Researchers build AI tool capable of identifying individual birds

Researchers have built an AI model capable of telling individual birds apart. The research is published in the British Ecological Society journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

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Researchers develop app that monitors mental health by measuring phone-use

Amid  the rise in mental health issues during the Covid-19 lockdown, researchers have developed a mental health mobile app that can detect anxiety and depression by how individuals use their phones.

The app called PROSIT was created by the researchers at the Dalhousie University. The app tracks features like exercise, sleep, call frequency, message histories and music tastes.

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Researchers develop Robotic camera backpack for insects

Researchers have developed a tiny wireless steerable camera that can be mounted on an insects’s back to see how it sees the world.

Read More... Researchers develop Robotic camera backpack for insects

Climate change turning clear mountain lakes green in US: Researchers

Climate change turning clear mountain lakes green in US: Researchers

Researchers claim that global warming is turning clear mountain lakes green in western US because of an increase in algae blooms.

Researchers at Colorado State University found that the concentration of algae in two remote mountain doubled in the past 70 years.

Scientists used a tool called a gravity corer to collect sediment cores without  damaging the lakebed. After which they examined algae concentrations in lakes in a mountain range about 100km from Denver.

It is said that the amounts of algae documented in the study would more typically be found in highly polluted areas.

Scientists claim that water and marine algae blooms have a huge negative economic impact,  affecting fisheries, tourism and human well being.

Researchers invent mask that can kill coronavirus with heat from phone charger

Researchers invent mask that can kill coronavirus with heat from phone charger

Israeli researchers have invented a reusable face mask that can kill the coronavirus with heat by drawing power from a phone charger.

The team at Technion University in Haifa have come up with a mask with a USB port that connects to a mobile phone charger.

Heating the mask for about 30 minutes disinfects it by killing viruses on its surface. The charger heats a layer of carbon fibres up to 70 degrees celsius.

Professor Allon Moses, an infectious diseases expert at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, said that just a half hour’s exposure to 70-degree heat would kill the coronavirus.

But he also cautioned that repeated heating could damage the mask’s paper or fabric and spoil its ability to protect from diseases in the future

However, During testing, the prototype was exposed to 20 heating cycles, each for half an hour, with no impact on durability.

The researchers submitted a patent for the mask in the USA in late March, and are looking at ways to commercialise it with the private sector.

Researchers create AI that makes blurry faces look more than 60 times sharper

Researchers create AI that makes blurry faces look more than 60 times sharper

Researchers have created an artificial intelligence (AI) tool, which they claim turns blurry photos into computer-generated faces in HD.

Researchers from Duke University have created a tool that can make blurry faces in photos look 64 times sharper.

The method, called PULSE, searches through AI-generated examples of high-resolution faces to match ones that look similar to the input image when compressed to the same size.

Sachit Menon from the Duke University in the US, said. “While the researchers focused on faces as a proof of concept, the same technique could, in theory, take low-resolution shots of almost anything and create sharp, realistic-looking pictures, with applications ranging from medicine and microscopy to astronomy and satellite imagery”.

The team also claims that it can even ‘imagine’ new features that were imperceptible in the original, such as wrinkles, eyelashes.

However, researchers say,  It won’t turn an out-of-focus, unrecognizable photo from a security camera into a crystal clear image of a real person, rather, it is capable of generating new faces that don’t exist, but look plausibly real.

IIT researchers develop technology that makes masks from waste plastic bottles

IIT researchers develop technology that makes masks from waste plastic bottles

New Delhi: Researchers at IIT Mandi claim to have developed a technology for making high-efficiency masks using waste pet bottles that are not only more breathable than commercially available masks but also can be washed and reused up to 30 times.

The team at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi has also filed a patent for the waste plastic bottles derived filter membrane technology based on electrospinning.

The researchers shredded waste plastic bottles and dissolved the pieces using a combination of solvents and extruded nanofibres from the solution.

According to Sumit Sinha Ray, Assistant Professor, IIT Mandi, the team used waste plastic bottles to develop a single thin layer of nano-nonwoven membrane that provides desirable particle filtration efficiency, at par with N95 respirator and a medical mask.

“The first concern that comes to mind when we hear that something is made of plastic is whether it is safe to use. These nanofibres meet the safety requirements of the user by excluding the bacteria and infectious components. The breathability in the developed masks is better than the commercially available masks. At the laboratory scale, the material cost for the mask was around Rs 25 per piece. However, during the commercial manufacturing stage, its cost will be nearly halved. The mask can be washed and reused up to 30 times,” Ray said.

“Nanofibres can do wonders for masks. Air-borne particulate and pollutant removal efficiency and breathability are the two main criteria for efficient masks. Commercially available melt-blown fabric-based masks can be efficient at a cost of high breathing resistance, whereas generic three-ply surgical masks are breathable but have meagre efficiency. Nanofibres based masks can filter out small particles effectively despite being comfortably breathable,” he explained.

