Research using machine learning on images of everyday items is improving the accuracy and speed of detecting respiratory diseases, reports Tech Xplore. Researchers from Edith Cowan University in Australia trained algorithms on a database of more than 1 million commonplace images and transferred this knowledge to identify characteristics of medical conditions that can be diagnosed with an X-ray. Results of this technique, known as transfer learning, achieved a 99.24 percent success rate when detecting COVID-19...
Researchers have found a low-cost way for backscatter radios to support high-throughput communication and 5G-speed Gb/sec data transfer using a single transistor. Employing a unique modulation approach in the 5G 24/28 Gigahertz (GHz) bandwidth, the researchers have shown that these passive devices can transfer data safely and robustly from virtually any environment. The findings were reported earlier this month in the journal Nature Electronics. "Typically, it was simplicity against cost. You could either do very...
Quick, accurate and easy-to-use, CRISPR-Cas9 has made genomic editing more efficient — and in so doing has erased many ethical barriers to editing the genes of heredity, reports Medical Xpress. "The ethical debate about what is now called human gene editing has gone on for more than 50 years," writes Dr. John H. Evans, co-director of the Institute for Practical Ethics at the University of California, San Diego. "For nearly that entire time, there...
The highly anticipated U.S. Pentagon report on UFOs released Friday reveals that all the bizarre sightings over the years fall into several categories, require more study, and remain largely unexplained and unidentified, reports CNET. "The limited amount of high-quality reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP," reads the summary of a report posted online by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "... UAP clearly pose a...
Researchers have created an artificial tactile sensing system that mimics the way in which humans recognize objects in their surroundings via their sense of touch, reports Tech Xplore. This system uses sensors to capture data associated with the tactile properties of objects. Biological sensory systems convert tactile stimuli into action potentials through a process known as somatosensory transduction. Subsequently, they transmit these signals to the brain via afferent nerves. To emulate the human tactile system, the...
Cosmic dawn, when stars formed for the first time, occurred 250 million to 350 million years after the beginning of the universe, according to a new study led by researchers at University College London (UCL) and the University of Cambridge. The U.K.-led team examined six of the most distant known galaxies, whose light has taken most of the universe's lifetime to reach us, reports Phys.org. They found that the distance of these galaxies away from...
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a technology that allows them to harvest water around the clock, with no energy input, even under the blazing sun, reports Tech Xplore. The new device consists of a coated glass pane, which reflects solar radiation and radiates away its own heat through the atmosphere to outer space. It thus cools itself to as much as 15 degrees Celsius below the ambient temperature. On the underside of this pane, water...
A team of researchers claims that making food from air would be far more efficient than growing crops in the traditional manner, reports Phys.org. In a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, the University of Naples Federico II, the Weizmann Institute of Science, and the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences describes its analysis and comparison of the efficiency...
Bitcoin has fallen below $30,000 for the first time in more than five months, hit by China's crackdown on the world's most popular cryptocurrency. The digital currency slipped to about $28,890 today, down from a high of $64,870 in April. China has told banks and payment platforms to stop supporting digital currency transactions, the BBC reports. It follows an order on Friday to stop Bitcoin mining in Sichuan province. On Monday, China's central bank said it had recently summoned several...
The U.S. intelligence community may finally reveal unidentified flying object (UFO) secrets to Congress this week when it delivers a mandatory report that will be available to the public, CNET reports. Here are some key things to know before the much-anticipated report drops. For years, pilots and other military personnel have been encountering strange things in the sky that have come to be called "unidentified aerial phenomena." The change from "UFO" to "UAP" is in part...
