In The Matrix, Morpheus tells Neo that their digital appearance is based on their “residual self-image.” That is, the characters look how they imagine themselves to look, based on their own mental models of themselves.
In the real world, scientists have been trying to teach robots that trick as well. That's because, unlike the warring machines of the matrix, a real-life robot with an accurate self-image might benefit humanity. It’d allow for faster programming and more accura ...read more
Nestled in the foothills of southern Siberia's Altai Mountains, Denisova Cave has yielded numerous artifacts, as well as fossils of many animals and at least two hominins: Neanderthals and Denisovans. The cave is the only place in the world known to have remains of the Denisovans, who, like Neanderthals, were our close evolutionary cousins.
The site is one of the most significant for understanding human evolution, but study of it has been hampered by difficulty dating the finds. Today ...read more
The brain of a fruit fly is captured here using a new, large-scale 3-D imaging technique developed by a multi-institutional group of researchers led by MIT and Harvard University.
The method is shockingly fast, and millions of synapses can be analyzed in just a few days. That's much faster than previously possible. The technique makes use of expanding brain tissue and what’s called lattice light-sheet microscopy. Here, the fruit fly brain is about the size of a poppy s ...read more
Opportunity's Last Hope
Last Martian summer, a dust storm blocked out the sun and grew until it enveloped the entire Red Planet. That left the Opportunity rover deprived of solar power and NASA lost contact with the robot. Now, after six months without a response, NASA is making a new, and potentially their last, effort to restore contact with the rover.
The last contact that Opportunity had with Earth was on June 10, 2018, in the midst of the global dust storm. NASA’s Jet ...read more
What, if anything, is the function of adult neurogenesis in humans? Does neurogenesis even exist in our adult brains, or does it shut down during childhood?
The debate over human neurogenesis has been one of the most prominent disputes in 21st century neuroscience. Just last year, two opposing papers appeared in leading journals, one claiming firm evidence of ongoing neurogenesis in the adult human dentate gyrus, while the other study came to the opposite conclusion. The fact that adult neuro ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine