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Brain Mapping - A new map, a decade in the works, shows structures of the brain in far greater detail than ever before, providing neuro scientists with a guide to its immense complexity.

Neuroscientists have made remarkable progress in recent years toward understanding how the brain works. And in coming years, Europe’s Human Brain Project will attempt to create a computational simulation of the human brain, while the U.S. BRAIN Initiative will try to create a wide-ranging picture of brain activity. These ambitious projects will greatly benefit from a new resource: detailed and comprehensive maps of the brain’s structure and its different regions.

A section of the human brain map created by a team of international researchers shows details as small as 20 micrometers.

As part of the Human Brain Project, an international team of researchers led by German and Canadian scientists has produced a three-dimensional atlas of the brain that has 50 times the resolution of previous such maps. The atlas, which took a decade to complete, required slicing a brain into thousands of thin sections and digitally stitching them back together with the help of supercomputers. Able to show details as small as 20 micrometers, roughly the size of many human cells, it is a major step forward in understanding the brain’s three-dimensional anatomy.

To guide the brain’s digital reconstruction, researchers led by Katrin Amunts at the Jülich Research Centre in Germany initially used an MRI machine to image the postmortem brain of a 65-year-old woman. The brain was then cut into ultrathin slices. The scientists stained the sections and then imaged them one by one on a flatbed scanner. Alan Evans and his coworkers at the Montreal Neurological Institute organized the 7,404 resulting images into a data set about a terabyte in size. Slicing had bent, ripped, and torn the tissue, so Evans had to correct these defects in the images. He also aligned each one to its original position in the brain. The result is mesmerizing: a brain model that you can swim through, zooming in or out to see the arrangement of cells and tissues.

At the start of the 20th century, a German neuroanatomist named Korbinian Brodmann parceled the human cortex into nearly 50 different areas by looking at the structure and organization of sections of brain under a microscope. “That has been pretty much the reference framework that we’ve used for 100 years,” Evans says. Now he and his coworkers are redoing ­Brodmann’s work as they map the borders between brain regions. The result may show something more like 100 to 200 distinct areas, providing scientists with a far more accurate road map for studying the brain’s different functions.

“We would like to have in the future a reference brain that shows true cellular resolution,” says Amunts—about one or two micrometers, as opposed to 20. That’s a daunting goal, for several reasons. One is computational: Evans says such a map of the brain might contain several petabytes of data, which computers today can’t easily navigate in real time, though he’s optimistic that they will be able to in the future. Another problem is physical: a brain can be sliced only so thin.

Advances could come from new techniques that allow scientists to see the arrangement of cells and nerve fibers inside intact brain tissue at very high resolution. Amunts is developing one such technique, which uses polarized light to reconstruct three-­dimensional structures of nerve fibers in brain tissue. And a technique called Clarity, developed in the lab of Karl Deisseroth, a neuroscientist and bioengineer at Stanford University, allows scientists to directly see the structures of neurons and circuitry in an intact brain. The brain, like any other tissue, is usually opaque because the fats in its cells block light. Clarity melts the lipids away, replacing them with a gel-like substance that leaves other structures intact and visible. Though Clarity can be used on a whole mouse brain, the human brain is too big to be studied fully intact with the existing version of the technology. But Deisseroth says the technique can already be used on blocks of human brain tissue thousands of times larger than a thin brain section, making 3-D reconstruction easier and less error prone. And Evans says that while Clarity and polarized-light imaging currently give fantastic resolution to pieces of brain, “in the future we hope that this can be expanded to include a whole human brain.”

Agricultural Drones

Ryan Kunde is a winemaker whose family’s picture-perfect vineyard nestles in the Sonoma Valley north of San Francisco. But Kunde is not your average farmer. He’s also a drone operator—and he’s not alone. He’s part of the vanguard of farmers who are using what was once military aviation technology to grow better grapes using pictures from the air, part of a broader trend of using sensors and robotics to bring big data to precision agriculture.

What “drones” means to Kunde and the growing number of farmers like him is simply a low-cost aerial camera platform: either miniature fixed-wing airplanes or, more commonly, quadcopters and other multibladed small helicopters. These aircraft are equipped with an autopilot using GPS and a standard point-and-shoot camera controlled by the autopilot; software on the ground can stitch aerial shots into a high-­resolution mosaic map. Whereas a traditional radio-­controlled aircraft needs to be flown by a pilot on the ground, in Kunde’s drone the autopilot (made by my company, 3D Robotics) does all the flying, from auto takeoff to landing. Its software plans the flight path, aiming for maximum coverage of the vineyards, and controls the camera to optimize the images for later analysis.

