NSF backs photonics-enabled neuroscience networks – Optics.org

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08Aug2017

Neurotechnology hubs at Cornell, Columbia, Stanford, Brown and other universities funded via latest BRAIN scheme.

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding 17 next-generation networks in the area of neuroscience under the latest phase of the Brain Research through Advancing Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative several of which are based around photonics technology.

Known as NeuroNex awards, the scheme has selected eleven hubs for neurotechnology development, each of which is set to receive up to $2million per year, for up to five years. Two of the hubs are focused on theoretical and computational work, with the other nine working to develop existing techniques to map and measure brain function.

NSF is also awarding six teams smaller NeuroNex Innovation funding to develop what are described as potentially revolutionary, early-stage tools that can be integrated with other NeuroNex projects.

Among the principal investigators leading the hub developments are Karl Deisseroth at Stanford, Cornells Chris Xu, and Christopher Moore at Brown. Of the six innovation projects, one involves the development of chemical and genetic methods to measure and manipulate neurons with light, and is led by Evan Miller at the University of California, Berkeley.

Multi-disciplinary efforts Deisseroth is one of the best-known names in the optogenetics scene, and his Stanford team will collaborate with researchers at Californias Salk Institute on an estimated two-year effort to better understand how the individual components that make up the nervous system operate during behavior, and even how they cause behaviour.

The project abstract states: The team will merge principles from genetics, physics, optics, engineering, and biology, to build and disseminate methodology, instrumentation, and analytics that enable targeting and control of individual kinds of brain cells, and the technology developed will be taught via hands-on training available to the scientific community.

Xus team at Cornell is aiming to push optical imaging so that it is able to monitor neuron function with high spatial and temporal resolution.

The newly developed optical imaging technologies will be employed in behaving animal models across multiple species in different phyla, including mammals, teleost fish, flies, and birds, and will be demonstrated by attacking important neuroscience questions in fruit fly, zebrafish, and mice, states their project abstract.

The work includes setting up the new Laboratory for Innovative Neurotechnology at Cornell (LINC), which is intended to close the loop between technological development and biological implementation.

Multiphoton approach Another of the projects will look to exploit the neuroimaging potential of multiphoton optics. Spencer Smith and colleagues from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill intend to push multiphoton neuroimaging into the next frontier.

That will include working on two specific technologies: miniaturized photonic systems for multiphoton neuroimaging; and super-resolution imaging to image sub-micron structures.

Among the expected outputs are new instrumentation for large-field-of-view two-photon and three-photon imaging, scalable temporal multiplexing, and integrated behavior. The focus will be on calcium and glutamate imaging, in cell bodies and processes, and other fluorescent indicators can be employed, states the Chapel Hill team. The workshops will cover optical design, fabrication, assembly, and use, for an audience of neuroscientists and engineers.

One key element of the project is to develop high-peak-power ultrafast lasers with transform-limited pulses, and another will involve advancing super-resolution multiphoton imaging using spatial frequency modulation, adaptive optics, and novel pulse conditioning.

The three-year, multi-disciplinary innovation project at Berkeley will aim to measure neuronal activity in a non-invasive, high-throughput, high-fidelity manner across multiple length scales, at high speed, and in multiple species with molecular precision.

The team will optically read-out neuronal activity by directly imaging changes in membrane voltage with bright, sensitive, chemically-synthesized voltage-sensitive fluorophores, states the team. The voltage-sensitive fluorophore make use of photo-induced electron transfer (PeT) as a voltage-sensing trigger to provide fast, sensitive, non-disruptive optical recordings in neurons.

For the complete list of the latest BRAIN-funded projects, see the NSF announcement here.

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NSF backs photonics-enabled neuroscience networks - Optics.org

Stop Making Google’s Decision to Fire Sexist Employee About ‘Political Correctness’ – Mediaite

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Last week, a then-Google employees manifesto against diversity and inclusion in STEM drew sharp criticism and eager applause from the outlets youd expect. But Googles decision to terminate the employee, reported by Bloombergon Monday,is drawing controversy from both sides.

James Damore, the Google engineer who wrote the manifesto, confirmed his dismissal in an email to Bloomberg stating that he had been fired for perpetuating gender stereotypes. Damore additionally told Bloomberg that he is currently exploring all possible legal remedies.

Of course, firing someone on the basis of their beliefs is inherently controversial.But when all things are considered and put into context, Google made the right decision, and anyone who continues to stand by Damore and his backwards views clearly has a lot to learn about the issue of gender and STEM, and gender and the workplace in general.

In his memo, Damore suggested that the gender gap in STEM is due to the biological inferiority of women, who are just inherently born less smart and less capable than their male counterparts.

We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism, he wrote.

He added: Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we dont have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.

This gender gap has nothing at all to do with generations upon generations of gendered barriers to access education and join the workforce, of course. And these gender gaps in lucrative fields, and the wage gaps that stem from them, are all fair because women are just inferior, period. Thats Damores hot take, at least.

Across all fields, today, the gender wage gap continues to exist despite modern laws meant to prevent it, and this is largely due to cultural biases that cant be legislated away. Maternal leave policies enforce gendered expectations and severely limit working womens opportunities for advancement, and subliminal and overt discrimination in perceptions of who is more experienced and authoritative do the same. Meanwhile, cultural forces and limited female role models in STEM jobs subliminally pressure women to enter lower-paying fields.

In the 21st century, as the STEM field has become one of the highest paying lines of work, its also become hotbed for sexism notably in the form of workplace sexual harassment and even assault. Roughly two-thirds of women in STEM reporting harassment or assault in the workplace; many of these women have little choice but to quit their work, unable to find help and support to deal with sexual abuse in male-dominated workplaces, where its predominantly men who are in positions of power to decide who stays and who goes, whats acceptable and what isnt.

In writing the manifesto, Damore may have been practicing his right to free speech, but in the STEM field, where women are sidelined, belittled, excluded and harassed as is, the sexist tirade was a direct attack on the already fragile world women in STEM are forced to exist in.

By keeping Damore on board, Google would have been validating, even legitimizing his views, and telling its female employees, telling female computer science students, telling young girls across the country that the idea they are inferior is a perfectly OK view to have.

Additionally and more to the point, every day, employees are fired from jobs for harassing women or uttering racist, exclusionary commentary that sharply contradict a companys values and mission statement.

Thats not excessive political correctness thats called running a company. Because in todays world, running a successful company requires more so much more than hiring entitled white men and looking away as they say and do whatever they want at the expense of everyone else. In todays world, running a successful company means establishing an environment where everyone, no matter their identity and background, feels welcome to share, create, and produce.

Inclusivity is a cornerstone of the STEM field not because of political correctness or ideological purity or any other reason the right would like to name its a cornerstone of STEM because inclusivity is what yields the best collaborations and the greatest innovations. To suggest that women and people of color are only being included because of political correctness and not merit isnt just offensive, its factually inaccurate.

And, on that note, Damores assertion that women arent in STEM because theyre incapable is wrong, but frankly, the idea that women arent in STEM because of active choices theyre making is wrong, too.There are far fewer female role models working in STEM jobs due to sexism of generations past; women comprise just 24 percent of the STEM workforce as of 2009, and so it may be difficult for young women to picture themselves in this line of work. On the other hand, adolescent boys have no shortage of men working in STEM jobs to identify with and aspire to be.Encouraging manifestos against women in STEM by doing nothing to fight them establishes hostile work environments which push women away, and discourage young women from getting on board and contributing.

Of course, at the end of the day, it would be a mistake to regard this issue of STEM and gender as one exclusive to Google. Bloombergs report also featured this haunting note

The imbroglio at Google is the latest in a long string of incidents concerning gender bias and diversity in the tech enclave.Uber Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick lost his job in June amid scandals over sexual harassment, discrimination and an aggressive culture. Ellen Paos gender-discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2015 also brought the issue to light, and more women are speaking up to say theyve been sidelined in the male-dominated industry, especially in engineering roles.

