Enlarge / Fear is the mind killer. (credit: LaLumiere Lab, University of Iowa)

Place cells in the hippocampus are known to encode memories associated with a specific location. However, the precise role that these cells play in location-based memory retrieval is somewhat unclear. A recent study using rats was published in Nature Neuroscience, and it finds that these cells can be active even when a rat is near a location associated with a fear memory. This result shows that place cells may play a role in avoidance behavior without requiring that an animal be in the place it’s trying to avoid.

In this study, the researchers used an IRB-approved fear-conditioning protocol in which rats were conditioned to be afraid of a specific part of a long linear cage. When they walked over to that area, they received a small electric shock. The researchers knew that the mice learned to be afraid of the shock zone of the cages because, when they were placed in the cages, they avoided the shock zone, but wandered freely in the other parts of the space.

After the rats were conditioned to be afraid of the shock zone, the researchers lesioned the part of the hippocampus (called the dorsal CA1) associated with this fear memory in some of the rats. These lesioned rats no longer showed fear of the shock zone, which demonstrated that the place-fear-linked memories were encoded in the neurons of this one specific brain region.

Enlarge / The Aurora lights in action. (credit: Terry Dunn)

I have to admit that I’m lagging behind with lighting technology at my house. As someone who hasn’t yet even finished replacing my incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs with LEDs, smart lighting and the concept of “lights as art” has never entered my mind. Of course, I divulged none of this when I accepted an offer to review the $200 Nanoleaf Aurora—a modern, Wi-Fi-controlled, artsy LED-light set. And I’m glad I spent the time getting to know the system. As it turns out, you don’t have to be a cutting-edge smart home guru to appreciate good connected lighting.

About the Aurora

Nanoleaf’s Aurora system is built around a number of linked LED light panels. Each panel is an equilateral triangle measuring about 9-3/4” (250mm) per side, with a thickness of 5/16” (8mm). An outer lens does a super job of diffusing the light from the LED sources within. This results in each panel appearing as a single, homogenous, glowing light source. The system can produce more than 16 million different colors.

The Aurora “Smarter Kit” includes nine light panels, connectors, the controller unit, and a power supply. (credit: Terry Dunn)

Your initial options for creativity relate to how you join multiple panels together. Sockets molded into the midpoint of each side can accept panel connectors the size of postage stamps. These connectors bridge the panels electrically and mechanically, and you can bind the triangles in any orientation that you want. A straight line, pyramid, squiggle—you can snap the panels together in whatever shapes you want. The “Smarter Kit” that I reviewed provides nine triangles, but the included power supply can support up to 30. Additional panels can be purchased in packs of three for $60.

Raspberry Pi Foundation

The newest member of the Raspberry Pi product line costs just $10 plus tax and includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capability.

The “Raspberry Pi Zero W” is an updated version of the Raspberry Pi Zero. While it lacks some niceties, like Ethernet and full-sized USB-A ports, it’s smaller than the flagship Pi and a fraction of the cost. The original Raspberry Pi Zero was released in November 2015 at a price of just $5/£4. The new Pi Zero W is almost identical to the original, but doubles the price to $10 and adds a wireless chip that supports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (2.4GHz-only) and Bluetooth 4.0.

(credit: TimothyJ / flickr)

Eolas Technologies, which has been called a “patent troll,” has continued to file against big companies, even after losing a landmark 2012 trial. But following an appeals court order (PDF) last week, Eolas will have to pursue its lawsuits in California—not its preferred patent hotspot of East Texas.

As of Friday, Eolas’ lawsuits against Google, Amazon, and Wal-Mart have been transferred to the Northern District of California. The move could reduce Eolas’ chances of winning a settlement or verdict since East Texas courts have been viewed by some as favoring patent holders.

To understand the context, let’s briefly sum up the history of Eolas. The company was formed out of a patent filed by Michael Doyle, who was the head of IT at the University of California, San Francisco, campus in the 1990s. Doyle says that, while at UCSF, he created the first program that allowed users to interact with images inside of a Web browser. He claimed that patent entitled him to royalties on a vast swath of features related to the “interactive Web,” including online video, user-manipulated images on shopping websites, and suggestions that pop up in search bars.

Enlarge (credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcxNHgYUz6s)

A maker of Internet-connected stuffed animal toys has exposed more than 2 million voice recordings of children and parents, as well as e-mail addresses and password data for more than 800,000 accounts.

The account data was left in a publicly available database that wasn’t protected by a password or placed behind a firewall, according to a blog post published Monday by Troy Hunt, maintainter of the Have I Been Pwned?, breach-notification website. He said searches using the Shodan computer search engine and other evidence indicated that, since December 25 and January 8, the customer data was accessed multiple times by multiple parties, including criminals who ultimately held the data for ransom. The recordings were available on an Amazon-hosted service that required no authorization to access.

The data was exposed by Spiral Toys, maker of the CloudPets line of stuffed animals. The toys record and play voice messages that can be sent over the Internet by parents and children. The MongoDB database of 821,296 account records was stored by a Romanian company called mReady, which Spiral Toys appears to have contracted with. Hunt said that, on at least four occasions, people attempted to notify the toy maker of the breach. In any event, evidence left behind by the ransom demanders made it almost certain company officials knew of the intrusions.

(credit: Andrew Turner)

The operator of a drone that knocked a woman unconscious was sentenced Friday to 30 days in jail, Seattle prosecutors said. The woman was attending a local parade when the drone crashed and struck her.

Skinner (credit: KomoNews)

Paul Skinner, a 38-year-old man from Washington state, was charged with reckless endangerment in connection to the 2015 incident, in which an 18-inch-by-18-inch drone collided into a building before falling into a crowd. The authorities said the 2-pound drone struck the 25-year-old in the head and gave her a concussion. Her boyfriend caught her before she fell to the ground. Another man suffered a minor bruise. The accident took place during during the city’s Pride Parade.

Skinner, who had turned himself in, plans to appeal the sentence. His attorney, Jeffrey Kradel, said the punishment was “too severe.” His client remains free pending the appeal’s outcome. A misdemeanor reckless endangerment charge—one that poses “substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to another person”—carries a penalty of up to a year in jail.

One of the joys of good space opera, aside from the action, is the discovery of worlds that are meaningfully alien. In award-winning science fiction author Kameron Hurley’s latest novel, The Stars Are Legion, we get to slither into the fascinating, saliva-covered scenery of the biotech world-ships that make up the mysterious Legion. As civil war rips the Legion apart, Hurley draws us into an intense, Bourne Identity-style mystery about who our heroes are and why they’re fighting.

Zan awakens in a medical bay. She can speak, but she doesn’t know who or where she is. A doctor explains that Zan’s been recycled and reconstructed, hinting that she’s been in this situation many times before. But that’s all Zan knows—well, that and the fact that she has the kind of warrior instincts that let her fight like an MMA master. Plus, she knows an awful lot about how to ride the sentient space motorcycles beasts that the Legion flies from one ship to the other, trailing plumes of yellow exhaust like something out of a 1960s comic book.

Biotech worlds

A myserious woman named Jayd eventually visits Zan and tells her that she’s currently on a planet ship called Katazyrna. Jayd tells Zan that it’s time to get back to her mission, penetrating the defenses of another world called Mokshi. And it would be nice if she could do it without getting all her troops killed this time around. Apparently, whenever Zan goes to Mokshi, she’s completely destroyed and loses her memory. But Jayd and her mother, Lord Katazyrna, keep sending Zan back because she’s the only person able to breach Mokshi’s outer perimeter.