This low-altitude view (from a few meters above the plants to around 120 meters, which is the regulatory ceiling in the United States for unmanned aircraft operating without special clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration) gives a perspective that farmers have rarely had before. Compared with satellite imagery, it’s much cheaper and offers higher resolution. Because it’s taken under the clouds, it’s unobstructed and available anytime. It’s also much cheaper than crop imaging with a manned aircraft, which can run $1,000 an hour. Farmers can buy the drones outright for less than $1,000 each.

The advent of drones this small, cheap, and easy to use is due largely to remarkable advances in technology: tiny MEMS sensors (accelerometers, gyros, magnetometers, and often pressure sensors), small GPS modules, incredibly powerful processors, and a range of digital radios. All those components are now getting better and cheaper at an unprecedented rate, thanks to their use in smartphones and the extraordinary economies of scale of that industry. At the heart of a drone, the autopilot runs specialized software—often open-source programs created by communities such as DIY Drones, which I founded, rather than costly code from the aerospace industry.

Drones can provide farmers with three types of detailed views. First, seeing a crop from the air can reveal patterns that expose everything from irrigation problems to soil variation and even pest and fungal infestations that aren’t apparent at eye level. Second, airborne cameras can take multispectral images, capturing data from the infrared as well as the visual spectrum, which can be combined to create a view of the crop that highlights differences between healthy and distressed plants in a way that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Finally, a drone can survey a crop every week, every day, or even every hour. Combined to create a time-series animation, that imagery can show changes in the crop, revealing trouble spots or opportunities for better crop management.

Top: A drone from Precision Hawk is equipped with multiple sensors to image fields.

Bottom: This image depicts vegetation in near-­infrared light to show chlorophyll levels.


It’s part of a trend toward increasingly data-driven agriculture. Farms today are bursting with engineering marvels, the result of years of automation and other innovations designed to grow more food with less labor. Tractors autonomously plant seeds within a few centimeters of their target locations, and GPS-guided harvesters reap the crops with equal accuracy. Extensive wireless networks backhaul data on soil hydration and environmental factors to faraway servers for analysis. But what if we could add to these capabilities the ability to more comprehensively assess the water content of soil, become more rigorous in our ability to spot irrigation and pest problems, and get a general sense of the state of the farm, every day or even every hour? The implications cannot be stressed enough. We expect 9.6 billion people to call Earth home by 2050. All of them need to be fed. Farming is an input-­output problem. If we can reduce the inputs—water and pesticides—and maintain the same output, we will be overcoming a central challenge.

Agricultural drones are becoming a tool like any other consumer device, and we’re starting to talk about what we can do with them. Ryan Kunde wants to irrigate less, use less pesticide, and ultimately produce better wine. More and better data can reduce water use and lower the chemical load in our environment and our food. Seen this way, what started as a military technology may end up better known as a green-tech tool, and our kids will grow up used to flying robots buzzing over farms like tiny crop dusters.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Next steps in the underwater search

The pings detected by the crew aboard an Australian navy ship in the southern Indian Ocean have given those searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 renewed hopes of finding the missing plane.

Australian officials leading the search said the signals picked up Sunday were consistent with those transmitted by an aircraft's flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.

But the officials warned that they still need further evidence, such as a visual sighting of wreckage on the seafloor.

"There are many steps yet before these detections can be positively verified as being from missing Flight MH370," Angus Houston, the head of the Australian agency coordinating search operations,

No, not yet.
Do searchers have enough pings to figure out where they're coming from?Here's an explanation of what the next phases are in the underwater hunt for traces of the passenger jet.

The Ocean Shield, an Australian navy ship that's slowly towing a pinger locator through the water, is going back and forth over the area where it twice picked up a signal Sunday.

"The focus is on trying to reacquire the acoustic signal they had 24 hours ago," said Commodore Peter Leavy, who is coordinating military contributions to the search.

As of Monday morning, the high-tech pinger locator, supplied by the U.S. Navy, hadn't redetected the pings, officials said.

"Probably for the next 24 hours, Ocean Shield will continue its runs back and forth over the area," Houston said.

Why is it crisscrossing the same area?

