World's smallest computer device created by University of Michigan

IBM’s announcement that they had produced the world’s smallest computer back in March raised a few eyebrows at the University of Michigan, home of the previous champion of tiny computing. Now, the Michigan team has gone even smaller, with a device that measures just 0.3 mm to a side—dwarfed by a grain of rice.

In addition to the RAM and photovoltaics, the new computing devices have processors and wireless transmitters and receivers. Because they are too small to have conventional radio antennae, they receive and transmit data with visible light. A base station provides light for power and programming, and it receives the data.

One of the big challenges in making a computer about 1/10th the size of IBM’s was how to run at very low power when the system packaging had to be transparent. The light from the base station—and from the device’s own transmission LED—can induce currents in its tiny circuits. This forced the team to invent new ways of approaching circuit design that would be equally low power but could also tolerate light. For example, that meant exchanging diodes, which can act like tiny solar cells, for switched capacitors.

Another challenge was achieving high accuracy while running on low power, which makes many of the usual electrical signals (like charge, current and voltage) noisier.

Designed as a precision temperature sensor, the new device converts temperatures into time intervals, defined with electronic pulses. The intervals are measured on-chip against a steady time interval sent by the base station and then converted into a temperature. As a result, the computer can report temperatures in minuscule regions—such as a cluster of cells—with an error of about 0.1 degrees Celsius.

The system is very flexible and could be re-imagined for a variety of purposes, but the team chose precision temperature measurements because of a need in oncology. Some studies suggest that tumors run hotter than normal tissue, but the data isn’t solid enough for confidence on the issue. Temperature may also help in evaluating cancer treatments.

Since the temperature sensor is small and biocompatible, we can implant it into a mouse and cancer cells grow around it. This temperature sensor is being used to investigate variations in temperature within a tumor versus normal tissue and if we can use changes in temperature to determine success or failure of therapy.

While the team initially wasn't sure of the applications of the millimeter system, today there are several areas where the tiny computer can be used -

• Pressure sensing inside the eye for glaucoma diagnosis

• Cancer studies

• Oil reservoir monitoring

• Biochemical process monitoring

• Surveillance: audio and visual

• Tiny snail studies

Lots more to come...

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Japan's new 'spy cam' cuts through the clouds

Tanegashima space centre sends into orbit all-weather IGS radar satellite in 16th mission to keep eye on the neighbours.

This month Japan launched the 16th mission in its spy satellites programme, using the IGS Radar 6 spacecraft, part of the information gathering satellite scheme run by the country’s intelligence agency.

This programme consists of optical and radar spacecraft, and supports civilian disaster management services as well as supplying information to the Japanese military. The radar aspect allows surveillance images to be taken through clouds.

The IGS satellite, built by Mitsubishi Electric, was carried into orbit by a H-IIA rocket from the Yoshinobu launch complex at the Tanegashima Space Centre, lifting off at 13:20 local time on 12 June.

The first IGS satellites – one optical and one radar – were deployed into orbit in March 2003 and Japan has maintained a steady rate of launches ever since. This week’s launch comes just over three months after the last IGS launch, when an optical spy satellite, IGS Optical 6, was sent into orbit.

The programme itself began in 1998 in response to North Korea’s attempt to launch its first satellite, Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1 (meaning Bright Star). Although that satellite failed to get into orbit the rocket flew over Japan, proving that the country would be within reach of North Korean missiles.

Source - The Guardian - Science

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Bees understand the concept of zero

New research suggests that honeybees can rank numerical quantities and understand that zero belongs at the lower end of a sequence of numbers.

Zero is a difficult concept to understand and a mathematical skill that doesn’t come easily – it takes children a few years to learn. We’ve long believed only humans had the intelligence to get the concept, but recent research has shown monkeys and birds have the brains for it as well. What we haven’t known – until now – is whether insects can also understand zero.

Previous research has shown that honeybeees can learn intricate skills from other bees and even understand abstract concepts such as sameness and difference. But bee brains have fewer than 1 million neurons – compared with the 86,000 million neurons of a human brain – and little was known about how insect brains would cope with being tested on such an important numeric skill.

Trained to pick the lowest number out of a series of options, a honeybee chooses a blank image, revealing an understanding of the concept of zero.

To test the bees, the researchers trained bees to choose an image with the lowest number of elements in order to receive a reward of sugar solution. For example, the bees learned to choose three elements when presented with three vs. four; or two elements when presented with two vs. three. When the researchers periodically tested the bees with an image that contained no elements versus an image that had one or more, the bees understood that the set of zero was the lower number – despite never having been exposed to an “empty set.”

