Ready to Disrupt the Auto Industry With Gamification

 Bengaluru-based Ather Energy has been teasing the S340 - billed as India's first smart electric scooter - for a while now and many have been waiting for a chance for a test ride. The startup's first smart electric scooter was unveiled at the Web Summit Surge conference in Bengaluru on Tuesday.

In a previous interaction with Gadgets 360, Ather Energy founder co-founder Tarun Mehta spoke about some of the design philosophies behind the scooter, as well as some of the challenges the company faced in cutting down on its cost and weight, and in extending the battery lifecycle.

While a test ride wasn't on the cards at the company's headquarters on Saturday morning, Mehta did share details of the dates for pre-orders, as well as a timeline for production and launch cities for the S340, detailing plans of its software features, such as personalised profiles, riding modes like sport and economy, and onboard navigation.

Under the hood: Ather Energy S340 Connectivity and dashboard features
Billed as a smart scooter, the S340 has GSM and Bluetooth connectivity. The startup has made a decision to move from Android to Linux for the dashboard operating system. While we weren't shown the dashboard, a spokesperson later confirmed that it would use Google Maps for navigation through the web browser.

 It doesn't really change much for developers, because the apps are still HTML 5 apps. Internally things haven't changed dramatically," Mehta explains. Users will be able to track the vehicle using their smartphones, remotely control and monitor the vehicle, enable fast charging by using a a slider on its app. "You could create custom riding profiles from your mobile phone itself, so that when the vehicle starts, on your profile, those settings will already be pre-saved. So you can specify, what kind of acceleration response, top speed you want, and then save them on your profile, and then go to the vehicle, and select your profile again, those are the exact settings you will find."

Apart from vehicle location tracking, a lot of work has gone into providing vehicle analytics to the rider, on the dashboard and on its app. Users will be able to extrapolate their average driving speed. Mehta says that the team working on the data analytics love building their own profiles on the prototype, to gauge their energy efficiency.

"There's this one guy who's basically like a racer - he does the testing most of the time. If you see his throttle response, it's either 100 or zero," says Mehta. "He always does the fastest laps, but his energy consumption is nearly 80 percent more than another another guy who rides very sensibly, but takes 15 percent lesser time." Vehicle analytics can read skid patches, and help inform the user if they are an unsafe rider who takes sharp turns, Mehta says, adding that good riding behaviour would not influence just the battery lifecycle, but other components as well. "It's a long term thing, but the sheer power of what data can do for you is sort of hitting everybody in this team now, it's gamifying the experience," he says.

Mehta also says that the S340 will have remote diagnostics enabled, with sensor data from at least four of its components (battery, motor, charger and the vehicle control unit) so they can inform the rider when a replacement is due. "Electric drive trains already have most of those sensors and data logging happening inherently," he says. "You just need to start tapping into it, and pile up software and intelligence on top of it, to come up with outcomes like this. As we get more and more data from the vehicles, our understanding and insights on this is only going to get far deeper.

 In our last interaction, Ather Energy had quoted a range of 50 to 100 kilometres on a single charge. Providing an update on its range, Mehta says that the S340 would probably end up covering 65 kilometres in the city on a full charge. With an additional rider on the back, the range would drop by approximately 15 to 20 percent. "If you ride carefully, more like 70-75 kilometres, though 65 is more realistic, even assuming you ride at good speeds and acceleration, with the assumption that the dashboard and headlights are on," he says.

The batteries used onboard the S340 have are specced at a thousand recharge cycles approximately, following which it will lose 20-30 percent of its original capacity, Mehta says, adding that users with short commutes will be able to extend its lifecycle. "The way lithium-ion batteries work is that if you do partial discharges, your battery lifecycle actually becomes more. It's hard to guess, how many cycles a hyper-efficient rider can extract out of it," says Mehta.

"If I were to take a guess, probably 1500 to 2000 recharge cycles," he says, adding that the company takes battery safety very seriously. "The battery pack, encased in an aluminium block that's completely sealed, and waterproof, and functions three metres under water," he says.

                

The Foldable Car: Coming to a Parking Spot Near You

               

 More than half the world’s population lives in cities, a percent that is estimated to increase to 70% by 2050. Much of the urban growth will be in the emerging economies like China and India where a new middle-class wants Western conveniences … like cars. But there are huge costs to owning and driving cars in cities: (i) cars are gas-guzzlers that pollute the environment; (ii) they are big and bulky, adding to congestion; (iii) individual ownership again leads to more congestion and air pollution. This tension between the need and unsustainability of the automobile calls for a new approach to urban mobility.