The team claimed that the masks will not require any separate protocol to be followed for their disposal than the standard hygiene measures.

Ashish Kakoria, a research scholar at the institute and one of the team members, said, “These ultrafine fibres allow less resistance in airflow due to a unique phenomenon called ‘slip flow’ which improves breathability. Moreover, the thrown away PET bottles can be put to good use using this technique.”

The coronavirus pandemic has mandated the use of masks by people to avoid contracting the infection. India registered its highest single-day spike of COVID-19 cases for the fifth consecutive day on Sunday, with 9,971 new infections taking the country’s tally to 2,46,628, while the death toll rose to 6,929, according to the Union Health Ministry. The country registered 287 deaths in the last 24 hours since Saturday morning.

India had raced past Spain on Saturday to become the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, only the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK are ahead of it.

Researchers develop AI to improve accuracy of eye diagnosis

Researchers develop AI to improve accuracy of eye diagnosis

Researchers have developed AI based test that produces much more accurate diagnoses of eye diseases

Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have applied artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a more accurate and detailed method for analysing images of the back of the eye in order to help in detecting eye diseases

The team collected OCT chorio-retinal eye scans from an 18-month longitudinal study of 101 children with good vision and healthy eyes, and used these images to train the AI program to detect patterns and define the choroid boundaries.

David Alonso-Caneiro, QUT senior researcher and study lead author, said, “In our study we looked for a new method of analysing the images and extracting two main tissue layers at the back of the eye, the retina and choroid, with special interest in the choroid. The choroid is the area between the retina and the sclera, and it contains the major blood vessels that provide nutrients and oxygen to the eye”.

The research, which will be published in the journal Ophthalmology, one of the first to examine how AI can improve physicians’ diagnostic accuracy.

MIT researchers translated the Covid-19 virus into music to offer a new perspective

MIT researchers translated the Covid-19 virus into music to offer a new perspective

Researchers and scientist all over the world are trying to figure out the new found virus. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are looking at the virus with a new perspective, they are hearing it in musical form.

Markus Buehler, material scientist and professor of engineering at MIT, translated the structure of the coronavirus protein into a musical composition.

Using machine learning and AI technology Buehler and his team were able to calculate the vibrational spectrum and make that audible, creating overlapping melodies that would create a composition or audible representation of the protein.

Buehler said, “When we translate the protein into sound and music, we basically follow the sequence by which these proteins are constructed, you can imagine this being a piano with 20 keys. Each key has a unique sound, but this sound isn’t a sound that comes from a string or a drum membrane or a trumpet. It’s a sound that actually comes from the real vibrations off of chemical building blocks”.

The researchers claim that it is easier to hear abnormalities in the structure of a protein rather than scrutinizing data and looking at it under a microscope at the nano-level.

Researchers use AI & satellite images to track poverty levels in Africa

Researchers use AI & satellite images to track poverty levels in Africa

A new AI tool can track poverty levels in African villages over time by scanning satellite images.

Stanford scholars Marshall Burke, David Lobell and Stefano Ermon have spent the past five years leading a team of researchers to home in on an efficient way to find and track impoverished zones across Africa

The tool searches the images for indicators of development, such as roads, agriculture, housing, and lights turned on at night. Researchers tested the tool on about 20,000 villages across 23 countries in Africa that had existing wealth data.

Professor David Lobel said, “Amazingly, there hasn’t really been any good way to understand how poverty is changing at a local level in Africa. Censuses aren’t frequent enough, and door-to-door surveys rarely return to the same people. If satellites can help us reconstruct a history of poverty, it could open up a lot of room to better understand and alleviate poverty on the continent”.

The team hopes that the tool will help government  and NGOs to work out the effectiveness of anti-poverty programs.

Researchers develop a new mobile tool that measures haemoglobin without drawing blood

Researchers develop a new mobile tool that measures haemoglobin without drawing blood

Researchers claim to have developed a way to assess blood haemoglobin levels by using smartphone images of a person’s eyelids

This new tool of testing the haemoglobin is developed by the researchers of the University of Indianapolis, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in the US and Moi University School of Medicine in Kenya.

Young Kim from Purdue University in the US said, “Our new mobile health approach paves the way for bedside or remote testing of blood haemoglobin levels for detecting anemia, acute kidney injury and haemorrhages, or for assessing blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia.”

The research team used software to transform the built-in camera of a smartphone into a hyperspectral imager that reliably measures haemoglobin levels without the need for any hardware modifications or accessories.

Inner eyelid is considered as the most sensitive site as microvasculature is easily visible there, it can easily provide you with the haemoglobin level. After clicking the picture of the eye, the software in the smartphone applies spectral super-resolution algorithm to extract the information from the image and then another computational algorithm quantifies the blood haemoglobin level.

Clinical test with volunteers showed that prediction errors for the smartphone technique were within five to 10 per cent of those measured with clinical laboratory blood.

