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Oct 6, 2016

Brain Cells That Cool the Body

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, neuroscience

Summary: Researchers have identified a set of heat sensing neurons that prompt both nervous system and behavioral changes that help cool the body.

Source: NIH.

The body’s temperature is closely regulated. We sense temperature changes in the environment through specialized nerve cells in the outer layers of the skin. If we are too hot or too cold, our nervous system activates responses to help change our temperature. We can sweat to cool down or shiver to generate heat. Our blood vessels can constrict to conserve heat or expand to release heat. To avoid discomfort, we sometimes seek out different environments―choosing to go into an air conditioned room or sit by a heater.

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Oct 6, 2016

Time #24: Has Physics Finally Caught up With Nature?

Posted by in category: physics

What is the physics of organisms made from?

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Oct 6, 2016

UFO sighting: Flying saucer over China stops traffic

Posted by in category: transportation

# UFO # ChinaUFO sighting: Flying saucer over China stops traffic : Commuters in a busy street of Guangzhou, China, were brought to a halt when they spotted a flying saucer hovering over the traffic.

The dashboard camera of one car snapped the flying saucer. The car pulled up behind crowds that were staring at the strange phenomenon. The footage that was taken from the car shows the driver coming to a stop, while people on the road were looking up with wide-open eyes and mouths.

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Oct 6, 2016

China Wants to Build a 20-Seat, Reusable Space Plane for Rich Tourists

Posted by in category: space travel

The plan is heavy on ambition, light on specifics.

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Oct 6, 2016

Field of quantum computing is undergoing a rapid shake-up

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Click to play the video.

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Oct 6, 2016

A quantum beamsplitter that relies on dust

Posted by in category: quantum physics

Scientific Method —

A quantum beamsplitter that relies on dust.

Researchers divide photons when they should group together.

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Oct 6, 2016

Inside the 737 Test Plane That Boeing Beats the Bejesus Out Of — By Jack Stewart | Wired

Posted by in categories: innovation, transportation

“Pilots push the speeds to the limit, head to Bolivia for high altitude testing, and even try to fly with missing winglets. … We went aboard to see how it’s done.”

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Oct 6, 2016

Tech billionaires convinced we live in the Matrix are secretly funding scientists to help break us out of it

Posted by in categories: computing, robotics/AI

Some of the world’s richest and most powerful people are convinced that we are living in a computer simulation. And now they’re trying to do something about it.

At least two of Silicon Valley’s tech billionaires are pouring money into efforts to break humans out of the simulation that they believe that it is living in, according to a new report.

Philosophers have long been concerned about how we can know that our world isn’t just a very believable simulation of a real one. But concern about that has become ever more active in recent years, as computers and artificial intelligence have advanced.

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Oct 6, 2016

When her best friend died, she used artificial intelligence to keep talking to him

Posted by in categories: computing, robotics/AI

When the engineers had at last finished their work, Eugenia Kuyda opened a console on her laptop and began to type.

“Roman,” she wrote. “This is your digital monument.”

It had been three months since Roman Mazurenko, Kuyda’s closest friend, had died. Kuyda had spent that time gathering up his old text messages, setting aside the ones that felt too personal, and feeding the rest into a neural network built by developers at her artificial intelligence startup. She had struggled with whether she was doing the right thing by bringing him back this way. At times it had even given her nightmares. But ever since Mazurenko’s death, Kuyda had wanted one more chance to speak with him.

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Oct 6, 2016

Panasonic uses human touch to transfer data

Posted by in categories: business, information science, security

In an age when digital information can fly around the connected networks of the world in the blink of an eye, it may seem a little old timey to consider delivering messages by hand. But that’s precisely what Panasonic is doing at CEATEC this week. The company is demonstrating a prototype communication system where data is transmitted from one person to another through touch.

There’s very little information on the system available, but Panasonic says that the prototype uses electric field communication technology to move data from “thing-to-thing, human-to-human and human-to-thing.” Data transfer and authentication occurs when the objects or people touch, with digital information stored in a source tag instantaneously moving to a receiver module – kind of like NFC tap to connect technology, but with people in the equation as well as devices.

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