Most environmentalists agree that the best solution is for everyone to walk and cycle more and take more public transport. But let’s be honest: most people don’t like walking home from the train station after a long day’s work. They want a form of transportation that takes them right to their front door, i.e. that covers what is known as “the last mile”. Bike and car sharing schemes offer the best solution: transportation vehicles that have numerous drop-off points around the city and can be rented to take you very close to your home. This multiple use of transportation types for one journey is known as inter-modal transport. But in the case of cars, we still have two additional problems: pollution from gasoline combustion and congestion due to bulk. Cities need a micro sharable inter-modal transport that relies on renewable energy.

Enter the Hiriko. Launched last week in Brussels, the Hiriko is a micro electric car designed by MIT’s Media Lab and developed by a consortium of companies in Bilbao, Spain.  Designed specifically for cities, it is a 6.5 feet, 1100 pound car that runs on two rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and can travel for 120km when fully charged. It’s meant to be part of a shared car service operated by the city, which can be rented for a small fee. The car’s computers are connected and each car can instantly be located by a smart phone. It further shrinks in size because it can be folded up (like a child’s stroller) and 3-4 Hiriko’s can fit in a standard parking space. It has an electric motor at each wheel, which means that it can move sideways into parking spots (no need for parallel parking skills). At a price of $16,000, the car has attracted interest from several cities including Barcelona, San Francisco, Berlin and Malmö.

           

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso attends the international presentation of the first self-folding electric vehicle, Hiriko, at the EU headquarters in Brussels January 24, 2012.(Yves Herman/Reuters)

The Hiriko represents, at least philosophically, the right idea in future urban mobility. The car’s concept was developed in the MIT department once run by William Mitchell. The group came up with a set of principles and techniques that could be theoretically applied to any mode of transportation. The book Reinventing the Automobile for the 21st Century is definitely worth a read (for a quick overview, see this slideshow by Fast Company). But the car as it stands now has its critics. The Economist said it was full of “sexy gimmicks” and German newspapers have recently wondered whether electric mobility that doesn’t rely on renewable energy might actually worsen climate change. It’s true: electric mobility is a “smart” city infrastructure innovation that relies on more than just the design of the car. The future urban mobility platform requires involvement from public transport agencies, private car manufacturers, alternative energy providers, charging station vendors, ICT experts, universities, and citizens (whose needs must be understood, and whose behavior must be coaxed to change). It is worth noting that the Hiriko is not the first micro smart car on the market and all previous ones have failed to attract a large consumer base (Smart, the compact car by Daimler, has sold under a million units in the last ten years). 

The world’s next fastest supercomputer will help boost China’s growing sea power

               

Ambitious plan for device capable of a billion billion calculations per second will be built as part of project to expand country’s influence across the seas
China is planning to boost its computing power tenfold within a couple of years by building a new generation supercomputer.

The machine will be based on the coast of Shandong province to process the data collected from the world’s oceans, according to scientists briefed on the project.

        

An Hong, professor of computer science with the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and a member of a committee advising the central government on high performance computer development, said the world’s first exascale computer would have a dedicated mission of helping China’s maritime expansion.

                                  

An exascale computer is defined as one that can carry out one billion billion calculations per second. It is not only 10 times faster than Sunway Taihulight – at present the world’s fastest computer which operates from Wuxi, Jiangsu – but equal to the calculation power of all the world’s top 500 super computers combined

Artificial Intelligence Become Conscious

   Forget about today's modest incremental advances in artificial intelligence, such as the increasing abilities of cars to drive themselves. Waiting in the wings might be a groundbreaking development: a machine that is aware of itself and its surroundings, and that could take in and process massive amounts of data in real time. It could be sent on dangerous missions, into space or combat. In addition to driving people around, it might be able to cook, clean, do laundry – and even keep humans company when other people aren't nearby.      

A particularly advanced set of machines could replace humans at literally all jobs. That would save humanity from workaday drudgery, but it would also shake many societal foundations. A life of no work and only play may turn out to be a dystopia.

Conscious machines would also raise troubling legal and ethical problems. Would a conscious machine be a "person" under law and be liable if its actions hurt someone, or if something goes wrong? To think of a more frightening scenario, might these machines rebel against humans and wish to eliminate us altogether? If yes, they represent the culmination of evolution.

