Virtual worlds to test telepathy

A virtual world designed to test human telepathy has been demonstrated at the University of Manchester, UK.


Pairs of participants enter separate virtual rooms in the game and try to select which virtual object they think the other is interacting with.

Ancient book of psalms found in Irish bog

Ireland's archeologists heralded as a miracle the accidental discovery of this ancient book of psalms — discovered last week when an exceptionally alert construction worker spotted something as he drove the shovel of his backhoe into a bog.
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National Museum Of Ireland / AP

A friend Blog

Gualtiero Piccinini
Assistant Professor
Philosophy Department
University of Missouri – St. Louis

Brains
On Mind and Related Matter

Scientists to build 'brain box'

new type of computer that mimics the complex interactions in the human brain is being built by UK scientists.

Researchers Identify Very First Neurons in the “Thinking” Brain

The earliest identified neuron in the embryonic human cerebral cortex. Predecessor neuron is labeled golden, other proliferating cells are blue.

Police launch eye-in-the-sky drone above LA

A drone aircraft was launched into the smoggy sky over Los Angeles on Friday, bringing technology more commonly associated with combat zones to urban policing.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which looks like a remote-controlled airplane and weighs about 2.3 kilograms, is a prototype being tested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Police say the drone, called the SkySeer, could carry out dangerous tasks and free up crewed helicopters for other missions.

Bayesian Approach to Cognitive Systems

Contemporary robots and other cognitive artifacts are not yet ready to
autonomously operate in complex real world environments.
One of the major reasons for this failure in
creating cognitive situated systems is the difficulty in
the handling of incomplete knowledge and uncertainty

By taking up inspiration from the brains of mammals, including humans, the BACS project will investigate and apply Bayesian models and approaches in order to develop artificial cognitive systems that can carry out complex tasks in real world environments. The Bayesian approach will be used to model different levels of brain function within a coherent framework, from neural functions up to complex behaviors. The Bayesian models will be validated and adapted as necessary according to neuro-physiological data from rats and humans and through psychophysical experiments on humans. The Bayesian approach will also be used to develop four artificial cognitive systems concerned with (i) autonomous navigation, (ii) multi-modal perception and reconstruction of the environment, (iii) semantic facial motion tracking, and (iv) human body motion recognition and behavior analysis. The conducted research shall result in a consistent Bayesian framework offering enhanced tools for probabilistic reasoning in complex real world situations. The performance will be demonstrated through its applications to driver assistant systems and 3D mapping, both very complex real world tasks.

University Forms One of Largest Wireless Research Groups in Nation

WIRELESS WIFI COGNITIVE RADIO MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS ANTENNAS RFID



Wireless communication research, long an area of strength at Virginia Tech, has become a major focus with the creation of one of the largest wireless research groups in the U.S., Wireless @ Virginia Tech, encompassing the Center for Wireless Telecommunications, Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group, and Virginia Tech Antenna Group.

Second Geoethical Nanotechnology workshop

Geoethical Nanotechnology Workshop to Explore Ethics of Neuronanotechnology and Future Mind-Machine Interfaces. The Terasem Movement announced today that its Second Geoethical Nanotechnology workshop will be held July 20, 2006 in Lincoln, Vermont. It will explore the ethics of neuronanotechnology and future mind-machine interfaces, including preservation of consciousness, implications for a future in which human and digital species merge, and dispersion of consciousness to the cosmos, featuring leading scientists and other experts in these areas.