The aim is to use triangulation to pinpoint the location of whatever is transmitting the pings, according to Cmdr. William Marks of the U.S. 7th Fleet. "For us in the Navy, this is kind of our bread and butter," he told CNN.

The crew of the ship does this by towing the pinger locator along a series of intersecting lines across a relatively small area of ocean.

If the sound is picked up along three different lines that cross at the same point, "that's a pretty positive indication of where the signal's coming from," Marks said.

But it's a slow and painstaking business. By the end of its runs Tuesday, Ocean Shield expects to have thoroughly covered only a 3-mile-by-3-mile box, according to Leavy.

Each run across the area takes the ship seven to eight hours. That's because it's moving slowly -- at about 3 knots (3.5 mph) -- and because turning around with the huge length of cable that's dragging the pinger locator through the ocean depths is a delicate, drawn-out 

"We're right on the edge of capability," Houston said.

If the area of the seabed where the pings are coming from is any deeper, then the search crews would need remotely operated vehicles that can go even farther down. Houston said officials are looking into what other vehicles could be deployed, if needed.

What if they don't pick up another signal?

If the pings the Ocean Shield's crew have detected are from Flight 370, they could cease at any moment. The batteries powering the locator beacons on the missing plane's flight recorders could already have expired. At the very most, they could last another week or so.

Without another signal, the members of the search team will have to take a look at what information they have been able to gather.

"If we're unable to fix the location, the people who are out there have to do an analysis of everything they've got and make an assessment of whether they would deploy the underwater vehicle in the most likely area," Houston said.

"I would anticipate that's what will happen: The underwater vehicle will be deployed and continue the work," he said.

But that would mean searchers have far less precision than they would hope to have when searching waters so deep.

"If we have a large area of uncertainty, it will take several days to actually cover what would appear to be a fairly small area," Houston said. "Things happen very slowly at the depths we're dealing with."

7 ways air travel changed after disasters

One of the key questions asked after any serious airline incident is: how do we stop this happening again?

Malaysia Airlines has already changed its cockpit regulations as a result of Flight 370's disappearance.

Many other incidents in the past have led to safer flying conditions for us today, as a result of improvements and changes to protocol, laws and technology in planes. Below we outline some of the most important ones.

These helped pave the way to making 2013 one of the safest years in aviation history according to the Aviation Safety Network, with only 29 known accidents worldwide, and 265 fatalities (the 10-year average is 720 fatalities per year).

1. Collision Avoidance Systems

Collision Avoidance Systems have been a priority in the aerospace industry since the inception of flight.

In 1956, a TWA jet crashed into a United Airlines flight above the Grand Canyon. The incident was the first of many that illustrated the need for increased communication between planes.

A few years later, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was formed to set guidelines for aviation in the United States, but still, issues remained.

Several other two-plane accidents -- including a 1996 collision near New Delhi that resulted in 349 casualties -- emphasized the need for advanced, anti-collision technology.

After a congressional ruling in 1991, the FAA implemented the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), which monitors the airspace around an aircraft independent of air traffic control.

"TCAS really came about in the late '90s, and since then, I don't think we've really seen a collision between two airlines," notes Phil Seymour, president and COO of the International Bureau of Aviation, a consultancy that offers analysis and advice to the aviation industry.

Check out @MotherNatureNet's Tweet: https://twitter.com/MotherNatureNet/status/424974798087667712

Did Han Solo shoot first? Who cares? You can buy his blaster

An original Han Solo blaster from "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" is up for auction. If you have $200,000 or more, you could soon be taking on any Stormtroopers in your area.

Han Solo's original blaster from 'Star Wars' is up for auction, at a starting bid of $200,000.

(Credit: Profiles in History)

With Christmas just around the corner, this is the perfect gift for that huge "Star Wars" fan in your life: an original Han Solo blaster.
Truth be told, this nifty little piece is going to run you at least $200,000, and likely a bit more. But how can you put a price on such an important piece of geek (and film) history?

Original Han Solo blaster from 'Empire,' 'Jedi' up for auction (pictures)

Officially, this is a "Harrison Ford 'Han Solo' non-firing DL-44 Blaster," from "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," according to the auction site. And sure, it's not the one Han Solo brandished in the famous cantina scene in the original "Star Wars." But hey, the "space-scoundrel-turned hero's persona is irrevocably tied to his blaster pistol," so does it really matter? That may be especially true because, according to the auction information, the original "Star Wars" blaster may no longer exist.
This blaster, however, was used in the scene in "Empire" when "Darth Vader uses the Force to lasso the blaster out of Han's hand," and the scene in "Return of the Jedi" when "Han wrestles with a Stormtrooper to regain possession of his blaster during the Rebels' encounter with Imperial forces on Endor."