As a professor of electrical engineering and computer science who works in machine learning and quantum theory, I can say that researchers are divided on whether these sorts of hyperaware machines will ever exist. There's also debate about whether machines could or should be called "conscious" in the way we think of humans, and even some animals, as conscious. Some of the questions have to do with technology; others have to do with what consciousness actually is

Most computer scientists think that consciousness is a characteristic that will emerge as technology develops. Some believe that consciousness involves accepting new information, storing and retrieving old information and cognitive processing of it all into perceptions and actions. If that's right, then one day machines will indeed be the ultimate consciousness. They'll be able to gather more information than a human, store more than many libraries, access vast databases in milliseconds and compute all of it into decisions more complex, and yet more logical, than any person ever could.

On the other hand, there are physicists and philosophers who say there's something more about human behavior that cannot be computed by a machine. Creativity, for example, and the sense of freedom people possess don't appear to come from logic or calculations.

Yet these are not the only views of what consciousness is, or whether machines could ever achieve it.

Biohybrid Robots

on the form of cyborgs with integrated, robotic parts to enhance our abilities. But long before then, a seemingly opposite type of integration may take place, with robots being equipped with human tissue or other living cells to make them more lifelike.

These "biohybrid" robots could be endowed with muscle cells to help them perform subtle movements. And on a microscopic scale, tiny robots could be merged with bacteria to ferry them through the body for precision medical procedures.

And the future, it seems, is happening now. [Super-Intelligent Machines: 7 Robotic Futures]

In a new review of studies, an international group of scientists and engineers described the state of biohybrid robotics — a field that is entering a "deep revolution in both [the] design principles and constitutive elements" of robots. The review was published today (Nov. 29) in the journal Science Robotics.


"You can consider this the counterpart of cyborg-related concepts," said lead author Leonardo Ricotti, of the BioRobotics Institute at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, in Pisa, Italy. "In this view, we exploit the functions of living cells in artificial robots to optimize their performances."

Scientists have created robots of all shapes and sizes with increasing complexity in recent decades. Some robots function well on assembly lines, tightening bolts or welding together sheets of metal. Miniaturized robots smaller than a millimeter are being developed to be placed in the body to kill cancer cells or heal wounds.

But what's lacking among all these fascinating robots is the range of fine movement and the energy efficiency found in living organisms, which evolved toward perfection over the course of millions of years, Ricotti told Live Science. That's why it's necessary to incorporate elements of living organisms into robots, he said.

If robot movement and efficiency are fine-tuned, scientists could be use them to explore the human body, monitor environments too small or intricate for current robots, or manufacture products with greater precision, the authors wrote in the review.

Actuation, or the coordination of movement, is a persistent hurdle in robotics, Ricotti said. For example, robots can be designed to easily lift heavy weights or make precision cuts, but they have difficulty coordinating actions as subtle as cracking an egg cleanly into a bowl or caressing a distressed individual. Their initial movements are jerky.

Animal movements, in contrast, start gently on a micro scale as a cascade of molecular machinery becomes activated inside nerve cells, and culminate in large-scale muscular motion, according to the review.

This raises the possibility that animal tissue, such as cardiac muscle or insect muscle, could provide precise actuation and steady movement in robots. For example, a group led by Barry Trimmer of Tufts University, a co-author of the Science Robotics paper, has developed worm-like biohybrid robots that move via the contraction of insect muscle cells.

Another problem in robotics is the power supply, particularly for micro-robots, in which the powering device can be bigger than the robot itself. Biohybrid robots can overcome this obstacle as well, Ricotti said. His colleague Sylvain Martel, of Polytechnique Montréal, also a co-author of the Science Robotics paper, is using magnetotactic bacteria, which naturally move along magnetic field lines, to transport medicine to hard-to-reach cancer cells. Martel's group can direct the bacteria with external magnets.

There are limits to what these biohybrid robots can achieve, though, Ricotti said. Living cells need to be nourished, which means that, for now, these robots tend to be short-lived. Also, biohybrid robots can operate only in the temperature range suitable for life, meaning that they can't be used in extreme heat or cold.

Despite these challenges, Ricotti and his colleagues said, the field of biohybrid robots is rapidly evolving from 

Saving the Rainforest with Old Cell Phones

Rainforests have some of the most complicated soundscapes on the planet. In this dense noise of insects, primates, birds, and everything else that moves in the forest, how can you detect the sounds of illegal logging?
        After a visit to the rainforests of Borneo, physicist and engineer Topher White was struck by the sounds of the forest. In particular, he noises he couldn’t hear.
        Here is Topher White on the National Geographic Live stage…

                

 While on a walk, White and others came across an illegal logger sawing down a tree just a few hundred meters away from a ranger station.
This incident set White thinking that perhaps the best way to save the Earth’s precious rainforest is to listen for its loggers and poachers. The innovation he came up with, Rainforest Connection, uses old cell phones to help to save the planet in a big way.