But ultimately, Damore may have been right about one thing: STEMis a difficult place for women to be right now. However, thats not due to shortcomings on their end, so much as it is to shortcomings in the characters of the men theyre forced to work with.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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Stop Making Google's Decision to Fire Sexist Employee About 'Political Correctness' - Mediaite

Senate blocks government attempt to restore compulsory plebiscite for marriage equality – The Guardian

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The governments attempt to restore the compulsory plebiscite bill has been blocked by the Senate, paving the way for a voluntary postal vote.

The plebiscite was to be held on November 25 with the government offering to remove the $15m of public funds for the yes and no cases.

On Wednesday morning the government attempted to restore the plebiscite bill to the Senate notice paper. Labor, the Greens and Nick Xenophon Team used their numbers in the Senate to block the attempt to revisit it, with Derryn Hinch voting to allow debate but committing to block the plebiscite.

With the compulsory plebiscite rejected again, the government will now attempt to fall back on its Plan B of a voluntary postal ballot to be conducted between 12 September and 15 November.

Earlier, Tony Abbott urged Australians to vote against marriage equality, arguing that a no vote would protect religious freedom and stop political correctness in its tracks.

The former prime minister hit the ground running in the campaign against same-sex marriage at a doorstop on Wednesday, in contrast to Malcolm Turnbull who said on Tuesday he would certainly support a yes vote but I have many other calls [on] my time.

Marriage equality advocates are still investigating a legal challenge, with several legal experts questioning the constitutionality of appropriating $122m to pay for a postal plebiscite and using the Australian Bureau of Statistics to run it.

Asked before the result if he was disappointed that a voluntary postal vote would be held instead, Abbott said no, saying it was important that we make the most of the opportunity we now have.

Obviously I will be voting no but in the end this is not about the politicians, this is about the people its about your view.

And I say to you if you dont like same-sex marriage, vote no. If youre worried about religious freedom and freedom of speech, vote no, and if you dont like political correctness, vote no because voting no will help to stop political correctness in its tracks.

The Australian Marriage Equality co-chair Alex Greenwich said Abbotts intervention was totally dishonest but nothing new because opponents have always tried to make this issue about something else.

They know the settled will of the Australian people is in favour of marriage equality and in support of all couples being treated equally under the law.

On Tuesday the government argued it was on strong legal ground with a voluntary postal vote, despite lacking parliamentary approval.

The acting special minister of state, Mathias Cormann, said the plebiscite would be conducted as a survey by the ABS, paid for by an appropriation made through a finance ministers advance to the agency.

The constitutional law expert George Williams told Guardian Australia the decision to have the ABS run a postal plebiscite remains vulnerable to legal attack.

It can be challenged on the ground that the expenditure of money on a postal vote lacks parliamentary approval, the dean of University of New South Wales law faculty said.

In addition, the use of the ABS will open up a new line of attack based upon arguments that the functions of the ABS do not permit it to conduct a poll of this kind.

Williams warned that running the poll so quickly would have the effect of disenfranchising large numbers of young people and that a postal vote would mean that the votes of many young people and people from overseas will not be counted.

The constitutional expert Anne Twomey told Guardian Australia the ABS had the power to collect statistics, or numerical data concerning facts describing it as most unusual for it to collect opinions rather than facts.

It is arguable that this goes outside its functions, although it could also be argued that it was collecting statistics about the number of people who hold particular opinions, she said.

On ABCs AM Twomey also questioned the method of appropriating funds, noting that a finance ministers advance has to be for some kind of emergency thats unforeseen [and] here we have an issue that has been foreseen and previously there had been allocations for it in the budget.

Greenwich said it was encouraging that constitutional experts were speaking out about the fact that parliament, not a plebiscite, needed to resolve marriage equality, adding that no minister should be able to spend $120m without parliamentary oversight.

Labors deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, told ABC AM a plebiscite would put Australian families through the trauma of having their relationships discussed as inadequate, described as having something wrong with them.

Plibersek said Labor would remind people [the plebiscite] is a flawed process, but you can count on us to continue to make the case for marriage equality.

She labelled Turnbulls claim he was too busy to campaign as a weak cop-out. On Tuesday Greenwich described it as an an absolute disgrace that would reduce confidence in the postal plebiscite.

Plibersek said Abbotts comments were exactly the sort of thing Id expect Tony Abbott to say, responding that religious ministers would not be forced to solemnise same-sex marriage and it was not political correctness for gay couples to politely ask to have the same rights as others.

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Senate blocks government attempt to restore compulsory plebiscite for marriage equality - The Guardian

Hypocrisy of modern science confronts political correctness – Beckley Register-Herald

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As a Christian, pastor and devout creationist Ive always watched modern science beat on its chest in claiming to be king of the universe while appointing individuals such as Charles Darwin to be elevated to a god in public schools.

However, recently were seeing the actual hypocrisy of modern science as it is faced with a rather awkward confrontation with political correctness which now claims that DNA no longer determines the gender of mankind. This evil claims that gender is simply a choice or merely parental manipulation despite DNA fact.

As a parent of a son and a daughter, I find these claims completely hilarious. Shame on modern science for heralding out such accusations of scriptural contradiction and hypocrisy at Christianity over the years just to denounce the one most solid scientific fact they have going for them, our DNA. All I can say to science is, Seriously, is that all the fight you have in you to let political correctness embarrass you like that?

Christians all over the world are dying for their fundamental truths, but modern scientists cant even stand up to political correctness. What a weak Constitution after all! Our children know right well that true science is The Study of Gods Creation.

God Jehovah reigns and Christ is King!

ScottLester

Crab Orchard

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Hypocrisy of modern science confronts political correctness - Beckley Register-Herald

Larissa Nolan: Political correctness will hurt us all in the end – Irish Times

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Actor, writer and director Lena Dunham. In Dunhams world opinions and thoughts that dont align with hers need to be shut down. Photograph: Stuart C Wilson/Getty Images

Last week, the actor, writer and director Lena Dunham sent out a provocative tweet to her 5.5 million followers, while frustrated at a flight delay in JFK.

The creator, writer and star of the HBO series Girls, believed she had earwigged on a conversation that deserved to be called out on social media the supreme court of public opinion.

Her tweet read: Just overheard 2 @AmericanAir attendants having a transphobic talk. We should be teaching our employees about love and inclusivity.

This was an arbitrary, unfounded accusation, against two humans who have nothing to do with her, and who are trigger warning! fully entitled to think what they like; totally free to have a personal conversation about whatever they please.

But in Dunhams world opinions and thoughts that dont align with hers need to be shut down, in an approach that wouldnt be out of place in the censorship culture of East Germany.

There was no proof provided. American Airlines later said that the times and places didnt match up. They dont fly from the terminal she was flying from. They were unable to substantiate her allegation.

Clearly, she couldnt miss the opportunity to jump on board the most current, right-on cause. It showed her up to be, at best, incoherent, and at worst wrong.

Her actions represents a hijacking of true liberalism that has its basis in stifling free speech. Those who really are liberal definition: willing to respect and accept behaviour and opinions different to our own must fight this pervasive belief system that is threatening the most cherished of all liberties. Otherwise we are rolling back decades of progress that has created a western world where free speech is one of the fundamental tenets of society.

Why is is now acceptable for certain political groups to shout down and shut down anyone who isnt in agreement with their orthodoxy?

Why is it coming from the left, not the right. The branch of politics we should be able to trust seems to have largely forgotten that tolerance and equality cannot be parsed.

In the process it has alienated good people with diverse opinions and important minds. Rather than debate, many people now say nothing. Instead, they keep their thoughts to themselves. The space for intellectual debate is reduced. But a society without an open and honest debate is one that is more likely to turn to violence.

Political correctness, a stultifying, boring, self-righteous and prissy movement that patronisingly assumes everyone is a victim, began as a good idea to protect the vulnerable in society. Now it is silencing dissenting voices of any kind. What started as awareness and education has morphed into finger-pointing and thought-policing.

But if people dont feel free to tell you what they are thinking, how can you confront them? How can you change the other persons mind if their voice is not allowed to be heard?

We cannot confront racism, discrimination and prejudice without first knowing they are there. We cannot develop certainty in our own convictions, unless we have had them challenged.

The smothering of free speech is being carried out in a very modern way and appears to be the preserve of naive activists.

In the media, its about wilfully conflating opinion with news. Its about reading the headline and deciding youre offended, without any context, and instantly labelling the target sexist/misogynistic/homophobic/racist, delete as applicable. Its lazy and its anti-intellectual.