This is a tricky neuroscience problem. It is relatively easy for neurons to respond to stimuli such as light or the presence of an object but how do we, or even an insect, understand what nothing is? How does a brain represent nothing? Could bees and other animals that collect lots of food items, have evolved special neural mechanisms to enable the perception of zero?

If bees can learn such a seemingly advanced math skill that we don’t even find in some ancient human cultures, perhaps this opens the door to considering the mechanism that allows animals and ourselves to understand the concept of nothing.

Crossing a road is simple for adult humans. We understand if there are no approaching cars, no bikes or trams, then it is probably OK to cross. But what is zero, how do we represent this for so many complex object classes to make decisions in complex environments? If bees can perceive zero with a brain of less than a million neurons, it suggests there are simple efficient ways to teach AI new tricks.

Source - EarthSky.org

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End of the journey for iceberg B-15?

B15 was the largest iceberg ever recorded to break away from Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf. That was in the year 2000. Now the iceberg is nearly gone.

When ISS astronauts shot this photo on May 22, this chunk of iceberg B-15 measured 10 nautical miles long and 5 nautical miles wide, still within trackable size. It probably won’t be for long.

Iceberg B-15 measured around 295 kilometres (183 mi) long and 37 kilometres (23 mi) wide (with a surface area of 11,000 square kilometres (4,200 sq mi)—larger than the whole island of Jamaica) when it broke from Antarctica in late March 2000. It’s still the biggest iceberg recorded so far from Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf. Now in its 18th year drifting with the currents – being battered by wind and sea – B-15 has since fractured into many smaller bergs, and most have melted away. Just four pieces of B-15 are still big enough to be tracked by the National Ice Center (at least 20 square nautical miles, or 69 square km). The photo at top – taken on May 22, 2018, by astronauts aboard the International Space Station – shows the piece of the original iceberg called B-15Z.

This chunk of ice – one of the only remaining pieces of the original iceberg – is likely nearing the end of its voyage. As these images show, there’s already a large fracture along the center of the berg, and smaller pieces are splintering off from the edges.

According to NASA’s Earth Observatory -

Melting and breakup would not be surprising, given the berg’s long journey and northerly location. A previous image showed B-15Z farther south in October 2017, after it had ridden the coastal countercurrent about three-quarters of the way around Antarctica bringing it to the Southern Ocean off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Currents prevented the berg from continuing through the Drake Passage; instead, B-15Z cruised north into the southern Atlantic Ocean. When the May 2018 photograph was acquired, the berg was about 150 nautical miles northwest of the South Georgia islands. Icebergs that make it this far have been known to rapidly melt and end their life cycles here.

Satellite image from April 13, 2000. Iceberg B-15 broke from the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in late March 2000.

Iceberg B-15A four-year journey, March 2006

Northern edge of Iceberg B-15A in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, 29 January 2002

Source - EarthSky.org

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How far away was that lighting?

We probably do it. It might be ingrained from when we were kids, and now it’s almost automatic. We see the flash of lightning – and we immediately start counting the seconds till it thunders.

But does counting really get us a good estimate for how far away the lightning is? Is this one of those old wives’ tales, or is it actually based on science? In this case, we have physics to thank for this quick and easy – and pretty accurate – calculation.

So what happens when a big storm rolls in?

The lightning we see is the discharge of electricity that travels between clouds or to the ground. The thunder we hear is the rapid expansion of the air in response to the lightning’s intense heat.

If we’re really close to the lightning, we will see it and hear the thunder simultaneously. But when it’s far away, we see and hear the event at different times. That’s because light travels much faster than sound. Think of sitting in the nosebleed seats at a baseball game. We see the batter hit the ball a second before we hear the crack of the bat.

When observing an event on Earth, we see things almost the instant they happen – the speed of light is so fast we can’t even detect the travel time. The speed of sound is much slower, which gives us time to do our calculation.

Let’s simplify the speed equation: Sound travels a little over 700 miles per hour, or 700 miles in 3,600 seconds. That means 7 miles traveled every 36 seconds. Make this even easier and round down to 7 miles every 35 seconds … or 1 mile every 5 seconds! Count to 5: If we hear thunder, the lightning occurred within 1 mile.

Now that we know how far away that lightning strike was, is it far enough to be a safe distance from the storm? That’s actually a tricky question. Thunder can be heard up to 25 miles away, and lightning strikes have been documented to occur as far as 25 miles from thunderstorms – known as a “bolt from the blue.” So if we can hear thunder, we’re close enough to be hit by lightning, and sheltering indoors or in an enclosed car is our safest bet.

And don’t count on the folk wisdom that lightning never strikes the same place twice to protect you. That one is just plain wrong. For example, lightning strikes the top of the Empire State Building an average of 23 times per year.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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