How to Build a Wix Website. Timeglider: web-based timeline software. Create timelines, share them on the web | Timetoast timelines. Beautiful web-based timeline software. Bubbl.us. Mind42. Voki Home. Storyboard That: The World's Best FREE Online Storyboard Creator. ONLINE CHARTS | create and design your own charts and diagrams online | Graph. The Talking Germs: Deciphering Microbial Linguistics and Cognition. Language is a hallmark of higher ordered creatures. Humans have developed a highly complex process involving the organization of thousands of words, each of which comprises a meaning.
Yet, we are not alone in the ability to talk to one another. Over the last few decades, researchers have shown animals also have the ability to communicate, albeit rudimentarily. The majority of speculative studies happened in the 1950s and spawned a series of findings each suggesting language is used universally. The methods differ from us, manifesting in facial expressions, body gestures, vocalizations and even odors to convey a message. Although microbial language theory began sixty years ago, detection of this ability wasn’t fully explained until 1994, when the bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, was found to communicate with other cells. But while the hunt to characterize QS in bacteria was in full swing, the attempt to decipher the linguistics behind this phenomenon was having limited success. Scio Pocket Molecular Scanner Is a Google-like Device for Physical Objects.
Scientists reverse aging in mice by giving them young blood. Human Brain Microchip Is 9,000 Times Faster Than PC. Despite advances in computing, today's computers remain far less efficient than the 3-lb. (2.3-kg) hunk of matter in our skulls. But a new microchip modeled on the human brain is much faster and more efficient than a typical computer, researchers report. The microchip — called "Neurogrid" — could open up windows into understanding the human brain and developing new forms of computing patterned after brain circuits. Researchers are now investigating how these chips could be used to control prosthetic limbs. "From a pure energy perspective, the brain is hard to match," Kwabena Boahen, the bioengineer at Stanford University who led the chip's development, said in a statement.
Neurogrid consists of 16 custom-designed Neurocore chips in a device the size of an iPad, which can simulate 1 million neurons and billions of synapses, or brain connections. Currently, programming the chip requires an understanding of how the brain works. NASA's New Martian Spacesuit Is Straight Out Of "Tron" When humans first step on the dusty red surface of Mars, they will be doing so in a spacesuit descended from a design that the Internet chose: the Nasa Z-2 Spacesuit.
The Z-Series is NASA's line of prototype spacesuits geared at planetary exploration. They are designed to contain portable life support systems; be quick to put on and take off; and maximize astronaut dexterity in both planetary and micro-gravity environments. The previous iteration, the Z-1, looked like something Buzz Lightyear would wear, and was white in color with big, green neon strips.
With the Z-2, the focus will be on testing the outer layer of the suit's technology, especially elements like electroluminescent wiring that will make it easier for astronauts to see (and be seen) in space. Earlier this month, NASA asked the public to vote online between three versions of the next-generation of spacesuit, with the winning design going on to the testing phase. Before you get too excited, here's a sense check.
A Blood Test For Depression. Researchers at Medical University of Vienna say it is possible for a blood test to detect depression. Mental illness in the blood? They say, in principle, depression can be diagnosed. Serotonin transporter (SERT) is a protein in the cell membrane that facilitates the transport of the neurotransmitter serotonin (the "happiness hormone") into the cell. In the brain, serotonin transporter regulates neural depression networks. As a result, the serotonin transporter is also the point of action for the major antidepressant drugs. Credit: Medical University of Vienna Researchers at Medical University of Vienna say functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain and pharmacological investigations demonstrate that there is a close relationship between the speed of the serotonin uptake in blood platelets and the function of a depression network in the brain.
This network is termed the “default mode network” because it is primarily active at rest and processes content with strong self-reference. It's Official: Apple and Facebook Are Phone Companies Now - Derek Thompson. About 100 percent of both firms' revenue growth in the last year is directly related to mobile. Reuters Apple is a phone company. Yes, it makes other screens and products for other screens—iPads, iPods, Apple TV, iTunes. But now about 60 percent of its revenue comes from the iPhone, and all of its new revenue comes from selling phones, mostly to people overseas. The rest of the company is actually shrinking. Facebook is a phone company, too. Mobile is the future, and the future looks like an oligopoly. Google is still arguably the king of mobile. All of Facebook's growth is coming from mobile and international.
Presentation Tools That Go Beyond "Next Slide Please" - Nolan Browne. By Nolan Browne | 12:00 PM April 24, 2014 Data visualization luminary and Yale professor Edward Tufte famously suggested that PowerPoint would have been a presentation medium well-suited to a communist dictator. The program’s linear nature, its tendency to discourage interactivity, its inability to easily share the information it contains, and its potential to limit communication with the audience can sometimes obfuscate rather than clarify.
Indeed, Microsoft’s recent web-enabled improvements to the longstanding business application suggest that change is coming to presentation tools in a business world increasingly shaped by online collaboration and increasingly powerful internet applications. Today, users have unprecedented access to data at their fingertips and powerful applications to process them in real time. The best presenters tend to show rather than tell, creating opportunities to engage and persuade. Persuading with DataAn HBR Insight Center. Google Eyes A Creepier Glass—A Camera-Bearing Contact Lens. Imagine the Google Glass headgear, which currently makes some camera-shy onlookers nervous, shrinking down to near-invisibility—say, into a super-thin transparent layer that sits on the cornea.
Google certainly has, as we now know from a recently published patent filing from October 2012. The notion of smart contact lenses itself isn't particularly new. Earlier this year, in fact, Google introduced the "moonshot" idea of an eye-worn lens embedded with a wireless chip for health monitoring. But this latest concept could be way smarter than that, as it would—in theory—allow wearers to snap photos with just the blink of an eye. Here’s Looking At You, Kid See also: Google X Marks The Spot On 'Smart' Contact Lenses Back in January, Google announced its Google X experimental lab was testing a glucose-reading contact lens for diabetics.
The “image capture component” is exactly what it sounds like: a camera. Well, that’s one of the big questions. Eye Spy. Google Dives Deeper Into 'Smart' Contact Lenses. Google (GOOG) may be investing in big brands like Ray-Bans ahead of the upcoming Google Glass launch, but new patent filings show the tech giant might one day look to ditch glasses altogether. According to an amendment to an earlier U.S. Patent & Trademark Office application – first spotted by Patent Bolt – Google is designing tiny cameras into its future smart contact lenses that would enable a person to capture the world around them with the blink of an eye.
While Google first unveiled plans for an intelligent contact lens back in March, the update suggests that the Google research machine is continuing to focus on the next-generation wearable device despite putting the final touches on Google Glass, set to launch later this year. “This goes into the theory of Google’s experimental technologies,” said Roger Kay, tech analyst and president of Endpoint Technologies. “A lot of these are just demonstrations that Google is alert and alive and creatively thinking of things.”