On campus, its about protesting against talks at universities until they are called off for security reasons, and bleating about no-platforming censorship by another name.

Its about setting a lynch mob on social media, calling for the sacking and destruction of people with whom you do not agree. Making them social pariahs, or turning an individual with the brain to question a contentious issue into a bad guy.

Its creating a climate of fear so that those few brave enough to do the important job of putting a voice to what many people are thinking but are afraid to say are intimidated and cowed.

And ultimately there is a reaction. Irish-American satirist Bill Maher believes that the backlash against this forced thinking and free-speech stifling has resulted in a madman in the White House.

Talking about the importance of freedom of expression, he said: The Democrats have gone from the party that protects people to the party that protects feelings. Liberals do this all the time. They get offended for people who themselves wouldnt be offended.

Nearer home, Rory ONeill, whose alter ego Panti Bliss was the figurehead of the marriage equality referendum campaign, is similarly minded and argues an inclusive society is one in which we all have to accept a difference of opinion. If everyone feels browbeaten into acting the same, we lose the creativity of difference. I think its absolutely fine if an evangelical Christian dislikes homosexuality. I just dont want them to try and make everybody else be the same as them.

The lesson is simple: let those with dissenting views speak you might learn something.

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Larissa Nolan: Political correctness will hurt us all in the end - Irish Times

VACC warns of number-plate cloning scam, motorists left to prove innocence – CarAdvice

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Guilty until proven innocent?

The Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce (VACC) is this week shining a light on the most heinous practice of number-plate cloning, which it claims has left numerous car dealers fighting traffic infringement penalties.

In one case, the VACC says, a Licensed Motor Car Trader was fined over $16,000 for a single incidence of number plate cloning.

The process of cloning a number plate is said to be as simple as spying a vehicle of identical model and colour, noting its number plate, and reproducing it as easily as printing a mocked-up copy or hand-drawing it.

VACC Executive Director, Geoff Gwilym, says that while any motorist can be a victim, it is car dealers a group the VACC represents most likely to be targeted.

Criminals go online, or drive past a dealership, and note the registration of a particular vehicle. They then get these plates copied and go driving all over town in a similar vehicle, accumulating speeding and red light fines, CityLink tolls and parking infringements, all while the original vehicle has been on the dealers lot, Gwilym says.

He said that unsold, registered vehicles sitting on dealer lots are a popular target because offenders can use the cars number plate details for sometime without the crime being detected.

Victims of this crime often dont know anything about it until a fine arrives in the mail. By this time, the penalty may be considerable. Several dealer members have reported fines in the thousands of dollars.

So far, Gwilym says, victims have been told to prove their innocence in court, and authorities have revealed no plans to combat the issue.

Anyone receiving a suspect fine should challenge the decision. Those affected can request of Civic Compliance that they issue photographs of the alleged offence. This can be used in creating a defence. Importantly, bring the indiscretion to the attention of Civic Compliance as soon as possible and build a case.

The VACC has proposed a barcoded sticker, placed on the inside surface of a vehicles windscreens, would be harder to replicate and thus a possible solution to ruling out victim as perpetrator.

VACC calls on the appropriate authorities to investigate all possible solutions to this wide-spread crime that potentially could affect every motorist in Australia, said Mr Gwilym.

CarAdvice has contacted VicRoads, Victoria Police and Civic Compliance for comment, and will update this story if a response is forthcoming.

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VACC warns of number-plate cloning scam, motorists left to prove innocence - CarAdvice

How to clone a hard drive or SSD – PC Gamer

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You just bought a brand new shiny SSD and want to throw it into your aging mid-tower PC. But wait, the horror of having to reinstall Windows again and all of your applications begins to set in. If you dont want to deal with the hassle of reinstalling Windows, you can use a simple cloning utility to clone your old drive to your new SSD. Weve rounded up three free cloning utilities that are easy to use so you dont have to go through the effort of reinstalling your OS and applications all over again.

Note: Before you attempt to clone your hard drive or SSD, w e highly recommend backing up all your data first. In addition, make sure the drive you are cloning to has enough storage space to take all the cloned data. For instance, you wouldn't want to try and clone a 2TB HDD on to a 256GB SSD now would you?

The first data copying method we'll go over pertains to Samsung Data Migration. So make sure you plop that new Samsung SSD in along with your old OS drive you want to clone from.

Note: You will need a Samsung SSD installed on your machine for this software to work.

Step 1: Download the installer from http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/samsungssd/downloads.html

Step 2: Run the installer and click "I accept" at the end of it to agree to the terms and conditions.

Step 3: Once the software is installed, it will launch and ask if you if you want to update to the latest version. Click on Update and you will begin downloading the newest patches for it.

Step 4: After the update is complete the software will have you install patches and will have you agree to the Samsung terms and conditions again.

Step 5: From this window, you will select the Source Disk and Target Disk . The Target Disk must be a Samsung SSD , but the Source Disk can be any C: Drive you currently have your OS on . Once youve selected your disks, you can start cloning by clicking Start and the cloning process will begin. Note: Leave your computer alone while you're cloning the OS, as you may corrupt the clone if other processes are being run at the same time. This goes for the other cloning utilities as well.

After the software is done cloning, you can shut down your PC and boot from your newly-cloned SSD.

The second method we will discuss uses the program Macrium Reflect and will work with any drive, regardless of brand. So before you begin, make sure you plop in that new drive along with your old drive you want to clone from.

Step 1: Go to the free version of Macrium here.

Step 2: Click on the download button in the Macrium Reflect Download Agent and then run the softwares installer.

Note: Make sure to read the fine print throughout the installation process to not install any adware. Cnet's Download.com has become infamous for sneaking it in (Here are some general tips to avoiding installing malware/adware).

Step 3: Open up the software and click on Clone this disk Once you do this the software will let you choose which disks you want as your source and target disks. When you have selected your disks, click next to start cloning your drive.

Macrium Reflect useful tips:

Creating bootable rescue media: Macrium Reflect can also help you make bootable rescue media. This tool is located under Other Tasks. We always recommend making recovery media, just in case your hard drive or SSD fails on you.

Creating an image of your hard drives: Under Backup Tasks, you can also create a disk image of your hard drive or SSD too.

These are but three cloning tools, there are many others such as Seagate's DiscWizard ( for Seagate drives) along with other free storage cloning tools such as G-Parted and Clonezilla.

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How to clone a hard drive or SSD - PC Gamer

Some still attack Darwin and evolution. How can science fight back … – The Guardian

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Based on current evidence, Darwins ideas still seem capable of explaining much, if not all, of what we see in nature. Photograph: Philipp Kammerer/Alamy

I can save you the effort of reading AN Wilsons expos on Darwin, which did the rounds over the weekend, characterising the famous scientist as a fraud, a thief, a liar, a racist and a rouser of nazism. Instead, head over to Netflix and watch the creationist made-for-TV movie A Matter of Faith, which covers many of the same arguments and also includes a final scene in which a fictional evolutionary biologist, standing alone in his study, holds a rubber chicken in his hands and finds himself deliberating over the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. At least that was an original take on these tiresome accusations.

And so, here we are again, quietly drawing breath and smiling politely while the same familiar discoveries about Darwin arise once more. Was the blood spilled by the Nazis on Darwins hands? Did he steal his big idea from others? Is evolution by natural selection a great hoax? Are the Darwinians covering something up? Wilson appears to have hit upon a rich seam of cliches in his five years of research for his book, Charles Darwin: Victorian Mythmaker.

In particular, its nice to see fossils come in for a kicking again. Palaeontology has come up with almost no missing links of the kind Darwinians believe in, pants Wilson. If you too are panting at this notion, I implore you to visit a museum. Visit as many as you can. Better still, collect and study your own fossils they are quite common. In the worlds museums and store-rooms, there are hundreds of millions of them and they all fit into broadly recognisable patterns of geological age and within the framework of what you or I would call evolution. Oh, you meant transitional fossils of whales specifically? Yep, its here. Oh, you meant birds? Here. Oh, you meant primates? Yep. Oh, you meant land fish? Here you go. Oh, you meant early human-like ancestors? Theres a link to more than a million scientific articles about the subject here.