First a supermoon, then a red blue one to occur in January

The countdown for the new year is on, and if you’re planning on watching the sunset on New Year’s Day, you may want to turn around. Opposite the setting sun, a supermoon will be low-hanging in the sky and experts say that’s the best time to see it.

This is the second supermoon in a three-part sequence. The first happened Dec. 3. If you missed it, Jan. 1 is your chance to see it again. A rare one follows at month’s end.

The moon’s orbit isn’t perfectly circular, nor is the Earth perfectly centered within. Instead, the moon travels in an ellipse that brings it closer to and farther from the Earth. The moon orbits the earth every 27 days.

              

A supermoon is when the moon is closest to the Earth on its orbit. The moon’s closest orbit point, called the perigee, is 30,000 miles nearer to Earth than its further point, apogee. The average distance between the two bodies is 238,900 miles.

“Sometimes the moon is a little closer and sometimes it’s a little farther away. This happens every few years, it’s not highly unusual. The thing about this supermoon is that the three events are so close together,” said James Webb, P.h.D., physics professor at Florida International University in Miami. “I don’t know when the next time this will occur, but probably a while.”

“It just so happens the way things are moving right now, we’re at the perigee,” Webb said.

On Jan. 1, the moon will rise out of the east and be straight overhead at midnight as all full moons are. When it’s a full moon, the sun and the moon are always at 180 degrees apart, according to FIU physics professor Caroline Simpson, Ph.D.

According to NASA, the moon will appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter, but experts’ opinions vary on this.

“There is nothing super about the supermoon,” Simpson said. “It’s nominally larger than other times. It’s nice that it gets people thinking about it, though, and they do tend to come in triples.”

Webb estimates the supermoon to be about 18 percent closer to Earth, not a huge amount. He said that people perceive it as much bigger especially when it’s on the horizon, or just rising.

“The supermoon will be up all night long. As the sun sets the moon will be on the horizon and that is the best time to see it because it’s an optical illusion,” Webb said.

The moon appears bigger on the horizon since, visually, there are objects to compare it to.

For the grand finale in the moon trilogy, mark your calendars for Jan. 31, when the sun, moon and Earth will be perfectly aligned. It will be a super blue moon eclipse, but you have to get up early to see it.

A blue moon isn’t actually blue. The name refers it being the second full moon in the calendar month, which is rare as it happens only once every 2.5 years.

This blue moon will be a supermoon, which, as it enters the Earth’s shadow, will appear red from light reflecting off Earth since red has the longest wavelengths.

“It’s going to be a moon bonanza,” Webb said.

Webb added that he’d like to dispel the myth that the gravitational pull of the moon affects human behavior.

“It just gives us a nice show,” he said.

Simpson agrees this is a rare celestial event, a super blue lunar eclipse. Unfortunately, we’ll have only a brief glimpse.

“We aren’t well-placed to see it [the eclipse] here,” she said. “The moon is going to start entering the moon’s umbra, or darkest shadow, around 6:45 a.m. It’s going to set at 7:02. So there will be about 15 minutes there to see it turn red from 6:45 to 7 a.m. If you have a clear view of the western horizon, you will see the partial eclipse as the moon sets.

Now, new system can help machines think like humans

New reservoir computing system uses memristors, requires less space, can be integrated more easily into existing silicon-based electronics.

            

 The network, called a reservoir computing system, could predict words before they are said during conversation, and help predict future outcomes based on the present. (Photo: Pixabay)

Washington: Scientists have developed a new type of neural network chip that can dramatically improve the efficiency of teaching machines to think like humans.

The network, called a reservoir computing system, could predict words before they are said during conversation, and help predict future outcomes based on the present.

Reservoir computing systems, which improve on a typical neural network's capacity and reduce the required training time, have been created in the past with larger optical components.

Researchers from University of Michigan in the US created their system using memristors, which require less space and can be integrated more easily into existing silicon-based electronics.

Memristors are a special type of resistive device that can both perform logic and store data.  Morehttp://www.asianage.com/life/more-features/251217/now-new-system-can-help-machines-think-like-humans.html

First photosynthesis took place 1.25 billion years ago: Study

The process of photosynthesis in plants first took place 1.25 billion years ago, finds a study that identified an algae fossil, believed to be the world's oldest known direct ancestor of modern plants and animals.
The study could resolve a long-standing mystery over the age of the fossilised algae -- Bangiomorpha pubescens -- which were first discovered in rocks in Arctic Canada in 1990, the researchers said.
Earlier estimates had placed it somewhere between 720 million and 1.2 billion years.

