undefined

As counter-intuitive as it may sound, a baby has been born that has the DNA of three separate people. While we’re quite familiar with the traditional combination of genetic material from two reproductive cells — ovum and sperm — this combination came from the DNA of the baby’s mother, father, and a separate egg donor.

This new procedure was employed because the baby’s mother carries the gene for Leigh syndrome, a neurological disorder that can be fatal to the infant within a few years after birth. Two previous children born to this individual succumbed to the disease, prompting her to seek help in avoiding passing the deadly gene on to yet another child.
read more

The computer industry has been facing an existential problem for a number of years now: because of the physical and quantum limitations of silicon dioxide, the speed of a silicon-based computer processor can only pushed so far before it melts. To get around this, the industry has resorted to packing more processors into individual devices, hoping that the additional processing power will make up for the lack of an increase in speeds, but this method can also only be pushed so far. Researchers are working on new technologies in the hopes of replacing silicon altogether, with optical and quantum-based processors being developed. And conversely, at least one tech startup is using a very old technology in their bid to push beyond the silicon wall.
read more

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a device that can directly image a person through solid walls, in real time. The device, called RF-Capture, transmits regular wi-fi signals into the area being imaged: in the case of their demonstration device, through a wall. When the signals are reflected back by a human body, they are picked up by the device’s receiver, and then they are put through an imaging processor to produce an on-screen image of the individual.
read more

The majority of us take the "Three Rs" of education for granted, but within the field of artificial intelligence, computers have only shown an aptitude for ‘Rithmetic, something they were specifically designed to do to begin with. Conversely, Reading and ‘Riting have proven to be a difficult hurdle for AI researchers to overcome, as the sheer complexity of how the human brain recognizes, interprets and reproduces handwritten text is still largely a mystery. However, a team of researchers have developed a way to teach a computer how to both read and write, and to do so as quickly and efficiently as a human.
read more