Faces from Ancient Egypt Coming Back to Life in Extraordinary Detail

Researchers at the U.K.’s Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) and Egypt’s Cairo University (CU) used software and a «reverse aging» process to replicate ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II’s face. CU’s Sahar Saleem used a computed tomography (CT) scanner to produce a three-dimensional model of Ramesses’ head and skull, which formed the basis of the facial reconstruction. LJMU’s Caroline Wilkinson said, «We have tested our methods using CT [scans] from living donors and we have evaluated the facial reconstruction using geometric comparison that shows approximately 70% [of the] surface of the facial reconstruction with less than 2 millimeters of error.» Wilkinson said ancient Egyptian mummies also preserve features like ear shape, creases, or hair pattern, which «should increase the level of accuracy [of the reconstruction].»

More info here: Newsweek, Pandora Dewan

Ukraine’s Wounded Soldiers to Get Bionic Arms

U.K. technology company Open Bionics plans to fit two Ukrainian soldiers with three-dimensionally-printed bionic prostheses to replace hands lost to explosive injuries. In addition to providing custom-made Hero Arms to soldiers Andrii Gidzun and Vitalii Ivashchuk next month, the Open Bionics team has provided clinical training to three Ukrainian doctors. Open Bionics’ Joel Gibbard explained the company designed the robotic hand, which can grasp objects with movable digits, using sensors triggered by muscles in the wearer’s forearm «for activities of daily living. We’re aiming for it to be able to hold objects of different sizes, to pick things up, hold a cup of coffee, tie shoelaces, brush teeth — these are the kind of things that we focused on in the design.»

More info here: London Daily Express (U.K.), Jacob Paul

Inventor of World Wide Web Wants Us to Reclaim our Data from Tech Giants

World Wide Web inventor and 2016 ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient Tim Berners-Lee founded the startup Inrupt with John Bruce to help users reclaim their personal data. The company’s Personal Online Data Store (Solid Pod) allows people to store their data in one location and govern its access, rather than have it stored by applications and websites across the Web. Users can obtain Pods from certain providers, hosted by Web services like Amazon, or operate their own server. Bruce says this setup protects user data from corporations and governments, while also reducing the chances of hacker theft. Said Berners-Lee, «I think what [users are] missing sometimes is the lack of empowerment. You need to get back to a situation where you have autonomy, you have control of all your data.»

More info here: CNN, Daniel Renjifo

‘Snakes’ on the Moon? These Helpers Could Soon Join Our Lunar Mission

Engineering teams from several U.S. universities took part in a NASA competition to build robots able to navigate the Moon’s difficult terrain. The winning robot, Northeastern University’s Crater Observing Bio-inspired Rolling Articulator (COBRA), incorporates 13 mini-bots attached in a snakelike chain, which can slither and sidewind like a snake, transform into a hexagon to tumble downslope, and curl into a spiral to navigate unlevel terrain. Other designs in the competition included a six-legged bot from Arizona State University capable of scaling steep slopes, a four-legged bot from Florida State University able to race across rocks and swim through water, and reconfigurable robots developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers. California Institute of Technology researchers built a robotic gondola system, and University of Maryland researchers built a bot that navigates using legs and wheels.

More info here: National Geographic, Alejandra Borunda

ML Facilitates ‘Turbulence Tracking’ in Fusion Reactors

A multi-institutional team of scientists used computer vision models to track turbulent filaments or «blobs» appearing on the fringe of fuel used in nuclear fusion reactors. The researchers trained four blob-tracking computer vision models on a synthetic video dataset of plasma turbulence, which were able to identify such blobs in actual video clips with more than 80% accuracy in some instances, as well as estimating the blobs’ sizes and motion. Said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Theodore Golfinopoulos. «Now, we have a microscope and the computational power to analyze one event at a time. If we take a step back, what this reveals is the power available from these machine learning techniques, and ways to use these computational resources to make progress.»

More info here: MIT News, Adam Zewe

Innovative Shins Turn Quadrupedal Robot Biped

Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and China’s ShanghaiTech University demonstrated than an off-the-shelf quadruped robot can be transformed into a biped through the use of software and mechanical modifications. Installing a three-dimensionally printed stick on the shins of a quadruped robot’s hind legs provide it sufficient support for standing and walking. After that, WPI’s Andre Rosendo said, «We trained the robot in a simulated environment, and the walking gait, after being transferred to the real world, is stable, albeit slow.” Rosendo explained that bipedal robots “usually have more degrees of freedom in their legs to allow a more dynamic and adaptive locomotion, but in our case, we are focusing on the multimodal aspect to reap the benefits from two worlds: stability and speed from quadrupeds, manipulability, and a gain in operational height from bipeds.»

More info here: IEEE Spectrum, Evan Ackerman

AI, Molecule Machine Generalize Automated Chemistry

An international team led by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) researchers combined artificial intelligence (AI) and a molecule-generating machine to optimize conditions for automated chemistry. The integration yields real-time feedback to a machine learning system to improve chemical synthesis. The researchers doubled the average yield of heteroaryl Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reactions linking carbon atoms together in pharmaceutically critical molecules. UIUC’s Martin D. Burke said generality is crucial for automation, while «the haystack of possible reaction conditions is astronomical, and the needle is hidden somewhere inside. By leveraging the power of AI and building-block chemistry to create a feedback loop, we were able to shrink the haystack. And we found the needle.»

More info here: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign News Bureau, Liz Ahlberg

Europe Prepares to Rewrite Internet Rules

This week’s enactment of the European Union (EU)’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) is expected to force big technology platforms to become more transparent and interoperable next year. The DMA mandates that dominant platforms must admit smaller competitors, so it could push Meta’s WhatsApp to receive messages from rival applications, or prevent big tech platforms from favoring their own apps and services. The EU must decide which companies are sufficiently large and entrenched to be considered «gatekeepers» that must comply with the strictest rules. EU official Gerard de Graaf says tougher rules for tech giants are necessary to shield people and businesses from unfair practices, as well as to provide society with the full benefits of technology.

More info here: Ars Technica, Khari Johnson

Rethinking the Computer Chip in the Age of AI

A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), Sandia National Laboratories, and Brookhaven National Laboratory has unveiled a computing architecture suited for artificial intelligence (AI). The researchers developed a transistor-free compute-in-memory (CIM) architecture where processing and storage happen in the same place, removing transfer time and minimizing energy consumption. The architecture, which builds on earlier work on a ferroelectric switching scandium-alloyed aluminum nitride semiconductor, could potentially perform up to 100 times faster than a conventional computing architecture. The design also performs on-chip storage, parallel search, and matrix multiplication acceleration. Penn’s Xiwen Liu said the work «proves that we can rely on memory technology to develop chips that integrate multiple AI data applications in a way that truly challenges conventional computing technologies.»

More info here: Penn Engineering Today, Devorah Fischler

Leading Makers Pledge Not to Weaponize Their Robots

Six major robot manufacturers have signed a letter promising not to weaponize their products. Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, ANYbotics, Clearpath Robotics, Open Robotics, and Unitree pledged against weaponizing their «advanced-mobility general-purpose robots» or their underlying software, while also vowing to ensure their customers do not weaponize them either. The companies also said they do not oppose «existing technologies» used by governments to «defend themselves and uphold their laws.» Boston Dynamics says police and fire departments are using the company’s canine-like robot Spot to assess hazardous situations, but the firm notes Spot is not designed for surveillance or as a substitute for police officers.

More info here: NPR, Joe Hernandez