University of Washington electrical engineers have developed a way to automatically track people across moving and still cameras by using an algorithm that trains the networked cameras to learn one another’s differences.
Imagine being fortunate enough to get to study historical art up close, examining the details of every paint stroke applied to the canvases to gain knowledge about artists’ preferred materials and techniques. Then add a team of art scholars and scientists who can provide historical details or even help you to “see” beneath the painting to reveal anything hidden or painted over on its canvas and you will have a sense of the rich collaborations that some museum professionals enjoy every day.
Conservation science is helping make big decisions about preservation methods to protect and save unique and historic U.S. government records—including the iconic and priceless Declaration of Independence—for future generations. During the AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition, Jennifer Herrmann, a research chemist and conservation scientist for the National Archives and Records Administration, will describe the role science plays in the preservation of the nation's documents.
Geologist Timothy Rose of the Smithsonian Institution’s Analytical Laboratories is accustomed to putting his lab’s high-tech nanoscale scanning electron microscope (nanoSEM) to work evaluating the mineral composition of rocks and meteorites. Lately, though, the nanoSEM has been enlisted for a different kind of task: determining the authenticity of ancient Mesoamerican artifacts.
A team of University of Maryland researchers is growing vertically aligned “forests” of carbon nanotubes on three-dimensional (3-D) conductive substrates to explore their potential use as a cathode in next-gen lithium batteries.
New technology allows you to print electronic devices in the same way your inkjet printer prints a document or photo. Now researchers at Palo Alto Research Center have used this technique to build a portable X-ray imager and small mechanical devices.
UAB researchers identify problems with secure voice communication over the Internet.
A recently awarded grant will fund a human clinical trial in type 1 diabetes beginning in early 2015 to see if verapamil will have an effect in humans by attacking the disease where it occurs. Meanwhile, more small molecule drugs at UAB are in development.
The soundtrack to a wild rhinoceros’s life is wind passing through the savannah grass, birds chirping and distant animals moving across the plains. But a rhinoceros in a zoo listens to children screaming, cars passing and the persistent hum of urban life. A group of researchers from Texas believes that this discrepancy in soundscape may be contributing to rhinos’ difficulties thriving and reproducing in captivity.
A group of North Carolina State University researchers is exploring novel ways to apply semiconductor industry processes to unique substrates to "weave together" multifunctional materials with distinct capabilities. During the AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition, they will describe how they were able to "weave" high-strength, highly conductive yarns made of tungsten on Kevlar -- aka body armor material -- by using atomic layer deposition, a process commonly used for producing memory and logic devices.
Britain’s nuclear reactors, stainless steel drums, contain metal-clad spent uranium embedded in concrete, and they are highly radioactive. The only way to handle them safely is from behind 2-to-3-meter-thick concrete walls and leaded glass windows using automated equipment. Yet a very small number of these drums have begun to bulge after many years in storage, raising questions about what is happening within. The only way to know for sure is to sneak a peek inside.
A program that analyzes your speech and uses it to gain information about your mental health could soon be feasible, thanks in part to research from the University of Maryland showing that certain vocal features change as patients’ feelings of depression worsen.
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a way to use sound to create cellular scaffolding for tissue engineering, a unique approach that could help overcome one of regenerative medicine’s significant obstacles.
Unable to fly, nestling birds depend on their parents for both food and protection: vocal communication between parents and offspring helps young birds to determine when they should beg for food and when they should crouch in the nest to avoid a predator seeking an easy meal. A group of researchers has found that ambient, anthropomorphic noise – from traffic, construction and other human activities – can break this vital communications link, leaving nestlings vulnerable or hungry.
When listening to the Earth, what clues can seismic data reveal about the impact of urban life? Although naturally occurring vibrations have proven useful to seismologists, until now the vibrations caused by humans haven’t been explored in any real depth. Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers Nima Riahi and Peter Gerstoft will describe their efforts to tap into an urban seismic network to monitor the traffic of trains, planes, automobiles and other modes of human transport.
When a right-wing Italian politician named Umberto Bossi suffered a severe stroke in 2004, his speech became permanently impaired. Strangely, this change impacted Bossi’s perception among his party’s followers -- from appearing authoritarian to benevolent. Now researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles think they know why.
Is it possible that hearing loss in one infant from a pair of twins can affect the mother’s speech to both infants? A new acoustics study zeroes in on this question and suggests that not only is this alteration of speech entirely possible, but that mothers speak to both infants as if they are hearing impaired.
Ant nests can offer a lot to organisms other than just ants. They are well-protected, environmentally-stable and resource-rich spaces -- in many ways everything a tiny creature could ask for in a home. For the insects that squat inside ant nests, though, survival means finding ways to live with the ants -- by foiling the chemical cues ants use to distinguish friend from foe, for instance.
In the future, computers may be capable of talking to us during meetings just like a remote teleconference participant. But to help move this science-fiction-sounding goal a step closer to reality, it’s first necessary to teach computers to recognize not only the words we use but also the myriad meanings, subtleties and attitudes they can convey.
Some of mankind’s earliest and most mysterious artistic achievements—including prehistoric cave paintings, canyon petroglyphs and megalithic structures such as Stonehenge—may have been inspired by the behaviors of sound waves being misinterpreted as “supernatural.”
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