If you could save the lives of five people by pushing another bystander in front of a train to his death, would you do it? And should it make any difference if that choice is presented in a language you speak, but isn’t your native tongue?(more…)
UA study finds that objects in our visual environment needn’t be seen in order to impact decision making.
Take a look around, and what do you see? Much more than you think you do, thanks to your finely tuned mind’s eye, which processes images without your even knowing. (more…)
ANN ARBOR — Sooner or later, everyone faces decisions about whether or not to have surgery, take a new medication or have a cancer-screening test.
A new University of Michigan study published in Health Expectations explores the costs and benefits patients say are important in making these kinds of medical decisions, and how those costs and benefits explain what they actually decide to do. (more…)
University of Utah researchers identify new technique for identifying cancerous moles
Have you ever had a strange mole on your body and wondered if it was skin cancer? The best move is to schedule an appointment with a dermatologist, but many wait without realizing they could be dealing with melanoma.
Researchers at two universities – the University of Utah and Texas Tech University – have recently identified a new technique for handling this problem: Ask a crowd. (more…)
In a significant advance for brain-machine interfaces, engineers at Brown University have developed a novel wireless, broadband, rechargeable, fully implantable brain sensor that has performed well in animal models for more than a year. They describe the result in the Journal of Neural Engineering and at a conference this week.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A team of neuroengineers based at Brown University has developed a fully implantable and rechargeable wireless brain sensor capable of relaying real-time broadband signals from up to 100 neurons in freely moving subjects. Several copies of the novel low-power device, described in the Journal of Neural Engineering, have been performing well in animal models for more than year, a first in the brain-computer interface field. Brain-computer interfaces could help people with severe paralysis control devices with their thoughts. (more…)
For over 20 years, Microsoft Research’s labs around the world have focused on research across a broad spectrum of topics in computer science. From the start, the organization has invested heavily in pioneering breakthroughs in machine intelligence, including efforts in machine learning and big data. In this interview, Distinguished Scientist Eric Horvitz talks about advances he sees on the horizon, the influence they will have on your daily life, and how insights from big data and developing more intelligent software and services will change the world.
REDMOND, Wash. – Feb. 15, 2013 – At Microsoft Research labs around the world, some very deep thinkers are contemplating big data.
This includes Eric Horvitz, distinguished scientist at Microsoft and co-director of Microsoft Research’s Redmond lab, who was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his work in “computational mechanisms for decision making under uncertainty and with bounded resources.” (more…)
Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told an audience at the University of Chicago that her worldview was shaped early in life, when she witnessed the impact the United States had during and immediately following World War II.
Albright explained how terrible things happened to her native Czechoslovakia, when Britain and France signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, allowing Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia without its consent. Only when the United States entered World War II did Czechoslovakia’s plight improve. However, after the war, when the United States and its allies allowed the Soviet Union to liberate Central and Eastern Europe, it led to 50 years of communism. (more…)
Many people believe that getting older means losing a mental edge, leading to poor decision-making.
But a new study from North Carolina State University shows that when it comes to making intuitive decisions – using your “gut instincts” – older adults fare as well as their juniors.