Stanford: Method of recording Brain Activity Could Lead to ‘Mind-Reading’ Devices
December 7th, 2013Intracranial implant required.
Via: Stanford:
A brain region activated when people are asked to perform mathematical calculations in an experimental setting is similarly activated when they use numbers — or even imprecise quantitative terms, such as “more than”— in everyday conversation, according to a study by Stanford University School of Medicine scientists.
Using a novel method, the researchers collected the first solid evidence that the pattern of brain activity seen in someone performing a mathematical exercise under experimentally controlled conditions is very similar to that observed when the person engages in quantitative thought in the course of daily life.
“We’re now able to eavesdrop on the brain in real life,” said Josef Parvizi, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences and director of Stanford’s Human Intracranial Cognitive Electrophysiology Program. Parvizi is the senior author of the study, published Oct. 15 in Nature Communications. The study’s lead authors are postdoctoral scholar Mohammad Dastjerdi, MD, PhD, and graduate student Muge Ozker.
The finding could lead to “mind-reading” applications that, for example, would allow a patient who is rendered mute by a stroke to communicate via passive thinking. Conceivably, it could also lead to more dystopian outcomes: chip implants that spy on or even control people’s thoughts.
“This is exciting, and a little scary,” said Henry Greely, JD, the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and steering committee chair of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, who played no role in the study but is familiar with its contents and described himself as “very impressed” by the findings. “It demonstrates, first, that we can see when someone’s dealing with numbers and, second, that we may conceivably someday be able to manipulate the brain to affect how someone deals with numbers.”
The researchers monitored electrical activity in a region of the brain called the intraparietal sulcus, known to be important in attention and eye and hand motion. Previous studies have hinted that some nerve-cell clusters in this area are also involved in numerosity, the mathematical equivalent of literacy.
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The procedure involves temporarily removing a portion of a patient’s skull and positioning packets of electrodes against the exposed brain surface. For up to a week, patients remain hooked up to the monitoring apparatus while the electrodes pick up electrical activity within the brain. This monitoring continues uninterrupted for patients’ entire hospital stay, capturing their inevitable repeated seizures and enabling neurologists to determine the exact spot in each patient’s brain where the seizures are originating.
Northrop Grumman RQ-180
December 7th, 2013Via: Aviation Week:
A large, classified unmanned aircraft developed by Northrop Grumman is now flying—and it demonstrates a major advance in combining stealth and aerodynamic efficiency. Defense and intelligence officials say the secret unmanned aerial system (UAS), designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, is scheduled to enter production for the U.S. Air Force and could be operational by 2015.
Funded through the Air Force’s classified budget, the program to build this new UAS, dubbed the RQ-180, was awarded to Northrop Grumman after a competition that included Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The aircraft will conduct the penetrating ISR mission that has been left unaddressed, and under wide debate, since retirement of the Lockheed SR-71 in 1998.
Neither the Air Force nor Northrop Grumman would speak about the classified airplane. When queried about the project, Air Force spokeswoman Jennifer Cassidy said, “The Air Force does not discuss this program.”
The RQ-180 carries radio-frequency sensors such as active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and passive electronic surveillance measures, according to one defense official. It could also be capable of electronic attack missions.
This aircraft’s design is key for the shift of Air Force ISR assets away from “permissive” environments—such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where Northrop Grumman’s non-stealthy Global Hawk and General Atomics’ Reaper operate—and toward operations in “contested” or “denied” airspace. The new UAS underpins the Air Force’s determination to retire a version of the RQ-4B Global Hawk after 2014, despite congressional resistance. The RQ-180 eclipses the smaller, less stealthy and shorter-range RQ-170 Sentinel.
If the previous patterns for secret ISR aircraft operations are followed, the new UAV will be jointly controlled by the Air Force and the CIA, with the program managed by the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office and flight operations sustained by the Air Force. This arrangement has been used for the RQ-170, which is operated by the Air Force’s 30th Reconnaissance Sqdn., according to a fact sheet the Air Force released after one of the aircraft turned up in Iran (AW&ST Nov. 22, 2010, p. 28).
Northrop Grumman’s financial reports point to a possible award of a secret UAS contract in 2008, when the company disclosed a $2 billion increase in the backlog in its Integrated Systems division. This is the operating unit responsible for building the B-2 bomber, Global Hawk and Fire Scout UAS and X-47B unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator. This year, Northrop Grumman financial reports acknowledged that an unnamed aircraft program entered low-rate initial production, the Pentagon term for low-volume deliveries that begin as testing nears completion and before the program is approved for full production.
Beyond the financial disclosures, publicly available overhead imagery shows new shelters and hangars sized for an aircraft with a 130-ft.-plus wing span at Northrop’s Palmdale, Calif., plant and at Area 51, the Air Force’s secure flight-test center at Groom Lake, Nev.
The company also pushed for a substantial expansion of its Palmdale production facilities in 2010, perhaps to support work on the RQ-180.
Japan: Special State Secrets Law
December 6th, 2013Update: Japan Enacts Strict State Secrets Law Despite Protests
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Via: Guardian:
Whistleblowers and journalists in Japan could soon find themselves facing long spells in prison for divulging and reporting state secrets, possibly including sensitive information about the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the country’s souring relations with China.