But where are the transitional fossils? comes the familiar cry again. Knowing what I have learned about the intricacy and rarity of fossilisation, if anything would make me genuinely consider the presence of an all-seeing God it would be the discovery of an unbroken chain of 60,000 fossil skeletons, following the strata upwards, going smoothly from species A to species B. But thats not the point, I guess, and Wilson should know it.

Scientists tend to fit into two camps on the issue of how to deal with this familiar kind of Darwin-baiting. In the modern age some, such as the American science communicator Bill Nye, choose to debate the anti-Darwinians on live TV. Others, such as Richard Dawkins, prefer to starve them of the oxygen they require by politely ignoring them a kind of personal exercise in the non-validation of non-scientific ideas. So what is the approach we should take, as everyday lovers of science? I would suggest, and this may sound bold, we simply carry on regardless. Mostly.

Based on current evidence, Darwins ideas still seem capable of explaining much, if not all, of what we see in nature

The truth is that and this is worth saying a million times over most scientists probably dont think about Darwin very much in their day-to-day studies and would consider themselves as much Darwinist as they would round-Earthers or wifi-users. This is, after all, the best working theory we have to understand the nature that we see around us. Also, I think we are all OK with entertaining the idea that, if a more scientifically accurate way of explaining the diversity of life on Earth comes along, Darwin would be ousted. Its just that, based on current evidence, Darwins ideas still seem capable of explaining much, if not all, of what we see in nature. Hence, our kids learn about him in schools and popular science books that refute his influence are treated with understandable confusion, concern or disdain.

Sadly, many people will not find their way to this end-point, so suspicious are they of science, evolution and scientific ideas. For me, one of the most pressing problems in science is how we engage this lost audience, because theyre missing out on a wonderful experience that of chasing real truths about some of the most beautiful and complex repeating patterns in nature, an apparent universal law that many people can and do balance regularly alongside their religious beliefs. For starters, their scepticism could come in quite handy.

So how can we connect with people who shout so loudly about this, sciences greatest apparent conspiracy? How do we draw them in and get them to re-engage with science? Id love to know your thoughts about this. Contrary to the popular belief about those involved in science, I think were open to ideas. So let us know. Youll find us ignorant about a great number of things. Just, unlike some, never wilfully.

Jules Howard is a zoologist and the author of Sex on Earth and Death on Earth

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Some still attack Darwin and evolution. How can science fight back ... - The Guardian

The evolution of machine learning – TechCrunch

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Catherine Dong Contributor

Catherine Dong is a summer associate at Bloomberg Beta and will be working at Facebook as a machine learning engineer.

Major tech companies have actively reoriented themselves around AI and machine learning: Google is now AI-first, Uber has ML running through its veins and internal AI research labs keep popping up.

Theyre pouring resources and attention into convincing the world that the machine intelligence revolution is arriving now. They tout deep learning, in particular, as the breakthrough driving this transformation and powering new self-driving cars, virtual assistants and more.

Despite this hype around the state of the art, the state of the practice is less futuristic.

Software engineers and data scientists working with machine learning still use many of the same algorithms and engineering tools they did years ago.

That is, traditional machine learning models not deep neural networks are powering most AI applications. Engineers still use traditional software engineering tools for machine learning engineering, and they dont work: The pipelines that take data to model to result end up built out of scattered, incompatible pieces. There is change coming, as big tech companies smooth out this process by building new machine learning-specific platforms with end-to-end functionality.

Large tech companies have recently started to use their own centralized platforms for machine learning engineering, which more cleanly tie together the previously scattered workflows of data scientists and engineers.

Machine learning engineering happens in three stages data processing, model building and deployment and monitoring. In the middle we have the meat of the pipeline, the model, which is the machine learning algorithm that learns to predict given input data.

That model is where deep learning would live. Deep learning is a subcategory of machine learning algorithms that use multi-layered neural networks to learn complex relationships between inputs and outputs. The more layers in the neural network, the more complexity it can capture.

Traditional statistical machine learning algorithms (i.e. ones that do not use deep neural nets) have a more limited capacity to capture information about training data. But these more basic machine learning algorithms work well enough for many applications, making the additional complexity of deep learning models often superfluous. So we still see software engineers using these traditional models extensively in machine learning engineering even in the midst of this deep learning craze.

But the bread of the sandwich process that holds everything together is what happens before and after training the machine learning model.

The first stage involves cleaning and formatting vast amounts of data to be fed into the model. The last stage involves careful deployment and monitoring of the model. We found that most of the engineering time in AI is not actually spent on building machine learning models its spent preparing and monitoring those models.

Despite the focus on deep learning at the big tech company AI research labs, most applications of machine learning at these same companies do not rely on neural networks and instead use traditional machine learning models. The most common models include linear/logistic regression, random forests and boosted decision trees. These are the models behind, among other services tech companies use, friend suggestions, ad targeting, user interest prediction, supply/demand simulation and search result ranking.

And some of the tools engineers use to train these models are similarly well-worn. One of the most commonly used machine learning libraries is scikit-learn, which was released a decade ago (although Googles TensorFlow is on the rise).

There are good reasons to use simpler models over deep learning. Deep neural networks are hard to train. They require more time and computational power (they usually require different hardware, specifically GPUs). Getting deep learning to work is hard it still requires extensive manual fiddling, involving a combination of intuition and trial and error.

With traditional machine learning models, the time engineers spend on model training and tuning is relatively short usually just a few hours. Ultimately, if the accuracy improvements that deep learning can achieve are modest, the need for scalability and development speed outweighs their value.

So when it comes to training a machine learning model, traditional methods work well. But the same does not apply to the infrastructure that holds together the machine learning pipeline. Using the same old software engineering tools for machine learning engineering creates greater potential for errors.

The first stage in the machine learning pipeline data collection and processing illustrates this. While big companies certainly have big data, data scientists or engineers must clean the data to make it useful verify and consolidate duplicates from different sources, normalize metrics, design and prove features.

At most companies, engineers do this using a combination SQL or Hive queries and Python scripts to aggregate and format up to several million data points from one or more data sources. This often takes several days of frustrating manual labor. Some of this is likely repetitive work, because the process at many companies is decentralized data scientists or engineers often manipulate data with local scripts or Jupyter Notebooks.

Furthermore, the large scale of big tech companies compounds errors, making careful deployment and monitoring of models in production imperative. As one engineer described it, At large companies, machine learning is 80 percent infrastructure.

However, traditional unit tests the backbone of traditional software testing dont really work with machine learning models, because the correct output of machine learning models isnt known beforehand. After all, the purpose of machine learning is for the model to learn to make predictions from data without the need for an engineer to specifically code any rules. So instead of unit tests, engineers take a less structured approach: They manually monitor dashboards and program alerts for new models.

And shifts in real-world data may make trained models less accurate, so engineers re-train production models on fresh data on a daily to monthly basis, depending on the application. But a lack of machine learning-specific support in the existing engineering infrastructure can create a disconnect between models in development and models in production normal code is updated much less frequently.

Many engineers still rely on rudimentary methods of deploying models to production, like saving a serialized version of the trained model or model weights to a file. Engineers sometimes need to rebuild model prototypes and parts of the data pipeline in a different language or framework, so they work on production infrastructure. Any incompatibility from any stage of the machine learning development process from data processing to training to deployment to production infrastructure can introduce error.

To address these issues, a few big companies, with the resources to build custom tooling, have invested time and engineering effort into creating their own machine learning-specific tools. Their goal is to have a seamless, end-to-end machine learning platform that is fully compatible with the companys engineering infrastructure.

Facebooks FBLearner Flow and Ubers Michelangelo are internal machine learning platforms that do just that. They allow engineers to construct training and validation data sets with an intuitive user interface, decreasing time spent on this stage from days to hours. Then, engineers can train models with (more or less) the click of a button. Finally, they can monitor and directly update production models with ease.

Services like Azure Machine Learning and Amazon Machine Learning are publicly available alternatives that provide similar end-to-end platform functionality but only integrate with other Amazon or Microsoft services for the data storage and deployment components of the pipeline.

