Millions of people worldwide suffer from diseases that lead to paralysis through disruption of signal pathways between the brain and the muscles. Neuroprosthetic devices are designed to restore lost function and could be used to form an electronic ‘neural bypass’ to circumvent disconnected pathways in the nervous system. It has previously been shown that intracortically recorded signals can be decoded to extract information related...
Tag Archives: human
X-ray structures and mechanism of the human serotonin transporter
The serotonin transporter (SERT) terminates serotonergic signalling through the sodium- and chloride-dependent reuptake of neurotransmitter into presynaptic neurons. SERT is a target for antidepressant and psychostimulant drugs, which block reuptake and prolong neurotransmitter signalling. Here we report X-ray crystallographic structures of human SERT at 3.15 Å resolution bound to the antidepressants (S)-citalopram or paroxetine. Antidepressants lock SERT in an outward-open conformation by lodging in the...
Scientists say supernovae spread fallout when human ancestors walked the earth
Researchers say they’ve found evidence of supernova explosions that spewed radioactive fallout over Earth during the age when humanity’s ancestors were...
Ritual human sacrifice promoted and sustained the evolution of stratified societies
Evidence for human sacrifice is found throughout the archaeological record of early civilizations, the ethnographic records of indigenous world cultures, and the texts of the most prolific contemporary religions. According to the social control hypothesis, human sacrifice legitimizes political authority and social class systems, functioning to stabilize such social stratification. Support for the social control hypothesis is largely limited to historical anecdotes of human sacrifice,...
Most Americans expect robots to take over human work, but few think their jobs are in jeopardy
Humanity is sitting on the cusp of an artificial intelligence boom, as the technology transitions from rare and experimental to ubiquitous and standard.
Society is grappling with what it means for AI to creep slowly into the...
Human outsmarts AI: AlphaGo program loses a game to Go champion Lee Sedol
Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo AI program may have won the...
Co-ordinated ocular development from human iPS cells and recovery of corneal function
The eye is a complex organ with highly specialized constituent tissues derived from different primordial cell lineages. The retina, for example, develops from neuroectoderm via the optic vesicle, the corneal epithelium is descended from surface ectoderm, while the iris and collagen-rich stroma of the cornea have a neural crest origin. Recent work with pluripotent stem cells in culture has revealed a previously under-appreciated level...
GeekWire Radio: Robert Scoble on augmented reality, Amazon, and how technology is changing what it means to be human
In three years, everyone will be wearing virtual reality goggles and watching drone racing, wearing virtual makeup and commuting to work in a self-driving car. This was...
Startup Spotlight: Jodone combines human intellect with robots to solve automation problems
When robots and humans work together, good things happen.
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UW researchers’ robot hand comes creepily close to human functionality
You’ve got to hand it to the roboticists at the University of Washington: They’ve built a robotic hand modeled so closely on human...