Neuroscientists figure out how to wipe individual memories from the brain — of a snail

Why it matters to you

Research on selectively wiping snails’ memories could make it possible to develop drugs that can delete traumatic memories, without negatively impacting memories of other past events.

“It’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but with snails” sounds like a desperate Friday afternoon pitch meeting at Pixar, where everyone’s a bit tired and just wants to get home for the weekend.

In fact, it describes actual work being carried out by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center and Montreal’s McGill University.

For those who haven’t seen it, Eternal Sunshine tells the story of an estranged couple who use mind-wiping technology to have their memories of one another erased after they’ve broken up. Similarly — albeit without the relationship part — Columbia and McGill researchers have figured out how to selectively wipe some memories belonging to a certain type of marine snail, while leaving others intact.

They believe the research could make it possible to one day develop drugs that can “delete” certain traumatic memories without negatively impacting memories of other past events.

To carry out their targeted memory erasure, the researchers blocked certain molecules associated with an enzyme called Protein Kinase M (PKM), which is a crucial part of retaining long-term memories. Their work is described in a paper published in the journal Current Biology.

While it’s so far only been demonstrated on snails, they believe the work represents a valuable insight into the way that memories are laid down, and that its findings could be extrapolated to humans as well. That’s in part due to the fact that the PKM-protecting protein KIBRA is expressed in humans, and that mutations of this gene have been shown to result in intellectual disability.

“What makes the results reported in the paper promising is that the molecules we examined are expressed in mouse and man, and have been found to participate in long-term memory and long-term synaptic plasticity,” Samuel Schacher, a professor of neuroscience in the department of psychiatry at Columbia, told Digital Trends. “Homologous forms of the PKMs, and KIBRA in particular, are expressed in man. In elderly people with Alzheimer’s and old-age forms of dementia, the expression of KIBRA is compromised. This provides additional impetus to explore the panoply of different molecules contributing to the maintenance of different forms of synaptic plasticity and memory. Once the catalog of molecules is available, the design of specific drugs to affect the function of specific molecules can be examined in more ‘advanced’ animal models, and hopefully designed for use in humans.”

Proper regulation to ensure such drugs aren’t abused could make the results another smart tool in the arsenal to help improve life for people suffering from anxieties from traumatic memories. Even more traumatic — if you can believe such a thing exists — than breaking up with Jim Carrey or a blue-haired Kate Winslet.

OneWeb’s satellite network approved to bring the internet to isolated spots

Why it matters to you

Remote areas will soon be able to gain relatively faster internet access with cable-like latency.

Extending internet access to remote regions of the planet can be difficult and costly, particularly when considering laying down cable and fiber. Wireless connectivity can make a great deal of sense, but not all areas are served by cellular carriers.

Using satellites can provide another solution that can reach virtually any area without the need for expensive terrestrial physical infrastructure, but the usual satellites are so far up that latency becomes an issue. Now, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved a plan by OneWeb to put satellites closer than ever to the Earth’s surface, which will result in much faster communications, Ars Technica reports.

Normally, the satellites used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide broadband connectivity orbit the planet at about 35,400 kilometers. That is a fair distance away and because the signals travel at a fast but nevertheless fixed rate of speed — specifically, at the speed of light — there is pesky lag. The latency between when, say, a request for a web page leaves a user’s browser, travels to the satellite, back down to the Earth-based site, and then all the way back to the user’s PC is 600ms or greater.

OneWeb’s non-geostationary satellites, however, will be much closer to Earth, at a distance of about 1,200km. The signals, therefore, have significantly less latency, coming in at around 30ms. That is only a bit slower than the typical ground-based internet connection. And, OneWeb’s technology would provide about 50 Mbps of bandwidth, not as high as today’s gigabit connections but still quite usable.

Now that the FCC has approved OneWeb’s plan, the rollout will begin as soon as early 2018. Airbus has been tapped to build the satellites, which will total 720 low-Earth orbit models that will reach areas across the U.S., including areas in Alaska that have never been able to receive broadband connectivity in the past.

