Karaoke may never be the same, thanks to research being presented in Nashville detailing the latest findings in efforts to create a computerized system that makes average singers sound like professionals.
“Our ultimate goal is to have a computer system that will transform a poor singing voice into a great singing voice,” said Mark J.T. Smith, a professor and head of Purdue University’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
To that end Smith, a former faculty member at
In honor of the Earth Day celebration, NASA scientists unveiled the first consistent and continuous global measurements of Earth’s “metabolism.” Data from the Terra and Aqua satellites are helping scientists frequently update maps of the rate at which plant life on Earth is absorbing carbon out of the atmosphere.
Combining space-based measurements of a range of plant properties collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) with a suite of other satellite and su
New research dismisses a widely held assumption about how cells grow
Research published today in Journal of Biology challenges an assumption about cell growth that underpins modern cellular biology. Ian Conlon and Martin Raff, of University College London, show that mammalian cells do not regulate their size in the way scientists have assumed they do since the 1970s.
Conlon and Raff conducted a series of experiments, using Schwann cells from the sciatic nerve of rats, to establish
Women with breast cancer are five times as likely to have pesticide residues in their blood of organochlorines (DDT), which contain oestrogens, reveals a study of 159 women in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
The possibility of such a link has attracted controversy, admit the authors, but say that their new study adds to the growing body of evidence for an association between environmental oestrogens and the rising incidence of breast cancer.
The authors base their findings
Leeds scientists are to investigate the birthplace of life – sea water billions of years old – with new high-tech laser equipment, the first of its kind in the UK.
The ancient sea water is found trapped in tiny pockets – called fluid inclusions – within crystals such as emerald and quartz. The oldest known examples are found in the rock 3.8 billion years old – the oldest land on the planet. Although liquid water is believed to have existed on earth over 4 billion years ago, obtaining samples
Technology has moved beyond wireless and pocketable to wearable. Clothes and accessories can serve a wider range of purposes than we’re currently accustomed to. Wearable technology produced by a Finnish smart clothing R&D center and its partners is selling well.
The smart clothing and wearable technology concepts are based on a permanent integration of clothing and technology. Clothes can be made ‘smart’ by adding intelligent features such as information technology and by using special fibre
One of the most unusual, yet persistent, problems television broadcasters face is what Tom Grimes calls “unitentional defamation.”
“This takes place when TV news viewers’ memory plays tricks on them and they end up ’remembering’ the facts of a TV news story in a way that defames an innocent person portrayed in the news story,” said Grimes, the Ross Beach research chair in the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University.
“Peopl
Johns Hopkins researchers have developed an inexpensive, reliable way to make large quantities of targeted immune cells that one day may provide a life-saving defense against cancers and viral infections.
Using artificial antigen presenting cells, or aAPCs, the scientists converted run-of-the-mill immune cells into a horde of specific, targeted invader-fighting machines, they report in the advance online version of Nature Medicine on April 21.
“The ability to make vast quantities
Duke University chemists have developed a method of growing one-atom-thick cylinders of carbon, called “nanotubes,” 100 times longer than usual, while maintaining a soda-straw straightness with controllable orientation. Their achievement solves a major barrier to the nanotubes’ use in ultra-small “nanoelectronic” devices, said the team’s leader.
The researchers have also grown checkerboard-like grids of the tubes which could form the basis of nanoscale electronic devices.
Researchers compare reproduction rates in North Atlantic whales with genetic variation
A recent study focusing on the humpback whales of the Gulf of Maine revealed that differences in reproductive success of whale mothers may play a significant role in changing genetic variation in the population, according to scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the American Museum of Natural History and their collaborators. Specifically, certain maternal lines of whales have prod
VLT Spectra Indicate Shortest-Known-Period Planet Orbiting OGLE-TR-3
More than 100 exoplanets in orbit around stars other than the Sun have been found so far. But while their orbital periods and distances from their central stars are well known, their true masses cannot be determined with certainty, only lower limits.
This fundamental limitation is inherent in the common observational method to discover exoplanets – the measurements of small and regular changes in the centra
Rutgers Associate Professor Suzie Chen has discovered a gene responsible for melanoma, the most aggressive form of malignant skin cancer. A paper describing the research by Chen and her colleagues at the National Human Genome Research Institute will be published online by Nature Genetics on April 21, and will appear subsequently in a print issue of the journal.
Melanoma may appear in places that never see sun, spread to other parts of the body and become lethal. This type of cancer is not g
Scientists report for the first time that “baby” teeth, the temporary teeth that children begin losing around their sixth birthday, contain a rich supply of stem cells in their dental pulp. The researchers say this unexpected discovery could have important implications because the stem cells remain alive inside the tooth for a short time after it falls out of a child’s mouth, suggesting the cells could be readily harvested for research.
According to the scientists, who published their
New digital tools
To survive and thrive in this century, business leaders need to hardwire new technologies into their playbooks to create enduring enterprises.
Many factors, from the need to export beyond national borders to the inexorable shift to intellectual capital, are driving change, but none is more important than the rise of the Internet and digital technologies. Like the steam engine or the assembly line, the Net and digital technologies have already become an adva
Finding is a significant step toward new insights for designing combination chemotherapy
Investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered numerous genes that alter their level of activity in characteristic patterns in response to specific chemotherapy treatments. The genes were identified in the leukemia cells of children undergoing chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
The researchers say this finding is a significant step in the emergin
Vessels are important parts of our body. Their function is critical to our well-being. For years, doctors have tried various tools to take pictures of arteries that would help them in diagnosing or preventing diseases. This has not been an easy task, however, and sometimes they have to use imaging methods that may have some harmful side effects. It has always been a challenge to take clear pictures of vessel without the negative side effects. Here, we suggest a new way that may help us to achieve th
Feedback