           

However, to pinpoint the microscopic organism's exact age, the researchers from McGill University in Canada, collected samples of black shale from rock layers that sandwiched the rock unit containing fossils of the Bangiomorpha pubescens, from the rugged area of remote Baffin Island.
Using a dating technique applied increasingly to sedimentary rocks, they determined that the rocks are 1.047 billion years old.

"That's 150 million years younger than commonly held estimates, and confirms that this fossil is spectacular," said Galen Halverson, Associate Professor at McGill's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
"This will enable scientists to make more precise assessments of the early evolution of eukaryotes, the celled organisms that include plants and animals," Halverson added, in the paper published in the journal Geology.
 morehttps://m.economictimes.com/news/science/first-photosynthesis-took-place-1-25-billion-years-ago-study/articleshow/62231708.cms

Not 1, but 2 Richland discoveries among world’s top science for 2017

The Tri-Cities area was at the center of scientific achievement in 2017.

Science magazine named the first detection of gravitational waves from the massive, fiery collision of two neutron stars as its top 2017 scientific breakthrough of the year.

               

The gravitational waves were detected at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO, at Hanford near Richland on Aug. 17. They also were detected at LIGO’s twin observatory in Louisiana and an observatory in Italy.

In another 11 hours, telescopes saw light from the collision. It was the first time that a cosmic event had been viewed in both gravitational waves and light, giving scientists a new way of learning about the universe.

Gadget aid to spine surgery

A device that provides real-time 3D image of a person's anatomy during a spine surgery, making the surgery more precise, was recently introduced at a city hospital.

The Rs 6-crore machine - a combination of an imaging component called "O-arm" and a navigation part called "S8 Navigation System" - guides a surgeon and assists in placing an implant or screw exactly where it should be without damaging any blood vessel or nerve in the area.

The machine allows minimally invasive surgeries instead of open surgeries, something that minimises blood loss, chances of infection and duration of hospital stay, doctors said.

The retractable O-arm can move around the operating table taking a 3D image of the area to be operated. The image is superimposed on the one taken by a camera that goes in through one of the four holes done on a person's body during microsurgery. A composite view comes alive on a screen to guide the surgeon.

Magic Leap One: The fabled AR headset is real, and it's coming in 2018

It's looks like a cross between Maz Kanata's goggles or Snap Spectacles evolved into steampunk gear. But Magic Leap, a company that's stayed in secrecy for years, finally has hardware to show off, and it looks like it'll be here in 2018.

              

The Magic Leap One is an augmented-reality headset, using light field display. And while I haven't tried it yet, Brian Crecente at Rolling Stone has. Based on his exclusive hands-on experience -- and the several other AR headsets and mixed-reality technologies I've tried in the past year -- we can put Magic Leap's surprise announcement in perspective, and talk about how it shakes up the emerging AR/VR landscape as we head into CES and 2018.

https://www.cnet.com/products/magic-leap-one/preview/

X-ray laser can convert diamond to graphite: Study

 

It is a decisive step forward in understanding the fundamental behaviour of solids when they absorb energetic radiation, researchers said. 

Scientists have for the first time turned diamond into graphite using ultra-short flashes of an X-ray laser. It is a decisive step forward in understanding the fundamental behaviour of solids when they absorb energetic radiation, researchers said. For the first time, the researchers including Franz Tavella from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the US, were able to follow the graphitisation in a time-resolved manner.

old and new era

Flash-charging battery for electric buses

Themost common method of powering electric buses is via overhead lines connected to the vehicle using a pantograph. Now, attempts are being made to run buses and trucks using batteries, just like cars. However, the big challenge is the long time taken to charge the batteries. Global leader in industrial technology ABB has come up with a solution that ‘flash-charges’ a bus battery in just 20 seconds, and the first such buses are being tried out on a major city route in Geneva, Switzerland. “Referred to as TOSA (Trolleybus Optimisation Système Alimentation), the buses receive a quick, flash-charge at selected passenger stops, in addition to charging buses for four to five minutes at the end of their routes. Several valuable seconds are saved at each flash-charging stop, so it takes less time at the end terminal to return the battery to its 100% state — and keeps the buses aligned with the timetable,” ABB said

Practical Quantum Computers

One of the labs at QuTech, a Dutch research institute, is responsible for some of the world’s most advanced work on quantum computing, but it looks like an HVAC testing facility. Tucked away in a quiet corner of the applied sciences building at Delft University of Technology, the space is devoid of people. Buzzing with resonant waves as if occupied by a swarm of electric katydids, it is cluttered by tangles of insulated tubes, wires, and control hardware erupting from big blue cylinders on three and four legs.