Despite all the emphasis big tech companies have placed on enhancing their products with machine learning, at most companies there are still major challenges and inefficiencies in the process. They still use traditional machine learning models instead of more-advanced deep learning, and still depend on a traditional infrastructure of tools poorly suited to machine learning.

Fortunately, with the current focus on AI at these companies, they are investing in specialized tools to make machine learning work better. With these internal tools, or potentially with third-party machine learning platforms that are able to integrate tightly into their existing infrastructures, organizations can realize the potential of AI.

A special thank you to Irving Hsu, David Eng, Gideon Mann and the Bloomberg Beta team for their insights.

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The evolution of machine learning - TechCrunch

The rapid evolution of big data storage – FedScoop

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The data storage landscape is continually changing and in the background, there are a few shifts driving that evolution.

One of those is culture, Shaun Bierweiler, vice president of public sector for Hortonworks, says in an interview with FedScoop Radio. We like to say that every agency is a data agency, and that stems from the evolution and the significance that data has taken in the lives and in the missions of our customers.

With traditional data warehouses in the past, Bierweiler explains, data was used in a very transactional way. But now its at the center of every decision, he says.

To start with, the structure of big data has evolved. Previously, you knew what was going in and what was coming out. Today, now you have data from an infinite number of sources. You have images, you have videos, you have data encrypted within those items, Bierweiler says in the interview. The data itself has become very much more complex in terms of structure.

The volume is, perhaps, the biggest change.

Agencies are drowning in data because theres so much of it, he says. You have to be able to store it, you have to be able to process it. You have to be able to extrapolate the value from that data. And so thats become much more complicated and complex.

Finally, to top that all off, expectations for the use of that data has changed drastically, Bierweiler explains.

Not only do you have more data that has more information that varies much more greatly, but now users expect to do more with it. And they not only expect to do valuable things with their data, but they expect to extrapolate information and sharing data from other users data. What used to be very traditionally stove-piped and siloed now is a mesh of data thats expected to be shared.

With such an array of data types, sizes and uses, Bierweiler advocates for enterprise open source platforms to address users many needs.

If you look at a traditional proprietary technology, the lifecycle for them tends to be much longer, and the development cycle even longer, Bierweiler says. When you get a new release of a proprietary solution, its often with very old or antiquated solutions and its solving the problems that existed when the technologys development model started.

Youre also locked-in to the vendors roadmap, he says.

An enterprise open source platform like Hortonworks harnesses the development model of community people that arent paid by Hortonworks. What you get then is a very open solution that not only solves what people are trying to address today, but problems they foresee for tomorrow, Bierweiler tells FedScoop Radio. And because there arent barriers or proprietary interfaces, it lends itself to a true best-of-breed solution.

Consider everything as possible, he recommends to agencies and offices considering open source. Its often difficult to make that cultural shift from something that youve always done and you convince yourself that thats the only way. Technology has come a very long way and there are creative ways to do things better, cheaper, faster, smarter. So oftentimes, the biggest challenge we have is not a technical hurdle its a cultural shift.

See more about how Hortonworks open source solutionscan help you manage your data.

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Eoin Morgan: T20 evolution must work in tandem with protection of Test cricket – The Guardian

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Englands one-day captain, Eoin Morgan, at the Chance to Shine Street National Finals Day in Wolverhampton. Photograph: Courtesy of Chance to Shine

Eoin Morgan has given a few masterclasses this summer. There was his century against South Africa at Headingley, his 87 against Australia at Edgbaston and his 75 against Bangladesh at The Oval. Then there was the hour he spent at Aldersley leisure centre in Wolverhampton. You may have missed that one. It was during the finals of Chance to Shines street cricket competition, when the kids were taking a break from whacking tape balls around the indoor gym. One asked Morgan which was his favourite shot, another, a young Pakistan fan, what it felt like to be cleaned up by Hasan Ali and a third wanted to know how much Morgan enjoyed playing for his favourite team. Which wasnt England, or Middlesex, but the Kings XI Punjab. It was another little reminder of the ways in which the game is changing.

Chance to Shine cooked up street cricket to give city kids an easy way to get into the game. Its a six-a-side thrash, played with a tape ball and a plastic bat. Morgan gets it. I grew up on a council estate, he says. So I can relate to not having facilities. All he had was a barrel of kit his father kept by the front door. He learned to play on a concrete strip by the side of his house in Rush in North County Dublin. He used to make his own tape balls. But normally Id be bowling against my elder brothers and theyd just whack it out of the garden. Then wed have to get another ball with no tape on it.

Only, Morgan used to dream of playing Test cricket. Most of these kids are hooked on T20. Morgan wanted to be Brian Lara or Graham Thorpe because when he was young England always seemed to be playing West Indies. Which is mad because Thorpes our batting coach now. Not long ago, Thorpe was giving him a few pointers on his pull shot. I was playing it with one leg off the ground, which takes all the power out of your shot. He said that to me and I was like: Hold on, Im sure I had a picture of you on my bedroom wall playing a pull with one leg off the ground and a floppy hat on.

When Morgan was 13, he and his dad met the Ireland coach Adrian Birrell. He had ideas about Ireland moving forward and my dad turned to him and said: Well, he wants to play Test cricket. Adrian turned to him and said: Well, hes 13 years old, how do you know you know you want to play Test cricket? But I just did. I always thought my future was here. Odd how life works out. Morgan came to England because he wanted to play Tests but hes ended up specialising in limited-overs cricket. And now Ireland have Test status. But hes adamant he will never go back.

Morgan is 30, a year older than Dawid Malan, but hes reconciled himself to the idea that he wont play another Test. I came to terms with that when I took the captaincy, he says. Because in order to prove myself to play Test cricket I would need to play more county cricket, which would have meant giving up my one-day position. And Im not willing to do that at the moment. I think what we have with the one-day side is quite special, hopefully were putting a side in the position to compete in 2019. So Im very happy with the path my career has taken.

At the same time, he tells the kids that the three team-mates he admires most are Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali because they play all three formats. I suppose ideally Id like to play all forms but there are not many people that do that any more. Theres a bigger division now than there ever has been between Tests and white-ball cricket, he says. Its becoming a real challenge that. With T20, theres such a shift, to go straight from Tests to T20 is such a jump. So what does Morgan, a pioneer of modern cricket, make of the shibboleth that Test cricket is the pinnacle of the game?

The city T20 competition is going to have a huge impact on our game

Its hard for me to say, he admits. Ive changed my view in the last year or so. Before, we said Test cricket is the best form of the game. But everybody is gearing towards Twenty20 cricket. Morgan has been around. He knows better than most what some of the players in the IPL and the Big Bash think about Test cricket. How do you get people to engage with, say, Test matches between South Africa and the West Indies or Pakistan v New Zealand? How do you make those series relevant? I dont have the answer. I just know that something needs to be done. There has to be a shift or the divide will become bigger and one form will take over. And I dont see Tests taking over.

Morgan is surprised that the swing towards T20 has not started already in England. He says the players he is with at Middlesex have not made the switch yet. But were at a county which does prioritise red-ball cricket. And our young guys coming through, Stevie Eskinazi, Nick Gubbins, George Scott, their priority is still to play Test cricket. Which is interesting because I thought the shift would have been made by now. But Morgan has no doubt it is coming. The impact of T20 cricket, its influence around the world, thats already happened. Were a way behind it in England. But when it comes it shouldnt come as a shock.

Morgan thinks it will show in the next generation. Say youve got the next Ben Stokes at Middlesex. Hes coming through right now and he makes his debut in two years time. The question for him is: yes he wants to play Test cricket but there are only 11 players in the team and Ben Stokes is still around, and then this young kid gets offered a lot of money, life-changing money, to go and do something else. Thats serious pressure. Its not an easy decision. And the answer depends on what background he comes from and where his principles lie.

A lot of young players around the world are in that position already. Thats where the future problem lies. Its already happening in the West Indies and in other countries that dont prioritise Test cricket.

England still draw crowds for Test matches but that will not make them immune. We will get guys who come along and say they only want to play T20 cricket. We will lose international players because they feel they have a limited amount of time and they want to make the most of their careers or because their priorities lie elsewhere because its not about playing for England, its about making money. Thats already happening around the rest of the world. The England and Wales Cricket Board has three years before it launches its new city-based competition T20 and Morgan says it will need to spend a lot of that time preparing for the impact it will have on Test cricket.

