprised and excited,"lead researcher behind the new material, Laura Heyderman from the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, said in a press release."
"Classified as a metamaterial because it displays properties that have yet to be found in nature,
the complex nanomagnet structure has the potential to provide new methods of information transfer and memory storage,
the team suggests. Each magnet is just 63 nanometres long (1 nm=10-6 millimetres)
and shaped sort of like a grain of rice. One million of these were arranged together on a flat substrate,
and they formed a tight honeycomb pattern, covering an area of 5 x 5 mm.
but also their arrangement in the honeycomb structure, so they can investigate the possibility of new states of matter."
tailored phase transitions could enable metamaterials to be adapted specifically for different needs in future, "says Heyderman.
The hope is that a material like this could have future applications in both data transfer and data storage.
'while the high-energy state where the magnets are strongly interacting with their neighbours allows for the movement of information through quantum dynamics.
Another possible application is in sensors that measure magnetic fields l
#Watch: Paralysed man walks again via brain waves rerouted to his legs A paraplegic man who was paralysed for five years has walked again on his own two feet,
thanks to a new kind of brain-computer interface that can reroute his thoughts to his legs, bypassing his spinal cord entirely.
The anonymous man, who experiences complete paralysis in both legs due to a severe spinal cord injury (SCI), is the first such patient to demonstrate that brain-controlled overground walking after paraplegia due to
SCI is feasible. ven after years of paralysis, the brain can still generate robust brain waves that can be harnessed to enable basic walking,
one of the researchers, Zoran Nenadic from the University of California, Irvine in the US, said in a press release. e showed that you can restore intuitive, brain-controlled walking after a complete spinal cord injury."
"The system works via noninvasive electroencephalography (EEG), where the participant wears a cap that captures electrical signals generated by the brain.
These are processed then by a computer algorithm and transmitted to electrodes attached to the subject knees,
triggering movement in the leg muscles. Not that regaining the power to walk is as easy as attaching some wires
and flipping a switch. The volunteer had to undergo months of mental training to reactivate his brain conceptual walking ability,
in addition to extensive physical therapy that enabled him to begin moving his legs again. The mental training consisted of the man wearing an EEG cap that would read his brain waves as he was being instructed to think about walking.
Software processed his thoughts and isolated the brain waves associated with leg movement. This progressed to the man using his thoughts to control the walking of a virtual reality avatar,
before physical training commenced in earnest. The man first practised walking while suspended in the air, before finally standing on his own two feet again,
culminating in him walking nearly 4 metres across the ground, as seen in the video above.
As the interface was designed custom to suit the volunteer and his particular brain waves the team behind the research says further research will be needed
such as brain implants, said co-author An Do, an assistant clinical professor of neurology. e hope that an implant could achieve an even greater level of prosthesis control
because brain waves are recorded with higher quality. In addition, such an implant could deliver sensation back to the brain,
enabling the user to feel his legs. r
#A 16-year-old has devised a faster and cheaper way to detect Ebola Oliva Hallisey,
a 16-year-old from the US, won the 2015 Google Science Fair with her project to develop a fast, cheap,
and stable test for the Ebola virus, which she says gives easy-to-read results in less than 30 minutes-potentially before someone is even showing symptoms.
expensive, require unbroken refrigeration from manufacture to use and up to 12 hours from testing to confirmed diagnosis The test provides rapid, inexpensive, accurate detection of Ebola viral antigens based on colour change within 30 minutes in individuals
prior to their becoming symptomatic and infectious.""The problem with many current Ebola tests are wrote many,
and up to 12 hours from testing to diagnosis. While Hallisey wasn able to test her invention on real Ebola patients or virus,
which is made up of antibodies (the tags that our immune system uses to mark viruses and bacteria as invaders) and chemicals that cause the test to change colours if these antibodies bind to Ebola proteins in the sample.
The big innovation: To make the test stable, Hallisey used silk fibres to stabilise the chemicals on card stock, allowing them to sit around at room temperature for up to three weeks
No refrigeration required. She then used these silk-stabilised chemicals to design a paper-based test that requires only a serum sample (the clear part of the blood after the red blood cells have been removed) and water to run.
The three chemicals used to detect the Ebola protein-bound antibodies are added to separate corners of the paper (2, 3, 4 in the diagram below.
And the anti-Ebola antibodies are in the center. To run the test, the serum sample is added to the open corner (1). Then, one by one,
The early detection of virus infection is critical for patients, since the faster you start to treat someone the more likely they are to survive.
Hallisey, who is currently entering her junior year at Greenwich High school in Connecticut, says her test could also be adapted to detect HIV, Dengue and Yellow fever viruses, Lyme disease,
and even certain cancers. The winners of the fifth annual Google Science Fair were announced live from Google Headquarters in Mountain view
California. The event was hosted by Derek Muller, who created the science and engineering channel Veritasium.
Hallisey beat out 22 other finalists for the grand prize. She takes home US$50, 000 in scholarship funding from Google.
