Wednesday 19 June 2019

Study: More aggressive treatments needed to improve 5-year survival rate for glioblastoma

Despite improvements in median and short-term survival rates for patients with glioblastoma, the most common brain tumor in adults, the percentage of patients achieving five-year survival remains low, according to new Mayo Clinic research.

* This article was originally published here

Ethics of AI: how should we treat rational, sentient robots – if they existed?

Imagine a world where humans co-existed with beings who, like us, had minds, thoughts, feelings, self-conscious awareness and the capacity to perform purposeful actions—but, unlike us, these beings had artificial mechanical bodies that could be switched on and off.

* This article was originally published here

Teaching AI agents navigation subroutines by feeding them videos

Researchers at UC Berkeley and Facebook AI Research have recently proposed a new approach that can enhance the navigation skills of machine learning models. Their method, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, allows models to acquire visuo-motor navigation subroutines by processing a series of videos.

* This article was originally published here

Facebook's currency Libra faces financial, privacy pushback

Facebook is getting a taste of the regulatory pushback it will face as it creates a new digital currency with corporate partners.

* This article was originally published here

Compact, low-cost fingerprint reader could reduce infant mortality around the world

A team of Michigan State University researchers have created Infant-Prints—a low-cost, high-resolution and portable solution to accurately identify infants in an effort to help reduce infant mortality around the world.

* This article was originally published here

Many asylum seekers suffer from depression and anxiety symptoms

Up to 40% of the adults who have sought asylum in Finland are told that they are suffering from major depression and anxiety symptoms. More than half of both the adults and children reported having experienced at least one shocking, possibly traumatic event, such as being subjected to violence.

* This article was originally published here

Special nanotubes could improve solar power and imaging technology

Physicists have discovered a novel kind of nanotube that generates current in the presence of light. Devices such as optical sensors and infrared imaging chips are likely applications, which could be useful in fields such as automated transport and astronomy. In future, if the effect can be magnified and the technology scaled up, it could lead to high-efficiency solar power devices.

* This article was originally published here

Ediacaran dinner party featured plenty to eat, adequate sanitation, computer model shows

Earth's first dinner party wasn't impressive, just a bunch of soft-bodied Ediacaran organisms sunk into sediment on the ocean floor, sharing in scraps of organic matter suspended in the water around them.

* This article was originally published here

Summer suppers fresh from the farmers' market

(HealthDay)—Summer is the perfect time to give your stove a rest and kick back with some fast, no-cook meals made with veggies you can grab at your farmers' market.

* This article was originally published here

'Self-healing' polymer brings perovskite solar tech closer to market

A protective layer of epoxy resin helps prevent the leakage of pollutants from perovskite solar cells (PSCs), according to scientists from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST). Adding a "self-healing" polymer to the top of a PSC can radically reduce how much lead it discharges into the environment. This gives a strong boost to prospects for commercializing the technology.

* This article was originally published here

Unearthing the sweet potato proteome

The sweet, starchy orange sweet potatoes are tasty and nutritious ingredients for fries, casseroles and pies. Although humans have been cultivating sweet potatoes for thousands of years, scientists still don't know much about the protein makeup of these tubers. In ACS' Journal of Proteome Research, researchers have analyzed the proteome of sweet potato leaves and roots, and in the process, have revealed new insights into the plant's genome.

* This article was originally published here

New study to examine feeding habits of Cape Cod great whites

Researchers on Cape Cod are launching a new study focused on the hunting and feeding habits of the region's great white sharks following last year's two attacks on humans, including the state's first fatal one in more than 80 years.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers use facial quirks to unmask 'deepfakes'

After watching hours of video footage of former President Barack Obama delivering his weekly address, Shruti Agarwal began to notice a few quirks about the way Obama speaks.

* This article was originally published here

Scientists identify genes associated with biliary atresia survival

Scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have identified an expression pattern of 14 genes at the time of diagnosis that predicts two year, transplant-free survival in children with biliary atresia—the most common diagnosis leading to liver transplants in children.

* This article was originally published here

Researchers have success in detecting if images of faces were manipulated

Make some noise for Adobe in its effort to detect fakery. They unleashed the powers of machine learning to automatically detect when images of faces have been manipulated.

* This article was originally published here

Microfluidics device captures circulating cancer cell clusters

Cancer touches nearly everyone in one way or another, and regrettably, it will claim another 600,000 lives in the U.S. in 2019, according to the American Cancer Society. Researchers from San Diego State University, TumorGen MDx Inc., and Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute set out to explore a seemingly basic question: What is it about cancer that kills?

* This article was originally published here

Senegal shines in showcase for female tech innovation

Barcode health cards, mobile apps for victims of violence and an online legal platform are just some of the ideas showing the direction of female digital pioneers in Africa, with Senegalese innovators in the spotlight.

* This article was originally published here

France has lowest levels of trust in vaccines globally: poll

France has the lowest levels of trust in vaccines globally, according to the world's biggest survey on public attitudes toward health and science, which was published on Wednesday.

* This article was originally published here

New insight from Great Barrier Reef coral provides correction factor to climate records

Newly developed geological techniques help uncover the most accurate and high-resolution climate records to date, according to a new study. The research finds that the standard practice of using modern and fossil coral to measure sea-surface temperatures may not be as straightforward as originally thought. By combining high-resolution microscopic techniques and geochemical modeling, researchers are using the formational history of Porites coral skeletons to fine-tune the records used to make global climate predictions.

* This article was originally published here