If confirmed, the finding would push back our earliest evidence of animal life by about 350 million years.
Category: futurism – Page 938
Scientists are zapping clouds with electricity to make rain
“There’s been a lot of speculation about what charge might do to cloud droplets, but there’s been very little practical and detailed investigation,” says Keri Nicoll, one of the core investigators on the project. The aim is to determine if the technology can increase rainfall rates in water-stressed regions.
Nicoll’s team started by modelling the behavior of clouds. They found that when cloud droplets have a positive or negative electrical charge, the smaller droplets are more likely to merge and grow to become big raindrops.
The size of the raindrops is important, says Nicoll, because in places like the UAE which has high clouds and high temperatures, droplets often evaporate as they fall.
Biohackers Want to Save Lives by Making Insulin 98% Cheaper
Insulin prices have risen exponentially over the last decade. Learn about the team of volunteer scientists working to make it affordable again.
Nanometer no more: Intel changes its process names to match TSMC
Intel is matching foundry rival, TSMC, node-for-node with its new process naming convention, but has also fired the first shot in the race for sub-nanometer terminology. Below 1nm, we’re moving into what it’s now calling the ‘angstrom era of semiconductors’.
At the Intel Accelerated event CEO, Pat Gelsinger, has unveiled a detailed process roadmap for its future nodes, all tied into a new way to reference them. “We are accelerating our innovation roadmap to ensure we are on a clear path to process performance leadership by 2025,” he says.
Meteor lights up the night in Norway
An “unusually large” meteor illuminated the night sky over southern Scandinavia early Sunday morning before at least some of it came rumbling down near Oslo, the capital of Norway.
The meteor “lit up the sky for a brief time as if broad daylight,” just after 1 a.m., Steinar Midtskogen, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Meteor Network, told CNN.
“A minute later or more a loud rumbling sound could be heard over a large area, perhaps up to 100 km (about 62 miles) away from where the meteor was seen straight overhead,” Midtskogen said in an email.