Science and research

With lung cancer being the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S., effective early screening is key to saving lives. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic say they've developed new software that can help classify lung nodules noninvasively, saving lives and health care costs.

A pilot study of the program called Computer-aided Nodule Assessment and Risk Yield, or Canary, appears in the April issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

Canary leans on data from high-resolution CT images of a common type of cancerous nodule in the lung called pulmonary adenocarcinomas. It matches every pixel of the lung image to one of nine unique radiological exemplars. In the pilot study, it was able to classify the lesions as aggressive or indolent with high sensitivity, as compared to microscopic analyses of the lesions after being surgically removed and analyzed by lung pathologists.… Read more

In the wild, sea lions are kept busy with hunting prey, caring for young, and swimming about in the great big ocean. In captivity, they have more time to devote to activities like sunning themselves, playing, and rocking out.

Ronan the California sea lion lives at the Long Marine Laboratory at the University of California in Santa Cruz. University researchers have studied Ronan's ability to keep the beat of musical tracks by nodding her head. She seems to particularly enjoy upbeat, jazzy disco numbers.

Ronan was first trained to bob her head to a simple metronome-like sound. Once she figured that out, she was able to find and keep the beat of more complex music all on her own. Previously, this ability has only been observed in parrots and humans.… Read more

After setting a world record for the longest distance traveled on Earth's surface by a robot, Liquid Robotics today unveiled the latest version of its Wave Glider technology.

The updated platform is capable of autonomously prowling the world's seas while analyzing, processing, and transmitting data gathered from a wide variety of on-board sensors.

The new Wave Glider SV3 is essentially a self-powered sea-faring data center, a system that gives users the ability to investigate the world's water ways for months on end. The SV3 features a hybrid propulsion system, Silicon Valley's Liquid Robotics said, that can … Read more

Violence against women in India has come under the worldwide spotlight following the emergence of high-profile cases such as the gang-rape of a young woman in December. She later died from her injuries. In an effort to stem the violence, the Indian government is working on developing a wristwatch that would send out alerts for help. Three Indian engineering students also have joined the cause, creating an anti-rape undergarment that could provide a layer of protection for women.

Manisha Mohan, Niladri Basu Bal, and Rimpi Tripathi attend SRM University in Chennai. Their project is called SHE (Society Harnessing Equipment). The device is like a slip, to be worn under clothes. It has sensors and an electric shock circuit board built into it. The circuit is attached near the bosom and is designed to deliver an electric shock when an assailant comes into contact with it.… Read more

For the first time since its descent onto the red planet, the Mars rover Curiosity is getting a little alone time.

The rover and NASA scientists are having a communication breakdown, of sorts. But, not to worry, no hurt feelings are involved. The issue is that the sun has got in the way.

Once every 26 months, as the Earth and Mars rotate around the sun, the two planets end up on opposite sides of the star in an event called the Mars solar conjunction. Because of the sun's massive size, any communication sent between the two planets can … Read more

Researchers who shined a laser light in a certain region of the brain -- stimulating the area associated with decision-making and impulse control -- were able to zap what they call "cocaine seeking" behaviors in addicts.

And while their work was on rats, their hope is that a similar technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS, currently used to improve symptoms of depression) will work on humans as well.… Read more

It's nice to think each of us is entirely unique, a one-of-a-kind aggregate of life experiences colliding with genes that set us apart from everyone else. And while this is true to an extent, it's also true that certain telltale blueprints exist for us, all the way down to the way we move our faces if we are, say, depressed.

So researchers at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies are developing a Kinect-driven avatar they call SimSensei to track and analyze in real time a person's facial movements, body posture, linguistic patterns, acoustics, and behaviors such as fidgeting which, taken together, signal psychological distress.… Read more

Touting the economic as well as scientific benefits of investing in basic research, President Obama today unveiled a new initiative to study the human brain that he called "the next great American project."

"Ideas are what power our economy," Obama said at an event in the East Room of the White House. "We've been a nation of dreamers and risk takers. We do innovation better than anybody else, and that makes our economy stronger."

In his proposed 2014 budget, Obama will call for investing $100 million to launch the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative … Read more

A video game that uses audio cues and computer-generated building layouts has proven to be better at improving a blind person's spatial awareness of that place than does actually walking them through it, according to new research out of Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

The findings could have implications for how visually impaired people -- and possibly those without impairments -- best learn to navigate unknown territory.

"It is a tool to build a map of a place you have never been to before," Lotfi Merabet, the neuroscientist whose team developed the software used in the study (which appears in the Journal of Visualized Experiments), told Reuters. "The video game not only allows you to build a map in your mind, it allows you to interact with it mentally in a way that you wouldn't be able to if you were taught explicitly by walking through it."… Read more