Inside the blue cylinders—essentially supercharged refrigerators—spooky quantum-mechanical things are happening where nanowires, semiconductors, and superconductors meet at just a hair above absolute zero. It’s here, down at the limits of physics, that solid materials give rise to so-called quasiparticles, whose unusual behavior gives them the potential to serve as the key components of quantum computers. And this lab in particular has taken big steps toward finally bringing those computers to fruition. In a few years they could rewrite encryption, materials science, pharmaceutical research, and artificial intelligence

Every year quantum computing comes up as a candidate for this Breakthrough Technologies list, and every year we reach the same conclusion: not yet. Indeed, for years qubits and quantum computers existed mainly on paper, or in fragile experiments to determine their feasibility. (The Canadian company D-Wave Systems has been selling machines it calls quantum computers for a while, using a specialized technology called quantum annealing. The approach, skeptics say, is at best applicable to a very constrained set of computations and might offer no speed advantage over classical systems.) This year, however, a raft of previously theoretical designs are actually being built. Also new this year is the increased availability of corporate funding—from Google, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft, among others—for both research and the development of assorted technologies needed to actually build a working machine: microelectronics, complex circuits, and control software.

The project at Delft, led by Leo Kouwenhoven, a professor who was recently hired by Microsoft, aims to overcome one of the most long-standing obstacles to building quantum computers: the fact that qubits, the basic units of quantum information, are extremely susceptible to noise and therefore error. For qubits to be useful, they must achieve both quantum superposition (a property something like being in two physical states simultaneously) and entanglement (a phenomenon where pairs of qubits are linked so that what happens to one can instantly affect the other, even when they’re physically separated). These delicate conditions are easily upset by the slightest disturbance, like vibrations or fluctuating electric fields.


This blue refrigerator gets down to just above absolute zero, making quantum experiments possible on tiny chips deep inside it. In subsequent photos are scenes from the Delft lab where the experiments are prepared.
People have long wrestled with this problem in efforts to build quantum computers, which could make it possible to solve problems so complex they exceed the reach of today’s best computers. But now Kouwenhoven and his colleagues believe the qubits they are creating could eventually be inherently protected—as stable as knots in a rope. “Despite deforming the rope, pulling on it, whatever,” says Kouwenhoven, the knots remain and “you don’t change the information.” Such stability would allow researchers to scale up quantum computers by substantially reducing the computational power required for error correction.

Kouwenhoven’s work relies on manipulating unique quasiparticles that weren’t even discovered until 2012. And it’s just one of several impressive steps being taken. In the same lab, Lieven Vandersypen, backed by Intel, is showing how quantum circuits can be manufactured on traditional silicon wafers.

Like a cut-and-paste tool, CRISPR is transforming gene-editing research

New gene editing tools let scientists alter the DNA of living cells - from plants, animals, even humans - more precisely than ever before. Safety is a key question because gene editing isn't always precise enough; there's the possibility of accidentally cutting DNA that's similar to the real target.

In this photo provided by Oregon Health & Science University, Shoukhrat Mitalipov, left, talks with research assistant Hayley Darby in the Mitalipov Lab at OHSU in Portland, Ore. Mitalipov led a research team that, for the first time, used gene editing to repair a disease-causing mutation in human embryos.

New gene editing tools let scientists alter the DNA of living cells – from plants, animals, even humans – more precisely than ever before. Think of it as a biological cut-and-paste program. A look at the science.
WHAT IS GENE EDITING

While scientists have long been able to find defective genes, fixing them has been so cumbersome that it’s slowed development of genetic therapies. There are several gene editing methods, but a tool called CRISPR-Cas9 has sparked a boom in research as laboratories worldwide adopted it over the past five years because it’s faster, cheaper, simple to use with minimal training and allows manipulation of multiple genes at the same time.

HOW IT WORKS
Pieces of RNA are engineered to be a guide that homes in on the targeted stretch of genetic material. The Cas9 is an enzyme that acts like molecular scissors to snip that spot. That allows scientists to delete, repair, or replace a particular gene.
MEDICAL RESEARCH
The fresh attention comes from research involving human embryos. In laboratory experiments, a team lead by Oregon researchers used CRISPR to successfully repair a heart-damaging gene in human embryos, marking a step toward one day being able to prevent inherited diseases from being passed on to the next generation. But there’s wide agreement that more research is needed before ever testing the technique in pregnancy.

