Jeremy Hsu

IBM's Blue Gene Supercomputer Models a Cat's Entire Brain

Using 144 terabytes of RAM, scientists simulate a cat's cerebral cortex based on 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses

Cats may retain an aura of mystery about their smug selves, but that could change with scientists using a supercomputer to simulate the the feline brain. That translates into 144 terabytes of working memory for the digital kitty mind.

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Rat Brain Modelers Denounce IBM's Cat Brain Simulation as "Shameful and Unethical" Hoax

The Blue Brain project leader says that IBM's simulated brain does not even reach an ant's brain level

IBM's claim of simulating a cat cortex generated quite a buzz last week, but now the head researcher from the Blue Brain project, a team that is working to simulate its own animal brain (a rat's), has gone incandescent with fury over the what

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Weapons Manufacturer Unveils Black Box for Guns

The gadget would record details of every shot fired to track both weapon and user performance

Military and police higher-ups can now see just how many shots a particular weapon fired during the course of a battle or incident. The Register reports that a new black box device designed for rifles and submachine guns could report on ammo usage and weapon jamming, as well as who shot whom at what time.

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New Space Telescope Could Search for Both Exoplanets and Dark Energy

Europe's proposed Euclid mission would use a microlensing technique to hunt both ET and dark energy

Dark Energy Hunter: Europe's Euclid space telescope could pick up on distorted light from distant galaxies, and pick up clues on the existence of dark energy.  S. Colombi (IAP), CFHT Team
Dark energy may not have much in common with aliens, unless there's a flotilla of freaky monoliths out there with really weird physical properties. But astrophysicists hope to build a two-in-one space telescope that can search for signs of dark energy along with exoplanets.

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High-Pressure Diamond Anvil Creates a New Solid from Xenon and Hydrogen

The useful noble gas may provide a breakthrough way to store hydrogen for fuel

Hydrogen Storage: Store me some hydrogen  Nature Chemistry/H-Racer
Science under pressure can produce marvelous results, such as an entirely new way to store hydrogen fuel. Researchers combined the noble gas xenon with molecular hydrogen (H2) to make a never-before-seen solid that opens the doors to an entire new family of materials for hydrogen storage.

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Yikes: Peruvian Jungle Gang Arrested for Selling Fat of Its Murder Victims

Is there any medical use for black market human fat? Scientists are skeptical

Plentiful fat seems more reviled than revered in today's society, even when it has uses for the medical and cosmetic industries. But today police announced the arrest of a Peruvian gang accused of murdering people and selling their fat to the cosmetics industry, according to The Associated Press.

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Following Baguette Incident, Large Hadron Collider Set for Restart This Week

CERN scientists hope to finally get some particle smashing done, after more than a year of delays and repairs

A bird dropping a baguette temporarily shut down the $5 billion Large Hadron Collider earlier this month. But scientists have a good feeling about the restart, which is slated for Friday, the The Guardian reports.

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Take Down Rampaging Elephants with Automatic Entangling Leg-Cords, Star Wars Style

A Mumbai engineer's "violent elephant control gear" will safeguard against beasts run amok

Who you gonna call when a normally placid pachyderm decides to act out? Enter Zachariah Matthew, a Mumbai engineer who created a remote-controlled immobilizing device to handle elephants on a rampage.

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New Website Tracks $21 Billion in Stimulus Dollars for Science


In 2009, science got a hefty shot in the arm from the federal government's stimulus spending. Now U.S. citizens can see exactly how their taxpayer dollars go toward funding video games that test autism responses, or discovering lakes hidden beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.

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Scientists Test First Universal Programmable Quantum Computer

Quantum computing uses spooky physics to run faster and more powerfully than traditional computers

Physicists have been taking baby steps toward creating a full-fledged quantum computer faster and more powerful than any computer in existence, by making quantum processors capable of performing individual tasks. Now a group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed the world's first universal programmable quantum computer that can run any program that's possible under the rules of quantum mechanics.

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