In a fascinating article in the LA Times, researcher Sandra Witelson reveals some most interesting findings about the human brain. A professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, Dr. Witelson has what amounts to the largest collection of human brains in the world.

You should read the whole article; every bit of it is interesting. For a quick distillation, however, one of the major themes is that there are very visible differences between men and women... to the point where it is possible to tell a person's sex by the brain alone.

Men and women appear to use different parts of the brain to encode memories, sense emotions, recognize faces, solve certain problems and make decisions. Indeed, when men and women of similar intelligence and aptitude perform equally well, their brains appear to go about it differently, as if nature had separate blueprints, researchers at UC Irvine reported this year.

"If you find that men and women have fundamentally different brain architectures while still accomplishing the same things," said neuroscientist Richard Haier, who conducted the study, "this challenges the assumption that all human brains are fundamentally the same."

Yet, for the most part, scientists have been unable to document such patterns conclusively.

No one, however, had scrutinized as many brains as Witelson.

I'm sure that in certain circles the well worn questions of hardwired behavior and aptitudes are sure to be invigorated.

...but I'm also sure that you don't need a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience to tell you that men and women think differently. :)

I wonder how far this vein of knowledge will progress.

I'm reminded of Gattica, a fairly bad movie that was difficult to sit through but still asked some excellent questions... and made a powerful statement about not letting someone else's view of your capabilities limit you.

I read a tangential article today about a controversial medicine that is being tested. It was somewhat of a failure when tested against a racially diverse test group, but when tested on a strictly black group it worked marvelously.

Studies have suggested that blacks tend to have lower levels of nitric oxide, and researchers noticed during studies in the 1980s that the drug combination, while appearing to offer no benefit in the general population, may be useful among black patients. A follow-up study involving 1,050 patients who identified themselves as African American was stopped early and released in November when it concluded that the drug significantly improved the quality of life, reduced the likelihood of being hospitalized by 39 percent and cut the chance of dying by 43 percent.

The Washington Post referred to the drug testing as "racial tailoring".

I hope that the social activists allow this kind of science to progress; there are a lot of things that I am sure that we can accomplish if we aren't afraid to recognize that we are all different: male, female, black, white, whatever. I don't think it's a good idea to, in the name of equality, blind ourselves to the fact that we aren't all the same.

Different is not by definition better, and my weaknesses and foibles exist whether I admit to them or not. I'm sure that this is true for all of us. :)

A polite tip of the hat to Professor Bainbridge.

A fascinating article over at livescience.com reveals a new battery technology that takes advantage of everyday, normal nuclear decay.

Personal Nuclear Power: New Battery Lasts 12 Years

A new type of battery based on the radioactive decay of nuclear material is 10 times more powerful than similar prototypes and should last a decade or more without a charge, scientists announced this week.

Can you just imagine the potential? With the technological breakthroughs we hav been reading about on an almost daily basis, tomorrow's computer might not look anything like it does today. Solid state disk space that holds terabytes? Nuclear batteries that work for years?

The technology is called betavoltaics. It uses a silicon wafer to capture electrons emitted by a radioactive gas, such as tritium. It is similar to the mechanics of converting sunlight into electricity in a solar panel.

Until now, betavoltaics has been unable to match solar-cell efficiency. The reason is simple: When the gas decays, its electrons shoot out in all directions. Many of them are lost.

Fauchet's team took the flat silicon surface, where the electrons are captured and converted to a current, and turned it into a three-dimensional surface by adding deep pits.

Great that the ideas are on the drawing boards now, some of the things we have heard about will take decades to inplement. But these batteries? Expect them sooner than later.

The manufacturing process is standard to the semiconductor industry, so no other technology breakthroughs are needed to bring the batteries to market. Still, don't expect anything on the store shelves for at least two years, Fauchet said. His team is now working to improve the manufacturing process, aiming for batteries many times more efficient than those announced today.

"If we are as successful as we think we may be, it will take less than five years before this technology is adopted," he said.

I look forward to seeing them on the market.

I wonder how much they'll cost?

A recent article on SPACE.COM introduces us to the TETWalker, a robot that actually moves by changing its shape so it can “fall” in a chosen direction.

"If current robotic rovers topple over on a distant planet, they are doomed -- there is no way to send someone to get them back on their wheels again. However, TETwalkers move by toppling over. It's a very reliable way to get around," said Dr. Steven Curtis, principal investigator for the project.