The science fair is meant to challenge the next generation of young scientists, inventors, and innovators from around the globe.
the Texas teen who was arrested at school after bringing in a clock to show his teachers c
This new'thirsty'concrete absorbs 4, 000 litres of water in 60 seconds During the first few weeks of August 2007,
the American Midwest was devastated by heavy and repeated flash flooding as a result of Hurricane Dean and Tropical Storm Erin dumping massive amounts of rain on several states.
more than two-thirds was caused by water running off pavements or overflowing from drainage systems. So what's the solution?
a new type of porous concrete that can absorb up to 4, 000 litres of water in the first 60 seconds,
The concrete works by having a permeable layer on the surface, made up of relatively large pebbles through
all the water you can see pouring out in the video isn't being wasted-it's being fed straight back into the system for irrigation, drinking water, swimming pools,
While permeable concrete has been around for the past 50 years, it's mostly been used under pavements to help with drainage,
so the researchers at Tarmac figured out how to make a surface layer version of it that's capable of withstanding the weight of heavy traffic.
Not only can the super-absorbent concrete be used in conjuction with existing concrete-cities can install it so the runoff from regular concrete is fed into the Topmix Permeable
-but it will also be significantly cooler than regular concrete during the hottest months of the year."
so the concrete can only be used in places where temperatures are never likely to dip that low w
#London is now recycling energy from train brakes to power their stations London has just finished testing a new system that can collect
and recycle energy generated by their Tube trains when they brake, and it already powering their stations completely for more than two days per week.
The city reports that it already shaving 5 percent off the annual energy bill which might not sound like much,
"The trial puts London at the cutting edge of this kind of technology and clearly demonstrates how energy from trains can be recovered to power Tube stations,
Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy, said in a press statement.""This complements our wider work to make other forms of public transport cleaner
and greener, including our buses, where we have introduced hybrid and zero-emission technology.""The technology used is called an inverter system,
which has been installed at the Cloudesley Road substation on the Victoria line. The system works by collecting energy generated by the trains
when they brake before feeding it back into the power mains as electricity.""In hybrid and electric cars, such recovery systems can help improve range,
but in large heavily-packed passenger trains running regularly in one of the most heavily traveled cities in the world,
the effects can be significant, "David Szondy writes for Gizmag. According to the London transport authority, it collected an average of 1 Megawatt hour (MWH) of energy each day,
which is enough to cover the line biggest stations, such as Holborn, for more than two days.
Another benefit of the inverter system is that by collecting up the energy and turning it into electricity
"This state-of-the-art regenerative braking system has the potential to transform how we power stations across the...
and significantly reducing our energy bills,"Chris Tong, LU's Head of Power and Cooling, said in a press release."
"We are committed to doing more to reduce our energy use, and this technology-a world-first for metro railways-is one of a number of innovations we're embracing to lower our environmental impact."
"According to the local government, this system is just one of a bunch of new initiatives theye undertaking to make the public train system more environmentally friendly.
Earlier this year, they announced that the Greenwich Power station in southeast London would be converted into a low-carbon power generator for the Tube network,
not just because it better for the environment-you just can argue with the economics of renewables anymore,
the summer months on Mars see a shallow subsurface flow of briny water coming down from the planet's canyons and crater walls.
then these sites would be prime candidates for landing spots on the first manned mission to the planet."
Alan Duffy, a Research Fellow at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia.""The brine on Mars might not directly support life
and a retirement home embarking on a yearlong experiment to compare the costs and benefits of a shorter working day."
At the same time, we are having it hard to manage our private life outside of work,"Linus Feldt,
and Feldt says their staff haven't looked back.""We want to spend more time with our families,
Feldt says staff are asked to stay off social media and other distractions while at work and meetings are kept to a minimum."
"My impression now is that it is easier to focus more intensely on the work that needs to be done
and still have energy left when leaving the office, "he told Fast Company. The thinking behind the move is that
staff will be motivated more and have more energy to get more done in a shorter period of time.
Feldt reports that not only has stayed productivity the same, there are less staff conflicts because people are happier and better rested.
No doubt Filimundus was looking at the several Toyota service centres in Gothenburg which switched to a six-hour day 13 years ago
and report happier staff, a lower turnover rate, and ease in enticing new employees to come on board."
"They have a shorter travel time to work, there is more efficient use of the machines and lower capital costs-everyone is happy,
"the managing director Martin Banck told David Crouch at The Guardian, adding that profits have risen by 25 percent.
Back in February, a Svartedalens retirement home in Gothenburg implemented a 6-hour work day for their nurses with no changes to wage,
and will be running the experiment till the end of 2016 to figure out if the high cost of hiring 14 new staff members to cover the lost hours is worth the improvements to patient care and employee morale."
"The Svartedalens experiment is inspiring others around Sweden: at Gothenburg Sahlgrenska University hospital, orthopaedic surgery has moved to a 6-hour day,
as have doctors and nurses in two hospital departments in Umeå to the north,"The Guardian reports.
While impressions of staff being happier and full of energy aren exactly scientific basis for declaring 6-hour work days as'better'than the 8. 7-hour work day endured by the average American,
we do have evidence that what wee doing right now isn working. A study published in The Lancet last month analysed data from 25 studies that monitored health of over 600
000 people from the US, Europe, and Australia for up to 8. 5 years found that people who worked 55 hours a week had a 33 percent greater risk of having a stroke than people who worked a 35-40 hour week,
and a 13 percent increased risk of developing coronary heart disease, while a separate study found that working 49-hour weeks was associated with lower mental health, particularly in women.
And as we reported earlier this month, we probably shouldn even be forced to clock on at 9am anyway,
with expert Paul Kelley from Oxford university Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute saying that society is in the midst of a sleep-deprivation crisis,
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