The blaster is based on a German issue Mauser C96 pistol, the auction site says, and was custom-made from resin for the "Star Wars" films "by casting the original hero prop from the first 'Star Wars: A New Hope.'"
That means it has the same serial number as Han's blaster in the first film. And, as an added bonus, it's thought that Mark Hamill probably used the same blaster when playing Luke Skywalker in "Empire" and "Return of the Jedi."

Huawei reportedly decides to abandon the US market

Huawei's US headquarters.

(Credit: Huawei) 

 

It's no secret that Chinese telecom gear maker Huawei and the US government aren't exactly best friends -- for the past couple of years, the US has accused Huawei of cyberespionage on behalf of the Chinese military.
It appears this spat may now have escalated into a full-fledged falling-out.
Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei told French news site Les Echos last week that he no longer wanted to stay in the US market.
"If Huawei gets in the middle of US-China relations," and causes problems, "it's not worth it," Ren reportedly said, according to a Chinese transcript of the interview translated by Foreign Policy. "Therefore, we have decided to exit the US market, and not stay in the middle."
It's unclear how serious Ren's threats are or if there's any timeline to Huawei possibly pulling out of the US market. When contacted by CNET, a Huawei spokesperson was vague regarding Ren's statement.
"We remain committed to our customers, employees, investments, and operations and more than $1 billion in sales in the US," the spokesperson said, "and we stand ready to deliver additional competition and innovative solutions as desired by customers and allowed by authorities."

Last year, the US House Intelligence Committee issued a letter to Huawei stating US government concerns over its connections and ties to the Chinese military and government. In the letter, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) said that the committee was "concerned" the Chinese authorities could be hacking in or attempting to breach US networks through its telecom intermediaries. However, Huawei has adamantly maintained that it is not involved in any sort of cyberspying. Additionally, the US White House reportedly carried out a review of security risks posed by Huawei and was said to have found no evidence that the company spied on the US.
But the relationship between Huawei and the US government has obviously been strained. In April, a Huawei executive said there would be no growth margin for the company in the US market in 2013. Part of this was apparently due to the US advising caution to consumers when using or purchasing Huawei equipment. By July, with new allegations of cyberspying, the company announced it was reducing its focus on the US market.
It appears that this reduction could now become even more pronounced.

Volvo to unload 100 self-driving cars onto city streets

Looking to become a leader in the autonomous vehicle game, the Swedish-based company unveils a new pilot project dubbed "Drive Me.

Volvo plans to bring 100 self-driving cars to Sweden's roads.

(Credit: Volvo Car Group) 

 

While Google's self-driving car has garnered most of the headlines, a handful of car companies are also working on their own renditions of autonomous vehicles. Volvo is one of the latest car manufacturers to join this list.
The Swedish-based company announced Monday that it has launched a pilot project dubbed "Drive Me -- Self-driving cars for sustainable mobility," which will bring 100 self-driving Volvo cars onto city streets. The project will take place on about 50 kilometers of busy roads in the Swedish city of Gothenburg.
"Our aim is for the car to be able to handle all possible traffic scenarios by itself, including leaving the traffic flow and finding a safe 'harbor' if the driver for any reason is unable to regain control," Volvo technical specialist Erik Coelingh said in a statement. "Our approach is based on the principle that autonomously driven cars must be able to move safely in environments with non-autonomous vehicles and unprotected road users."
Volvo's goal for "Drive Me" is to target the "societal benefits" of autonomous driving and to position itself as a leader in this arena. One of its central objectives is to increase road safety -- something the car manufacturer has been working on for a while in a program it calls 2020 Vision.

The self-driving vehicles to be used in Drive Me are defined as "highly autonomous cars." This means the automobile can handle all driving functions the driver requires except for time-to-time scenarios that are a bit more tricky. The cars will also be able to self-park without the driver in the car. The first model to launch will be the all-new Volvo XC90, which will be unveiled in 2014. Google has been leading the charge in developing self-driving technology over the past couple of years and now is said to be looking for car company partners. In the meantime, several automobile manufacturers have also gotten into various aspects of the autonomous driving game, including Audi, Mercedes Benz, Cadillac, Ford, Nissan, Delphi, Toyota, and Tesla.
Volvo's Drive Me project will start in 2014, but the first cars aren't expected on the road until 2017.

