University of Rhode Island (URI)

A centuries-old herbal medicine, discovered by Chinese scientists and used to effectively treat malaria, has been found to potentially aid in the treatment of tuberculosis and may slow the evolution of drug resistance. In a promising study led by Robert Abramovitch, a Michigan State University microbiologist and TB expert, the ancient remedy artemisinin stopped the

US intelligence agency aims to forecast unrest by reading the runes of social media. It is every government’s dream: a system that can predict future events such as riots, political upheavals and the outbreak of wars. Last week, a collection of academics and private businesses was scrambling to meet the deadline for proposals for research

Image by ozgurmulazimoglu via Flickr Already having a far-reaching impact on GHG emissions in some regions of Europe Cities can progress from consuming energy and emitting greenhouse gases (GHG) to actually producing energy while saving on GHG emissions, due to substitution of fossil fuels elsewhere. These findings are based on research in the city of

I was searching the web for ideas, as usual, and as I am searching the web for crowd funding information, I stumbled on GoFundMe. At first I thought it would be just yet another crowd funding company trying to make a mark in the market. I was wrong. You see, I am a big fan of

This fearsome contraption is the handiwork of a couple of amateur DEFCON-types who reckoned that any self-respecting spy plane ought to be able to impersonate cellphone towers. And that’s exactly what the Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform does — it tricks AT&T and T-Mobile handsets into connecting to it, then re-routes the incoming calls via VOIP

Berkeley Lab study finds that text mining of scientific literature can lead to new discoveries Sure, computers can be used to play grandmaster-level chess, but can they make scientific discoveries? Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown that an algorithm with no training in materials science can scan

Tiny Chips Use Outsize Power For decades, the power of computers has grown at a staggering rate as designers have managed to squeeze ever more and ever tinier transistors onto a silicon chip — doubling the number every two years, on average, and leading the way to increasingly powerful and inexpensive personal computers, laptops and

Experimental technique used to create whole organs appears feasible for creation of complex tissues A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has made the first steps towards development of bioartificial replacement limbs suitable for transplantation.  In their report, which has been published online in the journal Biomaterials, the researchers describe using an experimental approach

It could reduce by two-thirds the number of transistors needed IN A novel called “The Difference Engine”, published in 1990, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling wrote of an alternative Victorian period in which computers had cogs and were driven by steam, and the screens that displayed the results of their calculations had mechanical pixels. Steam-driven

Bio-Retina restores vision to AMD sufferers almost immediately following the simple implantation process At least 25-30 million people worldwide have age-related macular degeneration (AMD), one of the leading causes of blindness in middle-aged and older adults. Israeli start-up Nano Retina has announced its new Bio-Retina, a tiny array of photodetectors which can be implanted directly