Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends

Neil Young gives his name to a spider

Fri, 09 May 2008 17:10:08 GMT

Canadian rocker Neil Young made headlines this week for appearing at the JavaOne conference and for releasing his musical archive on Blu-ray discs. But he was also honored by a East Carolina University (ECU) professor of biology, who named a newly discovered trapdoor spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi after the legendary rock star. According to the strict rules established by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, the second word defining a new species must end in "i" if it's named after a person. So the researcher didn't break the naming scheme. It also was the case in 2005 when Cornell University named several beetles after Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. But read more...

NASA's lunar breathing system

Thu, 08 May 2008 18:24:27 GMT

When six astronauts share a 15 cubic meters spacecraft for weeks, how is it possible to avoid to be bothered by your fellows sweating and breathing? I've already written about staying clean in space, but NASA is going further this time. Its scientists are testing a lunar breathing system. The CAMRAS system (short for 'Carbon-dioxide and Moisture Removal Amine Swing-bed') has been tested by 23 volunteers who stayed inside a test chamber from April 14 to May 1, 2008. It looks like that the results are satisfying NASA which could use it for its Orion crew capsule and its Altair lunar lander. But read more...

UAVs will study Californian smog

Wed, 07 May 2008 17:04:04 GMT

The California Energy Commission is funding a research effort named CAPPS, short for California AUAV Air Pollution Profiling Study. CAPPS will use autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (AUAVs) to gather meteorological data as the aircraft fly through clouds over Southern California. The goal is to study smog and its consequences as well as better understand the sources of air pollution. The first flights started in April 2008 and data collection will continue until January 2009. But read more...

A new robotic tasting device

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:13:55 GMT

According to the latest American Chemical Society (ACS) Weekly PressPac, French researchers have developed an artificial mouth that chews apples like you and me. Here is a link to this PressPac, from which you'll be able to read a very short note titled 'Munch-o-matic: Scientists develop the artificial mouth.' The tasting device is able to reproduce the effects of chewing by analyzing a number of factors which are involved in the release of aromatic and flavor compounds in the mouth, such as the release of saliva or the rate of food breakdown. If this machine can chew food like us, it might pave the way for future machines which can learn to taste food and improve quality. But read more...

From fungus to fuel

Mon, 05 May 2008 17:01:24 GMT

An international team of researchers led by some U.S. Department of Energy's research labs has decoded the genetic sequence of a fungus named Tricoderma reesei. The team has found how this organism breaks down plant fibers into simple sugars and how to use this fungus to produce fuel. 'The finding could unlock possibilities for industrial processes that can more efficiently and cost effectively convert corn, switch grass and even cellulose-based municipal waste into ethanol.' But read more...

Brain waves used for faster image sorting

Sun, 04 May 2008 16:59:27 GMT

Computers are fast for many tasks, but humans are faster for identifying objects or people in images. But is it possible to combine the speed of a computer with the sensitivity of the human brain? According to a IEEE Spectrum Online article, 'A Brainy Approach to Image Sorting,' several teams at Honeywell, Teledyne Scientific and Imaging, and Columbia University think so. They're working on a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's program called 'Neurotechnology for Intelligence Analysts' (NIA). One of the teams said intelligence analysts can sort images six times faster than before. But there is a culprit: they'll need to carry for hours a 32-electrode EEG cap which detects their brain activity. But read more...

Extracting the structure of networks

Sat, 03 May 2008 17:35:22 GMT

Networks are used to represent the structure of complex systems, including the Internet or social networks, but often these descriptions are biased or incomplete. Now, researchers at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) have shown that it's possible to extract automatically the hierarchical structure of networks. The researchers say their results 'suggest that hierarchy is a central organizing principle of complex networks, capable of offering insight into many network phenomena.' They also think that their algorithms can be applied to almost every kind of networks, from biochemical networks (protein interaction networks, metabolic networks or genetic regulatory networks) to communities in social networks. But read more...