The key question, he says, is how you grab the people who are being engaged by T20 and introduce them to Test cricket, filtering them through at a lower level. Which brings us back to Chance to Shines street cricket. Sunil Narine comes from tape ball. Thats where he learned all his tricks and now his fingers are so strong from squeezing the tennis ball to get spin on it, Morgan says. In the next five years you will see a Sunil Narine playing for England or a guy with a Lasith Malinga action because they played tape ball cricket. Thats the beauty of it. Its instant, its fast, theres no barriers, everyone can play it.

Morgan adds: The city T20 competition is going to have a huge impact on our game. That should allow us to prepare for whats going to happen with the players, to recognise that, yes, the formats are going to get further and further apart. So we should build them both hand in hand, alongside each other, to protect Test cricket. I think thats very important because if we dont do something about it in England, who is?

NatWest has partnered with Chance to Shine as part of its #NoBoundaries campaign, championing diversity and inclusion in cricket

This is an extract taken from The Spin, the Guardians weekly cricket email. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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Eoin Morgan: T20 evolution must work in tandem with protection of Test cricket - The Guardian

Business times are a changin’ – White Bear Press

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The old adage of evolve or dissolve has always been a part of the challenges that face businesses. This rings truer today than maybe ever before. We see daily the many changes that companies and their leaders must adapt to and prepare for. The most successful businesses must be constantly on the path of meeting their current business goals as well as have the foresight and strategy to look out further ahead to anticipate what others cannot.

The Darwinism of business is stronger than ever in our changing business climate. From issues related to workforce, technology, and governmental policies, times are changing at a rapid rate. This is why many area businesses choose to connect with their local economic development group and Chamber of Commerce to leverage shared knowledge and best practices.

Business as we know it today will not be the same in the next few years. Consumers will be seeing continuing changes in their shopping and dining experiences as technology continues to evolve. Businesses need to make bets on how they will adapt with the changing demographic of upcoming tech savvy generations. A couple areas where change has been happening at an extremely rapid pace is in the workplace culture and workforce development.

In my work, Ive been seeing tremendous business evolution. Here are some trends of note:

Millennials meet Generation Z The genZers have arrived! 2016 marked the first year they entered the workplace while a third of management roles were filled by millennials. What are some of the challenges? For one, there is an ever widening technology gap between younger and older workers. In addition, stereotypes abound between the groups which causes friction. Interestingly enough, both generations agree that they want businesses to transform the office environment, reward employees, embrace flexibility, and take on causes.

The three Ws Workplace wellness and well-being are the three Ws of attraction tool trends. Getting creative with wellness programs is increasingly common. Companies that are leveraging wellness programs find multiple levels of benefits that affect their bottom line including attracting talent, lower absenteeism and lower healthcare costs.

Changing employer/employee contract Believe it or not, regardless of age, the tenure for employees is currently 4.6 years in the U.S. There is no lifetime employment contract and attracting employees is an ongoing activity for all employers regardless if you have current openings. In addition, the work relationship between employers and employees continues to change with more working at home, more operating as independent contractors, and also with employers utilizing technologies to leverage employees in remote locales.

Evolving benefits All age groups, genders, and ethnicities care about fair compensation. Other important factors are healthcare and work flexibility. Studies have shown some employee groups value work flexibility above healthcare and yet only 1/3 of companies even offer it. And those that do, often dont promote it to job seekers. Other new benefits include assistance with student loans and I even heard of a local business thinking about providing car insurance.

While businesses continue to work on meeting the next challenges, especially in the area of workforce development, we have some local successes to celebrate.

Congrats to I.C. System, Reell Precision Manufacturing, and The Specialty Mfg. Company for receiving the Star Tribunes 2017 Top Workplace achievement.

Top Workplaces recognizes the most progressive companies in Minnesota through employee opinions, including employee feedback about workplace culture, the levels of employee engagement, organizational health, and overall satisfaction.

The Northeast Metro community is fortunate to have a vibrant business community continually connecting together to get ahead of the curve on what is next around the corner. Regardless of what tomorrow brings, we are all committed to shared success together.

Ling Becker is executive director of the Vadnais Heights Economic Development Corporation.

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DunkWorks Seeks To Promote Innovation In Marine Robotics – CapeNews.net

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Facilitating and accelerating failure is the underlying purpose of DunkWorks in Woods Hole, a collaborative facility for marine robotics technologists that will open for public membership in September.

DunkWorks is managed by the Center for Marine Robotics on behalf of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The creators of DunkWorks believe that failure is a necessary part of innovation, and thus aim to catalyze the process by helping innovators fail quickly and fail cheaply.

Playing off the skunkworks laboratory model, the makerspace provides the resources and coaching necessary for innovators to test their ideas.

Marine robotics center assistant director Leslie A. McGee gave a presentation on the center to the Falmouth Economic Development and Industrial Corporation Tuesday morning, August 8.

DunkWorks is located within a repurposed space on the WHOI dock, near other machine shops and automated underwater vehicle laboratories. Equipment currently includes a 3-D printer, laser cutter, resin-printer, virtual gaming technology, electrical mechanic working stations, automated mill, lathe, autonomous underwater vehicle station with an overhead crane and woodworking tools. A second-floor loft provides space for collaborative training.

However, the facility is only 60 percent spent, and the robotics center plans to further outfit the DunkWorks after assessing the needs and interests of its users.

The facility is staffed with a guru who provides assistance and training for the laboratory equipment, and helps innovators figure out how to tackle problems. DunkWorks will also offer additional workshops and training to its members.

In addition to developing technologies for the marine robotics industry, the WHOI center hopes that DunkWorks will also promote collaboration within the marine robotics community.

What were trying to do is provide an environment for people to come in, get people out of their garages, out of their labsand move it in here so we create a peer-to-peer environment, so folks can learn from each other, Ms. McGee said.

In addition, individual technologists can save money by conducting some of the engineering work themselves, rather than paying an out-of-house engineering laboratory to complete the work.

Massachusetts Technology Collaborative funded the development of DunkWorks and other projects through a five-year $5 million Robots to the Sea grant to the robotics center in December 2014.

Ms. McGee said the state invests in marine robotics with the explicit intention that institutions in turn drive economic development. Ultimately, accelerated innovation at DunkWorks should also produce advancements in revenues, job creation, average wages, output and investment.

The center plans to charge internal WHOI users a monthly $200 membership fee, and external users a monthly $500 membership fee, with a minimum six-month commitment. Although open to individuals outside WHOI, membership is limited to companies and research communities doing work related to marine robotics.

Initially the facility will be open from 8 AM to 4:30 PM, but the center hopes to eventually provide off-hours access.

Its a giant thinking and collaborative space, and sometimes that doesnt happen between 8 and 4:30. Sometimes at midnight on a Saturday, youre like, Oh, my god, I have an idea, I want to go see whether this thing will work, Ms. McGee said.

The facility had a formal opening on July 31, with a ribbon-cutting by Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, but will not offer memberships to the public until September. It has been open to internal users in a discovery period for about two months.

The Falmouth EDIC invited Ms. McGee to speak as part of its ongoing series of presentations by members of the Falmouth business community.

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DunkWorks Seeks To Promote Innovation In Marine Robotics - CapeNews.net

‘Alexa, I’m ready to walk’: Robotics company using Amazon’s AI to help control exoskeleton – GeekWire

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The ARKE lower body exoskeleton by Bionik Laboratories. (Bionik Photo)

Its one thing to be wowed by Amazons Alexa and her ability to turn off Katy Perry, or turn on the lights. But what if the voice-activated artificial intelligence could help control a robotic device designed to help people walk?

Thats the hope of Bionik Laboratories, which announced Tuesday that it has integrated Alexa into its ARKE lower body exoskeleton. The product is inclinical development, and the future goal is for individuals who have suffered a spinal cord injury or are otherwise severely impaired in their lower body to gain mobility such as standing and walking.

Bionik says Alexa helps to activate multiple sensors located throughout the ARKE, allowing users to say, Alexa, Im ready to stand or Alexa, Im ready to walk.

