In the maelstrom of information, opinion and conjecture that is Twitter, the voice of truth and reason does occasionally prevail, according to a new study from 91±¬ÁÏ researchers. Tweets from “official accounts” — the government agencies, emergency responders, media or companies at the center of a fast-moving story — can slow the spread of rumors on Twitter and correct misinformation that’s taken on a life of its own.
A new sonar technology developed by 91±¬ÁÏ computer scientists and electrical engineers allows you to interact with mobile devices and smartwatch screens by writing or gesturing on any nearby surface — a tabletop, a sheet of paper or even in mid-air.
A new 91±¬ÁÏ study is among the first to explore children’s expectations for parents’ technology use — revealing kids’ feelings about fairness and “oversharing,” the most effective types of household technology rules and families’ most common approaches.
With apps and activity trackers measuring every step people take, morsel they eat, and each symptom or pain, patients commonly arrive at doctor’s offices armed with self-tracked data. Yet health care providers lack the capacity or tools to review five years of Fitbit logs or instantaneously interpret data patients have been collecting about themselves, according to new 91±¬ÁÏ research.
Pakistan’s water managers are using NASA satellites to more effectively monitor groundwater supplies, thanks to a partnership with 91±¬ÁÏ civil and environmental engineers. It’s part of a larger effort to use the vast amount of data and observations collected by Earth-orbiting satellites to better quality of life in developing countries.
Driverless vehicles could intensify car use — reducing or even eliminating promised energy savings and environmental benefits, a new study co-authored by a 91±¬ÁÏ researcher finds. If people can work, relax and even hold meetings in their fully automated vehicles, they may drive more.
A more efficient and clean wood-burning cookstove — developed by Vashon Island’s BURN Design Lab and 91±¬ÁÏ mechanical engineers — will reduce the amount of fuel families need to collect or buy by 55 percent. It will also reduce exposure to the harmful particulate pollution produced by traditional cooking flames.
With “Passive Wi-Fi,” 91±¬ÁÏ computer scientists and electrical engineers have generated Wi-Fi transmissions using 10,000 times less power than conventional methods. The system can transmit Wi-Fi signals at rates up to 11 megabits per second — lower than maximum Wi-Fi speeds but 11 times faster than Bluetooth — that can be decoded on any of the billions of devices with Wi-Fi connectivity.
Four faculty members at the 91±¬ÁÏ have been awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The new Sloan Fellows, announced Feb. 23, include Bingni Brunton, assistant professor of biology; Christopher Laumann, assistant professor of physics; Matthew McQuinn, assistant professor of astronomy; and Emina Torlak, assistant professor of computer science and engineering. The 126 Sloan Fellows for 2016 were nominated by senior colleagues in their field, department or institution. Committees with the Sloan Foundation then examined each…
Three members of the 91±¬ÁÏ faculty have received the 2016 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor given by the U.S. government to early-career scientists and engineers.
91±¬ÁÏ scientists have successfully combined two different ultrathin semiconductors — each just one layer of atoms thick and roughly 100,000 times thinner than a human hair — to make a new two-dimensional heterostructure with potential uses in clean energy and optically-active electronics.
Tom Anderson, a 91±¬ÁÏ professor of computer science and engineering and alumnus, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Also elected are 91±¬ÁÏ civil engineering alumnus Jon Magnusson and computer science alumnus Albert Greenberg.
91±¬ÁÏ mechanical engineers are developing a handheld microscope to help doctors and dentists distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells in an office setting or operating room.
Two 91±¬ÁÏ teams claimed top prizes in a national competition to design a game about climate adaptation.
91±¬ÁÏ transportation engineers have developed an inexpensive system to sense Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals from bus passengers’ mobile devices and collect data to build better transit systems.
A new laser mapping technology and smartphone app developed by 91±¬ÁÏ electrical engineers allows you to point your phone at a plate of food and get an estimate of the total calories and nutrition.
The 91±¬ÁÏ is home to 26 researchers included on Thomson Reuters’ list of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” for 2015, which was released Jan. 14. The distinction, based on an analysis of over a decade of research paper citations among 21 general scientific fields, is meant to recognize scientists who are most cited by their peers.
91±¬ÁÏ computer scientists, with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are launching a new research group to develop technological solutions that will make financial products more available to the lowest-income people around the world.
In December, the 91±¬ÁÏ’s Department of Bioengineering began accepting applications for its newest graduate degree program, the Master of Applied Bioengineering. The one-year, full-time program begins in August, and will train students to apply engineering design and entrepreneurship skills to address unmet clinical needs and to transform biomedical research into technologies for improving health care. The degree will position graduates to respond to market-based demands of industry, medicine and translational research.
