Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Friday, September 27, 2002

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New Scientist: "The controversial do-it-yourself medicine that inspired the heart-rending movie Lorenzo's Oil has finally been proved to work. The new research ends years of uncertainty about the treatment and demolishes the claims of experts who repeatedly said it was a worthless quack remedy." [via John Robb's Radio Weblog]

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AI Cats, Escaping Robot Bugs, and Self Taught Butterflies: "Researchers at Utah State University are taking a bold step in the quest for Robot AIs. While other teams are working on full humanoid mobility chassis or just robobugs (that escape), the Utah Brain Project seeks to build a 'cat brain' using 72 processors that use Field Programmable Gate Array technology to create neural networks. The current brain can operate as quickly as 10,000 Pentium II 400MHz processors in implementing the neural algorithms. The ultimate goal is a Robokitten that learns from its environment as it interacts with it through sensors that approximate the five human senses." [kuro5hin.org]

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Iris Scanners in Canadian Airports: "... the first biometrics (Iris-scanning specifically) devices in airport will be in place in Toronto and Vancouver starting in March." [Slashdot]

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Why Some With HIV Are Healthier: "esearchers have solved the 16-year-old mystery of why a small number of HIV patients remain healthy after contracting the virus. By Kristen Philipkoski." [Wired News]