Category Archives: Uncategorized

Hybrid Humans

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Biohybrid technology fuses the organic with the artificial to extend the limits of our bodies

While the human body has proven to be a structure that is adaptable, versatile and resilient, its organic nature makes it susceptible to many diseases and various other factors capable of exposing its fragility. The term biohybrid refers to something that has integrated components of both natural and artificial material. While some of today’s biohybrid technologies seem straight out of science fiction, the idea to blend these alternate elements is actually thousands of years old….
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Those Blue Jeans Sound Like a C Sharp

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Cyborg, Neil Harbisson listens to the music of colour

Harbisson’s visual world is painted  in black, white and shades of grey. A rare genetic condition termed Achromatopsia is what’s responsible for colouring his surroundings like the pages of a newspaper.

He took an interest in both art and music at an early age and began studying fine art at Institut Alexandre Satorras in Mataró, Spain, where he had special permission to use only black and white.
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Graphene Graphene Everywhere!

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If you plan on researching Graphene, you’re in plenty of company!

Last year, Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, two researchers from the University of Manchester, won the Nobel prize in Physics for their discovery of a new material: Graphene. How did they make this discovery ? They peeled away small flakes of Graphite using sticky tape, resulting in a one atom thick layer of carbon.
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Has IBM Taken a Trip Back to the Future?

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According to scientists in the field, neuromorphic chips are old news

In last week’s IBM press release, the company revealed its creation of a ¨ new generation of experimental computer chips designed to emulate the brain’s abilities for perception, action and cognition.¨ The two prototype chips are part of IBM’s   SyNapse project (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics) which employs principles from Neuroscience,  Supercomputing and Nanotechnology to form the basis of ¨Cognitive computing¨.
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iCub

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The famed European robot has made itself a home in laboratories around the globe

iCub is a robot capable of  interacting with the world much the way a small child does . It is used to look at how experience and the learning of physical acts can affect the development of cognition.  Among other capabilities, iCub is able to:  crawl, grasp objects and express emotion through facial expressions.  Check out the article in nature featuring the icub project leader Giulio Sandini who is also the founder of the LIRA-Lab (Laboratory for Integrated Advanced Robotics) at the University of Genoa and director of research in the Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences department at IIT (the Italian Institute of Technology). Giulio is also a consortium member of the Coordination Action of the Robot Companions for Citizens FET Flagship Initiative.