Several laboratories are now using Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopes (FIB-SEM) to image small volumes of plastic embedded brain tissue at resolutions approaching 5x5x5nm voxel size. The fact that FIBSEM can obtain such resolution is of fundamental importance since at this resolution all neuronal processes should be traceable with 100% accuracy using fully automatic algorithms. A fundamental physical limitation of the FIB ablation process is that this resolution can only be obtained for very small samples on the order of 20 microns across. To overcome this limitation Ken Hayworth has developed a technique using a heated, oil-lubricated, ultrasonically vibrating diamond knife which can section large blocks of plastic-embedded brain tissue into 20 micron thick strips optimally sized for high-resolution FIB-SEM imaging. Crucially, this thick sectioning procedure results in such high-quality surfaces that the finest neuronal processes can be traced from strip to strip.
New videography techniques have opened up the oceans' microscopic ecosystem, revealing it to be both mesmerizingly beautiful and astoundingly complex. Marine biologist Tierney Thys has used footage from a pioneering project to create a film designed to ignite wonder and curiosity about this hidden world that underpins our own food chain.
In this video Prof Robin Grimes and Dr Catherine Zentile demonstrate the spectacular world of quantum levitation using superconductivity and the Meissner Effect. We've all heard about solids, liquids and gases but did you know that there are at least 6 states of matter? Superconductors are one such state. Just as when we freeze water we're going from a liquid to a solid, in a similar way, when we cool down some peculiar materials we move from a 'normal' solid to a superconductor. But be warned! Even for the absurdly named 'high temperature' superconductors this transition happens at below -180 °C so lots of liquid nitrogen is needed to cool it down! After the transition the material looks the same to the naked eye -- it is its properties that become strange. Firstly, it loses ALL electrical resistance (hence the name superconductor). But being a perfect conductor isn't the property that makes 'superconductors' a new state of matter. Their uniqueness comes from the fact that they exhibit the Meissner effect which means that they expel any small magnetic fields nearby. Add a bit of quantum trapping and this allows superconductors to spectacularly levitate above magnets as we see in this video! And it is this exciting property that has been proposed by scientists and engineers as the technology to make levitating trains of the future a reality!
Arthur C. Clarke presents this unusual documentary on the mathematical discovery of the Mandelbrot Set (M-Set) in the visually spectacular world of fractal geometry. This show relates the science of the M-Set to nature in a way that seems to identify the hand of God in the design of the universe itself. Dr. Mandelbrot in 1980 discovered the infinitely complex geometrical shape called the Mandelbrot Set using a very simple equation with computers and graphics.
Arthur C. Clarke's soft-spoken style sets the "common man" at ease, and his pinpoint commentary makes the concept of fractals easy to understand. One need not be a stellar mathematician to grasp the concepts and why they are profound. The experts are trotted out, and they, too, explain fractal geometry in ways that are accessible to everyman.
Fractals are part of our lives, and maths informs everything that exists, whether natural or man-made. In the novel, a software engineer tries to create a program that sets the flapping of a bird's wings to music using mathematical equations. That is exactly what fractals seem to do; they describe events in nature in mathematical ways, and the section of "Colors" which discusses this is eye-opening.
The Singularity Summit 2011 was a TED-style two-day event at the historic 92nd Street Y in New York City. The next event will take place in San Francisco, on October 13 & 14, 2012. For more information, visit: http://www.singularitysummit.com
AMS Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics: Terence Tao is UCLA's Collins Professor of Mathematics, and the first UCLA professor to win the prestigious Fields Medal. Less than a month after winning the Fields Medal, Tao was named a MacArthur Fellow. The following month, Tao was named one of "The Brilliant 10" scientists by Popular Science magazine, which called him "Math's Great Uniter" and said that "to Tao, the traditional boundaries between different mathematical fields don't seem to exist." Tao's AMS Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics is titled "The Cosmic Distance Ladder."
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) sponsors a series of public lectures in mathematics entitled The AMS Einstein Public Lecture in Mathematics. The lectures began in 2005, to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Einstein's annus mirabilis. They are given annually at one of the Society's eight sectional meetings. The year 1905 marked the publication by Albert Einstein in Germany of three fundamental papers that changed the course of twentieth-century physics. Einstein later moved to the United States, where he became a founding member of the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Thomas Rando and Anne Brunet provide a general overview on the process and potential prevention of aging. The topics they cover vary from symptoms of aging to unusual characteristics that seem to prolong longevity.
Michael Snyder, Professor of Genetics and Chair of the Department of Genetics at Stanford, discusses advances in gene sequencing, the impact of genomics on medicine, the potential for personalized medicine. and efforts at Stanford to further study these issues.