We are excited to complete the integration of Amazons Echo and Alexa into our ARKE exoskeleton, combining the power of Amazons voice-activated technologies with our powerful assistive robotic solutions for the next evolution in treating consumer immobility, Bionik co-founder and COO Michal Prywata said in a news release. In building ARKE, we had one goal in mind to empower the user to take back their mobility and regain the ability to complete tasks that the rest of us deem normal, like walking to the refrigerator or going to get the mail. This pairing of our robotic technologies with the power of Amazons Alexa further pushes the boundaries of what technology can do within the home healthcare industry, and we believe we will help many impaired individuals regain the mobility they once lost.

The Verge points out a few caveats when it comes to using Alexa in this manner, including the fact that the exoskeleton has no built-in microphones, so a user would need to access Alexa via nearby Echo or Dot device, or though the Alexa app on a mobile device.

Alexa would also have to stand up to the strict guidelines of medical certification, Prywata told The Verge.Alexa is designed for use in consumer applications. Its a completely different risk profile compared to medical use. You have to make sure everything is perfect [as] youre dealing with peoples lives, he said.

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'Alexa, I'm ready to walk': Robotics company using Amazon's AI to help control exoskeleton - GeekWire

Robotics institute set to anchor Pittsburgh’s mammoth Almono … – Tribune-Review

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Carnegie Mellon University's Advanced Robotics Manufacturing Institute will be the first anchor tenant to set up shop in a former Hazelwood steel mill, officials said Monday.

Donald Smith, president of the Regional Industrial Development Corp., said the institute would occupy about two-thirds of the first of three buildings planned for Mill 19, a former LTV rolling mill.

Gov. Tom Wolf visited the site Monday to examine the mill property owned by the Almono partnership, which includes the Heinz Endowments and Richard King Mellon and Claude Worthington Benedum foundations. RIDC has managed the site.

From the commonwealth's point of view it's a way to renovate, rehabilitate an area that's been not under utilized, (but) unutilized for the last how-many' years, Wolf said. Aesthetically, think of what it means for the appearances in this area, but then it also reconnects the area of Hazelwood. I think what they're trying to do here is an audacious thing: to try to re-establish that connection in a way that pays tribute to Pittsburgh's current incarnation as a high-tech capital.

Almono is planning a $120 million development including light manufacturing, about 2,000 apartments, shops and restaurants on the 178-acre property bordering the Monongahela River.

Plans call for the removal of Mill 19's siding and construction of three separate buildings under the 1,500-foot-long building's steel skeleton.

Solar panels on the western side of the roof should be enough to completely power the first two buildings.

Gary Fedder, CEO of the robotics institute, said ARM and Almono are finalizing lease details.

It's going to happen, but we need to work through a few details, he said. I want this thing built by the end of March. You can do the math and figure out how challenging this is going to be.

CMU in January won more than $253 million in funding to set up the institute. It includes $80 million from the U.S. Defense Department and $173 million from some 200 partner organizations.

The institute will work on integrating robotics and autonomy into manufacturing.

Smith said the Mill 19 design was chosen to maintain Pittsburgh's history as a steel producer and its future as a hub for high-tech manufacturing.

Ride-share giant Uber Technologies has developed a test track for self-driving cars on the Almono site, although Smith said the San Francisco-based company is no longer leasing a railroad roundhouse on the property. Smith said Almono plans to keep the roundhouse.

He said RIDC has scrapped plans to move its offices into Mill 19 because private companies are lining up as potential tenants. He said Almono is negotiating with an international technology company, which he would not name, as a major tenant in the second building.

It doesn't help the world much to have us here, Smith said. It really helps a lot more to have a technology company with a presence.

Wolf, who also toured the Hazelwood business district, said he supports a state Senate proposal to help plug a $3.2 billion gap in the state's $32 billion budget.

The Senate voted for a mix of new taxes and tax increases, including a levy on natural gas extraction.

What I like in the Senate proposal: There is real, recurring revenue, Wolf said. No one likes any taxes, but we're looking for something that has recurring revenue. It's real, it's not smoke and mirrors and it passes that test.

Bob Bauder is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-765-2312, bbauder@tribweb.com or via twitter @bobbauder.

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Robotics institute set to anchor Pittsburgh's mammoth Almono ... - Tribune-Review

Technology, robotics, coding and more – Village Living

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The school year may have ended on May 23, however teaching never stops. Throughout the summer, the doors of Crestline Elementary were opened for learning.

Teams of Crestline teachers offered camps. Third grade teachers Tara Davis and Laura Rives offered a week long TechCamp for rising third, fourth and fifth graders. This camp provided students an opportunity to learn more about Google Classroom and work within the framework to create, format and share documents and presentations. Most importantly, the curriculum focused on Digital Citizenship, meaning teaching children how to safely research information and pictures.

Fourth grade science teacher Amy Anderson provided two opportunities for Coding and Robotics Camp open to rising first through sixth graders. The children were introduced to and worked with Ozobot, Dash and Dot, 3D Printing, and Osmo. Ozobot and Dash and Dot are interactive robots that allow children to practice coding skills. Osmo is a tool that transforms your iPad into a hands-on learning tool. The basic features focus on math, spelling and drawing. The 3D printer is used to create three-dimensional objects in which layers of material are formed under computer control. All aspects of this camp fostered creativity and problem solving through hands on play.

-Submitted by Caroline Springfield

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Technology, robotics, coding and more - Village Living

How Instagram posts reveal whether you have depression: study – Stuff.co.nz

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Last updated13:36, August 9 2017

The pictures you post on social media could offer clues into the state of your mental health, according to new research.

Just short of 44,000Instagramimages were examined in a study of 166 people, who were also asked questions about their history of mental health.

Filters, if used at all, prevalence of coloursand how many comments and likes each post received were examined.

Those who had depression typically posted images with darker hues and had fewer faces in their posts. They were also less likely to use filters when editing and uploading photos.

LEV DOLGACHOV/123RF

What you're sharing - or not sharing - on Instagram can offer insight into your mental health state.

READ MORE: *How to useInstagramand Snapchat on a computer *Instagramis the worst social network for young people's mental health *How much cash could you make with yourInstagram?

"When depressed participants did employ filters, they most disproportionately favoured the 'Inkwell' filter, which converts colour photographs to black-and-white images," the authors wrote in the paper published in the journal EPJ Data Science.

Healthy participants favoured the Valencia filter, which lightens the photo.

Chris Danforth

Images with the Valencia filter are likely to be used by those with sound mental health.

For people with depression,theirworld-view is often darker, they added, which could explain the photo filters they tended to choose. Those with a more positive frame of mind posted more frequently.

The researchers were eventually able to create an algorithm that could determine whether or not an Instagramuser would have depression. It had a 70 per cent success rate.

The algorithm studied people with similar qualities, like the fact theywere active on social media and willing to submit information on their mental health, making it difficult to know if it could be applied to the average user.

Chris Danforth

Images with darker hues are more likely to be shared by those suffering depression.

Study author and University of VermontComputational Story Lab co-director Chris Danforth told The Huffington Post:"It shows some promise to the idea that you might be able to build a tool like this to get individuals help sooner".

"The end goal of this would be creating something that monitors a person's voice, how they're moving around and what their social network looks like all the stuff we already reveal to our phones," he said.

"Then that could give doctors a ping to check in or at least some insight. Because maybe there's something going on that even the individual doesn't recognise about their behaviour."

Where to get help:

Lifeline (open 24/7) 0800 543 354

Depression Helpline (open 24/7) 0800 111 757

Kidsline (open 24/7) 0800 543 754. This service is for children aged 5 to 18. Those who ring between 4pm and 9pm on weekdays will speak to a Kidsline buddy. These are specially trained teenage telephone counsellors.

-Stuff

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How Instagram posts reveal whether you have depression: study - Stuff.co.nz

Lonely Planet launches an Instagram-like Trips app – TechCrunch

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Lonely Planet has a new app for travel enthusiasts. Called Trips, the app uses an Instagram-like design populated with beautiful images of far away places.

Much like Lonely Planets website, the idea behind Trips is to offer travelers an easy way to share their experiences and discover new areas of the world this time on their smartphones.