Under a special state secrets bill expected to pass on Friday, public officials and private citizens who leak “special state secrets” face prison terms of up to 10 years, while journalists who seek to obtain the classified information could get up to five years.
Critics of the new law say it marks a return to the days of prewar and wartime Japanese militarism, when the state used the Peace Preservation Act to arrest and imprison political opponents.
“It is a threat to democracy,” said Keiichi Kiriyama, an editorial writer for the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, adding that the legislation would “have a chilling effect on public servants, who could become wary about giving the information” to journalists.
NROL-39: Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach
December 6th, 2013
NROL-39
Via: Register:
The NRO are totally embracing their menacing Big Brother persona and putting it out there for world+dog to see, having launched a bunch of satellites and a mysterious payload on a spacecraft yesterday – complete with the logo of a creepy octopus sucking the life out of our world.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) tweeted pictures of an Atlas 5 rocket bearing the NROL-39 getting ready for launch yesterday, which it said was carrying a “classified NRO payload” along with some cubesats.
The NRO is the agency in charge of designing, building, launching and maintaining America’s spy satellites. The DNI said that its latest rocket would carry a dozen mini satellites co-funded by NASA as well as its unknown primary payload.
The DNI did not say just why the NRO thought that a good logo for its spy-craft would be a hugely evil-looking octopus with its tentacles wrapped around the Earth and the inscription “Nothing is beyond our reach”.
Research Credit: Douglas
Rise of the Machines – USA
December 6th, 2013Via: Journeyman Pictures:
Microsoft Mood Bra to Help Women with Emotional Pigouts [???]
December 6th, 2013Via: BBC:
Microsoft researchers have designed a smart bra that can detect stress.
The prototype contains removable sensors that monitor heart and skin activity to provide an indication of mood levels.
The aim was to find out if wearable technology could help prevent stress-related over-eating.
Mood data was provided to the wearer via a smartphone app in order to highlight when “emotional eating” was likely to occur.
A team from Microsoft’s visualisation and interaction research group embedded an electrocardiogram and electro-dermal activities sensors as well as a gyroscope and accelerometer in the bra.
In their paper, the researchers say using a bra “was ideal because it allowed us to collect EKG [electrocardiogram] near the heart”.
Efforts to create a similar piece of underwear for men worked less well, largely because the sensors were located too far away from the heart.
Dangerous Air Pollution in Shanghai, Schoolchildren Ordered Indoors
December 6th, 2013Via: Guardian:
Shanghai authorities ordered schoolchildren indoors and halted all construction on Friday as China’s financial hub suffered one its worst bouts of air pollution, bringing visibility down to a few dozen meters and obscuring the city’s spectacular skyline.
The financial district was shrouded in a yellow haze and noticeably fewer people walked the city’s streets. Vehicle traffic was thinner, as authorities pulled 30% of government vehicles from the roads. They also banned fireworks and stopped all public sporting events.
Protective masks and air purifiers were selling briskly at local stores.
“I feel like I’m living in clouds of smog,” said Zheng Qiaoyun, a local resident who kept her 6-month-old son at home. “I have a headache, I’m coughing, and it’s hard to breathe on my way to my office.”
Determination Can be Induced by Electrical Brain Stimulation
December 6th, 2013Via: Guardian:
Doctors in the US have induced feelings of intense determination in two men by stimulating a part of their brains with gentle electric currents.
The men were having a routine procedure to locate regions in their brains that caused epileptic seizures when they felt their heart rates rise, a sense of foreboding, and an overwhelming desire to persevere against a looming hardship.
The remarkable findings could help researchers develop treatments for depression and other disorders where people are debilitated by a lack of motivation.
One patient said the feeling was like driving a car into a raging storm. When his brain was stimulated, he sensed a shaking in his chest and a surge in his pulse. In six trials, he felt the same sensations time and again.
Comparing the feelings to a frantic drive towards a storm, the patient said: “You’re only halfway there and you have no other way to turn around and go back, you have to keep going forward.”
When asked by doctors to elaborate on whether the feeling was good or bad, he said: “It was more of a positive thing, like push harder, push harder, push harder to try and get through this.”
A second patient had similar feelings when his brain was stimulated in the same region, called the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC). He felt worried that something terrible was about to happen, but knew he had to fight and not give up, according to a case study in the journal Neuron.
Moon Express Unveils Commercial Lunar Lander Design
December 6th, 2013Via: NBC:
A commercial space company has revealed the design of the lunar lander that it aims to send to the moon in 2015.
California-based Moon Express unveiled the blueprint and first images of its MX-1 lunar lander on Thursday in Las Vegas, during the last day of the Autodesk University computer-aided design conference. In addition to delivering payloads to the lunar surface, the coffee-table-sized MX-1 could also help service satellites, deploy tiny “cubesats” in Earth orbit and clean up space junk, company officials say.
Navy Launches a Drone from a Submerged Submarine
December 6th, 2013Via: Defense One:
The Naval Research Lab just launched a drone from a submerged submarine – giving a huge edge to the future of special operations.
It took six years to develop and launch an all-electric, fuel cell-powered, folding-wing drone aircraft from a submerged submarine. The eXperimental Fuel Cell Unmanned Aerial System, or XFC UAS, was fired from the submarine’s torpedo tube using a “Sea Robin” launch system, which is designed to fit within an empty Tomahawk launch canister used for launching Tomahawk cruise missiles.