The biggest everyday use of CRISPR so far is to engineer animals with human-like disorders for basic research, such as learning how genes cause disease or influence development and what therapies might help.
But promising research, in labs and animals so far, also suggests gene editing might lead to treatments for such diseases as sickle cell, cancer, maybe Huntington’s _ by altering cells and returning them to the body. Another project aims to one day grow transplantable human organs inside pigs.
 In this microscope photo provided by Oregon Health & Science University, human embryos grow in a laboratory for a few days after researchers used gene editing technology to successfully repair a heart disease-causing genetic mutation. (Oregon Health & Science University via AP)
THE BIGGEST HURDLE
Safety is a key question because gene editing isn’t always precise enough; there’s the possibility of accidentally cutting DNA that’s similar to the real target. Researchers have improved precision in recent years, but out-of-body treatments like using cells as drugs get around the fear of fixing one problem only to spark another.
THE ETHICS CONTROVERSY
Altering genes in sperm, eggs or embryos can spread those changes to future generations, so-called “germ line” engineering. But it’s ethically charged because future generations couldn’t consent, any long-term negative effects might not b

Volvo Cars to supply Uber with up to 24,000 self-driving cars

Uber plans to buy up to 24,000 self-driving cars from Volvo, marking the transition of the U.S. firm from an app used to summon a taxi to the owner and operator of a fleet of cars.


The non-binding framework deal could offer San Francisco-based Uber a way to overcome setbacks at its autonomous driving division in Silicon Valley’s race to perfect self-driving systems.


Combining Volvo’s cars with Uber’s self-driving system builds on their nearly three-year relationship and comes as Uber’s autonomous driving unit has been hit by a lawsuit over trade secrets and the departure of top talent.

Automakers, ride-hailing firms and tech startups have been forging loose alliances in an effort to advance self-driving technology and claim a piece of what is expected to be a multi-billion-dollar business.

Geely-owned Volvo said in a statement on Monday it would provide Uber with its flagship XC90 SUVs equipped with autonomous technology as part of a non-exclusive deal from 2019 to 2021. A Volvo spokesman said it covered up to 24,000 cars.

The self-driving system that would be used in the Volvo cars -- which have yet to be built -- is under development by Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group.

Should Uber buy all 24,000 cars, it would be Volvo’s largest order by far and the biggest sale in the autonomous vehicle industry, giving Uber, which is losing more than $600 million a quarter, its first commercial fleet of cars.

A new Volvo XC90 typically retails from a starting price of around $50,000.

Uber has been testing prototype Volvo cars for more than a year, with safety drivers in the front seat to intervene if the self-driving system fails, in Tempe, Arizona and Pittsburgh.

“Our goal was from day one to make investments into a vehicle that could be manufactured at scale,” Jeff Miller, Uber’s head of automotive alliances, said.

A photo illustration shows the Uber app on a mobile telephone, as it is held up for a posed photograph, with a London Taxi in the background, in London, Britain November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Simon Dawson
The cars, in theory, would be available through the Uber app to pick up passengers without a driver.

“It only becomes a commercial business when you can remove that vehicle operator from the equation,” Miller said.

No financial details were disclosed for the purchase, which would be a massive new investment for Uber and mark a change from Uber’s long-standing business model where contractor drivers buy or lease and maintain their own cars.

Miller said a small number of cars would be purchased using equity and others would be bought using debt financing.

The deal builds on a $300 million alliance Volvo announced with Uber last year focused on collaborating on the design and financing of cars with self-driving systems, which require different steering and braking features and sensors.

“We get support developing this car,” Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in an interview. “It’s also a big commercial deal.”

LYFT RIVALRY

Volvo, which has been under Chinese ownership since it was bought by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group from Ford in 2010, plans to make the SUVs at its Torslanda plant in western Sweden, and Samuelsson said they would be sold at roughly the same profit margin as Volvo sells through dealers.

Uber’s rival Lyft has this year struck a research partnership with Alphabet Inc’s unit Waymo and secured deals with Ford Motor Co and startups Nutonomy and Drive.ai to incorporate self-driving cars into its fleet.

Volvo’s agreement with Uber and Ford’s with Lyft show the pressure on automakers to avoid becoming obsolete in a world of increased automation, and on ride-services companies to start automating to cut driver costs and turn profits.

Volvo is one of Sweden’s biggest manufacturers by revenue, and has forecast a fourth straight year of record sales in 2017.

Underwater robot made capable of manta-ray like propulsion

http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/underwater-robot-made-capable-of-manta-ray-like-propulsion-4967724/

Scientists have created an underwater robot designed to resemble the manta ray, whose fin-based propulsion has been a mystery to researchers.