23andMe halts advertising amid FDA demands

People can still buy the genetic-testing startup's popular at-home testing kits, but they won't see any marketing for these products.

 
While 23andMe has forged on despite the Food and Drug Administration's order to halt sales, the company is now saying it has stopped marketing its products as a result of the kerfuffle.
According to Reuters, the Google-backed genetic-testing startup has halted its TV, radio, and online ads for its popular at-home testing kits.
23andMe was issued an FDA warning letter two weeks ago. The government agency demanded the company stop selling its at-home testing kits "immediately" because they required regulatory clearance and were supposedly being sold in violation of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
In response, 23andMe issued a brief statement saying the company's relationship with the FDA is "extremely important to us and we are committed to fully engaging with them to address their concerns"
In the meantime, however, 23andMe has continued to sell its at-home testing kits as it works to come in compliance with the FDA's requests.

In a blog post last week, the company's founder Anne Wojcicki wrote that the company was working to convince the FDA of the "quality of our data" and that it was in dialog with the agency -- albeit somewhat behind in responding to its requests. "This is new territory for both 23andMe and the FDA. This makes the regulatory process with the FDA important because the work we are doing with the agency will help lay the groundwork for what other companies in this new industry do in the future," Wojcicki wrote. "It will also provide important reassurance to the public that the process and science behind the service meet the rigorous standards required by those entrusted with the public's safety."

Bokeh, a new tool more for quietly logging your memories

There are plenty of journaling services available, but Zhang generally thinks they're too private. "Bokeh is a middle ground," he said, aiming to make it easy to remember what happened on a given day and to make it possible to share with those whom you grant password-protected access.

 

The service aims to strike a balance that's not as locked down as a diary and not as public as Facebook. It's from the people behind the Peta Pixel photo blog.

Facebook is great for extroverted folks who want to broadcast their thoughts and photos to a lot of people. A new service called Bokeh, though, is geared for those who want something closer to a private journal -- though not too close.
Michael Zhang and Mike Zupan just launched Bokeh on Tuesday, offering the inevitable iOS app with an online site where people can store photos and thoughts. It's a spinoff from PetaPixel, the photography blog Zhang founded and of which he's now editor in chief.
"Social media is very geared toward broadcasting rather than remembering. Services like Twitter or Facebook make it extremely easy to store bits and pieces of your life, but you're putting everything in front of other people's faces through their feeds, and looking up days in the past isn't very easy," he said.
However, those services have shown how easy it should be to create posts, and Zhang hopes to bring some of that simplicity to the job of logging what's going on and looking to see what happened on a specific date in the past without scrolling chronologically back through dozens or hundreds of posts.
To get traction, though, Bokeh will have to compete with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, and many other sites -- sites that do often offer some settings for a more private style of sharing even if it's not as easy as some would like. And for anyone who wants a more public site, adding a more private service like Bokeh means an entirely separate account rather than just tweaking a few sharing settings when composing a post.

The Bokeh app is designed to let people easily find out what was happening on a specific day in the past and to make it easier to whip up a quick post out of photos and text.

(Credit: Bokeh)

The free service's costs are paid by PetaPixel revenue. Later, advertising can be added as way to make money, Zhang said.
"We're self-funded for now, and can be for quite some time," Zhang said. "We'll be able to grow significantly on PetaPixel's back until we do need to start looking for some serious funding from outside sources."
Plans for new features include an Android app and a Web interface for writing posts.
"We're definitely aiming to release for Android as well, but we want to see how iPhone users react first and see what feedback we get," he said. "Android is a huge market now, but we actually did find doing iOS easier for this first launch. Everything is so standardized, and there's less variables we need to worry about. For example, the screens are all the same width, and the onscreen keyboards are all the same height. For Android, there are just so many things you need to account for, and it starts to get really messy really fast."

More features are planned for the service itself, too: searching, commenting on posts, categorizing them into various types, and reading others' posts with the mobile app.
The service's name also owes a debt to PetaPixel.
"In photography, bokeh is the quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photograph. Our goal is to help you remember the small things in life that would otherwise disappear from your memory and be lost forever," Zhang said. "For uneventful days, it's very easy to completely forget them for the rest of your life as if you never lived them. Even if you snap a simple photo here and there, it really helps you remember those days."