Web Concepts

Archive for the ‘IBM’ Category

Using atomic force microscopy, researchers in Scotland and Switzerland were able to see the molecular structure of a marine compound recovered from the Mariana Trench, whose chemical composition was unknown. And it took only a week to figure it out.

Previously, molecular imaging has relied on indirect methods like X-ray crystallography, which bounces X-rays off a molecule, or nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, which examines how the atoms of a molecule absorb radio waves. But the new technique is akin to taking a snapshot or blueprint of the molecule.

Ultimately, the scientists realized they were looking at a compound that had already been isolated from a Taiwanese orchid.

Chemical compounds from the ocean could lead to new drug therapies -- painkillers synthesized from sea-snail spit, for instance. But researchers have to find new chemical compounds first, and then they have to understand what they’re looking at.

In the new study, reported in Nature Chemistry, researchers at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland examined a bacterium taken from a Mariana Trench mud sample. The bacterium, Dermacoccus abyssi, is pressure-tolerant enough to live at 35,814 feet beneath the sea surface, and it produces a chemical compound that the scientists couldn’t recognize.

They used high-resolution mass spectrometry to figure out what was in the compound, but they still could not figure out its structure. The only choice would be to take a chemical synthesis of the proposed structures, but that is complicated and can take several months. That’s where IBM stepped in.

IBM scientists used a technique called noncontact atomic force microscopy to take images of individual molecules at the atomic scale. Along with some density calculations, they determined the strange chemical was actually cephalandole A, which is already a candidate for new types of drugs, Nature News reports.

Leo Gross, who led the IBM research team in Zurich, says his technique can speed up the process of identifying exotic chemical compounds from Earth’s extreme regions.

Last year, Gross’ team showed they could make highly sensitive AFM instruments that can take close-ups of a small organic molecule for the first time.

Nature News points out that the technique is not perfect -- some scientists wonder if the measuring method itself, which involves placing the molecule on a salt crystal, might interrupt the molecule’s structure. If you don’t know the shape to begin with, you can’t know whether the salt affects the shape.

But combined with indirect methods, it could help researchers quickly identify new compounds, which could speed up the process of producing new drugs, IBM says.

IBM Research Zurich, Nature News

The billboards they are developing rely on the RFID chips that are increasingly being built into credit cards and cell phones as a means of storing data that is accessible by contact-free sensors (like the "touch pay" feature on some credit and debit cards that doesn't require the user to swipe). A sensor on the billboard picks up on that RFID signal as the cardholder passes by, tapping information like name, age, gender, shopping habits, and personal preferences.

From there, the billboard could display an ad that is customized particularly for that person, ostensibly even calling his or her attention to it by name. It's all very Minority Report (remember when Tom Cruise passes that billboard that shouts, "John Anderton. You could use a Guinness right about now"?), but it will likely draw the ire of privacy groups who will view it as an unsolicited extraction of personal data.

Because it is. But IBM and advertising groups view it as a way to make advertising more relevant to the user, thus making consumers' lives easier and more efficient as they would no longer be bombarded by advertising that doesn't apply to them.

[Telegraph]

A significant stride towards reverse-engineering the darn thing

Focusing on a long-distance network connecting 383 brain regions and 6,602 long-distance connections that function like highways to connect disparate regions of the brain. Shorter, more localized connections were found to carry signals within regions.

But most importantly, they found what they describe in a paper published in PNAS as a "tightly integrated core" that might be they key to cognition in higher-thinking biological creatures. That core might be what gives us consciousness (we won't get into the philosophical implications there). Further, the core isn't located in one, or even two regions. The researchers found it stretches through the premotor cortex, prefrontal cortex, temporal lobe, thalamus, visual cortex and a handful of other regions.

Another surprising find: the prefrontal cortex, though at the front of the brain, might actually serve as its central information hub that distributes information throughout the brain.

The study included mapping of four times as many regions and three times the number of connections than the largest previous attempt. Those findings could finally help researchers mimic the brain -- which, even in this seemingly advanced era, is something of a mystery to us. That in turn could lead to network architecture and computer chips that process and move information as quickly and seamlessly as our brains do.

