Fortune. Graphene-fed spiders spin bionic silk. Natural spider silk is already amazingly strong stuff, plus scientists have developed synthetic versions of the material.
Now, however, Italian and British researchers have split the difference, in a manner of speaking – they've created silk that comes from spiders, but that has added man-made ingredients which give it extra strength. Led by Prof. Nicola Pugno from Italy's University of Trento, the scientists fed "special" water to three species of spiders. The Semantic Web - An Overview. Future of the Sharing Economy in Europe 2016. The UK and France are spearheading the rise of Europe’s sharing economy From our research of nine major European countries[3], we estimate that at least 275 sharing economy organisations have been founded to date.
The UK and France have led this start-up creation, with over 50 sharing economy organisations founded in each of these countries. Germany, Spain and the Netherlands have each contributed over 25 sharing economy organisations, while less than 25 have been established in each of Sweden, Italy, Poland and Belgium. Microsoft chatbot is taught to swear on Twitter. Image copyright Microsoft A chatbot developed by Microsoft has gone rogue on Twitter, swearing and making racist remarks and inflammatory political statements.
The experimental AI, which learns from conversations, was designed to interact with 18-24-year-olds. Just 24 hours after artificial intelligence Tay was unleashed, Microsoft appeared to be editing some of its more inflammatory comments. The software firm said it was "making some adjustments". US agency reaches 'holy grail' of battery storage sought by Elon Musk and Gat... A US government agency says it has attained the “holy grail” of energy – the next-generation system of battery storage, that has has been hotly pursued by the likes of Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (Arpa-E) – a branch of the Department of Energy – says it achieved its breakthrough technology in seven years. Ellen Williams, Arpa-E’s director, said: “I think we have reached some holy grails in batteries – just in the sense of demonstrating that we can create a totally new approach to battery technology, make it work, make it commercially viable, and get it out there to let it do its thing,” If that’s the case, Arpa-E has come out ahead of Gates and Musk in the multi-billion-dollar race to build the next generation battery for power companies and home storage. Arpa-E was founded in 2009 under Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan to fund early stage research into the generation and storage of energy. CRISPR Democracy: Gene Editing and the Need for Inclusive Deliberation. The 1975 Asilomar conference on the risks of recombinant DNA is a poor model for governing newly emerging gene-editing technologies.
Not since the early, heady days of recombinant DNA (rDNA) has a technique of molecular biology so gripped the scientific imagination as the CRISPR-Cas9 method of gene editing. Its promises are similar to those of rDNA, which radically transformed the economic and social practices of biotechnology in the mid-1970s. Ivory tower rDNA science morphed into a multibillion dollar technological enterprise built on individual entrepreneurship, venture capital, start-ups, and wide-ranging university-industry collaborations.
Talking Headlines: with Kevin Mitchell. Kevin Mitchell is an Associate Professor in the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at Trinity College Dublin.
University news - University of Glasgow researchers make graphene production breakthrough. Issued: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 10:01:00 GMT Graphene has been hailed as a wonder material since it was first isolated from graphite in 2004.
Graphene is just a single atom thick but it is flexible, stronger than steel, and capable of efficiently conducting heat and electricity. Dr Ravinder Dahiya However, widespread industrial adoption of graphene has so far been limited by the expense of producing it. Affordable graphene production could lead to a wide range of new technologies reaching the market, including synthetic skin capable of providing sensory feedback to people with limb prostheses. What Technology Will Look Like In Five Years. Diomedes Kastanis Crunch Network Contributor Diomedes Kastanis head of technology for business unit support systems, leading Ericsson’s long-term technology vision and innovation across media, OSS, BSS and m-commerce.
How to join the network As a driver of technical innovation for a software company, a huge part of my job depends on forecasting how current tech trends will play out, merge, dissipate or expand. Warning over electrical brain stimulation. Given the option, would you want to think faster and have sharper attention?
Research suggests that electrical brain stimulation kits could have just those effects. But now some companies are selling such devices online, leading to calls to regulate the technology. It may sound too good to be true but scientists say the technology is promising. Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS), which passes small electrical currents directly on to the scalp, stimulates the nerve cells in the brain (neurons). It's non-invasive, extremely mild and the US military even uses TDCS in an attempt to improve the performance of its drone pilots. The idea is that it makes the neurons more likely to fire and preliminary research suggests electrical simulation can improve attention as well as have a positive impact on people with cognitive impairments and depression.
It has also been shown to increase performance in a maths task, an improvement which was still in place six months later. Problem loading page. Mike Bracken – Leaving government. A Letter to Millennials: Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution. Small Pieces Loosely Joined: How smarter use of technology and data can deliver real reform of local government. The serious science (and business) of gaming - BBC News. Video games - a childish and sometimes dangerous pursuit, not worthy of being spoken of in the same breath as music or movies, either in cultural or economic terms?
Until recently, that was quite a common view in Britain, not just in certain newspapers but among many politicians. But a visit to Brighton this week should have been enough to convince anyone that games have serious value. In the Metropole Hotel, often home to feverish politicking during party conferences, a less formally attired crowd has gathered for Britain's largest games conference. Develop, as the name suggests, is mainly for games developers, and they come to Brighton to listen (or doze through) presentations, to meet technology suppliers but above all to network. This show is not so much for the US-owned publishing giants but for the myriad of tiny firms which make up Britain's thriving, if precarious, games development scene - and they desperately need to make contacts. Index. Trend Micro respects your privacy. Trend Micro Inc. 2 Kingdom Street, London, W2 6BD Copyright © 2015 Trend Micro Incorporated.
All rights reserved. Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET. The Next Industrial Revolution Should Happen In America. The ‘Industrial Internet’ is poised to overhaul the way companies manufacture goods, in turn changing our everyday interactions with products. Ray Kurzweil's Mind-Boggling Predictions for the Next 25 Years. 'Killer robots' with AI must be banned, urge Stephen Hawking, Noam Chomsky and thousands of others in open letter - News - Gadgets and Tech. Other signatories include Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and hundreds of AI and robotics researcher from top-flight universities and laboratories worldwide.
The letter, put together by the Future of Life Institute, a group that works to mitigate "existential risks facing humanity", warns of the danger of starting a "military AI arms race". Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner Announce $100M Initiative to Seek ET. The Next Industrial Revolution Should Happen In America. The Next Wave.
With Big Data Comes Big Responsibility. Big data and the “internet of things”—in which everyday objects can send and receive data—promise revolutionary change to management and society. But their success rests on an assumption: that all the data being generated by internet companies and devices scattered across the planet belongs to the organizations collecting it. Ebs_419_en. Sorry Banks, Millennials Hate You. What's Driving Google's Obsession With Artificial Intelligence And Robots? iPhone Concept Could Eliminate The Dangers Of Texting And Driving. Fridge sends spam emails as attack hits smart gadgets. 17 January 2014Last updated at 12:18 ET The fridge was one of 100,000 devices used as part of the spam attack.
IBM unveils computer fed by 'electronic blood' 18 October 2013Last updated at 13:05 ET By James Morgan Science reporter, BBC News, Zurich.