Chew's MantaDroid is a flat black PVC body with ray-like fins and two rear rudders, which moves through water like its natural counterpart. (Image Source: NUS)
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Researchers in Singapore have built an underwater robot that looks and swims like a manta ray, using only single motors and flexible fins to propel it through water in a manner uncannily like its biological cousin. It’s not the first of its kind – academics have spent years trying to mimic the wing-like movements of rays’ pectoral fins – but Chew Chee Meng of the National University of Singapore says it’s the first to use single motors for each fin and rely on the interplay of fluid and fin.
One of nature’s most efficient and graceful swimmers, manta rays have long fascinated scientists with a unique propulsion method to cruise through even turbulent seas, flapping their pectoral fins effortlessly to drive water backwards. So-called bio-locomotion, says Keith Moored, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, has been studied for about 30 years. But there is still a lot of work to be done on understanding the fluid flow around bio-robotic fins and the interaction between fluid and structure in flexible fins such as Chew’s manta ray robot, he said.

Chew’s MantaDroid is a flat black PVC body with ray-like fins and two rear rudders, which moves through water like its natural counterpart. Chew said the fin’s passive flexibility allows it to interact naturally with the water, propelling it at a speed of seven-tenths of a metre (yard) every second, to cover about twice its body length. By creating a passive fin from a single PVC sheet, rather than trying to mimic its movements with a series of motors and joints, Chew’s team found the robot interacted more naturally and efficiently with its environment.


“You’re not fighting against the hydrodynamics of the system,” said Chew, an associate professor at NUS. The Singaporean team went through 40 different fin designs over two years before settling on using flexible PVC sheets. The MantaDroid can swim for up to 10 hours. Chew and his team from the university’s engineering faculty plan to test the robot in sea waters and incorporate more modes of movement into its fin mechanism. He said the team is also working on a ray twice the size of the 35-cm (14-inch) original, and believes such robots would be useful for studying marine biodiversity, gathering hydrographic data and underwater search efforts.
The MantaDroid is part of a growing field of biomimetics, which applies learning about natural systems and robotics to the design of new vehicles, said Thomas Atwood, executive director of the US National Robotics Education Foundation. Robots such as the ray, he said, could help carry out underwater mapping and ocean bed surveys, besides military reconnaissance.

Underwater ruins of lost Roman city discovered in Tunisia

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/roman-city-discovered-underwater-ruins-tunisia-tsunami-neapolis-nabuel-cathage-a7924181.htmlA joint Tunisian-Italian archaeological mission has been looking for evidence of Neapolis since 2010 National Heritage Institute Tunisia/University of Sassari
A vast 1,700 year old Roman settlement has been discovered off the coast of Tunisia after several years of archaeological exploration in search of the ancient city of Neapolis.

Neapolis is believed to have been submerged after a tsunami in the 4th century AD destroyed most of it, as recorded by Roman soldier and historian  Ammien Marcellin. The natural disaster also badly damaged Alexandria in modern Egypt and the Greek island of Crete.

Very little has been recorded about the city because the citizens of Neapolis sided with Carthage rather than Rome during the Third Punic War in 149–146 BC, which ultimately destroyed the rival civilisation and brought its territory under Roman control.




There are so few references to Neapolis over an extended period of Roman literature it is thought the city was punished for its allegiances.

A joint Tunisian-Italian archaeological mission has been looking for evidence of Neapolis since 2010. Their work was finally rewarded after good weather conditions this summer allowed divers in Nabeul to glimpse the more than 20 hectares site for the first time in centuries.

“It's a major discovery,” the mission’s leader Mounir Fantar told AFP on Thursday, which confirms Marcellin’s theory about the city’s fate.

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The team not only found streets and monuments showing the city’s sophistication and wealth, but 100 tanks which were used to make garum, a fish-based fermented condiment which was a delicacy in the ancient Roman world, the AFP said.

“This discovery has allowed us to establish with certainty that Neapolis was a major centre for the manufacture of garum and salt fish, probably the largest centre in the Roman world,” Mr Fantar added.

“Probably the notables of Neapolis owed their fortune to garum.”


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'Little Pompeii'; Roman ruins discovered in southern France
Founded by the Phoenicians in the 9th Century BC in what is now modern Tunisia, the ancient civilisation of Carthage developed into a great trading empire. Over the course of the three Punic Wars with Rome, its power was eventually weakened and ultimately submitted to Roman control in the 2nd Century AD.

A second Roman Carthage was built over the ruins of the first.