Three scientists at the 91±¬ÁÏ have proposed a way to speed up common bioassays used in research and diagnostics. Their solution, reminiscent of the magic behind washing machines, could reduce wait times to a fraction of what they once were. As they report in the journal Small, biological assays that once took hours could instead take minutes.
The built environment influences decisions to walk or bike differently for lower- and higher-income groups, 91±¬ÁÏ researchers have found. Neighborhood density, accessible destinations and fewer vehicles were associated with more walking and biking in lower-income groups, while neighborhood attractiveness was relevant for higher-income groups.
Forests help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by storing it in trees, but a sizeable amount of the greenhouse gas actually escapes through the soil and into rivers and streams, a new paper finds.
A new 91±¬ÁÏ study finds that fuel efficiency improvements needed to meet U.S. climate commitments are on par with what the auto industry delivered in the 1970s and 1980s.
The 91±¬ÁÏ will offer a new Master of Science in Data Science program to provide students with advanced technical expertise in managing, modeling and visualizing big data to meet the growing needs of industry and research.
91±¬ÁÏ researchers have reconstructed 3-D models of celebrities such as Tom Hanks from large Internet photo collections. The model can deliver speeches that the real actor never performed – one step toward developing fully interactive digital personas of people from family or historic photo collections.
A collaboration between 91±¬ÁÏ developmental psychologists and computer scientists has demonstrated that robots can “learn” much like babies – by experiencing the world and eventually imitating humans.
The Power Over Wi-Fi (PoWiFi) system developed by 91±¬ÁÏ engineers is one of the most innovative and game-changing technologies of the year, according to Popular Science, which included it in the magazine’s annual “Best of What’s New” awards announced this week.
Since the first laser was invented in 1960, they’ve always given off heat. 91±¬ÁÏ researchers are the first to solve a decades-old puzzle — figuring out how to make a laser refrigerate water and other liquids.
The National Science Foundation has selected the 91±¬ÁÏ, along with the University of California, San Diego and the University of California, Berkeley, to co-lead one of four Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs around the country.
By more accurately predicting how variations in DNA sequences affect gene splicing, a new 91±¬ÁÏ model and publicly available Web tool can help narrow down which genetic mutations cause disease and which have little effect on a person’s health.
Peering into a grocery store bin, it’s hard to tell if a peach or tomato or avocado is starting to go bad underneath its skin. A new affordable hyperspectral camera technology developed by 91±¬ÁÏ and Microsoft Research uses both visible and invisible near-infrared light to “see” beneath surfaces and capture hidden details.
A 91±¬ÁÏ otolaryngology resident and bioengineering student have used 3-D printing techniques to create lifelike models to help aspiring surgeons – who currently practice on soap, apples, and vegetables – learn to perform ear reconstruction surgeries.
Computer scientist and 91±¬ÁÏ alumnus Christopher Ré is one of 24 recipients of “genius” grants this year from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the organization announced Sept. 28. Ré, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University, pursues new approaches to help computers analyze large, complex datasets. The diverse array of applications for Ré’s approach range from discovering new drugs to fighting human trafficking. “He has taken the area of database research to a…
A new 91±¬ÁÏ study that tested 65 wines from America’s top four wine-producing states — California, Washington, New York and Oregon — found all but one have arsenic levels that exceed what’s allowed in drinking water. But health risks from that toxic element depend on what else a person is eating.
Leaders from the 91±¬ÁÏ and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), one of China’s most prestigious public research universities, signed an agreement Wednesday to work together on “smart cities” research, teaching and collaborations in their respective electrical engineering departments.
The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and 91±¬ÁÏ computer scientists have created an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can solve SAT geometry questions as well as the average American 11th-grade student, a breakthrough in AI research.
91±¬ÁÏ CSE professor Pedro Domingos’ book “The Master Algorithm” is an essential primer on machine learning, and a popular science romp through one of today’s hottest scientific topics.. It unveils the deep ideas behind the algorithms that increasingly pick our books, find our dates, manage investments and run our lives — and what informed consumers ought to know about them.
A new wearable technology developed at the 91±¬ÁÏ called MagnifiSense can sense what devices and vehicles its user interacts with, which can help track that individual’s carbon footprint, enable smart home applications or even assist with elder care.
The membranes of sediment-entombed archaea are an increasingly popular way to determine ocean surface temperatures back to the age of the dinosaurs. But new results show that changing oxygen can affect the reading by as much as 21 degrees C.
91±¬ÁÏ machine learning researchers have developed a new approach to optimization – a key step in predicting everything from election results to how proteins will fold – that won a top paper prize at the world’s largest artificial intelligence conference.