LESS LIGHT; MORE NIGHT: The 6th worldwide GLOBE at Night study is measuring local levels of night sky brightness around the world. Light pollution means that millions of people can no longer see the stars, and wildlife is suffering too. How much dark can you see? More at GlobeAtNight and video on YouTube.
HOOK UP: Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created tubes of layered silicon and germanium of various shapes and sizes. Then they seeded areas outside the tubes with mouse nerve cells. The nerve cells grew into and through the tubes, linking up again outside. Without such tubes the nerve cells just randomly connect. The tubes could open the way for testing the effects of drugs or creating interfaces between the brain and artificial limbs. And ships who sing. Details at Wired.
FIND FRIENDS ONLINE: Age UK, a non-profit group, did a survey that found half of the UK's 10 million older people consider the TV their main form of company. 60% of the 10 million have never been online. The charity are urging people to help their older friends and family get online as a way to ease social isolation. They could watch TV online. More at the BBC.
HOLD THE LINE: A Dutch team wanted to find a way to prioritise calls to emergency services - there can be a problem when emergency dispatch centres are overloaded. They developed a computer algorithm to assign priority using the speed of speech, rises and falls in the pitch and tone, and the caller's rate of breathing. Tested against a database of calls whose outcomes were known the algorithm had a failure rate of less than 5%. No, really, it is urgent. More at GizMag.
ROBOT TO MOUTH: An undergrad at Chukyo University, Japan wrote image processing software to recognise food items. Then he combined that with a Robix Rascal robot. On a voice command the robot picks the correct food item from a tray and puts it on your plate. Eventually this may be used to help people who have problems feeding themselves, perhaps after an accident or stroke. I think the problem lies between the plate and the mouth though. More at IEEE and video on YouTube.
- Miraz Jordan knowit.co.nz
Tech Universe: Tuesday 29 March
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.