However, Instagram already has a healthy amount of travel enthusiasts uploading photos of fantastic places for viewers to check out on a daily basis. National Geographic, a personal favorite, is one of the most popular on the platform, with a following of nearly 80 million. Lonely Planet, by comparison, has about 1.4 million followers on the platform.

Like Instagram, you can heart, share and follow profiles on Trips, as well. But Lonely Planets Daniel Houghton says the intention is not to compete with the social media giant, but to complement it.

Lonely Planet is an O.G. travel site and has its own loyal niche of travel enthusiasts. Perhaps an app focusing precisely on their passion will be well received.

Trips is Lonely Planets second app. The online destinations site launched its first app Guides last year, which provides tips and advice from on-the-ground experts. More than one million people have since downloaded Guides. Lonely Planet hopes Trips will be met with the same success.

So why not just roll Trips features into Guides and make one app? Houghton tells TechCrunchGuides is more of a tool, whereas Trips is geared for sharing content.

The app is pretty easy to use; just download, select profiles that suit your interest and scroll through the feed. From there you can pick from a number of the populated stories, many of which will come with maps, photos and some information on tours and things you might want to check out. I was personally checking out Rainbow Mountain in Peru posted about a day ago while scrolling through the app.

You also can hit the discover icon at the bottom of the app, to the right of the home icon, to search for categories like Adventure or Wildlife and Nature. From there it will lead you to a feed similar to the home feed but with certain trips in mind.

Its pretty easy to publish your own trips, as well. Like Instagram, you just hit the plus-sign icon at the bottom of the screen. The app will require access to your phone camera and then youll be able to add your photos. The app will automatically populate a map of the area and allow you to add content and more info about your trip from there.

The one thing I would say Trips lacks is a search tool. Its fine to scroll through the places the app provides in the feed, but its difficult to look up specific places you are thinking of visiting. If you are like me, youll want the ability to look up a place before planning your trip to see what others have to say about it and look at the photos they took.

For those interested in checking it out yourself, Tripsis now available for free oniOSand will be available on Android later this year.

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Lonely Planet launches an Instagram-like Trips app - TechCrunch

Our brains as hard drives could we delete, modify or add memories and skills? – Genetic Literacy Project

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Earlier this year marked the25th anniversary of the airing of The Inner Light, an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation that focused on the brain and the adaptability of the human mind. It may be time to add it to the expanding list offuturistic developments forecast by the iconic television series.

Indeed, our growing understanding of how memories are formed is pushing us toward a day when well be able to scrub disturbing memories from our minds, or even replace them with experiences and skills that would normally take years to learn.

The television episode deals with what happens after the USS Enterprise encounters an alien probe in deep space, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) finds himself on a planet with a humanoid civilizationknown to have gone extinct 1,000 years earlier. The starship commander spends some six decades in his new environment, gradually embracing his new life. He becomes a community leader, a father and grandfather, and a virtuoso on the native flute. Over time, he mourns the death of a close friend and then his wife. He also copes with the reality that the planets changing climate will deny his grandchildren a full life. None of this, however, is real.

After seeing a space probe launch the very probe that the Enterprise encountered in space Picard wakes up on the Enterprise bridge. What felt like 60 years in Picards mind actually transpired over the course of just 25 minutes, during which he appeared to be in coma. The probe was carrying a rather uniquemessage it consisted of the experience of being part of the dying civilization.

Neural interface technology had packed 60 years-worth of experiences into Picards brain, and not just images of people and events. Inside the probe was a Kataanian flute, and Picard was able to play it with the expertise that he had developed in his simulated life. Imagine getting an upload of a new talent or skill into your brain as easily as uploading a computer file.

Could we develop a similar capability? That may depend heavily upona handful of ambitious attempts at brain-computer interfacing. But science is moving in baby steps with other tactics in both laboratory animals and humans.

Thus far, there have beensome notable achievementsin rodent experiments, that havent doen so well withhumans. We dont have a beam that can go into your mind and give you 60 years worth of new experiences. Nevertheless, the emerging picture is that the physical basis of memory is understandable to the point that we should be able to intervene both in producing and eliminating specific memories.

At MITsCenter for Neural Circuit Genetics, for example, scientists have modified memories in mice using an optogenetic interface. This technology involves genetic modification of tissues, in this case within the brain, to express proteins that respond to light. Triggered by implants that deliver laser beams, brain cells can be triggered to be more or less active. In research that has been published in the prestigious journal Nature, the MIT team used the approach in specific brain circuits important to memory consolidation. The researchers wereable to enhance the development of negative memories for instance a shock given to an animals leg and also to covert those negative memories into positive memories. The latter was achieved by letting male mice enjoy some time with females, while nerve cells that usually deliver the negative impulses associated with the former shock were stimulated through the optogenetic interface.

In humans, work with memory modification has involved N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, which function like little doors for positive ions to move through the membranes that surround neurons. NMDA receptors are affected by glutamate, a neurotransmitter whose effect on the NMDA receptors is enhanced by an antiobiotic called D-cycloserine (DCS). When this happens in an area of the brain called the amygdala, memory consolidation (the stabilization of newly developing memories) is strengthened. Researchers have thus found that DCS can increase effectiveness of whats called exposure therapy, if given within a few hours before commencement of each therapy session. Used to treat anxiety disorders, exposure therapy involves the intentional exposure ofpatientsto the thing that provokes their anxiety. If you fear snakes, for example, the therapist will will show you a snake, from a distance at first. Eventually, you will be asked to hold the snake. The implication of the research is that DCS improves the learning that removes the anxiety in exposure therapy, which also should have implications for other therapies that work based on learning and formation of new memories and associations

Theoretically, [DCS should] facilitate learning processes, so if you can use it to facilitate extinction learning, thats got fantastic clinical implications, noted Mark Bouton, PhD, a University of Vermont professor of psychology was quoted in a review from the American Psychological Association.

But using drugs like DCS could be really tricky, requiring precise adherence to very specific timing and dosage that could vary significantly depending on the clinical setting and even between patients. A 2012study, for example, on patients with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) found that DCS actually made things worse.

The same is true when researchers try to exert the opposite effect on memory by way of the NMDA receptors, namely blunt memory consolidation. The agent under study in this case is xenon gas, an anesthetic used in humans. When given to laboratory animals within an hour after after a traumatic event, xenon blocks the memory consolidation that can lead to long-term trauma equivalent to PTSD in humans. Exercise and nutritional factors also play roles in blocking the processes that make psychological trauma worse.

So what we have here is an immature, but real, tool bag of agents that can help and inhibit formation of long-term memory. But it is very incomplete and must work in concert with outside factors includingpsychotherapy or the experiences of ones life. Still, given the rapid development of virtual reality technology its not hard to see thatsupplying theouter stimuli we may very well be toward a time when were able to manage the brains memories.

David Warmflash is an astrobiologist, physician and science writer. BIO. Follow him on Twitter @CosmicEvolution.

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Our brains as hard drives could we delete, modify or add memories and skills? - Genetic Literacy Project

InsurTech Futures: App designed to notify brokers of motor accidents – Insurance Age

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The designers say the app has been developed toimprove information gathering after an accident and speed up any subsequent claim.

UK software company Lightstone Systems has launched a new app that sends the details of a drivers motor accident directly to their broker in real time.

Called Mercury Incident Reporter, the app delivers information such as damage to vehicles, injuries, persons involved, witnesses and police attendance coupled with notes, photographs and video recordings direct to thebroker.

The information is stored on a cloud-based dashboard platform calledAurora.

According to the makers, to help and provide guidance to motorists at the time of an incident the app includes an automatic vehicle registration number lookup tool, address lookup, incident location pinpointing, uploading of dash-cam video and roadside recovery telephone number.

Easy Road traffic incidents can be stressful, often involving emergency services, witnesses and third parties, said Andrew Ayres, development lead at Lightstone.

With this in mind, we designed the Mercury app to be very easy to use, allowing the driver to gather quality data in whatever order is most convenient at the time. Weve also automated input wherever possible, to minimise the time and effort needed to collect data.

According to the firm, the appimproves information gathering, speeds up any subsequent claim and provides a powerful compliance tool for fleet customers.

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InsurTech Futures: App designed to notify brokers of motor accidents - Insurance Age