Researchers develop new AI tool that automatically identifies different types of brain injury

Researchers develop new AI tool that automatically identifies different types of brain injury

A new AI tool can automatically identify different types of brain injuries by analyzing images of CT scans

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, have clinically validated and tested the AI on large sets of CT scans, and found that it was successfully able to detect, segment, quantify and differentiate different types of brain lesions.

The subtle differences it spots could help develop personalized treatments for head injuries, which affect up to 60 million people every year.

Different types of blood in or around the brain can lead to different patient outcomes, and radiologists will often make estimates in order to determine the best course of treatment, such as surgery or drugs.

This assessment can take hours, and often misses important details about the type, volume, and location of a lesion on the brain. But, this AI tool does the job automatically which cuts the time and enhances the insights.

The researchers have made the Imperial software tool publicly available to the scientific community.

COVID-19: Trump lauds Indian-Americans scientists, researchers

COVID-19: Trump lauds Indian-Americans scientists, researchers

Washington: US President Donald Trump has lauded Indian-Americans scientists and researchers for their efforts in developing medicines and vaccines for the deadly coronavirus.

Trump said the US was closely working with India to tackle the pandemic.

“We have a tremendous Indian population in the United States and many of the people that you are talking about are working on the vaccine too. Great scientists and researchers,” Trump told reporters in the Rose Garden of the White House on Friday.

He was responding to the Indian-American community’s appreciation of his fight against the coronavirus.

This is the first time that a president has recognized the scientific and research talent of the Indian American community.

A large number of scientists are engaged in cutting edge research in various aspects of medical science, including at the National Institute of Health, universities, research institutes and bio-pharma startups.

There are an estimated 4 million Indian Americans in the United States, of which about 2.5 million are potential voters in the 2020 presidential elections this November.

As a presidential candidate, Trump was the first nominee to hold a separate election rally for Indian-Americans in October 2016 in New Jersey.

Since then he has described himself as the best friend of India and Indian-Americans at the White House.

According to the co-chair of Trump Victory Indian-American Finance Committee, Al Masson, the president is not just a sensitive guardian to his 325 million fellow Americans, he is also their resolute and humanitarian commander-in-chief.

“He has brought forth his true empathy and determination — blended with just the right solutions to fight this “Made in China” coronavirus pandemic. His mission is to save American lives and revive the American economy. By doing whatever it takes,” Mason said on Friday.

Trump is unbeatable. His critics and enemies should leave him alone. They should let him focus on fighting for all Americans against the invisible coronavirus pandemic and rebuilding the economy. He is a master at whatever he builds and he believes in the power of prayer, said Mason.

Senior Advisor to Donald J Trump for President, Inc. and National Chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committee Kimberly Guilfoyle, in a recent op-ed in The Daily Caller, said Trump has the American people on his side.

At this point, Team Trump has raised over USD 742 million with over USD 255 million cash on hand. Since the transition to a virtual national campaign, Trump Victory, in coordination with the Republican National Convention, has made over 20 million voter contacts and added more than 300,000 new volunteers, bringing the total to 1 million volunteers trained and activated, Guilfoyle wrote.

The amount raised by Indian-Americans for Trump’s campaign is not available as of now.

The coronavirus, which first emerged in China’s Wuhan city has claimed over 3,00,000 lives with 4.5 million confirmed infections across the world so far.

The US alone accounts for over 87,000 COVID-19 deaths.

Researchers develop an app to detect Covid-19 by listening to your voice

Researchers develop an app to detect Covid-19 by listening to your voice

Amid Covid-19, researchers around the world are coming up new technologies to aid in battling the pandemic.

Now, Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have developed an AI-based experimental app that screens a human’s cough to detect if he or she may have Covid-19.

It is said that it is a collaboration between CMU researchers and voice scientists and researchers who work on “voice forensic technologies’ The app is called Covid Voice Detector and is free.

Twitter offers data to researchers studying Covid-19

Twitter offers data to researchers studying Covid-19

San Francisco: Twitter said Wednesday, April 30 it would allow researchers to access data on real-time conversations about the coronavirus pandemic to help deepen their understanding of the disease.

The project is aimed at gathering information about the spread of the illness, assessing the emergency response and communication trends during the crisis, and tackling misinformation.

“This is a unique dataset that covers many tens of millions of tweets daily,” the US social network said in a blog.

“The conversations happening on Twitter are highly insightful and have the potential to help the world better understand the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Access to Twitter’s real-time data could also help develop artificial intelligence tools for scientists working to quell the global outbreak.

“Public conversation can help the world learn faster, solve problems better and realize we’re all in this together,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said.

European Commission vice president Vera Jourova, who is responsible for disinformation issues, welcomed the initiative.

“I have constantly underlined the importance for researchers to have better access to useful non-personal data and tools,” she said in a statement to AFP.

“This is key to understanding the spread of disinformation,” she added.