OneWeb is not alone in its goals of building out such a satellite network. SpaceX is an example of a company that also plans to attack the issue of providing high-speed internet connectivity to hard-to-reach locations. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is all for such networks, saying:

“We hope to approve many more constellations because we know that the more companies compete, the more consumers win. Additionally, the commission also has an ongoing rulemaking proceeding proposing to update the current NGSO Fixed Satellite Service rules to better accommodate this next generation of systems.”

That means that the FCC will be happy to approve the new technology, but it will also be keeping everyone’s interests in mind as it does so. In any event, the days of living too remotely to enjoy your internet fix might be coming to an end sooner rather than later.

European Space Agency’s LISA mission to seek ripples in fabric of the universe

Why it matters to you

LISA is a space observatory that will give us a brand new way of seeing the universe. And that’s no exaggeration.

After a lengthy period of delays, the European Space Agency (ESA) has finally announced that its Laser Interferometer Space Antenna mission (LISA, for short) is ready to begin — though it won’t actually launch till 2034.

LISA is a space observatory that’s designed to measure gravitational waves, tiny ripples in the underlying fabric of the universe, caused by the motions of massive objects. Gravitational waves were first hypothesized by Albert Einstein way back in 1915, but they were only detected for the first time by the ground-based LIGO system in 2015.

“They’re a brand-new way of seeing the universe and extremely exciting,” Professor Mark McCaughrean, senior advisor for Science and Exploration at ESA, told Digital Trends. “Measuring gravitational waves from space will enable us to see whole new kinds of phenomena that can’t be seen by LIGO. For example, LISA will be able to see gravitational waves caused when two supermassive black holes, each perhaps millions of times more massive than our sun, spiral around each other and merge. This can happen when galaxies collide, and by observing these black hole mergers, we can learn about the history of galaxy evolution over the 13.8 billion history of the universe.”

LISA is actually three separate spacecraft in a triangle, each separated by roughly 2 million kilometers. The spacecraft are linked by high-powered lasers, and by accurately measuring the changes in distances between one another, they’ll be able to detect the gravitational waves as they sweep through the solar system.

While 2034 is still a long way off, though, McCaughrean said that plenty needs to be done between now and then.

“We still need to develop the telescopes and high-powered lasers that will link the spacecraft over 2 million kilometers along, and then we need to build and test the three very complicated spacecraft,” he said. “None of this will be easy, and such missions often take decades to put together. It’s also a question of money: We’re already building several other very exciting scientific space missions, including one which will be launched to Mercury next year called BepiColombo; one that’ll go close to the Sun called Solar Orbiter; one to measure the influence of dark matter and dark energy in the universe called Euclid; two to discover planets going around other stars called CHEOPS and PLATO; a mission to Jupiter and its icy moons called JUICE; and a new large X-ray observatory called Athena. Even in the best case, it’ll take us until 2030 to get the technology fully together and built. Working in space requires a lot of hard work and patience, and even though I’ll be retired by the time LISA flies, you can be very sure that I’ll be watching on with huge interest when it finally flies.”

Between projects like this, NASA designing futuristic chainmail for space missions, 3D printing on the International Space Station, and pretty much everything Elon Musk is doing with SpaceX, it certainly seems like we’re living on the cusp of a great era in space exploration.

Coder’s algorithmic alphabet is nothing more than gibberish, but it looks real

Why it matters to you

Does the idea of creating your own language sound appealing? Coder and artist Atticua Bones has done just that, and while it’s just gibberish, it’s also pretty darn cool.

What do you get when you cross generative art, linguistics, coding, and an attempt to troll future historians? Probably something a lot like a new project created by a 26-year-old U.K.-based coder and artist who goes by the name Atticus Bones.

Using JavaScript, he recently came up with a way to generate a strange, otherworldly looking alphabet that appears believably handwritten. It’s quite literally nonsense, but it’s intriguing nonsense that appeals to the same nerdy part of our character that would happily spend hours trying to learn a language like Dothraki or Klingon.

“I used JavaScript to randomly draw 50 percent of the segments in a predefined layout,” Bones told Digital Trends, likening it to the numbers on a digital clock display. “The segments are then merged into words, which are smoothed to add variation and create ligatures between the letters to resemble handwriting. I then optimized the order and path direction of the lines for use with a pen plotter, and also animated the writing effect using CSS.”

