Tech Scrape

The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv this week: Cluster Reverberation: A Mechanism For Robust Short-Term Memory Without Synaptic Learning

A federal investigation finds conflicting test results and false marketing claims.

A malicious site can find out what social-networking groups you belong to–and then figure out your identity. People often get categorized by social group–jock, geek, soccer mom. The same is true for our online identities: If you have an account on Facebook or LinkedIn, you might also belong to several groups on each site.

A federal investigation finds conflicting test results and false marketing claims. Consumers who buy genetic tests in hopes of seeing what diseases they are likely to contract may be misled, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. In addition, the results can vary so widely that they are “of little or no practical use,” the report concludes.

Mobile carriers might get marketing insights from studying whom you call and what device you use. Each time you make a cell-phone call, your network provider knows whom you’re calling, for how long, and what device you’re using. Now researchers at one of the world’s largest wireless carriers are exploring whether such information can help companies target their marketing pitches.

A simple method applies nanoscale texturing over large areas. Nanoscale wires, pores, bumps, and other textures can dramatically improve the performance of solar cells, displays, and even self-cleaning coatings. Now researchers at Stanford University have developed a simpler, cheaper way to add these features to large surfaces.

Using the contents of images or videos to target Web ads could improve click-through. Web ads help subsidize free content and services, and have made Google into the behemoth it is today. But the software used to tailor them to a user’s interests can only do this by analyzing the words on a webpage.

Drug companies are harnessing new knowledge of cancer genetics. The plummeting cost of DNA sequencing has enabled scientists to explore the genetic complexities of cancer with an ever-finer comb , uncovering a growing number of genetic mutations that drive cancer. Now this genetic knowledge is being used to direct drug development by testing specific compounds on 1,000 cancer cell lines that incorporate many of these mutations. The findings will help pharmaceutical companies design clinical trials so that they include only those patients most likely to respond to a drug. Ultimately, physicians hope to be able to screen a patient’s tumor and choose the most effective drug based on its specific genetic profile.

Engineered stem cells carry markers of their former identities–a trait that could hinder research into diseases. While reprogrammed stem cells –those derived from fully differentiated adult cells–can be transformed into any type of tissue, scientists have now discovered that they preserve a memory of where they came from. That memory appears to influence the cells’ development; reprogrammed stem cells are more easily converted back to their original identity, according to a study released online today in Nature . The findings could affect research into the two main uses for reprogrammed stem cells; growing efforts to study disease in cells derived from patients with those diseases, and the development of replacement cell therapies.