Much more than just innovative thinking about mobility, groups of TETwalkers could “swarm” together to form larger structures, such as communication arrays.

The prototype was tested in Antarctica in January for harsh Mars-like testing. Motors may be placed at the center of the struts to improve reliability. The Autonomous Nanotechnology Swarm team (ANTS) believe that TETWalkers can be miniaturized using micro-electro-mechanical systems; by retracting their struts fully, TETWalkers can be stored for space voyages in very small spaces.

Eventually, it is hoped that the tiny 'bots will be able to swarm together to construct small objects or structures, like communications dishes.

Click Here for the entire article.

Also, check out the autonomous nanotechnology swarm website (with cool concept videos).

Never content to rest upon its laurels, the world of technology is striving fervently to redefine the way you interact with the world around you. It is no surprise that we find Microsoft, one of the largest levers of technological change in the world, making progressive alliances with visionary expectations of the future.

From Update 4: Verizon to Opt for Microsoft TV Tech

Verizon Communications Inc. plans to use Microsoft Corp. technology for its rollout of television service over a new fiber-optic network, becoming the third major telephone company to help fulfill Microsoft's long-stymied bid to barge into the TV business.

The software maker's platform initially will be used to provide an interactive program guide, high-definition television, digital video recording and video-on-demand for Verizon's FiOS TV service, which is due to launch in undisclosed markets around mid-year

The idea that Three of the largest phone companies in the US are considering Microsoft technology to deliver broadband television content to millions of subscribers is... well... huge.

It puts some other things into perspective as well, like some of the features that we have been hearing about in xBOX NEXT:

From the Xbox Next entry at Wikipedia

In November 2004, The Inquirer reported that three separate versions of the Xbox Next may be released: a standard Xbox Next, the Xbox Next HD with a built-in hard drive and additional multimeda functionality, and the Xbox Next PC which would incorporate an entry-level PC, a CD burner, a wireless keyboard and mouse, and a special multimedia edition of Windows XP.

The TiVo changed the way we watched TV.

What was once a mobile phone is now an indispensable tool that is slowly replacing the bulky laptops of yesteryear.

The Intnernet, once a place to go to seek out information, is now reaching back into our lives and keeping the mainstream media in check.

If this last year was any indication of the pace of tomorrow, it will be an interesting year of change to be sure.

It just goes to show you, we have no idea what the future will look like. It also shows you how creative humans can be. Trying to resolve issues of power generation, scientists in England have created a robot that can produce electricity, albeit in very small amounts at the moment, by...

...eating flies

Fly-eating robot powers itself

(CNN) -- Scientists at the University of the West of England (UWE) have designed a robot that does not require batteries or electricity to power itself.

Instead, it generates energy by catching and eating houseflies.

Dr Chris Melhuish and his Bristol-based team hope the robot, called EcoBot II, will one day be sent into zones too dangerous for humans, potentially proving invaluable in military, security and industrial areas.

Melhuish, who is director of the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Lab at the UWE, told CNN that the EcoBot II was a result of a quest for an intelligent robot that could function without human supervision.

"That means they need energy. It is one thing to have a robot getting its energy from a household socket, or maybe from the factory floor, but it is another thing when the robot goes outside buildings," he said.

"Of course, there is solar energy outside. Little robots can use solar energy to move about. But mostly, if there is not a lot of solar energy about, you have to give robots batteries -- which eventually run out."

The EcoBot II powers itself in much the same way as animals feed themselves to get their energy, he said.

At this stage, EcoBot II is a "proof-of-concept" robot and travels only at roughly 10 centimeters per hour.

But the self-sustaining robot had the potential to be used in conditions that were not suitable for humans, said Melhuish.

"In the future, I think we are going to want robots to go to places that we don't want to go. In order to do that, it's unlikely that these robots are going to have sufficient energy to carry out their tasks," he said.

The EcoBot II uses human sewage as bait to catch the insects. It then digests the flies, before their exoskeletons are turned into electricity, which enables the robot to function.

Bacteria in the sewage eats the flies' soft tissues, which releases enzymes that break down the hardened shell.

Sugar molecules released from the broken-down shell are then absorbed and used as energy by the bacteria.

"The robot then has the energy to carry out some example tasks which in this case include moving towards light, measuring temperature. It has a temperature sensor. It could be anything, but we have chosen temperature," Melhuish said.

"Then it transmits that temperature information over a radio link to a base station a couple of meters away and it does that all using the energy from insect or plant material."