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Jul 1, 2016

Physicists have discovered what looks like an entire family of new particles in the LHC

Posted by in category: particle physics

Physicists working with the Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment (LHCb) have discovered what appears to be an entire family of new particles that our current physics models can’t explain.

The existence of these new forms of matter, known as tetraquarks, challenges our current understanding of the role they play inside the protons and neutrons that make up atoms — the fundamental building blocks of everything we know and love in the Universe.

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Jul 1, 2016

UN warns that terrorists may get hold of robotic army in CHILLING report

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, terrorism

A story on robots and terrorists:


A REPORT from the UN has warned that killer robots which are designed to slay humans could be in the hands of terrorists within a few years.

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Jul 1, 2016

Scientists say they’ve developed aspirin that crosses the blood-brain barrier

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience

One of the biggest challenges in treating brain cancer has been getting drugs to cross the blood-brain barrier and attack tumours where they’re needed.

But scientists say they’ve now developed a truly soluble liquid aspirin that can make its way into the brain, and, in the lab at least, kill cancerous glioblastoma cells without harming healthy brain tissue.

The research hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal as yet, so we need to take it with a big pinch of salt for now. But scientists from the Brain Tumour Research Centre at the University of Portsmouth in the UK just presented it at the Brain Tumours 2016 conference in Poland.

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Jul 1, 2016

‘Tesla Solar’ Wants to Be the Apple Store for Electricity

Posted by in category: energy

The SolarCity deal is going after one of the most lucrative slices of the power sector.

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Jul 1, 2016

MIT graphene breakthrough could make chips one million times faster

Posted by in categories: computing, materials

Researchers use graphene to create a new way of converting electricity into light, delivering the possibility of dramatic speed improvements over today’s chips.

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Jun 30, 2016

Man of the “Future Shock”: Remembering Alvin Toffler

Posted by in category: futurism

No matter how many books crowded my parents’ living room bookshelves in my childhood home in New York, two always sat at eye level right in the center: Henry Kissinger’s Years of Upheaval and Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock.

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Jun 30, 2016

The sun is losing its spots — and here’s why that’s a bad thing for all of us

Posted by in category: climatology

The sun is losing its spots, and it’s certainly something that we shouldn’t take lightly. According to news.com.au, our fireball has gone blank for the second time this month, leading Meteorologist Paul Dorian to believe that the next solar minimum is approaching and there will be an increasing number of spotless days over the next few years. This matters because the amount of sun spots reportedly affects our climate.

So, let’s start with solar minimum. What is it exactly? Well, NASA explains it to be when the sun’s natural solar cycle shows the lowest amount of sunspots. You see, when at its best, the sun’s surface is covered in visible dark blemishes, or sunspots. The sun goes through a natural solar cycle approximately every 11 years, and each cycle is marked by the increase and decrease of sunspots – with the highest number of sunspots in any given solar cycle being the “solar maximum” and the lowest number being “solar minimum.”

The sun at its best.

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Jun 30, 2016

Inside ULA’s Plan to Have 1,000 People Working in Space by 2045

Posted by in categories: economics, space travel

GOLDEN, Colorado — A major American launch provider has outlined a plan that the company says will help enable a space economy based on refueling spacecraft in Earth orbit.

Dubbed the “Cislunar 1,000 Vision,” the initiative foresees a self-sustaining economy that supports 1,000 people living and working in Earth-moon space roughly 30 years from now. The concept stems from an analysis and ongoing technical work by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co. that provides launches aboard Atlas and Delta rockets.

A central element of the plan involves the use of a souped-up Centaur rocket stage called ACES (Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage). This liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen upper stage is designed to be reusable and can be refueled, perhaps by propellant made using water extracted from Earth’s moonor asteroids. [Moon Base Visions: How to Build a Lunar Colony (Photos)].

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Jun 30, 2016

CNN Courageous studio putting on a special conference on human augmentation some transhumanists are part of

Posted by in categories: ethics, transhumanism

This is very new way of media outreach and news. I’m happy to be a part of it. Featuring Deus Ex too.


This summer, CNN’s brand studio Courageous is partnering with Square Enix®, publisher of SQUARE ENIX interactive entertainment products in the Americas, to host a first-of-its-kind conference on human augmentation. Human by Design will be held at the Paley Center for Media in New York City on August 3, 2016, and explore the intersection of technology and humanity with the objective of bringing together top minds to debate, question, and challenge what it means to be human.

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Jun 30, 2016

A new patent means Google Glass might soon have night vision

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, robotics/AI

Although we love them to pieces, eventually smart phones won’t be the only way we communicate and spend our time. Scientists predict we might end up using neural networks to play candy crush, or we could spend all our time using smart eyewear.

They still have a few issues to iron out, but there’s a new reason that smart eyewear might be a good option — night vision! Google’s just submitted a patent that suggests it’s planning on adding the future at some point.

Seriously though, we’re keen for anything to stop us tripping over stuff in the middle of the night.

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