DNA stores and replicates information. Special sequences of different nucleic acids (adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine) encode life's blueprints. These nucleic acids can be divided into a classical part (massive core) and a quantum part (electron shell and single protons). The laws of quantum mechanics map the classical information (A,C,G,T) onto the configuration of electrons and position of single protons. Although DNA replication requires perfect copies of the classical information, the core that constitutes this information does not directly interact with the copying machine. Instead, only the quantum degrees of freedom are measured. Thus successful copying requires a correct translation of classical to quantum to classical information. It has been shown that the electronic system is well shielded from thermal noise. This leads to entanglement inside the DNA helix. It is an open question if this entanglement influences the genetic information processing. In this talk I will discuss possible consequences of entanglement for the information flow and the similarities and differences between classical computing, quantum computing and DNA information processing.
The strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions all have consistent, relativistic and quantum mechanical descriptions in terms of pointlike particles, but Einstein's theory of gravitation has long resisted a similar treatment, because of severe ultraviolet divergences. String theory solves these problems, but it introduces a new length scale, perhaps 16 orders of magnitude below what can be tested experimentally.
Dr. Dixon will describe recent theoretical progress in showing that a particular pointlike theory of gravity, called N=8 supergravity, might also be quantum mechanically consistent. In particular, N=8 supergravity has been shown explicitly to have no ultraviolet divergences in perturbation theory through the four-loop order. Dr. Dixon will also discuss the possible implications of these results.
3D printing will soon allow digital object storage and transportation, as well as personal manufacturing and very high levels of product customization. This video by Christopher Barnatt of ExplainingTheFuture.com illustrates 3D printing today and in the future.
Robbert Dijkgraaf's focus is on string theory, quantum gravity, and the interface between mathematics and particle physics, bringing them together in an accessible way, looking at sciences, the arts and other matters.
Classical optimization techniques have found widespread use in machine learning. Convex optimization has occupied the center-stage and significant effort continues to be still devoted to it.
Pattern Analysis, Statistical Modelling and Computational Learning » NIPS Workshop on Optimization for Machine Learning, Whistler 2008.
Training a Binary Classifier with the Quantum Adiabatic Algorithm
Polyhedral Approximations in Convex Optimization
Optimization in Machine Learning: Recent Developments and Current Challenges
Large-scale Machine Learning and Stochastic Algorithms
Online and Batch Learning Using Forward-Looking Subgradients
Robustness and Regularization of Support Vector Machines
Tuning Optimizers for Time-Constrained Problems using Reinforcement Learning.
Having previously developed several baby robots, the researchers at Osaka University’s Asada Lab are using that know-how to build the most realistic infant robot ever made. It has been about a year and a half since we saw Affetto, which was just a head capable of making a few expressions. Now the researchers have published a video showing the robot’s new upper-body, which contains 20 pneumatic actuators to move its arms, neck, and spine. This is in addition to the 12 degrees of freedom in its head. Although pneumatic actuators are more difficult to control compared to electric motors, they are flexible, allowing for direct physical interaction (a big plus if you want to be able to cuddle it).
Simon DeDeo is a theoretical physicist and very smart guy, who started out as a cosmologist and has made the transition to complexity theorist at the Santa Fe Institute. (He’s not smart because he made that transition, it just so happens that both statements are true.)
This summer he gave a series of three lectures at SFI’s Complex Systems Summer School, on the general topics of Emergence and Complexity. These are big ideas, and obviously one cannot say everything interesting there is to say about them in three lectures, but Simon manages to cover a lot of extremely important and fascinating topics such as coarse-graining, renormalization, computation, and effective theories.
Berkeley Lab scientists reveal how nanoscience will bring us cleaner energy, faster computers, and improved medicine.
Alex Weber-Bargioni: How can we see things at the nanoscale? Alex is pioneering new methods that provide unprecedented insight into nanoscale materials and molecular interactions. The goal is to create rules for building nanoscale materials.
Babak Sanii: Nature is an expert at making nanoscale devices such as proteins. Babak is developing ways to see these biological widgets, which could help scientists develop synthetic devices that mimic the best that nature has to offer.
Ting Xu: How are we going to make nanoscale devices? A future in which materials and devices are able to assemble themselves may not be that far down the road. Ting is finding ways to induce a wide range of nanoscopic building blocks to assemble into complex structures.
Randal Koene, Neuroscientist and Neuroengineer, discusses Substrate Independent Minds with Stuart Mason Dambrot on Critical Thought TV. Topics covered include the science, technology and ethics of Whole Brain Emulation, Universal Darwinism, Pattern Survival and a possible very far-future universe.
Slow Motion video of bullet impacts made by Werner Mehl from Kurzzeit. These are by far the best slow motion bullet impacts available anywhere. Watch for the hollow point rounds in the ballistics gel.
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