[Kurzweil AI]

As PopSci reported last year, Watson was designed to decipher Alex Trebek's riddles, tolerate his pronunciation of French words, evaluate its confidence about possible solutions and ring in with an answer -- all within seconds. Now you can beat it at its own game.

IBM scientists started practicing with Watson last winter, and the computer won several matches against frustrated humans, as the New York Times Magazine reports.

Watson evolved out of IBM's DeepQA research on natural-language processing, a means of digitally parsing the information in human communication. The computer is intended to be the world's most advanced "question answering" machine, able to understand a question posed in everyday human language and respond with a precise, factual answer.

Operating at petaflops of parallel processing power, Watson thumbs through its databases, which include scanned textbooks, to come up with the best answers.

Watson is apparently scheduled to make a Jeopardy appearance this fall, but you can make yourself feel smarter (or dumber) today, thanks to the Times' little preview.

[New York Times]

The DOT is interested in rolling out vehicle-to-vehicle technology (known as IntelliDrive) that networks cars and roadways together in a way that they can share information on everything from impending bottlenecks to abrupt lane changes. DOT thinks 76 percent of accidents among the unimpaired could be prevented with such technology in place.

The IBM rollout will not go quite that far, but the DOT sees it as a step in the right direction. At both the state and local level, IBM plans to install road sensors and implement predictive analytics that won't just monitor traffic in real time but actually project future traffic patterns up to an hour in advance.

For its part, IBM is trying to build on successes overseas and convince officials that its telematics know-how should be implemented nationwide. Finnish officials have praised IBM's traffic analytics as both time- and money-saving, and IBM would certainly relish the government contracts that might accompany a successful test drive in Texas.

For drivers across the country, the stakes are equally high. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood and President Obama are both committed to implementing IntelliDrive technology that would wire our roadways for the 21st century. If IBM succeeds in reducing congestion, pollution, and commute times with its proof-of-concept pilot programs in car-crazy Texas, more U.S. cities and states will likely see similar programs in coming years.

[CNET]

OK, mayor, 40 percent of your water supply is leaking out ... what do you do?

The company unveiled its "serious game" this week at the IMPACT 2010 conference in Las Vegas, as a training tool for city leaders and planners. The free game would require players to guide their city through sector-specific missions focused on energy, water, banking, and retail.

One mission involves the water usage increasing at twice the population growth. The city is also losing as much as 40 percent of its water supply through leaky infrastructure, and energy costs are rising. Players would need to put a water management system in place that draws on "accurate real-time data" to make their decisions.

IBM pointed to expert predictions that the world's urban populations will double by 2050, with an estimated one million people moving into cities each week. Today's cities already consume 75 percent of the world's energy, emit more than 80 percent of greenhouse gases, and lose as much as 20 percent of their precious water because of infrastructure leaks.

Simulations are already used as tools for real-world planning among financial analysts and the U.S. military. But games such as CityOne could represent a stepping stone to the far more ambitious projects such as Europe's proposed Living Earth Simulator, which would incorporate reams of real-time data about the world.

Either way, we're just waiting for the Hollywood story where the young genius with knack for urban planning suddenly realizes that he's been "playing" not just a game, but real life all along.

A system of tiny capillary-like micro-channels feeds the water through the IBM blade servers. Even better, some of the collected heat from the water will end up being released into the building heating system at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. IBM teamed up with the university to develop Aquasar, which is set to debut next month.

The first trial run would just use a small computer, and create less than one percent of building heating, but later tests with larger server arrays could warm several buildings, or even create energy for sale. The micro-channeled system costs more than typical air cooling up front, but IBM expects to recoup costs after a year or so.

Such water cooling has already seen use in some server farms, except they used room-temperature water that did not provide the secondary benefit of building heating. A UK company has also come out with its own chilling system, involving liquid cooling bags.

[via TechNewsDaily]