Bones explained that he has done projects to randomly generate symbols before, which ended up looking “very clean and modular, like bold lettering on the hull of an alien spaceship.” This was his first attempt at creating something looser and more organic. In essence, it’s a false script that’s complete gibberish, but believable as a writing system. It’s pretty neat — particularly when you watch it being physically drawn out on paper using the aforementioned pen plotter.

“Random numbers and asemic writing are two things I’m super-interested in, and this project is a marriage of both of my interests,” he said. “It’s a language created by chaos. Generative art is a way of visualizing probability and variation. I like to explore the combinations that can be made from modular elements and see the possibilities.”

As to what’s next, Bone said that he’s “considering printing an entire book of nonsense like this, just to fuck with some poor translator in the future.”

So a Voynich manuscript for the 4chan generation? We can get on board with that! If normies get annoyed by being antagonized by people living in their own time period, we can only imagine the levels of outrage when some future linguistic expert discovers they’ve been trolled by a person who lived hundreds of years ago. “Teh Lulz,” indeed.

Want to see what the iPhone 8 looks like? Check out this new leak

There have been a tonne of iPhone 8 leaks in recent months, but this latest one is pretty interesting.

Serial leakster @OnLeaks has tweeted two images of what appears to be the front and back of the iPhone 8, Apple’s next iPhone. No details or specs were included in the leak, though it does seem to confirm several rumours that have been floating around, like that the phone doesn’t have a round home button on the front.

In fact, we don’t see any home button, aka the Touch ID fingerprint scanner, anywhere on the device whatsoever. Apple is expected to include an edge-to-edge display on the iPhone 8, however, which means the company will have to ditch the home button. According to reports, it is integrating Touch ID into the display itself.

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In the other image, of the back, we see the much-rumoured dual camera setup, which is aligned on the right side of the device inside the obvious camera bump. The image also shows the volume buttons and vibrate toggle, and that’s about it. That said, it’s worth noting this phone doesn’t feature any regulatory markings.

Onleaks

That means it could be a dummy unit, rather than a retail-ready model. Another leaker, Benjamin Gaskin, has already said that the phone pictured in the leak is a CNC-made dummy model. So it’s not an actual device. Nevertheless, it could still be very similar to the phone we may see Apple unveil in a few short months.

Check out Pocket-lint’s iPhone 8 round up for more rumours.

???? pic.twitter.com/z7RPvKbwIV

— OnLeaks (@OnLeaks) June 23, 2017

Amazon wants to fly drones out of a massive tower it designed for cities

Amazon’s fulfillment centers of tomorrow look like something out of a dystopian sci-fi movie.

The online retail giant has filed a patent application for a “multi-level fulfillment center” – and it basically looks like a massive cylindrical tower filled with docking bays. No, it doesn’t expect delivery trucks to get up to the 100th floor in order to stock up and ship out your packages. It’s designed this tower specifically for drones.

With a drone tower, Amazon’s Prime Air drones could fly in and out easily and deliver packages in urban areas. Amazon said there’s a “growing need and desire to locate fulfillment centers within cities, such as in downtown districts and densely populated parts of the cities,” according to the USPTO application, published on 22 June.

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USPTO

The vertical building would save space, unlike traditional fulfillment centers, which look more like wide warehouses and take up land. And it would be jam-packed with drones. Obviously, there’s no guarantee this drone tower will become a reality, but it’s interesting to look into the future and see what Amazon has in mind.

In March, Amazon Prime Air flew its first package to the public in the US. So it’s only a matter of time before the company starts flooding our skies with its unmanned aerial vehicles. We can picture it now: It’s 2037 and the Earth is being plagued by resource wars, rising temps, and artificial intelligence-caused mass poverty.

But have no fear. Amazon is here, in your city, making sure you get that Snuggie delivered via drone in under hour.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will break your piggy bank when it launches

Samsung only wants rich people to buy the Galaxy Note 8.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit extreme, but still.. According to VentureBeat, the upcoming follow-up to the disastrous Galaxy Note 7 is going to cost €999 when it launches. That converts to about $1120 or £873, making it one of Samsung’s most expensive models to date. The report also claimed the phone will launch in late September.

