Saturday, December 05, 2009

Bess Lomax Hawes, Musical Folklorist, Dies : NPR

Bess Lomax Hawes, Musical Folklorist, Dies

by David Gura

Enlarge Lisa Berg/National Endowment for the Arts

Bess Lomax Hawes sought to preserve folk arts as a musician, a teacher and an administrator.

Lisa Berg/National Endowment for the Arts

Bess Lomax Hawes sought to preserve folk arts as a musician, a teacher and an administrator.

December 5, 2009 - Bess Lomax Hawes, a folklorist, musician and teacher, has died. In the 1970s, as the head of the folk arts program at the National Endowment for the Arts, she increased federal funding for traditional music and folk arts across the United States.

Hawes was part of a folk dynasty. Her father, John Lomax, traveled across the American South, collecting traditional music. Her brother, Alan Lomax, made thousands of recordings in the United States and abroad.

Folklore was the Lomax family business, and Hawes followed in their footsteps. But she did not live in their shadow, according to Bill Ivey, who worked with Hawes at the NEA.

"Despite their importance, I think in some ways, Bess may be the most influential of all the Lomaxes," Ivey says.

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Sichuan, China

Notice the people walking on the roadway. Notice the number of cars. Now count the number of buildings.

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Friday, December 04, 2009

If On A Winter's Night....

Excellent album - Merry Christmas from Sting.

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Baloney Detection

At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly
contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre
or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny
of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep
nonsense. Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the
world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism: The collective
enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the
field on track.
-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"

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Thursday, December 03, 2009

Apology in advance...

Greenpeace

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Researchers demonstrate a better way for computers to 'see'

Combining screening techniques from molecular biology with high-performance gaming hardware advances the building and understanding of visual systems

Cambridge, Mass–December 1, 2009–Taking inspiration from genetic screening techniques, researchers from Harvard and MIT have demonstrated a way to build better artificial visual systems with the help of low-cost, high-performance gaming hardware.

The neural processing involved in visually recognizing even the simplest object in a natural environment is profound—and profoundly difficult to mimic. Neuroscientists have made broad advances in understanding the visual system, but much of the inner workings of biologically-based systems remain a mystery.

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Geek Gang Signs

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Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Some of the gestures cannot be disclosed...

Experts: Man controlled robotic hand with thoughts

By ARIEL DAVID (AP) – 1 hour ago

ROME — A robotic hand has been successfully connected to an amputee, allowing him to feel sensations in the artificial limb and control it with his thoughts, a group of European scientists said Wednesday.

The experiment lasted a month, and the scientists say it was the first time a patient has been able to make complex movements using his mind to control a biomechanic hand connected to his nervous system.

The Italian-led team said at a news conference Wednesday in Rome that last year it implanted electrodes into the arm of the patient who had lost his left hand and forearm in a car accident.

The prosthetic was not implanted on the patient, only connected through the electrodes. During the news conference, video was shown of 26-year-old Pierpaolo Petruzziello as he concentrated to give orders to the hand placed next to him.

"It's a matter of mind, of concentration," Petruzziello said. "When you think of it as your hand and forearm, it all becomes easier."

During the month he had the electrodes connected, Petruzziello learned to wiggle the robotic fingers independently, make a fist, grab objects and make other movements.

"Some of the gestures cannot be disclosed because they were quite vulgar," joked Paolo Maria Rossini, a neurologist who led the team working at Rome's "Campus Bio-Medico," a university and hospital that specialize in health sciences.

The euro2 million ($3 million) project, funded by the European Union, took five years to complete and produced several scientific papers that have been published or are being submitted to top journals, including Science Translational Medicine and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Rossini said.

Experts not involved in the study told The Associated Press the experiment was an important step forward in creating an interface between the nervous system and prosthetic limbs, but the challenge now is ensuring that such a system can remain in the patient for years and not just a month.

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A Microbot Shows off its Soccer Skills

A machine no bigger than a fruit fly's eye successfully scores a goal.

By Kristina Grifantini

Tiny "robots" that could perhaps someday help doctors examine organs, deliver drugs directly, or even perform microsurgery. But first researchers need to find reliable and accurate ways to control microscopic devices, which of course have little room for onboard power, sensors or propulsion.

Scientists have previously used methods including magnetic and electrostatic forces, and attaching live bacteria. In the latest issue of the International Journal of Robotics Research, researchers from ETH Zurich demonstrate particularly deft control of a microbot, dubbed MagMite.

MagMite, pictured above, is 300 micrometers by 300 micrometers (with a thickness of 70 micrometers). It consists of two magnetized components, connected by a tiny spring. In the presence of a magnetic field, the two pieces try to bend toward each other, storing that tension in the connecting spring. By turning the magnetic field on and off very quickly, the researchers can use the loaded spring to propel the microbot forward, and by changing the direction of the magnetic field the microbot will turn.

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