This article talks about a CAD system called Vertebrate Analyzer that is being created at the University of Buffalo. The Vertebrate Analyzer is supposed to be able to simulate the functions of vertebrates’ skeletons and muscles. Casting light upon questions such as:
– Why Did Sabertooth Tigers Need Such Big Teeth? – ScienceDaily

This AI implementation of 20 Questions is incredibly good. It can pretty reliably guess what you thought of by asking 20 questions about it. And it is based on the same thinking as my Norm: Let the users have fun while adding value to an AI knowledge base. Most cool!
– 20 Questions – Directly to the game
– 20 Questions – About the project

Here is a most interesting interview with David Anderson, Project Leader for the SETI@home distributed computing program. Among the interesting facts:

• SETI@home now involves 0.1% of the world’s total computing capacity
• 4.7 million volunteers in 226 countries are chipping in with computing power
• SETI@home has performed 1.6 million years of computer processing time
• The network is managed be a group of only 6 people

(via Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends)
– Tapping the Grid: Interview with David Anderson – Astrobiology Magazine

MIT is opening the Picower Center for Learning and Memory in 2005. It “focuses the talents of a diverse array of brain scientists on a single mission: unraveling the mechanisms that drive the quintessentially human capacity to remember and to learn, as well as related functions like perception, attention and consciousness.” How come the kids at the MIT always get to do the cool stuff? (thanks Magga)
– The Picower Center: About the Center

Researchers have developed a promising new way to control computers by thought alone
– Computers that read your mind – (The Economist)

This overview provides a nice insight into reports about optical nanotechnology tools that are based on how an Hawaiian squid that uses reflective plates to confuse predators.
– Squid’s Flashlight May Lead to New Nanolights (Roland Piquepaille’s Technology Trends)

An article from AP News on Steve Mann
– Professor Lives Life As a Cyborg (AP News)

I wrote a little piece on Wetware the other day about artificial actors in Lord of the Rings. The latest issue of Wired has a very interesting article on rendered artificial stunt men. One question though: Do they get paid extra for the more dangerous stunts?
– Attack of the Stuntbots – Wired

MIT and Harvard Medical School collaborators are producing a sophisticated engineering tool that electrically stimulates the retina to provide vision of a sort for people who are totally blind.
– Retina implant aims to help blind see – MIT News

Wired article on how DARPA and the US Navy are looking at animals as models for building the next generation of war machines and spying gadgets.
– Wired News: Mobile Robots Take Baby Steps