The Galaxy Note 8 is expected to have a 6.3-inch Infinity Display, dual-camera setup, 6BG of RAM, and 3,300mAh battery. Keep in mind the Galaxy Note 7 had a 3,500 mAh capacity. Also, the new phone should come in black, blue, and gold colours. Check out Pocket-lint’s Galaxy Note 8 rumour round-up for more specs.

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It’ll be interesting to see how well the Galaxy Note line does given last year’s issues surrounding the Galaxy Note 7. Many wondered if Note devices would be killed for good, but apparently, Samsung thinks it can survive. Not only that, but by giving it a shocking price tag, it must think the public is clamoring for a new model.

Time will tell.

‘Modern Warfare Remastered’ heads to PS4 without the bundle

If you were disappointed that you had to keep the $80 disc for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare in your gaming rig to be able to play the better-reviewed Modern Warfare remaster, you’re in luck. Publisher Activision has announced that it will reverse the classic bait and switch tactic it employed with Infinite Warfare by putting out Modern Warfare Remastered as a standalone title on June 27th. Of course, it’s not all straightforward, as the title will only be available for PS4 as a disc or digital download (at first). We’ve reached out to Activision for more specific information on other platform release dates.

This fourth installment in the Call of Duty series was a hit with both critics and players, so this new release could see quite a few sales for those of us interested in reliving the game’s single- and multiplayer events, including missions like “All Ghillied Up,” “Charlie Don’t Surf” and “Crew Expendable.” The new standalone title will include the full campaign and 16 multiplayer maps from the original, remastered with “full HD visuals and remastered audio,” according to a statement from Activision’s Brian Raffel. To celebrate the release, Activision is holding a special Call of Duty event called “Days of Summer.” It will last for five weeks stargint June 27th and will include in-game giveaways, XP events and new playlists across multiple Call of Duty titles, one of which will be a summer-themed map for Modern Warfare Remastered.

Source: Activision

Nike’s SNKRS app uses AR to help you buy limited-edition shoes

Nike is the latest company to join the augmented reality craze. The sportswear giant has started using the tech to sell limited-edition kicks through its SNRKS app, with the system’s first drop being the Nike SB Dunk High Pro “Momofuku,” a model designed in collaboration with renowned chef David Chang. To unlock these sneakers in the application, all you have to do is go to the product page, tap on a GIF and then point your camera at a menu of Chang’s Fuku restaurant in New York City. (It doesn’t have to be a physical one, so don’t worry about having to make the trip if you’re not in The Big Apple.)

Once you do that, a 3D model of the Dunks will pop up and you’ll have the chance to buy a pair for yourself. There are also posters, like the one above, outside of Momofuku restaurants in NYC which can trigger the app’s AR feature — in case you’re looking for a more adventurous experience. This seems to be yet another effort by Nike to combat bots, a powerful tool for resellers that’s become a major problem in sneaker culture. Last month, the company introduce Stash, a way for people to unlock exclusive products in the SNRKS app based on their location.

The SNKRS AR functionality only works for iOS users at the moment, though Nike says Android support is coming soon.

Source: Nike

Facebook’s latest app is designed just for video creators

In a bid to keep its creator community happy, Facebook announced that it’s planning a whole new app just for them later this year. It’s essentially a video creation app made just for its star broadcasters, who are also the same folks who are deemed worthy enough to use Facebook Mentions, an app only available to verified accounts owned by journalists, celebrities and other online influencers.

Just like Mentions, the new video creation app is said to feature access to Facebook Live plus a new “creative kit” that includes tools like special intros and outros to videos, custom stickers, custom frames and more. Since the app is geared towards celebs, it’ll also have a Community tab, where the rich and famous can interact with their fans and followers on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

The video creation app was announced at VidCon, a place where video creators from all over the world flock to promote their show as well as to meet their fanbase and get new ideas. It’s also a chance for video platforms to showcase their wares to attract more creators. For example, Periscope announced its Super Hearts program this week, and Instagram made it so that live videos can be replayed 24 hours later. YouTube, however, is still the online video destination to beat, with YouTube Red getting nearly 250 million views and a healthy roster of upcoming shows.

Source: Mashable